"Goodnight!"

"Don't give me that crap, days are never good and how would nights be any better?"

"Well aren't you a little bundle of joy?....."

"Oh shut up already will ya, Snaggletooth? Leave me be!"

"Alright, alright. Yeesh, I'm goin' already, ya majesty"

Eruera ducked and near cackled as Kea chunked a book at his head, though it missed just barely and hit the doorframe instead leaving a small chip in the wood (as it was a rather large hardback). He sighed and stood from his bed to walk over, pick up the book, and close the door. Being sure to lock it this time before he headed back to his bed and plopped down. He lay there for a moment before he opened the book and read a few pages. It was an old Māori storybook made from ancient paper-like material and small, leatherbound, thin rectangular slabs of wood. Its leather was black and had only one symbol engraved on the front, a crudely shaped reptile resembling a crocodile perhaps. It was filled with ancient Māori tales, mythology, and folklore. Though it was solely written in the Māori language. Unknown to others a simple translation spell could fix that but Kea couldn't be bothered to share the book anyway, so why bother?

He lay there for quite some time, what felt like hours though was actually about twenty minutes, until he sighed once more and again stood from his bed. He walked over to his door and left the room headed for downstairs, quietly as he did not want some (in his opinion) idiot interrupting his "alone time", as he felt rather tired of being cooped up in his room for hours at a time and days on end. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he made a bee-line straight for the couch and sat down to read a bit more before he could get tired of the same old stories. Not long after his vision began to get a bit blurry and he couldn't seem to keep his eyes open or his head up. Kea blinked open his eyes and was startled to find a corpse lying halfway on the ground and propped up only by an elbow. It's cold, dead, and accusing gaze seemed to grasp his soul in fear. Kea lurched backwards as its boney hand reached up towards him, mouth agape, and aimed straight for his eyes, nearly-

Kea jerked upright in a nervous coldsweat and leapt to his feet, book thudding to the floor in his haste, his eyes darted around wildly before he shuddered out a deep breath and exclaimed aloud in a whisper to himself, "not real.... It wasn't real..."
He slumped back down on the couch and looked over at the book lying on the floor then suddenly became aware that it was nearly midnight and unknowingly held his breath as he listened for any noise upstairs. When he heard nothing but the occasional squeak of the floorboards (no doubt from the cabin's other insomniac residents) he relaxed and bent down to set the book on the couch.

He then decided that he needed a bit more coffee and got up and walked into the kitchen. He fixed a potful and sat down at the kitchen table to wait for it to be done. While he waited his mind wandered, thinking about how bad a shape the cabin was in then to the fact that at least it was livable. Kea couldn't really complain and hadn't actually heard many of the second players complain, at least out loud. But that was a thought to shrug at, who was he to judge anyway? He used to live in a cave for decades....
Than again he supposed that it could then speak volumes that he, who did used to live in a cave, found things about the place to complain about. The number one thing being the stupid floorboards and leaky windows. For goodness sake could rain not even be kept out of the place at the very least? Though that idiot Jorge seemed to be always finding things to fix (something about the man Kea for once couldn't find fault with though he still hated him) so there was that being done. Which led to thoughts of his cabinmates. All of which he felt were idiotic or in some cases downright pathetically stupid and needed to be put in their place. Not that he'd interact with such individuals himself. Though he supposed some of the other things staying here weren't all that bad, that Chaos fellow seemed decent enough. At least he was, as far as Kea was concerned, less of an idiot than all the other idiots. And that other one (Kea couldn't recall his name if he'd even ever heard it), the brightly clad Native American, wasn't so bad. Well he was still very much annoying but Kea still found himself chuckling over the thought of being a stuffed crow. "Kid's got spirit, I'll give him that. Needs to work on his threats though..." Suddenly the coffeemaker beeped, interrupting his musings, and he paused his train of thought to grab a cup (which may or may not have been one recently given to him by a certain cousin of his) and filled it to the brim with the dark liquid that might as well have been golden in Kea's mind.

Kea then decided that he'd go sit outside for a while, perhaps watch what nocturnal life he could find roaming about. He left the cabin and sat down crosslegged on the ground, cup in hand, and took a sip of the coffee as he glanced around the place. He watched a raccoon sniff around the base of a tree before it slipped up the trunk and disappeared from view. About fifteen or so minutes later that blonde Mountie's polar bear lumbered around the side of the cabin. He and Kea held each other's gaze for a while before the bear snorted at him in what seemed to be discontent and padded back into the forest to go do who knows what at this hour of night.

Kea sat there until his coffee was finished and then a while more after. When he found himself starting to doze off again he shook his head and stood. After placing the coffee cup on the edge of the porch out of the way of kicking feet he shifted into a crow to fly about and see what he could find happening anywhere around the island. Not that he expected much around, what was it? One or two in the morning now? Whatever, it didn't matter. He flew over the forest gazing at the trees that seemed to be passing by in a blur of grey leafy shapes. Many a strange creature seemed to be lurking that night and he alighted down when he spotted a hell hound wandering about. It snarled at him but he paid that no mind, having dealt with these things before. Kea shifted back into his human form and surrounded the beast in a foggy cloud of magic when it leaped at him. Shifting back into a crow he flew up to dodge it though it managed to clip his wing with a claw and Kea fell to the ground. He got up and turned to watch as it too fell to the ground, a bit stunned by the magic. Kea then put his intention behind the misty cloud with force and summoned up a portal in which the beast fell through though it tried to climb back out using the ground as leverage, but Kea would have none of that and sent a harsh gust of wind its way using a flap of his wings to kick start it. This effectively knocked it into the portal and he sealed it up quickly, not caring where it went. Probably somewhere in the ocean.

Kea flew up and clutched onto a nearby tree branch. Having used such magic in such quick succession had tired him greatly but he soon took flight once more, determined to keep himself busy so as not to fall asleep. Just because he'd had a bit of luck (not that he believed in luck) in getting rid of that beast so quickly did not mean things would keep going in his favor. Nothing ever did anyway. He'd only managed to catch it off guard is what he told himself, it won't happen again so best not hope for such you idiot... He was quite drained and wondered briefly how he was even able to fly at the moment but forced himself to press on. He did not want to fall asleep.

Kea soon found himself flying over the other cabins, or first player cabins as he'd heard some of his fellow second players calling them, then the mess hall and finally down to the beach. He circled over the water for a while before noticing a shape in the water. Upon closer inspection it was not a shark as he'd thought but rather his stubborn iwi Eruera. So he hadn't gone to bed like he'd said then...
Well Kea would see about that later. For now he circled back and flew around for a few hours more until the sky began to grow lighter. Only then did Kea glide back to his cabin. He landed and shifted back into a human then grabbed his cup off the porch. He walked inside and washed it off then fix more coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to wait for it to finish making. Not long after Eruera snuck back inside and ducked his head sheepishly when Kea fixed him with a stare, though neither said anything. Eruera turned away and head back up to his room, likely to sleep for an hour before being driven down by hungar. Kea sighed as he got his usual fifteen minutes more of silence before some of the other cabin's occupants started filing down the stairs as they did on the clock every day. Chaos first as usual then others. Not that Kea would ever admit that he paid that much attention to them. He got the usual glance form the Native American though, also as usual, he ignored it. He also ignored the slightly curious glint in the other man's eye when he noticed that Kea had three long semi-bleeding slashes marks on his lower left arm. Choosing to focus on the beeping coffee maker instead. Kea got up and poured himself yet another cup of coffee and prepared for yet another day of annoyance. Only snapping a few times due to his fatigue, that no one was fully aware of the cause of and went back outside to watch the sun rise as he did every morning of his life.

He took a sip from the steaming mug and as he watched the colors he couldn't see begin to flow across and fill up the sky he muttered to himself, ".....life sucks....."

(( Chaos belongs to faiththestoryteller ))

[NOTE: this story takes place in faiththestoryteller's Camp International.]

(( happy birthday faith-senpai~ ^^ ))