<html> <head> <style></style> </head> <body class='hmmessage'>        For whatever reason, Steve the coconut was not waiting for them when they came to the entrance.  The four of them took it in stride, or at least they didn’t outwardly speak of the extreme unease they felt at the supposedly inanimate object’s spontaneous disappearance.  They saw nothing else to warrant further suspicion, aside of course from the fact that this was Xayk’s island and he could do whatever it was that he wanted to do... and whatever happened to pop into his mind at any given moment.                Finding himself a nice quiet area to work, Zyn sat down and started fashioning spears alone.  They needed more as the ones they had all made had the unfortunate tendency to snap into pieces if someone so much as breathed upon them, necessitating the fashioning of more.  They of course argued over why that was so, Pols kept grumbling it was because they had selected crappy wood, Lum insisting that there was something wrong with the wood itself that was causing it to be so brittle and unwieldy.  Whatever the case, Zyn let them argue amongst themselves; it was not so much the work he was doing as it was getting away from the others, something he needed so desperately.               He had spent the past several days with these men, and truth be told he was having a hard time dealing with them, near death experiences shared with them notwithstanding.  He could feel the animosity lurking just below the surface; with any of them it could just burst forth at any time.  Well, except for Parn of course; he was too much of a wiener.  And Lorian; he had been through too much with the man to suspect him of losing his cool without a deliberate reason.                Some hours passed, the sun nearing the horizon, when Lorian emerged from the cave.  “They won’t be long behind,” he said, “They’re just finishing up on some details before they call it a night.”               “You sure you wanna trust that dragon with the mage alone?” Lum asked.               Lorian shrugged.  “I figure if he wanted to do something to any of us, whether we’re alone or not, he’d just do it.  It’s not like we’re going to stop him,” he said, repeated the now familiar excuse they all put up whenever it came to what the dragon might do at any given moment.               As Zyn continued working, through the obscuring brush he could see his mentor prowling about, pacing and studying the others as they worked, giving them an inordinate amount of discreet attention before moving on to the others.  It was a subtle thing, something that could only be gleaned by knowing the man, but there was a familiar gleam in the older man’s eyes as he watched the others.  Zyn, of course, knew what it was.               Lorian was lonely, no doubt.  It had been some time since he had had “close” companionship with anyone, and it came as no surprise that he was probing among the sailors for it.  It would be restricted to them of course; Parn was too innocent and gullible.  Lorian would never take advantage of anyone like that in such a way, it just went against his character.  The only other choice was Xayk, and something small in the back of Zyn’s mind told him that was somewhat out of the question.               Zyn naturally didn’t consider himself, for that question had been resolved long ago.  Not long after the one armed man had taken the young vagrant Ainadorian under his wing, he had hinted to him in confidence that such a relationship was possible, if it was what he wanted.  Zyn, however, had told his mentor in no uncertain terms that he would not “be anyone’s plaything.”  Their relationship was professional, a master-apprentice affiliation that was built upon respect first and foremost, and Zyn made it clear that was only by respect that it had any grounds at all; nothing else could possibly substitute itself for that.  Lorian was in no way offended, and never again broached the subject.  It was one reason that Zyn, despite everything, had the highest level of respect for his mentor.               As he carried some of the newly fashioned weapons to the camp’s pile, he saw Grumiah and Lum busy trying to procure pitch, or at least equivalent from some of the coconut wood, no doubt to use in torches in the cave.  Lum was off in the brush relieving himself and complaining that the “damn coconuts were giving him the runs.”               “Of course they’re giving you the runs,” a voice that could only be Xayk declared from behind them, with the men nearly throwing themselves to the ground spinning about to face him, “they’re evil, you know.  Coconuts are evil so they do evil things.”  He was perched right there, sitting on his haunches with an exhausted Parn stumbling forward to catch up.               “Er, I take it Steve notwithstanding?” Zyn ventured.               “Nononono, Steve’s a prime example of [i]why[i/] coconuts are evil.  Isn’t that right Steve?” He asked to his left, where in the sand sat a coconut with a face carved into it that Zyn hadn’t seen before.  “Right back at you, you slime ridden whore.”               As night settled in they decided to sleep on the ground in their camp rather than in Xayk’s cave as it seemed a nice enough night.  They did their best to ignore Xayk who helped somewhat by sitting in the corner and remaining silent, though truth be told he actually seemed creepier that way.  His piercing orange eyes studied them intently, and however long Zyn watched he never once saw him blink.  Instead, they concentrated on building a fire and just relaxing.               “No, no, I never said somethin’ like that,” Pols insisted.               “Yes, you did,” Lum insisted right back.  “We never would have gotten thrown in jail if you hadn’t gone and insulted the barkeep’s mother.”               “So?” Pols demanded, “She was ugly, and she [i]was[/i] a whore.  Believe me, I of all people would know!” he said with a hearty laugh.               “So?  It still left us broke by the time we got out of there.  Had to take whatever ship and haul we could take and look where that ended us up!” Lum declared, waving his hands on the island around him.               “Hmm,” Grumiah mused thoughtfully, “Bad circumstances.  I almost wish I had an excuse like that.”               “Why, how’d you get saddled with that piss brain captain?” Pols asked, assessment that both he and Zyn both heartily agreed on.                Grumiah took a long drink from their crude half-cut coconut shells they used as cups.  “Bad luck, just plain bad luck.  I was supposed to ship out with someone else, someone I knew was good at the job, but I caught a sickness and was bedridden for a week.  I needed the work badly, so I had to take whatever was available.  Hence, I’m here now.”               “What did you come down with?” Zyn asked.               “Who knows,” Grumiah answered.  “Something or another, the healers had some weird name for it that I’ve never heard of before.  It made for a pretty miserable week or so, but I got over it well enough.”               “Did it involve heaving and reddish-purple spots on your arms?”                The quartermaster gave him a look.  “Something like that.”               “Galigan collywobbles,” Zyn said.  “That’s the simple name for it.”               “How would you know something like that?” Lum asked curiously.               Zyn smiled humorlessly.  “It was spreading in the area before we left for a while, and I had it when I was a child.  Pretty rare, but pretty nasty all the same.”               Lum nodded to himself, taking another sip.  “So, the mage got here because he’s someone’s poor errand boy,” he said.  Zyn wasn’t sure how he knew that, though it seemed likely that somewhere during the voyage the sailor had asked some questions.  “There’s us, and then there’s Grumiah there, but what are you two doing here?”         “What, is there something unusual about two men booking passage on a ship?” Lorian asked innocently.  “Well, no, except you seem to be the type who can tell if someone, even if they’re in a completely different profession, is the competent sort, and I didn’t meet anyone on that ship who didn’t think that he was a worthless sack of piss.  I didn’t meet a single person on board who was there entirely by choice.”  Lorian chuckled.  “The trip was a... spur of the moment thing, if you will, though we have been wondering around the Southlands for some time and desired to return north.  But in any case, just how would you know what my profession would or wouldn’t be?” he asked with a smile.  “You ain’t sailors, that’s for sure,” Lum said.  “Come to think of it, I ain’t sure what your profession is.  You wouldn’t be some kind of artisan, by chance?”  “Indeed,” Lorian said as he stoked the fire.  “I work principally as a painter.  A fresco painter, actually.”  Grumiah’s eyes narrowed in thought.  “Fresco painter...  Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Moeb, by any chance.”  The one armed man just smiled in response.   “Are you serious?” Parn asked in awe.  “You are Lorian Moeb, [i]the[/i] Lorian Moeb?”  “Who’s that supposed to be?” Pols asked with typical ignorance.  “You never heard of him?” Lum asked.  “Even [i]I’ve[/i] heard of him, Pols.  He’s only one of the most famous fresco painters of our time.”  The other sailor merely growled slightly.  “Well tickle me pink,” Grumiah mused, “Lorian Moeb on our boat.  Why didn’t you say anything?  We could have at least given you some better meals or somethin.”  “I get more than enough of that from my clients, sometimes a little too much.  And yes, there is such a thing as too much high society and politeness.  Sometimes a little jocular informality is good for the soul.”  “Amen to that!” Lum lifted up his coconut in a toast.  They all raised their coconut cups in unison and took a long swig.  “Damnit, wish this was actual beer or something else decent,” Pols muttered.  “Just pretend these shells are some wench’s tits or something,” Lum suggested.  His sailor buddy laughed.  “Yeah, we’re cuttin up wenches and groping their tits as cups!” he said as he juggled two coconut shells up and down as if he were displaying them.  Grumiah sighed and shook his head.  “You two are incorrigible.”  “So Zyn,” Lum said at long last, “How goes your painting then?”  The question had been asked of him more times than he could count, and Lorian had had many different answers for him to give.  “Halfway decent, I guess.  I do some, but that’s not what he keeps me around for.”  “That not... what?” Lum asked confused.  “You’re his apprentice, right.”  The fresco painter laughed and stroked his beard.  “If you count my imparting of knowledge to him, than yes, you could very much call him that.  As far as fresco painting is concerned, no, that’s not to be Zyn’s path in life.”  “I don’t understand,” Grumiah said, “I thought you artisans had to pass stuff on to apprentices, or else your art dies with you.”  This elicited a chuckle from the elder man.  “Perhaps, though in this matter I’m content to let it be Eli’s concern.  I myself am not worried.”  “I’m worried,” Xayk suddenly cut in.  “I’m worried about the coconuts.  They’re evil you know.  You can’t break them open without completely smashing them.”  His massive chipper form hopped into the middle of the camp and promptly sat himself right on top of the fire, instantly squelching it.   As they watched the fire they had worked so hard to get started smothered out of existence into tendrils of smoke, leaving the camp dark except for the embers and light of the slowly waxing moon.  At first they did nothing lest it provoke the dragon, but as he started droning on about coconuts and their various evils Zyn and Pols got sick of it and started rekindling the fire as soon as Xayk moved his massive posterior off of it.  This, for whatever reason, made his monologue switch gears to crap.   “Crap, you know, crap; the kind that comes out of your ass?”  The dragon then proceeded on an in depth description of the various ins and outs of fecal matter, flatulence, and other unsavory body functions that left even the lewd and crude sailors queasy and flat out lost Parn his previous meal, which Xayk suggested he should put back in his stomach as soon as possible lest it go to waste.  Fortunately after this the dragon ceased his endless ramblings, and the men rebuilt the fire and slowly started building up conversation among themselves whilst doing their best to ignore him.  Unfortunately Xayk now wanted to play, which he announced by suddenly shoving Grumiah causing him to roll for a good ten feet.  “Come on, guys, it’s a game!” the dragon insisted, “See, I shove you, and we see how far you roll when I do!”  Xayk’s mischievous rantings began anew as he randomly shoved some of the poor cast aways around; he started talking about lemons, ancient civilizations, and then goat testicles.  And then more about goat testicles.  They were really odd.  They were extra “squishy.”  And they made a great ingredient in soup.  Once again Parn upchucked what remained of his dinner, and the others tried unsuccessfully to keep the dragon’s blithering monologue out of their heads.  Finally Xayk changed topics, though his new one was a demand that one of them should cut off their own manlihood so that he could have it in a soup.  “I [i]need[/i] soup!  If I don’t get it I explode, it happens sometimes...  There’s lots of goo when that happens, but it’s not the good kind like in ‘testy’ soup.”  “Xayk!” Grumiah, Zyn, and Pols all shouted at once, in the vain hope that the dragon would realize how ill he was making his guests.  Xayk didn’t pay attention though, or far more likely he did but didn’t care in the slightest, and quickly grabbed Lum and Parn and shot into the air with both his prizes dangling precariously from his clawed hands.  Screaming and yelling commenced in quantity, to which the dragon responded with a nonchalant shrug and a casual admonition not to let go.   Flying aimlessly around for a few more minutes, Xayk finally let down his passengers with a plop from about six or so feet, resulting in a couple of sore bones.  “Play, Play!” the dragon insisted like a three year old.   Pols was next on the list of people to be annoyed as Xayk stood still over him and hung his jaw agape for no apparent reason other than to let saliva drool out of his mouth and drop square onto the top of the sailor’s head.  This proved to be the breaking point.  “Alright [i]that’s it[/i]!” Pols screamed as he launched himself onto his feet.  “I’ve had it up to [i]here[/i] with you, you crazy dope!  I don’t care [i]how[/i] nuts you are, just SHUT THE HELL UP!”  Against all odds in the universe, the dragon stopped talking.  There was [i]silence[/i], a very noticeable and very welcome silence that saw Xayk march over to the corner of the encampment and plop himself down, pouting and muttering to himself.  This of course wasn’t possible.  It couldn’t be possible, could it?  After all the grief he had dished out, was it really just so simple?  Pols, now so full of himself that it practically oozed from his face, seemed to think so and sat back down as the conquering hero, and of course could not resist giving Zyn a few snobbish looks of vindication.  Something told him, though that this wasn’t quite the end, not with this dragon. !DSPAM:4af0d740222411804284693! </body> </html>