Wow, thank you for the early reviews! I feel really honored to get all these praisinges from fanfic writers I love. I'll try to update as often as I can and I hope that this story lives up to your expectations. As I said in my profile, this story is mostly being written because of my new obsession with K/D fanfics and was inspired while I was watching Persuasion a few nights ago. (It was always my favorite Austen, too, Insanity!)

For the record, I want to try to avoid some of the annoying quirks I've been finding in most of the K/D fics I've read. While I love most all of 'em, I do agree I miss the animals when they get forgotten. Anyways! Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Chapter Two: Goodbyes and Reunions

The early summer sun came in rays through the open shutters. The light brought out the blond high lights of Kel's mousy brown hair and warmed her skin, pale from months indoors during the harsh northern winters. Her arms were folded over her stomach as she stared out into the newly made town of New Hope.

Some carpenters were making shutters for one of the many new houses that were across the muddy street from the old head quarters. Children laughed as they wove in between the men who pretended to be angry but only reached out and ruffled their hair. Kel couldn't help but smile. Another family was helping cart furniture into the house as a young couple, the man was thin and pale while the woman was strong and big with child, stared up proudly at their new home. Kel knew the young woman well. She had barely been a teenager when she'd come to New Hope seven years before, but now she was grown, married, and prepared to start a family of her own.

A sigh escaped the lady knight's lips. It was filled with weariness, relief, pride, but also sadness. Three years after the official end of the Scanran War, the Crown had finally gotten around to trying to find home for the refuges of New Hope. They were too late, of course, as all of the refuges had already found a new home in their former camp. It didn't take much convincing on the part of the king to get the supplies and resources to make the old camp into a proper town. The nobles of the area thought it a better idea than moving all of the commoners onto their land. When it came to finding someone to oversee the changes in New Hope, the King had thought of no one better but the camp's former commander and New Hope's residents heartily agreed. So with the help of a number of fussy nobles, many clerks, and Neal, who was training new healers for the northern border, Kel had spent the last two years expanding the walls and building proper homes for her people.

Looking out her window now as she did most mornings once she'd finished her glaive practice, Kel couldn't help but feel pride. New Hope's residents had been thrilled and more than willing to help Lady Kel fix up their home. In a sense, Kel almost felt as if it had become her home as well. Even though the two years of work had left her exhausted and chewing at the bit to be in the field once more, Kel would sorely miss this place, especially now that her work was done and she would have to find her work elsewhere. It had become home to her in a sense, and when her knightly ramblings had failed, had provided her with the distraction she had been seeking for the past five years ever since she had turned down Dom's offer of marriage.

Just the memory of the heartbreak in the sergeant's eyes made Kel rub her own, pretending to try and wipe the tiredness from them. She knew she had broken his heart and there had been very few days that Kel had been able to forget it. Unlike with her first sweetheart Cleon, whom she had lost her romantic feelings for after being separated for a year, Dom had left an imprint on her heart that Kel feared would never go away.

Neal had already left the previous month. His own work had been done since even before he'd returned from his leave at midwinter. While he had enjoyed a winter in Corus, Kel had done anything and everything within her power to avoid the capital. It had been a pattern that most anyone close to her had been used. She used excuse after excuse, but most everyone could tell the real reason. Kel was trying to avoid a certain blue-eyed sergeant, now Captain of the King's Own.

Kel had been pleased to see Neal go, however. Since Neal and Yuki had been married after the end of the war, Kel had felt sorry about the little time the couple got to spend together. Once midwinter was over, Neal had returned with his lovely wife in tow. Much to Kel's amusement, the Yamani had refused to stay another day in Corus without her husband and had taken the initiative to go with her husband to New Hope. However, once Neal realized Yuki was with child, he had sent her off to Queenscove to await the birth of their first child. It wasn't long before Kel had ordered Neal off as well, as he could barely concentrate on inventory and road construction when every second thought was on the wellbeing of his wife and unborn child.

As much as Kel loved and got along with her former refuges, the time she spent at New Hope had grown increasingly lonely. With Neal and Yuki gone and Tobe working as an assistant to the horse mistress of the Riders, it seemed as if Fanche and her clerks were the only ones she really talked to on a daily basis. Letters from home or her friends had grown infrequent and rare, leaving Kel isolated with her animals and refuges in the north.

Not long after she'd sent Neal packing, Kel herself had received orders from the King to take a leave. Kel suspected that Lord Raoul and Lady Alanna both had something to do with the order, but Kel wasn't about to argue. That letter had been accompanied by another from her mother, asking her to attend the wedding of her oldest niece at Whitley Bay. As calmly worded as the letter was, Kel knew it wasn't simply an invitation. Her mother had grown frustrated at how little she saw her youngest daughter in recent years and the wedding would simply be an opportunity to check up on her. At least Whitley wasn't far from Queenscove, Kel thought thankfully. Perhaps she'd even get to meet the newest addition to the Queenscove clan on this trip. If she was lucky.

Two sparrows flew in through her open door to land on her shoulder and announce the entrance of one of her clerks. "Lady," he said with a bow. Kel inclined her head and forced a small smile. "Your horses are ready when you are." Nodding again, Kel dislodged her birds to pick up one of her packed saddlebags.

Lorraine and Hatalie were the oldest daughters of Kel's brother Anders and were the first to greet their aunt as she rode through the gates of the manor at Whitley Bay.

Kel barely recognized the two of them. The older of the two, Lorraine, was not yet twenty and had been born while Kel was in the Yamani Islands. She had the height of her grandmother and Kel's mother with straight honey colored hair of Anders wife that fell down her back in a long braid. Lorraine had a kind, finely etched face and lips, like Kel's own, that seemed quicker to smile than frown. The youngest of the pair, Hatalie or Hatty as Kel's mother had called her in letters, was a year younger and several inches shorter than Lorraine. Her hair was brown, very similar to Anders, Kel noted, and her entire face was filled with a stubborn determination.

Kel noted all this as the two younger women pounced upon her as soon as she was off Hoshi. She barely had time to silently thank Peachblossom was further behind her as a reluctant pack horse as her two nieces, who were no longer the mere girls she remembered them as, pummeled her with oddly affectionate hugs and a stream of questions.

"Aunt Keladry! How was your ride?"

"Did it take you very long to travel from the north?"

"Did you stop in Corus?"

"What is with all of these birds?"

"That dog looks old! How can he jump down from the horse like that?"

"Grandmama said you are close to the eldest son of Duke Baird! Can we meet him?"

"Isn't his wife one of Yamani ladies that came with the princess? Can we meet her?"

"Does he have any handsome brothers?"

"I hope the roads were clear. Papa said there was flooding near the Royal Forest?"

"Papa also said you were doing important work in the north. Did the king reward you well for it?"

"Hattie!"

"Girls!" Even as Kel smiled at the curiosity and spirit of her two nieces, she couldn't help feel relieved at her mother's voice. She was tired from the long ride and she wasn't even sure which question to start answering. The three girls turned and Kel gave her mother a brief hug as hostlers took her horses. "Come. I'll show you to your room. A servant will bring your things." Ilane turned to her granddaughters and shooed them away. "Go see if Cora needs anything."

Cora, another of Kel's many nieces, was the oldest daughter of Inness. As Kel's mother walked her to her rooms is the fairly new and medium sized manor, Kel learned that it was only Kel's mother, Cora, Inness, his wife, and Ander's two daughters that had come to represent Mindelan at Cora's wedding to Arthur of Whitley Bay.

"Your father is in Corus helping with a treaty for Princess Lianne's future marriage. I brought Lorrie and Hattie to keep me company." Kel gave her mother a knowing look as Ilane explained, "It would be good for them to get some practice in society before they go to court at the end of the summer."

It was hard for her to imagine her two nieces, both with fiery spirits, among the courtiers of Corus. Kel almost thought of it as a pity. The two would make all right if not good marriages, as Cora had. They would become the wives of first-born sons of lesser fiefs or the wives of lesser-born sons of greater fiefs. They would raise sons who would become lords or knights, daughters who marry lords or knights. It was all well and fine, Kel thought as she opened the shutters of her room and stared out onto the courtyard, but her nieces would never see Tortall outside of the few fiefs they visited and the capital. They would never know the satisfaction of a hard day's work or the feeling of accomplishment after completing anything more than a doily.

Ilane, sensing her daughter's line of thought, smiled sadly as Kel turned back to face her. "They are good girls, Kel," Ilane assured. "They are especially interested in getting to know you," Ilane said with the most wry smile Kel had ever seen on her Yamani masked face. "They have heard of all your exploits and adventures. You should expect to play story teller at dinner tonight."