Young Writers Society

Briar flinched at the use of her name, but she kept her eyes on her paper. In absence of something specific to draw, her hands worked almost on autopilot to fill the margins with familiar pictures.

"Who's Solaris?" the only emotion in her voice remained curiosity.

"Big sister," Gareth wasted no time in replying, though there was something about his tone that suggested it wasn't what he would have immediately answered with. Ryder, despite only having a gut feeling, suspected that Gareth might have been lying.

Briar finished the shading on a very extravagant looking doorway and moved on to something new.

"Why are you lying?" she asked him. There was a pause, then Briar chose another one of Queenie's tricks, "If my sister were missing I wouldn't be lying about her."

If Briar's sister were missing, there's a very good chance Briar would be the reason why.

"He's lying?" Lasan said, glancing between the others. Gareth didn't seem like a dishonest person, but Ryder and Briar looked like they were better at reading people than he was. "How come?"

Gareth stared at the three, worry flickering across his face as he continued to suck on his finger. He thought for a moment, then promptly turned around and started heading back towards the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Ryder asked, rushing to his side.

"Sister," Gareth replied.

"But you don't know where she is," Ryder pointed out.

Gareth shook his head. "Smell her."

Lasan ran after Gareth and Ryder. "Is your sister close by?" Lasan said, gripping onto the railing and taking the steps two at a time (he was big enough that anything less made him feel a little unsteady). It felt wrong to say sister, since Gareth had apparently been dishonest about that, but Gareth didn't call her anything else. "And just how many people ended up here?"

Gareth thought for a moment, then shrugged as he kept walking up the steps.

"Don't know," he said. "Only smell sister. Not looking for others."

Lasan sniffed the air. Nothing but metal. He couldn't pick up the faintest hint of a person who wasn't standing next to him. How could a human (?) have a better nose than he did?

"What does she smell like?" Lasan said.

Briar took note of this supposed superior sense of smell that Lasan had hinted at as she watched the exchange from the sidelines, content to keep quiet until she needed to speak.

In the meantime, she examined her new associates. Lasan and his companion looked like they would be hard to fell in a straight fight, but, if she was quick enough, a bullet to the head was likely to take out either of them.

Ryder, meanwhile, appeared human enough. His two-toned eyes would peg him as unnerving to most, but it wasn't an unknown defect. All it did was suggest that there had been inbreeding in his family a few generations back, or that he had simply received a rare genetic defect. She didn't think there was anything to worry about there. His height and build, however, had him at an advantage to her, but that meant nothing if she could discover weather the same was true for skill.

Ryder came to a stop as Gareth did on the top step, turning back to look at Lasan with a look that clearly said his sister smelled like his sister.

"Smells like sister," Gareth said before continuing back up the steps with his finger in his mouth. There was something almost childlike about him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what.

When they reached the top of the steps, Gareth immediately made a beeline for one of the nearby hatches. "Solaris?" he asked, sitting down in front of hatch and hesitantly tapping it.

Ryder's hand instinctively went for the makeshift weapon at his side.

Gareth was wearing shorts and sitting in the snow without seeming the least bit fazed. He knew of very few kinds of people who could do something like that, and the extraordinary sense of smell made his worst fear seem all the more likely.

His hand fell to his side, and he plastered a cheerful, nonchalant smile on his face in case Gareth looked back.

"It looks like your sister might take a minute to come out," he said. He crouched down beside Gareth. "We could talk while we wait for her."

"Says not to talk," Gareth told him after a moment of silence. He sucked his finger a little more. "Dangerous."

"I won't ask any dangerous questions," he lied. "I just want to have some small talk. Like what you do for a living - I know I look on the young side, but I'm actually the mayor of a small town. What about you? What do you do for a living?"

Gareth studied him for a moment, then turned his attention back to the hatch.

"...Live," Gareth uncertainly said.

Briar followed them up quietly, making herself into part of the background as well as was possible. When Gareth knelt in the snow she hung back, watching the hatch as her hands inched toward her gun.

She took note of Ryder's comment about his profession, simultaneously setting up a cover for herself in the event that he asked her the same question. She didn't think he would, but she'd been wrong before, with devastating consequences.

She was...

She was...

She wouldn't think of anything. The truth was simple, two words, a killer. The truth could get her killed, abandoned, preemptively feared.

The other truth was simpler. She was rich. But she wasn't, her father was. The money wasn't hers, wouldn't be hers, unless it was won. The money, the resources one which her family survived came with his titles, and it would be gone in a year if they went to her sister.

She was...

Nothing.

She focused back on the conversation unfolding before her.

Lasan sat on the other side of Gareth. He was more than a little uncomfortable about the idea of someone he didn't know coming out of the hatch, especially when Gareth wasn't being clear about who that person was, but he couldn't help but crack a smile at Gareth's "live" comment.

"I can get that," Lasan said, looking over at Gareth. "Do you have any hobbies, or anything you like to do?"

Gareth gave a small nod.

"Draw," he said. He kept watching the hatch and sucking on his finger, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side. "Sometimes with sister or Roy. Sister better."

Ryder's posture relaxed ever so slightly. It seemed like his initial assumption about Gareth was wrong - he had never heard of someone named "Roy" and Gareth didn't seem to have any particular role. Still, he was wary. He didn't know how Gareth could so easily withstand the cold, and didn't understand his strong sense of smell-

The hatch suddenly started to open.

Gareth perked up, and Ryder tensed again.

A woman emerged from the depths of the bunker. Based on the simple description Gareth had given, the woman was undoubtedly Solaris. Her black hair was cut into a stylish bob, she was taller than Gareth was by a long shot, and she had on a sleeveless black dress. There was the addition of a blanket draped around her shoulders and a pair of black shoes, but Gareth's face lit up the moment he saw her.

"Lu-" he started to say, only to stop, think for a moment, and go "Solaris!" before rushing to his feet and throwing his arms around her legs.

The lie hadn't been about Solaris not being his sister; it had been that Solaris really wasn't her name. His paranoia stealthy tried to emerge after coming to that realization, but he knew no one whose name started with that sound.

Briar gave the woman her usual once-over, keeping her hands near her gun. She didn't look dangerous, but then, neither did Briar much of the time.

"Who are you?" Briar asked, still sounding nothing more than curious.

Hng. Solaris definitely wasn't her name. But she looked friendly enough, and Gareth seemed to be happy to have her around, so Lasan didn't see any huge reason to distrust her. Standing up, he held out a scaly paw. "Nice to meet you," he said, a smile poking out from the edges of his scarf.