Young Writers Society

With his piece of cactus mostly eaten, Kellach took the opportunity to sit down by Aegeas and set a paw on the other otter's chest, feeling it slowly rise and fall. "What are they like?" Kellach said, glancing over at Mal and Lunis. The panther now held the lion in his arms, Mal fidgeting in an attempt to make himself more comfortable while Lunis started snoring. Kellach couldn't decide if that was cute or weird. "The people who live a really long time, but not forever?"

Apophis sat down beside him.

"It depends," he said. "There's multiple kinds of people who almost have our immortality. Some of them just have longer lifespans than humans - the merpeople, the few dragons, the demons and the angels are just some of them. I think they're mostly like regular people, but they're...different."

He thought for a moment.

"...It's hard to put it into words," he admitted. "They just seemed more hardened, or maybe more wise - I'm not sure I'm wording this the right way, but you can tell that there's something different about them. I'm guessing I'm the same way..."

He paused, thought some more on his point, and added, "The group closest to gods are the grim reapers. The reapers rarely die. The only way they can permanently be killed is with one of their own weapons."

"I can sorta get that?" Kellach said. "The whole feeling different thing. I can use magic, but the dragons and phoenixes are magic. They're a lot stronger, live a lot longer, and don't really eat and breathe and sleep like I do. And yeah, the air around them just gets all charged and static-y. I can kinda notice it with you, now that I think about it."

He stared out into the rapidly darkening sky. The sun had mostly set, and was currently throwing out a last few yellow, orange, and pink rays before it disappeared into the dunes. "Also, how come that's the only thing that kills the grim reapers? And does it happen a lot?"

"I think it's because we've been alive for so long," Apophis guessed. "We've had more experiences than most people, so our views of the world are different. Some of us become more hardened by it, while others stay the way that they were years ago."

He glanced up at the darkening sky. Watching it set behind the dunes was an incredibly beautiful sight, and one that he hadn't seen in quite some time. "I'm not sure why grim reapers can only be killed by their weapons - there's a lot about the world even the gods don't understand. As far as I know, grim reapers don't usually kill each other, but it's hard to tell. They usually keep to themselves."

Kellach nodded. "I don't think I'd like to hang out with the only people who could kill me," he said. It was a little while before he thought of anything else to say; he spent that time resting his head on his knees and staring out into the sunset.

"Do you get bored?" he suddenly said, looking over at Apophis. "There's a lot of things I want to do in my life, but I feel like I'd run out of those if I could live forever."

Apophis stared out into the sunset.

"I used to," he admitted. "When I was younger, there wasn't too much to do. Books helped once they started to be regularly written, and getting a friend or two definitely didn't hurt."

He leaned back a little.

"And there's always good things in the simulcasts," he added, "so I can always spend time watching new shows."

"You were around before books?" Kellach said, looking over at Apophis and trying not to think about his own reading skills (or lack thereof). "Did you read all of them?"

Apophis gave a little smile as he glanced over at Kellach.

"I haven't," he said. "There's just too many of them. I was able to read some of the first ones that came out, but the explosion of books in the last few centuries has made it harder to keep up."

He paused, then looked back at the sunset.

"There were things that came before books," he said. "Oral traditions, scrolls, paintings that conveyed stories - all of those were ways people on Earth used to tell and learn new ones. I was created during the time where scrolls and paintings were mostly used - at least in my region of the world."

"How many books are there?" Kellach said, shaking his head. "Scrolls and paintings sound better, to be honest. I like being able to draw a picture or tell someone a story than figure out what all those tiny symbols mean. And every word has its own little symbol, so I have to remember a bunch of them. That sucks."

"There's a lot of books," Apophis answered. "There's more than anyone could ever count."

He thought over the second thing that Kellach had said.

"I think I understand that," he said. He looked back down at his lap. "It's different for gods. I'm not sure how or why, but we just...understand different languages and ways of communicating. Even if I've never encountered a language, I can speak it like I'm a native speaker."

Kellach flopped onto the ground, grabbing onto Aegeas's paw and flipping over onto his side to get a little more comfortable. "That's, a lot of books," Kellach said, a bit quieter than before. "And being able to understand languages like that would've helped out a lot with some friends of mine."

Apophis glanced over at him again.

"Did they need to understand other languages?" he asked.

"Nah, I needed to figure out theirs," Kellach said. "And it didn't help that one of those languages was just all the weird things you can do with your tongue. But we started understanding each other after a couple months, I think?"

"I've never had issues with other languages," he said, "but I have had issues with understanding other people's cultures and vice versa. Two of my friends came along much later than I did, and their understanding of the world was entirely different. Especially the older one out of the two of them - I lost count of the amount of times he was ready to fight with other gods because he thought they didn't like his brother."

He paused and thought it over.

"...Actually, he'd still do that if someone insulted him," he corrected.

"Yeah," Kellach said. "It sounds like it also took him a while to get the hang of things, but I like people who are protective like that. Aegeas can, overdo it sometimes, but." Kellach trailed off, staring at the otter in question.