"Food's more interesting.  Up north they gotta pack it as dense as they can for the Teleports, so's the same thing every day."

"I've seen only a few forts and the patrol road, but I like it so far.  Especially the river, I'd no idea they freeze only on the top."

"Whaddya mean only on the top?"  Confused look.

"That there is, um, ordinary water yet under the ice?"  She glances at Cambra as though she suspects the squad of playing a prank on her.

"Oh!  Well, yeah, 'course there is.  You haven't got ice in Cheliax??  Aren't you north of here?  ...Or is it so north that the rivers freeze all the way through?  That'd be something."

"Oh!  No, I'm- that is, I know not what rivers in Cheliax do, I'm from Osirion.  We've only flood and not flood season, I'd never seen snow before I came here."

"Ohh!  I've got no idea where that is.  Must be damned far, to not have any snow at all, I can't imagine!  But you did come here from up north, right, and they've got snow and things there?"

"Mmhmm!  Northern Garund, across the Inner Sea from Absalom, it's all desert save the flood areas.  But yes, you're right, we've seen only snow and sometimes trees on the way here."

"Well I've heard of Absalom, anyway," she comments a bit dubiously, then gives up thinking about far-away countries as a bad job and turns to Cambra.  "So what's the one thing y'all eat every day? Just in case I gotta threaten the boys with something," grin.

"Rice 'n beef- they load the oxen up with everything else an' slaughter 'em at the fort.  Cabbage or onion if we're real lucky."  Khalida can probably tell he's being a little smug about beef every day.  "What've your boys done that you've gotta threaten 'em about?"  He's still leaning against the wall where he moved aside, easy and loose-limbed, weight far enough back that if he made a move towards Marta she'd see it coming a mile off.

She's watching his easy stance with more curiosity than wariness. 

"Oh, it's always something," amused.  "Leave a mess in the storeroom, steal shit and think I can't tell, complain to the commander about what we haven't got enough of like it's my fault. But I can't exactly threaten them with getting beef every day, now can I."  Snort.  "Tell me something you've really got worse, make me feel better."

"I bet."  He eyes her thoughtfully, then smirks a bit.  "Well, the fort we all started off at's running on Lastwall rules now, so's the commander can't get... creative with punishments anymore."

(Khalida is so very focused on this cistern.  She is definitely Creating Water over here and definitely not trying to smother a laugh.)

"Oh yeah? What was he doing before?"  She does look a little apprehensive about this conversational direction, but the curiosity is clearly winning out.

"What, you'd have me tell on the man after he's all reformed?"  Cambra is the very picture of wounded innocence, or at least he would be if he were quite calibrated up to Mendevian standards.  "He had us break up the rack in the mess for firewood an' everything."

Thoughtful headtilt.  "Well if he's all reformed he shouldn't be hiding what he's done, should he? I'm pretty sure that's another one of the things the church goes on about."

"I mean, he ain't hiding..."

"At any rate, if you wish how they're worse," Khalida interrupts, "they've now fewer than a dozen clerics along the entire line."

She smirks at Cambra and looks about to say something, but lets Khalida head her off. "Now there's an unpleasantness all right."

"And you're, what, taking on the Lastwall rules so's they get you some healing? They're the paladin country, that right?"

"Other order- the commander got chosen by Iomedae an' wrote to them to get the handbook."  He shrugs.  "Expect they'll get the other forts on it sooner or later."

She looks so dubious about that, but...  "So how's life under the paladin handbook? Y'forbidden from drink and fucking and gambling an' all that, or what?"

"More or less.  He sent all the whores home, couldn't feed 'em.  Fucking men's still fine, though, long 's you make sure no one's scared about it first."

"Huh! I don't think ours are allowed to do that, but then again it's not like I'd know... You'd think they'd be less frustrated if they could, though," smirk.

"Huh!  Should celibacy extend even so far?"

"Whole fort isn't paladins, anyway."