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Gloves? What would she need gloves for on a boat trip? His brows furrowed. He supposed it made sense, though, Yaya not needing a hat- She had a decent complexion for the sun, unlike the patchwork. Igors were built for lurking in shadows and dank dungeons, not on a sunny beach or deck of a ship. He was already sweating through his shirt, with the stink only a young man made of a conglomerate of corpses could accomplish. He realized too late he should have double checked for sun screen while raiding Barth's dorm for supplies. Hell's Bells.

At the sound of that familiar accent, Christof's mind zoomed all the way back to visions of crashing trains and torn books and a constant series of misunderstandings in the snow to that faithful moment when Johan had had enough and had stormed off on his own away from their group in that dreadful snowy waste land... He had all but thought the reaper was dead! Frozen somewhere! He had seen his name on the list but... something in him had wondered if he would suddenly see him as undead but- but there he was! All in one piece even! His adventuring companion here again, reunited for exploration of the high seas! Or... or something-

Relief poured into the hunchback and he suddenly practically leaped away from Yaya to hug the crystal-edged Reaper in frantic joy to see his friend alive. He knew Johan hated being touched, he remembered that argument clearly, but this was special circumstances, and he would just have to deal. But Fear Alive how had he gotten back to Halloween?? To the school?? He supposed they had the whole boat trip to find out.

Tybalt gave a second greeting as the Djinn wrapped her arms around him in a hug. It was so nice seeing her again and she seemed much happier than she had on the last trip too! Perhaps it was the fact that she was surrounded by her element... that wasn't frozen? That could be it.

"Well it's good that you made it on time." He replied. Unsure of what she meant by her words. The alarm clock never crossing his mind. "I'm glad there's at least one familiar face on the ship. Speaking of which..." His attention was soon drawn to the two other boil's. The patchwork from before and the other ( a reaper? ), who had just arrived. The first of the two looked extremely happy. Perhaps they were good friends? "You know them?" He asked.

The hunchback flinched back at the sudden sharp command even if he couldn't comprehend the language it was in- Johan's struggling was enough. Of course he didn't complain, though, unwinding his scarf from the sun's heat to reveal his wide stitched smile. Suddenly, though, he was aware of the other growing students on deck, some giving him funny looks and his patches were reddened once more. Fumbling with the end of his scarf to try to find his notebook in his bag, he quickly scribbled out something before people jumped to any conclusions and offered it up to the irate Reaper.

Glad you are alive! How did you survive? I do not like speaking of That Place. On another adventure now, it would seem.

Freedom! Johan stumbled back several steps in an attempt to move himself out of hugging range. Glaring furiously at Christof, Johan brushed himself off and attempted to restore some semblance of dignity. While he checked to make sure the fabric covering his crystal parts hadn't moved in the struggle, he realized Christof was trying to show him something, stitched mouth smiling.

Reading the message, Johan figured he should be glad that Christof had procured a more efficient means of communication than a page from a book and corpse hand blood. The message itself brought back unhappy memories of behemoth dragons raining fire upon a snowy lane, and of very, very cold feet.

"Hah. Adventures. More likely that ve are to be pawns vunce again in some var." he replied. "I vas knocked unconscious and woke up in the Infirmary after it was all over. Simple, ja? Let us never speak of it again. Und I hope I vill not haf to remind you ever again about touching me? The next time it happens I really vill turn you bright pink."

He noticed the ghoul from before had been joined by another student, a boil with rather canine features. He acknowledged them with a nod.

"Johan Klarstein."

((Long post is long for Frankenmini contest purposes!))

Christof fidgeted with his notebook, looking disappointed that there would be no epic tales of Johan's grand adventure back to the school. It sounded like any of their stories. Alas. He relaxed a bit when Johan took the liberty of introducing himself, unless he was to hand out introductory notecards to everyone... The dark, blue-eyed canine-like boil he had never met before, but Maritess was entirely familiar. He never had retained a name to that legless figure though, but now he did and his hands itched to at least *offer* to find her some legs but... no he HAD asked her on groanspring hadn't he? Somewhere...

While everyone grew better acquainted, he shifted over to the enticing pile of boat parts the hoofed chaperon had announced to them about... make a minipet?

His heart suddenly sank. SCRUFF! Oh, poor poor scruff, alone and ignored back at his dorm! He had really been neglectful of the poor lightening scareon since.... since the incident, and while he was certain he had given him lots of food while packing, he wished his little companion was here now... he would have liked the salt air and possible fish to eat.

Quietly, he gathered up an armful of supplies before going to sit on the deck against the side of the deck near his new ship-mates so he could listen while they talked and he crafted.

It made him feel better, at least finding something whole in a mass of Spare Parts... He took his battered scarf that had sustained so much accumulative damage and repaired again so many times over his time at school, it was now as patchwork as he was, and wrapped it around a sandbag. A fluffy wad of downy, rank smelling seagull feathers from a nest that was probably hauled out of the crow's nest when they were preparing the ship made a nice mane. He wished he could find yellow paint, but he didn't really want to soil his scarf anyway... He tied it all together with a bit of rope at least, letting four ends with knots at the ends made perfect little floppy legs.

He considered what was left of the things he had snagged, brows furrowing as he considered his options... He found the crumpled emergency sail patch he had snagged, as well as the greyed, worn, yarny mop. It took some finagling, but he managed to get the handle free of the mop head, putting the rod aside and tied the head into three pigtails with it's own nappy mop strands, two to be pointy ears and one larger one that he didn't bother tying but rather wrapped it up in the sail patch, tying that ball-like head into shape with a black eyepatch. It formed a nice big black nose, the caps from a couple of those vitamin C bottles making decent enough eyes when he wedged them properly against the eyepatch's elastic.

It wasn't quite finished though..... the head looked too small for it's features still... AH! A red piratey bandanna was the last on his pile, and he stuffed half of it into the second make-shift pillow, a red corner left hanging out from behind the black eyepatch like a panting tongue. He looped the last bit of rope between the head and body and the make shift doll was complete. He sighed, lifting it up to examine his work.



It only made him homesick before they had even left the dock, though, and so he set it aside to play with the remaining mop handle. He did have a few things left over.... he glanced over to Maritess who was still conversing with the others, or more importantly, he stared at where there still where no legs at all. How could she allow herself to constantly go out in public in such a state! He had brought an extra hand and a foot, just in case, but he needed them for himself and they wouldn't do her much good anyway... but maybe with these left overs he could put together *something*...

It took some effort, but he managed to snap the old wood of the mop handle in two, which were decent enough in length for his purposes, and there was still plenty of rope... he dug through his bag, finding one of his spare sets of underpants (Clean, thank you!) and between the elastic of a couple more from the pile of pirate eyepatches from the table and his left over rope, he felt the pair of peg-legs would be Good Enough.

Proudly, he turned back to the group of conversing students, anxious to give the vampire-like half-creature his gift without interrupting.

Christof sagged a bit when Tess did not seem outright thrilled by his fabulous invention for her, but bucked up immediately when he set it on the ground and like a puppet moved the sticks along like they were walking to illustrate before offering it out to her with a look of beaming pride.

Cruel Aid? The teacher was insisting they drink, but it was difficult for the Igor to manage with his stitched lips... but it was true. He did need to stay hydrated, especially with the sweat soaking through his shirt already. Looking a bit embarrassed, he juggled his contraption into one arm, the other pulling a syringe from his shoulder bag, sticking the needle into one of the cups and slipping it through is mouth stitches for a little squirt. You always did what your professor told you, especially when they added in "Or you will die" at the end. He swallowed, making a bit of a face at the absence of the sense of sweet in the hydrating liquid- he had no way of tasting that spectrum of flavor now. He would have preferred plane water. Ah well.

He wondered if Tess would need help putting on her new Peg Legs.