Young Writers Society

James continued to flip the knife around in his hand as Maahes began to babble, but he stopped when he heard the name Vala. It was possible, by chance or coincidence, that there was another Vala out there that was completely unrelated to his old friend. But combined with the context of everything else Adrion was going on about, the chances were starting to seem... too unlikely that it would be pure coincidence. Especially since, in all of his meetings with Maahes, it had been... pure coincidence.

He squinted his eyes, looking more closely at the teenager before him. Maahes was able to shift and change, and look like whomever or whatever he desired, but it was odd to see him... aged down in appearance. But then he also took into account the strange gun that the kid had, and how it seemed most definitely foreign to his world.

What were the odds that someone was able to bluff so genuinely? And what were the odds that Maahes was still terrible at explaining things succinctly while under pressure and in slightly awkward situations?

James sighed, and met the teenager's eyes.

"You're either Maahes, or you're about to join the others over at that tree."

"I'm Maahes," he quickly confirmed, grateful that James had given him a simple comment to reply to. He couldn't help it. He hated when there was situations like this because he never knew what to say, and he always got so flustered when he realized his friends didn't recognize him.

He glanced over at the group currently tied up to the tree. They wouldn't be going anywhere in the near future. The zat guns, as Cameron and Daniel seemed to call them, knocked someone out for a good period of time. It would take awhile for them to regain movement, and it would take even longer for them to figure out a way out of those ropes.

Then he glanced around, just to make sure there wasn't anyone watching them. When he was certain that wasn't going to be an issue, he switched his guise to the one that he had used last - masquerade clothes included, because he doubted James would recognize it if he was wearing the clothes he had typically worn with that specific guise. "This is what I looked like last time we met, just in case you want proof."

James blinked a few times, a weak smile forming on his face.

"Sh*t... you really look just like you did back then," he marveled.

Maahes went to change his guise back to the one he had been using before, but paused just before he switched it. He had been using that guise in case he ran into Annie. He was on Nye now - again, he added, because this wasn't the first time he had been to this planet - and doubted he would find here. Whether this was simply another world or a place in a different reality, he could never be certain. But Annie wasn't good to be here. He could feel it. This world was a place that Annie would have hated, if what James said about magic all those years ago still held true now.

So he decided to keep this guise, exchanging the extravagant clothes he would have worn with something more akin to the clothes his bounty hunter guise had used. He could change them later once he had a better idea of what this world's clothing was like. It was an interesting combination, but he liked it.

Now that his guise was taken care of, he turned his attention back to James. He had been so caught up in the moment that he didn't notice how terrible his friend looked. He just seemed so...frail. He had been like that, once, back in that cave. But it had never been this bad. And they didn't have someone like Lucifer on hand again to fix him up. The sight filled him with worry. He had lived among humans for thousands of years, but it was still hard for him to gauge just how badly off someone was.

And, Altera, he looked horrible.

They had been taunting him about food, hadn't they? He looked over at the food that had fallen onto the ground when he had shot the trio of bounty hunters. That was too dirty; James couldn't eat that, especially when his immune system could be compromised. He needed to find something for James to eat, but he was hit with the horrible realization that he had no idea what was safe for humans to eat on this planet. If he had learned it the last time he was here, he certainly had forgotten.

"You need food, right?" he asked, trying to figure out the right way to say what he wanted to ask. He glanced over at the bounty hunters. They needed to get away from here, too, and he needed to know what alias James was going by. But food was the first step. "Is there anything I can get? Gather? Hunt? I don't really know what food is like out here, and I don't want to grab something that will make you feel worse."

James watched blankly as Maahes changed yet again, but this time only his clothes. He'd only seen Maahes shift a handful of times before, and each time it was beyond the fullness of his comprehension. Magic was just the same, and that he was more familiar with, if only from a distance.

But as he watched his friend go deep in thought, with the relief of knowing that it was, in fact, Maahes, his own thoughts began to drift. There were no more threats to face today. The bounty hunters were tied up. Adrion wasn't real, and Maahes was.

He stared out somewhere past Maahes, feeling his body, for once, even if slightly, begin to relax again. But then Maahes mentioned food.

"I... I don't know about food right now," he said hesitantly, nose picking up again on the smell of meat still in the air. "I... might not be able to keep it down," he admitted quietly.

He took a deep breath. He didn't technically need it, not when he was lacking a set of lungs to breath with. But just the action of opening his mouth, sucking air in and letting it back felt good, another accidental perk of pretending to be human for so long.

"Okay," he said. "I don't understand that much about human biology, but won't you have to eat soon? It can't be good to go without food for awhile." He didn't say how long. He didn't want to guess, and he didn't want James to tell him. Just the thought of his friend being put through what he must have experienced made his essence twist and churn.

James continued to stare out blankly into the forest, and started to loosely play with the knife in his hands again. He could feel his stomach simultaneously cry for food, while also demanding he never eat again. It was... a familiar feeling. One he was probably far too content with.

“It’s been five days,” he spoke softly. “When... the human body goes without food for a while it... kind of gets used to it, in a way. You just kind of... have trouble focusing. And getting back into eating is hard on the digestive system so, if I do eat, it shouldn’t be very much at first.”

That made sense. He vaguely remembered noticing that the last time he had seen James in a similar state; when he had been offered food, he hadn't eaten too much of it. He probably would be unable to hold it down. Whatever he ended up giving him, it would have to be something small. It would also have to be something that wasn't hard on the digestive system in general.

He looked around the woods. "Is there any plants here that are edible? I could get some for you, and you can eat as much as you can. I'll save the rest. I, uh, don't think I'll be leaving Nye in the near future."

He should have been more worried about that, but, for the first time, he had people to be concerned when he didn't show up. There was Vala. There was the rest of his team. There was General Landry, even though he still didn't know his commander all that well. One of them would question why he hadn't sent any messages back to them yet, and one of them would come to find him. He would just have to hold out until then, and hope that they would have a better idea of what was going on than he did.

James continued to stare out into the forest past Maahes, at nothing in particular.

"We passed..." he paused, for a good few seconds as he played back the last day in his mind, remembering visuals. "...there's some brussels. It's like... tiny cabbages. They're little sprouts on a big stem. Big leaves at the top," he began to explain as he slowly pushed himself up, and dusted himself off. He threw the knife down into the ground and started walking towards Maahes. "I can just show you," he said, walking up to him, joints aching as he did so.

It was a strange feeling. His body felt... empty. It was like his body was moving and he didn't know how. It was a dissociative state, and he felt trapped in it, but at least by some miracle he was still functioning.

Brussels? Maahes knew what those were. Interesting. So either James was from another reality, or Nye had plants similar to the ones from Earth. Either way, that was a relief. He knew Earth foods better than even foods from Annie's planet. It had taken a certain amount of knowledge to pass as a human, especially back in the days of witch trials and public hangings. He would have to ask James more about his world's plants later to see if there were more similarities.

But, for now, he had some brussels to find.

His first instinct was to tell James to remain back at the campfire; he was in no state to move around right now. Still, there were other factors to consider. If the three bounty hunters awoke and managed to escape, James wouldn't stand a chance against them, and Maahes wasn't sure he'd be able to pull off the same stunt he had the last time.

"There's, uh, actually brussels on a planet that I spent a good portion of my life on," he said. He eyed the knife out of the corner of his eye. Now that he was slightly farther away from it, the pain didn't hurt as much. "And from your description, they sound about the same. But it's probably a good idea to start getting away from this group."

He looked back at the knife.

Taking a deep breath, he walked over to it and grabbed onto the hilt, trying to ignore his essence screaming out in pain as he brought it over to James. "I know your body isn't doing so good right now, but you should keep this. You never know when it'll be useful later."

James took the knife slowly from Maahes's hands, him a narrow eyed look. He slipped the knife into his boot. "Okay," he said as he was standing up. "Then just tell me why you were so worried about it earlier. I mean, there's no way I would've been able to overpower you anyway. I'm pretty sure if I threw it at you you'd dodge it or catch it like you did with the meat, so what's the deal?"

He took another deep breath. He was surprised this topic hadn't come up with him before, though he did pride himself on his ability to hide how much certain things from this realm of existence hurt him.

"Remember how I'm made of something called essence?" he asked. It had been some time for him since they had talked about that subject, and guessed that it had been the same for James. "There's some things that irritate my essence. Iron and silver are some of them, though silver's worse. Some herbs are also pretty bad, too. Rosemary's one of the worst ones, if you have that here."

He looked over at James and gave him a small smile. "I'm usually good at hiding that pain, so I guess it's just never been easy to notice before. It, uh, hasn't ended well in the past when people have noticed my pain. Namely during the Middle Ages. They were convinced that I had made a contract with the Devil...." Not exactly that far off, considering that he was a demon, but it still had been a horrible experience. He was lucky he could change his guise. He had managed to escape his bonds and slip out of town without anyone noticing.

James tilted his head slightly, looking Maahes up and down briefly as he explained. He didn't know what the Middle Ages were or who the Devil was, but he figured they was a time from another world or another reality. He wasn't going to ask. He had other concerns.

"So does it only hurt if you touch it? Or is it a proximity issue?" James asked, feeling genuine concern over not being able to read Maahes's pain if he were so accustomed to hiding it (not that he was any better, though he had to admit he was embarrassingly weaker in most respects). "If I have it on me are you okay?"

He should have guessed that James was going to ask that question, but he had been hopeful that the fact that he had given it to him would have convinced James that he was fine with the knife being there. He would just have to tell the truth; James would pick up on him lying about that if he saw him flinch later.

"It's a combination," he said. He met his friend's worried gaze. "It hurts the most when I touch it, but it'll still hurt if I'm too close." He paused and looked down at the ground. "...it hurts a little now, actually. But it's more important that you have that knife on you, and I've dealt with stuff like that before. I used to live on Earth. Iron and silver are everywhere there."

He knew that James was going to protest. He knew that he was going to say that his comfort came first, even though a knife was one of the most useful things someone could have in a place like this. And before he could even really think about if he wanted to share this particular bit of information with someone, he found himself saying, "And my essence already hurts right now, so a little more pain isn't that hard to handle."

James stared at Maahes blankly for a solid three seconds. He was already in pain.

With a sudden movement, James three the knife wildly out into the darkness of the forest, watching as it dissapeared somewhere into the bushes.

“Well, glad we got that out of the way, then.”