Young Writers Society

Damascus' eyes grew wide and sparkling the moment Boris started to sing, and he leaned on the edge of his seat, absolutely entranced. Then Engel started singing as well, making the strange vocal phenomenon take on an entirely different dimension.

He started clapping enthusiastically the second they finished, and stood up entergetically.

"That was beeeautiful!" He gasped. "How- how in Paradise did you do that??"

Boris was happy to see that Damascus had had a good time, but then the concept of singing confused him now that he had been asked to explain how it was done.

"I don't know. You just...do it? You can probably sing, too, if you can talk."

Boris looked at Engel, in the hope that he might have a better explanation.

"It's easy!" Engel exclaimed excitedly. "You just adjust the pitch of your voice. Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do!" he sang. "See? Here, now you try. Just repeat after me! Do!"

Damascus eagerly wanted to take a part in this, and so he stood straight and tried his best to follow along with Engel's pitch.

"D~o." He sang the note, his voice both confident and unsteady. His voice cracked slightly toward the end of the short burst, and his bottom lip stuck out accordingly.

"That didn't sound like yours, Engel." His spirits dampened slightly. "How do I sound like you?"

"It just takes practice," he answered, beaming. "It took me a long time, too! Just try again. Here: do~."

Schadel and Edward watched on, both still thoroughly confused on the combination of Damascus's lack of knowledge and confusion with when it came to singing. "Why don't you know how to sing?" Schadel asked, tilting her head to the side in confusion. Edward tried to shush her, since Engel was in the middle of teaching Damascus, but Schadel was oblivious to his attempts.

Damascus tried again, this time matching his pitch a bit better. He smiled at Engel and gave him a positive hand gesture before glancing at Schadel.

"I don't know how to sing because... I've never tried? I've never heard a song, either. Oh, Engel, will you teach me to sing a complete song too? Please?" He turned back, his eyes wide and exited.

Before Edward could even stop her, Schadel perked up and darted over to the log Damascus was sitting on--awkwardly having to slip between Engel and him in the process. "I know a song!" she eagerly informed him. "Blanx taught it to me the other day! He says it's a very American song, and that since I'm technically living there now I need to know it so I can hide around the humans like he does."

"America? That's the new place across the sea!" he exclaimed. "They say that there's mountains of gold! Is it true?"

"America?" Damascus tilted his head, throughly confused. "Does Prussia have multiple planes as well, then? And... gold. It's made of gold?"

He glanced from Schadel to Engel, intrigued, but not as delighted by this as he has been by other discoveries.

Gold was an empty comfort for humans. No one had to explain that to him, he simply had to observe the spectors who were tied to the Cavern of Greed and their undying obsession to know this fact.

To him, the warmth and sheen of the precious metal was cruel and mocking. It always made him shiver, like now.

Engel continued before Schadel had a chance to answer, barely breaking to let Damascus speak. "Someday, I'm going to go to America, and then I'm going to get gold, too, and then I'll have money, and then I can play my accordion with a full stomach!" he rambled excitedly before registering his brother's question. "America is a land across the ocean!" he explained. "They found lots of gold there really recently and people are going from all over to get it! It's all over the place, and even poor people are getting money now. They're calling it 'California.' That's what they say, anyways, but I only know because that's what I hear the travelers talk about when we're selling our chickens in town!"

Schadel frowned. That didn't sound right! America wasn't made of gold. The only place she could think of that came close to that was the reaper realm, and even then there wasn't a lot of riches; they just fixed up broken down buildings that humans made on Earth, and tore them down when needed.

The only exception was the administration's building--Blanx had taken her there a couple of times to see Marisu, just to show her what it was like. She didn't like the reaper realm much compared to the human one because of how mean people could be there, but thinking about that amazing building made her grin.

"I don't know any place made of gold," she said, "but the administration's building is made of everything shiny and beautiful that you can think of! There's diamonds and pearls and gold and sleek, sleek obsidian walls that stretch out for an entire block! And then when you go inside there's so, so many souls, all of them different colors and textures and sometimes even different shapes." She let out a content sigh. "It's like a rainbow."

She caught Edward staring at her out of the corner of her eye.

She turned and met his gaze.

"That's not the United States," he said, point blank.

She nodded. "Uh huh!"

"Then where is it?"

Humans technically weren't supposed to know about the reaper realm, but they also weren't supposed to know that they existed in the first place. So Schadel thought over her answer for a minute, then ultimately decided that her brothers could learn the truth. "It's in the reaper realm!" she said. "It's where they organize all of the souls and send them off. I don't know where they send them off to, but Blanx says most reapers think they get sent off to some sort of afterlife or reincarnation thingy."

Damascus shivered again, but this time it was due entirely to the cold and his lack of shoes. He smiled brightly at Schadel, his arms wrapped around himself, and stood excitedly.

"Oh! I know where they go!" All of his earlier caution thrown to the wind, he hopped a bit on his heels. "The souls are sent to my realm! Except, we call them spectors, because most of their essence is kept elsewhere and..." his smile faded, the burst of excitement leaving him.

"They're kind of scary, but... also sad, now that I think of it. Poor spectors." Even before he felt sorry for the human souls, he was horifyed by the things that he had learned he was expected to do to them one day soon.

Gentle tears filled his eyes, and he shook his head aggressively, renouncing his nature in a way that he could best comprehend.

"I ran away, and I'm never, ever going back again!! I- I'll just live in Prussia forever!" He cried out, his chest puffed with determination even as he choked out a sob.

Engel frowned as he saw Damascus fighting back tears. Somehow, even after years of it being ground out of him, his initial instinct was to hug his brother. Maybe it'd been that he'd let go, after being so close to death, or perhaps he'd merely had the time he needed to to get comfortable with this group. Whatever the reason, instead of choking back that impulse like he'd done for years, Engel gave in to it and wrapped his arms around Damascus.

"You can come live with me!" he said. "I don't have a place to live yet but maybe we can find one together!"

Overcome by the sight of Damascus and Engel's embrace, Boris ignored all protests of common sense. He dashed over to Engel, and patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.

"Come home with me! Both of you! I'm sure my parents will love you!"

He wasn't sure.

"And Sigmund can be your big brother, too!"

This was a very generous presumption on Boris' part.