Nudging the sleeping idiot with my boot, I watched in amusement as she slowly, sluggishly began to awaken, her earlier bravado gone after being able to snuggle up in her bedroll beneath a nice earthen burrow.
"C'mon, get up you overgrown lug. We have to get going within the next few minutes if we want to be efficient."
Starting at her arm and then working up towards her face, I forced a groan out of her before smirking as I said "Keep faking this sleep and I'll kick the one part of you that's standing up already.", getting her to jolt upright as she shielded herself from an attack that wasn't coming.
"Morning wood that no one is gonna take care of... how sad. Either go rub one out real fast or just deal with it, alright? We don't have too much time."
Scoffing slightly and standing up, she ignored me and began to pack her things before taking out one of the pieces of jerky to stave off her hunger, letting me know we were good to go right now; the Geri were well rested and seemed to understand that we only had a short distance left, so they were more than ready for us.
"Missing it already?"
Tossing herself onto the back of her mount and glancing at me, the white haired buck just clicked her tongue and replied "Weren't you the one just rushing me? C'mon already, old lady. We got places to be, don't we?"
Letting that insult roll off of me, I mounted my own Geri and began leading it forwards, taking a look at the map once to figure out where exactly we needed to go before glancing back at her, a question creeping onto my tongue.
She sensed it though and immediately said "Listen, I know what you're wanting to talk about, alright? Camara and I will be fine; I'm an idiot, I know what I did wrong, and I don't plan on letting things fall through. So don't even think about mentioning it, alright? It'll be fine."
"That's somewhat reassuring, but I am going to go ahead and remind you that you are a giant idiot. Must come from your Mother... I never made a decision like this, so it must be from that side of the bloodline."
"You never made a decision that made you look stupid? Yeah, sure... you might just be older than I thought..."
"Hm... no, I never made a decision like that~! See, I circumvented that by just not having a woman for the longest time, y'know? Kinda learned my lesson after my first proper one accused me of rape."
That just made her snort and shake her head as she raced up beside me, keeping pace and watching the mountain grow ever closer; since we had the time she was willing to entertain me and jived "I would argue that's worse than what I've done. I made a small, easily rectifiable mistake. You misjudged someone and turned yourself into a criminal on the run."
"A very handsome, talented, strong and amazing criminal who managed to steal the heart of the greatest woman to ever exist~! Remind me again how that is 'worse'~? Besides, that would imply that YOU were a mistake, and your Mother and I definitely didn't make you by mistake..."
Rolling her eyes and just waving me off, Aethisia let the conversation die off for a few moments before she asked "What exactly are we going to be facing up here? Bandits or mercenaries? I wasn't really paying close attention with how this little plot line with the other Duchess as unfurling..."
"Mercenaries posing as bandits in a small town that makes its money off of mining and a little farming. Shouldn't be terribly equipped, apparently just faced an attack from other 'bandits' and took a good hit so they are lacking some numbers now..."
Letting the conversation flow to a new topic seemed right for now since she seemed a little touchy about the idea of her mate being stolen from her - understandable, honestly, but I was going to tease her about it eventually - helped us pass the time and prepare all at once.
"Gear wise they shouldn't be that well equipped either, especially not when compared to us. No notable mages, skilled enchanters or alchemists, so no crazy magic or potions to deal with. Monsters in the area aren't that much of a threat either, and if anything we can use them to our advantage if need be.
Maybe like fifteen or twenty of them remain? Maximum of two dozen, all of them shaken and bored out of their minds now. If you want we can hit them hard right away or we can be smart and survey them for a little while, maybe strike at noon. Target a shift change and work from there."
Aethisia mulled over that information for a few moments more before she pursed her lips and murmured "Shoulda brought my bow, huh..?", which made me roll my eyes as I said "It's on your saddle, dumbass. You're lucky that your Mother is so antsy about this sort of thing and that I'm not an idiot like you."
Before she could even try to look for it I added "Astra made a new kind of bow for you, one that comes apart and is easy to conceal. Two metal rods that screw together with some nice bowstring are hidden in the saddle, and you have two dozen arrows bundled up in one of the bags."
The violet haired beauty really did spoil us since this was the sort of thing I had always dreamed of having; some sort of easily concealed and powerful bow that didn't weigh a dozen pounds and stood as tall as me was a very difficult thing to find, but she just made them last minute.
This was going to be quite the little 'adventure' for us thanks to her, and I was rather happy that Aethisia at least recognized that her skill with the bow was still there and that it would be a good skill to exercise against these mercenaries... even if she forgot to bring a damn bow.