"Well I am fucking hungry!" The shout echoed across the still waters around them and a group of seagulls took flight from a nearby shallow.
"That's not an excuse for how you're acting, you're not five-fucking-years old Locke."
"Just because that cat got in the pantry we have to starve to death? Is that it?"
Jean discreetly shifted his body so he was shielding more of Regal and said, with emphasis on every word, "We do not eat the cat."
Locke turned away, grumbling in tune with his stomach. This trip was turning out worse than he would have imagined, not counting the whole being poisoned thing. They had been out at sea for about a week, creeping up the coast and doing their best ignoring the rising tension between them. Or 'mounting tension' was maybe a more appropriate way to put it. Locke knew Jean did his best to hide his anger, hide how betrayed he felt about being tricked to drink the antidote, but the clenched fists and the sullen silence were hard to miss, especially for Locke.
He heaved a deep sigh as he look out over the horizon, it was endless and it was beautiful. But after that whole fiasco dealing with sailing it and pretending to know how that was done, he mostly saw the potential for danger in those still waters. And the potential for frighteningly large sea beasts. Not that such an encounter would matter much now, he would be dead soon anyways. As the thought hit him he was once again surprised over how calm he felt, how he already seemed to have accepted it so fully. He felt like he should be angrier, maybe scream a bit and throw a real royal tantrum, but the only thing that really bothered him was the thought that Jean would have to deal with everything all alone afterwards. Jean had been right, making him drink the antidote had been selfish as hell, but that did not mean that he regretted it.
If he was being honest there was one part of this whole business that did disturb him though. And it was the fact that he did not know when or even how the poison would take effect. Fucking Tal Verrar and its dearly departed fucking Archon.
He was startled out of his merry reflections by a thud and a swearing Jean cursing the boat that kept them above the surface.
"The boat is still plotting the murder of your knees?" he asked as he turned around, careful to be as cheeky as he would have been during normal circumstances.
"If we do not get of this boat soon I swear I'll either swim to shore and leave your sorry ass behind or put one of the sisters through the hull."
"Would be a terrible waste of a fine boat. I thought you had really gotten the taste for sailing, and this is such a private and luxurious vessel."
"The only waste here is that of your words in my ears. It's one thing to be on a large ship, no matter how many ill-mannered people you share it with, it's quite another to be stuck in this small barrel. Soon one of us is going overboard."
"Come now, no need to resort to personal attacks or mass drowning."
"Personal drowning is looking more and more appealing."
Locke heaved another sight. When Jean decided to unreasonable, he always went the whole way.
"I thought it was my role to be the whiny bitch," said Locke, "and before you decide that my skull is better suited for one of the sisters than the hull of the boat, let me just point put that we need to make for land anyway. The cat made sure of that when it ate all our provisions."
"Don't blame the cat," Jean grumbled, stroking the black menace that had somehow wormed it's way into his arms, "and as a matter of fact I was going below deck to check what city that might be that we are heading towards when the boat decided I needed to be a couple of feet shorter."
Jean tilted his head to indicate the piece of shore quite a bit ahead of them that had come into view as they rounded the latest small cape just a couple of minutes ago. Locke turned his head to see what he was looking at and immediately cursed his own inattentiveness, there was indeed a town resting on the shore. Not a impressing large one, but it was definitely more than a small fishing village. He even though he could glimpse one or three buildings large enough to be more than simple housing.
"Well don't let me keep you then. And while you're down there why don't you try and find something that the devil in your arms didn't chew on? If we are making for port I would like to arrive without my stomach resorting to eating itself on the way."
"And you were worried that I would steal your title of whining bitch."
"Well I have to keep up appearances, can't compromise my winning personality now can I."
"I'll compromise you if we don't reach that town soon."
Jean turned around before Locke could retort and made his way down the short flight of stairs, taking Regal with him. Locke glared after him.
"Then you better-" The bout of dizziness hit Locke like a fist in the face, and he lurched sideways, coming dangerously close to taking a dive into the frigid waters of the sea before he caught himself at the last minute on the small railing and sank down to the deck. His vision swam and for a short time he was not sure he knew what was up and what was down anymore.
"Finally at a loss for snarky comebacks, eh?" Jeans voice came from below deck and Locke forced himself to take deep breaths and focus. Whatever it was that just happened, it would not do to worry Jean about it. Just a spell of dizziness, nothing serious. This was nothing compared to what was to come, Locke knew, and to start weighting Jean down with it already was not an option.
"Not at all, " said Locke, forcing his voice to sound normal and not as winded and afraid as he felt, "simply not bothering with the easy fights. Did you find the name of the town that will soon get the pleasure of our visit?"
There was a small pause before Jean answered that Locke chose to ignore. "It's apparently called Suarra. Large enough that our visit will not be especially noted but small enough that there should be no well informed officials that know of us. Seems pretty ideal. Can't say I've heard of it before though." As Jean spoke he walked back up the stairs, this time with the map in hand and no cat to be seen. Locke idly wondered if Regal somehow had managed to get to their last few supplies instead of Jean and with a grumbling of his stomach he deemed it entirely possible.
Locke adjusted himself so it merely looked as if he was sitting down, and not as if he had suddenly collapsed. The world had stopped spinning and he was almost in control again.
"Sounds perfect! Let's make all possible haste."
"Stop lounging around and help set the course then," said Jean, "we should be able to make it before sundown without any problems."
And id Locke kept closer to the middle of the boat and made sure to sit down as much as possible as they worked, he made sure that he acted as normally as he could and that Jean had no case to suspect anything.
They had a long way to go before this was over after all.