I'm so sorry, but it was a drabble that Starry and I were taking about and couldn't stop laughing.
It was beginning to be a regular thing now, whenever everyone was out of Riften doing their own thing. Khepri, off screwing around with roadside bandits, Laelette and Xal-Kee up in Winterhold as she studies, Breyela as she goes out on jobs, and the off chance Alias has traveled from Raven Rock to spend time with his long distance lover. Some how, they would all end up in Khepri's Lakeview Manor, spoiling the khajiits' two charges with stories of adventure and eating the good meals her house karl made for the boisterous group of miscreants.
Tonight was one such night, the children long put to bed and the group enjoying a few drinks and pointless discussion.
It was during one of these pointless discussions that Laelette, sitting at the table with her argonian companion at her side and drinking a non alcoholic beverage furrows her brow at the discussion between Khepri, Breyela, and Alias.
"I never really understood that." she speaks, and the trio of thieves turns her way. She continues, face straight and ponderous.
"How could a spear take all night to polish? It's a piece of wood with a bit of metal on the tip?"
Beside her, Xal-Kee chokes on the mead he was drinking. He lurched forward and wheezes; Laelette frets and rubbes his back in concern at his sudden bout of 'down the wrong tube'.
The trio stare at the breton girl with varying expressions of disbelief.
Alias is the first to break the silence.
"Well actually-" the wood elf finds a painful punch to his arm interrupting his education of the youngest in their group and turns his wounded look to his wood elf lover. Breyela is sending him a glare, the kind that brooked no argument as she just mutters the word "no".
"Xal-Kee, be careful next time. Honestly, what about polishing a man's spear choked you up like that?" Laelette sighed. The white argonian made a wheezing strangled noise as he drops his head into his hand. The scaleless parts of his neck seemed to turn blue as a sign that typically meant blood rushing to the reptilian mans face.
Alias too bit his lip as the moment proved hard to not go without a comment.
And then another voice entered th conversation from the side of Khepri that Breyela wasn't sitting on.
"I know right? In the first place, why did he give the spear to a maid? Surely if he brought the spear to a blacksmith it would have been taken care of." Sindri comments with his own innocent confusion.
There is a bang and the group vaguely see Xal-Kee's head make contact with the table and another strangled gurgling noise from the mute creature.
"Well, actually-" Alias begins again, but is yet again thwarted by another harsh punch to his arm by Breyela.
And then, from the ensuing silence:
"Oh Deblia, there's two of them!" Khepri hisses to no one in particular.