Young Writers Society

Mage perked up at the suggestion.

Kiera hadn't read too many pirate stories, but he had always enjoyed the ones that she had—and the way that she had acted like them. The few times he had read some of the stories out loud, he had enjoyed pretending to be like a pirate, too. Mage knew he wouldn't ever get a chance like this again.

"I do want to," Mage excitedly agreed, noting but ignoring Stean's request. But then the protest finally registered, and he found himself looking at Soul instead of Stean. Soul, who was trying to keep his posture unreadable, but was scared of water and would stick out like a sore thumb wearing a suit of armor.

Mage's shoulders slumped.

"But I shouldn't," Mage said. "We were actually going to head to the shore before we saw your ship. Soul doesn't like the open ocean, and he would have to take off his armor."

Normally, Mage knew Soul would have protested not doing what Mage wanted to. He was good at hiding his appearance when he had to. But the water wasn't something he would risk being near without Zogin, and they didn't didn't know where she was back on their world.

Harry nodded. He could understand that. The water, especially the oceans weren't the most forgiving of places for more than a few lifeforms. He'd completely forgotten to even consider that to be a possibility.

Stean was also looking particularly chipper with that declaration and Harry knew precisely why. Deciding that creating a hole in the deck underneath Stean was too childish to be doing in front of this new Soul person, Harry tried the mature approach for a change. Jason would be proud or most likely he'd gloat.

"Alright, sorry, I should've thought of that," said Harry, "why don't I take you guys to shore then? There's a lovely resort out there, we've got a cabin with all the bells and whistles booked. Not a soul, well besides Vankous and James. Those two sleeping beauties are hanging about but nothing else. There was this one bedsheet situation last time, but this time it seems to have been dealt with."

"Yes, we can all head back on either ship," said Stean, "stepping on. Let's not keep you on the open ocean for too much longer then."

Mage glanced over at Soul. Soul's shoulders had slumped in relief at Harry's suggestion. Underneath his helmet, Mage was sure he would be giving a smile, too. He didn't always get to see Soul without his helmet on, but he had seen his face enough to know what to expect.

"We should probably stay on this ship," Mage said, "so Soul doesn't have to go across the water."

"I can go to the other ship," Soul reassured him, despite not sounding all that sure.

Mage gave him a concerned look. "Are you sure?"

Soul hesitantly nodded.

"Oh we don't need to go to the other ship," said Harry, immediately, "that's just a random pirate ship we totally borrowed."

"Stole and hijacked," said Stean.

"Well, they were pirates," said Harry.

"And yet we kind of...you know," said Stean.

"Oh please, that was just boring," said Harry. "You didn't even let us do the proper prisoner thing. Stean here just kicked two of them off the ship and everyone ran off in like fifteen seconds. It was kind of funny..but also...okay, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Long story short, this will do fine, and if you really don't want to mess about too long on the water, I can fly the two of you back to shore, or just wake Vankous up and get him to come over here and teleport you two. I'm sure he might not refuse."

"You can fly?" Soul asked, a little bit hesitantly. He eyed Harry's wings. Flying was always something he had been interested in, but hadn't been able to ever experience because it was something only angels could do. He hadn't ever met a friendly angel before.

It wasn't that he was opposed to the idea of one. He hadn't met many friendly demons before, either, but then he met Mage. And he knew it would be hypocritical if he believed in someone's goodness based just on what they were are.

But angels were different than demons were. Demons were similar to humans in how they were oppressed by the angels. Angels were the ones doing the oppressing.

Soul put the thoughts away.

"...Could we fly?" he asked.

"I'd also like to fly back," Mage said, excitement in his voice.

"Awesome," said Harry, "Stean can you go ahead on your own then, I'll follow overhead."

"Alright," said the Notpyrkian, shaking his head at something before he then proceeded to walk off the ship. It was Harry's turn to shake his head. He could've at the very least done a backflip instead of walking off like some zombie.

"Soo, one second you two," said Harry, taking a few steps back. If I was flying one person I could probably do it in this form, but two people, it's just a lot more convenient if I transform."

On that note Harry flipped into the air, focusing on the shape he wanted, as he landed on the deck on all four. His limbs immediately began to grow thicker and longer, body transforming quickly into a pegasus. He'd have liked to go with the dragon but he wasn't sure if a dragon would actually fit on top of a pirate ship to say nothing of whether a ship could even support its weight.

HIs face still not transformed, Harry turned to the other two and nodded. "Hop on."

With that, his face changed to match the bright blue pegasus that he'd just become.

For a moment, all that Soul did was stare.

Mage stared, too. Soul had assumed that Mage was used to things like this since Harry was his friend, but it seemed like Mage was just as unfamiliar with that other form as Soul was. Soul hadn't ever seen something like a winged horse before—he hadn't even considered that something like that could exist. Seeing Harry's face on the body of said horse was even more jarring. Soul was sure that Zogin would never believe him if he tried to tell her about this when they found each other again.

"Do you need help getting on?" Soul finally asked, glancing over at Mage again.

Mage blinked, glanced between Harry and Soul, and then shook his head.

"Do you?" he asked. "Your armor is heavy."

"I'll be okay," Soul reassured him, smiling underneath his helmet. His eyes softly glowed, too, though he wasn't able to see or notice it himself. He watched as Mage struggled for a moment to get onto Harry's back, then climbed on himself a moment later. Soul's armor might have been heavy, but he had been wearing it for years at this point. He was used to it.

"Both of you ready to go?" asked Harry. It wasn't terribly easy to maintain the use of humanoid vocal cords when he had the face of a horse, but he'd had a surprising amount of practice with doing this. He'd felt the bump of someone getting on but it felt like only one of them had.

Mage started to nod, but then he remembered that Harry probably couldn't see the two of them all that well.

"We're ready," he said. Soul was sitting behind him now; he could feel the metal arms of Soul's armor wrapping around his waist and keeping him steady. Mage was more concerned about Soul falling, but he still leaned back into Soul's armor so Soul didn't have to lean forward as much.

"Great," said Harry," hold on tight."

With that, he broke into a gallop across the deck of the ship, jumping off right at the edge, leaping over the railing and into the open air, flapping his wings slightly, he gained a little momentum, rising rapidly, decided it was probably best to stay as far above the water as possible. He had no idea how deep of a problem Mage's friend had with water, but he'd rather play it as safe as he could.

Harry flew right up into the cloud layer, thinking perhaps that Soul would appreciate not having to look at the water at all. Harry could still see through the clouds and he kept an eye out on Stean, who was swimming along below, following the path that he took to ensure they arrived at the same time.

Among, the majestic white clouds tailor made for the tourists of this world, there were several interesting shapes flying by although they went far too slowly to actually see the floating shows in the sky that the clouds had been turned into.

Before long, the coast was approaching, and Harry began a slow descent. He didn't want to go down too fast in case the two on his back weren't too used to the whole flying thing. Still, it didn't take too long before the three of them were landing gracefully on the sands at the edge of the beach.

Stean had stopped by the umbrellas under which Vankous and James were sleeping but Harry had landed much further in, getting away from the reach of the tide and to dry sand.

"And we're here," said Harry, cheerfully, "I hope that wasn't too uncomfortable."

Harry, not that Soul knew what he had been thinking for sure, had been right in his guess—Soul was grateful that he hadn't seen the ocean during the flight. It was a little...nauseating realizing how high they were from the ground below, but Soul was still able to enjoy the experience.

He slipped off of Harry first. He couldn't remember the last time he had been grateful for sand; it almost always got into his armor and into the little cracks and crevices that were especially hard to clean out.

"It wasn't uncomfortable," Soul reassured him. Mage started to get down on his own, but lost his balance and went tumbling right towards Soul. Soul caught him and placed him down on the ground.

"Thanks," Mage said, cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

Harry transformed back into a more humanoid form as Mage and Soul dismounted and got on their feet.

"Glad to hear that," said Harry, smilingly at the interaction between Soul and Mage. He'd seen Soul catch him and it really did make him happy to see that Mage had found a good friend. The last time he'd seen him, Mage had looked a lot more lonely.

"So, you guys want to perhaps head upto the little...well its not that small...but um, little cabin that we've got booked, or do you want to meet James and Vankous. I can go fetch that trio from under the umbrella?"

When Mage glanced over at Soul to see what he was more comfortable with, he discovered that Soul was looking over at him, too. If Soul wasn't immediately giving an answer, he probably didn't have a preference.

"It would be nice seeing Vankous and James again," Mage said. He had gotten along better with Stean and Harry, but Vankous and James were still Harry's friends. He glanced over at Soul again. Even though they had only just arrived at the beach, sand must have already been getting into his armor. "And then we could go to the cabin."

"Awesome, I will go fetch them in a moment. You can try and get as far off the sand as possible in the meantime," said Harry, nodding towards Soul. He'd run through enough sandy beaches wearing full suits of armor to know that it was no picnic.

Harry ran off in the direction of the other three, sliding to a stop next to their little umbrella, calculating his slide just perfectly to send a spray of sand right in Vankous' face.

His plan worked perfectly as a spluttering Vankous began to sit up screaming to no one in particular about calcium silicate, and in the process causing James to stir.

Mage tried—and failed—to hide a laugh at how Vankous reacted. He seemed so light here. He was usually less tense than he was when they first met, but Soul couldn't get over how happy Mage seemed with the others here.

He also couldn't help but hope that Harry and Zogin never met, because it was clear the two of them would be absolutely terrible influences on each other.