"Damn lions." He muttered, placing the shot gun across his lap.
In the middle of their camp, the fire flickered. It was large, and certainly attracting a few unwanted guests. Three shots had already been fired into te black abyss that was the surrounding bush that night, and Riddell wasn't too thrilled to be using up the ammo. Not when they were so far into the wilderness.
Unlike the last three times he'd shot the gun, Nefertiti didn't poke her head around the enterance to the tent and ask what was going on. She was either asleep was tired of hearing the word "lions" - which she was sure Riddell had made up, as she'd never seen one herself.
With his eyelids beginning to droop, Riddell decided it was best to retire to the tent. The question now, though, was should he wake up Neffy or should he leave her and put out the fire? If he put out the fire they would need to relight one for breakfast, which would entail gathering more wood, potentially having to chop it and finding some stones decent enough to relight the fire; the alternative was waking up Nerfatiti from her sleep and dealing with her angry, half-sleep wrath. He decided that the first was a better option.
Pouring a bucket of water over the fire, Riddell stamped on the embers and watched them die, the smoking curling up into the still night air. He kicked off his boots outside, which he never would of done before, but Nefertiti had requested - no, demanded it once she had arrived. He would need to remember to shake them for any sort of bug before he woke up.
Removing his hat and resting it by his pillow, he glanced over at Nefertiti. She always kept a straight face, seemingly relaxed, but it was only at night that she truly let go, and even then it wasn't voluntary. Her mouth curved up into a small smile, her eyelids would flicker with the dreams that lay behind them, and every so often she would murmur or sigh, or both, and turn over. It would cause him to smile every time she did.
When he woke up, Riddell lay for just a few seconds, with his eyes closed. It was his habit to do so - he remembered everything from the day before, and everything he had to do that day, and only then would he get up. This morning, he did as usually did, and then went to get up. He had to collect the wood, potentially chop it, relight the fire and start breakfast. But when he sat up in bed, he could already hear the sounds of stone against stone, repeatedly hitting each other in what Riddell assume to be an effort to start a fire. Looking to his left, he noticed that Nefertiti was already up. Grinning slightly, he crawled out of the tent.
"Good morning." He said, standing up and picking up one of his boots.
"Good morning." Nefertiti returned with a small smile.
Shaking the boot in his hand and deciding it was safe, he slipped it on. He did the same with the other one, while asking, "How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough to start the fire and the breakfast." She said, raising an eyebrow as she looked up at him. The flames began to rise upward, as Riddell put on his second boot.
"As a woman should." He nodded.
"I will still shoot you." Nefertiti retorted, raising an eyebrow.
Riddell laughed, sitting down on the log and placing his hat on his head, which he had retrived from inside the tent after putting his boots on.
Nefertiti held a pan over the fire, and fried some of the meat Riddell had caught yesterday - the correct use for the ammo. Pushing some of it from the pan to the little tin bowl that belong to Riddell, Nefertiti asked, "And where are we headed today?"
"Up the mountain." He replied with a nod to it. "As long as you can handle it." He raised an eyebrow, grinning.
"Of course I can." Nefertiti retreated to her own log, as she ate from the pan. "Though you shan't, if you keep talking to me like that."
"And why's that?" Riddell asked, raising an eyebrow again.
With a puse, Nefertiti swallowed what was in her mouth, and said, "Because I'll snap your legs."