Child of the Moon.

~Chapter Four~

Rain pounded on the outside of the caravan. The widows shook and the warning bells outside rang continuously in high pitched chimes. The wind howled, increasing the infuriating sound of the storm. The water leaking from several places in the roof made an insufferable dripping sound. To make things worse, Lance, who was in the other room of the caravan, couldn't seem to catch the hint that everyone else in the caravan was on the brink of insanity due to his off-tune whistling.

Rapunzel sat at the desk, attempting to distract herself by drawing in her diary to describe the events of the day, scratching down everything she could think of. Cassandra occupied herself with sharpening her sword in a corner. Shorty slept loudly in another corner, as usual. Eugene was in the other room with Lance, Adira, and Hector, playing with some kind of word puzzle Hector had introduced him to. Hector himself was hanging upside-down from the rafters by his knees, letting his arms and the rest of his body hang down while Adira read a book nearby. She stopped reading her book every few minutes to cautiously look up at her brother.

"Do you mind?" Cassandra said to Rapunzel when she'd finally had enough of the irritating scratching Rapunzel's quill made on the pages of her diary.

"What?" Rapunzel responded absently.

Before Cassandra could say anything else, Lance's whistling grew louder and more off-key. Rapunzel got up from where she was drawing angrily and stomped over to the other room with Cassandra close behind.

"Lance," she said through clenched teeth. "Could you please..."

Rapunzel didn't finish and clamped her hands over her ears along with the others. Even Pascal used his tiny hands to cover his ears with Rapunzel's long hair.

"See that?" Eugene growled. "Even the frog can't stand that whistling!"

"Oh yeah?!" Lance said leaning over the edge of the loft bed he was sitting in to glare at Eugene. "And what does the little greenie weenie know about music?! He doesn't even have ears!"

"He doesn't need ears," Hector muttered from where he was hanging, keeping his eyes closed. "Your 'music' defies the laws of nature."

"Peace, brother," Adira said in a calm, almost bored manner.

"Peace?" Hector said angrily, finally opening his eyes. "Since when have you done anything peaceful, Miss I'm-gonna-kill-my-brother-to-make-a-point?!"

"Why you scrawny-"

"And you with the scratching," Cassandra interrupted, gesturing dramatically at Rapunzel, who was drawing angry pictures of her friends in her diary. "What could you possibly be drawing in that diary now?!"

"Well," Rapunzel spat, slamming the diary shut. "I'd try to explain it, but you clearly know nothing about art!"

Rapunzel sighed sadly before continuing.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry," she said regretfully. "That was mean. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Look, I know all our little ticks are getting on each other's nerves because we're all stuck in here together, but on the bright side we're all in here together! So, let's just have some fun with - Lance, if you do not stop that whistling, I will throttle you!"

The bickering continued loudly until suddenly, the caravan shook violently and a crash came from outside. The horses panicked and caused one of the caravan's wheels to get stuck.

Hector jumped down from the rafters and went to inspect the damage. When he came back inside, soaking and slightly shivering, he said apologetically,

"Yeah, sorry, but we ain't goin' nowhere any time soon."