[color=a0410d]Searing, bubbling pain enveloped his arms, as if Golde hadn't so much applied a healing agent as she'd dunked the unfortunate things in a couple vats of boiling water. Such was the shock of the medicine's sudden intensity that the man entered a state of pseudo-petrification - tightening up into a figure devoid of all sound or movement.

	A stray wind drifted in from across the idle seas, rustling up Ifor's mossy goatee and bringing with it a startlingly frigid touch to an otherwise passively cool night. Even the moon sought a fleecy retreat, draping herself in cloud-cover as darkness cast its all-encompassing visage upon the narrow strip. A hint of movement caught the attention of Ifor's pained gaze, and he squinted after the exit of a particularly quiet shadow from their midst. Yet from a few paces back, Chapt'n Thomus cut through the gelid air with reasonably tranquil declaration:[/color] 

	[color=8dc73f]"We don't know if more of those things are going to come back, and we don't know if driving that one off was just a fluke. The beach is unsafe. If anyone can't walk, they need to be helped by the people who can. We'll catch up with the crazy naked lady, we'll find a defensible location, make a fire, dry off..."[/color]

	[color=a0410d]The moon ended her brief reprieve, and once more the beach was lit up in a pale blue splendor. Just a ways down the dunes, one could make out the temperamental body-language of the vixen as she laid into the quiet stranger; no mercy from that woman, it seemed. And how badly would it suck to be that man, then - getting slapped about by a harpy several hands smaller than you from the moment you woke up? Ifor knew [b]he'd[/b] never take that kind of abuse willingly[b]...[/b]

[b]...[/b]

	[b]...[/b]But there were all sorts of types in this world - and who was he to judge the lack of another's virility?

	He twitched - the presence of an unexpected teardrop poking his flesh in a sudden moment of remembrance. In this state, he wouldn't be able to defend himself against even the smallest of creatures...not with his fists, anyway.[/color]

	"...Not ghunna get far wh'out weaponry, Chapt'n..." [color=a0410d]Ifor stated acutely, releasing a dreary head from its stone-like contraction and nodding it up and down the coastline.[/color] "...Ehvun uh rhock's keen in the hand whith the phrop'r 'mount of force." [color=a0410d]His eyes stopped, fixated upon the glowing ball hanging ever-so-distantly in the midnight sky.[/color]

	"...As for shel'tr...where ther's lhight, there's fiher."