Young Writers Society

Clarity-
Dreanic, Lower

It was comforting listening to him talk about his "standard" family. I could picture him being an overprotective big brother, the type of family member you could always count on for as long as they were alive.

What was he doing here?

But then he had to remind me that he was the most annoying boy I'd ever met. But at least he had a pulse and could breathe.

Don't worry about me proving myself useful," I said, "I can pull my own weight."

We were quiet then, until I heard a strange sound.
"Stop," I said. Hat paused. I heard the grunts and snorts more clearly now and snapped my axe out.

As soon as the charging pig came into view, I let it fly. The axe in the air thrice, then buried into the wild animal's neck with a squelch.

"D'you like boar meat?" I asked.

Amethyst

I looked up and was surprised to see that it wasn't a person shooting arrows at us, but a guard tower with two or three guards, set up to take out anyone who tried to cross the river.

"Under the water!" I shouted, ducking under the surface.

Noah followed suit and I led him to the river bank, where the guard tower stood. I quickly leaned against own of the legs of the tower, beckoning for him to do the same. The arrows stopped.

"Where'd they go? Ambrose, go down and look for them! They're hiding somewhere," one of the guards muttered.

I could hear one of them, presumably Ambrose, making his way down the ladder and grumbling to himself the whole way. I made sure to stay out of the way of the ladder he was coming down.

"They're probably still in the water!" he shouted up at the other guard.

"Well then look for them!"

Giving a heavy sigh, he went over to the water'sedge to look for us but when he walked past me, I snuck up and grabbed him from behind, clamping my hand over his mouth before he could scream. I pinched a nerve in his neck, causing him to pass out. I gently laid him on the ground and ducked behind the leg again. After a few minutes, the other guard came down the ladder, swearing under his breath.

"Ambrose, how hard is it to catch two kids?" he huffed. "Ambrose, I-"

He saw Ambrose lying on the ground and spotted us. Without hesitation, Noah picked up his instruments and held it up to his lips. I quickly covered my ears and he began to play, causing the guard to pass out after only a few seconds. Noah then grabbed my hand and dragged me with him through the forest, my legs wobbly and my head feeling foggy.

"Come on, they won't be asleep for long!" he said.

I stumbled after him, dizzy and confused, until we found a small cave-like pile of rocks deep in the woods. It wasn't much, but it would be enough for shelter.

"We'll set up here, I guess," I said, setting down my bag.

Noah nodded and set his down as well.

To aqua1213:

Hat

The axe gleaming axe sliced the air, and buried itself in the neck of a huge, bristly animal. Blood spurted out. The animal dropped to the ground, its head almost severed.

More impressed than he would have liked to admit, Hat raised his eyebrows. Her aim was clearly better when she was standing.

“D’you like boar meat?” she enquired, smiling ever so slightly.

He nodded, and immediately began to dissect the animal with the quick, practised strokes of a butcher’s son. To his surprise, Clarity seemed to be making equally good time, though her axe was far clumsier than his knife. She hacked away skilfully and comfortably, her hatred of death apparently restricted to creatures that thought.

“Where’d you learn how to do that, kid?” he asked before he thought.

She just smirked. “See? I told you I’d make myself useful and it took all of two seconds for me to do so.”

In spite of himself, he grinned his crooked grin.

.

Phoenix Alyasan (rakal)

The thudded gleam of the two sided broadside was all she could see as Phoenix leaped up expertly on the balls of her feet, her eyes ablaze. She stood there for a full thirty seconds, relaxing into an look of bemusement. She was dressed plainly in a dark green jacket and hunting pants, complete with a tattered backpack. Phoenix's eyes slowly took in her surroundings, scanning them with an easygoing look of caution.

Where was she? As a rakal she was immediately alert and cautious, a Palshan trick maybe. Looking around at the dense forest she grabbed the back pack, hooking it over her shoulders and sprinting into the bush. Laying the bag down beside a meger spring, Phoenix opened it carefully. In it where some tins of dried fruit, and other essentials.

What about a weapon? As she repeated the thought in her head, an idea struck her, she had seen it when she had woken up... Lifting it upside down a clatter resounded over the trees, rolling out was the two pieces of a broadswoard, which she could easily put together.

Everything seemed more bearable suddenly.

With a shout from the river across a fletched arrow spun towards her and buried itself in her legs.

Noah Avril
I sat on a log as Amythyst lithely lowered herself into a cross-legged position. Glancing at her once, I adverted my gaze quickly when she met it challengingly. We sat there, not looking at each other, as each dug out our respective bags of fruit and jerky. I felt my cheek from time to time, expecting to bring back fingers hot with blood every time, but it never happened. I had lucked out, and the arrow had barely missed me.

After I ate what my stomach, which was still roiling dangerously with fear, could handle, I removed my knives. When I got two in a row to stick and stay in a tree, taking much longer than I’m willing to admit, I stopped while I was ahead. I looked like a useless enough fool by the end anyway. Luckily, Amythyst didn’t attempt to comment on my throwing abilities. She merely scoffed at one point, which I promptly ignored.

I gathered my knives which were littered around the base of tree. My left eye assured a good aim, but my wrist wasn’t use to doing more than grinding up leaves and writing.

Returning to my log, I sat, and silence prevailed. I stared at the ground between my feet and felt my eyes droop. A day of walking and running was a large change from my usual late nights of parties and days of classes and boredom. I started up as my mind began to fog with sleep. I looked up to realize Amythyst was in similar straits.

What am I afraid of? I wondered and almost immediately came to a conclusion. I was afraid of Amythyst. There was no way I trusted a Rakal enough to sleep with her close enough to slit my throat.

I looked at her directly, unworried if she returned my gaze or not, and picked up my ocarina.

She straightened slowly, attempting to be nonchalant.

I closed my right eye, and my left picked out taught muscles. I noticed her hand creeping toward her sword.

I wasn’t the only one who was a little suspicious.

“Relax. Just playing a tune,” I muttered and turned away from her as I inhaled to play a note.

She stood suddenly with her sword in her hand, which made me stand too. “How can I believe that?” she demanded with a wave of her sword.

I raised my eyebrow, my ocarina having been lowered as I stood. “How can I believe that you won’t run me through with that thing?” I threw back.

The blood in my head was beginning to pound. A part of me, a very small part, was horrified at my challenge. The rest was ready for a fight. She was a Rakal for goodness sakes! She was an animal that needed to be exterminated, and I wouldn’t prove my race by getting friendly with a damned Rakal. I jumped back, my senses heightened by the adrenaline rushing through me once more, as she lunged toward me with an angry growl and blew into my ocarina.

Amethyst

I lunged toward him, already beginning to shift into a bobcat, but his ocarina made my head reel. I shook it off and transformed, running forward to attack again. He momentarily stopped playing to duck aside, and in that sudden moment of clarity, my paw found his chest. He sucked in a breath, and fell to his knees, trying to hold the wound with one hand and play his flute-thing with the other, failing miserably. I knocked it out of his hand with my paw and he looked at me, furious.

"Are you going to kill me then?" he hissed. "Wouldn't surprise me. Go ahead; do it."

I growled at him before shifting to my human form. "I'm not going to kill you; I told you that I wouldn't and you didn't believe me."

"Why should I have trusted you? We're rival races?"

"Yeah, silly me for thinking that We could work together," I snapped. "Just get out of here then. I can survive on my own."

He glared up at me, panting lightly as he stood to his feet. He grimaced, pressing his hand to his chest. I went into the cave and tossed him his back pack.

"Thanks," he huffed.

"Go."

I turned my back. I could still hear him behind me, watching me. He shuffled nervously from foot to foot.

"Didn't you hear me," I asked, turning around. "Leave! Get out of here! Go! I'll get along on my own without you! I'm used to it."

I turned around again, and I heard him pick up his instrument and trudge off, the leaves making a light crunching noise under his feet. When I couldn't hear his steps any longer, I got up, extinguished the fire and set about camouflaging the mouth of the cave. I put stones around the bottom and used several large willow branches from a nearby tree to cover up the entrance, making it look abandoned. I covered up the ash from the fire and put my blanket on the hard, cold floor. Shifting back into a bobcat, I curled up on the blanket and slept soundly.

Clarity-

We finished butchering the boar and kicked the bones around so anyone who happened upon the carcass would thing frenzied animals had made a meal of it. Finding a clear space, we made a small fire and fried some boar jerky. Picking a few nearby plants, we made a real feast out of it; or atleast as close to a feast as we could get.

The meal was nice, but neither of us could deny we needed to find water soon. Already my mouth was beginning to feel odd.

After packing up the rest of the meat, we started off again, our pace unconciously becoming faster and faster as our anxiety rose. The sky was getting dark and I didn't know how much longer we could go without water, but even the next morning seemed a stretch.

What if there wasn't any water?

But then there it was. I blinked, like someone seeing an oasis in the middle of a desert and wondering if it was a mirage. The last rays of sunlight glinted off the river's surface making it sparkle like a diamond.

We slid down the embankment and lapped at the water, laughing with nervous relief.

A breeze that didn't seem to belong passed my ear. I looked behind me. There was an arrow embedded in the tough wood of a small bush.

"Move!" I cried, my still-parched throat cracking.


(OOC: Mrs. E. D. : I think I might have missed a chat bubble you sent me yesterday, so if you remember what it was about, you should tell me again sometime please. )

Hat

“You bloody idiot!” he shouted suddenly while they were cleaning up. She looked up, surprised. Neither of them had said anything since they’d cut up the meat.

“Your damned axe lost me all my water! And I don’t know where more is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You threw that thing at me and it cut my canteen in half,” he said, displaying the ruins of the container. “That had water in it. I suppose we’re to drink vitriol now.”

“It would make your disposition pleasanter! Besides, how was I to know you weren’t a Rakal jumping out of the bushes to...?” She gritted her teeth and controlled her temper. “Look, we can share mine until we find another water source.”

“You lost yours. I noticed a while back that it wasn’t there.” He swore angrily. “We’ll die of thirst before ever seeing a shifter.”

“They wouldn’t throw us in here without water,” she snapped.

“I wouldn’t put it past them to throw us in there without a way of finding it, though. I have a piece of a map that I can barely read.”

“A map? Is it a white piece of paper?” she asked, looking up sharply.

Hat could read a little better than Clarity. Their two pieces of paper put together showed, as far as he could figure out, a sort of river. He set off in the most likely looking direction and they walked for what seemed like hours, the sun sinking lower and lower on the horizon. Most of the sky was dark before they found it; when they finally did, Hat practically submerged his head in the flowing water.

Clarity reached the water after him, so she had barely put her lips to it when the arrow whistled through the air and hit a bush on the other side of the river.

“Move!” she shouted.

She didn’t have to tell him twice. He flew to his feet and began to run and duck along the bank, hoping that Clarity knew how to avoid a sniper. He felt his fingers going involuntarily to the harmonica on its cord around his neck. “Cover your ears,” he called in Dreanic, hoping that whatever was shooting at them didn’t understand. Then he put his lips to the instrument.

Noah Avril

I looked back once more before her, previously our, camp disappeared from sight and sneered as I saw Amythyst shift into a cat or something. I didn't need a shifter anyway.

I kicked at some leaves and trudged on. Life was easier alone without family, without friends, without shaky allies.

Only when I heard the rush of water did I realize I had made my way back to the river again. I studied my surroundings for something familiar and sighed. Though I was back at the river, I had either gone up or down river from the point Amythyst and I had been.

Squinting my right eye, I scanned the dark forest and slung my bag down. I sat beside it, digging out the throwing knives, and lay down, my head resting on the bag and my arms around my knives.

It would be a long night.

Clarity-
Lower Dreanic

We ducked and weaved through the underbrush and I was surprised by how easily Hat did so.

"Cover your ears," Hat yelped. I ducked behind a tree and wedged my fingers over my eardrums so the only sound I could hear was that odd roaring in your ears you get when you cover them.

Still, I could hear a whisp of the tune he played and recognized the instrument: a harmonica.

Even though Dreanics have a slight immunity to the sound of others' instruments, my eyelids still began to droop and my head dipped low for a moment. Hat had some power in his notes.

I roused myself as soon as Hat stopped and followed him through the trees, my head still swirling slightly. There was absolutely no time to lose. Whatever was shooting at us wouldn't be out for long now that Hat had stopped.

When we thought we were far enough away, we stopped running and turned back, slowly and cautiously making our way to what we hoped would be the safer, downstream section of the river.

"Who do you think was shooting at us?" I asked after catching my breath. Hat shrugged.

"Do you think we should've attacked them?" I asked, worried, "do you think that would've proven our race better?"

"How would we have attacked them?" he countered, "they caught us off guard. We couldn't even see them. It would've been stupid to try." I nodded.

(OOC: Why's no one posting?)

And that was it. The sun went over the horizon, and the rest is history.