Rum sat down at his writing desk, scratching his nose. The page was blank before him. He was bone-tired, exhausted and covered with slime. Of course, he hadn't been covered with slime when he'd arrived at the ship. Paddling half-way around the island in a burned rowboat, he had been pleasantly surprised that his helms-wizard-lizard had brought their ship around to meet them. He'd been less pleasantly surprised to discover in their absence the yellow-robed lizard had vomited countless slimy eggs onto the deck and throughout the hold.

One nightmarish hour of cleaning, and another hour of cleaning the egg-shells out of Molotov's hair, and things were finally back under control. Their ship was catching a wind away from the chaotic island. Somehow the scent of burning hair and flesh still lingered in his nostrils, but Rum chalked that down as simple trauma. He filed it away in a deep dark place in his mind, to never to think about again. Yes. I'm never going to think about dragons, ever, ever. I'm sure they'll never come into my life again.

The page was blank before him. He tapped his fingers on the side of the desk and looked around his Captain's quarters. He'd sold most of his nicer things in order to purchase the boat- if he had to guess, the only actually expensive item left on-board was the sword at his side. A fabled Sword of the Sea, capable of performing extreme feats of magic, a sword which had already saved his life twice.

The page was blank before him. Rum winced.

He'd had a vision of sitting down, the words flowing wild out of his quill, his hand moving so fast he could barely keep up with the thoughts in his mind. He'd had an adventure- he'd discovered lost cities, ancient civilizations. He'd talked with ghosts, he'd struck a dragon, he'd nearly drowned, he'd nearly been crushed, he'd- he'd-

What more was there? Why was the page still blank? It was all the necessary ingredients to make a fantastic adventure story. It would be the reboot of his series, Rum the God-Like Poet- he'd never been able to work with material this real. His descriptions would be vivid, each page would shock his readers, captivate them and hold their eyeballs hostage until the end of the book.

Perhaps it was the emotion he was missing. What had he experienced over the last two days, emotion-wise? Well, there was the feeling of running away in terror. The feeling of... running away in general. He'd done a lot of running away. Except for that one strange moment when he'd turned around to run back into danger. Boy, what a fluke that was. But that's who I want to be, isn't it? Someone who runs toward danger. But it wasn't just that- it was running towards a friend. Trying to save someone. Being a hero.

Rum hastily scratched a title down at the top of the parchment paper. "Rum the God-Like Poet in..." He scratched it out almost as quickly. It wasn't a very good title. It very probably had NEVER been a good title.

Furrowing his brow, Rum realized he was writing again. Beneath the scribbled out title, a new one appeared. He considered it. Tried it out on his tongue.

"The Story of Rum and Molotov..."

Rum began to write. It wasn't a perfect story. There were plot twists without proper foreshadowing, there were characters with weak motivations. There were spelling mistakes, tense errors, clunky dialogue, a whole lot of blotches of black with scratched out, rewritten bits. It was, if considered against any other work of fiction within the Foggy Ocean, a very bad story. It certainly wasn't a story that Rum the God-Like Poet would have written.

But it was Rumma von Adilstan's story. His first, REAL story. And there was a joy there, a freedom like he'd never felt before. Of writing something whatever damn way he wanted, of writing something honest to himself. Not trying to emulate his father, not trying to impress others...

When Rum finished, the wax candles in his room dying around him, he realized his face was sore from smiling the whole night through. He pulled himself up out of the chair, his knees and joints popping, aching from lack of movement. Rum staggered over towards his bed, and collapsed face-first into it. He was happy, he realized.

---

Oshitticus, draped in a brocaded silk toga, descended from the cloudy skies, his alabaster-coloured skin sparkling in the sea breeze. The God of Running Away yawned as he floated down toward his cloud-palace, his stomach bulging, stuffed to bursting with sea-misted grapes, honey-wine and the fat of lamb. His long black locks of hair were tussled, and as per usual for a God, he was content and at peace with all things. It had been an absolute rager of a divine party.

When Brynallia the One-Winged Goddess of Knowledge road that golden-winged cow across the tables, I nearly died! Or at least, I think I nearly died. Hard to tell what dying is, but if I had to guess, laughing really hard, that's probably close to dying!

Of course, the party had hit a bit of a damper when that whole business with the Swords of the Sea came up. Everyone was getting jittery, what with so many of the damn things being active at once in the mortal realms far below. "Bad news for the Gods" they had all agreed. Oshitticus also agreed- but he was a very minor God. If the natural order of the worlds below was upset, if nations were to fall, if Gods were to be slaughtered, well, that was fine by him. A minor divinity like himself would fall through the cracks- plus, he WAS great at running away. That was his whole M.O.

Inside his grand palace sixty-score halls were filled with the Sacred Shoes of the Cowards, the now-immortal footwear that had carried only the greatest cravens and yellow-hearted cowards from danger. Oshitticus scratched his back as he floated past them. The one problem with having a massive divine palace was it took an eternity to get back to your bed.

Just then, a bright light flashed by his head. A golden wisp, deliverer of prayers, hummed dutifully by his ear. It took a second, the barrels upon barrels of divine wine muddling his mind, but Oshitticus realized finally what this meant. He could hardly believe it.

"One of those mortals... actually PRAYED to me?"

---

Rum snored in his cabin, blessed by the magical gift of sleep apnea. He didn't hear the door open, or see the shadowed figure enter his room. It snatched up the parchment paper from the edge of his desk, flipping quickly through the pages.

Rum rolled over, his breath hitching, mouth hanging open in a low snore. The figure was already gone.

---

On the deck on the ship the figure stood with trembling hands, holding "The Story of Rum and Molotov". The Foggy Ocean burbled around them, their (mostly) silent companion.

There was a brilliant flash of fire. The pages crackled and burned, ink turning to ash, chunks of twisting lost words catching on the wind, flying out and falling low into the bubbling ocean waters, obscured by the fog, lost forever within that watery cauldron.

"Sorry, Rum ol' chum..." the figure said.

The figure hung its head low, and made its way back below deck.