Just Another Day In A Life

Wind In Lonely Fences

The tents are set up — after an afternoon of setting up the other things such as campfires, gathering timbers and other fuel and fish, although Sleepless went to get some herbs; she came back more later than others with a bag of herbs and a metal pot, which might be useful as they did not bring any pots before then, but who knows what the herbs might be used for.

The fish that were caught seems to be boneless and soft, which makes it quite floppy — The mouth seems to have some spikey teeth similar to a piranha, no scales on the body and the body seems to have traces of it being thrown at somebody or being used as a weapon to slap someone's face, which Iaret decided to take another one from the fish bucket and decided to slap Fletcher with it, causing an argument partly motivated by him bringing her to Uraeus a few days ago, but the whole sight of seeing someone getting slapped by a boneless fish is just bizarre; They eventually made up, and Fletcher even admitted that being slapped by a fish is one of the most hilarious things that happened to him.

After some couple of hours of getting things done, planning and communicating and babbling about random topics, the sun is down and it's finally night time.

The party decided to sit near the campfire, and looked at each other awkwardly for a bit, before Fletcher stood up, and announced, "Alright, so — who wants to go first and say something?"

Sleepless glared at Hollis, and persuaded him to stand up, despite his reluctance. He looked embarrassed and unconfident, but finally gave into their wishes and stood up, "What would you like to say, Hollis?" Fletcher said to him.

Hollis just stood there awkwardly, shaking and not knowing what to say, even when Sleepless shouted "Come on, say something!", which made Hollis look away and blush, before attempting to break the silence, but stuttered for a bit until he could get a word out: "I-I've got a story to tell you all." He said, with a bit of stuttering, and it goes like this:

Three years ago, Hollis, then aged fifteen at the time, was wandering at a busy street in Majuminister at night, looking for food, money, or things to steal, and that street was set up with shop stands and colorful lights advertising bars, restaurants, convenience stores, brothels and pubs with bards, usually femboys or young men, both willing to make a buck.

"Hey, are you Hollis?" a man, leaning on a wall in an alley, said to him as he passed by, "Yes," Hollis responds to his question, "who are you?"

"I'm sorry to hear about your mother, but come here — I have something to show you." The man went down the alleyway, with Hollis following him behind, looking to check if there's anyone tailing him, although he's got a tail of his own.

The man stopped at a door and opened it, "Go on inside, it's in there." He said, "— It's not a trap, and I will be following you inside."

"Are you sure?" Hollis asks the man, with a suspicious look.

"No, it's not." The man brings his right hand up, "Right hand to God — now do you trust me, Hollis? Now come on, get in there."

They both get into the room, and upon entering the room, the man closed the door — blackening everyone's sight until...

*click*

"Candles?" Hollis thought to himself, and then looks up to see his friends looking at him, "Happy birthday, Hollis!" they all said to him, and they all sang happy birthday to him, before getting him to make a wish: "I have not thought of one." Hollis admits, "I didn't expect this to be my birthday, what day is it, Gavurke? I didn't check a calendar."

"Friday, April 5th." Garvurke says, "By the way, managed to come up with a wish yet?"

"Yeah, I wish — I could support my family, of course." Hollis then blew the candles, and is met with applause from the surrounding friends, although the light was turned on during the applause, but they ignored that as there's more important things, "I guess you're sixteen now, so you can finally vote and drink beer!" Gavurke giggled as he said that, "I bet the laws must have taken inspiration from the Germans."