To all my lovely reviewers, thank you! I really do enjoy reading them.
Sorry it's been a little longer then usual since the last time I updated. With it not being Winter Break anymore, I don't have as much time to write. I will try my best though to at least try to update on the weekends. Here's chapter 4, enjoy!
Chapter 4
As Kel was sprinting up the stairs to her old history classroom, when she thought she heard the screams of Neal. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. I don't even want to know, she thought.
All the way to the classroom, she worried no one would be around, and that she would have no way of getting into Myles' classroom today. Fortunately, luck was with her this frosty Midwinter's day and Sir Myles of Olau was sitting at his desk, in the classroom, writing away.
Kel was about to knock, when a barking Jump went running into the room, settled down at Myles' feet and fell asleep.
Kel drifted in as Myles chuckled. "I was going to knock but I suppose there's no need to now." Kel observed her favorite classroom, it hadn't changed a bit, and neither her teacher by the looks of things.
"That's alright. So how have you been Keladry?" asked Myles.
"Fine, how about you?" inquired the lady knight.
"Busy," stated Myles. "These kids just don't appreciate history unless it's about a hero,"
"Too bad, because history is important," said Kel while wandering over towards a pile of maps. "So, found anything of interest anywhere in this room?"
"No, but I did see that Nealan of Queenscove yesterday. And was he ever full of mischief," commented Myles. He knew about the whole scavenger hunt idea, he had made Neal tell him about it. Myles swore though not to breathe a word about his knowing to Kel.
"Well he is quite mischievous these days," remarked Kel wistfully. She opened a Scanra map and shook it open. Nothing fell to the ground. She neatly folded it up and picked up another one. "Seen Alanna lately?"
"We ate dinner a few days ago." said Myles. "It was nice,"
Kel shook out another Scanra map to find nothing and she scowled.
"Looking for anything in particular?" inquired Myles with a grin that he hid under his hand.
Kel sighed and shook out two more maps, nothing dropped out. "Oh I'm just looking at maps," She was not going to tell him about the scavenger hunt; it just didn't seem like a good idea. She spotted a Scanra map on Myles' desk, while shaking out another one.
"I'd take a look at this one," Myles picked up the map on his desk and handed it to Kel.
She opened it, and clue #3 plunged to the ground. "You knew!" Kel accused.
"If Neal asks I didn't give you the map," Myles said smiling.
"Thank you!" said Kel darting out of the room. "Come on, Jump!"
"You'll love what's at the end of the hunt!" called Myles after her with a laugh as Jump scampered after her. Kel started the read clue #3.
Kel the Lady Knight of Mindelan,
Did you have fun searching through all those maps? Sir Myles better not have been there and if he was, he better not have told you anything that was helpful! At least I told him not too, but then again he is the adoptive father of Lady Alanna. So I have no idea what is going through his mind.
Neal the Sir Knight of Queenscove
Clue #3:
Vegetables! Vegetables! Vegetables! Vegetables! Vegetables! Vegetables everywhere is where clue #3 is. Yuck!
From a closet, Yuki and Raoul watched Kel leisurely walk down the hallway with clue #3 in her hands. They waited a minute and were about to follow her when they observed a screaming Neal being chased after a very angry Alanna with her sword raised high in the air. Yuki hit Raoul on the head with her fan.
"I think she should go get it. I mean it couldn't hurt." quoted an incredibly distressed Yuki. "If because of you I am widowed, a whole lot more then a fan will be coming down on your head!"
"Me?!?! It's Alanna who'll kill him!" bellowed Raoul.
"But you let her go after her sword!" accused Yuki.
"She better not have killed Dom," commented Raoul.
"Dom? You're worried about Dom? He's not being chased after by a crazy lady knight who has a bad temper!" yelled a hysterical Yuki.
Myles came out of his classroom and locked the door to find those two arguing.
"Yuki, don't worry about Neal, he'll be fine," assured Myles. They all heard another scream of terror.
"Right!" said Raoul after Myles glared at him.
"Why don't you two just follow Kel and I'll go find Alanna and Neal," suggested Myles.
"Great idea!" bellowed Raoul steering Yuki away. "We'll find either you or Alanna later!"
Dom stood looking all the way up at Balor's Needle. It was taller then he remembered. It wasn't that he was afraid of heights, but Balor's Needle seemed to touch the clouds. He opened the door and stepped inside to the darkness of the needle. It smelled of old incense and candles.
Inside, he looked up to see a big chandelier. To Dom it seemed eerie in there, like he wasn't supposed to be there. Dom didn't notice Merric and Owen squeeze through the door and sneak behind the shadows of the staircase.
Dom reread clue #2. "Of course, he couldn't be nice and just put the clue down here," muttered Dom. He crumpled the clue and stuck it in his pocket.
Dom picked up a torch, lit it over a small lamp that was about burned out, and stared up at the twisting, iron stairs.
"I guess it's now or never," he mumbled and started the climb.
In no time flat he made it to the top. Down many stories below, Owen shivered.
"I could never climb up those stairs. It's way too high up!" whispered Owen to Merric.
"Remember when Kel went to find Lalasa and Jump? She must have been terrified because she was so scared of heights anyway! Then they locked the door so she had to climb the outside stairs. Neal isn't even that mean." commented Merric.
'I'd like to see Meathead climb up or down the outside stairs," joked Owen. They both laughed imagining an extremely wide-eyed frightened Neal grasping on to the railing for dear life.
"Too bad the king forbids anyone to go up or down those stairs anymore," said Merric in a teasing voice. "It could have been interesting."
Dom searched around at the top, trying to avoiding going outside. He could practically feel the tower swaying back and forth, even though Dom figured he just imagined it. Of course the clue is outside, how could it not be? Stupid Meathead, thought Dom.
He almost started pushing open the door against the wind, when he saw something white slid between the door and the floor. Dom bent down and picked it up. Apparently, Meathead was being nice today. It was clue #3! Dom was so excited that he opened it up right then and there.
UnGifted Dom,
I hope you fell down the stairs before you reached the top, because I did. And for your information I twisted my wrist too, but with my superior healing powers I managed to heal myself and climb back up, a feat you couldn't have done. All for your Midwinter gift. You should be eternally grateful to me. That is, when you reach the end of the hunt and see what's at the end for you. That's when you should be eternally indebted to me!
Your cousin,
Magical Gifted Neal
Clue #3:
A beautiful, grey-blued eyed mage, with smoky brown curls, and a- DON'T WACK ME WITH THAT FAN, YUKI!!!! OF COURSE I LOVE YOU MORE THEN HER!!!! In the rooms of a mage with a wildmagic and a stork-man-black-robed mage who is WAY too old for her, she totally deserves someone younger- DON'T HIT ME WITH THAT FAN AGAIN! I LOVE YOU MY YAMANI PUTUNIA!!!!!!! Anyway in their rooms a certain dragon has clue #3, but trust me, she won't give it to you easily. That dragon is very crafty.
"I better not have to break into there. Numair would probably turn me into a tree." mumbled Dom. He carefully turned around and walked as fast as he could go, down the stairs without tripping over himself and breaking his nose.
Finally Dom, after what seemed like an eternity, made it down those treacherous stairs. Off to Numair Salmalin and Veralidaine Sarrasi's room he went with Merric and Owen closely following behind him.
Neal had been through battles, been attacked by bandits as a page, and gotten married (which he considered to be an exceedingly scary thing), but the terror that he was in right now couldn't even compare to those three things put together.
As he was screaming and running down the hallwayhe ran right smack dab into none other then the king of Tortall. Neal was absolutely terrified. He had just slammed into a monarch and had a madwomen chasing after him yelling war cries.
King Jonathan made an angry noise that sounded like a sigh and a scream all in one, rolled his eyes, pushed Neal out of the way, and grabbed Alanna's sword arm and was in the process of destroying a very expensive painting on the wall.
"What the heck are you doing?" demanded Jon in his deep voice that makes most of the young maidens of Tortall swoon, but certainly not Lady Alanna of the Pirate's Swoop.
"Where is he?!?!?! Let me at him!!!!" screamed Alanna who had clearly lost it.
Jon pulled the sword out of Alanna's hand, thrust it at Neal, who was so surprised that he dropped it, and pinned Alanna against the wall.
"Alanna! Calm down!" commanded Jon. When Alanna had finally stopped cursing he held one of her arms and with his free hand, grabbed Neal who was trying to sneak away.
"What is going on?" the king asked in a tired voice. Lucky for him at that exact moment Myles appeared. Myles picked up Alanna's sword and told Jon the whole story.
"Let me get this straight." said Jon. "Neal hid some clue for some scavenger hunt that is supposedly going to get Keladry of Mindelan and Domitan of Masbolle together in Alanna's room." At Myles' nod he continued. "So Dom breaks into Alanna's room, she finds out, finds the clue for him, then while screaming her head off, she chases after Neal with her sword raised, like Kally used to do to Roald?"
When Myles nodded again, Jon was so frustrated he about broke Alanna and Neal's bones in the arms he was holding. When he finally calmed down, he looked at Neal and stated, "You're lucky I'm feeling nice today." He let go of a white-faced Neal, who at the dismissing look Jon gave him, went sprinting down the hall as fast as his legs could take him.
"As for you!" said Jon looking evilly at Alanna. "We are going to have a talk about how the King's Champion is supposed to behave when something makes her mad," Jon towed Alanna down the hall with Myles trailing behind him with Alanna's sword.