Young Writers Society

Landon went through the motions of breathing slowly as the wooden bodies dropped around him, and concentrated on picturing his own face, his own body, and how it felt to be in it.

After a few moments, the wooden body dropped to the floor, and he was left looking like himself again: at an average height, scruffy red hair, brown eyes, and wearing his favorite bomber jacket. He grinned, delighted that he could have some sembelence of expression again.

Now that he was somewhat himself, he glanced around. His gaze landed on the wooden person in the corner- who, by process of elimination, he guessed was Thytes- and walked over to him.

"Hey." He said softly. "Is everything okay? Having trouble visualizing?"

"Er," Thytes said, pressing his hands against the wall and glancing at the reapers, "You could say that, yes." As uncomfortable as the idea of not being able to remember all his forms was, the idea of being forcibly cut from his body was even worse. What would that feel like?

Magic felt a pang of joy as Kynan, Tristan and Landon all successfully separated themselves from the wooden bodies they had put the three in, but the joy was quickly dashed when they noticed the trouble that Thytes was having. At least Landon had noticed and was trying to help out; that was nice of him, and a bit of a relief. It was hard comforting someone and convincing them to do something, and Landon had just taken of the comfort.

Or some of it, at least.

It didn't take long for Magic to figure out why Thytes was having trouble. He had more forms than anyone else present, and Magic knew things like that were always had to visualize. They looked over at the Gunslinger. When the reaper gave them a questioning look, they slipped past Mage and Knight and walked over to him.

"He has a lot of forms," they said.

The Gunslinger gave a small nod in acknowledgement. "I was guessing that."

"I don't think he'll be able to turn back to normal without, you know..." they trailed off, sure that the reaper had gotten the meaning. "I know that the preferred method is getting people to do it themselves to avoid repeat possessions, but do you think it'll help if he sees himself?"

The Gunslinger thought for a moment.

"In his case, yes," the reaper decided. "But I'm not the most precise when it comes to cutting connections like that - I'm better with straight out reaping. I can do it, but I wouldn't be able to take him by surprise-"

Blanx, still on his phone, suddenly walked up from behind Thytes and slashed at his wooden body with the long sword from earlier. Magic couldn't see souls right now like the two reapers could, but they knew what would have happened - the connection had been severed, and Thytes was going to pop out in just a matter of seconds.

Body after body clattered to the ground around Amber. She tried to concentrate on her own body, to visualize it and bring it to life, but she kept getting distracted by the successes of everyone around her. People she had started to get to know were suddenly complete strangers again as they showed up in their natural forms. Tristan in particular fascinated her. Apparently otters looked a lot less fearsome than she had thought the name implied.

Focus. She just needed to focus. Everyone else except Thytes had already succeeded in getting their bodies back and he seemed to be having trouble. While everyone was concentrated on him she closed her eyes and tried to visualize her body. She kept bringing up the feeling of the wind in her leaves and her roots in the ground but she forced herself to pull away from that, inside a building didn't seem the best place to materialize a tree. If it was even possible in the first place. Instead, she focused on the feeling of living wood. Wood with graceful curves and spirals. Pointed ears, long wild hair. The deadwood body crashed to the ground and a tall young woman appeared next to it. Her body was still made of wood but more alive with a pronounced wood grain effect making patterns and spirals around her body with a green undertone instead of the red and blue of a normal human. Her hair was a dark forest green and came down to about mid-back in elegant waves. She wore a simple tunic with brown leggings and leather boots. Finally, her face could also show emotion. Emotion enough to look shocked as the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was a reaper swinging a sword through Thytes body.

Thytes screamed, less out of pain and more out of seeing the sword cut into him. He'd been looking at the wrong reaper this entire time, but Blanx had simply seemed too distracted.

Panting and shaking, the lion watched his body fall to the floor. It took a little while before he realized that he hadn't gone down with it.

Better yet, he felt a little bit like himself.

Reaching his paws up to his face, Thytes felt a mane that he had half-convinced himself he wouldn't have again. There were even a few red bows still in it. And, when he looked down, he found that his arms and legs were covered in fur instead of bark. He was wearing his blue robes, sandals on his feet, and a sword strapped to a belt.

The lion breathed a sigh of relief. He was okay.

Landon gave an unconscious gasp and jumped as Blanx's sword came down on Thytes. His eyes widened even further when the lion was left standing in its place, and he was relieved that he hadn't been injured.

"Well... that's effective." he finally acknowledged, his voice quiet.

Amber breathed (breathed!) a sigh of relief as she saw that Thytes' wooden body was the only thing that had been harmed by the sword. The initial relief dissipated into awe as she realized she was now looking at a real life lion for only the second time in her life.

Blanx made his sword disappear before returning to his corner of the room.

The Gunslinger grinned. "Reaping doesn't actually hurt," the reaper explained, walking over to Thytes's wooden body and dragging it into the corner of the room. "People just get scared of it because of what it's supposed to do. That's why it's important to surprise people when they're scared of it - so I apologize on Blanx's behalf for frightening you all."

"It's alright-" Magic started to say, only to turn and see that Mage was clinging almost comically to Knight, legs wrapped around him and arms thrown over his shoulders. Apparently, Mage had gotten a little more scared by the whole situation that Magic had expected.

As the reaper finished moving all of their wooden bodies to the corner, he paused and looked back at the group lingering in the room. "I just realized we never introduced ourselves," the Gunslinger. "I'm Rekune. Lieutenant over there is Blanx - something tells me you've already gotten the subtext, but we're boyfriends."

"I'm Mage," was the reply as Knight tried to pry his boyfriend off of him. He finally gave up with a sigh. The demon, either still a little frightened or too comfortable to really move, pointed at the man he was clinging to. "This is Knight. We're also boyfriends."

Magic gestured at the others in their group. "Thytes is the lion, Kynan is the hound, Tristan is the otter, Amber is the dryad, and Landon is the human."

"And what about you?" Rekune asked, his head tilting ever so slightly to the side. "I've tried figuring it out based on your soul, but I don't have a clue on what you are."

Magic sheepishly rubbed the back of their neck. "Yeah, I was guessing you were thinking that." They gave an awkward smile. "I'm the Personification of Magic. I'm technically not supposed to meddle with things like this, but, well..." They took a deep breath. "I've always had trouble not doing that, so it looks like the multiverse decided to punish me by making me take part."

Rekune looked them over for a moment.

"Oof," he finally said. "That has to suck."

"You have no idea," Magic replied. Their gaze traveled across the room to where Landon was standing. They didn't know too much about him or his life - save that he came from a reality where almost everyone was a copy of a person from another reality - but something about him seemed...off. He had been so excited earlier, but now he just was standing there and offering quiet, brief comments.

They walked over to Landon.

"Are you okay?" they asked. "You seem...a little out of it."

Behind them, Rekune had appeared in the kitchen again, now cheerfully finishing up the preparations on the hot chocolate. It didn't take long for him to mix it all, considering that he cheated a bit by using his darkness instead of just his two hands. "Hot chocolate's done!" he announced, gesturing at the array of mugs on the counter.

Magic walked over and grabbed one for them and one for Landon before returning to the human's side. Behind them, Mage and Knight stared at the hot chocolate, the second hesitantly poking the liquid instead the mug and recoiling back in shock when he felt how hot it was.

Landon startled a little and blinked rapidly as Magic addressed him. As what they were asking finally registered, a little smile at himself tugged at the corners of his mouth. He was acting out of it, wasn't he?

In the space between Magic walking up and him being ready to answer, they had returned with hot chocolate, and he took it gratefully.

"Thank you. And- I'm fine, sorry." He said, warming his hands with the mug and smiling down into the drink. "I'm just..."

He paused, on the brink of playing off his thoughts and worries for something more mild and reassuring. Then he looked up, and Magic's friendly expression made him think better of it.

"It's just that-" he lowered his voice, and a little furrow developed between his brows. "I'm just now kind of realizing how useless I am with figuring everything out, and helping get our bodies back. Out of everyone else, I mean. I'm the least qualified. More than that, though..."

He let out a little breath and struggled once again to muster a small smile, still not wanting to fully display how pathetic he felt, even in the midst of his honesty.

"I woke up here in the middle of a mess in my own reality, and I'm just starting to see how useless I must have been there, too."

Thytes moved over to one of the couches and sat down, rubbing his eyes. He really wanted to say something to Landon, something reassuring or hopeful or even just "at least you weren't afraid of everything," but he couldn't help but feel like an idiot. It was an odd feeling. Strapping and handsome and intelligent as he felt like he was, and as good of a person as he was trying to be, he wasn't quite sure how to take it. It left him almost paralyzed, for lack of a better word. Not being able to talk to Landon just added guilt to the mix.

And then he realized someone was waving a mug under his face.

"Hey," Tristan said. "This stuff's pretty good." When the lion looked up and, very gently, took the mug, Tristan smiled and flopped down on the couch next to Thytes, Kynan sitting next to Tristan.

The lion peered down at whatever was swirling around. He sniffed. "Oh," he said, taking a sip, "This is just like that recipe Lunis gave me when we were living together. Did I not make some for the both of you?"

Tristan looked up, tilting his head. "Yeah?" the otter said. "It was kinda cold, though. And bitter."

"Try not to tell him," Thytes said, a faint smile on his face, "But I prefer this version much more." He looked over to Rekune. "Thank you for your hospitality!"

Magic sipped on their hot chocolate as they listened to Landon speak, feeling a pang of pity when they heard how he felt. They didn't know too much of what was going on in his reality, but they had been able to guess from what he had been saying since he showed up. Landon was a copy. A lot of people in the multiverse were copies of each other, but Landon's was a special case. It wasn't like he had interdimensional twin; like most of the people in his reality, he was a duplicate created after something had happened. They didn't know what that something was, but it still meant Landon wasn't the first Landon.

And to know that much have felt horrible.

"I don't think you're useless," Magic said. They watched the steam rise from their cup, then looked back up at him. "You're just...different. Different's not bad. And, honestly? I think I might have you beat right now. You might not have the same skills at your disposal that ever else does, but that's how you've always been. You know how to handle things like that, and trust me when I say that's a great ability to have."

They took a deep breath.

"I...I can't access all of my abilities right now," they quietly admitted. "I have some magic in my soul, but my body is the main conduit. Without it, I'm really limited. And I...I'm using to having the world at my fingertips. I know how to handle myself in situations without my magic, but not like this."

They gave him a small smile.

"And everyone here except Rekune and Blanx are from worlds and lives that aren't like this," they added. "You, me and them are the only ones who know how to navigate this world, and that already puts us at an advantage. So you're definitely not useless, Landon. You're really, really useful."


"You're welcome," Rekune said, his voice clearly distracted as he listened to the conversation going on a short distance away. He wished he could offer words of comfort of his own, but he barely knew these people. What was he supposed to say, and what could he possibly do besides just apologize for what the two had to be going through?

Landon offered Magic a small smile, and it crinkled gently up to the corners of his eyes. He let out a breath. Simply admitting what he had been harboring alone for the past few weeks had unraveled a knot in his chest, and while hearing their reassurances, the tightness had lessened even further.

"Thank you." he said softly, his eyes gleaming. After a few moments, he cleared his throat and looked down. "I didn't know how much I needed to hear that until now."

"And you're doing a good job." He added, gaining a bit more fervor, "compensating without all of your magic, I mean."

With this, he raised the mug to his lips, and with a little wince, took several hearty gulps of hot chocolate. A little line of the drink remained on his lip as he pulled it back again, and he smiled a little wider, oblivious.

"This is great hot chocolate." He murmured, mostly to himself.

Amber heard the word chocolate and was suddenly blind to everything around her. She quickly crossed the room, sidestepping Mage and Knight to grab a mug. She closed her eyes and took a long swig savoring the taste and the warmth as it traveled down her throat.

Not until she finished off the mug did Amber realize that something was going on. She looked over and couldn't help but listen in on Landon and Magic's conversation. She felt guilty that she couldn't think of anything to say to Landon to help. At least, nothing Magic wasn't already saying.

After grabbing another mug of cocoa, she found a seat next to to Thytes. She smiled as he interacted with the Tristan and Kynan but she didn't miss the contemplative air he had about him when the younger ones weren't pulling him into their conversation. She thought she might be able to guess what it was about.

"There's nothing wrong with not being able to find your body. At least you got through the portal without someone having to pull you along. I thought it was quite brave of you, jumping through after them like that," she nodded to the otter and the hound.