The Island of Many Fates

Artemis eagerly popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed. "Come oooon, give 'em baaack," he whined, holding out his hand. "Or else." He grabbed the sword from Vivienne silently in his left hand and raised it, swung it around a few times, then rested it on the ground. "Kind of heavy. But then again, it is a TWO-handed sword..."

Axelle smirked. "Not giving them back."

Artemis frowned playfully, although his intention was to scowl frighteningly. He walked toward her menacingly. "Give 'em here," he attempted to say roughly.

Axelle grinned. "What are you gonna do? You only have one arm, and it's holding a sword."

Artemis started. "Hmm...you're right. But the sword'll wait." He stabbed the sword into the ground. He then recommenced walking toward her, his left arm stretched out like a sterotyped zombies'. "Gimme. I need more."

Axelle sidestepped. "Nope."

Artemis rushed at her, then, tackling her with his one good arm. He pushed her to the ground, then scowled at her. "Hello. My pills, please. Now. It huuuurts."

Axelle rolled her eyes and pulled the container from her top.

"You want these? Too bad." She taunted, rolling away from him and jumping up.

Artemis murmered under his breath, averting his eyes as she took his pills out, then made a grab at them. "Why are you doing this?" he muttered.

"Because these little things," she started, shaking the case. "Are bad for you."

"No they aren't! I NEED them!" cried Artemis. "There's nothing anything can do to change the fact that they are essential to me!"

Axelle batted her eyelashes at him. "Please don't."

Artemis began to tear at his hair in distress. "Those pills are mine! Not yours! You can't have them! Please!" He walked toward her, torn between grabbing the pills from the pretty lady, or melting at her feet.

Axelle sighed, and tossed him the case. "I'm disappointed." She whispered, spinning around and sitting back down.

Artemis cringed. Disappointed? Who cares?
I do.
Artemis stooped down and grabbed the base. He looked at it, shaking, then walked over to Axelle and handed it to her with trembling hands. "Here. I...Don't give them to me."
Artemis looked away, grimacing.
That was stupid.
Was it?

Axelle blinked and took them.

"Uh...okay..."

Artemis regretted giving Axelle the pills already, but he couldn't bear to hear her say she was disappointed again. He couldn't help feeling that that was highly irrational, though. He sat down next to Axelle. "My arm hurts. And I can't move it. I am now patently useless, unless you want to use my body as a shield."

Axelle made a comforting cooing noise and rubbed his arm lightly. "It'll be okay."

Kasam examined the greatsword skeptically.

"You want to use that? After seeing what you can do with a katana, I think you'd actually do better with the rusty thing than that metal monstrosity. You're trained in the katana, are you not? Cora seemed to think so."

Kryoni busied herself propping the door closed. After a moment's consideration, she dragged the (very heavy) suit of armor over and stacked it up to seal the door.

"I don't think it's light yet. We should be able to catch a few hours of sleep still," she announced.

Artemis sighed. "If anyone else wants it, they can have it. If not..." He shrugged, and curiously laid his head on Axelle's shoulder, bracing himself.

Axelle jumped in shock, but didn't push him away.

"Aw, how cuuuute!" Vivienne cooed. Axelle shot her an icy stare and she backed away, though.

Surprised, but not displeased, Artemis conserved his position. He cursed quietly when Axelle jumped, a twinge of pain running through his arm, but other than that, he felt fine. He smiled at Axelle, a real smile, then partially closed his eyes.
"What next, oh Great One?" he asked Kasam, reaching out a hand towards Axelle's forehead playfully. He realized he had never been playful before in his life.
You're turning soft, old boy.
Damn right I am. Someone help.
He noticed Vivienne staring at them, blushed slightly, and closed his eye in what might have been a wink. Maybe.

"Hopefully your arm will turn out to be infected and we'll have no choice but to amputate your head," Kasam said. From behind everyone else, Kryoni rolled her eyes at him. He caught the expression and smirked.

"We stay here until we can be sure that it's light. After that, we get out and head back to the ship. If we're lucky, we can wrap Artemis in a burial shroud and sling him overboard. If we're not so lucky, we can use the supplies back there to at least set a splint for his arm. Either way, we'll be heading back here soon."

Kasam cast a glance at the pile of armor by the door as he relaxed back onto one of the mats.

"You know, I'm starting to think that the rest of you might actually survive this trip. I had my doubts. All right, so I was fairly sure that you'd all be dead by now. I had planned on bringing a group of human body-shields along, but it seems that you might last a bit longer yet."

"Body-shields? Burial shrouds? I can go for that." Artemis smiled quietly.

OOC: It just occured to me that we should all have actually gone up a level after the water dragon fight. I count 150 exp so far, 75 gold. Guess we should update our profiles or sumfink.

"You do that," Kasam said. "I have no idea what time it is right now. One of you wake me when you think it's light. Be sure that you're sure, though. I wasn't joking about the things that come out on this island. This was one of the nice ones."

Kryoni went back to her corner, curled up, and went to sleep. Kasam forced himself not to watch her hips, concentrating instead on the look on Artemis's face when he had dive-bombed Axelle's bosom.