A Situation Like That

by Saraswathi

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This first chapter is dedicated to my partner-in-crime, Jude(ling) or Ms. T. You deserve a Dom of your very own for all your wonderful e-mails, beta-reading, patience, humor and friendship! Not to mention your wonderful writing. Now if you would only update . . .

A very happy new year to you. Enjoy.

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"Aren't you two friends? . . . I'd help my friends in a situation like that."

-Keladry of Mindelan to Lord Raoul on the subject of asking Buri to the Midwinter Party, p. 269, Squire

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"No way in hell."

"Come on, Dom," his cousin coaxed. "It'll be fun.

"It will not be fun, Nealan," Dom spit. He paced up and down his room, waving a piece of paper. He ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it wildly. He showed no inclination to ask Neal, who had just arrived at his rooms, to sit down. This perturbed his cousin not at all, who threw himself into the nearest chair, all the better to observe his cousin with amusement.

"Don't call me Nealan," he told Dom, who, as usual, ignored him.

The sergeant stopped his feverish pacing directly in front of his cousin. "I call you Nealan when you are acting ridiculous, like you are now. It's a bloody ball. It will not be fun."

"Language, dear cousin," Neal chided, still grinning wickedly. He seemed to be deriving unholy amusement from watching the other man suffer.

He was cut short by another tirade from Dom. "It might be fun for you, that is, because you have Yuki. You get to flirt, dance, snog- whatever you like with my future cousin-in-law and have a marvelous time of it all."

"True," acknowledged Neal.

The sergeant shot him a glare before continuing. "And no one, mark this Neal, no one will connive for you to flirt, dance or snog with one of their daughters because you have Yuki- who, by the way, is a dear, but isn't making my life any easier at this point!"

Neal blinked. "Was that all one sentence?"

"Yes." Dom favored his cousin with a death glare.

"Impressive," Neal nodded, lapsing into silence for several seconds.

Dom stared. "Is that all you have to say to my predicament?"

Waving a hand vaguely at his cousin, as if swatting a fly, Neal said, "Silence, knave. I'm thinking."

"I'll send you a card to commemorate the moment," Dom said sarcastically.

Neal looked mildly affronted. "There's no need for that. I'm trying to help you, after all."

"I know. I'm sorry." Dom slumped into a chair, head in his hands.

A rarely heard silence fell between the two cousins, abruptly broken as Neal leapt up in excitement, knocking over the chair.

"Well, my dear cousin-" he began, striking a pose reminiscent of a sage imparting his wisdom.

Dom looked pained. "Really, Neal, is it absolutely necessary for you to reveal our association in public like this?"

Neal, as usual, ignored him. "As I was saying, the solution is perfectly simple and utterly obvious."

"Why'd it take you so long then?" Dom muttered.

Neal ploughed on. "I don't know why I didn't think of it before."

"I can," Dom interjected. "You're just slow." He tapped his head for emphasis.

Neal gave his cousin a dirty look. "Thank you. If I may proceed?"

"Don't let me stop you," Dom shrugged. Going to his desk, he poured himself a glass of water, from which he drank deeply. His cousin watched with interest, pontificating forgotten.

"What is that?"

"Water, you Meathead," Dom replied, pouring himself some more.

Neal appeared to be debating with himself inwardly. "Oh, give me some," he sighed. "Dom, my friend, you have no notion of how to properly entertain a guest."

"No, I just have the strangest notion that I don't want you drunk on my hands," his cousin replied, handing him a glass of water. Neal eyed it askance.

"Ah, well." He drunk. A moment later, most of the water escaped his mouth and soaked Dom as he spit it out. "This concoction is vile!"

The sergeant, with great difficulty, restrained his temper, which hadn't been in the best of form even before he was doused with water. "It's just regular water, Meathead. Did you have something to say, or was it time for you to leave? Not that I'd ever want to be deprived of your company, but I have to change."

All this was said as the Knight was grabbed into a headlock, so it was difficult for Neal to respond. He managed, however, to choke out, "Take someone."

Dom released him. "What?"

"Take someone," Neal repeated, massaging his neck. "To the ball. That way, none of the mothers will try to set you up and you'll have someone to talk to. Besides my illustrious self and my beautiful fiancée, of course."

Dom didn't even make a crack at the last statement. For once in his life, Neal had devised a decent scheme. And it could work. Except for one thing.

"Who would I take?"

Neal blinked. "What?"

"Who should I take?" repeated Dom. He wasn't currently courting anyone. He hadn't had so much as a fling since had returned from Scanra. He flirted, yes, but when it came down to it, there was only one woman he was interested in. And he would never ask her, for several complicated reasons.

"What about Kel?"

One of those aforementioned reasons being that she happened to be his cousin's best friend and he would never live it down.

In a would-be-casual tone, he asked, "What about Kel?"

Neal looked exasperated. Ordinarily, Dom would've been pleased, but he was too occupied in toying with this interesting idea. "Why don't you take her?" his cousin persisted.

"Why her?" Dom tried to sound innocent. His heart was drumming in his chest.

"If you don't flirt with her shamelessly, I'm a tree stump."

"But you are a tree stump, Meathead," Dom said sweetly. "You said yourself that I flirt with everyone."

"Not like this," Neal answered seriously.

Dom stared at the floor, unable to meet the knight's gaze. "She hates these functions," he objected after a moment, his voice lower than usual.

"She'll go for you," Neal persisted.

"She'll never agree," the sergeant argued half-heartedly, reaching for his shoes even as he said it.

"Not if you don't ask her." Neal clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's go."

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"Come in!" Kel called, far too exhausted to get up and answer the door. She never would have dreamed that she would spend her midwinter doing paperwork when she returned to Corus. Scribes could only do so much, after all. And the King, Wyldon, Vanget and Raoul had each demanded a separate account of Haven and her venture into Scanra. She had finished perhaps a fifth of the first report.

Kel flexed her fingers with a sigh. Having decided early on that there was no justice in Tortall, she saw no reason to change that opinion now.

The door flew open, heralding the arrival of Nealan of Queenscove.

"Keladry, my dear," he declared. "How marvelous to see you while we're not in mortal peril." He held out a hand. "No, no, don't get up."

The lady knight held back a smile. "I wasn't going to," she retorted. "What brings you out of Yuki's arms?"

Neal appeared indignant. "I am not always in Yuki's arms."

"Keep lying to yourself, Meathead," she heard Dom retort. A moment later, his appeared in the doorway. "Hello, Kel," he added, smiling at her.

"Hello," she replied, attempting to keep her voice quite calm. She failed utterly.

"We're not interrupting you, are we?" Dom asked in concern, with a nod at her desk, invisible under a sea of papers.

"Oh, no." Kel started to gather up her papers without any clear idea of what she was doing. "I mean, yes, you did, but I'm very glad of the interruption." She felt flustered. "I was doing paperwork," she explained lamely.

"Ah."Dom entered, perching on the arm of a chair opposite Neal. "That universal pain in every commanders'-" he paused, and changed the word he was going to use, "-neck."

She smiled. "Something like that, yes. Raoul wants a report, Lord Wyldon wants a report, General Vanget wants a report, even the King wants a report."

Dom looked thoughtful. "See, what I always did was write one, have a scribe copy it three more times and send them off. "

Kel sat up straight, her eyes sparkling. "Dom, have I every told you that you're a genius?"

He grinned, teeth flashing. "Many times," he teased. "But I don't mind hearing it again."

Unfortunately, Neal, who had his own genius for ruining moments, chose to interrupt here. "As interesting as all this is, don't you have something to say to Kel, Dom?

The lady knight glanced down, blushing, and missed the glare that Dom shot his cousin. When she looked back up, her face was composed again. "Yes?"

"Neal," Dom said pointedly. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

The knight munched unconcernedly at what was supposed to be Kel's snack. "What? I don't think so."

"Yes, you did." Dom gritted his teeth.

Neal looked at his cousin. "No, I didn't."

The commander appeared ready to strangle his cousin, a sentiment which Kel concurred with often but was currently baffled by. What in the name of the Goddess did want to talk to her about? And why didn't he want Neal to be present, as he already seemed to know about it?

"Neal." Dom's patience had fled. "Leave. Now."

"Fine," Neal relented. "I'll go and see Yuki. See you later, Kel."

Kel waved at him absently, still confused. She turned to Dom for an explanation, but the sergeant was pacing the room in preoccupations and didn't seem on the verge of producing any answers.

"Dom?" she finally ventured, after he had walked the length of her room five times and she was no closer to discovering what was going on.

"Yeah?" he replied, still looking everywhere but her.

Tilting her head to one side, she asked gently, "Did you have something you wanted to ask me?"

"No," he said. "I mean, yes. No, definitely not. Yes, I don't have anything to say."

Well. This was interesting. Kel had thought that she was the one who got flustered in Dom's presence, not the other way around.

"So," she prompted helpfully.

There was no reply from the sergeant, who was pacing her room as if he wanted to commit it to memory. He stopped in front of her lucky cats, picking one up with cautious, but curious hands. "I love these," he remarked.

Well, there's my agony over what to give him solved, Kel thought in relief. The many hours she'd spent trying to decide on his present didn't bear thinking about.

She ran a hand through her short brown hair, ready to mount a fresh offensive, when he abruptly turned and threw himself into the chair in front of her desk. "Kel," he said with a sigh, "you're not making this very easy."

Her eyes filled with laughter. "Have I ever made things easy for you?"

Finally, he grinned. "Surely, you haven't been that consistent." His voice trailed off.

Hesitantly, she said, "Do you just want to tell me? Surely this can't be any worse than fighting in a battle."

His expression told her clearly that she had no idea. Instinctively, her hands reached across the desk to meet his. He sighed, brushing her hands lightly with his fingers, purely by accident, of course. "All right."

A knock on the door interrupted him, causing him to lean back in his chair, one eyebrow raised. "If that's Meathead again, I swear I'll-"

Hastily, Kel rose from her chair, heading off any violence between the cousins. "No I'm sure it's not. I'm really sorry about all this," she added over her shoulder, opening the door.

She thought she heard Dom mutter, "So am I," but dismissed it. Everything was so confusing; Dom, her paperwork, Dom, her feelings, Dom-

Upon opening the door, she discovered a messenger in Goldenlake colors shifting his weight impatiently. He straightened when he saw Kel.

"Milady," he bowed correctly, but there was a hint of both awe and apprehension in his eye. "A message for you from Lord Raoul."

She held out her hand. "All right," she said, feeling the slightest irritation at the interruption.

The sevant coughed. "He didn't write it, milady. He said to tell you that he hoped they were coming along well and to remind him that he expected on by this evening. I- I'm not sure what he meant, my lady, but-"

Kel smothered her annoyance. Of all interruptions, of all the times . . .

"Don't worry," she assured the servant. "I do. Thank you for passing along the message." She extracted a coin from her belt purse and gave it to him. Turning to disappear into her room, a thought struck her and she turned back, a wicked grin forming on her lips. "Would you mind passing on a message to Lord Raoul to me?"

Judging from his expression, the servant did mind, but he replied politely, "Not at all, my lady."

"Tell him to go to the Realms of the Black God the next time he feels like wasting my time," Kel stated clearly.

The servant gaped at her. "Milady?"

"Did you get that?" Kel inquired.

A civil war appeared to be going on inside the man. "My lady," he said at last, "Lord Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak is the Lord Knight Commander of King's Own and advisor to the King himself." He said the titles with reverence.

"Yes," Kel responded sagely, feeling rather pleased with herself.

"All right, milady," the man said, resigning himself to the madness of nobles.

Kel returned into her rooms, grinning.

"Who was that?" Dom inquired, occupied in shredding a piece of paper in his hands.

"Lord Raoul," Kel stated clearly, "is a-" And here she used some not so complimentary epithets to describe her former knight master.

Her grin spread to Dom's lips. "Now, now, Keladry," he chided, sounding more like himself. "What on earth could Lord Raoul have done to prompt such a reaction?"

"He wants the bloody report by this evening," Kel pronounced, sorting desperately through the papers on her desk. "Which means if I work from now until midnight I might have half of it done."

"Dictate it to a scribe," advised Dom, in spite of the frustration that was gathering inside of him.

"Good idea, thanks." Kel alighted on the papers she wanted with a triumphant cry. Hugging them close to her chest, she looked up at Dom. "Can this wait? I'm really sorry- I wanted to talk to you. You've certainly excited my curiosity." She smiled. "But now this." She gestured futilely with the papers in her hand.

She seemed so repentant that Dom forgave her. Not that he wasn't going to anyway.

"Don't worry about it," he sighed.

Snatching up a cloak, Kel ran to the door. As it closed behind her, she could her Dom's parting words.

"I'll kill Lord Raoul for you."

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