Young Writers Society

He slipped his hands into his pockets as he joined Fyrsil by the entrance way.

"I don't know," he admitted, "but I say we try anyways."


Robin helped Tristan place Aegeas down. It felt wrong to be leaving him there, but what else were they supposed to do? They coudn't just keep carrying him around, especially if spaces got tighter in other parts of the ship.

"I'll go," she volunteered, already heading up the steps by the time someone else volunteered.

"I'll come, too," Envy said from beside her - the homunculus had moved surprisingly fast, and the two headed towards what lay past the staircase.

Ugh, that was a fair answer.

"Let's go that way," Fyrsil said, pointing to the right. It was just a gut feeling, but he didn't have anything else to rely on. The otter started running in that direction, cursing how slow his webbed feet made him as he made his way down the hallway.



"I'll keep an eye on Aegeas," Kellach said, sitting down next to Aegeas and throwing a blanket over him.

"But-" said Tristan, watching Kellach rest his head on Aegeas's shoulder.

Kellach shot a glance at Tristan, then reached down to hold Aegeas's paw in his own. Taking the hint, Tristan started heading up the stairs after Envy and Robin.

Greed took his hands out of his pockets and rushed after Fyrsil, easily catching up to him in a burst of speed. He wasn't especially fast compared to some of his siblings - back in their old days, Envy and Lust had reigned supreme when it came to tag and races - but he still had some superhuman abilities.


No words were spoken - Envy and Robin just came to a simultaneous, silent agreement to let Tristan go first. Neither were used to ships that flew in the sky - though Robin knew a thing or two about planes - but Tristan seemed to have some idea of what was going on. They each pressed up against the sides of the staircase, waiting until he had passed to follow him the rest of the way up.

Ugh, of course Greed could run. And Fyrsil was already starting to get tired - his chest ached, his feet slapped against the ground, and his breaths felt a little forced.

"Can I ask a weird question?" Fyrsil said, looking over at Greed as they went around a corner. "If I get too tired, could I ride on your back? Otters aren't exactly good at running."



Tristan sped past the other two. He threw the door open, running onto the roof and towards the railing.

When he set his paws on the railing and looked down, he didn't know what to expect. Would there be an ocean? Would there just be more sky? Would there be a desert? Would the ship fall forever?

However, he started to see what looked like a green field beneath the clouds.

"Are you seeing this?" Tristan yelled. The wind buffeting his fur chopped his voice up a little bit, but he hoped the others could hear him.

Greed looked over at Fyrsil. "Sure," he said. "I used to do it with one of my brothers all the time when we were kids - the b****** was stuck with the shortest legs of all of us, and it took him twice as long as it took for the rest to get from one place to another."

He thought for a moment, then added, "Excluding Sloth, of course, but he never wanted to play our games."


Envy and Robin joined him at the railing.

"I am!" Robin shouted back. "But I have no idea what it means!"

Fyrsil laughed. "Of course," he said, before hesitating as a thought came to mind. "How many siblings do you have? And do they, uh, have names like yours?"



"It sure is big!" Tristan yelled. The green field swelled in size, reaching out towards the horizon. Tristan couldn't see so much as a single tree, animal, person, or building on the flat, grassy plain. Which didn't disturb him at all.

However, that was when the ship finally dived through the clouds, the fog and humidity wiping away his view of the plain. He shivered as the wind grew a little stronger, flecks of water and ice bumping into his fur.

"How much longer is this going to take?" he called out. "Is this thing going to stop?"

"There's seven of us in total," Greed said, "and most do have similar names. There's me, Envy, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony and then Reyes. He's technically dear old dad's wrath, but he's more human than the rest of us."


"I've never been on a thing like this before!" Envy yelled - it was hard for even them to hear their voice over the wind. "I don't know!"

"The closest thing I've been is an airplane!" Robin added, still peering over the railing. "The flight dynamics are totally different, and I don't even know where we are right now!"

"What do you mean by more human?" Fyrsil said. "Hopefully that doesn't sound like an insult, but you look pretty human?"



"What's an airplane?" Tristan called out, wincing at how loud his voice sounded.

He paused, then stared out beyond the railing.

The ship had cleared the bottom of the clouds and had almost slowed down to a halt. Now it was slow, almost graceful, humming through a blue sky and casting a large shadow on an enormous plain. The grass stretched as far as Tristan could see, reaching towards the horizon.

And, when he looked closely at the shadow, Tristan realized he could see the outline of a house next to a lake.

"It's not," Greed said. "Pops likes looking human - I don't think he is, but none of us stuck around long enough to find out. I'm just a collection of souls thrown together in a philosopher's stone. Envy, too. Reyes was a regular old human before he got his stone, but that doesn't matter much now."


"An airplane's a-" Robin started to yell, stopping when she noticed the house they were approaching. "Never mind! Do you think there's people there?"

"I don't know!" Envy shouted from beside her.

Well, none of that sounded ominous at all.

"Why doesn't it matter?" said Fyrsil. "Was he the same person after the stone, or?"



"Um, you two can stop yelling?" Tristan said, leaning over the railing to try and get a better look at the house. "It looks like the ship is landing? And I can't see anybody around the house, but my eyesight isn't all that good."

Greed shrugged.

"He might be," he said. "Envy and I don't really know - it's been at least forty years since he got his stone. We're all pretty sure he's the same soul, but the whole 'getting injected with all of the wrathful souls of Xerxes' might have given him some anger issues."

He paused.

"He does look the part of a human, though," Greed said, a hint of amusement to his voice. "He's the baby of our family and he's the only one of us with gray hairs."


Envy and Robin both sheepishly looked away from each other.

"I hope there's someone nearby," Robin finally said after another moment of silence. "Then we can figure out where we are."

The otter paused. Forty years? Gray hair? The baby of the family? "How old are the rest of you, then?" Fyrsil said.



Tristan watched as wooden staircases unfolded out of the side of the ship, stretching from the roof towards the approaching ground. The whole process was so smooth and quiet, even as metal railings extended out on either side of the growing staircases, that Tristan wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been looking in the right place. It pulled him in, almost making him forget that he had no idea who might be waiting on the ground. Almost.

"Can somebody head downstairs and tell everyone to come up here?" Tristan said, voice a little unsteady. "I think we're about ready to land."

Greed thought for a moment.

"I'm somewhere around three hundred," he said, though uncertainty laced his voice. He hadn't been really keeping track - there hadn't been a need, and the way people counted time had shifted since he was first born. He knew the "order" of their births, but he didn't know much more than that. "I'm the third oldest out of all of us, but Pride and Reyes are the only two with noticeable gaps. Pride was created ten years before Lust was, and Reyes was created centuries later. He hasn't told us his exact age, but we're guessing he's in his fifties or sixties right now."


"I got it!" Robin volunteered. She went rushing down into the depths of the ship, presumably telling the others that they had landed. Then she emerged again, and joined Envy as they watched the wooden staircases extend.

"Three hundred years," Fyrsil said, shaking his head. "What's that like? Do you remember a whole lot?"



With a gentle hiss and rumble, the ship landed on the ground. Gripping onto the railing, Tristan watched as parts of the said railing retracted, marking the beginnings of the staircases that now touched the grassy plain.

As the others made their way to the roof (Kellach dragging Aegeas up, which Tristan was a little too preoccupied to think about), Tristan followed the railing and began to take the first few steps down the long staircase.

"I do," he confirmed. He thought for a moment. Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, "I remember it, but it's a blur. I can remember doing things, but not that clearly if they were too far back. I do clearly remember things from the Devil's Nest, but that's only been the past few years."


Robin and Envy followed after him - though they barely knew anything about each other, a weird sort of friendship had formed between them. Neither one could quite explain why, but it just felt right.

Soul, Zogin and Mage followed closely behind, with the wraith - she really needed to ask for his name soon - staying near Mage and giving occasional glances in Aegeas's direction.