The Next Day

[Gaius Sivet]

2nd Day, Summer, Year 512 AV

Gaius woke with a pounding head and very few memories of the last several hours. He sat up quickly and realized that was a grave mistake as his head began to feel as if someone were pounding at it with a mallet. He slowly lowered himself back to the hard ground and concentrated on remembering. Slowly, things began to come back to him, and his thoughts began to coalesce into a timeline of events.

After the bear attack, Evora, Mordechai, and Gaius had set about fixing the camp, putting out fires, and setting things to rights. Then, they had all taken a short meal and gone to sleep, each of them exhausted from their ordeal. At least, that;s how Gaius remembered it, but he had fallen asleep so quickly, things there were something of a blur. Gaius felt about him and made a quick check of himself. His sword and all his other accoutrements were still with him, which was good.

Slowly, he stood and opened his eyes, feeling quite dizzy as he did so. When he had gained his feet and was somewhat less likely to fall over, he made his way away from Mordechai's camp site, in what he believed he remembered as the direction of a small stream of fresh, clean water. Hopefully, a few drinks of that water would help him clear his head.

Gaius made his way in a stumbling fashion, not unlike a drunkard the day after a particularly heavy binge. That'll be all the reimancy I did yesterday. I shouldn't have pushed myself that much. But, then again, what could I have done? We were in danger. Evora, Mordechai, myself, we would have died. Well, no use dwelling on it now.

Gaius soon found himself winded and decided to lean against a nearby tree, just for a moment. As he did so, he listened carefully, hoping to hear the sound of water over the soft landscape and the rocks, letting him know that he was close to his goal.

[Evora]

Evora had not slept well that night. Her heart was heavy from the previous days events and though she knew the two men now she wasn't completely relaxed sleeping in there company. She still awaited the knife in the back. The cold betrayal. After all, what did they owe her? Nothing. They owed her nothing. So it was nothing she would expect.

She had gathered her possessions, giving up with any attempts to sleep and made her way down to the river. It wasn't a far way from camp so if Gaius or Mordechai were to look for her she would not be too far off. But the running water offered some distraction. There was a melody in it and she listen to it. She hummed a simple tune with the early morning birds and she had cried where no man would see her.

The river water was icy but refreshing. She took a long drink from it and washed her face. She then lay down beside it and trailed her hand threw the water. It had been some time since she had taken time to do nothing. Simply be. But after the previous nights incident with the killing of the bear she felt she needed it. To just be with nature. She stated to sing again. her breath control was not good, especially when she lay down on her stomach but her voice was sweet and husky. she closed her eyes and filled her lungs with the cool early morning air and she sang with the birds.

[Mordechai Zoltar]

Mordechai awoke sprawled haphazardly across one of the logs near the fire with a kink in his neck and a screaming headache, wearing nothing but his unders, as was his habit of sleeping.

"Damn I'm sore!How'd you two sleep?" he said getting up to look around. Surveying the area he realized the other two were nowhere to be found. Panicked he scuttled to his tent and grabbed his bag.

"Those bastards better not have..." he muttered. A sigh of relief came over him as he found that all his belongings were accounted for. Standing up he began to look around, but his vision blurred as his legs went weak from the sudden movement. "Nope." he said as he sat back down, vision returning to normal. Perhaps it was a bit too much of an overkill last night, he thought to himself as he rubbed his face, trying to wake up.

Having his wits return slowly, he saw the bags of the other two were still at his campsite. They must have been nearby, kanoodeling no doubt, he smirked.

"Ugh, sod this headache. I need a drink." Mordechai said to himself as he started getting to his feet again, this time more slowly so as not to induce another headrush. He swaggered across the clearing, rolling himself lazily over the charred bear and continued on to where the stream lay not too far away.

Mordechai walked in a serpentine, holding his head with one arm and rubbing his hair. He could hear a faint ringing sound that was undoubtedly caused by the pounding headache.

Reaching the bank of the stream without paying much mind to his surroundings, he proceeded to fall face first into the water. Was this intentional? Not especially, though he didn't fight it either.

The water was only inched deep and ran along his skin and sore muscles. Soaking through the fabric round his netherreagons.

"Ahhhh, how lovely" he said, laying face down in the cold stream.

[Gaius Sivet]

As Gaius strained his ears to listen, he heard several things all at once and began pulling them apart from each other, examining them, trying to determine what was what.

First, he heard the breeze moving through the trees over head. Moving on, he heard hte sounds of birds as they perched in those trees or flew about in the sky. Then, he heard what he had hoped, the sound of the nearby stream, running over rocks and ground, bubbling and trickling and generally making a good deal of noise for such a small water way.

Then, he heard osmething he hadn't expected, something that gave him pause. Someone was singing, and not the off key singing he had heard so often from drunks and people who think they're alone. This was a beauty unto his ears, a low, mellifluous voice that carried through the woods lightly and seemed to mix itself with the wind and the birds and the sound of the stream.

Gaius began moving forward again, slowly, as quietly as he could manage, though he couldn't be sure how quietly that actually was in his current state. It wasn't long before he could see the stream ahead, through the trees, and the sound of singing was growing louder. He turned, pinpointing it as somewhere off to his left and began to head towards it. As he went, off to the right he heard a rather loud splash, as if a tall rock or tree had suddenly fallen into the water.

Gaius' hand fell immideatly to his sword hilt and he was torn between investigating the now very close source of the singing or the distant splash. He waited, silent and still as he could be. When he heard nothing more from that direction, he continued forward towards the singing. Was there still singing or had it stopped? No, he could hear singing, but was that just his head, which still hadn't fully stopped swimming.

As he continued forward, he peered through the trees and found the source of the singing. Evora lay on her stomach, her hand trailing through the runnning stream waters. Her hair was all about her in a beautiful halo and she was so relaxed, so at ease. She was beautiful that way, not the tense woman she usually was, ready to flee or fight at a moment's notice. She simply was, existing there with nature and herself.

Gaius slowly backed away, back into the forest. He wouldn't distrub her, couldn't have if he wanted to, she seemed far too happy there, singing, along with her thoughts and the stream. Instead, he turned and headed towards the sound of the splash he had heard before, drwaing his talon sword as he went, ready to fight if need be. Thankfully, the fresh air was giving him a clear head and it was becoming far less likely that he would stab himself accidentally, though he wasn't sure how that would hold up in a fight. Oh well, nothing for it I suppose, he thought as he moved forward through the thinly packed trees.

[Evora]

Evora paused out of breathe. She thought she had heard something behind her. She sat up and looked behind her. She was sure something had fallen into the river and equally as sure that there was something behind her. She sat up and her throat burned. She wasn't much of a singer. Despite her sweet tone her breathe control was weak and her pitch left much to be desired. She took a long drink of water making sure her waterskin was full, gathered her bow and stood. She walked carefully down the river bank with her bow raised to find the source of the splash. She kept a careful eye on the brush to her left remembering the other sound she had heard.

Placing one foot carefully in front of the other, she crept her way up the bank, a gentle breeze catching the feathers in her hair. She stopped for a moment to listen. Whatever it was that was watching her by the stream was not quiet. It was trying to be but failing horribly. Every branch underfoot snapped and crunched. In a sudden panic Evora brought a arrow to her bow and let it shoot. The wind pulled the arrow over to the left and Evora listened with dismay as it landed in the river. She bid the arrow goodbye. She fumbled with the next arrow, dropping it and picking it up again and again placing it in the bow. She ran forward looking about for her target. Graceful, she was not.

[Gaius Sivet]

Gaius continued forward and stopped suddenly when he heard the distinctive sound of a bow firing. He looked around, expecting that at any moment death would come spiraling through the trees for him. After several moments of nothingness, Gaius continued forward. He heard another splash, not too far from where he was, and made his way to the edge of the trees to see what it was.

As he looked out on the river, he saw the source of the noise. It was Mordechai, floundering about in the stream like some strange sort of fish, altogether too large, and probably far too pale, to properly live in such a small, sunny stream. Gaius relaxed and moved to sheath his sword when he remembered the sound of that bow. He was instantly on guard again, his mind racing through the possibilities, starting with the ones that had him dying, gruesomely. Then moving on to the ones where he died comically. He scowled at that and tried to force his brain into something more purposeful.

Gaius turned back towards the way he had come from, sword gripped tightly, searching for any sign of an attacker and hoping beyond hope that whoever it was was simply out for a mild deer hunt, and not looking to kill and rob some random passerbys.

[Mordechai Zoltar]

The river was cold and tensed up Mordechai's muscles, but he didn't care. It at least woke him up. His senses where taking it all in. Except hearing. All he heard was water rushing into his ears. It was about this time he decided he should probably breath.

Rolling himself over he took a deep gasp in of fresh air. He decided to continue rolling around in the stream for a bit until he felt a tickle on his toes. Sitting up Mordechai found that some minnows had taken a liking to his feet and were nipping at them gingerly. He also noticed, looking up, that Gaius was on the bank with his sword posed at the ready, scanning through the woods. Now had he stopped to think about it, he would have guessed there was danger from that alone. But alas...

"HEY GAIUS, THERE YA ARE YOU SNEAKY BASTARD! I WAS WONDERING WHERE YA WENT OFF TO!" Mordechai shouted, water dripping down his hair and into his face. He got up to his feet and began pacing towards the man. "Where'd Evora get off to? I figured she'd be with you?"

[Evora]

"HEY GAIUS, THERE YA ARE YOU SNEAKY BASTARD! I WAS WONDERING WHERE YA WENT OFF TO!" Evora relaxed. It was Mordechai and probably Gaius she was trying to hunt. She lowered her bow and walked forward.
"At ease. It's only me," She said breaking through the trees. Gaius stood with his hands gripped tightly around his sword, Mordechai was dripping wet. It seemed the man had decided to go swimming fully clothed. Evora briefly questioned the sanity of the men she was with and her safety alongside them, though they had both proven more than capable the previous night.
"Shall we go break our fast?" She offered returning the arrow still in her hand to its quiver. Her throat was raw and dry from signing and she had developed a great hunger since waking so early.

[Gaius Sivet]

"At ease. It's only me," Evora said as she came around the bend, returning the arrow in her hand to her quiver. Gaius relaxed and sheathed his sword as she asked after breakfast. He took a half second to appreciate her once again. Her beauty, her simple, understated grace, the way she so casually cut right to the root of things. And now, he had her singing voice to add to the list of things he found amazing about her. He could hardly believe his luck in finding such good friends. Next Mordechai would be raising the dead, and Evora would be showing him how to pick someone's pockets with the deftest of hands.

Gaius smiled and nodded slowly, running a hand through his short red hair to try and give it a semblance of order. He found his hands, or more appropriately, his right hand, wouldn't settle down for some reason. Now it was tapping away at the hilt of his sword. He'd always had a problem keeping still, he needed to occupy his hands somehow, but it hadn't happened in a long time. Strange. He shrugged it off, letting his fingers tap, but ignoring it.

"Yes, let's. Perhaps Mordechai has a fish on him now that we could cook," Gaius said with a light chuckle before heading back towards camp, towards Evora and into the woods.

[Mordechai Zoltar]

"Nothing but minnows in this part of the stream. Very friendly minnows..." Mordechai shivered, and not from the cold. "Breakfast sounds great, anyone hungry for bear?" Mordechai teased.

He'd reached the bank by now and the pebbles dug into the bottoms of his feet. "Let's head back to the campsite for now, we honestly could heat up some bear meat if you'd like?" He said, now playing with a small fireball. He held it close to his skin to dry himself off a little bit at a time. He stood in front of the two in just his nickers and smiled, happy to see his friends again. Standing for a moment he suddenly felt a sharp pinch at his ankles.

"YYEEEEEAAAOOOOWWWW!!!!!" He wailed, dispersing his fireball and hopping on one foot, holding the other out in front of him, a crab dangling from it. "For the love of god get this beast off of me!!!!"