Young Writers Society

Maahes looked wildly between James and the bushes that he threw the knife into. He took a step towards it, only to pause in the middle of doing so. He wouldn't be able to find it. Even more importantly, any time spent doing that was time they could be spending getting farther away from the bounty hunters and closer to the food James desperately needed.

He groaned.

"I'm getting you another knife the first chance I get," he informed James, taking a step in front of him as he peered into the darkness. He shouldn't have said anything. James just didn't get it, and now he was going to keep trying to avoid things that they needed just to make him feel comfortable. He looked back at James. He already had told him, so why avoid it when it was what he needed to win the argument? "I'm always in pain. It hurts just standing right in front of you right now. All you're doing by avoiding carrying things like that is preventing me from feeling a little pain on top of that."

James began to lead the way towards the plants he’d seen earlier, grabbing Maahes’s hand and leading him forward.

“If I can reduce your pain by even a fraction, I will,” he said in sincerity and seriousness as he led him through the forest. “And I’ve survived this long without you. I’m more resourceful than I seem...” he paused for a second as he looked back at the fire behind them, and the unconscious bunty hunters he could still catcha glimpse of through the trees.

“But I do want to understand,” he continued, voice becoming much more gentle. “...Why are you in pain all of the time?”

He took a deep breath and let it back out. The thought of explaining it was...daunting, to say the least. The last person to learn that had been Annie all those years ago, and even Vala only had a small idea of what it was like to be a spirit like him.

"This the explanation I was given when I was little, so I'm not sure how true it is or how much it'll actually help." He glanced back in the direction of the bounty hunters, just to make sure none were awake to overhear them. "I think I mentioned this once, but I come from a place called the Other Place. At least, that's how you'd say in your language. It's a chaotic, beautiful place that's made entirely of essence. Everything - and everyone - just blends together. It doesn't have set boundaries. You're not supposed to make them, although I've always done it after returning from my time here."

He looked down at himself, then back up at James. "When I was first summoned, my summoner - his name was Odris - took a bit of essence and gave it a name. He forced what would become me to take a shape, even though the place I come from resists any type of structure. My essence hurts because it hates being confined like this." He gestured at his current guise. "I-I figured out that changing my guise helps a little with the pain, but it's just something I've gotten used to over the years."

James listened closely as he led Maahes by the hand through the woods. He remembered Maahes talking about the Other Place. It sounded like a beautiful place to be from, and in a way, he admired Maahes's differences for being able to experience a place so uniquely wonderful in its own way. But most of all he wished he could understand what exactly essence was - not just in theory, but in reality. That, however, he figured, he probably would never fully understand. Just how Maahes would never wholly understand what it felt like to be human, at least, as far as all of the inner-workings of the body and the physical needs that needed to be met. Since, Maahes didn't need to eat or anything.

He paused, coming to a stop as he looked back into the darkness of the forest. They couldn't see the fire anymore, or the bounty hunters. It was just them. He knew he was somewhere close to the right spot, but he'd been relying on sight, which was now failing him.

"As long as it's just you and me... I don't mind if you change your guise. However much you need to or want to." He looked down at the ground. "I really wouldn't mind."

The words that James spoke were ones that he had wanted to hear for his entire life. He might not have had the capability to express that to Odris when he was younger, but it was what he had always wanted. Obviously the belief that it would someday become a reality had died down over the rest of his life, but the thought had always been there.

His eyes suddenly stung and grew moist. He couldn't cry, but he knew his essence was trying to do the best it could to mimic the response. He had faked for so long that it had become second nature to him. Frantically wiping his eyes with his sleeve - another useless habit of his, seeing that there were no tears for him to wipe in the first place - he scanned the area for the brussels. He found them only a handful of feet away, and wasted no time in going over to them.

He grabbed a couple and returned to James.

"You-you really mean it?" he asked, offering them to him. "Really? Wouldn't you be...uncomfortable with it? I would probably be changing my guise a lot. And it might get confusing if we end up somewhere with a lot of people, because then you might forget what my current guise was if we get separated. And what if my guises draw more attention to us? You have bounty hunters after you. Wouldn't it be better to just avoid suspicion and play things safe?"

James watched as Maahes's shadow moved in the dark. It looked like he was wiping his eyes before he ran off and returned with the brussels. James held them in his arms as he listened to his friend.

"I'll draw more attention from bounty hunters than you ever will," James replied. "Unless you choose a guise that looks like me, you'll be fine. And as long as you switch when no one apart from me is looking, we'll be fine. But really, Maahes. If I'm sticking by you all the time, it won't matter much anyway. I'll know it's you. And... if not, maybe we can come up with a sign. How about -" he lifts up three fingers to his lips. "This. We could remember it for the future too -" he smirked slightly at the thought. "If we ever see each other again, after this, for however long you're here, just do that when we see each other. Then maybe we can avoid the confusion. What with... you knowing how paranoid I am."

He adjusted his grip on the bushel of sprouts in his arms. "I mean, Maahes, if - if you don't want to, I won't demand you do it. But really, I don't care. You're still you, and I don't want you to be in pain. Or as much pain. That's really all I care about."

He held his hand out in front of him and made the gesture that James suggested. He stared down at the three fingers, trying to understand why he was so hesitant about the situation. James had a point. Multiple ones. He didn't need to hide himself around him because he knew the truth, and that meant he could truly be himself-

Oh.

That was why, wasn't it? Right now it was easy to pretend that he was just another person like James. Not human, but something not too far off. If James saw him frequently changing his guise, he would be reminded of the truth: Maahes was different. Incredibly different. So different that he was sure even James would be scared of him if he saw his true form down on the seventh plane.

But James wanted him to feel at home around him. He wanted him to be in pain less, and, after dealing with it for so long, the prospect felt nice. He took yet another deep breath and finally nodded. "I'm okay with it," he said, already trying to determine how frequently he could change his guise without James freaking out.

James looked up at Maahes with a small smile, his tired eyes lighting up just a little. “Good. I’m glad.”

After they had come to the agreement, Maahes waited a few more minutes before he changed his guise for the first time. He made a promise to himself that he wouldn't do anything out of the ordinary, and would only start with people that James recognized - there was this guise, Ramses, Leonardo Cartwright and Adrion. Adrion would have to be aged up, and he couldn't use Aen, either. That one was too young, especially if they ran into other people. Luckily, each guise had a distinct appearance and alias, so it wouldn't be hard for them to come up with names on the spot.

He started with Leo. There wasn't a flash of light, or a gradual change. One moment he was the Scarlet Lord, and the next he was Leonardo Cartwright. It was as simple as that.

"Where should we go next?" he asked.

James's smile slowly faded and he looked down into his arms with a bit of a helpless expression. The voice change threw him for but a second, before he reminded himself to get used to it.

"Uh, Maahes," he began hesitantly, his voice growing quiet. "I'm... I'm gonna be honest with you. I have no idea where to go next. I usually just bullsh*t my way out of situations like this and - I - I... I was just going to try and get some food in me and book it into the forest. I'm kind of in-between identities right now. I was going to try and make a fresh start somewhere else, but I'm honestly relieved to instead be preoccupied with you. Really, I think we just ought to look for a safe, maybe more secluded place to camp out... until we can figure out what to do about getting you back home, and uh. Until I..." his face turned even lower, almost shadowed by the plants in his arms. "...get some of my strength back."

He nodded. "That makes sense."

He thought for a moment. If James had nowhere in mind that he needed to go to, and Maahes needed to find a way back home, it seemed like discovering that way back was going to be the main priority. He just had to find a matching set of ruins and a matching device. He was sure of it. But where would he get his hands on one?

"Once you get your strength back," Maahes said, "I think it might be a good idea to get to a library, if your world has any good ones. Or find someone who's knowledgeable on this world's history - I think I'll be able to get back home if I find a set of ruins matching the ones I was in before I ended up here."

James nodded in agreement, though a part of him felt at a loss.

"I don't know if you remember much about my world's history, but many historical texts were lost to the calamity... so I'm afraid our libraries wouldn't be of much use, not that humans would keep books on magic or anything useful for this kind of thing anyway, all things considering. But as far as I know, the only people useful in situations like these are dragons..." he tilts his head to the side and shrugs. "Only person I can think of is Mickey, like last time. Though, finding him is always a bit of a wild goose chase. It's more of a... he finds you, sort of thing."

He had to concentrate for a good minute before he remembered the man that James was talking about; after all, it had been quite some time since he had last been in Nye. At least ten thousand years, if he had done the math right. "I remember Mickey," he said, giving James a smile. "I'm guessing it's a lot easier to find him than finding a dragon, right? Once you're doing better, maybe we could try tracking him down."

James nodded, returning the smile with a small grin. "Yes. Let's do that."

They spent the next few hours making a decent trek from the site to a different part of the forest in the hopes of finding shelter and throwing off the bounty hunters that would eventually begin to pursue them. Maahes spent the time during the walk just letting James rest - if he wanted to talk, he would continue the conversation. But the ultimate goal was for his friend to feel comfortable, and a conversation was probably the last thing the tired man needed.

He slowly started to grow more comfortable with the idea of changing his guise around James. Once they had gotten more into the undergrowth, he let himself change things up a little more than he had earlier - he'd go with a completely different outfit, or outfits he had worn with those guises in the past. Now he was currently the Scarlet Lord once more, this time dressed in the outfit he had worn to the masquerade (excluding the mask).

As he was looking at the forest ahead of them, he noticed a structure out of the corner of his eye. He peered into the darkness a little more. A smile beginning to spread from one ear to the other, he raised his hand up and pointed at the cave that he had found.

"I think we have our shelter," Maahes said.