Annotated 23-4
So this page is the first in the story that’s fully mine, and I like how it highlights a different side of Ardaic’s character and history.
John’s expressions work excellently with it. Ardaic’s could-it-be-a-smile in the last frame is subtle enough that we might’ve missed it if Syr’Nj hadn’t thrown focus on it, and Syr’Nj herself in panels 3 and 4 is registering astonishment, then amusement, but subtly enough that Ardaic isn’t going to pick up on her reactions.
There is a change aborning in Syr’Nj and Ardaic’s relationship, all right. Good news for her in some ways, less so in others.
The actual laws surrounding the it-fell-on-my-property issue can be quite complicated, but what disgusts Ardaic is that two soldiers who had once pledged their lives to the same great cause should fall into so petty a dispute. I think he’s in the right in this case, but it’s still in line with his usual value system: patriotism is paramount, goods are unimportant.
I don’t know about catapult stones, but with regard to trees, in the English Common Law tradition, fallen fruit does indeed belong to whichever side it lands on. The alternative would be that the tree owner is responsible for littering.
I don’t know about the Napoleonic Code or other traditions unfortunately.