Young Writers Society

"It helps me focus," Robin said. She was already beginning to play around with all of its little parts. "It gives my hands something to do. I usually have one on me but I...forgot mine at home before ending up here."


The question took both of the homunculi by surprise, but Greed acted as if he wasn't fazed by it - he might not have been, knowing him. "Yeah, that was our brother Gluttony. It wasn't intentional, but we ended up in his stomach for a good week."

"It wasn't his stomach," Envy corrected. "It seemed like his stomach. Pride - our oldest brother - thought it was a pocket dimension that was accessed through his stomach."


"...No," Soul hesitantly replied, the cloth draped over his back shifting as he grew more uncomfortable. Zogin would have never guessed that would become a habit of his, but it seemed like his new reaction to being uncomfortable.

"Oh," Jaron said. The fox set the diagram down, leaning up close to the cube to see how Robin was playing around it. It was mesmerizing, seeing the way that parts of it twisted or rotated or bent. "...I like it. How have I not heard about these things before?"



Well, he got his answer. He just needed to figure out how to respond to it.

"What was that like?" Fyrsil settled on. "And, uh, how did you get out?"



"I'm going to take that as a yes," Arlais said, shaking her head - he couldn't possibly be any more awkward. Which made the Marisol approach useless, since that'd just scare him. "There's plenty of places we can walk that aren't near the lake," she went on. "I know you're uncomfortable, and I know why you're uncomfortable, and I know you're going to keep denying it, and that's okay. But it's just walking - we can do anything else, or we can pick somewhere less stressful to walk to."

"Well," Robin said, "I think we might from different worlds."

Her gaze momentarily dropped down to the fidget cube, marveling at how it was created by someone who had never seen one in the depths of his mind. The thought made her head hurt just a little, but she pushed it away.


"Scary," Greed admitted. "Very, very scary. None of us knew what happened at first. Sloth barely wanted to move, Pride was angry, Lust and I were just plain confused, and Envy started crying."

Envy blushed at the comment. "I didn't," they indignantly protested.

"Yes you did," Greed said, the memory playing out in his mind. "You were only a few years old then - of course you cried. Especially since you and Gluttony were joined at the hip back then, and you couldn't find him anywhere."

Envy's gaze dropped down to the ground, the blush still very much on his face.

"Pride was the one who figured out how to get out. We're still not really sure how he did - we were just there one minute, and back home the next." Greed shook his head, a smile dancing on his lips. "That bastard may have been annoying, but he was certainly smart."


Soul looked over at Zogin, searching her face for an answer. He quickly realized there wasn't much of a dilemma - they could do what Arlais suggested, even though she was bound to ask more about the fear later on.

"A walk somewhere else sounds nice," he agreed.

Another cube started to form in Jaron's paw as he slowly nodded at Robin's comment. "Maybe," he said.

The door that Jaron had made a minute ago opened, Kendrik and Tristan stepping back into the room. "Ya sure yer brother ain't a ton of bricks?" the hound said, stretching and wincing at the pop in his back.

"Only when he wants to be," Tristan said. The otter sighed and made his way towards the front door.

"Least he's got Kellach keepin' an eye on him," said Kendrik, walking over to Jaron and Robin.

With the cube complete, Jaron sat down and shuffled around so that he was facing the hound. "Could you hold this?" Jaron said, gesturing to the cube.

The hound looked down at it, then sat down and cupped it in a paw. They stared intently at it, each tugging at some random part of the cube.

"Thank you for showing me this, Robin," Jaron mumbled.



Aww, poor Envy; Fyrsil couldn't help but pat their shoulder. Which he hopefully wouldn't regret, but the siblings seemed to like him enough.

"What was even in that dimension thing?" he said. "Just you two and your siblings, or something else?"



"Then let's do that," Arlais said with a smile. While Tristan beat them to the front door, walking towards the lake and away from any of the others (hng, Arlais would have to talk to him eventually), Arlais made her way towards where the airship had landed. She didn't quite feel like getting on it again, unless the others decided to.

"You're welcome," Robin said, smiling. "Thanks for making it."


"Well," Greed began - Envy was still too mortified to speak at the moment, "it was wet. I'm not sure what liquid was in there, but it went up past our ankles. It was mostly a wasteland. There'd be a couple things here and there, but that was just stuff Gluttony had 'eaten' in the past. We were the only living things in there."


Soul lingered behind. Normally, Zogin would take the lead, but she miraculously appeared to be letting Arlais do that instead.

"D'ya have anythin' else like this?" Kendrik said, staring at the drawing Jaron had left on the floor. "We're always tryin' ta make things, and even though this doesn't look like it does much, 's always nice ta have another person with ideas."



"Does he just, not have a stomach? Is he hungry all the time?" Fyrsil said. He shook his head. "And what happens to the stuff that ends up in that dimension? "



Hng, it was a little too quiet. Walking around the edge of the airship, which looked something like a sphere with a flat top, Arlais tried to think of something to talk about.

"I wonder if there's anything still in there," she said, tapping the bronze sheeting and hearing a faint echo as the boom! traveled through it. "I'm pretty sure Jaron would've told us if there was, though."

"I'm not really sure," Robin admitted. "It's, uh, not exactly a widespread thing, and only a small group of people use them for their intended purpose-"

She paused, suddenly struck by an idea.

"But we do have something that has the same purpose," she said, grinning. She grabbed the paper and started to draw out the design. "It's not as complex, but it's just as fun to use."


"Oh, he definitely has a stomach," Greed answered. "Not sure how the whole bottomless pit for a stomach works, but he has an actual one, too. And that one's always hungry - you turn away for one minute, and he's munching on something new."

"...We're not entirely sure," Envy said, finally joining in on the conversation. "We haven't ever returned."


"He probably would have," Soul agreed, looking up at the airship.

"You don't know for certain," Zogin pointed out. "There might have been a stowaway, or someone else who ended up in here."

Soul glanced at her, suddenly remembering something he had entirely forgotten. "...Janos is probably in there."

That sounded promising; grabbing onto his tail, Jaron stood up and looked over Robin's right shoulder. A couple seconds later, Kendrik set the cube on the ground, rose up, and looked over Robin's left shoulder. The couple stared intently at what Robin was drawing.



The conversation got a little more horrifying with every answer they gave, but Fyrsil didn't see any reason to stop asking questions. "Could he ever starve or anything?" he said. "And what all can he eat?"



Arlais looked back at Soul and Zogin. "Um," she said, "Does Janos even know we landed? Where was the last place you saw him?"

It didn't take her long to make the design - it was a fairly simplistic one, and the parts that made it move weren't complicated, either. She looked it over one last time before handing it off to Jaron. "There you go," she said, satisfied with her diagram.


"He can't starve because of this guy," he said, pulling off his right glove and showing Fyrsil his Ouroboros tattoo. Envy had already revealed the source of his abilities, and showing off his own philosopher's stone didn't seem like it would hurt. "His is in a different place, but still has the same effect. And he can eat basically anything. Organic stuff is better for his appetite, but eating a chunk out of an abandoned building never hurt him."


"I don't think he does," Soul quietly said. He should have looked for him; now Janos could be anywhere, and had just as little idea of what was going on as they did before the ship landed. "I saw him in the hallway that I ran into Fyrsil's group in - that was before all of the groups met up."

Zogin shrugged. "He'll be fine," she said. "He does this all the time - he goes off and broods for a bit, and then comes back like nothing ever happened. He can figure out what happened on his own."

Taking the drawing, Jaron handed it over to Kendrik. The fox had just had to glance at it a couple times to know how to build it, and Kendrik's nod confirmed that he also found it easy to make. So, while Kendrik handed the drawing back to Robin, Jaron squinted at the design building itself in his paw.



"But he can get hungry?" Fyrsil said, looking between Greed and his elaborate tattoo. "I'm sure he has ways to handle it, especially around his siblings, because I'm guessing he doesn't want to eat all the time. But, uh, what's stopping him from eating everything?"



Arlais dragged her paws down her face. They'd forgotten someone, and now they were just brushing it off?

"Isn't it just a little bit dangerous, since we know it's going to show up eventually to fight Jaron?" Arlais said. "Should we really wait for Janos to wander around in there until he finds a way out?"

"It's so cool watching you do that," she marveled, studying the shape forming in Jaron's hand. It was only a matter of time before it was completed; she couldn't wait to show it off when it was.


"A lot of self control," Greed replied.

There was a pause.

"We haven't seen him in a long time," Envy admitted, their voice quiet. "When we last saw him, he was one of the sweetest people I've ever known. I've met a lot of people since then, but Gluttony...Gluttony was the nicest."


"He's not as human as he looks," Zogin said. "He'll be fine. And who knows? Maybe he and the thing that got Jaron trapped here will buddy up. I wouldn't put it past him."

Soul didn't say anything.

He just kept his gaze down to the ground.

Jaron smiled as the last pieces fit together in his paw; he handed the finished design to Robin. "It's going to suck when I can't do this anymore," he said as he focused on Robin's hands to see what she'd do with the device. "It makes my life a little easier, even though it looks like anything I make here works, even if it shouldn't in real life? Which bothers me a bit - it doesn't feel right."



"Aww," Fyrsil said. "How come you haven't seen him?"



Arlais grit her teeth. "I wouldn't put it past it either - that's kinda the problem. What do you mean by 'he's not as human as he looks'?"

Robin held onto the center of it, spinning its three protruding sides with her finger to get it going. Once it was finally spinning, she pulling her finger back and let it do it on its own.

"It is your imagination," Robin said, looking up from the fidget spinner. "I think it's a good thing that you can do almost anything here."


Greed and Envy looked over at each other.

"...It's a long story," Greed finally said.


"He's an angel," Zogin explained. Soul didn't lift his gaze up from the ground - he couldn't gather the courage to. "A fallen one, but still an angel. If he had wings, you'd be able to tell that he was one - but since he fell, they took his away."

Flicking the device and watching as it moved a little faster, Jaron shook his head. "I'm not going to be here forever," he said. "And if I don't know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong, I won't have learned anything before I come back to the real world."



"Do you want to talk about it?" Fyrsil said, giving a slightly awkward smile. "We do have a lot of time on our paws, it looks like."



Arlais had some flashbacks to the conversation with Zogin and Mage. "What does that all mean?" she said. "Outside of his wings, I'm guessing there's plenty of things Janos can do?"

She thought over what he said for a moment.

"That's very true," she agreed. "But this is all in your head, right? So even if you don't remember how exactly you put things together, you'll be able to imagine them when thinking back to this - and then you can reverse engineer it if you have to."

She paused, looking the room over.

"...Wait," she slowly said. "If this is in your head, you can do anything you want, and that doesn't just have to be limited to creating fidget cubes and fidget spinners."


Greed glanced over at his brother again.

"...We do have a lot of time," he agreed. He turned his attention back to Fyrsil and took a deep breath - no matter how many times he gave this speech, it never got easier. "Dear old dad is a bit evil, and it took a few years to figure that out. When we did, we realized that it probably wasn't a good thing to stick around, given our abilities."

"We separated centuries ago," Envy said. "We were supposed to stay apart from each other, and supposed to stay away from other people, but some of us weren't that good at the last part."

Greed didn't need the pointed look from them to understand who was being referred to.

"And then our baby brother and the Elrics came along, and we realized that it was time to have a family reunion," Greed concluded.