Lonely One

Chapter 9 - Working Hard

××Stormy××

As my eyes opened to a new morning, I found Niton already awake and standing over me. I groaned and rolled over, my back popping uncomfortably from sleeping on the hard ground for another night. I rolled far enough to press my face into Fallows furry back. He huffed as I wrapped an arm around him but settled back down as we both tried to fall back to sleep.

The tip of Nitons shoe pressed against my back, "I'm going to take the good bedroom if you don't get up."

That had my eyes wide open. I shot up, my hair flying up around my face as I tried to stand up too quickly. He caught my arm to help me steady myself. I yanked my arm from his grasp, pressed my hands to my hips and looking up at him.

"I'm ready."

Niton looked me up and down, his lips turning up into a smirk.

"You're barefoot," My eyes glanced downwards to my shoeless feet, "and your hair is a mess," My hands shot upwards to find my shoulder-length hair in a frizzy, tangled disaster of a situation. I grumbled and rolled my eyes, pushing him away by the chest.

"Give me a few minutes." Niton laughed but walked away towards the house. I quickly pulled my shoes on and ran my hands through my hair, yelping quietly as I hit knots. Fallow grunted as I shoved him slightly.

"C'mon, if I have to he up, so do you." Fallow stood up slowly, glaring at me slightly as he shook his head to wake himself up, batting me slightly with his large antlers. I rolled my eyes and pushed his head away as I made my way towards the cabin.

Niton stood inside the doorway, sweeping away at the floor in the kitchen.

"I'll take the kitchen and living room, if you want to start on the bedrooms," Niton spoke up.

"Do we really have the means to clean anything?"

"I found some supplies under the sink. I'll pick more up if we need it."

As he said, old rags and an assortment of cleaning supplies sat under the sink. I gathered what I needed and started on my bedroom first.

By the time the cleaning was done in the two bedrooms, Niton had finished the kitchen and sitting room. The couch still looked a little grimy and some cabinet doors were missing but it was much much better.

The rest of the fixing took us a few days to complete as we had to gather wood and cut it down correctly to fix what we could of the broken furniture. The leg on my bed was fixed and we eventually figured out how to make a rough looking bed frame from scratch.

"It doesn't look good."

"But it works." Niton agreed with my words.

Cabinets were a little harder but I focused on those while Niton made a trip into Minril Village. He was unsure about leaving me alone here; it wasn't hard to see he thought I'd probably leave. He still made the trip anyways, returning with plenty of supplies like kitchenware and bedding. The latter I was grateful for. As much as I scrubbed those mattresses, I didn't trust to sleep on them with no barrier between me and the old fabric. Niton didn't seem to care since he disappeared into his room every night without fail since the second day we arrived.

"Today, we train," Niton spoke one morning as I glanced around the house to decide what we needed to do next.

"Really?!" I asked excitedly. Niton smiled and nodded.

"Where do we start?" I questioned as he led me outside.

"First, you need to learn how to make an arrow. Then we can move onto learning how to shoot." I nodded right along with his every word. We traveled into the forest, picking up sticks, logs and feathers as we went.

The next few hours were spent by both of us carving the wood and attaching all the pieces together. It felt good taking a moment to sit down and rest, even if we were still working. My carving skills came in handy; my steady hands and practice with the knife made the process easy and quick. Niton looked a little amazed as I picked it up so quickly and it secretly made me feel a lot better about the messy situation I had gotten myself in.

In no time, we had a large stack of arrows at our feet.

"Lets take these back to the cabin," Niton spoke, gathering half of them up in his hands.

"And then?" I asked, drawing out my words expectantly as I gathered up what remained, using Fallow to haul myself up.

"And then we will train."

"Yes!"

I pushed him to go faster as we made our way back to the cabin, Fallow trailing lazily behind us. We set the arrows against the side of the cabin on the porch, Niton promising to make a proper holder for them in a few days.

"Okay, so how do we start?" I rushed, skipping up to Niton with the bow he had created for me slung over my shoulder.

"Actually, before we begin, I have a gift. I picked it up when I was in the village," Niton spoke.

"Really?" I asked. The bow was already gift enough and I wouldn't even consider us friends.

"You don't need to get me gifts," I added, watching as he stepped inside the house.

"Well, it is a gift but it is also something you will need." That piqued my interest. I watched as Niton exited the house, his hands holding the gift behind his back.

He pulled the gift in front of him, showing off a simple leather quiver. It was simple but still a very pretty chestnut brown.

"Thank you," I said, smiling brightly. He helped me position it correctly on my shoulders and then added a few arrows in for use today.

"You'll need it, no thanks are required. We'll start with the basics of how to hold the bow and string an arrow correctly and then move on to shooting. How does that sound?"

"It sounds great."