Keladry of Mindelan
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Keladry of Mindelan, known as Kel, is the main character of the Protector of the Small quartet by Tamora Pierce, in which she wishes to become the first female page in the country of Tortall in over 100 years. It has been ten years since King Jonathan and Queen Thayet's proclamation that girls can be knights, but no-one has tried. Although her parents are agreeable with the idea and her brother Anders, the pages' training master, Wyldon of Cavall, is not, and convinces King Jonathan to put Kel on probation. Though she is angry about this decision, she resolves to prove to everyone she can do what Wyldon doesn't think she can, and is determined to follow in the footsteps of her heroine, Alanna the Lioness.
Kel is a quiet girl and very calm like the sometimes seemingly emotionless people of the Yamani Islands that she lived with when her parents were delegates there.
Yamani children are taught not to show unnecessary emotion, as this is considered rude, so Kel constantly shows a great sense of self control. This causes some people to think she is shy or unfeeling. She learned to use the Yamani naginata, or glaive, while in the Islands, and is very skilled with it. Kel is also a stubborn character, who does anything necessary to do what's right, including stopping the traditional hazing of first-year pages and taking on the stubborn and rough destrier Peachblossom, though he's too big for her, to stop him from being killed for not working. Being 5'9 (at the start of Squire) she is taller than most of her classmates and her father, who is 5 inches shorter. She gets her height from her mother. She has brown hair that she cuts short to her earlobes in a male haircut and her father's hazel eyes, which the books descrbe as dreamy with long lashes. Despite the haircut, she decides upon arrival to the palace to remind the staff and knights-to-be that there is a female in their midst by wearing a gown to dinner each evening.
Throughout the books, Kel has to deal with a lot of prejudiced people, including her training master, Wyldon of Cavall; Joren of Stone Mountain, a fellow knight-in-training; and other nobles. However, there are people who do their best to see Kel succeed. Nealan of Queenscove, Kel's sponsor who shows her around the palace and is at first her only friend. He remains her friend even though it doesn't bring him any respect. In the second book in the quartet, Page, Kel develops a crush on her friend, but it fades within a year. They eat alone together at lunch at the beginning of her first year, but she soon makes friends among the other pages. Kel is also the recipient of many extremely helpful gifts from an anonymous benefactor throughout her years as a page and squire. The sender turns out to be Alanna the Lioness, her hero.
