Perhaps a little tipsy, the Brit plodded down the well-used dirt path just behind the tavern. High above the sun was teetering on the horizon, threatening to descend in the next half hour and plunge the village into darkness. But there was still daylight left, and while it lasted there was time for a proper scrap. None of that bar-fighting nonsense, the relatively tall (for his age) young man who had been drinking just four years shy of actual adulthood preferred the open air when it came to fisticuffs. Besides which he got more than enough messy close quarters brawling back home, and he was on holiday.

The kid was an Englishman, London born and bred, and his name was John Poppins. He was almost as tall as the average man, and though slender his build spoke of a certain wiry strength that tended to herald a great strength and size. He’d also had five pints of ale and was feeling a bit fighty. He wasn’t exactly impaired by the drink he’d consumed, but rather enflamed by it. Ale never agreed with him much, though he only had a few years’ experience with alcohol he could tell already it wasn’t exactly a match made in heaven. Still, it had got him into trouble many a time in the past, that was the point, and it had done so again. 

He grinned, fixing his cap properly on his head as a gust of wind threatened it. Blossoms from a nearby apple tree caught on his jacket, forcing him to brush them away with a negligent wave of his hand as he looked behind him. He wasn’t sure where the bloke he was supposed to be fighting was, but he figured he’d be there. ‘There’ being an acre of grassland surrounded by fencing only a short walk from the local tavern. John vaulted the fence, careful to avoid snagging his unsuitable trousers or his small pouch on the rotten wood. The field was made unique only be the presence of a single apple-tree in the middle, and it was to this that John naturally gravitated, strolling along with hardly a care in the world.