She Will Walk At Night

Happy birthday

As my eyes opened I was suddenly wide awake as the reality of the morning jolted me back to life from my deep sleep. I was quickly overwhelmed with excitement as today was a special day, Líones Birthday, and I wanted to make sure it was the best so far. I jumped out of bed and ran to the corner of my Room where the chest of my messy clothes sat. I pulled several articles of clothing out until I found my favorite set of robes Lione got for me a few weeks back at a Solitude festival we attended in secrecy.

As I held the robes in my hands, I remembered the day she'd bought them for me. Word of my new found status was just starting to spread throughout the cities. I was scared to go anywhere outside of Whiterun, in fear that I would be in constant danger.  Líone wanted me to relax and be excited about the future, she had surprised me with purchasing two seats on the carriage that took us straight to solitude from Whiterun for the annual bards festival.

We had disguises and different names that we used around the city, it was so exciting. I had never done that before. While at the festival, I was able to convince Líone to let loose for once and we drank a little to much of that "free" imported Meed. I watched as she quickly gained a little too much liquid courage, took the flute from one of the Bards, and tried to play a tune before realizing what she was doing. it was the worst sound I had ever heard from an instrument, less like music and more like... screeching. I was trying to disguise the straight faced crowd by dancing a jig to the tune before she realized she was waisted. She was so free that day...so human. everything quickly came to a halt when we had to drunkenly evade the soldiers who weren't impressed by our choice of amusement. She grabbed my wrist and suddenly we were sprinting through town, smashing into barrels of fresh fruit and bottles of mead. I don't think I had ever seen her laugh that hard, and then before I knew it I was in her arms soaring towards the sky and over the walls of the city.

That was probably one of the best days of my life. I quickly snapped out of my day dream and realized the room was much brighter as the sun crept into the sky. I rushed to put my clothes on, tripping over the mead stained fabrics, slipped on my boots, and ran to the kitchen to start setting things up. as I made my way down the stone steps I was startled to see Líone was already awake sitting half outside of the window of our kitchen that overlooked Markarth, sipping her usual juniper tea.
"Awwwe you're awake??."

I walked over to the table and set down the burlap sacks filled with the decorations .
"I'm always up this early?" She said as she slowly turned her head to me and smirked that smirk that she smirks.
"Líoneeee I was so excited to surprise you! you couldn't have just pretended to stay asleep for like an hour?."
I walked up behind her and threw my arms around her leaning my head on her shoulders as we both looked out to the city below. We sat there for a moment and watched the sun rise.
"Sorry, I was done being tired."
I could sense the half grin on her face as she drew another sip of tea from her cup.
I smushed my face into hers. "You know it's your birthday riight?"

"Nielah...my birthday was yesterday."

I was immediately frozen in shock, I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. "Wha...what? YESTERDAY?!?"
"Yes...yesterday."
she took another sip of her tea, still grinning. I backed away slowly to try and grasp the fact that I'm such an idiot.
"Líone im Soooooo sorry, I CANNOT believe in the 4 years I've know you, that I would have ever made this mistake. I honestly could have sworn today was your birthday."

I sat down in a nearby chair to collect myself.

"I had so many things planned today, the decorations! The gifts! The cake!"
"Yea that all sounded so great, I guess we'll just have to go on about our lives as if it were a completely normal day...."
She spun around on the windows ledge and starred at me as if she found the whole situation funny.
I starred back at her puzzled for a minute.
She got up and walked to where I was sitting and knelt down to meet my eye.
"Today is my birthday Nel..." she slowly looked up at my jaw-dropped expression.
"Whatttt? Why did you make me think it wasn't?"