The North's Galleon

Chapter 4: Liar

"Thank you." Lawrence grinned as he stuffed 15 diir into his pocket.

"Shut up." Gunther grumbled as he kicked a chair out from the table to sit down next to Lawrence.

"What're you two up to?" Big Man, who had been named for a good reason, glared down at them.

"Breakfast?" Gunther scowled back.

"I think we all got too drunk last night if Lawrence and Gunther are eating breakfast together." Millard snickered.

"Don't eat anything, Lawrence, Gunther probably poisoned it." Jackal cackled.

"Oh, piss off." Gunther snarled.

"I'm done eating anyway." Lawrence started to stand.

"LAWRENCE!" Sebastian bellowed from the kitchen. "I didn't see yer mask off ONCE, which means you did NOT eat, now SIT DOWN and eat yer breakfast!" He slammed a pot down and glared at Lawrence. "Yer scrawny enough without skipping meals!"

Lawrence slumped back into his seat, looking very guilty. "I'm not that scrawny..."

Gunther chuckled, but now he had to try to sneak food out, after he'd already skipped dinner the night before.

Not an easy task against Sebastian.

"Don't think too hard, Gunther, you'll hurt something." Jackal snickered as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Oh, shut up." Gunther held his hand out for the coffee pot.

Jackal flipped him off and handed the pot to Millard. "Use your manners."

"I've spent ten years unlearning my manners to fit in with you lot, now hand it over."

"Oh, how hard is it to say 'please'?"

"Please, go throw yourself overboard." He motioned for the pot again. "Or would you like me to pitch you myself?"

Millard slid it across the table. "C'mon, Jackal, we've got rules about depriving people of coffee."

Gunther caught the pot and started pouring himself some. "Lawrence, pass the sugar."

Lawrence slid it over. "I swear to Darren--oh my gosh."

"What?" Gunther finished his excessively-specific sugar measuring.

"I told you to stop drinking your coffee the same way as me."

"No. Pass the cream."

"I swear, you only drink it that way to annoy me." Lawrence grabbed the pitcher of cream and handed it to him.

"I've always drank coffee like this." Gunther poured the cream with the same precision he had for the sugar.

"You absolutely did not. You absolutely did not. You probably drank cream and sugar and called it coffee."

"I have always had it like this!"

"Not you, not the prissy little kezoril."

"Yeah, I did, and don't call me that."

"Oh, I'm sorry, vulnir."

"If that one means the exact same thing--"

--"It means none-of-your-business."

"You're an arsehole." Gunther took a long swig of coffee.

"And you're a bitch."

Everyone else was finishing up breakfast, grumbling about how obnoxious Lawrence and Gunther were being. Gunther had gotten a bit too caught up in his argument to notice his plan to skip breakfast was working. That is, until Lawrence stopped abruptly in the middle of a long string of insults.

"Finally." He sighed.

"Oh." Gunther glanced toward the kitchen, hoping Sebastian wasn't paying attention. The cook was nowhere in sight, thank goodness. "You owe me." He hissed to Lawrence as he stood up and collected his uneaten breakfast to sneak to Denise.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep a tab."

Gunther set his plate down and turned, right into Sebastian.

"And what, pray tell, do yeh think yer doing?" Sebastian folded his arms and frowned down at Gunther.

Gunther glanced between the food in his arms, the man in front of him, and Lawrence. "Uh...not...hungry? Stashing for later?"

"Oh really? Yeh said that last night, yeh say that this morning, and Lawrence attempts to do the same, and yeh expect me to believe yeh?"

"Yes?" Gunther grinned nervously.

"Sit and eat. I already fed the girl."

"You--what girl?" Gunther, despite being a good liar, sucked at confrontation. As soon as anyone called his bluff, he turned into a stuttering, squeaky-voiced excuse for a sailor.

Sebastian squinted at him and Lawrence. "Denise. In the storeroom. I fed her first thing this morning. Yeh don't need to be giving up meals fer her."

"If-if there's a girl on board, I'll have you know--"

--"Gig's up, Gunther." Lawrence interrupted.

Gunther sighed. "You're not gonna tell anyone, right?"

"Course not. If I was, I wouldn't've fed her. But yeh better find a better place to hide her, before someone else finds her."

"Working on it." Lawrence mumbled.

Just then, Possum, the ship's tiny lookout, scrambled out the door to the storeroom and ran up to Gunther.

Lawrence didn't really understand the hand language Gunther had been teaching Possum, but he did catch the two words Possum signed.

Why girl?

Gunther signed and spoke back at the same time. "What do you mean 'why girl'?"

Why girl back there? Possum pointed to the storeroom.

"There shouldn't be a girl back there." Gunther's voice was breaking again.

Says you and Lawrence put her there.

"That's ridiculous."

There was a moment of silence as Gunther and Possum stared at each other.

Finally, Possum signed again. Do you think I'm stupid?

Gunther relented, "I was hoping."