Morning walked in like it owned the place.
Heaters hummed low. Steam curled off a kettle and hung there, undecided. Snow made soft hiss noises on tarp and rope, like someone sweeping the same floor twice. The craters from yesterday's snowball war were still stamped in the drifts - half-filled now, like laughter you can still see if you squint.
Feris had a belt around her waist and the center pole, "standing" with all the dignity a slightly levitating person could manage. She lifted a cup, took a princely sip, missed her mouth by a centimeter, and pretended that's how royalty drank.
"This pot is judging me" she informed the camp.
Obi stumbled from his tent with messy hair. "Join the club. I've been judged by worse cookware."
Arashi, bare-armed and bandaged, stood over a pan doing violence to something that had given up being identifiable. "Breakfast" he declared, with the sincerity of a man hoping a word could make a thing true.
