Young Writers Society

Soon enough they were all making their way back into the cabin, thankfully this time it looked like those sentient bedsheets were not planning on making any sort of reappearance.

When they arrived back at the cabin, Mage immediately grabbed onto Soul's arm and gave him a tug in the direction of the rooms. He was sure that Soul was physically okay, but he wanted to talk to him in private. Maybe he could even see if he felt like telling at least Harry the truth.

"I need to talk with Soul," Mage said. He couldn't come up with a good lie for why they needed to talk, so he just didn't give a reason why.

"We won't be too long," Soul added. He could probably guess what Mage wanted to talk about.

Harry nodded. "Try not to fight the bedsheets again." He gave a chuckle and gestured to Jennifer. They needed to have a bit of a talk about the situation from earlier. That was certainly not normal for this resort. Vankous meanwhile, wandered towards the bathroom.

Mage gave a tiny smile at that.

"Okay," he said, and then the smile faded as he led Soul to one of the rooms. When they were inside and the door was closed behind them, Soul finally took his helmet off. He tucked the helmet underneath his shoulder.

"I'm sorry for not giving a better explanation," Mage apologized.

Soul blinked. "What do you...Mage, that was a good explanation. It was better than me."

"But..." Mage bit his lip and looked up at Soul. "They have to be suspicious now."

Soul faltered. Mage knew he had to know that Mage was right. "They won't be able to guess the truth. You didn't mention automatons much when you were here, right?"

It had been a bit, so Mage didn't entirely remember. Still, automatons weren't really something he thought a lot about before meeting Soul. He probably had only mentioned it in passing, if he had even done that. "I never really brought them up."

Vankous was just getting back from the bathroom when he heard voices. For a second he frowned, wondering what on Earth could possibly be going on inside their cabin to happen in such hushed voices in a room when he remembered Mage and Soul. Harry was going to throw him to a moon for this, but he absolutely had to find out. They were both acting too suspicious. There was a case to be made about someone who simply didn't want to share something, but lying as blatant as that wasn't something he appreciated.

"Then we'll be okay," Soul reassured Mage.

Mage wasn't entirely convinced, but he didn't want to make Soul as worried as he was now, too.

"...Are you sure you don't want to tell at least Harry?" Mage hesitantly asked, already knowing the answer even before Soul said it. Mage had only found out by chance. If he hadn't, he wasn't sure Soul would have ever told him.

Soul was quiet for a minute.

"I know you trust him," he finally said.

"I do," Mage quickly confirmed.

Soul gave a smile. It didn't look right and never would, but metal wasn't supposed to bend in the same way muscle and skin could. "I want to trust him to, but..." He rubbed the back of his neck with a gloved hand. "I barely know anyone here. The only people who know the truth about me are you and Zogin. I don't know how the others would react."

Vankous edged closer to the door that the voices were coming from. The closer he got, the more his brain did its best to tell him just how much of a bad idea this was. Especially the whole idea of actually putting his ear to the door. He'd ruled out listening spells completely because that would be much harder to pass of as "accidental".

He was inches away from the door now. All he had to do was lean in and he should theoretically be able to hear everything clearly. He could already make out tiny snippets of conversation. It was going to be for a good cause.

But something once again told him doing this was a horrible idea. Vankous sighed. If the universe and his brain was doing this much to deter him, maybe this was a bad idea. It wasn't exactly the most moral of choices no matter how much her tried to convince himself otherwise.

He turned to leave and stomp past the door, revealing his presence in the process. He didn't know why he wanted to make noise but it just felt right. So tiptoeing back towards the bathroom door, he made a big show of making loud footsteps stomping away towards the living room. Unfortunately, right in front of the door he'd heard voices from he hit a loose floorboard and with the extra stomping he was doing his foot went right through.

He was so surprised he didn't even manage to react before he was suddenly falling onto the door which gave way as he fell heavily on it. He landed flat on his face, now inside the room Mage and Soul had been talking. Well...fate wasn't being subtle today.

Soul's helmet clattered to the ground when Vankous fell into the room. He thought he had closed the door all the way, but it must have been open just enough for Vankous to push it over.

Mage took a step forward like he was going to help Vankous up, but then changed his mind last minute and moved in front of Soul. He must have been trying to hide Soul from Vankous's view, but Soul doubted that it would help. Mage was shorter than him.

Well that was an awkward landing. Vankous stood there silent for a second contemplating his life's choices before he decided breaking the silence was the best way to move forward.

"Whoops, sorry, that floorboard, I swear someone set that as a trap," he ranted as quickly pulled himself to his feet and brushed off his clothes. "Urgghh...its bad enough there's sand but, this shirt is going to need so much washing. Sorry for ruining whatever it was you were doing like that. Trust me I did not mean to make such a ridiculous entrance." With that he finally looked up to Mage and Soul.

Mage glanced between the helmet on the ground and Soul, trying to figure out if it would be better or worse if he moved away to get Soul's helmet. Vankous was already looking up, which meant that Soul's secret was already-

He finally looked up at Soul's face.

Soul was incredibly still. There was a look of defeat on his face, almost as if he had accepted this moment was going to happen when Vankous fell through the door. Neither one of them said anything. Neither one replied to Vankous's rambles, and neither one of them addressed the elephant in the room.

Soul's face was far from human. It had the general features of a human, but they were all made of different bits of metal all welded together. They were all different shades of golden brown. His blue eyes were unnaturally bright, almost as if there was a light shining from behind them, and his light brown hair was messy and stuck out like he had grabbed onto one his lightning bolts with his bare hands.

"Gosh, who is making that sound," said Harry, storming into the room to see Mage and Soul doing an awkward stand off with a very embarrassed looking Vankous.

"Sorry, this darn floorboard did this thing with the thing and I fell," rambled off Vankous quickly.

Harry shook his head. "How many times have I told you to not stomp around this place. Its old, alright, at least its made that way, which means they specifically leave such loose floorboard, did you not read the memo I sent you?"

Harry shook his head and turned back to Mage and Soul. That's when he noticed Soul was without his helmet. Well he supposed that would explain the water problem. He smiled at them.

"Sorry if this idiot interrupted something important," said Harry, bending down to pick up the fallen helmet and handing it to Mage. "Come outside when you're ready. Vankous, scram. If you break another floorboard I am going to tell James about that rose you picked that one time."

"You would never," said Vankous, looking aghast.

"Oh I would."

Vankous vanished in a swirl of green light.

Harry turned back to the duo again. "Sorry again. We'll be right outside." He gave one last smile and left, gently closing the door behind him.

Soul and Mage stared at the door.

After a pause, Mage awkwardly handed the helmet back over.

"They...They didn't seem surprised?" Soul noted, his voice jumping a little at the end in his uncertainty. He tucked the helmet underneath his arm again. Mage guessed he didn't want to put it on just yet after how Harry and Vankous had reacted. "Did I...Did I make it obvious?"

Mage shook his head.

"It was never obvious with me," Mage quickly reassured him. It had explained some of his quirks, but Mage had never once guessed that Soul was secretly an automaton.

"Am I...normal here?" Soul asked, staring at the door.

Mage couldn't possibly answer that, so he didn't.

Harry made his way back to Jennifer, shaking his head the entire time.

"What was it?" she asked. "Lemme guess, Vankous stomped his foot through one of those loose floorboards and made a mess."

"Yup," said Harry, " I kind of wish it was the bedsheets again, now we'll have to go and pay for that."

"Like money is ever a problem," said Jennifer.

"We do have a budget you know," said Harry.

Jennifer smirked. "Right." Harry joined in after failing at his mock affronted look. Jennifer sobered up suddenly.

"Wait a minute...we do have to go pay now," said Jennifer.

"Hmm...I mean it can wait till we're done with this, or we could you know...just repair it with any old repairing charm," said Harry, frowning.

"No, no, we need to know where that thing came from," said Jennifer. "What better excuse to go talk to the management?"

"Hmm, now you might just have a point there, Vankous does do a great "affronted person tirade"," said Harry.

"Exactly," said Jennifer.

"...Should I just...?" Soul started, quickly trailing off. Before he could finish his train of thought, Soul walked over to the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Mage rushed after him. Soul still didn't have his helmet on. He knew that Harry would be understanding after how he had initially reacted, but Mage couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. Soul had never willingly shown his face without his helmet on.

Mage caught up to him right as Soul rejoined the others in the main room.

"Hey you two," said Harry, as Mage and Soul entered. "So..if you're done with whatever you need to take care of, we're going to have to pay a visit to the..well front desk of sorts. We're technically going to discuss the damage from that floorboard, but actually we might have a little mystery on our hands here."