[h3][b]Aramir, Auriel, E'nasha and Hyllos[/b][/h3]


Aramir glanced over from where she was herding the last animal to Liam’s cart to be hitched, being too short to properly hitch...anything, seeing Auriel heading towards the back of the carts. [i]Why do I get the feeling something bad is about to happen?[/i] She asked herself, taking a few steps towards the Forest Elf as Liam began working on hitching the animal to the cart. [i]Because it’s Auriel.[/i] The little snow elf sighed, and headed quickly towards where she had seen Auriel disappear behind the carts, glancing out over the edge of the plateau to where the Roc had flown. She couldn’t see anything, which was probably a good thing. Probably. 

As she rounded the carts to spot Auriel, she called out to the Forest Elf. “What are you doing?”

Auriel suppressed her surprise quickly at the sound of Aramir’s voice behind her. The sight of all that gleaming metal in the carts was just too much for her to resist, and she had gone around the other side of the cart to get a better look at them. Of course, while getting a better look, one of the particularly nice gold and ruby rings had disappeared down her top. Another one had made it onto her finger, and she was just about to pull it off when she was discovered. She turned around slowly, keeping her hand behind her while trying to look natural. “Aramir… I’m uh… just checking on the cart. Making sure it’s secure.” Her voice got more confident as she went, sorting her story out in her mind even as she spoke.

Aramir sighed, running a hand through her hair. She knew exactly what Auriel had just been doing, and no amount of skilled lying was going to change that. “You know, we’re supposed to be returning all of this stuff. Not stealing it. Put back whatever’s in your hand, and down your shirt. I know you Auriel, don’t try to continue lying.” She eyed Auriel with an exasperated look on her face.

 “You do realize that whoever owns these carts is going to check their inventory, eventually find out that whatever you have that it wasn’t left here, and they’re gonna check Lucilia’s records to see who was on the mission and start asking questions and searching, right? So please, put everything down your top and in your finger back? I’d rather not have to deal with guardsmen questioning me and we both know I’d give you away in a heartbeat, terrible liar as I am.” She shifted uneasily, somehow feeling that the Forest Elf wasn’t going to put anything back.

E’nasha finished double-checking all the ropes holding the animals before starting to wonder where the two Elves had gone off to. She walked around the carts to see them having a conversation, though she was far enough away to not know what they were saying. She yelled over to them. “Hey, all the carts are tied up! Time to go.”

Aramir cursed in her native language, glancing back at E’nasha and yelling back “We just need a minute!” She glared back up at Auriel. “Put them back, quickly, before we all end up as giant bird chow or she comes over here and finds out that you’re stealing from the carts. I might be willing to put up with your almost obsessive need to steal, but I doubt she will. And I don’t want to fight someone we just saved.” She jerked her thumb at E’nasha.

E’nasha walked over to them as they spoke, pretty much sneaking up on the Snow elf. “You wouldn’t have to fight me, you’d just have to tolerate my preaching for a while.” She smiled at the two, showing the joke. “Put whatever it is back, and let’s get going, ok?”

“Humph.” Auriel stamped her foot and looked terribly injured, mortified even, as though asking her to put back the jewelry was the worst thing anyone had asked her to do. For a moment she just glared at Aramir, then sulkily held out her hand to Aramir. “But it’s so pretty…” She whined. “And I was gonna put it back... eventually…” She continued in the same hurt tone.

Aramir rolled her eyes as she took the ring off of Auriel’s finger. “Sure you were. And I can turn into a dragon!” She put the ring back on the wagon, narrowing her eyes at the forest elf. “All of them Auriel. Even the ones you stuck down your top.” Aramir held out her hand, hoping she would make things easy for once. 

At that Auriel’s sulking expression shifted suddenly and drastically to a sly grin, and instead of retrieving the ring, she knelt down on the ground so the much shorter elf would be able to reach it herself. It was too much fun to force her to get it herself if she really wanted Auriel to stop this particular theft. She had, however, entirely forgotten that there was a second ring there too, the one given to her during the strange incident in the forest beforehand. One that she had wanted to keep away from Aramir until she’d had time to think.

Aramir’s hopes were dashed as she saw the expression on Auriel’s face change abruptly. [i]Gods help me.[/i] She thought, dismay crossing her face as she saw Auriel get on her knees. She knew exactly what the Forest elf wanted, and was already turning red at the thought. For a moment, her morals wrestled with the very tempting prospect of just letting Auriel have the damn ring. Unfortunately, her morals won out and she gritted her teeth and walked forward. By the time she was within arms reach she was bright red. “I’m going to get you back for this.” She whispered to her roommate, finally just shoving her hand down Auriel’s top. 

Much to her surprise, she found not one ring, but two. The ring she knew was in Auriel’s top she managed to grab, but the ring she hadn’t expected had somehow gotten onto her finger. As she pulled her hand out she could feel something changing. Things were being removed. It was a very [i]odd[/i] feeling. She could feel herself returning to her normal blue color, and gave Auriel her own grin.   

Before the Forest Elf could react, Aramir placed the hand with the ring on it on the back of Auriel’s neck and kissed her for a long moment. When she was done she leaned forward and whispered in the Forest Elf’s ear. “Just wait till we get back to the College….”

Auriel’s grin persisted as Aramir gave into her morals over her embarrassment, her skin changing to a shade not unlike Auriel’s fiery hair. However, when Aramir’s hand came out, there was another ring, this one already on her finger. The moment Auriel saw it, her expression changed to one of pure shock, for she remembered exactly what it was, and what it was supposed to do. Before she could reach for Aramir’s hand to get it off, the small, now blue again, elf was kissing her, a surprising and unpleasant, for a change, turn of events. She pulled back, but was left speechless. She didn’t have the slightest idea what to do now, and numbly nodded as Aramir spoke.

E’nasha watched the event in mild horror and confusion until she forced herself to look away. “Umm, we should be going down the plateau now right? Don’t- um, don’t make me have to separate you.” 

Aramir frowned in mock disappointment at Auriel’s silence. “What, nothing to say? Don’t worry, we’ll fix that when we get back.” She gave a suggestive smile towards her roommate, before turning towards E’nasha, an innocent look on her face. “Separate us? Whatever for? We weren’t doing anything wrong. I was just expressing my relief at Auriel not choosing to steal the items we came to recover.” She suddenly gave a sly grin at the human. “Unless, of course, you were feeling left out?”

“What?! Uh, no I think I’m going to, uh leave and-” E’nasha started panicking to the point where she couldn’t speak coherently anymore, so she mumbled something and went back to the front of the carts to start them down the plateau.

“Aww. I guess not.” Aramir commented before shrugging and looking over her shoulder at Auriel. “Well, come on. I can’t drive a cart, and the sooner we get to the College the sooner I get to pay you back.” She gave Auriel a smile that implied all sorts of things would happen when they got back to their room.

Hyllos continued to fly looking for the people her mistress told her about and spotted them.In was in the sunlight so she couldn’t be really seen and she flew down lower until she was flying in front of Aramir and Auriel and asked. “Are you the ones  Colette told me to find?”

“Um…” Auriel began, starting to slowly recover from the shock of the radical change to Aramir’s demeanour brought on by the magic ring. “I think so?” She said to address the bat.

Aramir jumped only slightly as Hyllos landed in front of them. “Colette, the cute girl who went with her cute friend Annabeth to fight the Roc? I assume that since you’re here, you won the fight against the Roc? Did everyone survive? Is it coming back here?” 

“We are fine,Colette surprisingly made a choice to make me a familiar and then she killed the roc herself protecting Annabeth” Hyllos said

“Ok then…” Auriel said somewhat skeptically. She didn’t really know about this talking bat, but neither did she care. She was still processing the change in Aramir. “Lets just get going shall we?” She said, leaping up onto a cart.

“That’s great!” Aramir said, clapping her hands together. “Tell Colette we’ll be on our way shortly, provided we don’t crash on the way down the mountain.” With that, she clambered aboard the cart with Auriel, and they headed off to regroup.