To those who are unfamiliar with nautical slang, a "jonah" is a bringer of supremely bad luck to a ship. The usual way to deal with one is to kill it and lob it overboard.
His breathing had slowed, Haloc thought.
They had been sailing for several months now, but the latest weeks had been especially tough. Lizards were not seafaring creatures. They did not abide by the cold. Haloc thought they were mad to undertake this journey in the first place, but one does not refuse an imperial order if one fancies his head. So here they were, a five score lizards, bigger than any seafarer and not worth their weight in fish guts. They were dead useless on a rolling deck - the very same that had lulled Haloc to sleep every night, and that he could barely find rest without. Outside, the gale pitched a harsh keen as it tore through the timbers, eating away at the warmth - and at the lizards.
Up to now, no sailors talked to them, and the favour was returned. The lizards weren't happy to be there, and the sailors weren't happy to have them. But during the day, their general - an especially big one named Lask Frildur - had apparently argued the Capitan into having his troops sleep with the sailors below deck, rather than in their own barracks, which were simply too cold. They came from the tropical Sampetra where the summer lasted all year, and had never been this far north before. Disciplined as they were, Haloc never once heard them complain. The only thing akin to it he had ever heard was when their general made a strangled noise in the deep of his throat when he came up from his cabin one day and saw the frozen sleet on the deck.
It had taken Haloc a good long while to place that noise, because he had never heard a Monitor make it before.
It has dread.
Right now, it was the dead of night and Haloc was laying in his hammock just below one of the buggers. The idea, according to the Captain, was that the crew should all act as kindles for the lizards during the night so they didn't all snuff it before they landed on Mossflower, and lay below them so the scalies could be heated up.
Banner idea, thought Haloc. It just ain't workin.
The lizard above him had definitely slowed his breath. Being a rat, Haloc hadn't the faintest idea whether a lizard breathing slowly was a good or bad thing. None of them shivered in the cold, which he thought was odd considering how miserable they all looked in it. He had figured for a long time that lizards worked slightly differently from everyone else in this weather, and it only got weirder and weirder as the days went on. They all stopped talking at one point, and they all moved very slowly, not at all like Monitors usually move. No fluid grace, no savage pride to hold them up. It was almost as if they were already dead, but hadn't stopped moving yet.
Haloc shivered at the thought. Like any good seafarer, he was a superstitious rat. Anybody knew that death on a ship was a sign of the worst kind of luck. It was an unspoken rule among any sailors, even searats - keep everyone alive while on the waves. In the harbour they might be at each other's throats all they liked, and people on other boats could rot for all they cared, but on their own ship, they stuck together and did their damnedest to survive.
Which was why Haloc felt a bit queezy about the lizard just above him breathing any slower.
But what in the hell can you do about it, grubbypaws? he thought to himself. It's not as if you can convince the captain to light a fire below deck. There's not a lot of heat you've got besides your own, and you need that for yourself.
I'll be damned if I sacrifice meself for a Monitor lizard, Haloc though, but the thought didn't stick. He had to do something. If that creature upped and died right above him, who knows what kind of jonah everyone would see him as? There couldn't be any deaths on your ship. You had to stop it - and if you sat by and did nothing, they you're the one who caused it, is what my mother used to say, thought Haloc. And momma didn't raise no jonahs.
I must be barkin mad.
He poked the lizard in the back.
There was a slight shuffling sound above him, and a pair of shining eyes peered down at him over the dirty canvas hammock. There was no expression on its face, which Haloc had come to expect. It was as if their faces were the first to freeze when they hit the cold gales.
Haloc shifted himself around so he had an odd angle in his own hamoc, then lifted half his blanked, momentarily letting all the warmth out. Then he meaningfully poked at his side.
It was the most curious sight Haloc had ever seen - the lizard looked like it would have cried if it could.
There was a slight thump as the big creature hit the floor, then slithered in next to Haloc, leaning up against him swiftly, as if afraid the rat would change his mind.
He almost did when he felt the creature hit him. It was cold as the very ice of north.
I'm sharing a hammock with a ghost, he thought. Bugger's already dead.
But the slow breathing next to his ear began to convince him otherwise. It grew a bit quicker, and got a bit steadier. They had plenty of room, even though the lizard was quite big. One of the few advantages to having the monitors on board that all the sailors had unanimously agreed on was all the new hammocks made from old sail canvas to accommodate the lizards. There was plenty left by the time they had cut up the old sail, so everyone had gotten a new, extra big hammock back in Sampetra.
There was a bit of shifting around, and the much larger lizard ended up with his back up Haloc's side, thick tail curled up against his leg in a thoroughly creepy fashion.
"You better not die on me, scales" Haloc whispered lowly.
The lizard nodded, which could mean anything.
"By the stars you're cold" Haloc commented, and tucked in, thinking he might catch a few winks before the captain called again, cold lizard or no. In spite of this, he found himself staring at the now-empty hammock above him for a while, putting pieces together. It made sense, in a queer sort of way. No matter how much clothes those lizards put on, they never seemed to get any warmer. He had been thinking all kinds of nasty things of it, from walking dead to old curses, but now he was starting to get a different idea.
"You lot can't make warmth yerself like we can, can you?"
He felt the lizard stiffen. For a long moment, it didn't react. Then it slowly shook its head.
Figured as much, Haloc thought. And they can't admit it to anybody, because they don't want to look like a pansies.
Bloody honour's gonna kill the lot of them, he concluded. You can't fight yer nature, any more than you can fight the wind an the waves. And with such big thoughts on his mind, he nodded off to sleep.
