Truth or Dare

Damascus relished this date, mouthing it and internally keeping it close to his heart.

"March 20th... it sounds splendid." He smiled at Schadel. "Thank you."

Oblivious to the conclusion Edward had drawn, he looked over at Boris, who was at the edge of the group, and walked over exitedly.

"How old are you Boris? And which are your numbers? You never said." With another bright smile, he waited for a response, having forgotten all about the little incident with Edward.

"Oh." said Boris, flustered. "Um."
He coughed, and recovered his usual confident tone.

"I'm eight. My birthday is the 20th of March, 1850. So in Edward's time..." he paused to do the math, and snorted at the answer. "I'd be 80."

Damascus' face lit up further, if that was even possible. The prospect of different times and years only confused him, and so he chose to ignore it as he gripped Boris' arm.

"March 20th!? That's mine too, now! And... and that's today, so it's both of our birthdays today!" After a few beats, he started mulling this over, and his smile died ever so slightly. "Ah- what are we supposed to do now? What are the functions of birthdays?"

James was confused. All of the year numbers people were using didn't make any sense! They didn't have numbers for years. They had names! But he was beginning to realize that saying that would probably make things more confusing.

He pulled away a little bit, and plopped down by the fire.

"Birthdays are when you celebrate your birth. That you exist," he explained simply. "Usually you have food and play games and stuff."

Edward glanced wildly at his brothers and sister. "Are we all just going to ignore how are times aren't matching up-"

"Yup!" Schadel cheerfully interrupted, then immediately turned her attention back to James. "We have the food, so lets play some games! Oooh, I know one! Rekune told me about it last week after I saw some of the yearly reapers playing it! You try to come up with the most creative death, and then you act it out-"

Her face suddenly fell.

"Wait," she slowly said, "you're all mortals, except Damascus. You'd actually die if we played that..."

Damascus, who was absolutely delighted in the prospect of a birthday party, smiled at Schadel. "That sounds like snake-in-a-drawstring to me! But... I guess you're right. It's not a good game to play with mortals."

He frowned at the thought and gave a little shrug. "I don't really know many games, especially ones everyone could play. Sorry."

Engel grabbed a marshmallow and sat down by the fire. "Gunther told me about a game once called 'truth or dare,' and mortals can play it, and it seemed fun!"

"How's it work?" James asked.

"You sit in a circle," he said. "And then you spin something like a bottle and whoever it points at has to choose either to answer any question with the truth or to fulfill any dare given to them by anyone else in the circle!"

Schadel frowned. "But we don't have a bottle," she pointed out. "How can we play it if we don't?"

"You don't have to use a bottle," Edward helpfully interjected. He pointed at the ring of logs around the fire with the hand that wasn't holding William. "You just need some way of keeping track of who is up next. If we sit in a circle, we can just go with whoever is sitting next to the last person who went."

"Oh! That sounds fun!" Damascus smiled and wasted no time in scooping up the chocolate and marshmallows before waddling over and plopping himself onto a log.

Engel edged over next to Damascus and grabbed some chocolate as the group sat down.

"Enkew, Enkew, woo'!" Damascus turned to Engel, tapping the boy on the shoulder, and promptly grinned, revealing a mouth crammed full of an impressive number of marshmallows and chocolate squares.

He wiped at the white drool running down his chin and tried not to giggle, afraid he would either choke or leak if he did.

Engel responded by grabbing as many marshmallows and chocolate squares as he could and shoving them into his mouth, grinning at Damascus to show that he could do it, too!

His prior shyness completely forgotten in the new turn of events, Boris was easily caught up in the competitive spirit. He grabbed chocolate squares and marshmallows, and began to excitedly shove them in his cheeks. He didn't get quite as far as his brothers, but he put up a valiant effort.