Captain's Rivalry (Keaka)

Kat gaped as she watched the figure stab Zak before flames consumed whoever the idiot was. She hurried to Zak's side. She wrapped her arm around his middle and threw his arm over her shoulders. "Hey, you idiot, don't go fainting on me. I don't want to have to lug you sorry arse up a flight of stairs by myself!" She slowly, but eventually, makes it to the bar counter and asks for a room. She grudgingly hands over the payment and drags him into the room. By the time she got up into the room, she practically through him on the bed. Sighing, she went into the tiny 'bathroom' (which could hardly be called as such) and got some bandages.

Taking a wet cloth and a bucket of water with her, she sat next to him on the bed "Take off your shirt. Now."

"Kind of... hard... not to... faint when you're..." If Zak were fully aware, he would have been surprised Kat managed to get him upstairs. He was clinging to consciousness as it were, so he paid it no mind. He didn't have the heart to argue and took what little of a shirt he was wearing off... well, kind of. He couldn't move his arm without pain, so he tried to do it as best he could with one arm. It was quite the spectacle, but he managed. He looked at Kat with his big brown eyes and fought off a whimper.

Kat sighed, actually feeling a bit of pity for the man. It was, in fact, her fault that he wound up like this... Indirectly, of course, but still. She began to clean the wound as gently as she knew how (so, not very gently at all), and got it over with as quickly as she could.

"As far as I can tell, it looks the blade was pretty clean. It didn't leave any rust or anything in the cut, so hopefully there won't be any infection." She looked down at him, her eyes swimming with emotion. Perhaps it was because she was still slightly buzzed, or perhaps it was something that she could not explain. But she felt terrible, none the less.

"Look, you really didn't have to do that for me. I could've handled my own. I'm no maiden in distress." She seemed to get a little ticked at that thought. She didn't like to be seen as the weaker sex. Of course, she also knew that he meant well...

It was a relief that the blade was clean, and he wasn't really afraid on an infection, though it probably wouldn't have been a good thing. At this point in time, he didn't know how to feel. He felt sad, but he hated feeling sad, so he decided that he should just slap on a pained )but genuine( smile. "Thanks again..." Then she opened her mouth again, and the next reaction was anything but desired.

"You were puking!" The outburst caused Zak to lean forward and pale. He probably shouldn't react so violently with such a wound, even though it was cleaned and bandaged. He didn't want her to get caught off guard and have something terrible happen to the poor woman. He'd have liked her to do the same for him!

Kat knew she wasn't going to win this battle, so she decided then to grin and bear it. "Alright, alright. Don't go gettin' yer britches in a bunch. I'll admit that your help was appreciated. Though you just had to get yerself hurt, now didn't you?" She sighed and pushed him back down on the bed, not wanting him to cause further damage to himself.

"How was I to know he was bringing a knife to a fist fight?" Speaking of which, why hadn't he just burned him in the first place? Sometimes Zak didn't think clearly. Too late now! Trying to relax, Zak put on a grumpy face and nestled down into his pillows. At least they were soft. His eyebrows were nearly knitted together, but he still looked quite glamorous, in a boyish way. He had never actually looked his age.

Kat shrugged. "I don't know, but it WAS in a dark alley. And we ARE pirates. What more do you expect?" Kat gave him a quick look over before she decided that while she may not like him, she could stand him. And he was quite attractive. Kat plopped herself down onto the ground next to the bed. Life always seemed to get dull when she wasn't drunk.

"Well, I mean, I couldn't just let him kill you. Pirate or not we're still human." Zak was quite comfortable on the bed, no doubt. He hadn't even had to pay for it himself. How she had lugged him up here she would never know. "I think I can move now!" Yea, right. No he couldn't. But he didn't want Kat to sit there all bored while he suffered.

Kat just scoffed at the man. "Move? Already? You even try to get up and I'll make sure ya can't move any longer! Yer stayin' right there." She whipped out her small dagger and began throwing it at the ground, only to retrieve it and throw it again. 'Bloody pirate thinks he knows everything. Darn hogwash from a mermaid. That's what he is. A very rude, uncultured, flirtatious, overly kind, attractive mermaid.' she began telling herself in her mind. Well... So she thought. How was she supposed to know she had spoken out loud?

Zak started laughing like a madman, only to stop abruptly and let out a pained mew. The pain wasn't enough to prevent him from giggling a little more, though. Sometimes he liked being him.

"Tell me, is that how you really feel? Because I am certainly not very kind." Zak sighed quietly, eyes still closed. He was more of an arrogant, smiley, derpy dwarf pirate than anything else, though he would admit that he was pretty darn sexy. Not that he was going to be foolish enough to think aloud. "You're something else, Kat." He clearly wasn't as clever as she was, but he was fairly witty when he needed to be.

Kat sputtered, her knife throwing coming to an abrupt halt. "O-Of course it's not how I really feel you shipwrecked squid! I was just speakin' without thinkin' is all! Don't go gettin' yerself a big head." Huffing, Kat crossed her arms, glad her blushing face was faced away from him. It wasn't like she had meant any of it! Her brain was just... Fuzzy frim the alcohol still.

Zak chuckled yet again, a peaceful grin inhabiting his somewhat freckled face. "No need to get your panties in a twist if you didn't mean it, now is their?" He hoped she wouldn't hit him being in his condition, so he continued to be his usual self. "Though I do think some of your opinions are skewed and otherwise inaccurate. I am quite cultured, though I don't show it. I'm not all that kind, as I'm usually a giant jackass." If that wasn't obvious enough already.

"First of all, they are not my opinions! Second of all, I could have told you that you're a jackass to begin with! You must have been cultured by perverted pigs!" she gritted her teeth, willing herself not to beat him within an inch of his life. The last thing she wanted was to have to hide a body. Although she could get her crew to help hide it... (Yes, that was a reference)

"They're most certainly not fact." Sarcastic dog, that Zak. Yet he continued laughing. "Calm down, Melons! It isn't any wonder your name is Kat. Meeeeeeoooow!" That was a double entendre if there ever was one; Kat was catty in the sense that she would scratch the crap out of the dwarf and catty in the sense that she was sexually attractive. She could take it as she would. "You've not exactly civilized yourself."