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It is early spring in the fair kingdom of Atlantia, and in the barony of Kalomeros it is just barely warm enough to hold camping events - though still cold enough that the kingdom's older members have mostly fucked off to various hotels. Earlier in the day, a battle was fought for very high stakes indeed; those who preferred pineapple on pizza won a great victory over those who hated it. The fighters spent much of the early evening enthusiastically praising one another's exploits on the field, every tale growing with each telling until it seemed half the Atlantian army had each singlehandedly slain the other half, and before sunset everyone had settled down for dinner as friends once more.
Now it is dark and there's a touch of frost in the air. The remaining Atlantians huddle into woollen cloaks in the camps of their baronies and households, around campfires dotted like a constellation through the shadowed woods, singing and gossiping and flirting and making plans for the rest of the long weekend.
At the edge of the battlefield and the woods there is a campfire where a group of fighters are singing The Veil (loudly, slightly drunkenly, and noticeably less on-key than the first four times they sang it this evening) under the banner of the hosting Barony of Kalomeros. Almost all of the fighters there have places elsewhere that they could be, and normally would be; Lucia and Roger often camp with their respective knights' households, Aleksei with his bardic group, Cináed with his Gaelic household and Erik with the freewheeling anarchist pirate-mercenary group currently getting obscenely drunk at the edge of the forest. But when they were a few years younger, and hadn't yet found their way to those places, they had camped together in their baronial camp - a camp that is always open to newbies who need a place to be. For old times' sake, they reunite each year at their baronial camp at War of the Magnolias.
There are newcomers in the camp, too, and they are cheerfully included in the easy camaraderie shared between that group of squires and men-at-arms and Krakens. Not everyone manages to remember their names just yet, but nobody would forget to offer them food or invite them along on adventures. Atlantians aren't uncivilised.
Aleksei finishes leading the song and then, coughing, relocates himself upwind of the fire to avoid the trails of smoke that have been chasing him for hours. "I think that may be all the lute for this evening. My fingers have to hold a sword tomorrow."
There is a little wailing and gnashing of teeth at this, but everyone understands. Erik is passing around another round of ciders, and that helps.
In the quiet, idle chitchat begins:
Roger: "Did any of you guys see Thorsteinn?"
Cináed: "Yeah, he went to bed half an hour ago, some nonsense about getting a responsible amount of sleep before battle."
Roger: "Sounds lame. I need to ask him heraldry questions."
Lucia: "No you don't-"
Erik: "Is this about that abomination? The.... rainbow vomiting unicorn thing?" (Erik is curled up so deep inside his cloak that everyone keeps thinking he's asleep, until he says something and reveals he isn't.)
Aleksei: "Sorry, what?"
Roger: "Absolutely not."
Cináed: "You know they're never going to register that."
Roger: "Yeah, at this point I'm mostly asking because Thorsteinn makes a great face when he's heraldically suffering."
Aleksei: "Yeah, okay, I can see it."
Lucia: "Do we have any soup left, by the way?"
Erik: "Yeah. Want me to get you a bowl or just pass you the pot around?"
Lucia: "I'll get it. You look too cosy to disturb." She throws another piece of wood on the fire on her way past.
Cináed: "That soup was so good by the way, thank you Lucia, can it be your turn to cook more often?"
Lucia: "Only if it's someone else's turn with the dishes more often. I have pell work to do."
Erik: "You're doing pell work after battle - like, you brought your pell?"
Lucia: "Unlike some of you I need to actually work if I want to not be awful."
Roger: "Are you sure it's not just because you're squired to the meanest duke in existence?"
Aleksei: "This is why I never want a red belt."
Lucia: "He has no opinions whatsoever on whether I bring my pell to war."
The conversation is idle banter, but the mood is in that odd place just after the serious bards pack their instruments away, where it could go any direction; a suggestion of a boisterous singalong could lead to a few hours of dirty jokes and alcohol, while a serious question might lead to a night of long philosophical conversations.
