Lancelot glanced up from his current stack of papers when Vane let himself in.

"All set, Lancey," Vane said, smiling. He crossed the room quickly and handed Lancelot a page of paper that-

Oh, excellent. It was both a map and an inventory for the exercise, something they'd not thought to make the previous year.

"This is perfect," Lancelot said quickly. He'd just put it on his desk and-

Okay, his desk was not a good idea, and he could see Vane was trying not to laugh. But it was better! There were stacks, not an endless pile of papers, and there was fresh ink and envelopes at hand and yes, it looked a mess but it was definitely better!

"Well, hopefully we won't need that," Vane admitted, and Lancelot agreed with a nod. It was a training exercise, though maybe more of a scavenger hunt of sorts. The trainee knights would be tasked with finding stolen jewels or pilfered treasure or however else Vane had phrased things for the year. The jewels were glass beads, the gold was iron pyrite, the priceless tome a questionable paperback... But they all served their purposes well as training tools and certainly, the year before when they were handed in they were treated as if they were the real thing.

(Except for a cache of colorful glass beads that Vane and Lancelot had spent half the night tromping around to find because Vane had forgotten where he'd put them and a sudden downpour had left a clue illegible. That hadn't been terrible, except for the second sudden downpour and lack of sleep, but Lancelot had no intention of doing it again.)

Lancelot stretched as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet. There was a corkboard with nearly as many pieces of paper attached to it as was in any pile on his desk, but at least he could pin the map on top and it would stay there for the day. That he quickly did, after resolving to clean it off as soon as he could.

"That works. I'll even be able to find it there." Vane grinned and Lancelot couldn't resist a little chuckle. His vice-captain certainly had a point.

But he'd been away on official business as often as he'd been in the capital, and paperwork kept piling up whether he wanted it to or not. What Lancelot wanted to do was spar with Vane and then watch the trainees scramble around for "stolen" "jewels" and "gold" and everything else. He'd gotten up early and worked through all of the most important things; surely that meant he could give himself a little break. Surely, nobody wanted their captain to do himself in with desk work...

"Let's go hope we don't need to." Lancelot didn't even glance back at his desk. And Vane didn't say a word- he just reached to put an arm around Lancelot and guide him out the door.

"Where did you put the jewels this year?"

"Er..."