Chapter 11 ~ Why Me?

"Took you long enough to get back!" I heard Sarah call from somewhere near Kelly and Sara.

"Erin!" I heard Sarah and Kelly scream at once. We almost automatically had to tell everyone about where we had found Erin. I left them talking and found myself hauled into a conversation with Lisa, Luianne, Daine, Vi, and a few others.

"So, what'd you do?" Lisa asked. "Meet any, guys for example???" God Lisa is such a flirt.

"Well, I did see some flirting between Sara and Joey or what Sara hoped to be flirting!" With that we all started gossiping. Someone came by and took our bags and horses, since we were being so inconsiderate and just talking and leaving them standing there. Darn, now I feel bad. I'll go by the stables tomorrow and see the horses. I made a mental note to bring them apples and sugar cubes.

Sometime later we had moved our welcomers inside and eventually people had places to go. Lisa, Luianne, and Vi to get ready for a ball that was to be held that night, Daine had to go see Numair, and everyone else had some other places to go.

Sarah and Kelly walked Sara, Erin, and me back to our rooms. "God, I need a bath!" Sara whined. I couldn't blame her. I wouldn't mind one right now either.

We made our way there and Sara instantly took a bath. Quick enough so that I didn't have to wait long, but just long enough to feel really clean. When I came out I heard Sara telling Kelly and Sarah about what had happened on the trip. I also noticed she kept bringing up Joey or what Joey and she did with Erin AND Joey.

"It's all yours," I called to Erin. Almost instantaneously I heard the bathroom door shut.

"Well, now that you're hear I guess that we can tell Sarah." Sara said it with a devilish grin sweeping all across her face. "You know she'd probably freak if she saw him."

"Who?" Sarah called.

"You know we should probably tell her." I said acting as if Sarah wasn't even there.

"Who!?!" Sarah looked confused.

"Yeah, but we wouldn't want her to create a scene." Sara added.

"Who!?!!!"

"Hmm, I don't think he'd like that for the third time."

"Joey would never let him live that down." Sara was grinning from ear to ear.

"Who is it? If you don't tell me, I'll, I'll- Urghh!!! Who is it?"

"Oh, you know, Mulder." Erin said as she walked out of the bathroom. "I heard it all in there," she said pointing to the door.

"Mulder, my Mulder?..."

"Better!" Sara exclaimed, getting very giddy, "The Shang Fox, Mulder!!!"

Oh, My God!" and with that Sarah started completely freaking. She was jumping up and down, ooh-ing and demanding answers. After about 20 min. of telling her all we knew about him, she turned serious. "And WHY didn't you bring him to meet me?!"

"Well, he had to go. He and Joey probably had a headache." I replied.

"Yeah, they got really bombed last night. We learned some very interesting things. If your good I just might tell you some of them." Sara added with a laugh.

"Don't worry Sarah, you'll meet him." Erin said calmly trying to get Sarah out of freak-out-mode.

A loud bell interrupted our conversation. "I have learned to loathe that bell." Kelly said entering the conversation. "It makes me feel like Pavlov's dog."

"Ahh, Kelly don't worry. They'll give you a treat! That's a good girl, Kelly. Yes you are" Sara added sarcastically.

"Well, I have an idea..." I said breaking off, "You can meet Mulder at dinner!"

"Nope sorry to burst your bubbles, everyone's getting ready for the ball tonight, they're not serving dinner, just in private. You know they do feed people at these things. Plus with the Scanran Peace Delegation here, and everyone wants to see the most eligible guy, who just happens to be a prince who is not betrothed or anything. He just decided to come along." Sarah said trailing off. "So...,"

"We're going to town for dinner." As Kelly finished as someone knocked on the door. As Kelly was answering the door, Sarah ran into the bathroom to wash up.

"Hi, Joey, is it?" I heard Kelly say. Sara quickly got up to go see him.

"Yeah.:

"Hey," Sara said trying to remain calm. "Hi Mulder."

"What no scream?"

"You know I can only make a first impression once. And if it was as a psychopathic idiot, oh well."

Mulder was outside our door, and Sarah didn't notice. She mustn't have her Mul-dar on. Guess I better go tell her. I thought to myself. She never let me out of this. I walked to the bathroom and knocked on the door. "Sarah get your butt out here NOW!"

"Why?," she complained a little whiny.

"Because Mulder is right outside..."

She let out a high pitched scream, and I heard Mulder say from the other room, "Oh, god there's another one!" Joey was laughing and pointing and looking like a general idiot. Sara's cute idiot, I reminded myself. Be nice.

By the time I had finished my thought, Sarah came running out with her hair pulled back and lip gloss making her lips all shiny. Hmm, she doesn't wear make-up for just anybody, well, then again, it IS her Mulder...

As we walked out Sarah caught her first glimpse of Mulder. I heard her cover up one of her patented 'oohs' and saw her desperately trying to put on a normal face.

"Hello Screaming Girl #3, I don't believe we've met, I didn't recognize your scream." Mulder said jokingly as he saw Sarah.

"Aww, how cute. He's hitting on you Sarah." Joey added from across the room. "I would be careful though. She's Numair's apprentice, and I've heard he can get pretty mad."

"I swear, if you weren't so far across the room, I'd smack you!" Mulder replied with a hint of embarrassment in his voice. I also noticed that Sarah had a slightly pink complexion at the moment.

"Well, while you wee getting Sarah, we arranged to go to dinner with these fine young gentlemen." Sara got up from her seat next to Joey, and walked to the closet. "So come on Kelly , there's a good girl! Come on... get your coat." Joey and Mulder were both looking at Sara and Kelly weirdly. Kelly mumbled something under her breath that made Sarah crack up. "What was that girl, did you say Timmy fell down the well? Oh no! Go get help girl!" and with that everyone in the room, save Joey and Mulder were fighting back laughs. They probably didn't understand the joke, but the way Sara said it made them eventually laugh.

After we had all calmed down, we took a back entrance to the palace and went down into the city. The back entrance was to avoid all of the guests and courtiers.

Joey and Mulder took us to a small restaurant, well hidden by the crowd. There we had a good dinner, and then they decided to show us around. I had only been in the city long enough to ride through, going to the City of the Gods. Kelly and the Sara(h)s had been to the city on little errands their teachers had, so they sort of knew their way around.

Joey and Mulder showed us a multitude of stores, dress shops, bakeries, and book stores. 2 of which the Sara(h)s made us stop in. Sarah ended up getting two books she thought were interesting.

We walked around a bit more and then made our way back to the palace.

On the way back, we ran into some trouble. Someone was fighting a guy. Jumping him was more like it. There were three people helping the mugger. When Joey saw his face he must have recognized him, because he instantly got into the fight followed by Mulder. In no less than a minute, the attackers were gone.

The man they had saved was a mess. Sara ran over to the man and started trying to clean him up with only her water bottle and handkerchief. Sarah went to both Mulder and Joey who seemed to be all right.

"He needs a healer quickly." Sara said rising.

"Come on, let's get you to Duke Barid." Joey said helping the man up.

"But he's at the ball, we don't need to bother him. There's plenty of good healers in the city." Kelly stated. "I'll go look for one with Sarah."

"Trust me he'll leave the party and we can't risk a city healer." Joey said. The man he was helping up, suddenly fell unconscious. Joey and Mulder quickly and quietly carried him back to the palace, going a different way than what we had taken in.

As we neared the palace, Joey told a guard to get Duke Barid immediately and added the fact that it was of the utmost security that he not tell anyone. "Tell him we'll meet him in his office. And Hurry!" Joey added that with force.

We hurried down to the office and Sara began cleaning the man up, while they waited for the Duke.

"When is Duke Barid going to get here?" Sara asked. "He looks like he's loosing a lot of blood."

"Move over I'll help." Kelly said grabbing a fresh towel.

"Don't worry, he can take it." Joey said coming up.

"Ow," the man was starting to stir. Kelly rushed back over just in time for him to open his eyes. "Ahh, I'm to young to be dead."

"And why do you think you're dead?" Kelly inquired.

"Well, because I'm looking at an angel."

"Argh, your not dead!" Joey walked over and grabbed one of his wrists. "If you were dead, could you feel this?" Joey squeezed down hard.

"Owwwww!!!"

"Joseph, If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, do not hurt my patients. Leave them alone. They're in enough pain already." The Duke turned towards the man. "My, my, no wonder you weren't at the ball. A general thrashing does tend to wear people out."

"Yeah, well 20 balls in one month can do that too." the man sat up and winced. "Plus I can't go anywhere without being jumped by women." he complained.

"Stop your whining. You'd think you of all people would like that." I think Joey was trying to act like he was joking, but I think I saw some hatred in there too. I wonder why? Hmm, maybe it's because Sara went to him to see if he was all right instead of going to him. Ha! He could be jealous. Should I tell Sara? No, better not. I think I'll let Joey do the talking later when he thinks the time is right. Funny, I thought she of all people would catch stuff like this.

The Duke shooed us all away and told us he needed concentration to work. Kelly wanted to wait outside, but eventually we decided to go back to our rooms.

"I wonder if he's going to be all right." Kelly muttered to herself.

"He'll do just fine." Sarah reassured her.

"I wonder who he was." Erin said thinking aloud.

"Wait, hold on..."Mulder seemed stumped. "Not one, not two, not three, but four women don't know who Prince Maximillian is!?!"

"Prince?" Sara and Kelly both said at once.

"Whoa,.. no I am not going to even ask." Mulder turned away from our group and walked down a different hall, probably to his room.

"You really didn't know who he was?... Man I could have had some fun with that if blabber mouth hadn't told you."

I couldn't help it, I let out a huge yawn that had been building up all night. "I don't know about you, but I need some sleep."

"Where'm I going to sleep?" Erin asked meekly.

"Don't worry, I think they have put another bed in your apartment." Joey quipped. "And now if I may escort you fine young ladies to your rooms..."

Sure enough when we got there, another bed was on the Sara(h)s' room which was slightly larger. We said our goodnights and I was suddenly so tired, it was all I could do to change. ~*Time Lapse*~

The next day, Kelly and I tried to find something for Erin to do.

"We could get Numair to test her for the gift..." Kelly said breaking off.

"Yeah but, what's she gonna do here? I mean if she doesn't have the gift, what could she do?" That was a question that Kelly couldn't answer.

"I don't know..."

"Well, I think I heard her say she likes her History classes this year. She's taking two, and just the other night I saw her reading a history of Tortall. So, what about Sir Myles' apprentice?"

"Yeah, he is getting old. Maybe he would like to take on an apprentice too teach."

"Yeah, but there are a lot of people who want that job. I mean you and the Sara(h)s were lucky to get apprentice jobs, but they won't just give her a job because she's with us. There are already questions about you and Sara's qualifications to be Lindhall's apprentices..." I broke off.

"Yeah, I know. Where's Erin at by the way?" Kelly looked around unable to find her.

"I think she went down to see Prince Maximillian."

"Hmm, Prince Max was pretty nice if you know what I mean." Kelly smiled. "I think we should go look and see how he's doing." Kelly got a devilish look in her eyes.

I laughed and we went down to ask the Duke how he was doing. On our way we saw the pages and squires on their way to class. I noticed quite a few of them took notice of Kelly. What surprised me most was the looks Kelly was giving them back. I saw Neal, but didn't get all giddy. What surprised me even more than Kelly, was the look that Cleon was giving me! I never thought of Cleon like that, but hmm. He wasn't mean to Kel, which means he's nice and he wasn't bad looking, and besides who am I to interfere with Kel and Neal's relationship. And you know that's going to happen.

We reached the Duke's office and waited outside, because the door was shut. After a few minutes of waiting the door opened quietly and Erin and Max came out. I took notice to the fact that Max had some lipstick in the exact shade of Erin's lipstick. I also saw Kelly clinch her jaw and generally tighten up.

"Ah, hi guys." Erin said casually. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," Kelly paused. "We were waiting out her to ask the Duke if you were all right, but...-" Kelly raised a hand.

"Oh, no. He's not in today. We just found that out when we didn't see him in there."

I was about to tell them just how long we had been outside, but decided against it. Let them squirm. I don't think it takes 10 minutes to see if someone's in a room, but then again, let them wonder..."

Kelly looked as if she was about to scream. I guess Kelly had wanted a piece of him too. He was cute, I'll give him that, mmm very nice. I don't see a reason to fight over him though. Doesn't seem like there's a lot going on upstairs. No wonder Mulder and Joey don't like him. He probably stole one of their girlfriends at some point. Anywho, that's something to ponder.

Erin and Max made their escape, while I took Kelly on a walk to calm her down.

"Kelly, stop it."

She turned to me puzzled, "What?"

"Swooning over Princy-wincy. Just like with Matt. Tisk, Tisk"

"Urgh, I can't belive you brought that up! And I am NOT swooning!" She got a poissed off look in her eyes and walked ahead of me, then a few seconds later stopped. I ran to catch up with her.

"What's wrong?"

Kelly turned. She was grinning broadly. "I think we found something for Erin to do-" she was cut off by a bell. She cringed as usual, but kept on walking.

"Hey, Kelly. Don't you have a class now?"

"Oh, sh-"

We ran towards the class, but slowed down sometimes to a walk when nobles or teachers were around, and booked it to the Lindhall's. As we got inside, we slowed to a fast walk. We knew better than to run in here. "Oh, no... I … was… supposed… to help … Sara with… the project today!" Kelly panted trying to catch her breath.

We made it to the door and Kelly tried it. "She locked it! I can't believe she locked it!"

"I can" I said laughing.

In the end, Kelly was forced to knock on the door. The first time she did it softly. No answer. The next time she knocked on the door louder. Still… no answer. The third time she banged on it.

Sara opened the door, "Oh look everyone... Kelly decided to join us."

"I'll get you for this." Kelly mumbled under her breath.

The two bickered back and forth, and eventually started dissing each other in Spanish. Basic adjectives at first, and then they cracked out the big stuff. *"Yeah well at least I don't sleep with cheese!"* (author's note - That's supposed to be in Spanish. The * indicate what's being spoken is in Spanish) and basically other meaning less things. The boys obviously didn't understand, but I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. Then some of the boys and Lindhall took notice of me, still standing in the doorway. Lindhall walked over.

"Do you find my class amusing?"

"No, its not your class. It's your unqualified apprentices!"

"Unqualified?!" Sara asked shocked. I could tell she was trying to act, badly. "Why, just the other day Kelly here learned to identify clover! I hardly think that we are unqualified."

"Yeah, I know. I can now also tell you what grass is!" Kelly had to stop, because she and most of the boys were laughing.

"If you excuse me, I think I'm the one that has to get my class back in order."

I made my escape, but not before I stole a glance at Cleon. He was staring at me. I think a few of the guys saw me look at him, because as I was turning around a few of them bent down to talk into his ear.

I went back to my room to lay down. I needed a nap! God the "City of..." trip was tiring. Plus I had stayed out last night. I tried to sleep, but that stupid bell woke me up, or so I thought.

Soon after, Kelly and Sara came in the door. "Hey," they called as they walked past. "What'd you do all day?"

"What do you mean? I just left the Lindhall's class... didn't I?" I got up groggily and walked over to them.

"No, that would be hours ago. It's almost time for dinner." Kelly looked at me weirdly. "You'd better go wash up."

When I got to the bathroom, I saw what she meant. I had a major case of bed head. I brushed it detangled and ended up with a pouf ball. I got my frizz eaze and got to work. When I came out, with manageable hair, I could barely stand I was so tired. I yawned, "I think I'm going to skip dinner tonight." I paused to yawn. "Bring me back a few rolls." They left and I went back to my bed and fell asleep.

I awoke a few hours later, or so I thought. I sat up. God, my head hurt. I wasn't in my room. I was... I was... Where was I? I laid back down. Oww, god I hurt all over.

I started to panic, but was too tired to do much else than just lay there. How ironic is that? I wondered. I sleep all day, than wake up in a dark room to find that I was tired. What kind of disease did I have? No, not a disease. Somebody obviously drugged or be-spelled me to get me here. But why?

'Shit,' I thought to myself. 'You've really done it now, Leah.' The only thing was, what did I do? Okay, I decided, let's review. I know how to speak Spanish and I came out of nowhere and magically am allowed to work at the Tortallian Palace. Yup, I'm screwed. Whoever has me here, obviously had their reasons. Damn. Why me, though? Why not he others? I sighed and started crawling around the perimeter of the room (cage?) I was in, testing my boundaries all the while praying that someone would find me. Hopefully soon.

Okay, so this black pit is only about 5' x 8' and the floor is dirt. There is absolutely nothing in here, save me. Real hospitable here aren't they? So, how do I get out? I sat down to think. So far my only hope was that one of the girls would notice I was gone. I didn't have a set work schedule. I worked at night or in the day. Jon might notice if I didn't come to show him the work on Wednesday, but that was five days away... No, one of the girls will notice that I am missing and hopefully give Numair one of my things. He could find me. Maybe one of Daine's animal friends saw what happened. She could help too - hopefully.

Feeling afraid and sad I laid down to get some sleep. I don't cry often mind you, but in this it seemed hopeless. So, just this once I cried. I missed my friends and I wanted to be back at the palace with the rest of them. Again I thought,... Why Me?