[Strangers persist in bothering him an unknown amount of time. Offers enter one ear and follow his thoughts down to their roots. They circle one way and another before rising up to be debated with words. He struggles to engage in small talk, finding his rhythm in listening to army reservists speak about army structure and organisation. It takes a good number of questions before the topic turns around. Loyalty. Integrity. Courage. His thumbs brush against his hips as he grits his teeth and admits he served his country.

It takes no time to escape after that confession. This is a new world, a new beginning. Why dwell on a stressful past? Trailing a queue for another stall, he clenches his jaw and seethes at the back of the line. The muscles in his eyes twitch. It almost feels like he’s losing patience. He growls and simmers in anger until he makes his way to the front of the line. His right hand collects the gun off the table and he regards it with a curious eye.

Fingers squeeze and investigate a selection of cans upon the second counter. These army rations are not so pleasant to touch. Not so pleasant to smell. Where is the taste? The texture? He palms the can off to the nearest person.]

Meal in a can? What garbage.

[Wine is falling. Into his mouth. Down towards the bottom of his throat. Out of his mouth onto the table. His furious cough braces him against shortness of breath - his face reddened by embarrassment much as his airway. It is difficult to find grace but he pushes back in his chair and confidently throws his feet upon the table.

His right hand wipes his mouth after a second or two. His left sets his glass back upon the table. The blurred atmosphere of the tavern prompts him forward, now sitting upright to observe the nearby crowd. Women competing at darts. Men rolling dice. His brain focuses on the details and less on the games they play.

He locks eyes with whoever occupies the nearest table: a challenge for them to approach or keep away.]

[Jasper closes his eyes and sighs to high heaven. The sole thing he desires this early evening is peace. The single thing he wants that is denied to him? Fingers clench and flex, curl and unfurl. His face shows impatience - a scowling curl of the lip - as he rounds upon the visitor to his tent. One visitor replaced by another. An intruder, he would say.]

What do you want? Have you noticed the time?

[Why does he stab his hand with a finger? He doesn’t have to wonder. It’s because of the tent: a spacious amount of room that reminds him of spending time with his men before the fall.]

[Irritation at his right. Indignation at his rear. Jasper twists and bends, wrapping his bath sheet around his body. His bid for freedom from strangers impels him to frequent the bathhouse late at night: a haunting ghost whose knees buckle as he steps into the smoke and steam. Thoughts froth and foam in the heat for a second. Worries about his future leave him desperate to switch off and unwind.

He sits within the bath and sighs. Pains slide away into heated water and he closes his eyes. He feels wonderful.]

[Jasper returns to the tent with a soothed mind and clean skin. He drips water across the groundsheet, hiding the fact the culprit is his sodden mass of hair. There is so much of it that he cannot even begin to brush it out. His mouth presses into a line as he pulls his brush through a clump of knots - and now the flaps open and he knows his guest by their footsteps alone.

Not a guest but the fellow occupant of his tent. He groans at the difficulty of managing his hair in this environment and acts like nothing is untoward.]

Perfectly strange arrangement, I dare say, sharing a tent like this.