Friendly Fire

A knock at the door.

I muttered a curse, arms and legs working to untangle themselves, and a giggling from below. I blindly reached to the bed and pulled off the sheet, wrapping it around my torso and nearly tripping as I made my way to the door.

Saeil’s face greeted me. “Well there you are. I’ve been looking for you – Kaz told me to check here first.” She trailed off and took in my appearance. “Oh, goodness, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No, of cour—yes, yeah, you kind of are.”

Her grin only widened. “Well good for you. I’ve been telling you to go out and—”

“Saeil, why are you here?”

“I brought you a visitor.”

I sighed. “Sae, I’m not really prepared to receive visitors at the moment.”

A wark! at my feet caused me to look down and see a baby hawkstrider looking back at me with perfectly round eyes. His rump wagged in recognition and he waddled past my feet into the room.

“I thought you said you could take him for the week!”

Saeil shrugged her shoulders in apology. “I know, and I’m sorry. But Shif was called away to the battlefront and I’ve been requested to accompany her.”

My eyebrows furrowed at this. “That’s odd; they’ve never asked you to do that before.”

“That was before the night elves started torching the healing tents.” She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Look, I’ll make it up to you.” And with a smirk she added, “Just promise me that you’ll teach to whomever’s in there those moves I showed you a while back – you know the time.”

“Sae!”

She laughed and patted my arm. “Don’t worry, he’s not much of a starer,” she reassured, referring to the ball of feathers who was now gorging himself on uneaten bread and jam.

"He just likes to burrow under the sheets. Watch out for your toes."