<9> Carl was about to open his mouth for a proper ‘I told you so’, until the towering shadow of Jexon cast itself over the cabin boy from behind. “You better get workin’ on your own shelter, boy, ‘cause you won’t be sharing ours.” The warlock whirled around to regard the stoic Jexon. He looked as he had before, but apparently his scavenge had yielded just enough tattered fabric to fashion a reasonable loincloth for the hulking worgen. “R-right,” was all he could muster as he rose to head off for the jungle… … until Jexon clapped a clawed hand on his shoulder and leaned in to whisper, “Whatever you do, don’t go [i]west[/i] along the beach. You won’t find anything worthwhile there. Not a thing. Nothing at all. Absolutely zero. Particularly not later tonight.” Carl had no chance to answer as Jexon gruffly released his grip on his shoulder, but he wasted no time in distinctly heading eastward in search for fallen fronds, not to mention to ponder the worgen’s strange words. Thora, however, never would have earned the title of captain if she’d been so unobservant. “The hell you got to say to him and not to your captain?” Jexon coolly turned his back to his sister to continue Carl’s stockpiling. “I’m sorry, I only see the helpless maiden. My captain’s not around.” A brief moment of silence ensued, then suddenly a hefty weight crashed down onto Jexon’s back as Thora landed atop him with her arms in firm embrace around his neck and shoulders. Her human-form weight was barely an inconvenience to the cursed half-beast. “Cut the crap, Jex. What did you say to him?” “Why are you not transformed?” he asked back calmly. Thora gritted her teeth as she hesitated to respond. “I… [i]I[/i] thought it’d be nicer not to have to pant like a dog in this heat.” “Mmh, smart,” he added. “Might look good with some sharper tan lines.” A half-smile crossed the captain’s face as she playfully reached down to give his nearly-bare backside a smack. “You could probably use some color yourself, you know.” “Indeed,” he agreed. “I doubt we’ll be able to avoid it out here. But I might have found something to… mitigate this dreadful heat.” Thora’s human ears almost seemed to perk up at this. “You have my attention. What did my big, strong brother happen to sniff out today?” she practically purred as she squeezed him even tighter. Jexon shot her a toothy grin as he slowly turned and pulled her easily into his arms. The sun was nearly on the horizon, and the moon was already in sight high above them. “Let’s take a little… westward walk.” * * * * * Carl eyed the ground as he trekked Eastward and steadily gathered his own armful of fronds. Eventually he stumbled upon the freshwater pool Thora had mentioned, though he’d neglected to bring any of the sullied, empty booze bottles with him to take any. Even so, his mind was thoroughly preoccupied with Jexon’s… strange pseudo-warning. His tone of voice was not angry or hardened. It was almost as if he [i]wanted[/i] Carl to go that way… but why? By the time Carl made it back to camp, Thora and Jexon were gone, and the sun was nearly halfway down. The cabin boy considered using a spell to light a fire, but a glance toward the beach made him think twice. A single set of worgen tracks headed that way and turned West, though he was too far from the beach to see how far along they went. Sure, he could send another eye, but he dashed that thought in favor of conserving as much of his mana as he could. I think his choice was pretty obvious, really. The curious warlock followed the tracks as they trailed along the sand far to the West, not stopping until a massive cliffside more or less ended the sandy beach. The tracks took a sharp turn into the water, but Carl decided to slow his pace, flatten to the cliff, and shuffle his way into the water to peek around the massive stone wall. Behind it, Carl found a rather sizeable, natural cove surrounded by tall cliffs. A glance down revealed the water to be quite shallow within, while soft sand made for comfortable footing in the ankle-deep water. The mouth of the bay could have held a small ship had it not been so shallow, but more impressively was the gently-rushing waterfall at the bay’s furthest end, fed by some sort of river that Carl had yet to find. The stone had been worn smooth by the constantly-streaming water, and a smattering of other rocks jutted up among the shallows, all of which were just as smooth. A particularly large stone stood within feet of the base of the waterfall, and among the shallows a now-naked, still-human Thora, appeared to be looking down into the crystal clear water, as if searching for something. Had she lost her makeshift clothing? Carl was too far away to hear Thora’s melodic humming over the waterfall. Her eyes flitted lazily this way and that, and occasionally she would bend over far at the waist to sift through the sand with her bare hands. After a moment she would stand and take a few more steps before bending again, each time inadvertently giving Carl a perfect, if not far away, view of her pale, full moon. Despite the warlock’s infatuation with the beautiful sight, for a fleeting moment he had the thought of [i]‘Where’s Jexon?’[/i], though his question was quickly answered as another naked human hopped off of a nearby rock to splash down into the cove. To his surprise, Jexon was actually an inch or two shorter than Thora, but the man was built beyond any figure Carl ever hoped to achieve. A short, trimmed beard, matched the handsome Gilnean’s short shock of hair, both of which had the same ginger color as his sister’s. Even his green eyes were identical to hers, and the muscular male approached her with her back turned to him without reservations. “Well, well, well. Never thought I’d find someone else washed up on my island,” he called to her, his voice deep, but not gravelly.