Young Writers Society

"I suppose I am tall," Stan grumbled, blinking slowly at Siren. Rose wasn't sure who he was.
"He's...uh, not my friend. I have no idea who he is," she replied. Rose looked back over her shoulder, her wing moving down for her to see. The others seemed to be busy talking about something, but she was not prepared to go over there and join in.
"My name's Stan. I'm the ruler of Heck, a place for eternal minor inconveniences."
Well, Rose had certainly never heard of that place before. She shook her head before turning back to Siren.
"Do you know how this happened?"

"I guess so," Maahes said uncertainly, but he wasn't sure how much the situation applied. He had been through his hair share of situations like this, but sometimes there wasn't really a good reason for them - they just kind of happened, and it was up to him and whoever he was with to figure out how to get out of them. The situation with Rendra and Kartiel had honestly been an exception to what he had been through.

Behind him, he heard the door creak as the demon with the black wings opened it.

He thought for a moment, then added, "I think we should introduce ourselves. I don't think it would help much with figuring out what's going on, but names are always a start in a situation like this." He gestured at himself. Seeing that most of the group here were unusual in some sense, he didn't see a point in hiding the truth. "My name is Maahes. I'm normally something called a spirit, demon or djinni - it just depends on the rank and connotations of the area."

"I'm Edward Smith," the man who had previously been covered in bloody bandages said. "I'm an actual ghost."

The angel he had first run into froze up when he heard this, and nervously looked in Edward's direction. The ghost didn't seem to notice. When he turned back to see Maahes looking at him, he hurried introduced himself with, "I-I'm Griffith. I'm normally just a regular human."

Maahes didn't miss how he hesitated with the last sentence, but he wasn't going to question him - he almost always concealed the truth himself.

The demon with the black hair and red eyes shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, scanning the group present before ducking his head down.

"I'm Aquarius," he said. "I'm normally a...well, I'm not really one...I'm only half...but Télos says that it counts, and he was around for when the rest of the gods were, so..."

He hesitantly peeked his head up. "I'm the god of water."

Rose looked at Aquarius. That she was used to. Although Aquarius seemed to be nicer than the gods from her world.

"I'm Rose Alagorn. I am a warrior who was trained by various tribes, among them the amazons...I'm...I'm from a different realm...I have..." She trailed off and looked down, flushing red, then her head came back up, and a slightly defiant and guarded look came on her face, as one who is used to ridicule and not being accepted. "I have been cursed by all the gods of my realm."

Siren perked up. Maahes. She knew a Maahes! She scuttled off, and went up to sniff him.

"You do! You do smell like Maa-hes!" she exclaimed merrily.

She tried to ruffle his hair, but her arm didn't reach high enough, so she patted him on the shoulder instead. "You've grown so big!" she said, proudly.

She turned to address the general assembly.

"Oh, we're doing inter-ductions. I am Siren the Merfrog, from the Seas of Rhye! I am not usually feathery. I am usually slippery."

Stan overheard them doing introductions and stuff, so he decided it would be a bit inconvenient if he didn't know anyone around. So he walked over and waited patiently until there was a break in the introductions so he could introduce himself to everyone. When he finally thought there was a break, he opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by the fish-like girl.
He sighed.
He tried again.
"Hello everyone. My name is Stan," he said, his voice kind of smooth, but not really, so it kinda sounded like peanut butter, because it wasn't as smooth as butter.

Rose blinked as Siren bounded off, completely ignoring her. She wasn't given the time to think about that, as she realised they were all doing introductions. She missed the first person's name, but that should be fine. She hurried over, and once Stan was complete with his, she spoke up.
"E-erm, hello everyone. I'm Princess Rose, and I'm sorry if I accidentally stole your name," she said, giving an apologetic smile to the other Rose in the room.

Rose Alagorn smiled and dipped her head to the Princess. "There is a way to distinguish between us. She pulled up her sleeve on her left arm. There on her wrist was an angry black and red burn, that was still burning.

"I am Boomslang," the green-eyed woman introduced herself. "This is my second, Sieben, and my dear associate, Kratzer, also known as der Silberfuchs. The Silver Fox, for those of you who don't speak German. This here is Cornyx Blackthorne, son of Sathanus, and current King of Hell. Sieben was human, Cornyx and I were demons, and Kratzer was a vampire before this little mishap."

As his name was spoken, Cornyx dipped his head.

"I'm Melkyael, son of Raphael," the once-angel-now-demon said shortly. "I...was an angel."

James looked around at the others, committing the new names and faces to memory with a methodical intentionality. The only two that remained were Damascus and his friend, but he spoke up, just to get his out of the way.

"I'm James," he said simply. "I was a human."

Damascus glanced around in turn at all the introductions. He knew lots of people here! So caught up in listening to everyone else's introductions, it took a few moments of silence before he opened his mouth to introduce himself.

"Oh, my name is Damascus." He said, exactly at the same moment that Sevy chimed in with an "I'm Sevy."

They glanced at each other and some awkward splutterings commenced as they tried to work out who would go first.

"And he's-" "that's-"

Finally, they ended the cycle when both of them happened to introduce the same name. Sevy pointed over at his friend, and Damascus pointed at himself. Since he was the person being introduced, Damascus took the lead.

"My name is Damascus. Ahem- pardon that little mishap. It's lovely to meet you all." He dipped his head.

"And I'm Sevy. Sevy Dawner. Hi."

I smiled. It was good to see that Damascus had more good old friends, older than myself. I would have to get to know this Sevy, when the moment was opportune. He must have had some lovely stories.

"Boris Dietrich, pleasure to meet you all. Human, alas."

Maahes stiffened when the girl suddenly started to pat his shoulder and act like they had somehow met before, but then he remembered another bizarre childhood incident of his that mirrored this situation. He looked down at her. Her appearance wasn't quite the same as it had been back then, but that was to be expected.

He smiled and returned the pat, though he easily was able to pat her on the head. "I have grown pretty big," he agreed, giving her a warm and amused smile. Not much time must have passed for her - she was exactly the same as his childhood self remembered her being.

Then another familiar name uttered registered, and he turned to look at the princess with surprised brown eyes. "P-Princess?" he managed to get out. It really shouldn't have been all that startling with Siren there, but now he had an entirely different feeling about running into someone from his childhood. His face turned red in embarrassment when he realized that she only knew him as the impatient, weird little kid he had been.

Nearby, Aquarius was looking over at the other Rose with concern on his face. She had been cursed by her gods, and she had an always burning fire on her arm? That was horrible! He knew that some of the other gods had been really, really horrible, but those gods were dead and none of what they did compared to what Rose's gods had done to her.

"Would some water on the burn help it feel better?" he hesitantly asked. "I-I think I could make some appear if I really concentrate."

Rose looked at him, her eyes hooded. "This mark usually makes people cast me out, if nothing else. And I don't know if water would help...I've learned to live with the pain after a while. But if you really think you can, I...I would like to try."

Damascus suddenly leaned over to speak quietly into Sevy's ear, realizing that he hadn't introduced his friends. Since the ordeal with Boomslang was still present, he had to settle with subtly pointing most of them out for now.

"Some of my oath brothers are here," he whispered softly, a pleased tone curling his voice. "The one over there is Engel- or Kratzer, I think he's being called right now. Ah, don't talk to him just yet, though. That's James- he's lovely. There's Edward- he's a sweetie, though he's usually much less substantial. Oh, and I also know Maahes! Though I've only met him recently."

He paused and stood straighter, turning to his other side and setting a hand familiarly on Boris' shoulder. He could introduce Boris, at least.

"And this is Boris! He's another oath brother. Boris, I'd like you to meet Sevy."

Sevy gave a friendly smile, surprised and delighted. He reflected briefly over how much Damascus had changed from the withdrawn, superficially polite demon he had first met.

"Nice to meet you." He nodded at the angel and elbowed Damascus jokingly. "I've known this big guy since he was a wee cat."

Damascus rolled his eyes, though he wasn't able to keep the smile off his face.

Melkyael pushed open the door and stepped out onto the moist duff, looking up towards a slightly-overcast sky that was mostly blocked out by the thick canopy of woodland. The trees themselves looked somewhat similar to oaks in their arching, long branches, but were paler and overall very creepy. It looked straight out of Halloween.

Engel looked towards the former-angel. Boomslang followed his gaze and nodded to Cornyx, who went over to Melkyael and looked outside. Melkyael stepped away to give the King of Hell space when he approached but neither one addressed the other.

"It's a forest," Cornyx said. "A vacant, overly-silent one that looks like it came out of a cliche horror film."

"Likewise. A cat, you say?" I gave Damascus a playful glance. "There's a story, here."

"You'll have to educate me, someday. We have veritable treasure troves of stories to exchange, I'm sure." I told Sevy, with a wink.

Just ahead, Melkyael and Cornyx concerned themselves with scouting out our surroundings.
It appeared we were in some somber, Poe-esque forest.

"Interesting place to build a cathedral," I mused.