Young Writers Society

Lex easily caught the pebble, eying the group before him before tossing it over in Helenah's direction. He hoped the game would get her mind off of her leg and not being home.

...He hoped it would get his mind off of not being home. Even as the pebble left his hands, all he could think about was how Aleks would react to him not showing up for their morning sparring session. He would be angry, and then he would let everyone know.

And that meant letting him know.

...He was very, very scared to see what things would be like when he got back.

Helenah was distracted for a moment but then when she saw the pebble flying towards her she yelped quietly and clamped her mouth shut, making the pebble end up on the grass.

"Oh my." she mumbled, picking up the pebble and tossing it to Rayden. She threw an apologetic look to Lex. She bit her lip nervously. So far, not so good.

Kiran let that slip up pass. She didn't want to end the game so soon after it started.

"So," she said, hoping to strike up some kind of conversation to keep her mind occupied, "do any of you have a date-mate?"

Helenah looked at her, puzzled. "What's a date-mate?" she asked. She looked up at the sky again, looking for her animal friend.

Nope. No sight of her. Oh wait - there's a little dot up in the air! Maybe it could be Ruby? After squinting a little, to Helenah's disappointment, she realized it was just one of the floating things.

Where in the world did Ruby go?

Kiran blushed, "A, uh, date-mate. Like, someone, you're... together, with. You know, hang out together, live together sometimes...other things." She blushed harder, regretting her life.

Nina would be teasing her relentlessly right now. Nina would also have already won this game.

Kiran looked around, trying to figure out who had the pebble. She looked at hands and faces. Who looked guilty? Whose hands could she see?

Scanning the group and trying to figure out who had the pebble - yes, what the seeker was supposed to do, but Aegeas wanted to see how the others could hide it from Kiran - the otter grinned. "Some of my friends do," he said. "You don't have to be so embarrassed about it."

Despite his words, she only blushed harder, her skin helpfully going through a full sunset in the space of six seconds and descending into a deep shade of twilight.

She tried to focus more on the game.

Dara felt incredibly indifferent about the new game the others had started, setting her eyes straight ahead in the direction they were going. Actually, she was deeply absorbed in the prediction of how muddy her boots would get after this journey through the forest. So damn muddy. And she would need to clean them later.

But she soon found herself caught in the middle of it when the pebble came flying her way out of her peripheral. Her reflexes caught it – the pebble clinked softly against the metal of her rings, but not too noticeably.

It made no sense to show resistance here, so when Kiran didn’t seem to be looking Dara sent the pebble towards Aegeas. A wicked grin flickered on her face for just a moment; maybe she would appreciate this game more than expected.

Aegeas caught the pebble easily, passing it from one paw to the other. "Feel free not to answer if you don't want to, but who's your date-mate? What are they like?" the otter said, waiting until he was partly obscured by an arch to toss the pebble over his head, aiming for Lex.

Kiran was grateful for the darker skin tone, otherwise, she would have been beet red.

"Her name is Nina," she said, looking at Dara, seeing her hands empty, and moving on, "She's perfect..." her voice went breathy as she lost herself temporarily in wonderful thoughts. She shook herself out of it and regained focus on the game.

Lex easily caught the pebble, holding it in his hands in a way that obscured it was there without making it look like it was clenched shut. He would wait a few moments before passing it on.

But as they kept walking, his mind wandered to the closest thing he had to a "date-mate". They weren't more than just friends - strange friends who had a connection that they couldn't easily explain, but friends nonetheless - but he had...felt things that went past the realm of friendship for awhile.

...Which had involved panicking in the middle of the night because he wasn't as straight as he thought he had been, and desperately seeking out all of the other people like him in the palace to ask for guidance on the whole "not being straight and crushing on someone you're close with" situation.

Date mates. Rayden wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh until he cried, until he was sufficiently empty, because he didn't want to remember.

But remember he did: green eyes and gold hair and good looks that didn't belong on a street boy. His best friend. Only friend. Too little, too long ago and he didn't even know why his face popped up in his head with the word date-mate.

"Nah, I don't do date mates, " He told his lovestruck bunch of new acquaintances. He wanted to keep the mood light, but everyone was so melancholy. He didn't hold that against them. He'd had years to get over his loss. The guys around him had had less than a day.

“Same,” said Dara after hearing Rayden’s response, looking over at him as she did. She didn’t say it was because of her inevitably destructive fate.

"You're all missing out," Kiran said and examined those around her. No one was being obvious about having or not having the pebble, a rarity in new players.

Dae tried to remember if he had anything close to a date-mate, but he simply couldn't think of anyone. As in, when he thought about those close to him, some barrier prevented him from finding them. He felt as though there was someone, but the thought that he might have forgotten them so thoroughly disturbed him.

However, this disturbed feeling quickly turned to dismay, not at losing possibly good memories, but dismay at the fact that thus far he had not been allowed to hold, or keep hidden, the pebble. Probably a good thing.