Macbeth

"I could have met Lora anytime, anywhere," says Minoth thoughtfully, because he's the considering one, about things like this. "Hell of a world."

"So you've met her here and now," responds Addam, cheerful but measured. "Actually quite nice of a world, I find."

"Well, sure, but she's your friend. She didn't choose to pick up a mongrel on the side of the path."

Now, Minoth does tend toward one side of any given walkway, while Addam sends it straight down the middle. One of those obvious things that reveals quite a lot and then again nothing at all. So that is where Lora would have found him, if she would indeed have found him.

The emphasis had been on your friend, though. "Is she not also yours?" Addam probes. "Do you not like my friends, regardless? I thought you'd been getting along rather well with Hugo, and Brighid especially."

If "getting on well" could be the euphemism to encompass a few sharp slaps and some tepid sharing of personal space with unequal levels of interest on either side, then yes, Minoth and Brighid have become frightful fastidiousnesses.

"You know." Now Minoth looks a bit morose, rather than gregarious gamely. "I'm not the big family man. That's you, my prince."

"But you are here now."

Minoth nods. "But I have been forcibly conscripted."

Imagine the nerve to say something foolish like that! Addam shoves him on the arm. "Have not, you rascal! I distinctly remember you telling us that you used your own initiative, yes? So you chose to be here, just like I did - and actually, I didn't choose."

From across the camp, Mythra quirks a brow, and Brighid's not far behind.

"Nobody chose nothing. I got it." Minoth smirks to have gotten Addam tripping over himself, suddenly aggrieved. "But we are all here, and we didn't kill anyone for our grand and glorious places. That's something to be celebrated, huh?"

Addam scowls. "Maybe you are a mongrel, just like you always say."