Young Writers Society

"It's-" James started to answer, stopping abruptly in frustration at her brevity. He let out a breath before continuing. He supposed, after years of giving her similar if not identically short answers lacking elaboration, he probably deserved it.

"I can't explain it very well, but a djinni is a spirit. They come from another realm where reality takes on a different shape. It's far more fluid. They can be summoned to our realm with an ancient language and a ritual, and have exceptional strength and magic. Shapeshifting is a poor term for one of the things they can do, but they're able to take on many guises, or appearances."

She blinked. "That's complicated. Oof, where's Boomer when you need him?" she sighed. "Welp. Mages are fickle, I suppose. So they're what? Kind of like demons, sounds like?"

Oh, right, there were other people in the room. Taber pulled his head up and listened in. Between yawns and the fog that settled in over his mind, he caught conversations about old people, other realities, and fake hair. Nothing too serious, except he could actually understand the animals now, which was weird. They didn't look nearly sentient enough to be able to talk, but their gestures and expressions looked human, to say nothing of their words. Had they also been transformed by this place?

Tired as he was, he didn't bat an eye when Kendrik burst open the door, leaped over his head, and climbed onto one of the overturned bookcases. He did growl when a bobcat used the top of his head to jump in front of Kendrik, snarling and hissing all the while. Kendrik yelped and ran up to the highest spot on the bookcase; the bobcat circled him, fangs gleaming. That wasn't like Kendrik at all - that had to be Jaron. And the cat was angry enough to be Denebola.

Taber tried to pull himself up to intervene, but he just couldn't straighten out his paws. He was too sleepy to be of much use. The lion looked around at the others, making his eyes as big and sad as he could make them. Hopefully someone would help.

Runi had been excitedly asking both Sune and Maahes questions about their summoners and lives as spirits prior to the sudden interruption. Now she had let them get back up to their feet, and the three were staring at the source of the disturbance.

"Poor guy," Runi commented. "He's still getting chased by her."

Sune just looked on with a confused expression on his face.

Maahes had one too, but with it was a mixture of confusion and disbelief. He hesitantly took a step forward towards the overturned bookcase, and then several steps back when he remembered the angry bobcat. "Kendrik?" he managed to get out. He hadn't seen him since the cave! But wait - that didn't make much sense. Why was Kendrik acting like that? Kendrik wouldn't have been so scared, even if it had been because of a bobcat-

Before he could say anymore, Runi marched over to where the bobcat and Kendrik were and promptly grabbed the bobcat around the waist. "Calm down," she told it - them, if they were a person in the same boat as the rest of the people on the ship. "Murdering your friend isn't going to help with you being stuck as a bobcat, so stop hissing and put those claws away."

“I guess-“ was all James had a chance to say before Kendrik and a bobcat burst into the library. He cursed, which translated to a hiss, and backed up a few feet as he watched Maahes and Runi attempt to calm the two down.

Dante yelped out a curse as she was nearly knocked off her feet by the entrance of Kendrik an Denebola. She scooted even further into a corner of the room, her face the mask of grumpiness.

"&!$#%ing nuthouse." She murmured to herself, wrapping her arms around her shivering, small form. Her body was telling her to be scared, yet again.

"I'm not-" Jaron began, but stopped when he saw Denebola squeeze her way out of the...thing's grip. It was clearly mechanical, so it had to be able to exert a lot of force, even if it was just powered by steam. But Denebola was too smart and too good at fighting to be stopped by something like that, and he didn't have the ability to react when she bounded away from the thing, turned around, and jumped for its face.

Claws scratching across her metal face really didn't feel like anything she was used to - or anything at all - so her reaction to get suddenly mauled by an angry animal was probably more toned down that it normally would have been. She went to swat Denebola away, but quickly came to a much better decision: she grabbed her again, but this time by the fur around her neck instead of grabbing her around the waist.

"Jeez, Magic wasn't kidding when she said you were perpetually in a bad mood," Runi commented. She turned Denebola around so she was looking in her eyes. "Look, I know you're angry about being stuck as some random creature. I'm a little thrown off by being stuck as a robot. But chasing poor Jaron over there really isn't going to help you, and fighting me is just really rude when I was trying to save the poor guy's life."

Maahes, who had watched the entire exchange with wide eyes, scooted over to where Kendrik - or, rather, Jaron - was trying to hide away from whoever the bobcat really was. "Hi, Jaron," he said, giving the man a wave. He also tried smiling, but it felt weird giving a smile as James instead of with a guise he was used to using. "I'm not sure if you remember me, but we met in the cave?"

As chaos unfolded all around him, Sune slipped past the people-turned-animals and over to where Dante was. He came to a stop a short distance away, not wanting to encroach on her personal space while also wanting to make her feel better. "It's okay," he reassured her. "I think Runi's got the situation under control."

How very strange. The stranger in front of him looked like the grumpy man, but didn't talk like him. It reminded Jaron of one of the nicer people in that odd group. That was enough of a relief that Jaron took a couple steps forward and looked into the stranger's face.

"Who are you, again?" Jaron said, shrinking back a little bit in embarrassment.

In the meantime, Denebola didn't seem to like being restrained. She quickly used her paws to pry apart the robot's arms long enough to jump for its face again.

Tasha watched with a somewhat amused look in her eye. She stood as James jumped back and hissed, sheerly off of reflex, but it soon became apparent that the bobcat didn't wish the smaller feline any harm and she sat back down next to him, tail sweeping back and forth across the floor involuntarily.

"This is chaos," James muttered, mostly to himself.

She let out a sigh and went back down, resting her chin on her crossed paws. "I'm not a big fan of this reality hopping," she concluded. "It was interesting for the first five minutes." She glanced over at him. "At least I'm not a stranger to everyone, though, even if of all the people I could've wound up with it was hobo cat and the naive lil' mutt."

James slowly turned his head towards Tasha.

"Look. I know how to clean up, okay. I'd been living alone for months when you first met me. Yeah. Technically I was homeless, but I wasn't dressing to see people. I frankly wasn't expecting to see anyone out there."

She snorted in a canine laugh. "Stars know I've looked worse, so don't sweat it. But that beard really was a bit much, you know. I've seen a lot of worse beards, come to think of it. But the funniest part of the whole thing is you can't even lose it as a cat!" she snorted again and booped his nose with her paw.

James felt himself blushing again the moment she touched his nose. Even though he was a cat, it felt strange. The display of affection only left him flustered. He ducked his head. "I... don't know what that means," he mumbled.