“Don't believe any of Lori’s cuddling propaganda! She’ll steal your blanket and kick you in your sleep.” Setzer called back towards the bed with a shit-eating grin.

The large quantities of faux-vitriol being slung at him seemingly having little effect on his demeanor. In fact, the comments on his driving seemed only to spur him on further. The wheels of the truck finding purchase in every pothole across the worn and neglected stretch of highway, sometimes going as far as swerving into the opposite lane just to hit his mark. The old pickup bore its undeserved punishment with little more than a whine; the sounds of bouncing bottles and the disgruntled passengers filling the air. Setzer following the road as it sloped upward towards the hill and the rest stop that Galahad had pointed out previously, an old paint-chipped sign welcoming them to sunny Sappl Springs.

“Yeah, you wind up on the edge of a bed with a corner of the blanket. It’s like trying to sleep with a cat on the bed,” Gideon added from his experience; the raw emotional wounds from his foray into serious romance, of course, were there but these folks all knew the details. As terrible an idea as letters were, he sent one from the Citadel to her with his graduation WARDEN tab, but it was a salutary gesture to say that he could live with the regrets. He hoped it helped rather than hurt.

Anticipating arrival; as the sun moved up, Gideon decided it was going to be a short-sleeves sort of day as solar power burned off the last of the overnight chill. He busied himself with packing away his smock and the fleece, and went with white shirt-sleeves underneath the pack that he hefted onto his shoulders. The hat stayed on, as it was thin merino wool, as did a pair of sunglasses that came out when the heat lamp up above them all really came on.

It was actually good tradecraft, as Gideon wasn’t easy to identify to someone that might know him by sight without really knowing him, though there was a tattoo that gave him away, for people that did know him; a Barghest on his forearm, something they almost literally got on the second or third tattoo shop away from the Citadel, mostly because the first place managed to misspell “Regrets” as “Ragrets” on one of the ‘prior work’ pictures in their catalog. It was Zimmy that insisted, with uncharacteristic sobriety, a much better shop that was less used to WARDEN traffic. Tattoo/piercing parlor next to a bike shop, so the clientele was rough.

Which was where Gideon acquired his awesome new wolf-head belt buckle in blued steel. He didn’t usually go for jewelry, but he liked that place. It put the idea of eventually getting a motorbike; they had salaries as Wardens now, as even Wardens didn’t work for free. This countryside would be badass on a bike. Once things were settled, he sat back once more and took a long glance around the countryside and the town they were pulling into. The constant weighing and measuring was a part of him, even if this was a vacation.

By the loosest definition of the term, one could barely consider Sappl Springs a town anymore. [I]It once was[/i] a prospector’s town, but nobody tried to make it more than that, so when the Levistone ran dry its was only a matter of time till folks went looking for greener pastures. In their place abandoned machines, houses, and other refuse remained, a distitue collection splayed atop a small crest in the topography that juts outward from the otherwise flat countryside like a sore. Along the old main street clings the last few stubborn remnants of life: a cramped looking Marshall's office, the rare and peculiar type of dive-bar that could only be found in the middle of nowhere, a combination convenience store and gas station, and rustic two storied motel called the Cloudgazer, if the sputtering neon sign mounted to the roof was to be believed. A small but persistent ecology thriving upon the slow yet ever constant trickle of vehicles down the High Road.

The pickup broke the solemn air as it crested the hill roaring with life: music still blaring, wheels scraping against gravel, inebriated voices unfit to communicate in hushed tones, and the grumble and groan of an engine running on fumes. Puttering to a stop underneath the too-bright glow of the LED lined canopy of the gas station. The engine give a sputtered sigh of relief as Setzer turned the key. The fatigue of driving since the break of dawn just now beginning to tug at the hypothalamus. 

It would appear that the WARDENs were the only traffic that had come through the town that day, though no one bothered stepping out of their respective buildings to welcome the travelers. 

“Well I'll be” he muttered aloud, stifling a yawn “we actually made it.”

“Yeah, and it's your turn to pay for gas.” Galahad replied pointedly as he opened the passenger side door and hopped out. His stomach took on a warm feeling as he took another swig of the whiskey in his flask. The whiskey was a personal supply from a cask of the Quaid family brewery- his father fancied himself a whiskey snob, and bought a orchard and brewery midway through his military career. If he ended up getting maimed in the war, he could always retire and be a brewer, Galahad figured.

He tossed the flask of honeyed whiskey towards Setzer: among their merry little band, Setzer was one of the few who appreciated the taste rather than just guzzling everything down. Granted, Setzer also enjoyed guzzling everything down.

“I’ll go grab the motel rooms.”

“Holy shit, we survived,” Gideon called to Setzer. It was all in good fun, he’d actually gotten a kick out of the ride, the sunshine and the smell of pretty pure air. This place hadn’t had industry around in a while, and it had its charms for a guy like Gideon that actually liked being away from civilization’s dubious charms.

“Y’all can keep on throw your hurtful words around” Setzer replied with a smirk on his face as he exited the truck, making his way over to the other side to fuel it up. He stopped to pick a discarded beer can from the truck bed tossing it into a nearby trash can. “doesn’t change the fact that I can pummel you all so hard that by the time you wake up the war would be over. Actually... that’s a plan leaves more fun for me to deal with!”

Gideon climbed over the side of the truck, gave a long stretch to unkink his muscles, and then hauled his pack along over, an automatic motion of cinching straps in and settling it into place from long experience of just how to adjust a pack so it could sit all day. They all had shoulders from humping rucks, and this was just a much smaller forty-liter job. Miniscule, weight-wise, but loaded down with the necessaries.

“Nice view,” he told Lee, and that was actually Gideon looking past the buildings and onto the countryside. There were hills in the distance, and that looked like a good prospect for camping and hiking, if they brought enough water along for it. But the consensus was a night on mattresses that weren’t rolled up, “and I bet the air is perfect at night. I’m gonna just roll out my stuff here in the truck and enjoy those stars tonight. No sense in screwing with some smelly motel when it’s this glorious.” That took him out of the room equation, evening up the sleeping arrangements. That was Gideon all over again, he relished the outdoors. He wasn’t the most outwardly spiritual person in Barghest Squad, in the sense of meditating and praying, but he seemed to always charge his batteries when he was out roughing it.

“If we catch any snakes, you know how to cook ‘em, right Country?” Running gag. Gideon was just as good with cooking a snake as Lee might have been. Ten years of, improbably, rooming together meant that there were no new jokes.”

“Might as well take the roof,” Galahad called out to Gideon- pointing at the flat roof of the motel, “I bet the view is better than the truck’s.” He was walking back to the truck, left hand shoved firmly in his pocket, right hand holding a ring of keys.

“Not a bad idea,” Gideon agreed.

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The Cloudgazer, witnessing its first bit of business in weeks probably, opened up most of the floor for them- a trio of two bed flats, all next door to each other, though the Barghest squad had set up most of their kit in the empty parking lot, with a small portable fire pit, and a collection of collapsible stools, beer cases of varying fullness, and the nearby steps for seating areas.   

Galahad was sat on top of the truck bed, his legs dangling by the side of the truck, a radio sitting in his lap, adjusting the old dials.

[i]"....And welcome back listeners to RBC and our continued coverage of the Vangar Conflict. There was hard fighting around the border town of Calty today between Vangar and Rassvet forces in the current push to secure Fort Kelgrav and after several hours of fighting our brave soldiers had to make a tactical retreat. On the coastal front a supply carrier was sunk today in the Ragnar Bay by a Vangar Submarine. And in more hopeful news Imperial Princess Colette Van Skymning, the youngest daughter of Emperor Mazurek Van Skymning ruler of Vangar arrives in Orestia tomorrow as part of the peace delegation. More on those talks within the hou-"[/i]

“That’s quite enough of that.” Galahad said aloud, more to himself, as the dial changed, switching from the Royal Broadcast Corporation to a more upbeat station playing rock music.Galahad’s sentiments weren’t new or uncommon- many, especially within the WARDENs, were rather skeptical about the idea of these peace talks having any particular effect, especially when up against a nation such as Vangar. As Setzer had so eloquently put it: Peace was a hard thing to work out when one country wanted complete and utter dominion over the other.