Young Writers Society

Zech pressed his arms against the ground and pulled himself part of the way up. As his senses came back to him, so did his mind. And he had no idea what anyone else was talking about. "I've never heard of those places," he said, staring at his legs. "I've never seen a princess like her, and I've seen a lot of them. The last thing I remember is crawling into bed, curling up next to Lunis, and I ended up here. That's the truth."

A voice from down the river caused Siren to pause.
She dropped the rock she had been looking under, and dove into the river to follow the voice. She emerged not far away to find an elegant girl with blue hair, who smelled like the sea. That was a friendly smell. Siren leaped up onto the bank, and stood a little too close to the blue-haired girl.

''Hello! I am Siren. Who are you?'' she said excitedly, enunciating each word as though she was very proud of herself for knowing how to talk.

But before the other girl could speak, Siren froze, and stared hard at her.
A beetle had fallen onto her hair. Siren reached out, took the beetle, and stopped just short of putting it in her mouth.

''Oh, I'm sorry.'' she said to the blue-haired girl. ''Did you want to eat it?''

"Stargate? Altera? Where's that?" Rose asked, tilting her head.
"Do you...think it might''ve been magic?" Ryder asked the tiger. He'd accept the other two's story of everything being stolen for now.
"For one, there's no record of anyone like you at all," he said, before gesturing to Lorcan, "and your fangs make me think you're a werebeast. But you don't look like one -- you don't have their ears and you don't have a tail.'

I'm sitting on a rock, humming to myself, splashing my toes in the water. I hear something swimming up stream. It sounds... Bigger than any normal aquatic animals, so I keep myself on guard in this unfamiliar location. I see a blue skinned person climb up on the rocks beside me. She is definitely aquatic.
"Hi I'm Siren. Who are you?" She asks, and before I have a chance to answer she reaches towards my hair. She pulls away her hand, although now there's a beetle. She offers it up to me, and I raise my hand in denial.
"No no, you can have it." I try to keep my face from scrunching up in disgust.
"So, are you from here?"

Maahes earnestly nodded. The princess seemed confused, though, which didn't make a whole lot of sense. How could someone not know what a stargate or Altera was? The Alterans went everywhere in the universe! He was pretty sure that there were only little bits and pieces of solar systems they hadn't explored yet. So maybe this place was one of those?

"This definitely must be another planet," Maahes said, nodding to himself. That was really cool, then! It had been awhile since he had gone to one that wasn't Altera, and all of them had stargates. He looked back at the girl across from him, and resisted the urge to squeeze her ears again. (They were so soft!) That wouldn't have been a very scholarly or diplomatic thing to do, right? Especially if she was a princess-

He took a deep breath. It didn't really help him much, but Odris said it would, and Odris was really smart.

"Princess," he said - this was the first time he had met a princess, so he had to make it count by saying her title as much as he could - giving her the most Alteran grin he could muster, "Altera is the planet that I'm from. And the stargate is a way that I can go to different planets. It's a big, round circle with a blue wormhole in it."

He gave her a grin.

That would make sense to a princess, right? Princesses were smart and kind and she's definitely know a way for him to deal with it. As he waited for a response, he started to look around the place he was in. He definitely didn't recognize it-

Oooh. There was a lady near a stream, and she was talking to a really cool looking person. He didn't know what they were, but they looked neat so he just had to talk to them. Reluctantly leaving the princess, he went over to the water - but made sure not to get too close to it.

"Hello," he said to the two, because that was how all of the people at the meetings greeted each other. And if he was on another planet, he was going to have to be as diplomatic as possible. He ran his fingers through his hair for good measure, since Odris always did that during meetings. "I'm Maahes. What are your names?"


Lorcan opened his mouth to object to what Ryder had said, only to close it seconds later when he mulled it over. A werebeast? Charlotte had told them a story about something called a werewolf a few nights ago, and that did sound similar. If they were one and the same, it would be somewhat accurate. After all, it wasn't like he was truly the human - or, since most people seemed to think this, the vampire - he appeared to be.

"I guess you could call me that," he tentatively said, running his tongue over his fangs. He still didn't know what was going on, but why argue with it? If he thought he was a werebeast, then he was a werebeast. Once they got information on where they were, they could leave and come up with a better plan for future encounters with other people.

"It was a genetic abnormality," Juniper said. Lorcan hoped they knew what that was. Because it did make for quite the convenient excuse..."He was supposed to get ears and tail, but instead he just looks like a regular old human with fangs. Of course, he doesn't know much about his werebeast roots - poor Lorcan was abandoned by his parents when he was a baby, and my family of humans ended up raising him."

Lorcan stared down at her. It was moments like this when he saw the similarities between her and her brother.

A man came out behind us, through the trees. I can't help but jump at the unexpected human. He said his name is Maahes, and by the look of him keeping his distance from the water, he definitely isn't an aquatic creature by nature.
"Hello. My name is Mari. This world, do you happen to know what the name of it is?@

Maahes shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. He put his hands in his pockets, unsure of where else they could go in the given moment. It wasn't like he had anything to hold, and Odris wasn't here to tell him what to do with them.

"Maybe Princess over there-" He gestured back at her with a nod of his head, regretting putting his hands in his pocket. "-knows?" He looked back at the other two. He really felt bad about not knowing, but the only thing he was certain of was that this place wasn't Altera.

Hmm, he doesn't know either. Strange.
"Princess you say? Do you happen to know the princess of where? As, certainly this isn't my home world, but if she happens to be involved in universal affairs I may even know of her." I put on the voice I've always been taught to use in diplomatic situations, yet inside I just yearn to be en route to my grotto, safely tucked away from royal life.

"I don't know," he answered. "All I know is that she's a princess, and that's good enough for me."

Wait. Maybe Mari had a point? If he was going to be all diplomatic, he should probably know where he was, and who Princess ruled over. He thought over this for a moment, then decided that he wanted to hang out with these two nice ladies instead. Especially the one who had just come out of the water and was holding a beetle. She seemed really cool.

Rose blinked as Maahes rushed off randomly. Huh. That was awkward.
"Genetic abnormalities don't usually include having human ears instead of the usual animal ears," Ryder said, raising an eyebrow. Their story seemed sketchy, but he let it slide. Rose turned to them.
"Anyway, seeing as you guys are travellers and you're not sure of where you are," Rose nodded to Zech, "why not travel with us? We're going to stop at a Dwarven town soon, which shouldn't be all that far away. I'm sure you can get supplies from there if you wanted!" Ryder sighed. Rose had this bit covered. He walked after Maahes, wondering where the strange man went. He stumbled over a branch as he came into view of the man, along with an Aquarian and another female.
"Oh...hi."

Siren stopped chewing on the beetle, swallowed it, and stuck out her hand to the new people, the way she had seen human people do. Except that her approximation of the gesture was overexaggerated.

"Hello!" she said. "I am Siren. This is Mari. And Maaaa-hes. We are lost. Do you have food?"

"Hello. I am Princess Mari of the planet Aquium, where might this be?" I slide myself lower down on the rocks, closer to the water. It's a safe place, especially when so many unfamiliar faces are surrounding me.

"But," Zech said, staring out into the forest. He wanted to find Lunis. Zech wasn't sure where he was, he was fairly sure someone had called him a 'werebeast,' whatever that was, and people were talking about other worlds. Lunis would know how to deal with this kind of situation, if only be beating people up until they gave him answers.

But it would be rude to say no. And Lunis could track him, right? It was what Lunis did. If the panther wasn't at the town already.

"Sure," Zech said to the princess. "I can go with you guys."

"Wonderful!" Rose said, clapping her hands together. "What about you guys?" she asked Lorcan and Juniper, smiling warmly at them.



Ryder scratched behind his head.
"Er, I have food in my backpack, which isn't with me currently," he replied to the seemingly-Aquarian lady. He didn't shake her hand; he noticed some bug juice left on her hand and he didn't want to touch that.
"And this is the forest of Kh'rul. Also, this isn't planet Aquarium," he said, although another princess was a bit unnerving. His palms started sweating. She didn't seem to be from this world either. He was beginning to wonder if it wasn't just one person's mess up and rather something planned.

"Yes I am aware this is not Aquium, not aquarium. Or else water would be much more plentiful." I keep slowly sliding myself further into the watery, eventually just allowing myself the relief, and submerging myself, my dress turning back to its natural form. My tail, in its gorgeous blue beauty. I allow myself a minute of relaxation as the waters familiarity surrounds me.
I bring my head back up above the water, in this form the oxygen on land much richer than that of the water. So I keep myself low enough I can breathe the water, and only come up to reply to these humans.