Two
Idrys woke as the sun pierced the canopy. He felt every bruise and scrape from the day before. With a groan he stood carefully and prodded the fire with a booted foot. It had died in the night. Cold breakfast it would be. Emyr woke when his brother moved and sat up.
“How’re the mighty hunter’s wounds this morning?” He smiled as he opened his pack and pulled out the leather-wrapped bundle of dried venison. Taking a long hard strip, he sawed off one end with his small knife and popped the meat into his mouth to soften.
“Give over, Em.” Idrys sat back down on his cloak beside his brother. “I feel like Govannon tried to reforge me overnight.” He took the strip of meat out of Emyr’s lap and cut himself a piece.
“Or perhaps like someone rolled you down a mountain?” Emyr was smug and not the least bit sore.
“I said leave off. Or I’ll give you a split chin to match mine.”
“I’d never wish to be so pretty as you,” Emyr said around his mouthful of meat, unperturbed.
“Is it really that bad?” Idrys tried to keep the vain whine from his voice without much success. Both twins were acclaimed for their height, their dark curling hair, and their strong and handsome faces. They’d just reached the age where the opinions of woman had begun to matter and they enjoyed the blushing attention.
Emyr glanced at his brother. It was really that bad.
The cut on his chin had scabbed in the night and now marred the clean line of his jaw. The purple bruise over his right eye had expanded its territory as well, reaching down to his cheek and up into his hairline.
Idrys had rinsed in the stream the night before, so at least his hair was clean in its braids. Pulled back from his face, however, his hair did nothing to hide the swelling of his forehead or the dark bruising. Another scrape that Emyr hadn’t noticed the night before graced his twin’s neck below the ear in long oozing weal to the shoulder.
Likely from his bow, Emyr thought. They hadn’t brought a change of clothing, meaning only to be gone a night at most and Idrys still wore his dusty tunic, the soft, deep brown weave streaked with dust. The threads were beginning to unravel around the torn shoulder.
“You should mend that. I think I’ve a needle,” Emyr said, trying to cover how long he’d been silent.
Idrys sighed as Emyr dug through his pack for the little stitching kit. He hated sewing, though he’d learned at his mother’s knee just like his brother. He knew better than to complain of “women’s work” around his fierce and stubborn mother. She’s going to laugh when she sees my stitching and probably not let me be until I admit she was right to make us learn.