Chapter 9: Somewhere Else, Some Other Time

Felicia awoke slowly to the sound of humming coming from nearby. It was almost sunrise and the campfire from the night before had all but died completely, leaving a couple of stubborn glowing embers. It was still dark, and what little light the ashes were still producing didn't help her see very well. She knew where the humming was coming from though. "Do you always hum when you read?" she asked as she sat up on her bedroll.

Xander looked up from the spellbook he was studying glancing toward the direction of his sister. "I'm not reading, what you do with a spellbook when you're preparing for the day is way more complicated then 'reading'. It involves a whole other level of discipline and intelligence."

"Are you saying I have no discipline or intelligence then?" she asked back as she stood up.

Xander chuckled. "I wasn't saying that exactly, but now that you mention it. No you show a great deal of discipline with your chosen sword arts and its related techniques. It's just not the same kind of discipline, since you seem to want to simplify spellcasting to reading a book."

Felicia started her daily stretching routine to prepare for the day. "Well that stuff never caught my fancy and I definitely don't feel like I missed out on anything. When you were stuck inside day after day training under that wizard, I was having fun running obstacle courses and other challenges with my trainer."

"To each their own I guess" he said as he returned his attention to the spellbook again. "And the humming helps me to concentrate, so you'll have to keep putting up with it." He began to hum softly a few moments later.

Felicia smirked then started making clicking noises with her mouth. "And making annoying clicking noises helps my muscles stretch."

Xander groaned "You're so immature some days."

"I aim to please" she responded.

A couple minutes later as the two of them continued their morning preparations, the sun started to rise in the distance giving an increasing amount of light. When there was finally enough light to see their surroundings better, the both wrapped up what they were doing. Xander stood up from the log he had been sitting on. "Let's pack up camp and get going while the day is still young, we've got our work cut out for us today."

As Felicia started packing her belongings into her backpack she asked "What did the job notice say again?"

Xander pulled the rolled up parchment out of a scroll tube and scanned it quickly. "We are to supposed to deal with some local bandit activity on the road we're traveling today. Hopefully we don't appear too menacing and frighten them away."

Felicia laughed "Yeah, I don't think you have to worry any about appearing menacing. You're not very intimidating at all."

"Quit your teasing sister, I'd like to think I'm subtlety threatening. Well times a wasting, lets get into some trouble."

Felicia kicked some dirt into ashes of the campfire extinquishing the last embers from the fire and then followed Xander towards the road. "I hope I stretched enough, today sounds like its going to be lots of fun."