The days passed steadily. Ma’osri’s leg was healing well due to her speeding the process along with healing magic, but she knew only rather basic spells, and as Fjorrod pointed out, healing to the point of exhaustion wouldn’t benefit her in the long run. “You can only help the process along so much Ma’osri.” Fjorrod told her for the 10th time in an hour.
“I know,” Ma’osri responded glumly, “But I feel so… useless.”
“You want to do something? Hm... How are your arms feeling?” Fjorrod responded.
Ma’osri was surprised by the sudden change in topic. “What? Fine, but I don’t want to just skin animals all day or whatever you have in mind.” She said, not very pleased where their conversation was heading.
“Actually, I was thinking I could start teaching you archery.” He said, laughing when her face did a 360 from bored and restless to excited and happy.
“Really? Archery? When, now?!” Ma’osri fired off in rapid succession.
“Nope.”
“Um… Tomorrow?” She suggested.
“Maybe.” Fjorrod said, trying to stop his growing grin.
“Well, will I be able to the day after tomorrow for sure?” She said, not yet catching on.
“Hm… It’s about as likely as in 5 hours.” He said, smiling at her bemused expression.
At this point Ma’osri was at her rope’s end. “What are you going on about?”
“You see, you’ll start learning…. But you have to stop trying to heal yourself.” He then held up his hand before she could start talking, and continued “I’ll tell you when you can, but you have to at least ask me before you heal yourself. It’s for your own good, at this rate you’ll be too tired to heal properly and stall us for a month.”
Ma’osri resorted “You don’t know the first thing about magic! I know when I can heal myself! You won’t stop me!”
“Oh sure, you can do that. You just won’t learn archery from me, even after you’re healed.”
Ma’osri made an annoyed growling noise that Fjorrod was faintly impressed by. It sounded like the dragon at Helgen if it choked on a particularly rotten piece of venison. “Fine.”
“Wonderful! We’ll start tomorrow, provided you don’t heal yourself in the meantime.”
“Hey! You said we could start in 5 hours!”
Fjorrod gave her a mock-bewildered look. “Are you the one teaching? No? Then I think I set up the lessons. Try to get some sleep ‘till the morning. You look really tired.”
She groaned softly. “ I am not tired! You’re insufferable as a teacher, you know that?”
“I’m also more than twice your age, so have some respect!”
Thier idle, mostly good-natured bickering continued for a while until Ma’osri fell asleep 10 minutes later, right in the middle of her sentence.
Fjorrod snickered. “Can’t fool me. Good night, Ma’osri.”
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Ma’osri groaned. “Five more minutes…”
Fjorrod got an idea, looking at her half-closed eyelids. “Okay, just five more.”
He went and took a few fish off the fire, putting most of them on his plate.
After he had eaten, he went to Ma’osri’s side again. “Ma’osri, time to get up.”
Ma’osri turned towards him a bit. “Nooo, just five more minutes, please?” She groaned, sleep making it sound more like ‘noooooaao, jist fove more minnotes, pllleasse?’
Fjorrod looked at the fish still cooking. “Fine.”
After 5 more minutes, he went to get her up. By picking her up from the furs, and dumping her in front of the fire, still careful to not bump her damaged leg. “Good Kyne girl, you’ve put on some weight!”
She grumbled, but didn’t fall back to sleep. “I regret ever coming with you.”
Fjorrod laughed, and gave her 3 burnt fish on a wooden plate. “Breakfast.”
Ma’osri looked at the plate, shaking off the last of her sleep. “Um… Are these fish?”
“Well, they aren’t rats, that’s for sure! What’s wrong with them?” Fjorrod tried to hide his smile as he spoke, putting on his best Knuckle Bones face.
“They’re burnt beyond ash,” Ma’osri said, no longer sleepy and not amused. “Why?”
“Well, you wanted to sleep, so I let you. And the fish. Next time you want a non-burnt breakfast, get up in time. You going to eat those, or can we start archery?” At seeing Ma’osri’s pitiful face, he gave in. Sighing loudly, he said “Fine, here’s some left overs from last night. From now on though, you don’t get up, you get burnt food.”
Ma’osri brightened and cleaned her plate in record time. After washing it, she looked at Fjorrod expectantly. “Ready Ma’osri?” He said, his almost always present smile growing a bit. “Let’s get you shooting!”
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