Landgrab Day Part II
Note: Read previous entry first. This is a continuation, dammit!
I turned and knew immediately who I was looking at… the two who would become my favorite gypsies, Vicol and Petreko. I know I said something vaguely witty back at them (or maybe I didn’t.. my memory has been known to have delusions of grandeur). Then I hugged them both. I felt better knowing that I was wandering around with people instead of alone. We wandered back the way we came and asked at a few camps for the location of our destination. Finally, we found it. We met Maggie and were led back to a candlelit circle.
It was hard to not feel shy when I saw all the people there.. people I only knew through a month of posting on a message board and random IM conversations. Some I had never seen a picture of. Some I had. The three of us were introduced to Ailis and Alex (goddess and god of Pennsic.net), Michael the Lost, and then some people of Maggie’s camp.
We sat around the candles, and since there were no chairs left, I sat on Vicol’s lap. It was pretty interesting. Maggie made me a very yummy drink in a VERY large mug, and I was happy for the evening. I spent some time playing with the flames from all the candles, and also with Vicol’s really spiffy purple and black flogger. Then I got a chance to talk to Michael the Lost a bit, and that was nice.
Kisan couldn’t make dinner because she had camp things to deal with.. but no one really understood what happened to Valle’e. No one knew where Khare, Rom, Duncan, or Isabel were either… so we decided to go on walkabout and visit them in their camps. As we rose to leave, who walked in but Valle’e. One less camp to stop at.
Off we went, a merry little amoeba with a purpose. It was dark by then, and I was not familiar with the Bogs or Swamp at all.. so basically I follwed everyone else, humming and skipping like Grover on Ecstacy. Or something like that. I pounced people, which was interesting.
We stopped at Khare’s and Rom’s camp first. I was really shy of that, because I really hadn’t gotten to know either of them too well yet. We managed to convince Khare to join us in our walkabout, but Rom decided to stay.
Next stop was Kisan’s camp. I had.. and to this day STILL have.. no idea how we got there. We merely did. She was asleep, but we talked her camp into waking her up, then proceeded to convince her to come on walkabout with us. I think the biggest reason she decided to join us was so she could scold Rom for not coming down to say hello.
Somewhere on the road, Vicol, Petreko and I stopped to sample some free alcohol we were offered by some very interesting people. My hand was kissed.. tee hee.. I can’t help but blush when guys kiss my hand.. it’s so cute. But by the time we finished there, the rest of the group had disappeared. Petreko decided to head back to camp, and Vicol and I walked on in hopes of finding the group again. At a place where the road turned or went straight, Vicol called “Marco!” And a woman in the camp on the corner called back “Polo!”. We inquired as to whether a large group of seemingly drunken individuals had passed by recently, and she merely told us to take the turn and follow up. That was vaguely amusing… where else but Pennsic would something like that actually work?
We did catch up with the group near Duncan’s camp.. They had run into poor Duncan on his way to the port-a-castle. I was introduced swiftly.. had a moment to think to myself “damn he’s really tall” and then find out that Alex and Ailis had headed for bed and that Kisan and Khare had wandered up to Khare’s camp again (which was only a small ways down the road). Vicol and I wandered there, and I, in my nicely buzzed state, lay down on the grass in the camp and looked at the stars.
Stars are always the most gorgeous at Pennsic, where the space is mroe open and lights are dimmer. I can’t help but wonder if the peple in the camp thought I was high or something.
After that, Vicol decided it was time to go back to camp. In our conversation earlier, I had asked him if I could crash at his camp for the evening, because I was far too lazy to set up my tent when I had arrived. Sweet man, of course he had no problem with it. So we meandered our way in the darkness back to his camp.
It was pretty late at that point. I think only one person in the camp was still awake, the person on fire watch.. so we both went into Vicol’s tent.
I wasn’t quite tired yet.. neither was Vicol. We stayed up talking for awhile, among other things. Not having a watch is weird at Pennsic… I don’t even know what time I fell asleep…
And then I woke in the middle of the dark morning hours to rain dripping into the tent. Vicol woke up too.. and figured out that, though he had asked Namir to put a tarp over his tent, that never happened.
So, in a rush, Vicol grabbed his cloak, went outside (and probably glowed white in the darkness ^_-) and put his cloak over the top of the tent. We were pretty soaked.. but hoped the cloak would keep the rain out. A lot of our stuff was soaked.. including my clothes. Ugh. I knew I should have just left them on! Oh well.. I figured they’d dry by morning.
Thus marked the beginning of a very wet first week of Pennsic.
and bang, crash, the lightning flast, ah but that’s another story, nevermind, anyway 🙂
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