"Honestly I don't think I get a ton of use out of pelling? Like, I'll hit one if it's there, but when I want to work on my arm strength I'd rather lift weights and when I want to work on everything else I'd rather fight pickups. Hitting a pell is just too different from hitting someone who's moving." She gives her drop spindle another flick to keep it going and drafts more wool.

"I pell because people usually aren't willing to fight pickups with me in the woods at dinnertime, but I would also prefer to hit someone who's moving, if you're volunteering...?"

Lucia settles back into her camp chair with her newly acquired bowl of soup. It's a folding plastic chair in an ugly shade of faded orange, but covered up with a keepsake cotton cover sewn to fit it so that it won't look out of place. Lucia herself is hidden under five layers of wool and still cold. 

"Here and now? Sure, why not, it's not like I changed clothes. Actually I should let you eat that soup first."

Under her giant wool cloak she's still in a four-year-old tunic that started out nice, got demoted to armor tunic, and is now about 50/50 sweat stains and patches. She'd've changed if there'd been court but court is tomorrow so fuck it.

Erik: "You're going to fall in the ditch in the dark."

Roger: "And knowing Luce, she's going to come back here soaking wet with freezing mud and try to persuade us that she enjoyed it."

Cináed: "While I would be happy to stand around and marshal, I'd gently remind you that swords make very loud bangs and some people are trying to sleep."

Lucia: "Yeah, fair. I was thinking tomorrow after court."

Lucia has changed; her fighting tunics tend to get soaked with sweat, and then it's very unpleasant once the sweat gets cold. She's not in the fancy Italian Renaissance gown she'll wear to court tomorrow (she hates overly elaborate gowns but she'll still wear one to court because she wants to be proper and decorous) - she changed into a simple warm Viking tunic in her household's red and gold, worn over leggings and a shirt. As the temperature dropped she layered her jerkin over it, then her cloak, then one of her blankets over her cloak. Lucia takes chills easily. 

"Oh right, sleep, that's a thing. Tomorrow after court it is. Maybe the mud'll dry out some tomorrow morning, even." Spin spin spin.

Erik is mock offended. "So I won't see either of you at the party tomorrow? You reject Erik's free fried chicken? You toss him aside like fried liver?" He is doing the voice he does for Miette.

"I think it's chopped liver," Aleksei offers.

"Your face is chopped liver," Roger mumbles, then dodges out of the way when Aleksei throws a balled-up napkin at him. 

Lucia had genuinely not been expecting anyone to take her up on the offer. Normally she says that she wants to get up at the crack of dawn to run a few miles before she starts her day, and everyone tells her she is insane and that they'll see her later after she comes to her senses, and then she has to do it on her own without any coffee. She's come to terms with the fact that most of the boys don't want to (don't need to) work the way she does, and sometimes think she's... she doesn't quite understand why "sweaty tryhard" is a negative thing, and nobody would say those words in the SCA, but whatever the negative thing about that is.

She already likes this arrival from Aethelmearc, but now she likes her a lot more.

"I don't think we're busy - there should be plenty of time between court and the party if I'm not cooking dinner - let me just double check with Duke Migliorotto in the morning about whether I'm supposed to be doing anything."

"I was figuring I'd help pack up the thrones and whatnot after court, because I'm retaining, but that'll take like ten minutes. We can beat each other up and then eat fried chicken." It's so good that there are people who actually like to cook, so she can burn a gajillion calories and then shovel bread and meat into her face about it.

"Lucia's going to be a bad influence on you," grumbles Aleksei, mostly joking. "You'll be a typical Atlantian thug in no time."

Roger shakes his head. "Never rely on retaining to take ten minutes. You'll think that, and then the queen will hear that you like spinning and come up with twenty people that she needs to introduce you to right now because they also like spinning, and then they'll all try to help you."

There's some sort of meaningful look being exchanged between Roger and Lucia, but Lucia makes a wiggling hand gesture and breaks eye contact, and Roger goes back to tending the fire. 

"It's true. It happened to me," Cináed adds gravely, covering up whatever was exchanged. "I accidentally came home with ten pounds of fabric and a box of cookies." 

"These are the risks we take for Queen and Kingdom," she says, giving Lucia a questioning glance but not expecting this to yield much in the way of explanation.

"It's alright. If you end up not having time, I can literally just hit my pell like I was going to anyway." Lucia avoids the questioning glance by busying herself with her soup. 

"Yeah, but fighting is fun and you're cool, so here's hoping. "

Lucia nods (mouth too full of soup to reply), and for a moment there's a comfortable peace - though not really any quiet. The fire crackles and pops, the trees rustle occasionally in the slight breeze, and in the far distance the pirate-mercenary-anarchist camp is drumming and cheering.

Aleksei breaks the spell by rising from his wooden bench, brushing his trousers off and draining the last of his cider. "I should get to bed. I can't be too tired tomorrow, someone has to keep us all vaguely tuneful."

Erik takes his cue to groan and get up as well, tidying his cup and bowl into a neat pile to wash up. "I hate to sleep this early but I think I'm on the rota for breakfast."

"You are," Cináed confirms quietly.

"Every day we confront such horrors." Erik isn't really complaining, though being the first awake to make coffee and bacon is hardly his favourite chore.

The other relative newcomers around the fire (except Samora) also make their excuses and start packing away scarves and cups and craft projects and armour-repair tools. Then Erik and Aleksei and their unnamed companions slip away into the darkness in search of their tents, chased by a chorus of, "Goodnight!" and, "Sleep well!" and "Don't let the radioactive tarantulas bite!"

Lucia, Cináed, Roger and Samora remain around the campfire. Often this is where the conversation might find itself becoming less rowdy banter, and more gossip or advice or philosophy; small groups can cover topics that larger groups might be too public for, and late night feels somehow appropriate for deep meaningful conversations, and Roger in particular finds it easier to talk about his feelings when he's had alcohol. 

Darkness does make it easier to say things sometimes, doesn't it. Darkness and only having a small number of people to pay attention to the reactions of.

"So there's something I'm kind of looking for advice on."

"How can we help?"

Lucia can sense this is something important to Sergia, so she makes a show of putting down her mostly-empty soup bowl down by the fireside and folding her hands in her lap. (She doesn't realise that she comes off a little intense when she focuses her full attention on someone.)

Samora doesn't mind; being able to take things seriously is important. She's packed up her spinning as well. "When you two got belts," she gestures to Lucia and Roger, "did you ask for them, or did you wait to be offered?"

"Sir Reynhard asked me. It was actually Katherine that invited me to his household practice, so I went there a few times and started kind of fighting with their unit. Right after I got my Osprey, Reynhard joked about how they wanted to keep me but he was sure that some knight would snap me up as a squire now that people were paying attention to me, and it would be such a pity if they couldn't keep me, and I totally didn't get what he was hinting at whatsoever." Roger grins. "He had to sit me down and explicitly offer it." 

Lucia pauses thoughtfully for a long time, figuring out how to phrase this. She doesn't often admit to this, but she likes Sergia and wants her to be prepared for all the different things that might happen. "The first time I asked His Grace, he said no. Apparently he thought I didn't understand what I wanted to sign up for, but he made it clear it wasn't a forever no, just - he thought I wasn't ready. So I worked really hard and got a lot better at fighting, and then I asked him again and he said no again, and I didn't want to be that person who pesters someone after getting two nos, so I kind of poked around the subject until he gave me a list of things I'd need to do before I'd be ready. Then I did all of them and I was waiting for him to notice, but he didn't, so I gave up and asked him and then he said yes." 

He'd also said a lot of other things, about how he'd been hoping she'd ask again because she really had seemed like she had potential (and how he'd wanted to say yes in the beginning but had been more worried about whether she'd regret it then whether he would), but Lucia gets self-conscious about saying anything that feels too much like bragging. Her knight has repeatedly made it clear to her that even if other people expect more from her because she's squired to a superduke, she's still not allowed to name-drop him like it's a claim to rank; squire is a job, not a title. Lucia recognises Samora's question for what it is, too, and she's trying to focus on information that might be useful to her comrade. When she'd been trying to figure out whether to approach Migliorotto, she'd done the same sort of poking-around-the-subject-without-really-saying-it, unable to speak openly for fear of the supreme awkwardness of everyone knowing that she'd asked and he'd said no. 

"Thanks, that helps some. There's someone I want to ask, and I'd be fine just waiting and trying to be impressive, but I don't know if they even want a squire, like as a general thing. And if they just don't want to deal with having dependents or whatever then I want to know that so I can stop hoping, but if I'm not good enough I don't want to stick them with the awkwardness of turning me down."

Or worse, telling her they don't like having dependents because they don't want to say "it's because you suck" to her face. If she sucks she wants to know that, and ideally exactly how and why, so she can stop.

Cináed frowns a little. "I don't think it's the right framing, that it's all about whether you're good enough. It's about whether you're both the right fit for each other." He debates internally for a few seconds, then continues, "I've turned down two people. You're just as much allowed to say no as they are." 

He gets a surprised look from Roger, who hadn't realised Cináed had turned people down. Cináed isn't going to name names, though. 

"Yeah, for sure. And I'd want to talk about it with them and make sure we were on the same page about stuff, before actually taking a belt, I just don't know whether--actually, you know what, this conversation is going to work a lot better if I just say who it is. It's Sir Nicole. She's been giving me some great advice at practices, and I think I could learn a ton from her, but I don't want to make her think I've just been fishing for a belt this whole time and make things awkward. God," she laughs, "I sound like a high schooler trying to work up the nerve to ask their crush out." But have you considered that Sir Nicole is SO skilled and SO fast and Sergia wants to be her when she grows up.

"I'm going to say so many nice things at your funeral," Roger says immediately. "You are going to die horribly, but I will- ow!"

Cináed's boot is already poised to kick Roger in the shins a second time.

"Okay, I deserved that a little," Roger admits. 

"You did," Cináed concurs simply, but with no malice or hard feelings in his voice. He moves his foot back to a comfortable spot, outstretched towards the fire. 

Lucia spreads her hands in a calming gesture, directed at the whole fire. "You're not going to die - it's just - maybe an unfortunate choice of language. I think we have all sounded like a high schooler nervous about asking a crush out - okay, maybe self excepted - they're not dissimilar conversations in some ways. It's just - Sir Nicole in particular deals with a lot of people half her age having crushes on her." 

Lucia also isn't sure whether this is a good idea, but Roger is reacting like someone who has gotten himself thoroughly on Nicole's bad side, and it ought to be quite possible for Sergia to avoid doing that so long as everyone is very clear that Sergia definitely doesn't have a crush on her. Cináed has already kicked him, so Lucia decides she doesn't need to also glare at Roger. 

Sergia facepalms. "Oh, god, what, no, completely a metaphor, she's old enough to be my mom probably and also I don't swing that way." Obviously there's nothing wrong with any combination of preferences there, but if and when it does become time for romance to be part of her life she will be looking for men. "I just think she's really cool and I want to be as good as she is at kicking the asses of people a foot taller than me."