Tyla Kirby sits next to the water, her back against a tree, writing in a journal. She has a book and a quill, but no ink. Tyla crawls the two blocks to the water's edge and sticks her arm -the one holding the quill- in up to the shoulder. There is a small squirt of ink at the bottom of the water, and Tyla's quill comes out of the water dripping black on the writing end.

Tyla leans over the water. She puts her hand to her mouth and then moves it forwards and down so it's horizontal- American sign language for 'thank you'. There is a movement in the water, as if something swam away quickly, and a small ink cloud is left behind. Tyla smiles and goes back to the tree she was sitting against, where she left her journal on the grass.

A few minutes later, Tyla finishes writing and puts her journal in her inventory. She slips into the shallow water -one block deep- and wades until she is about four blocks from the shore. She sticks her right hand under the water and makes another sign language gesture. This time, she has her thumb, index and pinkie fingers extended, her middle and fourth fingers folded against her palm. American sign language for 'I love you', which wasn't entirely appropriate, but it's all Tyla could remember at the time.

She stands like that for a few moments, then they start to appear. Squids, her friends. It took a long time for her to earn their trust, but now they understood a few gestures in sign language and they would stick around when they would run from any other human.

Tyla gets on her knees in the water, the squids -at least a dozen- now clustering around her. A few of them bump into her back, and only practice keeps her from jumping. She learned the hard way that sudden moves would make the squids run.

She watches some of the younger squids swim circles around her while some of the parents watch them. She smiles; squids are such innocent, happy creatures… Eventually, Tyla starts to shiver from being in the water too long. She stands up slowly, so that she doesn't scare the squids, and walks just as slowly to the shore. There she sits, dangling her feet in the water, watching the happy squids swim around and shoot small jets of ink at each other.

"Die squids!" A boy jumps into the water, scattering the squids. He hacks at them with his golden sword, but they all swim away in panic. "No! Die! Die!" He manages to hit one squid, which shoots ink all over his feet and swims away, then he is left stabbing the water.

He attacks the empty water for a few moments, then he makes a rude gesture at the direction the squids fled and turns back towards the shore. His hair is pale brown and wild, like he'd been sleeping outdoors for several days, and his blue eyes are very bright. His expression is fanatical, and he has a curious look on his face.

He stumbles a bit, like he's tired, or -just possibly- drunk, and when he sees Tyla, his expression changes so quickly that she immediately thinks 'Uh oh'. Tyla had been staring at him like 'hey, who is this guy to attack my friends?' but he raises his sword into a fighting position and says "Don't worry; I'll kill them if they come back! I'll protect you!"

Tyla stares at him. "Who the hell are you?" she asks, although her tone of voice is more like 'what the hell are you?'. The boy salutes. "I'm Sky!"

Tyla sat there for a moment, speechless. This Sky, whoever he was, tried to kill her friends and interrupted the squids' peaceful swimming, and he was acting like he had just rescued her? Squids are passive mobs! Sky stood, knee-deep in the water, holding his golden sword and grinning.

"The squids are my friends." Tyla managed to say. Straightaway, Sky's expression became more fanatical and less friendly. "You mean you're with the squids?" he shouted, gripping his sword with both hands and taking a step towards Tyla.

"What? No." Tyla said instinctively, somewhat spooked. Sky took it differently than she had planned. "So you're not with the squids, then. Why didn't you say so?" Sky relaxed completely, and the excited, slightly violent look went out of his eyes. He switched his sword to his left hand and held his right hand out to Tyla. She cautiously shook it, half expecting the smiling Sky to suddenly go crazy and attack her with his sword.

"I'm Sky-" "I know that." Tyla said. Sky paused, looking a bit confused. Tyla sighed. "I'm Tyla Kirby." she introduced herself. Sky's expression brightened. "Great! You wanna help me kill squids?"

Tyla looked behind her at the horizon; the sun was setting. It crossed her mind that she really couldn't leave Sky out by himself. The poor guy could barely take care of himself, judging from the dirt on his clothes and how skinny he was. He had obviously spent a few nights outside already, and it would just be murder to leave him alone with all the night mobs. Sure, he had his gold sword, but it had seen a lot of use, and -let's face it- gold does not make the most effective weapons.

"Uh-" Sky obviously assumed that 'uh' meant 'yes', because he did a jump of happiness and said "Yeah! Come on, Tyla, let's do it!" He turned around to run back out into the ocean, but Tyla grabbed the back of his jacket. He kept running in place until Tyla got in front of him, holding him back and breaking his concentration.

"Why you no wanna kill squids?" Sky asked sadly. "Because it's almost night now, Sky. We can't hunt for squids at night." Tyla accepted that going along with Sky might be the only way to get him to listen. Even partly.

Sky looked very confused. "Why not?" He sounded so much like a little kid that Tyla -just for a moment- acted like her mother. "Because I say so, that's why." she said. Grabbing Sky by the jacket, she dragged him, still trying to run towards the water and attacking thin air with his sword, on to land. When both his feet were on dry ground, he stopped struggling. "Aw…" Sky said sadly, wilting.

Tyla sighed; this guy was going to get difficult…