Woods Surrounding Camelot, Wednesday Morning

[bitchprince]

After the feasts of a few weeks back, Arthur had fallen into the routine he preferred above all. Training, training, and more training, interspersed with some talks about minor adjustments in grain dispersion and the occasional audience for the public, as well as the odd hunt.

But he was hunting for something else today; he was hunting for contact with Fandom, or rather, his friends both on and off it.

As it turned out, having his old routine back made his thoughts about the island far kinder than they used to be.

[[ for phone calls, yes! ]]

Comments

[bitchprince]

Ring, ring, and Arthur picked up after studying his display carefully. "Reno," he said, somewhat pleased that he'd figured out the whole number recognition thing well enough, "What brings you to my Blackberry?"

[raspberryturk]

"Oh, you know," Reno drawled, grinning at the sound of Arthur's voice on the other end of the line. Too long, man. It had been too long. "Been one of them weeks, man. Wake up one morning, go out to train, get eaten by a hole in reality. Same old, kinda gets boring after a while."

This was Reno's way of saying, 'big shit went down and I want to ramble at you about it.'

[bitchprince]

Arthur, being Arthur, bless his soul, nearly missed Reno's point entirely as he spoke. What? He ranted on rather quickly, and he seemed fairly affable about the whole thing, s-- "What kind of hole in reality?" he said, sharply, about a beat too long after Reno had stopped talking.

[raspberryturk]

"Oh, you know. The kind that lets monsters in, eats up businesses an' junk around town, stuffs people into other worlds or total voids in reality. Pretty much busted the whole friggin' island."

So very casual. What? There was something off about all of that? Reno hadn't noticed.

"It got better."

[bitchprince]

"I would hope so," Arthur said, and if he wasn't more composed than that, he would have taken a moment to stare at his phone. Rather quite a bit, because Reno wasn't here, and so he couldn't stare at him.

"What happened? How are the casualties? Are there any?"

A thought struck him.

"Are Francine and Katchoo all right?"

[raspberryturk]

Awww, Arthur's concern was kind of adorable.

"Everyone's fine, man. Maybe a little shaken, yo. I guess some people didn't get it as easy as the group of students that got sucked through with me an' Price did." Only Reno would think of that particular experience as easy. "From the sound of it, everyone got home, things have been slowin' down at the clinic, and the healers on the island don't have their hands as full as they used to. I'm sure your friends are fine."

[bitchprince]

"Lovely. That doesn't tell me all that much, you realise," Arthur said, regaining his composure rather quickly. He rubbed his brow, and put them on his internal list of people to phone as soon as he could possibly arrange for it.

"Where did you wind up, then."

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah, well... I don't know either of 'em all that well," Reno pointed out. "Me, I ended up in this huge-ass wasteland with, like, mutant crabs and giant scorpions an' shit. Neither of them were there, I don't think."

[bitchprince]

More rubbing at his face. "That's a relief," he said, laconically. Suddenly, for a moment, he felt like he was right back in Fandom, sitting in the trenches, waiting for whatever horrible desperate thing would be flung at them next and trying desperately to make up for it.

But he wasn't. Which meant there was even less he could do. And it was over, anyway.

"Doubt you'd have trouble in a wasteland. And I suppose you lot all saved yourselves."

[raspberryturk]

"Well, we needed someone to tell us what to do, first," Reno pointed out. "But really, who the hell was gonna save us, if we didn't?"

[bitchprince]

"Fair enough," he allowed. "I'm... glad to hear you are well, at least, and that the situation has been resolved. Not quite as pleased to find out Fandom's still up to its old tricks, however."

[raspberryturk]

"Fandom is gonna be Fandom, no matter what we think about it, yo." And that, so far as Reno was concerned, was just the way things were going to be. He didn't seem to concerned about it. And, until the island got it in its mind to take actual casualties while he was around, he probably never would. "How you been farin' out there?"

[bitchprince]

"Everything's settled back to the ordinary," Arthur replied, idly. "Most of the knights have finally attained something closely resembling a decent shape, though God help me if I ever find too many brains between them. And we caught a massive stag during the hunt the other day - certainly worth celebrating."

[raspberryturk]

That moment's pause there suggested that Reno needed to take this opportunity to remember what a stag was, beyond just those kinky parties that guys went to before getting themselves hitched.

"You eat those, right?"

Be kind, Arthur. He's Gaian.

[bitchprince]

"A male deer," Arthur said. Dryly.

Very dryly.

He didn't do kind.

[raspberryturk]

"Which you can eat!"

See! Reno was smarter than he looked, sometimes! Kind of!

"A hunt don't sound like half a bad time, though," he added. Because... Because it nicely drew the conversation away from the fact that he had to actually think about what a stag was, yes.

[bitchprince]

"Of course it isn't," Arthur said, all blase, "Though it's more of a chore with Merlin ambling around spooking half the game. But the best stories hail from hunts - in fact, I think Sir Leon is going to spend quite some time trying to avoid stories of that boar that nearly drove him up a tree."

[raspberryturk]

And at that, Reno snorted.

"Man, I gotta meet these knights of yours sometime, man. I feel like I'm missin' out, havin' to behave myself around the students now, yo. Seems to me like it'd be fun to give your buddies there a hard time."

[bitchprince]

"It's good for their character," Arthur said, solemnly, "Of which they need quite a bit more. Especially if it involves boar trunk marks on Leon's bottom."

[raspberryturk]

"See, that's exactly why you need guys like me around," Reno decided. "Because I don't let shit like that just slide, man. Lettin' it go ain't no damn fun anyhow."

[bitchprince]

"Only if discipline demands it." Arthur leaned back against a tree, and fixed his eyes on his horse. "How are the reserves doing?"

So much for chit-chat.

[raspberryturk]

"They're holdin' up," Reno replied, shrugging even if it couldn't be seen. Use your powers of imagination, Arthur. "I don't wanna go steppin' on no toes or nothin', but if you want I can swing by next week an' see how they're doin', yo."

Which was to say that, no, he really didn't go to them all that often, anymore. Shame, Reno. Shame.

[bitchprince]

"Do," Arthur said. Firmly. "They could do with a touch of your experience, if I remember what the three of them are like." Really, now. "Let me know by text message how it turns out?"

[raspberryturk]

"That I can do," Reno decided, amiably enough. "You figure you can handle my top-notch text messaging skills?"

Or, his 'top noch txt msg skllz,' for that matter?

[bitchprince]

"I don't know, Reno. Can you handle the existence of vowels?"