<span style="font-weight: bold">“Ebisu it’s funny seeing you here alone."</span><span style="font-style: italic">Crap!</span>She was pissed.<span style="font-weight: bold">"Where’s Snickers? I thought I had mentioned keeping an eye on her.”</span>Ebisu rubbed his shoulder where he had been shocked. "Well, uh... If you're here, then she already made it back... right?"<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">“She made it too the room alright, but the thing was there were a few crewmen trying to grab her. She might be good and all that but she’s still a cat.”</span><span style="font-style: italic">Oh. Those guys again,</span>the Graecian thought.<span style="font-style: italic">They better not have hurt her. Right now, the health of that cat is directly proportionate to my own.</span><br/><br/>At this point, Ebisu was prepared to get smacked around some. He shut his eyes, though it was difficult to tell, and braced himself for impact. Instead, he heard Heather sighing.<span style="font-weight: bold">“The ocean really has some hold on you.” She said hip checking him before turning her anger to something teasing. “She probably left you didn’t she?”</span><br/><br/>At that point, Ebisu's sense of danger evaporated. He hung his head jokingly like he was seriously upset at being abandoned. "Yup. I was abandoned. I'd already told off one worker who tried to take her, so I thought she'd be alright going back alone. And..." He leaned out against the rail again, "I wasn't ready to go back just yet. The ocean is everything to Graecia. Life there would be impossible without it. I feel safe when I'm looking at it because I know everything I need to survive is right under those waves. That, and, I don't think you all get how dangerous this mission is going to be," Ebisu was being surprisingly serious right now. He only did that when he had a really important thing to say. "Every city and town in Graecia is on the coast, but as we travel inland, you'll see a lot of old ruins. Only the very center of Graecia is frozen ground, the rest is pure ice. It's a growing continent and we have to move every time the sea gets too far away to access. If you want to get to the ocean farther in, you have to dig through the ice, and it only gets thicker. If we run into anything else alive out there, it'll be enormous and it'll probably wants to eat us. There won't be any pit stops, we won't be able to restock our supplies, and there<span style="font-style: italic">won't</span>be any toilets. When I'm staring at the source of all life that I'm familiar with, it's easier to convince myself that this is possible and think of how to keep you guys safe."<br/><br/>-----------------<br/><br/>Snickers decided to stay on his lap a while longer before hopping down. She was trying to get into Heather's bag, so Battler went over and opened it up. Her food and water was inside. "Oh! You're hungry?" he asked.<span style="font-style: italic">I don't think Heather would be mad if I set these things out for her,</span>he thought, unpacking the trays.