A/N: Reviews: Wow, glad you guys liked it! Though I'm getting tired of the stupid reviews that have nothing to do with my story (well, there's only two, but it's annoying). glares at 'Jenny' and Me'shell

Glad that most people didn't mind the wish machine. Really, you're almost jealous of Val, watrfairie? Wow, I must not be doing too bad, then! Thanks! And flamingirl, you had apologized for all the lols a while back. Feel free to use them whenever you want! I usually do too, but I decided I'd try my best to not use them and use hehes more. (would use a winkie, but is trying not to use too much chatspeak, heehee)

Also, I think you guys will like this: I'm going to do my best to start updating every Monday. And everybody applauds… silence Or not.

Chapter Twenty-two: Egos and Deflations

That night, we went down to dinner, bringing our guitars with us. We propped them up against the wall and sat down, me on my mother's left and Shean on my left. Dinner was quite unappetizing, as usual (but then again, after Jack in the Box, what was?). We ate it as quickly as we could force ourselves to and then we talked a bit and I daydreamed a bit about how I'd pop some egos like balloons tonight. They'd had it coming for a while and I couldn't wait.

Finally, it came time for us to play our guitars. In the time since our guitars had arrived, I had taught Shean some of the songs we sang around here, so we played a bunch of those and some of the people joined in singing, and we also played some that they'd never heard.

Then it was finally time for the ego popping. I handed my guitar to Shean, who walked back to his place at the table and my mother stood up while two servants took the stools we had been sitting on to play.

"Honored guests, I would like to make an announcement. My daughter has agreed to let any of your sons challenge her to a duel." The whole court knew the procedure for a duel, so she didn't have to explain it. "If any would like to take up the challenge, let them stand." Almost immediately, at least half the young men stood up. I grinned inwardly. I was guessing that we'd have to do half of them today and half tomorrow so that I wouldn't get overly tired and give them an advantage.

My mom gestured and the first young man stepped forwards. "Armed or unarmed?" I asked and he looked surprised at being given a choice, but recovered quickly and spoke.

"Armed."

I went back to the table and Shean handed me my sword, hilt first. It was a nice blade, made specifically so that it was light enough for duels and I could hold it with one hand. It wasn't the heavy type I'd use for real combat, but it did nicely for this sort of thing.

The boy, probably several years older than me, also got his sword and we faced off. We circled each other and then he suddenly jumped forwards and I parried.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, even my sister can do better than that," I chided.

This was one of my best strategies. Most of the boys' of the court's egos were rather large (you've probably figured that out by now) and I'd found that if I goaded them, they became upset and their strategy started to slip. I myself had worked up an immunity to jibes. (three years of living with Shean will do that to you) Even if someone said I was the stupidest what-have-you alive, I'd just say 'Yep." And I'd leave it at that. After a while, even the most persistent person in the world (cough, Shean, cough) would end up leaving me alone. So now when I was insulted in fights, I didn't take offense.

True to my suspicions, his face started to turn red and he began to lose it.

"No one says that to Pheral of Yeleth," he shrieked, lunging at me. Wow, he'd buckled way quicker than most. Or maybe I was just getting better. No, that was the oldest trick in the book. (not to mention the oldest line in that same book, so it was pretty old) Then again, he probably knew how old my sister was…

Our blades locked and slid down until the hilts were locked. Then with a quick movement of my wrist, I flicked my sword up his and twisted, flipping his blade away. (everyone had gone to observe from a little room that was specially made for that, since this was were many proper duels were fought. The servants had also cleared away the tables too, since everyone was done)

I put my sword point to his throat, far enough away that he wouldn't gut himself accidentally or something, and his posture slackened a bit. "Give up?" He sighed loudly and nodded. Everyone in the room applauded. The boys all looked very surprised (except Shean, of course), and Pheral was definitely deflated. One down… however many more to go. The next challenger stepped out of the box room that everyone was in and Pheral went in (probably to be comforted by his Daddy for being beaten by a girl).

This young man, Selven, was a bit younger than Pheral, but looked tougher.

"Armed or unarmed?" I asked, giving him a once-over to judge how hard he'd be. He'd be a good match, but I was certain I could do it.

"Unarmed." He grinned nastily. He did have a good fighter's form, I noted as we squared off. Probably didn't like swordplay as much.

We circled each other, feet moving in mirror images. Suddenly he lunged and I flipped him over my hip. Well, I tried to, but he managed to foil it enough to not fall on his back. We started to circle again. We circled some more. And kept circling. Getting tired of this, I made a move. He countered it and used a move very similar to what I'd pulled on him. Not expecting a counter and then a flip in such quick succession, I ended up on my back, but had enough sense to continue rolling into a forward roll and flipped back up to my feet, not counting as a down.

We circled some more. I kept my hands at the ready, but near my sides. (my reflexes were fast enough that I'd still be able to get them up to block in most cases) But I noticed that his hands were out in front of him so that he could grapple quickly if needed.

Suddenly he thrust towards me, probably hoping to catch me unawares and flip me again. My hands shot out like snakes, crossed at the wrists, grabbed his, and I spun under my arms, Selven not managing to spin with me. I spun under them again the same way, twisting again so that my hands were crossed at the wrists again, only now my left wrist was on top of my right, and Selven went down, unable to twist in time. The count went by quickly and he was out. Someone came and helped him back into the observers box. (We had gotten tired of dodging blades that got flipped at the end of duels, like I'd done to Pheral, so Dad had the observers box made, and it seemed to work well enough)

There were several more sword duels and a couple hand-to-hand combat matches, and I won all of them. Some of the adult men wanted to try against me, but Mom wouldn't let them, though I would have been perfectly willing to try against them. Everyone was finally sufficiently frightened of me and didn't challenge anymore and everyone came to sit back down at the tables, which had been brought back in for dessert. Bored with the talk and quickly done with my dessert, I went back to my chambers and Shean soon joined me. We laughed about the duels and matches, and finally ran out of things to talk about and just sat there for a while.

I sighed. "Do you think they'll get anyone to go after the Stones? I've told you the stories; you know how dangerous it'll be. Do you think anyone will be willing to go up against those kind of odds, especially the champions from the other kingdoms, who could very well say, 'Why should I risk my neck for a country that's not my own'?" Even with the bravest knight in our kingdom, or another, I wasn't sure they'd want to do it. Shean put an arm around me and I rested my head on his shoulder.

"'Never tell me the odds'," he murmured. I tried to grin. It didn't spread too far.

"I don't think they'll all see it Han's way, Shean."

He shrugged. "Well, look at it this way: we may not be their country, but if we fall, that makes it all the easier for the enemy to push towards their kingdoms. If we don't all come together now, we'll all be taken down one at a time."

"What's this 'we'?" I asked, this time grinning for real as I looked up at him. "I thought you'd probably go back home now that you can."

Shean sighed. "I'm going to miss my parents, but like you said, I do have a way to go home now, and I can use it as many times as I want, as long as I give a good length of time between each visit, say at least six months to a year or something like that. I'd like to go back, but I want to stay with you more."

I smiled and snuggled back into his shoulder. "I love you," I murmured.

"I know."

"You know, I think we're way too obsessed with Star Wars, don't you think?"

I heard Shean chuckle. "Yeah. But it's fun. Especially the weird looks we get when we get too obsessed around other people."

I snickered, remembering some of the great odd looks we'd gotten in our time. (we considered being called weird a compliment) "Yeah, I love that."

"Yes, I know you do, Mrs. Solo Fel."

"Hey." I sat up and punched his shoulder.

"What was that for?" He protested, rubbing the place my fist had connected with.

"You know I hate it when you say it like that!"

"But I thought you wanted to be Mrs. Solo Fel!"

"Not when you use that tone, Colonel."

"Yes, sir."

By now we were both laughing. This was one of our longest ongoing arguments. We always ended up laughing. Shean got up and stuck one of my Celtic CDs, The Best of Clannad, into the player and pressed play. He fast forwarded it to the second track, Second Nature, and stood up, taking my hand and pulling me off my bed.

"Come on, dance with me," he coaxed. I laughed, knowing we couldn't do step dance to it (we'd tried and found that you can't step dance to most songs with words), but we always sang to it and played air guitars. After the song was done, Shean fast forwarded to the fourth track, a slip jig (it had words, but we could dance to it), and we proceeded to do one of our slip jigs. We were doing a two-hand when there came a knock at the door. I shut off the CD player and Shean threw a blanket around it (too hard to explain it to other people) and I opened the door. When my Mom came in, Shean was sitting on the bed messing with his guitar and mine was sitting on the bed.

"Oh, I thought I heard you playing," she said as she stepped inside and I closed the door. "Was that you singing?"

I tried to look sheepish. "Well…" I demurred, scuffing my boots on the floor.

She smiled. "That's okay, I won't make you embarrass yourself."

There was a pause. "Did you want to talk to me or something?" I asked.

"Oh, right," she cried as if she'd forgotten why she'd come in here. "Um, could I talk to you alone." I started to get uneasy. What could she want to talk to me about?

"Um… is it something absolutely confidential that if Shean heard, could endanger the whole kingdom?"

Mom looked at her lap as if trying to decide, then nodded slowly.

"Okay." Shean got up and I followed him to the door. Except when he left, so did I.

"Wait; Avalla, where are you going?"

I looked up at my mother with mock innocence. "Well, if it's something that could fall into enemy hands and endanger us all, I'm just as likely to accidentally spill it as Shean, so I figured I shouldn't hear it, either."

She glared at me for a moment, then sighed. "All right, fine. Shean may come as well," she growled, but I caught her thought. How did I end up with such a contrary daughter? I guess she has a bit too much of me in her. I feel sorry for whoever she finally decides to marry. Hopefully she'll at least like him and not make too much trouble.

I almost snorted, but kept it to myself. Why did these flashes of insight come so randomly? I wished I could choose when I wanted them, or at least, choose when I wanted to hear them and just put up with the random flashes. But I knew that I probably wouldn't marry for love, like Mom hoped. It was too much to ask for Shean to take up a kingship I knew he didn't want, no matter how much he denied it. I knew I wasn't trained well enough to be queen (well, I'd had all that nonsense and training when I was younger, but I'd hated most of it, or at least all the court functions, and I doubted I'd like the real thing any better), so I'd probably be best off finding some young noble or prince who had leadership abilities and not too much of an ego that I didn't mind too much (did one exist?) and marry him. It wouldn't be an ideal life, but Shean could go back to Washington and I could do my best to make the best of life.

I quickly shoved away these morbid thoughts and back to the present. We had come back into my room and Shean had closed the door. I sat down on the bed.

"So, what's so secret that you didn't want Shean to hear?" I asked, clasping my hands under my chin and resting my head on them.

Mom sighed and sat down at my desk and put her head in her right hand. "You both know about our current situation." We both nodded. She had to be referring to the Stones. "Well, we have gotten replies back from every knight, champion or no, from every allied kingdom, and even those merely considering allying with us, and…" I cut in as she trailed off, knowing where this was leading.

"And none of them want to go on the quest for the Stones," I stated. Mom looked troubled, but nodded.

"And now we have almost no chance," she continued, bringing her left hand up to join her right and letting them turn to cover her face with a hopeless sigh. She quickly regained her composure and clasped them in her lap, continuing. "Why do we have almost no chance, you may ask?" Hit the nail on the head. "Well, without the instantaneous contact of the Stones, we can't warn our allies of incoming attacks. We have to rely on couriers, which can take days, even riding a good horse, depending on how far away the message must go, or we have to use messenger birds, which are faster, but we can only send messages, nothing else, like we could with couriers. And once we use a bird to go to it's home roost, we can't use it again. So, since we're going to have a long, hard fight ahead of us, and not much chance, it would appear, Val, much as I regret having to do this…" I started to get a sinking in my stomach. "I'm sending you as far away from the fighting as I can."

"What?" I screeched. Mother had obviously been expecting my reaction, because she only flinched a little bit.

"Val, it's for your own good. I'm sending you to an old shepherd and his wife far away in the mountains in Keln. The shepherd and his family won't know who you are, just that you're a nobleman's daughter. And your dogs should like the mountains and the sheep," she added as if that would placate me.

"Mother. Cyd's going to have puppies. She can't run beside horses for miles and miles, for crying out loud."

"Ah, but you'll be in a normal coach, with normal people, so she can ride with you and she won't have to walk. So can your male."

"I'm going with her," Shean abruptly decided.

Mother waved absently at him. "Yes, yes, we already worked that out. We already knew you'd be going."

Shean grinned. She'd already figured out that he liked to try to follow me everywhere. Well, at least she'd figured something out. I was getting completely exasperated with this. Where had my mother gone? The mother who would let me sneak cookies from the kitchen, and sometimes come with me and giggle and stumble over explanations when the cook caught us? The mother who had let me stay up late and hadn't reprimanded me when I dodged sewing lessons to go for rides with the boys? The mother who… and then it hit me. Geez, I was so stupid. Why didn't I see it before? She had lost me once, so now she was going to keep me so protected that I was going to go mad. And I knew I would go mad if this kept up. I needed to do something. I decided I'd think about it when Mother left.

"We won't be able to write, in case someone traces the letters, but I know you'll be safe." I barely heard her. Seemingly satisfied with my silence, Mother got up and left. Once she had shut the door behind her, Shean gave me a hug and left too. I fell onto my pillows and cried.

A/N: Hope that wasn't too lame. Okay, I have a question. (well, it's sort of a question, and it's sort of not a question and… oh, forget it) Anyways, I'm trying my best not to end up making this into one of those stories where the royal forgets everything and goes on a Grand Adventure. I'm trying to give Val logical, plausible, viable reasons to do what she does. Am I doing a good job?

Also, I may be changing the website to Freewebs 'cause Bravenet is being a brat with my HTML. (Anyone know Java or CSS that they could teach me, heeheehee? Well, actually, if you do, that would be SO great, but… yeah) Still trying to figure out what I can do, so it may be the end of the month before I get it up fully. Also, anyone who'd like to give me feedback on the site too would be more than welcome, heehee.

Also, (once I figure out how) I'm hoping to put up a clip of me reading an excerpt from the first chapter or something (I'm an actress, and I have a knack for voices, or so I'm told) and if people like it, I might do the whole thing… or something. Anyone know how to upload an audio clip? I think I have the way to put it up on my website (I think. I'm not sure if it's just for music clips or what. So I think. Not that that means much…), but I don't know how to get it up so you guys can listen to it on RealPlayer or Windows Media Player or whatever. If you know, please tell me. Thanks! You guys ROCK!