Axcel: The World.

He frowned at the comment.

"I'm Maahes, Siren!" he argued, pointing at himself. He didn't get why Siren thought that he had eaten himself, but it wasn't true. So that would mean he could easily convince her that she was wrong, right? "I can change my form!"

Zech threw up his hands and took a few steps back. This was way out of his (nonexistent) paygrade, and nobody seemed to need his help.

Siren squinted hard, and frowned again. Then she moved into Maahes' personal space, and sniffed him. She sniffed him very seriously.

Then she stepped back, grinned her sharp grin, and ruffled his hair.

"Yes, you are Maaahes."

He grinned, and crouched down so he was a little closer to her height - he didn't want to make it hard for her to rub his hair. "I told you I was me!" he said. Leaning down felt a little awkward, so he decided crouching was the best way to let Siren ruffle his hair.

"Yay!" Zech said, smiling awkwardly and clapping his hands. "I'm so happy you're sure he's Maahes, who can somehow change his body in a way that I've literally never seen before!"

"I'm a spirit!" he exclaimed, still crouching. He pointed down at his essence. Odris said not to draw attention to it, but Odris wasn't here right now. So he could explain it to Zech, and Odris would never be the wiser! "My essence lets me change my form. I can go do all sorts of stuff besides that, too. Like I can make fire and wind, and Odris says I can also do a bunch of magical attacks, but they're boring to learn about and the fire works a lot better anyways."

He frowned. "But some things really hurt me because of my essence. I don't like those things a lot, and Odris is still trying to figure out what exactly those things are. He's only had a couple of years to study me, though, and he's been teaching me how to be a scholar and a diplomat on top of that and him being one too, so we're not making a lot of progress."

So Maahes could both shift forms into whatever he wanted, and was well-versed in a wide variety of magic. Zech bit his lip and tried to hide the panic worming into his widened eyes and his rising fur.

"Study you?" Zech spat out. "A couple of years? You're almost divinity, not some kind of -" Oh. Zech blinked.

"Were you created?" he said, after a long hesitation. He didn't want to offend Maahes, but it was kind of an important question. "Like, not born or something like that, but made. You're - you're not all that old, are you?"

Maahes bristled with annoyance at the second question. "I'm six," he indignantly replied, crossing his arm and looking generally upset that someone had implied he wasn't "all that old". This comment was followed by surprised noises from over in the direction of the guy with fangs and the girl he was with, which made him grow even more annoyed.

But then he remembered that Zech had asked another question, and, though Odris wasn't here right now, it would have definitely been rude to avoid answering just because he was upset that someone thought he was a little kid. "I kind of was created?" he confirmed. He had to think it through before he could say for certain. "Odris took some of the essence from the Other Place, brought it here and gave it my name."

Oh dear. That explained a lot. Not everything - particularly whatever this 'other place' was - but suddenly Zech felt a lot more sympathy for the bleeding kid in front of him.

"Six isn't too young?" Zech said, spacing out the words. "But I'm thirty-three, so it's not exactly old either."

He thought over what Zech said for a moment.

"I guess it's kind of young," he admitted, "by comparison. Odris said I'm supposed to get really, really old someday, and that I'll outlive him 'by a long shot'. Odris can be kind of annoying, but I don't really like to think about that because it would be weird without him. But I'm definitely going hundreds and even thousands of years old someday, so six is sort of little, then."

"Six is a baby," said Siren, who had been spacing out for most of Maahes' complicated explanation.

"And if another bunny comes along to hurt him, I will bite it." she said, very seriously.

"I'm not a baby!" Maahes indignantly protested. "And even if I was, Odris says I'm very mature for my age, and that I remind him of what he was like when he was little. And Odris is really smart, so he would know."

Lorcan stared at Maahes. It was bizarre imagining someone who looked to be an adult actually being so young, but hadn't he dealt with that his entire life - though to a much more minor extent? Besides, it did explain why he had been acting so bizarre since he showed up. His actions were intrusive and unnatural for an adult, but made just the right amount of sense for a kid.

(No wonder he had reminded him of the Hero he had met years ago - Hero had only been a child then, too.)

That was a lot to take in. Ryder had walked back to Rose and silently conversed with her about everything that had just happened. She shook her head. Besides being sentient and capable of intelligent thought (although there was a bit of doubt on that front) she figured they didn't have much in common.
"Ahem," Rose cleared her throat as she neared the group to get everyone's attention.
"So, uh, if everyone is here..." she began, hesitant. She wasn't sure how to go about getting the group out of the forest. Sure, they were strong enough to hold their own if another monster attacked, but there wasn't anything particular inside the forest that could help them get back home. She knew that. Ryder knew that. But they didn't.
"In this forest, there isn't much beyond some monsters and dangerous creatures," she said bluntly, after a minute or so of silence.
"I know you guys want to get home, so I'm suggesting we go along to the nearest town -- the Dwarven town of Oburegh. There might be some answers to the whole 'artifact' business there."

"Yep," said Zech, trying his best to smile. "You're just a little young, and definitely mature." He took a couple steps back, thinking about dragons. They were absurdly strong and could be absurdly old. He was pretty sure they bled like everything else, but he hadn't been close enough to one to make sure. And he wasn't about to now.

"That town sounds interesting!" he continued, turning to Ryder and Rose. "How quickly can we get there?"

Lorcan and Juniper nodded in agreement; if that town was their bet shot at getting back to Earth, then they would take it. After they gave their answer, Juniper glanced over at Maahes - he appeared to be seriously considering what had been said.

"I'll come, too!" he decided. His true age did explain his reactions, but it was still bizarre trying to associate the grown man before her with a child.