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Benoit looked at Marine sympathetically. It was the night before the final showdown, and he, Jack, and Marine were on edge.
"Hey, Benoit, you look as jumpy as a jack rabbit 'bout to be drowned." Bokden drawled.
"Shut up, Bokden! That didn't even make much sense! And stop pretending you're a hick. Just because you have a piece of hay stuck in your mouth doesn't mean you have to act stupid!" Benoit snapped.
"Oh, someone's touchy. But what would I expect, from a little boy?" Benoit turned to glare at Jezabel. Everyone was always making fun of him for being cautious. Everyone else was too gung-ho and naive. Hardly any of them were worried. Jezabel wasn't worried because.... who knows. Too self-satisfied, maybe. Thought she was invincible. Plus she was horribly conceited. Bokden probably thought nothing could hurt him, considering his knack for getting out of tough places. Benoit walked over to Jack and touched his shoulder. "Are you okay?" Benoit asked, concerned. Jack looked up from the floor, revealing his deathly pale face.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I guess. I'm just worried my. .... will come back." Jack said, looking back down.
"But you were cured!" Benoit exclaimed. He and Jack had become a bit closer while Jack was afflicted. Now, becoming a bit closer did not cancel out his annoyance with him for being a horribly annoying flirt.
"Well you can't really trust witches, huhuhu." James chortled. Benoit turned and looked at James in disgust. James wasn't worried about what the morrow would bring due to the fact that he was just plain stupid.
"This isn't a laughing matter!" Jack snapped. "I'm sorry, buddy. You know it won't come back." James apologized, touching Jack's arm. Well, James was stupid most of the the time.
"Benoit is like the reeds that line the river. He bends, waiting to be cut from his roots, showing his weakness and thereby becoming a victim. Unlike I, who bears close resemblance to the strong and mighty oak tree." Hirado proclaimed. All the girls started blushing and giggling and nudging each other.
"Isn't Hirado so cute!" Marine said distinctly to Jezabel. Benoit snorted. All the girls thought Hirado was so hot, just because he decided to go around in hardly more than underwear. He was also capable of giving the worst insults, since they were in poetic form.Therefore, no one else saw them as insults, so if Benoit fired something back at Hirado, he would be berated for 'over-reacting'.
"Shouldn't you girls go to your own room?" Benoit asked, annoyed.
"What?! Why would you want them do that?" James asked, saying aside to Salome, "You can spend the night with me, huhuhu." Salome turned her calm eyes to to James.
"Don't be ridiculous. Come on, girls, before James makes anymore horrendous offers." The girls filed out of the room slowly, whispering good night to their respective crushes.
It was weird, they all had a crush on two people. Hirado and the Bear, for Jezabel (Hirado, because.... who knows. The Bear because somehow they had clicked. Jezabel had never wanted 'easy prey', and the Bear was definitely not easy. The Bear pretended he didn't like Jezabel, but it was quite obvious to the other guys that he did.)
Hirado and Bokden for Marine (Bokden, Benoit thought, because he had been so hard to catch, she wasn't going to let him go.)
Hirado and Wolfgang for Karine (Because he could clean the house while she was hunting crocs for dinner - he could even water the plants!)
Hirado and James for Salome (Somehow James had been able to break her down. She didn’t want to like him, though, so she was always snubbing him.)
Dee liked Hirado, and only Hirado, even though she was a bit too small for him. And even Merline had a crush on Abu. Benoit sighed. Nobody liked him. Not that it really mattered. None of them were very nice to him, anyway. Benoit trudged over to his bed.
If he ever needed sleep, that would be tonight. Lord Borgon, Lord Kusinov, and Lord Meryll, also known as the idiots of Myst, tried to house them in a dump outside of Mystrock, but Lord Dragon had intervened. He had apologized for the Lord's behavior and put the thirteen in a nice inn, near where they would be fighting the next day. “Maybe Lord Dragon isn’t so bad after all.” Benoit reflected, as he drifted off into sleep.

“Ahahah, look who it is! If it isn’t tomorrow’s champs!” Cried the bartender as Lord Nate, Lord Jack, and Lord Merryl walked in, to have a fling before the showdown.
“It’s on the house for you three! What’ll you be havin’?” Lord Meryll ordered a round of beers while Lord Jack started up a conversation.
“Bunch of ugly louts we’ll be fightin’, right?”
“You’d be surprised. I saw ‘em arrive yesterday and one girl was actually quite pretty. Salome, they said her name was.” The bartender replied.
"Salome?!" Nate thought, starting. "It’s a different one. It has to be. The other one is dead."Without meaning to, he flew back to his past.
“Salome, will you marry me?” The handsome 18-year-old boy asked, holding out a less than best quality ring. The girl leaned down and kissed him rapturously. “Oh Nate, I though you’d never ask!” She said happily.
“Salome, you’ve just made me the happiest man alive!” With that he picked her up and gave her a hearty kiss on the cheek.
“Stop it!” She said, giggling. He set her down, and she looked at him through her black hair. “Will you be here tomorrow night?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” He whispered back enthusiastically.
Lord Nate shivered involuntarily. “Nate, are you okay?” Lord Jack asked, concerned. “Are you cold? You really should start wearing clothes.”
“I’m fine!” Nate snapped. “And then came the worst day of my life.” Lord Nate thought, going back again.
“What flowers would ever be good enough for my Salome, my ethereal beauty?” Nate wondered, as he wandered into a bog that sported giant and beautiful flowers, somehow missing the spectral hand that was sticking up through the ground. In his dreamy state, he also didn’t see the bodies littering the swamp, many with their skeletal hands clasping the stems of the flowers Nate sought.
He spied a large white lily, and let out a cry of joy. “It’s perfect! What an ideal contrast to her dark hair!”
He stumbled forward to grab it, but on touching it, he was seized with incredible pain. He dropped to his knees, clutching his hand. He gazed in wonder at the flower. There was no doubt it was the lily that had caused his pain. His eyes scanned the surrounding area. Only then did he notice he was encircled by the dead. He jumped up and ran, praying nothing would happen to him.
Once he was safely out of the swamp, he examined the sky,
“I’ll have to go meet Salome without flowers. I’ll have to get her a bouquet some other time.” Once he got to their meeting place, a lovely sylvan dell, he saw Salome with her back to him.
“I’ll just go and surprise her.” Nate thought with a mischievous smile.
He slipped silently around the other side of the tree she was leaning against, and leapt in front of her, yelling, “Boo!” He looked at her in surprise as she shrieked, not of surprise, but of pure terror.
“I’m sorry Salome! I didn’t mean to scare you that bad!” Nate cried, reaching for her hand. She screamed again, and drew back in revulsion. “How do you know my name, you naked creature?”
Nate stood still, completely shocked. “What are you talking about? Salome, it’s me, Nate!”
“You are not Nate.” Salome replied, and with that, she turned and fled.
“Salome!” Nate shouted, but she didn’t come back. “What’s wrong with her?” Nate wondered. He then glanced at his reflection in the placid pool, and stumbled back in horror.
“Surely that isn’t me!” He yelled, for the pond reflected back a nude, green monster. “What could have caused it?” He wondered, and then slapped his forehead. “That swamp! It must have been the bog those old hags in town are always warning people of! What a fool I am!” He slumped to the ground, as the realization that Salome would never marry anyone as ugly as he, dawned on him.
She would end up marrying that bully, Albert, that had been after her for years. No doubt about that, since even though Salome was precious, she was a weak character.
A few days later, it was all through the town that handsome young Nate was gone, some people claiming that he had wandered into the cursed swamp, and was never seen again.
Nate never ventured into town, knowing he would be shot at first sight. He remained in the glade, knowing that he would never hear his beloved’s voice softening into musical tones as she said his name, or hear her magical laughter ringing thought the forest. She would never come to him again, which caused him to cry himself to sleep every night, in the dark, lonely dell.