"Talking"______Thinking

“Mister Graceful works for me.” He didn’t even go by the name his mother gave him, it didn’t bother him to be called anything. Besides, being called ‘mister’ anything made him feel rather important. Maybe he should start introducing himself as Mister Crake.

King Crake sounded nicer but, alas, he wasn’t king of much.

If Crake was going to apologize for making Moniz mad – not very likely – it disappeared from his mind because someone else had just showed up. Another colt! Older than himself, but young enough. He didn’t step back from the mare after she had approached him menacingly – though he was a little bit afraid of her, he certainly wasn’t going to let that show. Instead, those dusty purple eyes just slid right off of her and landed on the colt that seemed disgusted about this whole wraith business.

Everybody knocking stuff before they tried it. Tsk tsk.

Oblivious, or just dumb, Crake didn’t see why this wasn’t something he should brag about. No one had really gotten hurt, right? If it had all been a hallucination, those boys in the Basin probably actually had been run into but chances are none of them were hurt, right? Of course, he was going to embellish everything a little bit – the real story, where he had hallucinated the whole thing, wasn’t very fun. Might as well tell the story as his foggy mind remembered it.

Little did he know that was the actual story but, as we’ve already discovered, Crake wasn’t very bright and he was quite the show-off. His audience’s anger was amusing, sure, but he was certain he would win them back with a good story. “Well it was a power trip, lemme tell you that. You would have liked it too, bucko.” Crake used a rather matter-of-fact tone – convinced that anyone in his situation would have done the same thing. “There were just a few. You probably don’t know any of them – couple of the big guys from the Basin and my friend Ruby. He’s got this funny little spot on his side.” What was his real name again? Started with a ‘C’ or something along those lines. It didn’t matter, neither of these guys would know who he was talking about anyway. “Only one of them turned though. Such a shame. I had grand ideas for a legion.” King of the Basin, he had dubbed himself. Well he hadn’t really settled on a name. Lord of Death would have worked too. He wanted to have domain over the surface while everyone else crowded in the caves.

But being in the caves really wasn’t so bad, even if it was rather smelly. He had already made two new friends!

Although quite proud of the story he had just told, he nonchalantly changed the subject and finally got around to introducing himself. “My name’s Crake, by the way. Since you asked so politely for it.” This was, of course, mostly directed at Miss Moniz.

Crake