Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock...

The pendulum's constant beats were eating into his brain like wood mites. Ceres blinked heavily.

"So," said Hawke, after a long pause. "Now that that nasty little matter is settled, we should get down to business."

"Business?" said Ceres warily. "I was unaware you had further intentions with me."

"My dear, you visit so rarely," Hawke replied, grinning from ear to ear like a manic piranha. "We have so much catch-up to play! How are the children? Oh, you don't have any. How is your dog, if you have one?"

"I'm...fine."

"I really am going to have to buy you a boat, Mr. Ceres," said Hawke, languishing in his overstuffed chair, a wide-brimmed captain's hat slipping over one eye. He played with the white plumage of his whice, which had, oddly enough, a tiny eyepatch. Everything about Hawke was distracting, but now was not the time to let one's mind wander, Ceres reminded himself.

He raised an eyebrow. "And why is that?" he asked, gruff and bristling.

The smile was condensed, pursing into a thin little line of deviousness that made the galdor supremely uneasy. When Silas wasn't showing at least one line of teeth, odds are that something rather unpleasant was about to happen. Ceres' field shuddered despite himself as Silas stood up and crossed to the window, flinging back the curtains and twirling around, his arms spread out wide. "Ta-daaaa!"

An unmistakable plume of smoke was rising from the jungle. The wide arched window looked out on the back garden and the hidden little grove where they had left the Crane...

Ceres was dumbfounded for a moment, then leaped up as though he'd been burned, yelling. "My ship!"

"It looks like a nice night for a bar-beque!" sang Silas Hawke, doing a little dance on his toes.

"You destroyed my ship!" roared Ceres, stepping closer to Hawke, who showed not the slightest bit of fear at the galdor's raging field, which had heated the air and made the room smell of burning paper. He grabbed the King by his lapels, momentarily forgetting every ounce of propriety, and shook him.

There was a hiss followed by a loud bang, and Ceres was propelled away from the window, his hands smarting and burning as though a firecracker had gone off in them. Hawke brushed his hands down his front as the galdor crashed into his desk.

"It was a liability," said the King, the corners of his mouth upturned. "How would that look, if the dire future you predict were to come true, my dear Johann? If we were raided, the last thing I would want in my back yard would be a big hulking black monstrosity with 'hello, we're freedom fighters' written all over it."

"We need that ship, we need it," said Ceres, wincing and hissing as he dragged himself off the ground. "It's the only working aeroship we have! I'm the only pilot we have!"

"Yes, however will you transport those brutish little death-sticks now?"

There was a silence thick as molasses in Achtus.

"I know of the...errands you've been running," said Hawke delicately. "You certainly have grown in character, Mr. Ceres, if not in girth..." He lifted his whice-head cane and poked Ceres in the ribs. "I remember only five years ago, you spoke so passionately against the use of violence...when you had principles."

"What does a crime lord care about principles?" snarled Ceres, pushing the cane away.

"Every man has his code," Hawke said. "A man who breaks his code is not a man at all, would you agree?"

Hawke's warped sense of fairness and justice was infuriating, but Ceres was still smarting from the demise of his aeroship, the loyal vessel that had served him so well over the years. He closed his eyes.

"How many men have you killed since that meeting of ours?" continued Hawke, sitting back down and stroking his pet bird serenely. His gold-tipped boots rested on the shifted desk. "How many, at the command of that megalomaniac? And yes, I am aware of the irony of me labeling anyone as such..."

"I haven't been keeping count," said Ceres mutinously, "but I could start now, if you want."

"You used to be such a gentleman," said Hawke, tutting, "and the demise of chivalry...well...it's deplorable. Simply deplorable. I long for simpler times, when the fellow who would plot to kill you would have the decency to say so first."

"Serro isn't planning on killing you," he replied, exasperated and angry. "But do you realize you've crippled us?"

"Ah, yes. What use will he have for you now, my dear?"

Ceres halted, narrowing his eyes. "I am not a mere transporter of goods," he said slowly, angrily. "Serro is..."

"He's taking advantage of you," Hawke said loudly, sitting up and for once looking as though he'd awakened from the dream world in which he lived, his dark eyes sparkling with something like amusement and keen awareness. "And there is no love lost between you. I see these things, Ceres, for I have a very good telescope. Tell me - what is it called when a man who swears to destroy galdori society must hire a golly to protect the very resistance he plans to build? Because I call it hilarious."

"I volunteered."

"But of course," said Hawke silkily. "Serro knows all about your type, the would-be academics who lavish themselves with indulgent guilt over the crimes of their people. Oh, who will save the poor little humans? Who will ever stand up for them? So you form little societies and send out invitations to like-minded individuals, with crimped edges and scented paper made in a factory by a human dying of syphilis, and you have tea cakes while chatting about the deplorable conditions in factories."

Ceres stood to leave, his vision filling with red.

"Serro knows you, Mr. Ceres," said Hawke loudly, standing up and tilting his head coyly, smiling as though this was a great source of entertainment. "He knew there would be galdori willing to help him, and he knew he would reap all the benefit from your involvement and none of the blame. All their hatred would stick to you, Mr. Ceres, from your false name to your tattered boots, and as much as you suck in your field like a fat gut you wish to hide, they know what you are. They hate you because they need you."

The old man turned around to look Hawke in the eye, hating him through a thin film of begrudging agreement.

"Humans," chuckled Hawke. "Am I right? What weak little creatures. So manipulative, so stubborn. Always wanting more without knowing what they'd do with it if they had it. Serro's loyalty to his own beliefs and convictions will stretch as far as his budget and his abilities, and then he'll borrow from yours. He's emptied your pockets, bankrupted you, destroyed you as if you were his enemy, and yet you tail after him like a starry-eyed osta kit..."

"Enough," said Ceres. "Either you have a point, or you don't."

Hawke giggled.

"Oh Johann, don't be coy," he teased. "Can't you see I'm offering you a job?"

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock...

"What?"

Hawke giggled again, and then dissolved into a mocking, hyena-like bout of laughter.

"I thought it was hypocritical of Serro to have hired me," said Ceres contemptuously.

"I'm not Jon Serro!" announced Hawke, as though this were a surprising bit of trivia. "I don't give a fig about your motivations, Ceres, but I like the 'cut of your jib', as they say. You're a young, scrappy fellow-" He ruffled the galdor's silver hair. "-and I could use a few good men like you around town, see? Shape up the stevedores, keep those good-for-nothing sea rats on their toes. Now tell me the good news. What do you say?"

"You're mad."

"But at least I know it," said Hawke, rubbing Ceres' shoulders, leaning over to whisper in his ear. "Serro thinks he's sane. And do you know what I think? I think he's going to get all of us killed."

(( OOC comments welcome! ))