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C

Sleeping arrangements

C

By the time I've found the horse my mood has progressed from disgusted to absolutely pissed off. Andy isn't there yet and this fact does nothing to make me any happier. Bloody bastard! Why couldn't he suggest something less sickening? The smell of wine, sweat and horse still clings to me and right now I would do nearly anything for a nice, hot bath, hell I'd even put up with an ice cold river as long as I can get rid of this terrible dirty feeling!

When Andy arrives at last, the infuriating little git is grinning so much his face will split in half if he becomes any happier. If he makes a stupid comment now, I'll hit him! But to his big luck he takes one look at my furious expression and instantly tones down on the amusement factor.

"Where do we go?" Is all he decides to ask. I don't answer except for a low growl and march off into the night without any further ceremony, dragging the poor horse after me. If I start talking now I'll be screaming within the next five minutes, not a good thing to do when we're still so close to the camp. We've got to get to the highway before I lose control of my temper. At least then we will be able to actually ride instead of having to pick out a way through the dense shrubbery.

For the next few minutes we both remain silent until we reach the road which will hopefully lead us to a bearable solution of this whole disaster.

"I'll get up and then you try and seat yourself behind me."

I'm still angry, so I don't wait for Andy's okay before mounting. He appears to have no difficulty though in copying my moves and is soon sitting behind me with one arm slung around my waist for support.

Riding without a saddle is nothing I haven't done before and our mare seems almost happy despite the rough walk to the road. Maybe we should name her. It would be something to take my thoughts off the recent events. Agate? No sounds far too much like some human's mother in law. Brown beauty? Ugh no, Slipstream? Ah, not so good, Ayren? No would have to think about the real one all the time…

…Susie would be great, it doesn't fit her at all and therefore it's just perfect. I mean I was named after some war hero and see where it got me, so Susie it is!

This productive little interlude has distracted me enough to appreciate the clear star spotted sky and the warm breeze of a beautiful summer night. I relax slightly deciding to ignore the fact that Enzageyn could turn up any given moment. This night is too nice for problems. Andy seems to have noticed the lack of tension and after half an hour cautiously dares to ask if I'm still mad at him. Of course I'm not, how could I when he looks at me with big red puppy eyes, practically radiating innocence? I wonder if he's practiced this look on his former master. Must have been quite efficient! When you look at him now you wouldn't expect him to be capable of hurting a fly. Talking about hurting, "Andy those weapons you got from the guard, do you know how to use them?"

"A bit."

He doesn't sound very reassuring. On the other hand, we are going to Giciel so he will do the fighting for us. In the light of this I suppose I don't have to lose sleep worrying about Andy's lack of fighting skills.

The rest of this night passes remarkably uneventful and I'm feeling almost happy when we set up camp as the sun is rising. As far as I can say no one has followed us, no vicious mage has harassed us, it's not raining and reasonably warm, what more could we want? Well, sleep, but I'm quite sure I'll get to that very soon.

"Can I sleep next to you?" Or maybe not so soon. Oh no, he's still got the innocent look, which makes my knees go weak. Toren you mustn't fall for this!

"No." Argh he's pouting, no I have to remember that this is a bad idea.

"Why not? I don't like sleeping alone." Bad idea, really, really bad!

"But I do."

"Liar." I need a cold bath in a cold, cold river.

"Look, if you sleep next to me, I won't be able to sleep at all, which means I'll probably fall off the horse at some point out of pure exhaustion and you'll go down with me. I don't think you'd appreciate breaking your neck, because you didn't let me get some rest."

"Fine, be like that." He grumbles and goes to lie down, putting a fair amount of space between us. I'm not convinced by his easy surrender. He's probably planning something, but there's no way I'm going to stay awake now trying to find out what it is.

Susie should alert us when something or someone nears our little campsite and this road isn't known for harboring bandits, so there's nothing more to worry about. I'm asleep the moment my head touches the ground.