Lyall sat looking up at the ominous, unforgiving sunset sky, his knees pressed to his chest. He couldn't believe that Ajax had left him and Alphora, and out in the Creep mountain range no less. It must have been something that Lyall had done, he must've been too impossible to help or something, too clumsy, too weak, too cowardly, too whatever. Even Alphora, his own used-to-be-best-friend-that-he-had-known-his-entire-life didn't hold on to much faith in him. Which made sense, Alphora was better than him in every way, she was stronger than him, braver than him, more coordinated. While Lyall wasn't good at anything, he was just a useless coward with nothing going for him. He heard Alphora's sharp, feathery footsteps coming around behind him, not even struggling on the slippery crags like he had. "What are you doing out here? I need your help setting up camp," she said, her voice cold and layered, like ice crystals . "It's not like I'm any use anyways, I wouldn't be able to split firewood, even if we had an ax, and I'm straight up pebbles at hunting. You should just leave me, like you said," he said, hearing his own voice sound so scratchy and whiny, like splintering wood. Alphora thumped him hard on his shoulder, looking guilty. "What was that for?!" he whined, rubbing his shoulder. "For saying that. I shouldn't have said what I said earlier, I was being stupid and angry. I was... upset that Ajax left." "You were still right, I'm useless," he grumbled. She thumped him again, only this time harder. "Shut up. You /are/ useful. I haven't even /started/ setting up camp yet, you know why? Because I can't plan to save my life, that's your strong-suit. And don't act like I haven't seen the things you would write in that old journal-thing-whatever that you used to have. Now get up, you lazy, ingenious idiot." /But what does planning have to do with setting up a campsite? She's just saying that to make me feel better,/ thought Lyall at the same time as his body betrayed him by getting up and walking off with Alphora.
ahh, this is a bit short, I know. Let me know your opinion on their interaction though, I was experimenting with this scene for the book that I'm writing :P (and in the case that you're wondering, no, this is not an excerpt, I renamed the characters, changed their situation and put them in a different universe)
