Kre woke to the sound of a slow, mournful song whispering on the light morning breeze. The sound was a low whistle, something akin to the wind blowing through a grove of thick needled pines. It was eerily haunting but mesmerizing.
He blinked his eyes and rubbed at his aching neck. He suddenly realized that he had fallen asleep sitting with his head resting on his knees. His back felt tight from the awkward position he had spent the last few hours in, his legs had gone numb, and his rear end was now doubly aching from both the long horse ride and the rocky ground.
As he raised his head, he must have let out a sound of moaning pain because the low whistling song had immediately ceased.
“You wake,” Kitalia called over dryly. “Finally. I was beginning to wonder if I would need to drop you into a cold stream to get you to stop snoring.”
Still barely conscious, Kre took in his surroundings as if he were hungover. There was an initial panic when he thought that his eyes were failing him, but he soon realized that the sun had not even started to crest over the horizon yet, so the area was still dark. As his eyes adjusted to being open again, he could start to make out the shapes of the two horses and that of his companion moving quietly through their little camp.
Kitalia sighed, “Awake, but still abed. Will our entire trip be like this?”
As he tried to work the kinks out of his back, she continued, “It would be nice to know if I can expect this level of high-quality companionship every morning or if this is simply a result of you falling asleep on watch after your ordeal of a day.”
He finally managed to rise to his feet and get into a full stretch. “I’m sorry Kitalia,” he offered genially. “I was just so tired. I can’t believe that I did something so stupid as to fall asleep during my watch. What if those Rangers had caught up to us while I was sleeping? They could have taken you and hurt you again.”
She glanced at Kre with a slightly sideways look, trying to see if there was any trace of sarcasm in his voice, but she found none. “You are an annoying companion Kre Nevynar. You will not even allow me a moment to chastise you in a humiliating way without doing something endearing.”
“Thanks?” he replied, unsure if he was being complimented or insulted.
“There you go again,” she muttered. “There is some bread in the bag there and some water too. Breakfast will have to be eaten while you ride.”
Kre nodded and started to look around as if trying to find something. He took a few tentative steps away from Kitalia and the horses before she noticed what he was doing. “Oh, you can just keep walking that way another fifty steps or so. You just go get yourself completely out of earshot while you urinate.”
Kre felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. It was a natural thing to need to relieve oneself, especially the first thing in the morning, but somehow, she had taken the naturalness out of it by calling it out for what it was. He hurried away before she could say anything else that might cause him anymore discomfort.