Drunken Endeavors

    Khaly walks up to me, "Where've you been all day?" 

    "Oh, you know. 'Shopping' at the Honningbrew Meadery." I grin devilishly and dump the bottles of mead on the floor.

    "How many of them did you get?" Khaly exclaims.

    I shrug, "All I could find, probably around three hundred bottles or so." She smiles, nodding, and picks up two meads. She hands one to me and I twist the top off.

    "Cheers!" We cry at the same time, chugging back the mead.

    "I told ya, I'm th' List'n'r!" Khaly slurs the words together. "The Night Moth'r told me to.... Well, to do something. Think it had to do something with fire and Astrid."
    "Khaly... I'm the Listener. Don't you remember Cicero going insane-- Oh wait... he's always insane." I reply, barely comprehensible. Empty mead bottles litter the floor around us.

    "Now I remember! I had to set Astrid on fire! Get ovah here Astrid!" Khaly yells, getting to her feet then falling back down. Astrid leans against the doorway into the room, watching us.

    "Le's sing that song... th' one about the Dr'gon thing." Khaly says. "How does it start again?"
    "I think it goes 'Dovahken! Dovahken! By something is sworn. Yada yada, blah blah a bunch of junk about saving the world.' You know, the usual." I explain. "How about 'Ragnar the Red'? That one's easier."
    Khaly nods, then starts off. "There once was a h'ro named Ragner the Red who came riding to Whiterun from old Ror'kstead!"

    "Something something death death. And the braggart named Ragner was... beautiful no moooooore...." I chime in.

    "WHEN HIS UGLY RED HEAD ROLLED AROUND ON THE FLOOR!" Khaly and I finish together really loudly and completely off-key.

    Suddenly, Khaly reaches out towards Astrid with her right hand and casts a flame spell, which stops just short of the doorway.

    "It's too far." I helpfully point out. "It's too far." I repeat, louder.

    "Oh." She says, sadly, stopping the spell.

    "Ya know Arnbjorn's a wer'wolf, right?" Khaly asks. 

    "Hmm? Oh yeah. I'm one too." I reply, not really paying attention.

    "W'll, I have a draugr bone. D'ya think we could get him to go all wolfy on us?"
    "That would kinda suck. Just sayin'. But okay." I get to my feet unsteadily. I help Khaly to her feet and she stumbles, almost falls, but I catch her. She pulls out the dragur bone and we wander over to the training dummies, where Arnbjorn usually is.

    "Ohhh Arnbjorn! C'mere ya big fluffy puppy!" Khaly calls out in a sing-song voice. We find him working at the workbench.

    "For the record, calling him a fluffy puppy might get us killed." I mutter to Khaly. She brushes me off and brandishes the bone, smiling brightly. Arnbjorn stares at her, then me.

    "Want a mead?" I offer a bottle.

    He hesitates a moment, "No. And I don't want the bone either." Khaly pouts, then sets the bone on his workbench. I mouth "Sorry" and take Khaly back to our pile of meads.

    

    "I'm bored." Khaly complains, sitting back down. "Let's do something excitin' and dang'rous."

    "Uh, like what?" I ask.

    "I know!" She cries, getting a strange glint in her eyes. "Le's go raid one of them band't f'rts!" 

    "Yeah!" I agree, getting up again.

    "You two should go to bed. Now." Astrid tells us. Khaly and I share a glance.

    "Yeah, I'm tired." I say. Khaly nods and curls up on the ground, amidst the empty mead bottles. In seconds, she's out cold. I manage to stumble my way into the area with the beds and find an empty one. I'm out cold before my head even touches the pillow.