Truth or Dare

James looked back and forth between them, but it was kind of easy to tell which was which. Damascus still had his red eyes, but John didn't. His smile shrunk a little and he held both hands in front of him.

"Uh... you're you? Damascus," he said quietly, pointing at Damascus. Then his hand moved to John. "And you're John. Or - uh - is you name John? Do you want to be called John? You said uh, you'd be our sister. And I guess John could be a girl name. But is it your real name?"

She quickly shook her head. "John's just an alias!" she informed him. She had already admitted that she wasn't human - why wouldn't she be able to admit that her real name wasn't John now, especially when her voice didn't match the name anymore. "My real name is Schadel. Kind of like Schädel, but Blanx butchered Adam's nickname for me."

James smiled, nodding. "Shad - Schadel. Schadel! I like it. Sounds pretty."

"Oh, wonderful!" Damascus beamed, glad that Schadel felt she could share her real name with them."I like it too."

After a few seconds, a thought came to him, and he frowned. He wasn't using his given name right now... it was for different reasons, but what if they found out later and thought that he didn't trust them? He didn't want that.

"Um, I was actually given the name Aagares." He mumbled. "But, the people that named me... I don't want to be like them. So I named myself Damascus- and that's what I want to be called from now on, because I want to be my own person and become who I want to be."

Gaining strength toward the end of his little rant, he puffed his chest and his eyes flared. A moment later, as if coming back to his senses, his posture crumpled slightly and he gave James and Schadel a sheepish smile.

Damascus' name was something precious to him... and Boris had made fun of that name, almost as soon as they'd met. He'd gone too far without even knowing it.

He felt terrible about that. Not terrible enough to resolve to never, ever, make fun of him again, but there were some things, some sacred things that shouldn't be touched.

He wasn't good at apologies. They always felt weird and disingenuous.

So he said "...I think Damascus is a really cool name." and hoped that would be enough for the other boy to understand.

Damascus beamed and turned in surprise at Boris. That was the nicest thing he had said to him- except for maybe suggesting they be brothers.

"Thank you, Boris." He said softly, truly touched. "I like your name too."

James nodded in agreement with the others. They all had very nice names.

"I..I like your names too," a voice suddenly said from a short distance away. Schadel turned to see Edward standing there, William dangling from one hand as he awkwardly headed over to where the majority of the kids were standing. He still seemed nervous by what was going on from his paleness and trembling, but she was happy that she hadn't entirely scared him.

"Thank you," she said, and it was only after she spoke that she realized she still was using James' form. She thought things over for a second before taking on another young form - this one of a girl in her late teens (long black hair, silver eyes), so she was closer in age to everyone but still got the height she needed to be comfortable. And since no one here really seemed to judge, she gave the form a pair of pants instead of a dress.

James watched with the same awe-filled curiosity as Schadel shifted again. Damascus and Schadel were so cool!

Damascus broke into a grin, very touched that Edward had decided to join them. "Thank you, Edward."

Glancing over at Schadel, he took her cue and shifted back into the form he had been using earlier. With a distracted glance around, he walked back over to the little table to scoop up several more bars of chocolate.

Boris was still enchanted by the unearthliness of Damascus and Schadel's abilities.
He felt as though he should say something about it, but wasn't sure of anything.
So he decided to just go right up to Damascus, say whatever he could think of, and get the whole feelings thing out of the way in one go.

"That, um, 'shifting' thing really is... weird. When you and Schadel were James, it wasn't the same, but if he wasn't right next to you, I wouldn't have noticed the difference. Apart from the eyes. That's... pretty amazing."

Boris didn't want his sudden niceness to be acknowledged, so he moved straight over to Engel as soon as he was done.

"You still need brothers. And a sister. But it'll take all night if everyone spit swears one at a time... Can we all do one, big spit swear?" he said.

Damascus looked up from his chocolate as Boris approached. As the other boy struggled through what Damascus assumed to be a compliment, his smile grew. He opened his mouth to comment on how much he appreciated Boris trying to be nice, but then he walked away before he could get a word out.

Pouting slightly, he took a large bite of chocolate and watched him walk over to Engel.

"Yesh! One bick shwear!" He yelled from across the clearing, a few specks of chocolate-spit flying from his mouth.

"Ja!" Engel agrees enthusiastically. "And so does Edward!"

Edward looked wildly over at Engel. "Wait, I didn't agree to that-"

"I want to join in on the giant spit swear!" Schadel interrupted, eagerly rushing over to where Boris was standing. She held out her hand and preemptively spat into it.

James was not eager to again join in on the unsanitary spit-fest, but he timidly spoke up in agreement. "I'm in too," he said quietly, spitting in his hand and coming over as well.