Young Writers Society

Dante cleared her throat, so caught up in observing the rest in the room that she had forgotten about her own introductions.

"I'm Dante." said a deep male voice.

Hold on- was that her voice? She cleared her throat once more, tentative but not wanting to spout nonsense just to test her own voice. She looked down at her hands- they certainly seemed bigger, and different in a very masculine way.

Had she turned into someone else?

"Nice cat?" she spat indignantly. "Oh really? Nice cat, my a**. F***in' cat, I'm a dog, James! A mighty dire canine! Not a godsd*** nice cat! I'm tiny and my claws are f***in' useless and the-" she was interrupted as Sune laid down next to her on his belly and inquired about the translation.

She sniffed. "Yes, thank you, that's precisely what I said."

Event 2: Start!
After a bright flash of light and sudden warmth, everyone turns back to normal - but have swapped bodies with another character.

James ↔ Runi
Maahes ↔ Tasha
Sune ↔ Denebola
Ari ↔ Jaron
Taber ↔ Dante

As another burst of light and warmth began to spread throughout the room, Maahes braced himself for the next change. He didn't want to think of what changes his body would undergo, and he tentatively shut his eyes. But, suddenly, his eyes weren't shut - they were wide open. And while the past two changes had certainly made him feel uncomfortable, this one made him feel uncomfortable on two fronts: he was stuck as another person, and that person was a woman.

But when he turned his head, he was horrified to see himself standing only a few feet away.

This wasn't just a change of his body - this was a straight out body swap. He looked wildly around the room. He needed to find Sune, and he needed to find James. Both of them looked like they were standing near him (though Sune technically was on the ground) but that was just their bodies. They had to be somewhere else - had to be someone else.

"James" blinked.

"Why is there a hat on my head?" he asked, then gave a surprised noise when he heard the sound of his voice. He looked around just as wildly as Maahes had; his gaze eventually landed on Runi. "Hey, that's me! But that doesn't make any sense - I thought our bodies were just changing to look like each other-"

It was at this moment that "Denebola" pushed "Runi" (James?) back, stumbling forward and staring at the room with wide eyes as she wiggled out of the djinni's grip. She looked around wildly. Maahes waited for her to do what Runi had done, staring at the body she had left behind. But the person that "Denebola" looked at was someone he would have never expected.

"Denebola" was looking at Maahes's body.

Maahes paled. That didn't make any sense! Why would-

"Sune?" Maahes hesitantly asked.

"Denebola" spun around, eyes still wide as her body's new occupant stared at him. Sune gave a frantic nod, then rushed over to his side - he must have figured out who he was.

One moment she was looking up at James, and the next minute she was standing with her eyes screwed shut. Surprised, they shot open and she leapt back, letting out a yipe of surprise as she saw herself sitting next to James and tripping over her own feet, only to fall on her rump on the hard ground.

She looked down at herself to see the body of a person who was very distinctly male, and a familiar one at that.

Oh gods.

She was stuck as that stupid kid they'd run into back on Nye. Maahes. The one who'd made her hackles go up the first time she laid eyes on him.

No, no, no, no, in the name of Avren - seriously?!

Being a harpy didn't last very long. Soon, there was another wave of warmth that washed over him, and he anticipated another change.

Nothing could've rightfully prepared him, however, for being moved to another part of the room in a sudden moment, and being placed in someone else's body. Just as he was looking himself up and down, recognizing his body as Runi's, he was pushed by a large cat. He stumbled back a few steps, feeling odd and off-balance in Runi's frame.

He didn't let himself think too deeply about the implications of being stuck in someone else's body, nor was he able to. His attention was immediately stuck on himself, or rather, whoever was currently inhabiting his body.

Suddenly, he noticed he was breathing very quickly, and his heart was racing. The idea of someone else in his body made him nervous, especially if he didn't know who it was.

"I'm James," he announced, thrown by how foreign and high his voice sounded. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, for a moment, lacking the confidence to test Runi's vocal chords again.

"Who's in my body?" he finally asked, approaching himself.

If he hadn't seen Maahes in his body/as a duplicate of himsef earlier, he probably would've been more disturbed. But as it stood, he was more concerned with who was wearing his face.

Runi perked up the moment that her body starting making its way towards her. She had already guessed that it was James before he said who he was - a one-on-one body swap made more sense than everyone getting randomly swapped around.

(Then again, sense didn't really come into play in this scenario.)

"I'm in your body," Runi cheerfully replied. It was weird hearing his voice speak her words, but she guessed she could used to it - she had with Lotor. A moment passed. Runi suddenly realized that an answer like that wasn't the least bit helpful, so she added, "I'm Runi."

"I'm Maahes," said the woman pushing herself off of the ground. Runi didn't recognize the person Maahes had swapped bodies with, but she was sure that would be revealed eventually.

Whoever was in Denebola's body came to a stop beside Maahes, helping him get back up to his feet with a strong tug. "I'm Sune," the other spirit said. That was going to be the hardest thing to get used to; she hadn't liked Denebola all that much, but Sune was pretty cool in her books.

Man, this was going to be weird.

Dante had just been getting used to the fact that she was stuck in the body of a male when a sudden warmth assaulted her. She groaned and closed her eyes, battling dizziness and a sense of dread.

It was awhile after she had come back to her senses when she braved opening her eyes. At first, there wasn't much to go off of this new change beside her body just feeling off. Then she caught sight of herself across the room, still curled in the corner, and shock flooded her.

"Who is-" she paused, alarmed at the deep raspiness of her voice, and that was when she looked down at herself.

Why was she so furry??

Suddenly, she knew who she was inhabiting the body of- it was that peppy wolf man. She let out another groan and squeezed her eyes shut once more.

Jaron froze when he felt the second heat wave arrive. He didn't know how to respond to it. On one hand, since this was the second time, he was at least a little prepared, and his last transformations hadn't been particularly bad. But this one could be.

In the blink of an eye, he found himself across the room. He felt just about as tall as he had before, which he knew meant that he wasn't in his original body. And when he looked down, sure enough, he was in the body of a human. A tall one, covered in scars. It made him feel strangely powerful. Having two arms helped with that impression.

Staring down at his hands, Jaron flexed the fingers of his right arm. How odd. It hadn't even been too long since he'd lost that arm, but seeing one that wasn't made out of metal, that moved with his every thought and impulse, was bizarre. He didn't like it. Goosebumps formed on his skin as he looked at the people stumbling around.

A person wearing a mask, a bandage over one eye, and a suit with an assortment of weapons walked up to him. "Jaron, is that you?" she said. "I'm made out of metal! Isn't that cool?"

Ah, that had to be Taber. Jaron wondered how Taber could've possibly guessed, but, well, Jaron had been spending a lot of time staring at that one arm.

Denebola was also pretty easy to pick out, given the way that she pulled herself off the ground, stared at her small, human body, and started muttering curses under her breath.

James stared between them, eyes fluttering as he processed who was who, and who was where.

Runi and him had switched bodies. That made sense, as much sense as switching a body with someone could. But his stomach turned with anxiety when Tasha said she was Maahes. With a twitch of his head he looked over to Maahes. If they'd only traded places with one other person when bodies were switched, then that means Tasha was in Maahes's body.

His stomach flipped again, and his face grew hot. If Tasha kept acting how she'd been acting since she'd appeared in the library - fluttery, affectionate, clearly crushing on him - oh gods. He took a small step back, and held a hand to his head as he looked at the ground. Runi's body felt... sturdier than his own. It lacked the phantom pains and aches he was used to. It was strong, and healthy, and full of life. It felt so much different from his normally weak frame - already run down by years of wounds and pain and pushing himself too hard just to stay alive. Even as a cat he still felt the weariness of a body stretched too thin for too long.

Everything felt foreign, and he didn't want to process Maahes and Tasha being swapped. If this was anything like the cat transformation or the harpy transformation, it would pass in a few minutes. He would just wait it out.

Noticing his friend's distress - but not understanding the cause - Maahes took an unsteady step forward towards James. "James?" he quietly asked, still not used to the (oddly familiar) female voice that left his lips. "What's wrong?"

Sune watched quietly from the side.

Runi, however, was scanning the room. She had a couple people to find. Thankfully, it looked like they were all nearby. Some would just take a little bit more tugging than others. She gave a little stretch, trying to get used to a body that was far different than her own, then went to work. She grabbed whoever had swapped bodies with Maahes and Denebola, dragging both - limbs crying out in protest - over to where James was standing.

"Sorry to interrupt!" Runi suddenly announced, darting on over next to where Maahes was standing. There. All the spirits and all of the people who had swapped with them were standing in one place now.

Sune and Maahes gave her a perplexed look.

"They need a crash course on being a spirit so they don't do anything stupid or freak out," Runi explained. "They're bound to notice the differences once they stop focusing on the body swap."

Sune glanced between Runi and the three. "...Good point."

"Okay, so time to go over the basics," Runi said, turning back to face the three. "You're all djinn right now, but I don't think that's going to come into play much. Just avoid water and going underground - which I don't think you'd be doing in the first place - and you're all set with that. Silver's going to hurt you like no pain you've ever felt before, and iron's going to give you an annoying ache."

Maahes nodded in agreement. "The ship doesn't seem to be made of alloys containing either one, so you should be alright. We're also nowhere's near a garden, so you don't have to worry about herbs hurting you."

"You should feel a little pain in a minute or two," Sune helpfully added. He looked the three over. "Our bodies are made of something called essence. In our home, things are more chaotic and free. It goes against our very nature to be confined in one form for too long, but changing forms helps lessen the pain a bit."

"Also!" Runi cheerfully added. "Ignore the tentacles, beaks, wings, tails or whatever other appendages you suddenly feel when you focus too long on what you really would look like underneath the regular old person exterior. That's our true forms - it's the shape our essence took when someone carved a chunk of essence out from our home and gave it a name."

She grinned at them.

"Annnd that's being a spirit like us in a nutshell! Any questions?"

Runi's crash-course on Spirits and essence fell on deaf ears. James was focused on Tasha -no- Maahes. But Maahes being in Tasha's body, with Tasha's voice, just felt so wrong. He was not going to explain it out loud, but the gentleness in Tasha's voice made his stomach flutter, and he had to look at the ground. This was the first time James had seen Tasha in person in... a long time. Even when she appeared in the library she had transformed into a dog before he got to see her.

So for the first time he saw her for her to not even be inhabiting her own body?

He swallowed. He knew Maahes didn't have any more control over the situation than he had. He couldn't blame Maahes or Tasha for the intense amount of awkwardness that he was just going to have to endure for as long as they were stuck like this.

He took a small step back, before realizing doing so would only make Maahes more concerned and confused.

"Uh-um," he stuttered fillers as he grasped for words in his mind. Something to change the subject. Something to make Maahes unconcerned. Something that would convince Maahes he was fine, so he wouldn't have to explain.

"Nothing," he muttered. "It's just... I've never been in someone else's body before. It feels strange. Invasive."

Jaron seemed a little too distracted by whatever was going on with Maahes and Sune - or whoever Maahes was now and Denebola - so Taber gave him a pat on the shoulder before running over to his own body. "Wow!" Taber said, looking at himself. "I've never really looked at myself before! I'm so big! Maybe this is why sometimes I break glasses in my hands. Or books. Or tables. Or beds." He frowned. "Is that what Eremia meant when she said I was 'hazard-prone'?"

He would've continued with the conversation, but a groan led him to look at Denebola, who had gone back to sitting on the ground and hiding her head under her arms.

"I have...wings?" Denebola said. "And tentacles? Why? Why me? How do I make them go away?"

Ohh, that's what had distracted Jaron. This was going to be interesting.

Runi walked over to Denebola and gave her a comforting pat on the back. "You get used to it," she reassured her. "It definitely feels weird for awhile - I remember getting freaked out when I was a little kid and felt them for the first time - but it'll feel natural before we go back."

She hesitated.

"...I hope it does, anyways," she corrected. "You can't get rid of that, since it's Sune's true form..."


Maahes stared at James.

His reactions weren't making any sense, and Maahes was starting to get really worried. Had he said or done something? He didn't think he had. He had just been himself. "It is strange being stuck in another person's body," he finally agreed. "I don't want to do anything to harm her body, and I'm guessing everyone that knows her would see me and think of her instead, like how I'm looking at you but I can't help but think of Runi-"

Maahes faltered.

His gaze slowly traveled over to his body, then back down at himself. His face quickly turned red, accompanied by a strange warmth he wasn't used to. Oh no. He finally recognized who he had switched bodies with! He had switched bodies with Tasha. She had been at the masquerade with James - they had gone as far as slow dancing, and he wouldn't have been surprised if they kissed while he wasn't looking.

...And now he looked like Tasha. And, oh Altera! He was talking to James in a gentle tone, and while that was how he normally talked to him, if he had Vala use that tone with him he would have been incredibly flustered-

His face now bright red, he grabbed onto Sune's wrist and darted behind a bookcase a short distance away with the younger spirit in tow. The younger djinni gave a startled cry when he was suddenly pulled away from the rest of the group.

"Maahes, what are you doing?" Sune asked, trying to go back around the bookcase and see what had caused the run. Maahes pulled him back just before he peeked around.

"Running away," he said. Why did his cheeks have to feel so hot and warm? He was used to blushing - his guises were great at mimicking it - but he wasn't supposed to be able to feel the blushing! It felt wrong and unnatural, and it made his cheeks somehow grow even more red.

"I'm stuck as the woman James likes," he whispered.

Sune's eyes widened. "And she's stuck as you?"

He gave a frantic nod. "They were both at the masquerade I told you and Arin about," he said. "They slow danced. And now James getting flustered because even though it's me talking, all he hears is Tasha talking, and how am I supposed to be around him in a situation like that?"