Never Again

Elrohir groaned as he woke very, very reluctantly.  The light was too bright; the birdsong too loud.  There was a pain in his head as if all Aulë’s dwarves were hammering in concert, and a taste in his mouth like scrapings from the floor of the barn where the hens roosted.

He opened one eye.  Elladan stood over him; maliciously, deliberately sober.  “Still asleep, little brother?  I was awake early this morning, and now it must be nearly noon.”

Dimly he recalled dinner last night, and the bet.  He groaned again, and pulled a pillow over his head. 

Never again.