Young Writers Society

Bo blinked at the sudden new appearance and waved slowly. He looked to Nex.

"Uh, to answer your question, I don't know who Tieth is, but this isn't a test, at least, not one I arranged or was a part of planning or anything - and uh, as for you," he said, with a small bow of his head to the newcomer. "If this be a kidnapping, it be a group kidnapping. And well, it wouldn't be my first time being kidnapped, so. I suppose it was fated to happen eventually." He looked up, standing up straight again and smiled. "What's your name, stranger?"

Vesper glanced at the tall, scarred man wearily. Arm tensed, he slowly lowered his hand from his sword's hilt. Flexing his hand restlessly, he graced the man with the slightest bow of his head.

"Call me Ca- Vesper. And you are-?"

"Bo!" he said with another little bow, this time adding a twirl of his hand. "Or if you're a stickler for formalities, technically the name's Andrei Petrov. But I go by Bo pretty much all the time. And oh!" He gestured to the pajama-wearing vampire beside him. "This is my good friend Kratzer. He's a vampire," he said, then pointed over to Nex with both hands. "And that there's King Nex of the Castle of Blood. Apparently, just Nex is fine, though. Seems like we all popped in here unexpectedly." He looked up and around the room as if it might hold answers. "My best guess is that it was some kind of weird magic."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Kratzer added. "Getting randomly teleported into rooms has happened to me several times. Some of my close comrades as well. Pleasure to meet you, Vesper."

"More magic. Just what I needed." Vesper sighed, restraining from rubbing his tired eyes. He gave a little polite bow to each of these men as they were introduced, reserving a notably larger, yet colder bow for Nex.

"Andrei, a pleasure. Kratzer. Your Highness."

Standing stiffly, he debated whether he should fix his disheveled appearance or refrain from drawing attention to it at all. He settled subtly with smoothing his hair back.

He knew it was stupid reason to suddenly grow comfortable with the situation, but Vesper's reaction to him was the sort of reaction he had been expecting all along - the coldness, and the way he had gripped his weapon even tighter than before when he had noticed the draconian being standing there. Although, bizarrely enough, he couldn't tell if his appearance, the royal status or the Castle of Blood bit that was the reason for the cold bow.

As he watched Vesper subtly neatening his hair, he realized just how wild his own appearance was. His hair was an absolute mess - he had let it grow far too long, and it had to be absolutely covered with twigs and leaves from the time he had just spent laying on the ground.

He started to fiddle with own hair as well, running his clawed fingers through it in attempt to make it look at least a little less messy. He would have never let his appearance get as wild as it did when he was still in Laetae, but his time with Aska in the Castle of Blood had led to certain things being thrown to the wind.

(Also, it was absolutely impossible to keep this hair neat for even a single day.)

He continued to try neatening out parts of his appearance to look a bit more presentable to the guy he was sure was part of some royal guard, but his mind wandered back to what Bo had said prior to the switch in the conversation's topic. He hadn't been sent by Tieth? He guessed dragons didn't have to follow what Tieth said, but it still didn't make any sort of sense! He didn't even know who Tieth was, and Aska had assured him that Tieth was fairly important from how many meetings she had attended.

Kratzer stepped away from the group and towards the only door in the room, leaving Bo to deal with the other people. He was better at that, anyways. He leaned towards the door and pressed his ear against it to listen and see if he could hear anyone else. When it seemed to be vacant outside, the vampire slowly opened the door. The landscape outside was dark as ash and as barren as the desert. The clouds above were black and a haze that smelled like smoke filled the air.

If he hadn't known better, he would've said they'd all found themselves in Hell.

His fingers clutched the rosary that hung around his neck and under his shirt. It wasn't in prayer so much as in memory - a memory of his brother, who had confidence in him, and who gave him confidence in himself. The one who'd given him enough faith to make it this far without completely letting go of everything.

Nendros followed Kratzer over to the door, just as curious as the other man was in discovering what lay outside the mysterious room they had been brought to. He felt a burst of shock as he stared out at the seemingly endless and barren landscape that lay before him.

"Oh gods," he managed to get out.

What had happened to all of the plants that must have once lived there? Where was the green forest plants, and where were the young animals dart to and from various hiding places? Why was the sky so dark, and where had the sun gone? He knew he wasn't in hom-in the Castle of Blood, but this place matched none of the area he had grown up around. This wasn't his kingdom, and this wasn't any of the neighboring ones.

His clawed hands shot up to cover his mouth in his horror.

"What happened to this place?" he managed to get out, his voice slipping back to its normal tone. His tail swayed anxiously behind him, its movements short and unsteady.

"Fire," Kratzer answered, glancing towards the sky. "Hellfire, from the scent of it, but who can know for certain?"

Reida gasped awake in an unfamiliar room. She breathed hard and sat up, nearly letting out a shriek when she saw that she wasn't alone. Four people stood in the room with her- three that looked semi-normal, and one that... was a humanoid dragon.

This time, she really did scream. Almost immediately after her initial reaction, however, she realized that this was probably a dream- a really, really weird one.

Vesper startled at the scream, and turned to see a girl in clothing he vaguely recognized cowering in the corner. Shock registered, and there was a fumbling moment when he attempted to kneel and thought better of it in the middle of the action.

"Qu- Reida! You're... you're here." His mouth opened and closed a few times as he formulated a response. "How did you... I need to fill you in on what's happening, I- I need to-"

"Crawford?" Reida promptly interrupted his frazzled stuttering. "What the heck are you doing in my dream??"

Vesper frowned at this, and squinted hard at her. "Who the hell is Crawford?"

Nendros immediately spun around when he heard someone screaming, only to pause when he realized that he was likely the source of the terror - a new person had arrived, and she seemed absolutely terrified of him. She also seemed to think this was a dream. He was surprised none of the others had thought that; he certainly would have if he had seen someone like himself standing in the middle of the room.

"I don't think this is a dream," he said. He kept his voice low again, hoping that the others hadn't noticed how it had jumped an octave when he saw what it looked like outside. "It feels too real to be one."

"It rarely is a dream," Kratzer said. "But staying in here won't get us anywhere."

With that, he let his fingers go from around the rosary and held Gunther in his mind as he stepped into what appeared to be Hell.

The world spun, twisted, fell into oblivion, and when the light returned he was standing in the snow with a half-plucked chicken in his hand. A rundown, half-painted, somewhat rotted house was behind him. The sky was the icy blue that could only mean another freeze was coming that night and an emaciated goat pawed at the snow to get to any semblance of food alongside some equally unhealthy chickens. A shed was nearby, the only shelter for the animals, and it was far larger than required for the goat - in fact, it looked more like a small cowshed.

A deathly silence and atmosphere of fear was more striking than the bone-chilling temperature. Slowly, he reached up to touch his face where his scar should've been.

It was gone.

He involuntarily took a step back towards Bo, eyes wide. He'd left this place behind. He'd done everything he could to forget it. What kind of magic was this?!

Nendros followed Kratzer outside, and immediately found himself into an entirely different place than the one that had appeared to be outside. He stared with wide eyes at the area around him and gulped rather loudly - it looked like there were people nearby, if the animals were anything to go by. Worse, it looked like the area was part of some poor village. He didn't want to think about what its occupants would do to a dragon if they saw one.

But when he went to head back into the room, all he saw was a house that definitely couldn't have housed it - the door was all wrong.

Nendros's eyes widened in horror, and it certainly didn't help when someone bumped into him. It took all of his focus not to let out a startled, horrified cry. Then he looked down, and the fear grew even worse. There was a boy who had just bumped into him. Adults were bad enough, but kids were even worse! The boy would get terrified of him, and then he'd go running to the nearest adult, who would try to attack the monster that had tried hurting their son and then-

Wait, didn't the boy kind of look familiar? Nendros stepped around the boy and stared down at him. There wasn't a scar there, and the shape of the face was a bit more childish, but the resemblance was undeniable.

"Kratzer?" he managed to get out.

He jumped as he accidentally bumped into Nen and pivoted instantly, looking up at the draconian's face.

Looking...up. Slowly, he looked down, to see himself wearing ragged pants and a long-sleeved, somewhat threadbare shirt - but what really got him was how little meat he had on his bones. "Holy shit...I'm a kid, aren't I?"

Bo stepped out of the room after Kratzer only to step into snow in his shoes. Wait, shoes? Somehow whatever magic had brought them there decided to suddenly gift him thick pants, boots, and a fur coat as the landscape dramatically shifted from the lifeless, burnt expanse to the small home behind them in the snow. If he hadn't felt underdressed before, he definitely would've if he'd had to step into the snow in bare feet, so at the very least, he was grateful.

That was when Kratzer bumped into him. Or, at least, what used to be the grown adult Kratzer, but was now... him as a child.

The jarring experience of the sudden change in the environment along with the dramatic size change of his friend resulted in nervous laughter that he had to intentionally hold back.

"Oh man, yeah, uh, wow, Kratzer," he squatted down so that he was at eye level. "You definitely are a child." A little smirk crossed his face. "But a cute one?"