"-- when I begin to wonder truly how long I must stand here rambling above your comatose bodies before you come to realize that though I believe in the subtle art of waking people up, soon my patience will wear thin and I shall have to go and fetch the bucket of ice water -- "

    After about five minutes I was beginning to realize that Taurus wasn't going to rest his chops and as soon as he brought the bucket of water into the equation, I decided that it was best that I stopped pretending to sleep.

    I cracked my eyes open to find a blazingly bright room laughing cheerfully at my blinded anguish.

    Or maybe it was Taurus. It was hard to tell the difference with his large orange eyes shoved up in my face. Aldyth stirred in my arms, seeming to catch a few subconscious whiffs of morning amongst her slumber. The first thing she must have seen was Taurus's almost reptilian eyes hovering an inch from her nose, for she let out a loud shriek and drew her arm back to punch him. Unfortunately, Taurus was too quick for her, which somehow led to the end result of me getting shoved violently to the floor.

    "Good morning to ye!" Taurus allowed Aldyth to hit him with a blanket. "I presume you two slept alright?"

    "That's one word to describe it, I suppose," I yawned as I combed a hand through my hair to catch the strays that fell into my eyes. Aldyth found it appropriate to smack me with the blanket as well. "Oi!"

    "You two are the most depressing sleep talkers I have ever met," Taurus continued and meandered to his corner of the room aimlessly. "And I've lived with the elves -- the high royalty of depressed sleep talkers.

    "Is that so? We're honored," Aldyth laughed as she folded the blanket over her arm and set it on the edge of the bed. "Compared to the elven people before sixteen summers have passed, well that's one less thing I need to do before I die."

    Still a little disoriented from my early morning fall, I rolled over so that I was sitting with my weight leaned back against my hands and my legs splayed out in front of me. Aldyth seemed more cheerful than she had been over the last few days as she light stepped over my legs before offering me a hand. She didn't even apologize for knocking me to the floor -- which still unamused me on a dozen playing fields -- but was more characteristic of the Aldyth I had known all my life, so I let it come to pass without much complaining.

    After I was back on my feet, Taurus looked the both of us over quickly before muttering some elf gibber under his breath. Finally, with his head bowed toward the hearth he asked, "Do you both still have the coins I gave you yesterday?

    My eyes wandered to the floor where I had made my bed last night. If my memory served correct, the bag was somewhere within the pile of cloak and pack. "Aye," I nodded.

    "Then go out into town and amuse yourselves for the day," he turned around swiftly. "And please refrain from picking fights with the locals. I would prefer not to get run out of this town like a rogue."

    I allowed my lips go curl up in the slightest degree. "You sound as if you're speaking from experience."

    "I am. You two tied a boy to a stake yesterday and I have no reason to believe that you won't do it again."

    "Have a little more faith in us," Aldyth scoffed as she pulled her cloak on over her winter dress. "We cannot possibly be that -- "

    "You in particular," the elf strode over and jabbed a finger at her forehead, making her go cross-eyed. "Need to watch how you act around these people. A scared man is a reckless man and this entire town is downright terrified."

    "Alright. Alright," Aldyth batted his hand away from her face and faltered back several steps before swiping her pack off the chair. "Are you planning on staying up here all day?"

    "It's for the the best," he nodded and looked around before taking a seat on thr edge of the bed.

    "Do you want us to get you some food?" I asked as he pulled a stretch of light weight fabric from the pack by his feet.

    "I'll eat later," he muttered in a way that signified that he had stopped listening for us.

    Aldyth rolled her eyes and motioned for me to grab my things. Once the deep grey cloak had settled over my shoulders, fastened at the neck with a pin that rested cold against my throat; I quickly tied down the bag of coins to the back of my belt where it wasn't clearly visible and went to go join Aldyth at the door.

    "Eli."

    I turned back to find Taurus staring up at me, his abnormally cat-like eyes glowing such to the extent to look unnatural. "Yes?" I answered.

    "Bring your quiver with you. "

    "Oh. Alrigh -- "

    His head bowed to look as his hands as he ran the fabric between his fingers. He didn't look up."This is a war, you must understand. Never leave your weapons behind."

A/N
Sorry for a) the long wait and b) the short chapter. Cumulatives and Finals, insanity, you understand. And then what I did write was for this collab that I'm still not done with.