Young Writers Society

Hali sighed in relief. "Thank goodness." All he had to do was hold onto this magical language thing. He didn't have to rely on Maahes anymore to translate.

He walked out of the house and looked up at Maahes, who had climbed into a tree's branches. "Maahes, whatever we do, we have to stay together and communicate. That's the only way we can figure out how to leave this place."

Maahes perked up when he heard Hali's voice from the spot by the tree, and the conversation that followed. He might have stuck looking like an Alteran child, but he still had the senses that his kind had - and it wasn't hard to pick up on the conversation when they were only a short distance away.

"You found a translator!" Maahes cheerfully shouted. He stayed close to the tree, knowing that there was still a high possibility of Kratzer and James trying to stop him when they remembered he was there. He thought for a second, then added, "It's old, like the translators the Alterans used to use back in their old home-"

He covered his hand with his mouth. He knew that he had admitted that he wasn't normal already, but Odris had always said to treat that later bit as a closely held secret.

And now Hali was standing right in front.

Hali didn't seem like the type of person who would physically stop him, so Maahes didn't make a move up the tree. He just stood there, watching, and finally decided to answer with, "That's what I was saying! But Kratzer and James want to go off on their own, and they're not listening to what I have to say at all." He frowned and folded his arms as he leaned up against the tree's bark. "It's like they think I'm a little kid!"

James was fed up, and they didn't have time to argue. He could feel the tension of stress knotting in his back, and he attempted to take a few deep breaths to release it, but then he saw a shadow move further in the trees. He immediately pulled out his knife from his boot and threw it, launching it into the trees.

A split second before it hit the shadowy figure, they dodged it. He cursed under his breath and charged into the forest.

"Maahes, we'll go together, just...come down out of the tree, ja? Please?" Kratzer's gaze flickered over to James as a knife left his boot, aimed at...nothing. This was getting very bizarre very fast.

You are a little kid, thought Hali dryly, but at the moment when James threw a knife and ran off into the trees, he stiffened.

"Maahes, come here now. We could be in danger."

Hali wasn't trained in any human self-defense techniques, but even in his human form, he was quite strong and had a decent aim. He could fight if he had to, though he would have preferred to be in his true form and surrounded by the ocean's waves.

"Should we follow him or should we stay put?" he asked Kratzer.

Maahes did decide to come down, but not because Kratzer and Hali had teamed up in an attempt to get him to do what they wanted. He had a different motive in mind - he wanted to figure out what was going with James, and why he had attacked a tree.

He slipped off the tree branch. He tried to conjure some wind to cushion his fall - or a pair of wings, even though that would have revealed that he wasn't remotely Alteran - but he was reminded that he couldn't use his magic when he hit the ground and stumbled forward a bit.

Whoops.

He steadied himself, turned and promptly went running after James and whatever James was running after. Or maybe it was away from? He didn't really know, but he wanted answers and he wasn't going to let anyone prevent him from getting them.

"Verdammt!" Kratzer sprinted after him, giving up on diplomacy and trying to keep him from running off and putting himself in danger.

That's when he realized he was running towards James. Who'd just attacked something. "Maahes!!"

James's heart was pounding as he ran through the forest. For the life of him, he could not see the person jumping around the forest for longer than a second. Only a brief glance before they disappeared, leading him deeper into the trees.

He growled.

"Show yourself!"

Maahes frowned.

"I'm right behind you, James," he said. As if to - albeit accidentally - prove his point, he darted forward with such a burst of speed that he ended up barreling into James. He bumped into the man's leg. "Why do I have to show m-"

Oh.

He wasn't talking to him. He was talking to who he was chasing, even though Maahes still couldn't see who that person was. He reached out a hand and tugged on the hem of James' shirt. "What are you chasing?"

"And everyone chooses to ignore me," grumbled Hali, staring after the three. He shoved the translator into a pocket. He could understand that maybe nobody would want to talk to the guy who didn't even speak their language, but now this? Perhaps Hali was just too slow to be a good human to them.

He let out a frustrated growl as he hurried after the group. "So limited . . ." he muttered, glancing down at his body.

James stumbled slightly when Maahes bumped into his leg. He looked down at Maahes in desperate exasperation.

"Bu - the person I was running from," he said, correcting himself with his voice tense.

Kratzer skidded to a stop behind James and drew one of his daggers, scanning the forest. "Was? Sounds more like an 'is' if they're here, friend."

"What was it that someone said about staying together?" Hali continued to mutter under his breath as he caught up to the group. He looked between the others before asking, "Just what is going on here?"

Maahes furrowed his brow. "You were about to say someone's name," he insisted, "or something else. But then you stopped. Why did you stop?" When he had finished giving James his question, he briefly turned around and gave a wave in Kratzer and Hali's direction to show that he had noticed they had arrived. Then he went back to staring expectantly up at James.

"Because it doesn't matter," James said sharply. "You don't know him." A head peeked out from behind a tree, and he stared, meeting the other man's eyes.

Butch, the bounty hunter who'd persistently hunted him for months, stared back with a burning determination, combined with the bloodthirst and disgust he reserved for any criminal. James reached slowly into his jacket for his gun.