//------------------------------// // Shoulda Putta ring on it // Story: Washed Up // by ambion //------------------------------// “You’re awake.” The words were full of certainty and it was not a question. Flotsam was not at all certain and was about to have plenty of questions. For the moment, though, he could only get so far as: ‘?’. Bafflement and wonder without cognition. Things that were sort of like thoughts passed through his head. His senses ponderously began to take up their tasks. Flotsam accreted gradually from a cloud of his own proto-thoughts. He became aware of himself in a slow, meandering manner. His eyes were closed, but now he was conscious to the fact that he had eyes – even closed, they were still there, staring at his eyelids. Sensation was a complicated smorgasbord of texture, temperature, tension, tonsils, tendons and ten other things. He took a breath and felt a new wave of sensation, all acoustically accompanied with a groan. Hearing was his first sense to really get up to speed. The mental afterimage – afterecho? – of the spoken words still rattled around in his loosely knit brain. Flotsam recalled the two words and decided they were rather persuasive. If they said he was awake, he was awake. Probably. He thought maybe he could hear then the rhythm of hooves and felt a sudden change in the air. It fell over him colder, crisper; more blustery. Blustrier? He imagined he could here a low voice; there was a quiet, sustained creak ending with a click and then the influx of colder air ceased. Somewhere under him a leg shifted – one of his, he thought – and textiles crinkled. He took three or four steady breaths and for them could and would do nothing at all but wait for himself to become aware of that process too. Another sound found his ears and netted his attention. Scrraape, scrraape. Flotsam thought it familiar and realized it was. He’d been hearing it for at least as long as he’d been awake, maybe longer. Scrraape, scrraape. It had been absent for a moment and then it was back again, and he wouldn’t have noticed it at all but for the break in its regularity. Flotsam eased his eyes open and quickly squeezed them shut again. A more groan-worthy moan climbed up from its cavern in his throat. He sent out a questing hoof – it met with resistance: soft, dry, warm resistance – and then crawled out into open air. He caught a pliant edge and pushed the blanket down from his body. “Explain to me what happened.” Scrraape, scrraape. The voice had neither a trace of kindness nor cruelty in it. The voice was firmness, authority, and was pitched at the smack-dab room temperature of compassion. Flotsam had enough pieces to the puzzle of his senses now. Next came the time for recognition. He recognized himself: Flotsam, and the various conglomerate of bits that were his. He recognized the ever-similar, ever-varying motions of the ship, The Mother of Mercy. It was very peaceful just then. He recognized the voice as that of the Captain, Nauticaa, and he recognized the scraping sounds as that of a whet stone being slid down the length of her swords in long, unbroken movements. His eyes were tired and bleary. For the moment he had to squint to see just across the room. They adjusted slowly, but eventually he could make out the basics. An oil flame sat caged in off-coloured brass and burned glass, sputtering and guttering so that even while the room was still, its shadows all jittered as if they had to be restrained to their respective casters forcefully, wanting nothing more but to jump free and dance. The shadow of the Captain’s desk shuddered every half-second, silently contorting up and down again the wall floor, the wall and ceiling. Flotsam struggled to prop himself up so that he was sitting in bed. The Captain’s own bed, he was surprised to learn; that surprise helped perk him up further. He recognized that a question had been posed to him, and that to fulfil the answer he needed to think, really, properly, cognitively think. It proved too much, too soon. He tapped out. “What happened?” is what he meant to ask, only it came out as, “Your bed?” Captain Nauticaa made a few more of the gliding motions with her whetstone, examined her work and laid both her blades soundlessly on her desk. When these things were done and only then did she show the faintest possibility of a crack in her patience. “I want you to explain what happened tonight.” She did not sound pleased. “Take your time.” In his present state this proved difficult. Not impossible, though. He laboured to stitch the disparate images together again – he felt like a shattered thing. There was a hollow knock, the Captain raised her voice to say “Enter,” and cold air and the clip-clop of hooves found Flotsam again. He turned his head and, through an effort of blinking and squinting, discerned a dim, ruddy red. It grew brighter as his eyes adjusted. Charming Booty. She said, “Here Sammy. Drink this.” Her voice had been soft, but in the next instant it was sharp. “Take it with your hooves,” she warned. “There you go,” she said, and her voice was soft again. Something passed between them in the air. Flotsam tried to follow the whispers, but they were fast, sleek little things, speeding along beneath a surface he couldn't clearly perceive. “What?” “Just drink it,” Charming Booty urged, pressing the mug into Flotsam’s hooves. It was hot and aromatic. “It’ll do you good.” It was hot – actually hot, shooting its heat right through Flotsam’s hooves and into his body. He sipped at it, first tasting only the heat on his tongue, then, awakening to flavour and thirst tipped it up and drank more greedily. The bite of citrus and a warming spiciness filled his mouth, and as he swallowed the heat was a welcome guest in his gut. There was another knock and a gruff voice said, “I’m here.” Harpoon’s hooves fell differently on the floor, Flotsam noticed. Instead of the normal rhythm, her movements were announced with a staggered clip, clop-clip, clop, clip-clop. It was only slightly there, the lighter and heavier hoof-falls, but having just heard Charming Booty walk in moments before, Flotsam was in a good place to notice the difference. Harpoon was limping. A pony who was not limping was Patches, and she darted under the First Mate and around the Quartermaster to jump up onto the bed. “Flottham!” she yelled, and the only reason most of the hot drink was not spilled in this moment was by the grace that Flotsam had already drunk most of it. As it was, hot splashes fell onto him. He brushed quickly at them to do away with the burn. “Patches!” complained Charming Booty and Harpoon moved to pick her up, but the Captain’s level voice quickly cut across any further action. “She can stay. If she stays quiet.” If Patches had not heard the permission then definitily at least heard the condition thereof and promptly fell silent. What she could not express in sound she redoubled in articulation, for she hugged Flotsam’s leg tightly and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. With a grunt of acknowledgement Harpoon made no further move, save to knock the cabin door shut with a firm kick. The space outside was conspicuously crowded with crew mares, all working, or so was the image they presented. Flotsam was properly awake now, so he was entirely and very much acutely aware that the upper brass of the entire command structure of the ship had their attention on him, as well as a great deal many others by means of eavesdropping. He didn’t worry about it, yet, instead brushing back the filly’s bushy and unkempt mane. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. What’s the matter?” Patches shook her head in a sweep-sweep-sweep that rubbed at his shoulder. “You’re not okay. You’re not right.” What do you mean? he meant to ask, but he did know what she meant, and as more of the clues of his memory settled into place he liked less and less the big picture they suggested. His face must have spoke of his distress, because the Captain took the floor with a firm hoof-fall, one that clapped across the cabin and silenced everypony else. “Now you need to tell us what happened.” What did Flotsam remember? There was a seething, ugly mess of something balled up and lashing quite recently in his head. He steered clear of that and went to the far side, starting with the things he could – if not understand entirely – than at least put into words. “I remember the griffon attack,” he said. He remembered lots of little things, many of them enhanced with the ghostly aches he felt more prominently now. Something in particular snagged. “I captured one!” Flotsam shifted on his hips and made to stand – the three mares bristled combatively and, from shock at the sudden change in their manner and instinct Flotsam eased himself back down. “I captured one,” he repeated, straining out any and all excitement from his voice. They did not want him excited, he realized, not in the slightest. Flotsam suspected he knew why and liked it less and less. The mares relaxed. Slowly. “We know. Gadfly Griffon. I’ve spoken with her.” “What did she say?” “Tell us what you remember,” commanded the Captain, and this time it was an unmistakeable command. Flotsam met Nauticaa’s eye and nodded his obeisance. “We fought the griffons. I captured one, captured Gadfly, I was looking for Patches…” Charming glanced and the Captain nodded. “Sammy, I found her, that part’s done with. Focus on when you put the shield around the entire ship. Do you remember doing that? “Yeah, of course I do. I was putting a stop to the cannonballs being dropped on top of us.” Flotsam finished the sour, sweet, spicy drink. He was distracted in thought as he gave it to Patches. She slunk away to set it down somewhere else, but when she tried to slink back the Captain’s hoof on her shoulder bid the ship’s filly stay right where she was. Patches chewed her lip and by no means looked please, but neither did she make any move to disobey Nauticaa, though the Captain’s hoof had only been a gentle suggestion on her shoulder and had no force behind it. At least, not a physical force. “It’s good you remember. There was something else, though: a feedback effect of some kind? Do you remember anything about that?” He did, and having been reminded of it reminded Flotsam of a half-forgotten ache in his lower back. He had channelled a great deal of magical power and then been tossed aside, quite literally. Being magically propelled into a wall had hurt. Flotsam shifted on his seat, easing what little he could of the discomfort. He tried to explain what he felt in terms they could all understand, because he was explaining his use of magic as much to himself as to anyone. “It was a strong spell. With that much magic, it’s…hard to make sure that every bit of it goes exactly where it’s supposed to. There’s leaks, or…” he gestured vaguely with his hooves, “leftovers.” Even as he said it and though he had been honest Flotsam still felt like a liar. He knew his own thought was echoed in every pony present. His so-called ‘leaks’ and ‘leftovers’ had had more power than most unicorns’ full potency. “What else?” Her tone made Flotsam think of the snarly, tangled, sore mess of confused thoughts. He tried to think of something – anything – else. A better word than ‘leftovers’, for starters… “I got hit with the recoil, then we went out on the deck and shot down the griffon sky-frigate. Everypony else shot it down, really, I just sort of watched.” Charming Booty’s thoughtful stare fell on Patches. “What about the lights, Flotsam? Do you remember making the lights?” The Captain spoke before he had the chance to reply. She glared into his eyes and hers were decidedly not nice. “I want to know why, last night a screaming, ranting, crying, laughing maniac tossed my crew about like toys and then decided to fling himself overboard, pulling my filly down with him. It leaves me wondering how concerned I need to be.” When it was put like that… yeah. Nauticaa’s words didn’t allow him to shy around those bits he could recall. He remembered talking to the pony Moon Tide – shining his horn for her, so she could see as she worked – and then the next memory he could just about recall was being tugged up from the water, him and Patches. The worst words had been the last, though: …how concerned I need to be. It made him feel guilty, and a little bit afraid. He couldn’t remember the whole of what the Captain described, but knew it had to be true, because normal forgetfulness didn’t sizzle into the melted gaps of a pony's memory like bad alchemy. Just thinking about it left a bad taste in his brain. “I’m me,” he insisted, then sighed. “Whatever that means. I’d like to stand up now, if that’s alright?” He was still trying to put himself in mind of, well, of himself. Himself, except raving mad. His eye fell on the Captain’s desk and the many arcane tools of sailing that rested there. “Who pulled me out anyway?” Harpoon said, “I did.” He remembered kissing this mare. Or she, kissing him. Who had been kissing whom, actually? Probably not the time to bring that up, he decided. “That’s…three? Three that I owe you now?” The pegasus shrugged. “We’ll call it two.” Ocean, fire, hole in the deck, ocean again… “I guess I need to stop falling into things.” Flotsam chuckled without humour. Charming Booty chuckled softly and relaxed a little. “It’s not a very good habit to have, is it?” “Thelf dethtructive,” the ship’s filly whispered sadly. The assembled ponies fell silent for a time. Then, the Captain’s voice: “You don’t remember, then? Why you did any of those things?” “I don’t, no. At this point I don’t think I want to. I would tell you if I did,” he insisted in every honesty, “but I just don’t.” They fell silent a second time. Nauticaa went to her desk – for a terrifying instant Flotsam thought she was going for her swords – and reaching past the sword hilts, pulled open a drawer and grabbed something else. It was small, round, and had a pebble-and-bubble kind of surface that reminded Flotsam of pumice. Unlike that useful stone, however; this object was dark and metal. It had been polished. “Do you know what this is?” Flotsam shook his head. Patches, having again sidled to his side and wrapped her leg around his. He felt immensely grateful for that. Charming Booty, usually abundant with swag and swagger alike, had gone pale. “You have a nullifier?” “I have a lot of things,” the Captain said, and her tone said to all that she would not be challenged. “Flotsam, this is a magic nullification ring. It goes over a horn and, as the name says, it will nullify magic. “It’s become clear to me and, I expect, to everyone, that your insanity is tied up with your magical potential.” She played the nullifier between her hooves and then clasped it firmly. “I would like you to put this on.” Flotsam reached to take it and do so, only for Nauticaa to retract her hoof. “You first need to understand, the nullifier slides on, but it doesn’t slide off. There’s no taking it off if you change your mind. Only I can do that. And I don’t plan to. Not without exceedingly good reason.” Flotsam hesitated. Something bothered him about all this. “Then why didn’t I wake up wearing it already? If I did all those things-” “You did.” “…then why even risk having that wake up instead of me? Why not just put it on my head?” “Because I want you to willingly choose this, Flotsam. Your conduct has been good aboard my ship, you have obeyed me…” Flotsam desperately ignored Harpoon’s existence and their stolen kisses “…and done your best to keep order, and despite the severity of this situation, I haven’t forgotten that. For something we fished out of the water, you’ve proven…useful. You’ve proven good. Nauticaa clapped her hoof down onto the desk. “Flotsam, I believe your magic triggers this problem, and I suspect that removing your ability to use the one will protect you from the effects of the other. And if that’s not the case, than you will still be a greatly reduced threat to my ship and my crew if you cannot use magic in such a condition.” There was genuine sympathy in her voice and her eyes when she said, “Perhaps you were simply given more magic than any unicorn was meant to handle.” Harpoon licked chapped lips, looking none too pleased. “With great power comes great irrationality.” Charming Booty grumbled, “that’s not how that goes.” Flotsam nodded. “I’ll do it.” He made to step forward and take it only to find resistance tugging at his hoof. “No,” whined Patches, “don’t.” He shot the Captain a quick look and turned to the filly. He could simply drag her or break free; she had no way to stop him enacting his will in this. He wouldn’t, though; he’d spotted the irony and wasn’t about to be a hypocrite. Even more, he simply wouldn’t. Not to Patches. He turned and stooped down to her height. “It’s alright.” He chewed his lips and thought. “You remember the game we were playing? When we were guessing at my past?” Her eyes fell to the floor and she reluctantly said, “yeth…” “Well…” and here lifted her chin and put on a brave smile, though he was the one afraid just then, “maybe that pony wasn’t the hero, or the prince, or even the janitor with his super-powered mop” – that made her smile the teeniest little smile and his own became a fraction more real for it– “…that pony I was before…maybe he wasn’t one of them. “Maybe he isn’t a very good pony. Maybe he’s sick, or confused.” Patches let him go on the verge of tears. It was Harpoon who gentled her and held her back. Flotsam took the last step and picked up the nullifier. It was heavy for its size. Close up it really did have a resemblance to pumice with the bubbles and holes, except for being very dark, almost to the extent of obsidian. Flotsam lowered his head, put the nullifier to his horn and fed it slowly downwards. It was a strange and disquieting sensation, but not painful. He had expected the nullifier to simply slide down like a ring, instead its body morphed with an unexpected plasticity and became a horn-encasing cone. White to black, just like that. “Brave pony,” muttered Charming Booty. She looked like she was fending off nausea. It was done. Flotsam shook his head and, feeling nothing but the unaccustomed weight newly there, tossed it more firmly. There wasn’t the slightest motion. He tested it with a hoof and found still not the slightest hint of give. Nauticaa hadn’t been kidding about the staying-on part. “How do you feel?” asked the unicorn mare, her voice quavering in a way Flotsam had never heard before. She stared at the thing above his eyes. “You’re okay with that? Really okay?” That thing, the weight on his head was heavier than would easily be forgotten or adjusted to. Of sheer, irresistible, morbid curiosity he tried to cast a spell. Nothing. He tried harder. Total nothingness. He might as well have tried to flap the wings he didn’t have. “I’ll just have to be, I guess.” “We’re done here,” Nauticaa announced. “Charming, Harpoon, get some sleep. It’ll be morning soon enough.” Charming Booty had to pry her eyes from Flotsam’s horn. “Er, right. Patches, you come along too.” “Yeth ma’am,” said the filly sadly, and she was lead away. The First Mate growled just as the door was closing; the eavesdropping crew mares scrambled; they were to get to their proper places, and the last one to do so would have her- The door shut and the rest was lost. Flotsam found himself standing, unsure of what to do next. He decided that he wouldn’t think about it, Nauticaa passed him by, and with a few squeaky turns on the gas lamp reduced the cabin’s lighting to a shadowy twilight of silhouettes. “You’re staying here,” she said. “My bunk-” “Your bunk,” she said as she resolved her desk to some tidiness and put her blades in their cabinet, “the bunk I gave you to use was destroyed. So now I’m giving you this one.” He opened his mouth and Nauticaa simply said, “don’t argue.” “...yes, ma’am.” “Get in and try to get some sleep. Don’t think that drama gets you out of working. It doesn’t. It might even do you good. And Flotsam?” “Yes?” “Try not to do anything crazy in bed. I’d prefer not to have to subdue you.” The words parsed when he considered them, but the context proved insane, no matter how Flotsam looked at it. He hazarded, “Captain Nauticaa…was that a threat, or a joke?” Captain Nauticaa rarely made threats, but he couldn’t recall ever having heard a joke from her. “Go to sleep,” she urged wearily and he could imagine – but not confirm – perhaps the slightest ring of humour in her tone. Or perhaps it was pity. Flotsam got into the Captain’s bed, and, though he absolutely could not sleep he was dutiful to Nauticaa's orders and faked it almost immediately, laying there vividly awake and confused. After a time of quiet – of waves rolling against the hull, quill scritch-scratching on paper, rustles, sigh of a drawer and a final kiss of air to extinguish the lamp – he felt the bunk shift, a warm body steal in under the blankets and mold itself against his back. He believed the Captain fell asleep rather quickly. Flotsam didn’t. He made no move and no sound. His eyes were resolutely shut, staring intently at his eyelids. He laid awake for a while longer, then he too eventually fell asleep. He dreamed. He stood on the deck of a ship. It was very large – or seemed that way – and it might have been a distorted vision of the Mother, but Flotsam didn’t think it was. Figures drifted in and out of sight, like the colours oil creates when it slides across water. The crew were griffons. Flotsam felt a pang of shock, he jumped and was ready to fight, but the griffons did nothing. A hefty and tufty griffon ambled around him, giving him a look as if to deride rim. “What’s your problem?” the face seemed to ask before sliding away. Flotsam didn’t know what his problem was. He walked forwards and as he approached the very prow of the ship, the ship too came closer and closer to its destination. In a few short steps endless horizons of water had become a distant tracery of shoreline, then a bustling port city, near enough he could see the boardwalk and the molluscs blanketing the struts of the dock. Docking. That was a thing ships did, wasn’t it? Flotsam didn’t know where to go or what to do, if anything – the griffons were not fettered in the slightest that they were a ship’s length – now less; now half that – from the dock. Flotsam watched the collision unfold with interest. It wasn’t a collision at all. The ship crashed through nothing, broke not one shell from the thousands clustered together. Instead – and he would not have been able to describe this awake, and would remember very little of the specifics – it was as if the ship melted into the landscape; it became somewhere else, a different setting. The griffons were blown out like candles even as they continued in their tasks, and the smoky residues expanded, hesitated, then came together again as something new. In this manner Flotsam was delivered without himself moving from ship to surface. He found himself inside a house, of sorts. A mansion or small palace, he felt. It was not large from where he stood – the roof was not low but neither was it high. It was very empty. The windows were large and blocky in their settings – made for the handling of hooves, not magic – and they looked out over the port city below. One window caught his eye. The moon's face was caught in the glass. Flotsam hesitated, then threw the latch and lifted the window. It looked like a reflection, but at the time and by the logic of dreams it was the moon itself, so that as he lifted the window so too did he try and lift the moon back into the sky. Instead of being lifted, it fell out from the glass, bounced from the window sill and onto the smooth wood flooring. It flashed brightly with a silvery, snowy purity then became something quite different. A pony – tall, dark, mysterious, winged and horny – clambered upright. Defying every suggestion of grace and elegance, she rubbed her forehead and cricked her neck. “You’re proving a harder and harder pony to find, Shining Armour.” She stopped and pouted. Her lips moved with concentrated effort. “Shining Armour. SHI-NING AR-MOUR. Hmm. How strange. I do not trust this dream. I am given the heebies and the jeebies by it. Quickly, tell me where you are.” The pony was strangely lurid to Flotsam’s eyes. Where all else was tenuous as dust and suggestion, a stubborn, absolute definition suffused the tall pony. Flotsam didn’t really know how to answer that. He went from window to window, unlocking and opening each in turn. For each one he opened, the buildings in its view lit up with lights, yet, from the very next window they would be dark again. “I’m here, I think.” “Shining Armour, harken to me now! Cadence is maddened with worry, some evil influence is upon you, you can’t hear a word I’m saying and you’re opening the windows!” The dark mare stamped her hoof, her wings went stiff to the very tips of her feathers and she clamped her mouth in a unhappy sneer. “Oh? I didn’t realize. I’m sorry. I’ll close them.” Flotsam closed a window – the lights of the town below vanished – but he left the latch undone, just in case. “It is not about the windows! You’re befuddled, and what is that incessant music?” Flotsam flinched. He put his head back - his horn up – and glanced about. “Music? What music?” “The mus-” The mare blinked in surprise. Her manner changed. It became tighter. More wary, more alert. “Ah,” she said, “I make progress. I see now.” She walked – each hooffall a firm, intended hit against the floor – and examined seemingly trivial things in earnest detail. “This is not a thing done, but a thing perpetuating. Continuing and active. It does not want me here. It acts against me. “Shining Armour, what was the last thing I said? The last question I asked you, just now?” A window closed; a swathe of lights winked out. He didn’t look at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You do,” she accused, then sat. Her voice softened considerably. “Why are you afraid of this music?” He wouldn’t answer and she didn’t press the matter. “Well, perhaps this will remedy it. If nothing else, I will enjoy it.” The mare flicked her horn and a table appeared. On it lay a gramophone, but instead of the traditional trumpet-like horn, wires fed from the disc-player into an imposing pair of twinned speakers. A green light flickered to life – the speakers played out music and she bobbed her head. “The new Tavi-Scratch album is… …this too? That is just excessive, unusual and cruel. Well, it clears my head, at least. May you enjoy it also." "It's very different." The mare approached and Flotsam realized just how large she was. Not massive in the bulky manner of Windlass, instead she was slender, but greatly scaled up. At the shoulder this dark pony stood as tall as many ponies’ ears. They stared out the window for a time. “Rivaplút. The river’s… the place on the river, in any case. Why dream of here? We know you are not there now. That you haven’t been, not for some time, and this, too, you do not hear. Such are the frustrations we face.” “I don’t know what you mean.” Luna tensed. Her head lowered and her eyes she held tightly shut. When she lunged, she blasted Flotsam’s face with hot air, her lips and teeth gnashed. “YOU ARE SHINING ARMOUR! I AM LUNA! MI AMORE CADENZE IS YOUR WIFE. TOGETHER YOU RULE THE CYRSTAL EMPIRE! TOGETHER MY SISTER – CELESTIA – AND I RULE EQUESTRIA AND MAINTAIN THE SKIES. YOU WERE HER GUARD CAPTAIN. YOU HAVE A SISTER, TWILIGHT SPARKLE, AND MANY FRIENDS WHO LOVE YOU AND FEAR FOR YOU. YOU CAME TO THIS PLACE-” Flotsam vanished – a frantic, worried look on his face – in a cloud of hazy smoke. “Scared him awake,” Luna mused wearily. The dream was crumbling around her already, for she had no interest in preserving it. She flicked her horn and the powerful music of DJ and cellist disappeared. The other music, the one Shining Armour had claimed no knowledge of, yet had been so anxious of had departed with him. Luna would not admit it – not to Shining, who had no means to understand, nor to Cadence, who had much to worry over as it was – that it had tested her own defences also. Very rarely had finding a single dreamer ever proven so difficult – the filly had proven an essential, uncorrupted backdoor in this pursuit – and few dreams had proven so distressing. Not for the content therein, which was highly mutable and very often symbolic but for the very substance from which it was made. The city outside had ceased and already the walls were vanishing. Luna glowed with a final burst of silvery light, rent a way open and extradited herself from the dream, all the while worrying how to break this news to Cadence. Flotsam shot awake in a cold sweat, and in the time it had taken him to do that Captain Nauticaa had also shot awake, snatched something small and pointy and held it gently to Flotsam’s neck. She yawned pleasently. “Crazy?” she asked softly. “Not crazy, not crazy!” he whispered urgently. He gulped; his bobbing apple brushed against the pointy bit. “Just a bad dream. There were… but…and then… drum and bass?” “Oh.” The sharpness vanished and the Captain snuggled slightly. She was very warm against him. She yawned again. “I’m sorry to hear that. Go back to sleep.” “O-kay…” Flotsam was getting really confused about the Captain. If there was some sort of confusion critical mass to reach in life, Flotsam worried he was to be the one to find out. He must have nodded off again at some point, though he never saw it coming. This time, he didn’t dream, and even managed to snatch a little bit of rest before dawn.