Young Writers Society

Maahes glanced down at Siren. She was one of the nice people here, and it made him sad that he couldn't hang out with her. But he wasn't going to hang out with the others. That was what he was certain of. "I'll be alright," he promised. He looked around. Seeing that Siren was the only one near him, he leaned down and whispered. "I'm special, so I can find my way."

Ryder blinked. Rose turned to him. They had a sort of silent conversation between them, before Rose nodded.
"Alright!" Ryder said, while Rose clapped her hands, "Since we have no idea what more we can do in a dingy forest, let's get moving. Maybe we can get some answers at the town we were on our way to," Ryder said, speaking loud enough so everyone could hear. As soon as he had finished speaking, Rose walked off to where their bags were, with Ryder following shortly after.

Siren locked eyes with Maahes for a moment, and nodded. She patted him on the head.

''Godspeed, my friend.'' she said. It was a saying she had heard sailors say to each other, and she liked how important and serious it sounded.

''Find me again later, okay?''

And with that, she ran back to the others.

Oh dear. Maahes had seen right through him and had run off. He was more clever than he appeared.

"Wait up!" Zech said, running over to Maahes. "I was joking but, you do understand scholars aren't all the same, right?" A few seconds ago, he'd been convinced that Maahes knew that. Now, thinking about how naive and innocent Maahes was, considering his pulling tails and saying simple phrases, Zech thought otherwise. What was Maahes's deal?

Lorcan and Juniper watched as chaos descended on the strange little group they had found themselves a part of. One person went running off, with several different people all hurrying after him. Ryder and Princess Rose were getting ready to leave. It seemed like no one could agree on anything, and Lorcan still couldn't understand why that man was acting the way that he did. His personality almost reminded him of Hero, back when they first met - that same sort of social awkwardness, paired with a curiosity that he couldn't ignore.

But this man - Maahes - was older, and seemed to have come from a completely different situation than Hero had. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to explain the strange, childlike personality if that wasn't the cause.

He looked down at Siren when she returned. "Hi," he said, giving a small wave. "Do you know why that man ran off?" If he could figure that out, maybe he could figure out why he was acting the way that he was.


Maahes kept his gaze on the forest that was right in front of him, opting to avoid looking at one of the mean people he had just left behind.

"It wasn't a funny joke," Maahes commented, folding his arms and continuing to storm on ahead. "And I know that all scholars aren't the same, but they have similarities and I know what those similarities are."

He wasn't stupid. He knew that he wasn't like the other scholars that Odris had introduced him too, but he had been able to notice what made them all alike, and those were what he considered to be some of their defining traits.

Siren was about to answer ponytail man's question, but was distracted by the fangs that flashed as he talked.
Her big eyes sparkled with joy, and she bounced up and down in celebration.
Then she grinned at him widely, pointing at her own sharp teeth. ''Look, look, we match!'' she proclaimed.

''We could be twins.'' she whispered excitedly.

Rose and Ryder returned to the bush where they had placed their bags earlier. Conversing between each other in whispers, they discussed whether or not they should wait for the others. A minute later, Ryder seemed to have convinced Rose that if they wanted to follow, they would.



A laugh came from somewhere nearby, and it was loud enough so that everyone who was not from this world could hear it. Rose and Ryder, busy with their own conversation, did not hear.

"Oh, you guys are wonderful," a voice sounded between laughs. It was childish, young. Even the laugh sounded young.
"I'm glad I brought you guys here - you all are fun!" Another giggling fit.
"Anyway...if you want to go back home, you'll need to find the Artifact! Hehee, good luck with that!~"

Eugh, a smart response. Now that they were starting to wander away from the rest of the group, Zech didn't want to keep conversation going any longer. He didn't want to get lost. Besides, he couldn't help but feel guilty at seeing Maahes looking away and crossing his arms. It was too adorable and too sympathetic.

"Well, I'm sorry," Zech said, bowing his head. "I didn't think you'd be upset, and I was being pretty mean."

"I don't think-" Lorcan started to argue, only to be cut off by the sound of that voice ringing out. He immediately tensed. Though he had no idea who the owner of the voice was, he had a sneaking suspicion that they were dealing with something like the gods he had in his world - they would have been powerful enough to do something like this, although they would have needed multiple gods in order to pull something like this off.

Juniper looked understandably terrified. The closest she had ever come to this was with the three gods she had met - that skeleton girl, Hero, and her brother. This childish god was nothing like them.

Lorcan decided that the best thing they could do was ask Princess Rose and Ryder for whatever information they had on this mysterious artifact. Even if it wasn't a lot, it would at least be a start.

He grabbed Juniper's wrist and carefully led her over to where the two travelers of this world were. "Excuse me?" he asked, seeing that they were finishing a conversation. "Can you tell us anything about the Artifact?"


Maahes heard the mysterious voice, too. It terrified him a lot. And while Zech's apology might have done something, he was just too done with the group as a whole. He kept his arms folded and continued to storm on ahead. "I guess I accept your apology," he said from up ahead. "But I'm not going back!"

Before Zech could have a chance to react, he made sure to dart ahead as fast as he could. Sticks and thorn dug into his guise's skin, cutting deep enough that essence spilled out onto the makeshift path he had created. He didn't really care. No one knew what his insides looked like; he didn't think they'd be able to figure out that it belonged to him.

So now that he had taken care of shaking off the other people, he just had to make sure that they didn't follow him again. He folded his arms, thought for a moment, and then realized that the reason they had come after him was that they knew it was him. He was, after all, a spirit! He could easily change his form. And if he changed his guise, they'd never figure out it was him - and the thought of being able to avoid that mean water girl and the owner of the mysterious voice made him feel quite happy.

He slowed his pace to a walk. He had to think this over carefully. Any guise that bore a passing resemblance to the one he was using right now was out of the question; they'd be able to figure out it was him. So he could either go younger or older, right? He liked younger better, but would anyone take him seriously with a guise like that? Then again, was he even planning on talking to anyone anymore?

He eventually settled on a younger guise - an Alteran teenager, with long, messy blond hair and bright blue eyes. He exchanged his neat garb with something a little more wild and torn. That would do a good job of confusing them!

The tiger stood there, watching Maahes zip off into the distance. The tinny voice had made his fur stand on end and his ears shoot up, and he was still dealing with the shock when Maahes ran off. He was stuck here? And he needed to find the Artifact? What in the world was the Artifact? And if he didn't even know what it was, could he ever find it? Was he stuck here forever, then?

But there were more important things to deal with. At least, more important things he wanted to deal with. Maahes had run away and, while Zech didn't want to wander from the group, he also didn't want Maahes to get lost either. So the tiger blinked, peered into the forest in the direction Maahes had gone, and ran after him.

Zech tried to remember what Lunis had taught him about tracking as he leaped over logs and ducked under branches. Fortunately, Maahes didn't make it hard. The path of snapped branches and trampled leaves was all too easy to follow, as was the strange goop along it. The tiger shivered; it reminded him of blood.

Distracted, he almost collided with the teenager standing in the forest. Zech curved at the last second and ran into a tree. He cursed; what luck. Pulling splinters from his fur and rubbing his nose, he looked back to the blonde, dirty teenager. "...Jonathan?" Zech said. The appearance wasn't exact, but Zech hadn't seen Jonathan in a while. And this teenager was about as silent.

Maahes immediately stiffened when Zech suddenly appeared; he hadn't anticipated running into one of the people from the group so soon. To make matters worse, it was Zech. It wasn't Siren. That would have made things alright. And when Zech addressed, he was almost entirely sure that his guise had been seen through.

But the name he used wasn't Maahes. It was Jon-athan (the name sounded funny when he tried repeating it in his head) and that name or title or whatever it was had never once been used with him. So that meant his guise had worked! He felt very triumphant about that, but then he remembered that he wasn't in the clear just yet. If he didn't answer just right, Zech was going to figure out that he was talking to the same person that he had been making fun of before.

"I'm not Jon-athan," he said, the name still sounding weird no matter how many times he thought about it. "My name is-" He hesitated, not having thought far enough to come up with a new name. "-Aen."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Zech said. He took a step back and shook his hands. "I confused you with someone else. You look kind of similar to him, Aen."

And then he hesitated. That name just sounded like someone had modified the last syllable in Jonathan. Not to mention this Aen person broke up Jonathan's name at a weird place. Nobody talked like that. Except for one person.

"Maahes?" Zech said, blinking.

Maahes froze.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he promptly informed Zech, hoping that his tone and the look on his face did a good job convincing him of that. He forced his guise's lips up into a smile.

On a tree nearby, there was something carved into the bark. A perfect circle. Though it looked to be done with a knife.
On the other side of the tree, there was a small piece of paper stuck betweenthe bark so it would stay there. If they found it, it would read "Artifact of Erel."

Ryder looked back to Juniper and Lorcan.
"I thought you weren't from this world?" He paused. That was irrelevant, and confusingly worded. "Which Artifact are you talking about?" he asked, trying to steer the conversation away from that bit of confusionn he had created.

"I don't know," Lorcan helplessly said. "The voice-"

Wait, should he mention the voice? It wasn't a normal way of communication, and he doubted it was normal even here. What if Princess Rose and Ryder thought that they weren't exactly right in the head? They couldn't risk that, right-

"The voice in our head just said we had to find it," Juniper continued. "It was a pretty young voice - maybe a kid's? - and said that it was responsible for bringing us here."