Young Writers Society

James hadn't meant to stop dancing only a few minutes into the song, but after Kartiel almost faceplanted onto the floor, he felt he was about done.

Not just with dancing, but the absurdity that was the masquerade in general. He found himself watching as the wolf man apologized to the god who'd brought them there, and let out a quiet sigh. With eyes he knew said he was as done as he felt, he looked over to Maahes.

"Maybe we should..." his glance flicked over to Damascus and Boris, who were still speedily soaring over the dancefloor. "...do something else."

Damascus' breath, so close to my ear, shot chills through my bones. I had his attention, and I would not let him go before I had shown him a spectacular conclusion.

Whatever amalgam of style we were performing, it had already diverted leagues away from the style of music that was being played, matching it in tempo and rhythm, but outpacing it in audacity. There were only so many more ways to go, without diverting entirely- oh, what did it matter? If there were anything to regret, it was that I only had so much time to show Damascus just what kind of innovation he inspired.

Following the hectic splendour of the rising flourishes, I twirled Damascus, curled my arm around his torso, and pulled him into a dip. I held him there for a spell, never taking my eyes from his, until I lifted him from the dip, and we seamlessly resumed our sweeping glides.

"Wonderful. Just, wonderful." I said, almost regretfully. This song was ending far too quickly.

"-I want to try something. Hold on tight." I warned him excitedly.

I twirled Damascus again, this time supporting his waist with both hands, and lifted him just a centimetre off the ground. He was a bit heavier than I'd expected, which made the spin brief, and slightly uneven, but despite my shortcomings, he glided across the floor, graceful as ever.

We stumbled to our feet, leaning heavily into each other, trying to make up the difference, and regain our balance. Falling into a final twirl, we threw out our hands, and turned this misstep into a conclusive flourish.

"God, look at you." I muttered, awed.

It was unclear if I'd spoken late enough to be heard through the final notes, but it was beyond me to care about that. There was nothing I had to say, that had not already been expressed far better with no words at all.

Slowly, we stood up, and slowly, we pulled away.

I laughed. "Sorry about that, ah, miscalculation on my part. You were marvellous."

From the furthest corner of my mind, propriety lazily looked up from its newspaper and told me to step back, show some subtlety, cease gazing into his eyes like a smitten maid, damn it.

But they're such a lovely shade of red, I protested.



After what I am sure was less time than it felt like, a new song sprung forth, rapid and percussive, vivacious and haunting. Any exhaustion left in my body begged to be ignored. In my heart I prayed that Damascus might feel the same.

"What is this?" I asked, innocently.

Maahes followed James's gaze, then gave a small nod in agreement. He was fine with continuing to dance - he had actually enjoyed it - but James wanted a change of pace. The times he spent with his friend were few and limited; he had to make each one count, and he wanted to remember James being as happy as someone could be in a situation like this when he looked back and thought about the masquerade.

"Maybe we could try talking to some of the other people here-"

"Oh, perfect timing then," Vala suddenly commented from behind him, causing Maahes to jump in his surprise. He hadn't even notice her approaching - then again, she was skilled at slipping into places she wasn't supposed to be in, so he honestly wasn't all that surprised.

Behind stood a group of four people. He recognized them all from the conversation that had followed the "murder" earlier. There was Mira, the sorceress. Asteri, the prince and literal demon. Lorcan, the vampire. And Second, the human boy who seemed to be pretty intelligent from how he had handled the situation earlier. Mira and Lorcan were avoiding looking at each other, while Second and Asteri looked like they were in the middle of glaring at each other.

James's shoulders raised slightly as he turned to see the group of people before he intentionally released the tension with a controlled exhale. He gave a small bow of recognition, and then another to Asteri.

"Good to see you again, I suppose," he replied cordially to the ice mage before he turned to Vala. "New friends of yours?"

Vala glanced back at the group behind her. "I guess you could say that," she said with a shrug, gesturing for them to come forward. Asteri and Second gave each other one last glare before doing as requested, their friends following in their footsteps.

As Maahes was staring at the four, he was suddenly hit by a feeling of déjà vu. Lorcan felt...familiar. Try as he might, he couldn't put his finger on why. Wouldn't he have remembered seeing a vampire before? That would have certainly stuck out in his memory if he had-

Unless, of course, he was too young to clearly remember it. He very vaguely recalled a strange forest in the woods, and meeting an interesting assortment of people there. He couldn't have been that old - five, maybe six? - and there had been one person there that had had a sharp pair of fangs. Had that person been Lorcan?

"I know this is a odd question," Maahes hesitantly asked, "but, uh, have any of you ever been in a situation like this before?"

Second shook his head. Asteri and Mira followed suit. But when he looked over at Lorcan, the vampire hadn't given a response. He was in the middle of looking Maahes over, and it was then that the spirit was sure he had been right on his guess.

"What's your name, again?" Lorcan asked.

"My name is Maahes," he answered.

Understanding dawned on his face. "You were in those woods," he said, his voice incredulous. "I didn't realize it - you act so different now, but it wasn't that long ago. What-What happened to you?"

Maahes gave a small smile, glancing over in James's direction. If he hadn't been through this sort of situation before, it might have been hard to understand. But now it wasn't as hard to comprehend - realities ran on strange, unnatural timelines. A few days in one reality could be hundreds of years in another.

"I grew up," he said. "Time ran a little differently for me."

"Places like this don't seem to abide by the traditional rules of time," James added. "And few of us even seem to be from the same reality or universe, so it's possible we're all from different relative times."

Damascus flourished under the guidance of the music- though its given rhythm had become merely a suggestion. He felt an odd, dual sensation, almost as if there was a wildness underlying the polka melody- or maybe that was a notion he and Boris had created themselves.

It hardly mattered where this rhythm had come from. He would have drowned in it no more than if it had been a siren's song.

It was in this beautiful savagery that Damascus suddenly felt himself swept up and dipped low to the ground. Breathless, he was left blinking up at Boris, content with a brief exploration of the charge between them.

Almost as soon as it had happened, he was pulled back up and gathered into the transition before the final notes.

As his stomach tensed in response to the cadence of a finale, he was picked up by the waist and lifted slightly off the ground, leaving him only to gasp. He gripped Boris' shoulders to calm something in him that had been thrown off-kilter.

Though the landing was unsteady, he and Boris managed to improvise and save a trip to the ground. The close save hardly surprised Damascus. After all, what was this entire experience but unsteady, in one way or another? Didn't they gloss other uncertainties with flourish as well?

He let out a breathy laugh as the song ended and they dropped hands. With a wave of his hand, he brushed off both Boris' apology and compliment.

"That was... that was fantastic." He said in between breaths. His eyes glimmered keenly as he attempted to process whatever magic had just occurred on the ballroom floor.

Nearly the moment he had recovered, the band struck up a new song. It seemed the fates- or perhaps some observant musicians- had seen their performance and delivered something with an appropriate match in pace.

Damascus looked over, a slight curl to his lips betraying his intentions. While he had enjoyed the thoughtless spontaneity of their movements before, this particular song made him want to impress Boris with his precision.

He knew how to dance to this music- it took him back to warm nights and hours of dancing that he had nearly forgotten. His feet, however, still remembered their task.

Stepping forward, he noted the eagerness that he was met with, and joined hands with Boris once again. Grabbing his waist assertively, he took a forceful step and half-twist, attempting to convey his needs.

This tango was going to be his to lead.

"O-okay," Taber said. He shuffled his feet for a few seconds, then looked down at Kartiel. Hopefully Kartiel wouldn't think that was some kind of dance. "Can you lead? I'm afraid I'm going to mess things up again."

Lorcan hesitantly nodded; he didn't fully understand it, but he knew it was just one of those things that was best not to question. "So how old are you now?" he asked, curious to see just how much time had passed. Maahes had been six the last time they had met - something that he had proudly informed them of when they implied that he was "young". Now he looked like he was an adult, but it was hard to tell when he could shapeshift.

Maahes's small smile remained. "I'm around twenty thousand."

Lorcan stared.



Kartiel allowed himself to give Taber a smile - it couldn't really hurt that much, especially when Rendra wasn't going to notice something as minor as that. "I certainly can," he said, bringing Taber back out in the center of the dance floor.

James looked between Lorcan and Maahes and grinned. "He ages wonderfully, doesn't he?" he said, giving Maahes a little pat on the back.

I knew a plethora of suitably debonair lines that I could have employed, then.
But in the magnetic pull of the musical strain, the pull of Damascus, I could only settle for an "Oh," and allow myself to be swept away.

"Damascus," I said, following his feet with careful, slightly delayed intent, "I'm afraid it's your turn to teach me. You don't mind, do you?"

Damascus slowed considerably as he picked up on Boris trying to follow along. When he was asked to teach this time, a smirk played at his lips. Swallowing it down, he nodded.

"Oh, not at all. I'd love to." He had slowed to a stop, and was tapping his foot so as not to loose the beat.

"I'm sure you'll pick this up in no time." With a smile, he gripped Boris' hand and looked down at their feet, taking a moment to hope that he would be more of a help than a hindrance. "Let's see... first it's step, twist, step. Almost a tiptoe, mind you." He demonstrated, going slow to give Boris a chance to repeat.

"There you go!" He cheered softly near Boris' ear, choosing to speak under the music rather than over it. "And these first few step are a bit different than the waltz, as they involve me in between your legs."

He went on, airing on the side of narrating details instead of merely demonstrating.

Leadinging them through the opening swell, he picked up the pace by a half-beat, peppering their steps with encouragement.

"Hold on now- it's going to get a bit tricky!"

Damascus quickly jumped into matching pace with the music. Lifting their joined hands, he slid one leg across Boris' thigh and brought the other around to meet it, twisting around to spin Boris under his arm and switching places in one move.

Somehow, he managed not to twist their legs up or trip either one of them, though it was a close call.

Riding along the end of the wrap around, he let go of Boris' waist with one hand to swing him out. He waited a breath before twisting him back into his arms.

"You're doing wonderfully." He murmured, taking the close proximity as an opportunity to pay another compliment.

"Okay!" said Taber, letting himself be pulled back to the floor by Kartiel. Had Taber remembered how big he was, he would've found it amazing that Kartiel was able to move him at all. However, Taber was more focused on how he was going to begin to learn to dance.

"What kind of dance are we going to do?" he said. "I know there's a lot of kinds."

With Damascus' kind tutoring, it wasn't too difficult to adjust to this elevated style.
When the time came to pick up the pace, I was all too glad to follow him into the intoxicating alien rhythm.

Gone was the playful, innocent dance of before, no, this rhythm was calculated, purposeful, with no room for hesitation or uncertainty.

When I tried to read Damascus, I found passion, vivacity, strength, yes, but I could not for the life of me gauge his intent. This could easily have been a dance between friends, and nothing more. It felt wrong to impose a diagnosis when his meaning was unclear.

But it was clear to me that although I treasured Damascus' company, I now felt apprehensive at the concept of calling him 'brother.'

His swift, fluid executions, I could not think, but I could follow, and at the swing, at the twist, in his arms...

I cursed the masks that separated us.

The music, as exquisite and omnipresent as it was, felt dampened. The spinning, amorphous masses surrounding us had become less and less recognizable as human shapes.

I had to show him just what he'd made of me.
I followed his rhythm, his cues, gliding in time, tracing the floor, I took opportunities to curl in and out, colour our turns with vivacious little kicks, hook my leg around his thigh at each twist, as he had before, lean shamelessly into his chest.

Perhaps if I could not trace his intent, he could yet trace mine.

"I'm, uh, not human, remember?" Maahes helpfully reminded Lorcan, but it seemed to do little to stop Lorcan from gaping at him. He settled for awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck and hoping that something else would come up to take his mind off of the conversation at hand. He really didn't like to think about how Lorcan had seen him back when he had been that little.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the satisfaction of forgetting embarrassing childhood memories like humans did - they were all kicking around somewhere in his essence, and loved to show themselves whenever he so much as thought of something even loosely related.


"I think a slow dance is a good place to start," Kartiel said, his smile remaining. This was the safest dance he could possibly think of - there was little chance that Rendra would notice the two of them dancing when Boris and Damascus were dancing so passionately nearby. "Have you ever slow danced before?"