Young Writers Society

I hated that she was right.

"We need to go," I whispered, looking over at Jacob and the prince - I knew Jacob didn't know sign language, and I doubted the prince knew it, either.

The prince looked like he wanted to protest my suggestion. He even got as far as opening his mouth before I cut him off.

"Kirux can defend himself," I reassured him, "and I'm sure Fidel has a trick up his sleeve. Megara's right - we can come back and get the two of them later if they do get caught, but I really don't want to see what those guards are going to do if they catch us with you."

The prince bit his lip.

And then he nodded.


Tears started to well up in his eyes as Fidel pulled him into another corridor, but no noises left him as he listened to the guards approach the garden. He was so scared. He wished that he was back home - with Winnie and his mom. Or maybe not even back home. Going to the gardens with Namine sounded really, really nice right now, and looking down from the clock tower didn't sound half as terrifying as being thrown in prison again.

Jacob glanced at the prince desperately, them let his eyes fall cautiously onto Megara. She was dangerous and angry and hurt. He looked at Skull. He was something inhuman, something Megara was cautious of. He looked back at the prince. He was...

Jacob wiped away his tears and offered the prince his hand, "My shop," he said meaningfully.



Fidel listened as the sounds of the guards retreated deeper into the garden. He let out a sigh of relief and gave Kirux's shoulders a final comforting squeeze before releasing him and stepping back.

"We should find a place to hide," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "They'll be back in a few minutes."

Before Kirux could even attempt a reply, a maid carrying the worlds most extravagant platter of deserts bustled past them, halted, and turned to face them. Her face went beet red and she huffed, "What are you boys doing back here!" she all but shouted at them, "Get in your uniforms right now, the king is waiting! I will not have lazy staff skipping out on this dinner. Not today."

Fidel blinked, "Uh, sorry ma'am, yes ma'am, right away." He took Kirux's arm and began to lead him down one of the halls.

"The changing rooms are the other way," her shrill voice informed him

He went red and turned around, muttering apologies as he made his way through the twisting tunnels to find himself in a room lined with coatracks and shelves. On one side, they were lined with clothing not dissimular to those that they'd been changed into upon arrival in this new world. On the other side were the black and red uniforms of the staff.

Fidel shifted awkwardly and looked at Kirux with a one-shouldered shrug, "We would blend in better," he said.

The prince took it.

I didn't miss how Jacob had looked at me before extending the still unnamed prince his hand - it was clear he was having some kind of thought about me, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn't a good one.

But I didn't want to think about that right now. I had to think about getting to Jacob's apparent shop, wherever it was, and try not to think about how I had left Fidel and Kirux behind. They should have come with us. I knew that. Kirux must have been terrified, and I was sure Fidel wasn't doing any better.

I glanced over at Megara. If only she could have been the one stuck on the other side. That would have been nice - I took solace in imagining her reaction compared to theirs, and it wasn't long before I actually felt a little calmer.

I gestured at the area before us.

"Lead the way," I said to Jacob, giving him my best impression of a robotic smile.


Kirux had been about to cry again - not because they had almost been caught, but because the woman who had almost caught them had started getting mad at him for something he couldn't control. He had wanted to make some kind of protest, but then Fidel acted like they had done the wrong thing and brought him to the clothes room.

It was only when he saw the uniforms in front of them that he understood why Fidel had gone along with it.

He eyed the uniforms, trying to find that would fit him. It took a couple of checks, but he finally found one that had to be his size. He turned back to Fidel and held it out in front of him, looking for confirmation on his guess.

Fidel Looked from Kirux to the uniform and back, then nodded, "Yeah, I think that one will fit you," he said, hoping that his guess at Kirux's intentions was correct. He then found a uniform that would fit him, with a bit of difficulty. Apparently, the average build in this world, whatever it was called, didn't account well for the particular kind of prosthetic he'd been stuck with since the accident that landed him and Megara here.

Once he'd found it, he had a blushing realization. He glanced at Kirux. "Could you, uh, turn around while I change?" he requested awkwardly.



Jacob led the group through the alleys and backways of the winding streets to the back door of a rather peculiar building. It looked as though it had been smushed down and pushed sideways, with jutting blackened bricks and copped pipes poking out at odd angles in every which direction.

Megara looked up to see the second story window, practically begging to be broken into with the clear path of uneven bricks and pipes leading up to it. If this place was formated like the shops in her world, the idea that Jacob hadn't had to deal with any break-in's in his time living in this quaint little place was sort of ridiculous.

Jacob went inside, still holding the prince's hand like his life depended on it - which was the opposite of true - and led the others into the somehow-organized mess of fabric and work tables that made up the shop.

Replace the dress forms with dummys and the sewing supplies wth weapons and it might just remind Megara of the little armory Briar put together that Megara was never supposed to find out about. She was just lucky that Briar hadn't known that Megara knew how to survive the majority of Briar's deadly little cocktails.

Jacob stood in front of the door that Megara assumed to lead upstairs and said, "We stay here until tomorrow."

"That was the plan," Megara responded distractedly. She was still looking at the little fire-hazard of a shop, memorizing the locations of every easy weapon and exit, planning out what someone might do if they wanted to break in, and other such forces of habit.

Jacob looked to the prince. They were still holding hands.

"I...I'll get you something to eat," said Jacob, turning to go upstairs.

Kirux gave a big nod in agreement. He was still scared of being discovered, but he was starting to like this idea! It gave him a chance to wear something new, and he bet it would look really good with his prosthetic hands. He turned around and slipped off his coat - leaving just his shirt to remove.

He wasn't sure if Fidel was looking or not, but he was guessing he wasn't. If he was, Kirux vaguely knew that he would be surprised with what he saw. Looking like Riku meant having Riku's muscles, and they were fairly noticeable.

Fidel changed quickly and started to turn around, keeping his eyes closed to be polite. "Are you, uh, dressed?" he asked awkwardly, then remembered he was talking to a mute. He blushed at his mistake and carefully peeked through one eye. Kirux was dressed.

He fully opened his eyes and said, "So, I guess we should...join the staff?" Even as he said it, he knew his plan had holes. Lots of them. They could be outed by the other staff, or recognized by the robot guard things, or...He stopped thinking about it. They couldn't really do anything else, after all.

Kirux was in the middle of looking over his new outfit in a mirror that was stashing into the corner of the changing room when Fidel asked him the question, and it took him a second for the comment to really register. He spun around - thinking that he looked really, really cool - to give Fidel a big nod.

Then he paused.

...What did staff do? Tilting his head, he hoped he could get Fidel to understand what he was trying to ask - he didn't really know how else to describe it right now.


The prince gave us a single last look before following Jacob up the stairs - leaving Megara and I to ourselves. She was too busy looking at things right now to really bug me, but I still found myself imagining that Kirux or Fidel was here instead.

Then I started to wander around the shop, investigating everything I possibly could. I'd have to ask - seeing that Jacob would notice if something was missing - but I wanted to get my hands on some new clothes. These ones, dramatic as they were, made me look just a little too suspicious.

I paused in between the dress forms, letting myself marvel over how strange this building was to me. Nathaniel and Asmira didn't get why I always seemed lost in stores in our travels. Neither one really understood the life I had been through, just like I didn't fully get theirs. But it still felt weird to be standing in a place I never would have gone back in my first life, and one I physically couldn't enter during my time as a skull.

Fidel stared uselessly at Kirux, trying to figure out what he was trying to ask.

A minute later, he gave up. "Just, uh, follow my lead," he said, hoping that that covered whatever Kirux wanted to know.

He stood there, shifting awkwardly for just long enough for it to get uncomfortable before he left the room, checking to make sure that Kirux was behind him as he walked with false-confidence in a direction he prayed would lead him to wherever staff members in these particular uniforms would be expected.



Megara finished looking around and turned to Skull. The urge to glare was immense, but she resisted.

"Your name's not really Skull," she said, more a statement than a question, "It can't be. No parent in their right mind would look at their newborn and think that the absolute best name for it is what you find when the flesh rots off a corpse's head."

She was being rude, but he had possessed her, so it evened out. At least, that's what she told herself. She'd probably said and done enough impolite stuff to even that out already if she was being honest. But she wasn't, and he probably wasn't, so they both had right to be terrible.

Kirux followed Fidel out into the hallway, but he wasn't really paying attention to the hallway anymore. They were trying to sneak around by hiding in plain sight. Winnie had read him stories about things like that before, and he knew that acting was very important. He also knew that his usual, bubbly self probably wasn't what servants supposed to look like, so he screwed his face into a look of deep concentration and tried to come up with a better expression.

After a few moments, Kirux finally got it. He knew exactly what to do. They hadn't met, yet, but everyone that had met Riku had shown him what Riku's usual expressions were like. Kirux couldn't quite describe them, but they definitely seemed more adult-like and more serious.

So he tried to adopt the look.


"It's not," I confirmed - I didn't miss a single beat between when the question was asked and when I gave my answer. I had already explained my story back with Jacob earlier. Maybe she believed me. Maybe she didn't. But there was no need to pretend that Skull was anything but a nickname I had grown fond of, even if I had no intentions of her learning my actual name.

I turned back to her, momentarily forgetting about the shop I was checking out.

"I didn't give the full story back in castle," I said. "I wasn't free to walk around when I was ghost - it doesn't work like that. I was haunting my own skull. You get bored when you're stuck in a jar for decades, so I started to act as ominous as I could. Somewhere along the way people stopped asking for my name and started calling me 'the skull' or 'the skull in the jar', so I decided to go with a shortened version of it when I found myself alive again."

Fidel and Kirux came across a bustling procession of very busy looking servants carrying platters and silverware in what at first appeared to be a mad rush, but upon closer inspection was more like a practiced dance. The items they carried bobbed up and down and occasionally spun to accommodate the narrow hall as the servants sidestepped and maneuvered on light feet around one another. When he looked closely, Fidel found it almost hypnotic.

The maid from earlier broke him out of his trance.

"Oh thank the heavens!" she exclaimed, rushing over to them with a rectangular bucket full of neatly organized and polished silverware, "You two get this all to the dining hall and set the table," a pause, "Quickly now!"

Fidel took the bucket, muttered something like, "Right away," and checked to be sure that Kirux was following him. When he looked back, Kirux's face was screwed up in an impersonation of absolute seriousness, and not a good impersonation. Fidel bit back a laugh and ducked into the first clear corridor he came across, dragging Kirux in after him.

"Hey," he said, a bit awkwardly with suppressed laughter hiding just behind his voice, "Try to keep your expression neutral, okay? we don't want to...uh, stick out." He hoped he wasn't hurting Kirux's feelings. That last thing he wanted to do was upset him in any way, right now especially. Fidel knew it was shallow, but he really didn't want Kirux to start crying again. He felt awful for thinking it once the thought had passed through his head, but he swallowed his feelings and gave Kirux an encouraging smile.

xXx

Megara rolled her eyes, "It's a dumb name," she commented bluntly.

There was a first aid kit in one of the cupboards. She took it out and found a pair of scissors to start removing her makeshift bandages. There was no telling exactly how clean these particular pieces of cloth were, or what fighting with her injuries had done to them.

"What's your real name?" she asked as she worked, pretending that it wasn't just to distract herself from the pain of peeling off the bandages and disinfecting her wounds, "I don't want to keep calling you by some stupid nickname."

Kirux listened very carefully to what Fidel said - mainly because he could barely focus on the conversation after seeing the servants maneuvering around each other moments before.

Then he gave a big nod after Fidel finished. He wasn't entirely sure if he could pull something like that off, but he had to try his best. Apparently his impression of Riku was too serious. The trick had to be to look calmer. Maybe like Isa?

He thought of Isa's face.

...No, he was even more serious.

He took a deep breath.

He could do this. Riku could, and they had the same face. His expression relaxed. After a few moments of that expression, he was sure that he had gotten what Fidel was talking about - and, though he had no way of seeing it, he had.


"It's not important anymore," I said. One of the tables didn't have anything on it - at least at the end - so I pulled myself up on it. I watched as Megara took care of her wounds, not offering any ideas or suggestions. I didn't exactly have a working knowledge of first aid. "I'm more than a hundred and fifty years older now than I was then. Me and the guy I was before I died are very different people."

Fidel watched Kirux change his expression and...wow.

He blinked, nodded, his smile wavering a little, and turned back to the hallway to do as they were told. A few minutes ago, he wouldn't have considered himself intimidated by Kirux. Now...

He shook his head. It was weird seeing Kirux without his usual demeanor. The innocence that used to define him was gone, and Fidel was a little freaked.

But he had bigger problems now.

Where the heck was the dining hall?

xXx

Megara's snicker was cut off by a hiss of pain as the bottle of disinfectant slipped in her hands, the glass neck of the bottle and the stinging contents within hitting her wound. She cursed under her breath and adjusted her grip.

"A name isn't something you just reject like that, love," she said before gritting her teeth to pour a more controlled stream of the liquid onto the hole left by her torn flesh. There really wasn't enough left to sew back up. There would be a scar.

She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. She would be punished for that.

After Fidel turned away, Kirux's face momentarily fell. He had caught how Fidel's expression changed, and he knew that wasn't because his impression of Riku was bad. Fidel had seen something he didn't like.

Something bad.

...Kirux didn't like when people gave him looks like that.

But then he hid the expression as quickly as it had appeared, once again adopting Riku's.


"For me it is," I said. "I'm the only one who knows it now. All of the people who did know and might have known it are dead - some at my hand, and some from other things."

Only one person had died thanks to me, but I was trying to be a little more ominous.

Fidel decided to go with the 'follow the heard' method of figuring things out and a few minutes later he and Kirux found themselves in an extravagant dining hall, all large windows and wrought iron with touches of gold and silver in enough places to ensure that any who entered here would know that the owner was someone with a lot of resources.

The windows that stretched along the length of the long side of the table had black silk drapes pulled back with red cords and a view of the foggy streets of a much richer neighborhood than the one the group had arrived in.

Fidel swallowed a lump in his throat and went to the table. It was pretty safe to assume that the order of the spoons, forks, and knives mattered here. He strained to remember what the proper placement was, then felt a rush of relief to see the head of the table already set, as though in example. He hurried over and memorized the placement, then shifted the box to his hip before remembering Kirux had to appear busy too.

"Could you hold this for me?" he asked, holding up the box.

xXx

"I can't help but feel like you're threatening me," Megara said, amused, "but you can't be. After all, you and the other softies I've had the bad luck of ending up in this little hell with care so much about life, right? If someone's miserable enough, you'll consider it unthinkable to leave them to their pain, right?" She rolled her eyes, "I don't have the energy to fear pathetic types like yourself, love, so please, quit talking about your willingness to kill."

She put down the bottle of disinfectant and stared dejectedly at the wound, imagining the scar. It wouldn't be small by any means. It would be nearly a fourth the length of her leg if that top bit where the skin could be, and was, sewn up healed without issue.

That's when she had a horrifying thought.

Would the muscle grow back properly? Or at all?

She imagined herself with a nasty scar on her leg and a limp. She imagined herself dead. Would it be poison or the blade?

She shuddered.

He gave a little nod, taking the box as he studied the placement of the utensils at the table. He had seen it somewhere before, too - multiple times. He had visited more castles than he could count (it was just four technical ones) and had visited them numerous times to say hi to the people he knew. He had been to King Mickey's even more than he did with the others - he was at seventeen times already, and they had only met three months ago.

Balancing the box in one hand, he grabbed some of the utensils and started to set one of the places. He didn't check the one at the head of the table right away, but then realized he probably should after he set the second one - Fidel seemed to be looking at it a lot.

A grin momentarily slipped through his neutral expression. He got it right!

...Then the grin faded, because he had to look like Riku right now and he didn't think Riku really grinned.

He went back to setting places.


"The difference is that I like them," I nonchalantly said. I went to study the dirt underneath my fingernails, only to realize that I had no dirt to study. Or even fingernails, for that matter - it was all metal.

Well, there went my favorite casual gesture.

I settled for looking around the shop again, only for my gaze to fall back on Megara. She had been acting odd ever since she started taking care of her wounds - she had been wincing, shuddering and just overall looking dejected. I wasn't going to comment on that for now. Not when she was insulting me, at least. But I would if this conversation kept going, because something was telling me there was a little more than meets the eye going on.