- Tale Number Three: Midnight Comfort -

"Oh, how wonderful!" the man in the safari hat and rubber trousers exclaimed when he saw the four youngsters push through the door of the tavern, lugging a cloth sack the size of a large stove between them. "You've managed to recapture our West Indian Slug!"

"Well, that's what you hired the Adventurer's Association for," Eddie said, obviously taking more pride in the association than in his own contribution to the assignment's successful completion.

"Though I can't see what you'd want with such a big gross thing, especially alive," Melody put in. "I mean, it's not like you can hitch it to a plow, it doesn't have any fleece, and you sure can't milk it!"

"The zoo doesn't select animals for their utility," the man explained. "We want to be able to show off all the strangest and most amazing creatures in the world. People will feel their 25 gold is more than well-spent when they can view the greatest of animal wonders without having to make a voyage all over the world."

"If you say so." She cocked an eye at their cargo. "I can't imagine anyone buying tickets to see that."

"Yeah, it's hard to believe, isn't it?" Pad said. "I guess some people are as fascinated by ugly things as pretty things."

"I say," the zookeeper said, noticing the lack of movement from the sack. "It is still alive, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah," Melody assured him. "I've been keeping him on sleep spells. I put a fresh one on just before we got here, so he should be out for a few more hours."

"Good, good. And I see you used this massive cloth to capture him without having to touch his acidic secretions."

"That stuff's potent, all right," Eddie said, holding out his hands to show the rosy blotches on his palms and fingers. "Just a little trickle leaked out when we were wrapping the cloth around him, and my hands have been itching like crazy since."

"He mentioned for the tenth time," Pad said, rolling his eyes. Eddie blushed.

"Hey!" Melody's brows narrowed in outrage. "I bet you'd be complaining just as much if your hands were itching all the time! Which they would be, if you'd tackled the slug head-on like Eddie, instead of slinking around like a coward!"

"Whaaaaat?" Pad gaped at her. "I was right in there with the rest of ya! And it ain't like you and Fiona got rashes, either. Just 'cause I wasn't careless -"

"How dare you accuse E-"

"Excuse me, could you two not fight in front of our client?" Fiona interjected.

"Besides, Pad's right," Eddie said. "It was my own fault."

"Well, then," the zookeeper said. "I don't suppose I could trouble the four of you with loading the slug onto my cart?"

"No trouble at all! Just pull it up to the tavern for us!"

It was hard work lifting the heavy slug, but in just a few minutes the job was done. In the process some of the cloth slid off the animal, but the zookeeper said this was no problem, and took out some rope to lash the slug to the cart.

"Say," Melody said, her face brightening with inspiration. "If you don't need that cloth to hold him anymore, do you mind if we hang onto it?"

"Uh, Melody," Pad grimaced. "You do realize it's got that thing's slime all over it now, don't you?"

"Exactly. It'll make the perfect weapon! Maybe if one of the Ancient Father's Cabal guys shows up when we're getting the next tablet, we can throw it over him!"

"You're a total sadist, ya know that?"

"Still, she has a point," Eddie said. "It could be a handy thing to hold onto. That is, if you don't mind, sir."

"Of course not," the zookeeper said. "Help yourselves."

They took it off, and the man drove away on his horse-and-cart, calling a reminder to pick up their reward.

"As if we would forget something as important as 2,000 gold," Melody snorted, and handed the thick cloth over to Pad. "Here, carry this."

"What? But you're the one who wanted to hang onto it!"

Melody ignored him, quickening her pace to come up alongside Eddie. "Let me take a look at those rashes, Eddie," she said, taking his right hand in both of hers. "Ooo, those much be pretty itchy, huh? You know, I know how to make this ointment for rashes. It'll make them go away faster..."

"Unbelievable," Pad growled. "I get my leg sliced open by one of those Cabal dirtbags and no one gives a damn. But Eddie just picks up a little rash, and he's got hot chicks fawning over him!"

"Well," Fiona coughed, "You have noticed, haven't you, that Melody didn't pay Eddie any attention the first several times he complained about the rashes? It's only when you poked fun at him that she started her 'fawning'."

"Oh, so it's all my fault?"

"No, I'm just pointing out that it's you she's really paying attention to, not Eddie."

"Great," he scoffed. "Now if only I could get her interested in the 'Pad's a nice sort of guy' way instead of the 'Pad's like a gross bug that I can torture without feeling guilty' way."

Fiona decided to try with Melody instead. She took a series of quick strides to catch up with her and Eddie, who was perceptibly squirming under her attentions.

"Do you think some light physical therapy might help?" Melody said loudly. "I'm very good at hand massages."

Fiona grabbed her by the arm and said in a much lower voice, "Melody, you're killing Pad."

"Good. He deserves to die."

"You can't mean that. What's he done to make you so angry?"

"Well, just to pick the most recent thing, there's his hitting on you."

Fiona's jaw dropped. "What?"

"I mean, no offense, but you're more than a bit on the naive side. It's not that you're not smart, but you're so innocent. Any guy who would make advances on you with no provocation is a total scumbag."

Fiona was flabbergasted. "When was Pad hitting on me?"

Melody arched an eyebrow. "Um, you're the one who told me he was."

"I said no such thing!"

"You did. You said, 'I've never noticed him show an interest in other girls.' You think I can't pick up on something like that?"

This was too much. "I meant he's been showing interest in you," she said in a loud whisper, cupping a hand around Melody's ear.

"Oh." Melody was visibly deflated of her anger, but she wasn't done yet. "Well, there's a thousand other things I'm mad at him for. And by the way, you're wrong about him being interested in me. Think about it. When's he ever done anything to show he cares about me at all?"

"You mean, like carrying around a huge slime-drenched rag for you, when you didn't even ask him nicely?"

"Well... that's..."

"Or taking the blame when you burned down half of that hotel room in Rio de Janeiro?"

"That was his fault! He made me angry!"

"Or trying to comfort you when you found out your mother was murdered?"

"He was pretty rude about it..."

"Or -"

"Look!" Melody snapped. "He told me himself that he doesn't care about me, okay?"

"When?"

"Right after we finished making out!"

Fiona's eyes almost popped out of her head.

Melody blanched as she realized what she'd just said. "Um, ha ha? Jeez, I was only joking, Fiona. Don't take everything so seriously." She increased her stride, quickly leaving Fiona behind. "Hey Pad! Hurry up with that slug cloak, you slug!"

"Yeah, yeah," Pad muttered. "Ya think I'm your slave or somethin'?" But he did hurry, if only to prove he wasn't a slug.

Fiona stared after the two of them. "Why is everyone in this party so weird about love?"

Fiona took the first watch that night as they set the airship towards their next objective, in Japan. As always, the boys were gentlemanly enough to volunteer for the two middle watches, so once her watch was up, Fiona left the cockpit and woke Pad for his turn.

The airship only had one proper bedroom, the captain's cabin, and they had all agreed that that should go to Fiona. Pad's chosen resting place was a hammock strung between two pipes on the lower deck. Once Fiona had left, he stretched, rolled out of the hammock, and pulled some clothes on. He threw on his jacket, too; it was a cold night.

He headed down the hall and up the ladder. The truth was, he kind of liked these nighttime watches. He enjoyed having a few hours of solitude and quiet, his hands on the throttle and steering wheel, sailing the ship through the darkness under the faint guiding light of the stars.

To light his way to the cockpit, he carried the small lantern which Fiona had turned over to him. As he walked, its light fell upon a quaking figure.

It was Melody. Apparently she'd figured herself tough enough to sleep under the stars with one of the upper deck's storage chests as her bed. The bed sheet she had wrapped around herself wasn't enough to protect her from the combined chill of nighttime and high altitude, however. She was shivering convulsively, and her teeth were chattering a little.

Pad's first instinct was to take off his jacket and put it over her, but he quickly realized that if he did that, Melody would know he was responsible. She'd already been treating him like her pack mule the past few days; if he was caught making such a chivalrous gesture, she'd get twice as bad. Besides, it was bound to be fairly cool even in the cockpit, so he'd definitely miss the jacket.

As he stood there in his momentary indecision, a strong gust of wind blew across the deck, extinguishing his lantern. "Dammit," he muttered, though he knew he could re-light the lantern in the cockpit, and he didn't really need the extra light to find his way there. It felt like this was just one more way for Melody to frustrate him, even in her sleep.

Well, I know there's a blanket somewhere in one of these storage chests. He opened one up and dug around inside until his hand encountered something big and soft. He pulled the blanket out and, careful so as not to wake her, wrapped it around Melody's shivering body.

The light from the moon, while not bright enough for Pad to see most of what was around him very clearly, reflected off Melody's pale skin quite brightly. With his face just inches from hers, he could see the brown curls of her hair, the warm texture of her mouth, her hand pressing into her soft cheek, her eyelids sealed in uninterrupted repose. The temptation to run a hand through her hair was hard to resist.

Pad realized, then, that the way Melody treated him didn't really affect him. That one bad aspect of her personality didn't change the fact that she was a beautiful person, inside and out. There was a goodness, a passion within her that could never change. And that meant he would never stop caring about her. No matter what happened, however far apart from each other they became, however divided by distance or competing relationships, he'd still do anything for her.

Within reason, of course. It wasn't like Pad was totally amoral or crazy.

Melody's shivering was already beginning to subside, so Pad made his way to the cockpit. He re-lit his lantern, took the lock off the steering wheel, and settled into his watch.

He decided he'd do a double shift, and not wake Eddie until it was time for the last watch. He was feeling pretty invigorated, so he probably wouldn't be ready to go back to sleep by the time of Eddie's originally scheduled watch.

Besides, some extra sleep might make Melody feel better.

Pad was woken the next morning by a high-pitched screech. Fearing an attack by Cabal goons, he fell out of his hammock, grabbed his gun, and raced to the upper deck.

At least, that was how he preferred to remember it. In reality, the first of those three steps was accompanied his right foot becoming entangled in the ropes of the hammock. He then spent a full minute squirming on the floor and struggling to free himself. And then, finally, he grabbed his gun and raced to the upper deck.

That little clarification is important because it explains why, for all Pad's haste, Eddie and Fiona reached Melody's bedside before him. Both of them were trying their best to calm Melody, who was screaming hysterically. Even from a few hundred yards away, Pad could see why. He stared in horror.

Melody's normally smooth white skin was as red as a radish, her face, hands, arms, and even ears covered in the most intense rashes he had ever seen. In places it was so bad that the skin had bubbled up into itchy lumps, like small boils. Deeper red lines along her arms showed that she had been unable to resist scratching at them. She looked more like a stereotypical old hag of a witch than herself.

And there, on the floor beside her, was the obvious cause: the cloth sheet they'd used to capture the enormous slug. It dawned on Pad that the big, soft thing he'd pulled out of the storage chest the night before was not a blanket.

"Somebody put it over me while I was asleep!" Melody was shrieking in outrage. "I must've been all wrapped up in that nasty thing half the night!"

"But who would do such a thing?" Fiona said, aghast.

"Well, an enemy wouldn't have," she said, managing a temporary calm. "They'd have just killed me. And there's only one person in our crew who's a big enough louse to pull a prank this low down and mean..."

She turned to glare directly at Pad. Her eyes were thoroughly bloodshot, and probably not just from the slug's slime running over her lids. Pad gulped.

"Pad!" Eddie exclaimed, looking at him with outraged astonishment. "Is that why you wanted to skip Melody's watch tonight? So that she'd get more exposure to that awful slime?"

"I... I..." he stammered, still staring in horror at the unsightly state he'd unwittingly brought Melody to, and at the murderous look in her eye.

"Yaaaaaaarrrrrrggghh!" she bellowed, snatching up her wand and running at him, wrathful magic crackling all around her. "I'll kill you, you lousy piece of crap!"

Pad turned and ran for dear life.

"Let me give you some advice," Evans told Pad, smiling at him uncertainly. "If you want a young lady's attention, practical jokes are not the best way to go about getting it." He paused, then added, "Certainly not the least painful."

"Shut up," Pad muttered as Fiona tended to the magical burns which covered his arms and torso.