A/N: Sorry this took so long to get out. I rewrote an unbelievable number of hard copies, but had no time at home to type because of stupid IB Bio. But that's all done so yay! Anyways...
"Keladry of Mindelan has been my closest and dearest friend for more years than I can count. I first met her when we were but pages, starting on our road to knighthood. And what a journey it turned out to be.
It was the start of the new term, and as was tradition, the elder pages, accompanied by Lord Wyldon went to greet the new pages. Having lived at the palace my whole life, with my father being the realm's chief healer, I came to the pages during the middle of a season, and so, though I was a first year, I was with the older pages.
I fit in well because I was already 15, having come late to pagehood because of my prior studies at the university. Like my father, I have the healing gift. I had been studying to be a healer, before I made the decision to try for my shield, but that is another story.
As was customary, the first years stood outside their rooms to introduce themselves and to have their sponsors chosen. Of our many year-mates, Keladry was the last to go.
Where the other pages had been visibly nervous, Kel was as calm as the smoothest lake. Hands laced behind her back, she stood under the scrutiny of every page present. She was big for a girl of her age, with brown hair cut short as a boy's and delicate, gentle features. She was sturdy and she sported a receding bruise around her eye. It looked painful, andthe healer part of me itched to fix it.
But the thing about Kel that caught my attention, that made me like her immediately, was her eyes. A dreamer's hazel they were, with long lashes. Though they seemed veiled at first, if one looked close enough, you could see the fire within. It was a steady flame of strength and determination, a flame that I knew even then would be one to persevere. And it was in that moment when I first looked in her eyes, that I knew, despite insurmountable obstacles, Keladry of Mindelan would succeed."
Neal set down his quill with an exaggerated flourish worthy of a player. After four days of work, he had finally perfected his introduction. He had written and rewritten, proofread and edited, then changed his mind entirely and started over many times.
Surveying his work, Neal felt a surge of pride. He had taken his first real step in his project; he had actually written something.
Rubbing his eyes tiredly, Neal glanced out the window. It was still dark, the stars shining brightly in the black velvet sky, the moon a beacon almost as bright as a lamp on such a clear night. He reasoned that it must be a few hours before dawn since he could vaguely remember the midnight watch being called long ago.
Thinking of this he remarked on the peculiarity of him having heard it. Normally, he would have been too absorbed in his work to notice, but he had been distracted from his purpose, frustrated over a particularly obstinate sentence that refused to be written satisfactorily.
The words just would not arrange themselves in an acceptable manner! He had spent nearly four hours grappling with it, getting more and more frustrated (and thus less able to create), before getting up to take a turn about the room. Sometimes such a change would stimulate his creativity. It was then that the midnight watch had been called, startling him from his meditations. But something about the sound prodded his inspiration and suddenly the perfect sentence appeared to him.
Pondering it, Neal sighed. That was just the way writing was: frustrating, aggravating, and utterly spontaneous.
Tiring too, he amended his description, yawning widely. Tonight he could at least get some sleep; perhaps.
He had barely gotten any the past few days, being so fixated on his work. To be fair, he had tried. He was not some cavalier barbarian who believed he could survive for weeks with no rest, as Dom had insinuated when he had come the day before to make sure Neal hadn't died of starvation.
Growing up together, Dom was quite familiar with Neal's behavior, and knew that this was in fact a valid possibility. He had bumped into Yuki in the hall where she had mentioned Neal's new obsession. Dom had understood the implications of it; Neal would be completely and utterly consumed.
So he had taken it upon himself to promote himself to Secondary Chief Meathead Keeper (as Kel was still at New Hope) and had ordered Neal to bed before he collapsed.
When Neal acquiesced immediately, Dom had shaken his head in disbelief and left, surprised to win so easily. Thinking back on all of this, Neal sighed wearily. People just didn't understand how much effort it took to be constantly obnoxious. He had been tired. He had wanted to sleep anyway.
So he tried. To be fair, he did try, really hard too. It was just that when he was lying there, he kept thinking about the book, or The Untitled Nealan of Queenscove Project, as he referred to it, deliberating over this and that.
He had tried closing his eyes, but that only worsened the situation; now his mind kept replaying memories of Kel, and then he had gotten caught up in deciding which of such he should include in the book.
After quite a while, Neal finally had a brilliant idea, which he could not afford to forget, and leapt out of bed to write it down.
And that was the end of the sleep attempt.
He had managed a few hours the next day when he fell asleep over his work, so, he reflected, it wasn't like he had gone all of four days with absolutely no sleep.
But now, he was just about ready to pass out. With a deep sigh he rose wearily and stumbled over to collapse on his bed.
He was asleep before he could even pull up the blankets.
A/N: Please review. I'm not sure whether I like this chapter or not. Having it all in past tense basically is kind of weird, but whatev. Kudos to Proud to be an X-Nerd for the title. It's perfect, especially because Neal's struggle to write his book is based off my own writing difficulties (right again my most illustrious beta:)) So I have the next 2 chapters basically written, so hopefully I'll update sooner than last time :)