Young Writers Society

The moment he heard the question, he started to smile. "I do," he confirmed, his smile growing a little more when he saw Mel's reaction to how Bo was talking while eating food. "I love reading when I can get my hands on a new book - or even an old one - and I love trying to improve my ship when I'm waiting to get to another planet."

Bo's eyes went wide and he nodded. "Ooooh! Then you must'ah loved the library then! And oh! So if you fix your ship up and improve it, do you like fixing things? Building stuff?"

"I did," he agreed, his smile growing. "Your library here is incredible! I haven't been in one like it for awhile - most of the worlds that I visit only have budding book collections, and their stories certainly aren't as interesting as yours are."

He thought over what Bo said for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not really into building things," he admitted. He had forgotten that the people here would have a different idea of what a ship could be compared to him. "I'm not sure what type of technology you have on this world, but The Lotus isn't a ship that travels the oceans."

He pointed up.

"It travels the stars," he said, grinning. "It's not too big, and it's made entirely of metal. I like fiddling with the technology and seeing what improvements I can make to it by reworking the circuits and adding new technology I get from the planets I help out."

A collection of "ooooh's" rose up from Bo and his friends as they listened to Maahes describe his ship. Yuna's tail flicked with interest and she bounced in her seat.

"What's it like to travel the stars?" Yuna asked. "Is it big out there"

"It's very big," he confirmed, turning his gaze to her and continuing to give a warm smile. "Just when you think you've explored it all, you find another world tucked away in a corner of the universe you didn't even realize existed. I've seen so many incredible things during my travels - you'd never believe half of them."

it wasn't all just awe over mysterious alien races and artifacts; some of the most incredible things he had seen were planets filled with people who had once lived on Earth, having developed their own distinct cultures in the times since they had been taken. He loved places like that the most.

Yuna stared up at Maahes with big, bright eyes. "Woaaaah," she whispered under her breath.

"That's amazing," Mel spoke up, leaning in on the table with interest. "Have you ever run into a world like ours with people like us? I'd love to hear some of your stories."

Maahes thought for a moment. "Not exactly like yours," he admitted. "But I've been to similar ones in the past. No world is exactly alike." He tried to think of which world had been the closest to this one, and he was astonished to realize that the first one that came to mind was none other than Earth. It might not have had all of the magic, but what he had seen of the culture and structure of its building were fairly similar.

"I used to live on a world that reminds me of this one. It didn't have magic, but I can see it when I look around this place and around the nearby forest.

Bo nodded slowly. "Didn't have magic..." he hummed. "That sounds like they probably had to rely a lot on invention for things, then?"

He nodded. "They have technology like you wouldn't believe there," he said, a grin beginning to spread across his face. He had spent thousands of years watching Earth grow and develop; it was his planet, and it always made him happy to talk about how much it had accomplished. "I haven't been there in a couple of years, but they were working on a thing called a computer as their latest piece of new technology. It's so small but it can run multiple programs. I haven't seen anything like that since I used to live with the Alterans."

Bo didn't understand... most of what Maahes was describing, but it sure sounded interesting, to say the least.

"Alterans were the ones with magic? Or am I remembering that wrong?"

He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly realizing that he had been blabbing about a topic they wouldn't really understand. "Not technically," he clarified. "They just had a very advanced civilization, and were amazing scholars. I was the one with magic out of them; I don't think they ever summoned anyone else."

Conversation dwindled as guild members had finished their meals and were starting to slowly file out of the dining hall. Bo said farewell to his friends remaining and decided to finish giving Maahes a quick tour of the grounds, taking Maahes up and down many hallways with enthusiasm. Instead of running through every room however, they simply took peeks, and moved on.

"Once you know where the main things are, you don't have to worry about getting super lost!" he explained. "Then you can explore all you want on your own!"

They even passed by the sleeping quarters, where everyone's rooms were, and Bo eagerly pointed out where his was, were Maahes ever inclined to visit.

By the time Bo had finished running Maahes around, Bo was finally feeling the tiredness of a full, exciting day hit him, and he stopped off at his room to rest, leaving Maahes to go explore. But before Maahes could get very far, a young werewolf snuck out of her room and followed him, bounding up to him with an excited, quiet yip.

It was past her curfew, but she wasn't going to tell him that.

She offered to show him around the gardens - but particularly, her garden. She'd been working hard on studying and growing her plants for months, and was eager to show them off. When Maahes happily obliged, she hurried through the halls, eventually leading him to one of many doors.

The door opened up into a large, circular room with shelves lining the walls. The walls stretched up countless feet above their heads, and at the very top of the ceiling. Though it was closed off to the surface, it was implied that, during the day, it might've been a sunroof. Taking the place of natural light were lamps filled with lightning bugs placed all around. The shelves were splashed with color as they were covered in potted plants, and along the ground were plots of even more. They ranged from flowers to fruits and vegetables, and everything in between. The air felt clearer than that in the hall, having the most open shaft to the surface.

Yuna shifted to her human form, taking a step down one of the dirt walkways and smiled up at Maahes.

"Isn't it pretty?" she asked.

A smile had begun to spread across his face the moment they stepped into the room, and now it only grew in response to her question. "It's beautiful, Yuna," he told her. He took a couple more steps into the room; there were so many different plants! And while he had certainly seen his fair share of them on Earth or similar ones in his travels, some of them looked completely unfamiliar. It was astonishing seeing the differences.

"It's a big garden!" Yuna whispered, bouncing on her feet. "But I have my own section."

She hurried up and grabbed Maahes's hand, leading him to a square patch of the garden that was marked off by sticks holding up a line of string. In that section in particular, were a lot of purple, glowing plants of different shapes and sizes. Among them, was what looked like a small berry bush, with little round purple berries that faintly glowed from the inside. She picked one with a big smile.

"Bo got me a bunch of seeds from the scarred lands," she continued to whisper. "Mickey knows, but don't tell Bo that. He wasn't supposed to go, but he did for me," she added with a smug little grin. Then, she held the berry up to Maahes. "They taste really sweet and help you poop! Wanna try one?"

He looked down at the berry. He doubted Yuna knew that he couldn't technically eat normal things because of his essence or, if she did, that this berry was just the same as the food he hadn't eaten earlier. But he knew he couldn't turn her down; she'd be disappointed, and then probably feel a little guilty for asking in the first place when she learned that he couldn't even eat the berry.

So he nodded, and took the berry from her.

He looked at it for a moment, took a deep breath he knew she couldn't see, and popped the berry into his guise's mouth. There was a moment where it felt the way that it should. He had to resist the urge to spit it out, and his essence recoiled as he tried to take it in. But then another sensation quickly overcame him, and he didn't like it in the slightest. Painful might have been the best word for it, but it felt like a sudden shock, and it took all of his control not to make some noise that would reveal his pain. Despite this, he still stumbled back a bit, bumping into a thorny plant a short distance behind him.

And as his essence felt very, very wrong, he saw something red appearing on his finger out of the corner of his eye. He slowly turned to face the plant. It had pricked his skin, but his essence wasn't the right color or viscosity. It was red, and it was easily rolling down the side of his finger.

Like blood.

The world came back into focus. Everything felt restrictive, and he was horrified to realize that he couldn't even feel his true from. And when he tried to conjure up a flame, or a gust of wind, or even a Bulb of Silence, nothing happened.

"Hey, uh, Yuna?" he asked, just barely managing to keep his voice calm and relatively normal. "The berry tasted wonderful, but I really need to go see Bo now. You can show me the rest of your garden later."