Alba was pleased as punch, he got to bite something, and even get praised for it as an added bonus.

He couldn’t get away with cute anymore, for some reason whenever he reared up and showed his talony pawbeans now people fainted rather than offering him the treats he was entitled to. But watching over the axe girl? They all praised him for that, soon all the fussing and treats would belong to him.

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Rascal was somewhat less chuffed, he’d hardly even gotten started on a good old fashioned mauling on the impertinent human who had stepped on his tail before his victim fell asleep. Honestly prey these days just had no respect for a mighty hunter. Still at least the humans knew their place, and hauled the culprit away for daring to muss his beautiful tail like that. Just the thought set it off a twitching in anger. He was somewhat irate because it had been a lovely nap too. Oh well, he had a feeling annoying intruders like that weren’t going to be uncommon from now on, and as we all know, there is no creature capable of holding a grudge better than a cat. They make Furies look downright forgiving in comparison.

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Prince Tyrone was feeling somewhat washed up today. (It was unfortunate for him it was merely in a figurative sense, not a literal one.) Three bloody days he had been adrift, and that barrel he had liberated from the wreckage of the Celestial Mary had turned out to be far from ideal. When he cracked it open instead of water he had found something worse, grog.

As you can imagine by now he was somewhat tipsy. Under normal circumstances that would have been fine with him, but there’s a few major differences between being tipsy on the finest wine an empire could offer, and being off your face on grog. For starters there’s a little known fact about grog all the stories people tell about the sea fail to mention. Grog had what could generously be called a unique flavour. If by unique you mean that even somebody drinking it before you, then topping up the barrel could only really improve upon it. The other thing that is never mentioned is that it would give you the mother of all hangovers, In fact probably drinking the contents of the bilge pumps back on board would be an improvement, flavour wise, and probably result in less of a headache.

On the plus side, he thought, at least he was starting to get the hang of this whole lookout thing. Which was fortunate, as Kevin the zebra made a fairly lousy lookout. (Probably something to do with not existing outside the hallucinations of an extremely drunk Prince.)

“Much more of this and I will lose my mind” Tyrone mumbled (or slurred, possibly both, whichever it was coherent conversation it was not.)

“I rather think that ship has long since sailed your highness” shot back Kevin, Usually Tyrone would have anybody who disrespected him so executed, but in the circumstances he decided to let it slide. (Which was fortunate as he currently had no access to courts, judges, executioners, execution equipment, or for that matter anybody of a non hallucinatory persuasion to execute.)

So instead he settled down for a quick game of I spy.

“I spy with my little eye something beginning with s”

“Is it sea?” Sighed Kevin

“Nope”

“Seaweed?”

“Nu Uh”

“Seawater?”

“Not it.”

“Swell?”

“Not even close.”

“Surf?” Kevin ventured he was rapidly growing board of this situation.

“Nope” cackle Tyrone. “Give in yet?”

Kevin merely sighed and raised two hallucinatory hooves in surrender.

“SHITETONNES OF WATER” Tyrone howled, belting out a disturbingly unsettling cackle.

Kevin was at his wits end, if it was possile he probably would have drowned Tyrone himself by now. But there were rules against that sort of thing, not to mention the whole being completely intangible issue. The rules were simple, drunk people are entitled to a hallucination, shipwrecked mariners were entitled to a hallucination, and unfortunately for poor Kevin this absolute bastard fit firmly into both categories. Meaning whether he liked it or not he was stuck here. Usually as the drunk sobered up he would have traded shifts with another hallucination. Unfortunately Tyrone had taken a shine to him, had no intention of sobering up, and had a barrel of the worst grog meant to keep half a ship crew happily tipsy for weeks ready to roll at any time. So it wasn’t just Tyrone who was stuck, Kevin the Zebra was too.

“Can’t wait to see her” Tyrone slurred out, if Kevin hadn’t existed purely in the mind of a drunken Tyrone he wouldn’t have stood a chance of making sense of him. Hell even while sharing what passed for Tyrone’s mind making a lick of sense of him was proving to be something of a challenge.

“Can’t believe she didn’t respond to my request” Tyrone grumbled. “Oh well I’ll get out of this, and when I do I’ll go and find her, she’ll be my wife, I mean look at me I’m the full package, looks, money, a kingdom.”

“And all she has to do to get it is put up with you for the rest of her natural life, Wow all of a sudden I think I understand” Kevin snarked. “The price is far too high.”

Tyrone gave him the stink eye, but held his tongue until boredom took over again.

“One more round.”

“Seriously WE ARE ADRIFT IN A BECALMED OCEAN, THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING BUT WATER.”

“You got anything better to do?”

“Touche, oh gods, please tell me thinking like him isn’t infectious, alright fire away.

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with L.”

“Lots of water?”

“not even close.”

“Lapping waves?”

“Not It”

“How many times do I have to tell you Hallucination starts with a h, no matter how cute you may think lucination sounds, and grog is not, and never will be a liquer, hell calling it booze is somewhat overgenerous.”

“Not it either. Give in yet?”

With an agonisingly frustrated moan Kevin nodded.

“Land”

“Land? Why didn’t you say so sooner?”

“That’s not how I spy works”

“OK now you see the island? And you’re worried about I spy?”

Tyrone really wasn’t, but it would take him a while to figure out which of the 3 identical islands was real.