Places, Present Day
The original settings for the characters presented here are London, Oxford and Wiltshire. This city is none of the above places, nor is it really where we live, although there are pubs like the three presented here. This setting is the university area of a large city, and the action will probably all occur in three pubs, which is in fact how a lot of this works. For clarity, email and telephone contact will be ignored: Ranking the pubs from seediest to most-up-market, we have:
The Bell (which appears in the first ellight story) is a small street-corner pub with pies and pasties, and a back-room where the pagan group meets at lunchtime on the last Sunday of every month. The landlord, Mick, is pagan-friendly but has no particular interest in joining in. It's close enough to be a refuge from the Kissing Gate when anyone wants to chill out for a while.
The Kissing Gate (Elflight, Belladonna) is a student-orientated pub about two hundred yards from the main university library Maggie works some shifts here, which is how she met Paul, and through him Jacey with whom she now has a very close friendship. Paul was working on a project at the library and using the pub for lunch; Maggie was interested enough to ask him about his work. Now the 'Valpolicella Gang', or a subset, meet here every Friday afternoon for discussions, and have worked on a few pagan topics together.
The Manor is a large pub a couple of miles from the other two. Anne and Trevor are gradually doing it up and have built up the food trade to the point where it's a popular early evening and weekend haunt. There are several rooms upstairs that will eventually be used for bed-and-breakfast, but that's for the future. For the moment, the largest is used for small private functions and another is Anne's studio.
Oriflamme is a new addition, which will find its way into Elflsong. It's a venue for very loud music, which hosts ethnic nights including a Polish night on Saturdays. It has a reputation as a cattle-market, that isn't completely justified.
The Ferryman's Coin (Belladonna), just in case we need it, is a live music venue on the waterfront, with regular local folk-rock bands.