Young Writers Society

Raiden had been roaming around, looking around for a trash can. When he found one. And then he threw his juice box away, and the wine glass. Admittedly, the wine glass was an accident, but he was kinda embarrassed to go pick up the wine glass from the trash, so he acted as if he meant it. As he (speed)walked away, he nearly ran into a stray microphone. He stopped, turned towards it, and, after making sure it was switched on, he spoke into it.
"Ahem. Attention everyone," he spoke, his voice low and monotone.
"Anyone at this ball smoke weed?"

The trio stumbled in rather unexpectedly, opening their eyes to find themselves in a large ballroom alongside one another. The red-haired one in the titian doublet stumbled to her feet first and looked around wildly, eyes wide - what in the name of the stars was going on?!

The blue-doubleted man coughed and sat up as he tried to get his bearings as the short, barefoot woman stood beside the dog-masked one.

"Are you picking anything up?" the orange one asked the tribal woman beside her, only to get a shaken head in response. "Evron?" she turned to the Northerner to her left who mimicked the tribal woman's response.

She scanned the crowd through the mask, heart stopping as she saw a very familiar, bearded face.

She gestured to the other two to fall in behind her and pushed her way through the crowd, coming up behind him. "Mark! What the the name of the stars are you doing here?!"

Two things happened.

Raiden asked if anyone did drugs. He was inclined to respond, but he'd only done them once, and was aware that if there was a stigma around drugs in his world, there likely was in everyone else's. So he stayed silent.

Second, he heard a familiar voice call out his name - or rather - one of his aliases. Though he was once quite relaxed having believed he was surrounded by mostly strangers, or people who weren't from his world, he tensed, and turned to see who it was.

Though she was wearing a mask, when he finally saw her, his dreadful anticipation faded because he knew who it was.

"Tasha," he said, eyeing the two others following her. "You got dragged here too."

"You know this guy?!" the eagle-masked figure asked, surprised.

"No, I just know his name psychically," she rolled her eyes. "Yes, we did. This is Thana and Evron, what's left of my squad except for Boomer, wherever he disappeared to. Thana, Evron, this is Mark, we killed a cat together. What is this place?" she asked "Mark."

"No!" Vala shouted in response to Raiden's question. Then she glanced over at Maahes, and, seeing that he wasn't paying much attention to her at the moment, added, "But it sounds like a fun thing to try!"


Mira stared at Raiden and the microphone. "I honestly don't know how to feel right now," she admitted. Asteri nodded in response, just a bit confused on what exactly smoking weed was and what it involved. "It's marijuana," she explained, seeing how his eyes darted from her to Raiden.

"Oh," Asteri said. He crossed his arms. "Why don't they just call it marijuana?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "I, uh, don't know the answer to that one."

"It doesn't make much sense," he decided.

Mira decided it was best to let the matter rest.

xXx

Second slightly tilted his head to the side, confusion clearly written across his face at what Raiden had said. "Why would someone smoke a weed?" he innocently asked. His look of confusion deepened into a frown. "How do you even do that? Do you light it on fire-"

Lorcan tugged on Second's sleeve. "What's a weed again?" he hissed, not wanting his question to be loud enough to be overheard.

"It's when a player doesn't like a plant so they let it die," he said.

"They do what?"

"They rip it out of the ground," Second confidently said.

Lorcan frowned. "Do they...do they eat it afterwards?"

He shook his head. "They throw it away."

"But that's a waste of food! And what about the mob-animals that need it to survive?"

Second adopted a completely serious look to his face. "They die."

Lorcan looked horrified at this conclusion.


The moment that a woman called out the name Mark, Maahes immediately stiffened. He had been around James enough times since their encounter thousands of years ago to remember that Mark was the alias that he had been using back then, and that it was what had caused him to get so upset back in that cave when he had appeared to be a stranger.

But James seemed to know this woman - so much so that he called her by name. Tasha. He felt like he had met Tasha before, but couldn't remember exactly where. It would have to be from when he ended up in Nye the first time, wouldn't it? Tasha must have been part of that group, or else he wouldn't recognize her and she wouldn't be using the alias from that time-

Oh.

Oh no.

She was part of the group! The memory was foggy thanks to it being nearly ten thousand years since they last met, but she had been the one who had never trusted him! He had certainly deserved it back then when acting as "Ramses" and then later a magic-less version of himself. But now if she found out who he was, she still wasn't going to trust him, especially when he was acting completely different than the last time!

He was broken out of his panicked train of thought by Asteri speaking. "I thought your name was James," he said, folding his arms and looking James over. The distrust was clear in his voice. "James Hawke, like Rendra said earlier. So why is she calling you Mark instead?"

"Asteri," he heard Mira whisper, "you use an alias all the time."

"Yeah, but I have a good reason for it," Asteri replied back, not bothering to whisper.

James slowly swiveled on his feet, turning to Asteri with his head tilted slightly to the side. He stared at him, locking eyes the moment Asteri said his full name.

“That’s very presumptuous of you to assume I don’t have good reason for using an alias, or to assume that Tasha doesn’t know my full name. Because she does. She knows my name, and was using the alias as a courtesy-“ he glanced back at Tasha “-I assume. That, or to tease-“ then turned back to Asteri. “-Because I use aliases for my own safety. Though it is not your business to know, in my homeworld I am a wanted man. And not for malicious reasons - before you’re tempted to be presumptuous again - but because I, admittedly failed to, but attempted to intervene in the midst of a corrupt monarchy by sabotaging the king’s morally unjust plans. So yes, I’m wanted, but not for murder, or whatever else most people tend to jump to. So!” He clapped his hands together, and smiled a smile that did not meet his eyes. “Hopefully me needlessly justifying myself to you has quelled your suspicions enough that you won’t bother my friend Tasha and her fellow companions, or hound me for having multiple names associated with my identity. Sound good?”

"I mean, I feel like it's a given that you'll have to explain yourself when the topic of you having aliases comes up," Asteri said, shrugging, "but go off, I guess."

He glanced over at Mira out of the corner of his eye, and his best friend immediately gave him a look of disbelief from behind her mask. He couldn't help it. It was the best possible response to what James had just said, and he might have taken a little too much pleasure in referencing the (dead) Tumblr meme - he was proud for having remembered that bit of pop culture.

James blinked, looking over to Mira, struggling to read their faces behind the mask. “I just... did,” he said plainly. “I’m not going to explain again. That would be redundant.”

"It's a meme," Asteri said, letting out a quiet sigh; inwardly, however, he felt far too victorious about finally not being the most ignorant person in the room when it came to Earth culture. "It's meant to show that you think someone is overreacting, but usually is used as a joke more than anything else."

He thought for a moment.

"My use of it was leaning to the original meaning," he continued, looking James over. "Which might have something to do with you calling me presumptuous twice, when all I did was ask why you had an alias."

“Oh. Well, the my apologies,” James replied dryly. “Seems I was the one who was presumptuous. Are we done now?”

"What's a-" Evron started, only to silence as Tasha shot him a very dark look. "Sorry, ma'm."

"Ach, k'plach," Thana grunted. "Aal shuul mack q'chiil, Tasha." (Ach, chill. No one is trying to kill us, Tasha.)

Tasha glowered at her. "I don't know why I bother with the two of you. Looks like we're rolling with 'James' now, so, that's his name. His actual name."

"Wait, I have a question," Evron piped up. "What in the world did you kill a cat for?"

"It was a three story tall cat, Evron, why do you think we killed it?"

As the two of them spoke, Thana scanned the group with a sharp gaze that was oddly fitting considering her eagle mask. Lorcan, Second, Mira, Asteri, Maahes, James..."Tasha," she said softly. "Aal shuul mack kel. Gex James." (Tasha, none of them are human. Except James.)

"That's not uncommon in these...occurrences," Tasha answered.

As the newcomers spoke with the group and as James and Asteri discussed his alias, Kratzer wove through the crowd towards his brother and the group. There was an element of familiarity between the dog-masked one of whom he hadn't caught a name and James himself.

Auryon watched as Silberfuchs departed, then wandered closer to the stage to listen to Raiden, more for the entertainment than anything else.

Evron turned as Kratzer approached and, noting the man's knives, put his own hand on his sword. Thana and Tasha both turned when Evron did and reacted defensively alongside him. It was evident that the group dynamic was one that had formed over a long time; they read each other like a book.

Kratzer stopped as all three of them turned and put their hands on their weapons.

"Chaakh s'ko verr kan'luush," Thana growled. (He's undead and demonic.)

Damascus let a twisted smile grow on his face in response to Boris' comment. In all truth, he was mostly relieved to have the conversation dwell once again in the moment. Its breif wanderings had dragged his spirits into pondering that he wasn't quite ready to face.

"That would be quite the story to tell." He rasped, swaying and sliding for the sole purpose of affronting Boris' territory.

With another burst of adrenaline, he turned and swung Boris out once more, this time pulling him into place on the return so that his back was pressed snugly against Damascus' front. Gathering Boris' arms around his chest, he voiced an impulse that had suddenly made itself known.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I've never quite danced like this before?"

Though he intended it to come off as light, the hoarseness in his own voice surprised him. In that moment, everything in him felt raw and exposed, and he embraced the fact openly.

Maahes was hit by a feeling of déjà vu as he instinctively started scooting closer to Kratzer. "He might be undead and demonic," Maahes said, looking Thana right in the eye while stepping right in between Kratzer and the trio of newcomers, "but he's not going to hurt you if you don't hurt him first."

He knew what he was doing wasn't going to redeem himself in Tasha's books, but he didn't care - Kratzer came first, and a fight breaking out wasn't going to be a good thing.

Asteri took a step out as well, looking right into Thana's eyes. Maahes knew he couldn't understand what they had said - he only could because of recently traveling through the stargate - but likely figured it out by Maahes's response to the comment. "And what's so bad about demons, anyways?" he asked, devilish tail swishing back and forth behind him as his red eyes narrowed. "You should be careful with what you say, since you might offend someone."

"Smh my head y'all boring," Raiden said, walking off.

Thana growled pivoted to face Asteri while Evron backed up towards Tasha. Tasha herself looked between the group for what seemed like an eternity but was really only a few moments before raising her hand and stating a short command in their native tongue. The other two immediately sheathed their weapons.

"Danke," Kratzer said. "I don't know what demons are where you're from, but carrying it here is almost certainly unwise, or so many of us have found."

Tasha dipped her head and extended her hand. "A proper introduction, then. I am Tasha Hunter. This is Thana of the Gryphon Clan and Evron Eiorana."

"The name's Kratzer," he said, taking her hand with some hesitation. He wasn't terribly concerned about getting killed but that didn't mean that getting stabbed was an appealing prospect.

Tasha looked around at the group, Kolvar's and Silver's numerous attempts at diplomacy coming to mind. As the leader of their squadron, that was her job now, and walking into this place and offending a bunch of powerful individuals was probably not a great idea.

"Our apologies," she said with a short dip of her head. "To both of you, and to any one else who we may have offended. We're soldiers, all three of us, and where we come from, demons are...one of the greatest threats that our world faces. Being brought here suddenly and then running into them is...offputting to say the least. But since we're from different realities it seems reasonable that not all demons are going to be the same as the ones from our world. So, let's try this again, on a better foot...?"