Young Writers Society

Greed watched as his sibling turned the corner with the group. When he could no longer see them or the others, he turned back to Fyrsil. "So," he said, "what exactly happened before I got here?"


He shifted uncomfortably.

"It...It just didn’t feel right," he said. There was no one moment where he questioned if what he was doing was a good thing - it was a series of little events that made him realize he needed to leave the hive ship.

"Do you want the whole story?" Fyrsil said. "Or do you just want to know what happened when we got to the room? It's been kind of a hectic day."



Tristan nodded his head. He didn't know what the stranger meant by that - given with the wraiths were like, and how they probably handled prisoners, he got the sense that it was a little more than the stranger just being uncomfortable with the hive ship. But he also wasn't in any mood to ask any more questions, and he'd also started to realize that it'd been eerily quiet on the other side of the door.

"I think he's done?" Tristan said. The sound of something slumping against the door, on top of the slight amount of pressure Tristan felt, only confirmed it.

"Either one," Greed said, taking his sunglasses out from his pocket and absentmindedly fiddling with them. "I'd prefer to know the whole story, but I know a thing or two about hectic days."


"It does sound like it," Robin agreed. She had been silently listening to the whole conversation, trying to get a grasp on what the stranger's life had been like up to this point - there was certainly a lot of new, bizarre things that she had never heard of before.

After looks were exchanged by the group leaning up against the door, they each took a step back. Robin carefully reached her hand out to open the door, darkness prepared to spring forth the moment Aegeas tried anything against her or the others.

Rotating his shoulders, Fyrsil sighed. "There's not even that much I can say?" he said. "Me and a few friends woke up in barrels, we went up some stairs and ran into some other strangers, headed back down and found some more strangers. One of which was your brother. There was some kind of long conversation, one of my friends was angry at Envy because they stole that friend's brother's staff, Envy tore his leg open, Kellach threw up" - Fyrsil raised a paw and took a deep breath - "some more conversation, we all got together, we split up into groups, I was kind of awkward around your brother and vice versa, we found a weird room, Kendrik tried to grab me, Envy pulled me away, Envy broke his sword, Kendrik heard me, we sort of made up, and then you showed up."

Fyrsil huffed. "And that's about what happened," he said, looking up at Greed.



Tristan tensed as Robin opened the door. Slowly and deliberately as she did it, she was as afraid of Aegeas striking as he was, which didn't reassure him.

Fortunately, they didn't have much to worry about; Tristan could see Aegeas sprawled out, face presumably pressing into the door. Breathing a sigh of relief, Tristan stepped out onto the roof.

"What do we do with him now?" he said, looking back to the others.

Greed stared at Fyrsil for the first minute that followed the explanation.

"Well," he said, drawing out the l's "That's one of the crazier stories I've heard, and I live with Martel."

Fyrsil, of course, had no way of knowing who Martel was, but it was the thought that counted.

It sounded like he'd have a lot to ask Envy when they were reunited later - Fyrsil was a good storyteller, but Envy definitely had some explaining to do.

...Namely about why they'd tear their leg open.

"Any idea where we are?" he asked. The aimless wandering suggested no one knew, but he was being optimistic.


Robin stared for a minute, only to give a shrug as a response.

"We could drag him around," she said, "but something tells me he'll still want to kill us when he eventually wakes up."

"More like kill me," the stranger quietly said. He was watching Aegeas with a wary expression on his face, hands slipping inside of his bag to pull out what appeared to be a mask. He slipped the simple mask on over his face, and put on a pair of gloves for good measure.

"I don't think that's going to trick him," Zogin argued.

The stranger ducked his head down. "It's not supposed to," he said. "It's for if we run into any other people."

Fyrsil shrugged. "That's kind of what we split up for?" he said. "We know we're on a ship, but we don't know where the ship is, or if it's even on the water. At least, I feel like I would've noticed if it was. And I don't think it's going to get any less crazy from here."



"I don't know," Tristan said. He crouched down at poked at Aegeas; his brother didn't move. A good sign, given the circumstances. "He always gets depressed when he wakes up after stuff like this. I don't think he'll try to hurt anyone?"

Greed stared.

"Why wouldn't we be on the water?" he asked. Fyrsil wasn't making any sense. The ship could be docked on a shore, but it would still be in the water. You couldn't just move ships like that. The only time it wouldn't be was if some alchemist had decided to stupidly transmute one on land, but that didn't make sense.


The stranger breathed out a quiet sigh of relief.

"Well," Robin said, "then I guess our best plan of action is to stay here."

Zogin noticed that Mage had scooted over towards his side. It made sense, in retrospect - demons seemed to be as feared and hated as the wraith were. But he had a certain glint to his eyes that Zogin had never really seen before; it was almost like the look he got around Soul, but even that wasn't the same.

"...How old are you?" Mage suddenly asked the stranger.

The stranger hesitated for a moment.

"...Why?" he asked in response.

Mage shifted and almost looked shy. The crying earlier had thrown her off, but Zogin frankly had no idea how to deal with this version of him. "I was just curious," he said, his voice little more than a whisper.

"I'm..." The stranger faltered. "How old are you?"

"I asked you first," Mage replied. The shyness faded a little, and he crossed his arms - that was the Mage she knew. "You mentioned you were a lorist for thirteen years, but it didn't sound like you were talking about something from your childhood. It sounded like you were talking about the last couple of years of your life."

The stranger gave him a hopeless, embarrassed look.

"...I'm fifteen," he admitted, ducking his head down.

So that's why Mage had wanted to know his age. He was looking for a fellow teenager - now he was smiling as he looked at the stranger. "I'm fourteen," Mage said.

The stranger raised his head. Realizing the reason for Mage's question, he shyly returned the smile Mage was giving him.

Fyrsil shuffed back, feeling a little more self-conscious under Greed's stare. "I'm not sure," he said with a even bigger shrug. "It just doesn't feel like we're on the water?"



"Wow," Tristan said slowly, watching the conversation between Mage and the stranger unfold. He set his paws on his hips and shook his head. "I thought I was the youngest person here, and I'm twenty-one."

"But why wouldn't be on the water?" Greed slowly repeated. He had to agree - it didn't feel like they were on water. But he didn't understand where else a boat of this size could be lurking, and Fyrsil's response did little to help with that.


"I think we might be the youngest people on the ship," Mage said to the stranger. The stranger seemed far more relaxed now that there was someone somewhat like him - Robin had no way of knowing what lurked underneath his makeshift sheet cloak, but she did have a sneaking suspicion that there were more similarities than Mage was letting on.

Fyrsil threw up his paws. "How am I supposed to know?" he said. "It reminds me of the airship I flew around on, but I haven't ran into the crew, I don't know what's powering this thing, and it just looks too neat and tidy to be a proper airship."



"Kids," Tristan mumbled, grabbing Aegeas by the fur on his neck. Draping his brother over his shoulder, Tristan leaned forward to keep himself from toppling over. Ugh - carrying him would be a pain, especially without help.

"Can someone help me out?" Tristan said. "If we go somewhere else, I don't want to leave him here. He is my brother."

"A what?" Greed asked, incredulous. Dublith may not have been Rush Valley, but he knew about technology from the people who frequented the Devil's Nest - airships just weren't a thing that existed. They could, theoretically, exist somewhere else, but how could a ship ever fly?


Robin was already heading towards Aegeas and Tristan when Tristan asked for help; she easily lifted the unconscious otter's legs up. "Got it," she said, giving a grin that Tristan probably wasn't going to see.

"Y'know, airships?" Fyrsil said, tilting his head. "Metal and wood, huge canvas blimps, mages to keep the thing afloat, and lots of people to help steer it, load up the cannons, and defend it? I was one of the rowers, and so was Kellach."



"Thanks," Tristan said, unable to look back without risking dropping his brother. "He's a bit heavy, isn't he?"

Greed had never really considered himself defined by his sin. He had some avaricious moments, but they were never considerably larger than those around him - humans were generally a greedy race, and his greed made him seem like one of many.

But this was greediest plan all day - or, possibly, all week. He may have been closer to a certain armored alchemist, but his far shorter brother would be more up to the task.

"Can you draw a diagram of one?" Greed abruptly asked. He knew the materials, now; all he needed was the basic design.


"He's actually not that bad," Robin replied. She readjusted how she was carrying him after another moment passed - though his weight was nothing major, it still was awkwardly distributed in the way she was currently carrying his legs.

Fyrsil took a step back - Greed was a little enthusiastic about those airships. Had he really never seen one before?

"I'd need a pen and some paper," he said, glancing down the hallway to see if anyone else had come back yet. No luck; he was stuck with Greed. "And I'm not really a shipbuilder, so I don't know if I could make you a good picture? Also, there were a bunch of places on the ship I wasn't allowed to go into."



"Getting him down the stairs might be a pain, though," Tristan said. He looked at everyone else. "Because we are going downstairs, aren't we? To meet up with everyone else? Instead of standing here and arguing about what's safe and what isn't for the next hour?"

"It's alright," Greed said with a dismissive way of his hand. "I just need a basic sketch - the rooms can be improvised. All I really need to know is how they fly, and how whatever makes them do that is set up."


"That does sound like a plan," Robin agreed. A short distance away, the stranger was in the middle of readjusting his mask and straightening out his gloves. She wasn't sure how well that disguise was going to work with the others, but hopefully Aegeas was the only one with the anger issues and apparent burning hatred of the wraith.