Young Writers Society

That was...confusing, but Ciaran followed most of what the man said. He frowned, looking a the bag of blood again. "The sunlight isn't hurting me," he said, glancing towards the sky. "I don't think it'll ever hurt me? I don't know why I know that. I just remember someone telling me that."

Having said that, he sat down next to the man and pulled his knees up to his chest, leaning his head against the man's arm. He felt really sad now. Was it because Luca wasn't there? Ciaran sighed and eyed the bag again, then scanned the treeline. For some reason, he felt like being watched while he drank the blood was a private thing, something he shouldn't really share with anyone. Ciaran exhaled heavily and twisted to peer up at the man.

"I bit Luca in my vision," he admitted quietly, and felt himself blushing again. "He liked it."

Before the man could reply, Ciaran felt his hunger intensify and he groaned, turning back to the bagged blood. He imitated the man's actions and put the tube between his lips. Ciaran began to drink it like it were a milkshake, jiggling one leg up and down with restrained energy. He decided not to question what "someone like me" was.

Sevy fell quiet as a new member joined them- he was an otter, too! Maybe he was a relative to Aegeas- they seemed to know each other. He opened his mouth to greet the new person, but then he and Aegeas ran off, and everyone else did too, leaving him alone with the wolf boy.

"Hi." he said politely, smiling and waving a little. "My name is Sevy- what's yours? I guess it's just you and me now."

It wasn't like he could hear the adult coming. With all the noise that Tristan was making, those footsteps were just a little too light, even for his ears. But Aegeas could make a pretty good guess that they were being followed, so he almost wasn't surprised when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

The otter immediately swung around, grabbed the staff on Tristan's back, yanked it off, and aimed it at the adult's head. "No," Aegeas said as the staff connected.



Taber looked around. Sure enough, it seemed pretty empty. Which he didn't like, since both of the humans had run off, along with Aegeas, but at least there was someone.

"Taber!" the wolf said with a wave. At least that name stayed the same across languages. Then he switched back to growls. "And I guess it just us, unless you want to run away or something." He laughed nervously.

After a moment of hesitation, Gabriel wrapped his arm around the vampire and pulled him close. The kid seemed like he needed some comfort, and he'd gladly provide it - even if there was no way of telling what this kid would turn out like when he was his regular self again.

And then there was the added issue of the mysterious Luca person, who seemed to have enjoyed getting bitten. Gabriel could get the subtext from that statement, and started to wonder if the forest had a filter for memories that should have been rated R. If not, it was a serious flaw in the system, and Gabriel really didn't like the thought of having to give The Talk™ if things got even more mature.

"Well," he said, giving the kid a grin. "I guess Luca must be a pretty cool person, if he's okay with you drinking his blood."


Theoretically, he should have easily avoided the blow. He had been around for longer than Aegeas had been - or maybe not, depending on the otter's true age - and attacks like that shouldn't have come as a surprise. But he honestly hadn't expected the boy to attack him, and Azazel started to wonder if it was a little bit of his older self shining through.

Still, he was a robot. It might have left a dent, but Aegeas didn't have nearly enough strength right now to pull something like that off. He didn't move after the staff connected; there wasn't any need to hide at least part of the truth from the two otter boys.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he promised the two. "I should have given an explanation earlier. Have either of you heard of robots before?"

"N-no," Aegeas said, trying very hard to pretend to be brave against a man whose skin had just caved in. It didn't look like he'd felt a thing. "But I don't care." The otter pulled the staff back again.

Before he could swing it forward, he felt someone yank it out of his hands. Aegeas shouted in alarm, them glared down at Tristan. "What was that for?" Aegeas said.

Tristan reached out the staff, poking Azazel in the face. They could hear some very nonhuman bangs and clinks.

"See?" Tristan said. "He's made out of Jaron's arm."

"And who's Jaron?" Aegeas said. The name rang a bell, and a sense of anger that made him clench his paws, but he couldn't place it.

"Dunno," Tristan said with a shrug, "But that's what it is."

Ciaran hummed around the tube in his mouth, still bouncing his leg up and down. The man was holding him now and he felt safe. Really, really safe. Yeah, Luca was awesome and he loved him. Wait, loved him? Ciaran frowned, squinting at a tree oppostite them. Why did he love Luca?

Sunlight streamed in through the curtains, painting Luca's face in red-gold, and highlighting the slight red tinge to his dark hair. Ciaran watched him sleep, tracing fingers over his cheek and down his neck, to where he'd bitten him the night before. He smiled, watching as Luca's lips twitched and then as he opened his eyes into slits.

"Morning, Ciaran," he murmured sleepily, voice husky. Luca smiled up at him and Ciaran felt his heart skip a beat.

"Good morning, mo ghràdh," he murmured back, smiling brightly. Luca's smile lit up the room and made his heart stop beating before it began to race. "How did you sleep?"

Luca's smile widened. "Very well," he said and pushed up onto an elbow. "What did you call me just now?"

Ciaran looked away, biting his lip. "It's Gaelic," he said, sucking in a sharp breath. "It means--"

The vision abruptly cut off and Ciaran was left adrift. He blinked. That was definitely a memory, but why did he think it was a vision? He pulled the blood bag away and frowned, turning to look up at the man.

"Luca's very important to me," he told him, confused. "I think I love him--"

Ciaran broke off with a little whimper of pain as another memory hit him. His son, Ethan. And then another memory; helping Nich. And then another and another, his head beginning to ache. He curled in over himself and moaned as the pain swept over his entire body. For long, agonizing seconds, there was nothing but pain and the feeling of bones shifting, of growing bigger. And then---

Then he was himself again, still holding the blood bag and curled into the man's side. Ciaran abruptly dropped the bag and jerked away, shooting to his feet with preternatural speed. He stared down at the man who he now knew to be a demon and growled at him.

"Where am I?" he demanded. "What happened? Who are you?" He paused, taking another look and frowned. "Wait... I know you--"

Sevy caught the wolf's name, but couldn't understand anything else. He frowned, and dropped his hand. It would be rude to ignore Taber, and he didn't want to admit that he couldn't understand him, so he pretended he did and went on talking.

"Should we go find-" he started, only to get cut off when an image swam in front of him, and delved into another vision.

He felt a red-hot pain at the base of his wings, and nothing else. He was writhing, he noted distantly, and everything felt hot and sweaty and-

"Sevy." a voice floated down to him in his isle of pain, and he trudged through the burning to find its source. "Sevy, open your eyes, please. Everything's going to be okay."

He struggled even more now, until he accomplished his task and his eyes peeled open. He was lying in the sand- that much he knew. The moody sky above spun sickeningly, so he looked away from it to the voice.

Blue eyes met his, filled with concern that matched her wrinkled brow. It was the blonde girl, the one from the other day, but he just couldn't place her...

"Tamika?" he heard himself whisper hoarsely. "What happened? I- ah!" the spot on his wings sent another stab of pain through him as he tried to sit up, and Tamika put a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't move." she said gently. "It will go away for awhile, just stay still."

"What happened to me?" he managed.

As if in answer, she turned slightly and spread her white wings, revealing the little strip of her skin where feathers started through her ripped shirt. Sevy squinted, not recognizing what was amiss at first, until he spotted it.

An X of small, black feathers crossed the base of her wings, and even staring at it made his back start hurting once more.

"I checked- you have one too." she said softly, turning back around. "I think it's some sort of brand-"

Sevy blinked and shook his head, his chest swelling with emotions that he didn't know how to handle. He was worried about the girl he saw in his vision- Tamika, and he also... missed her? That word didn't seem quite right, but he wasn't sure if there was a right word for it.

He didn't know her- at least, he didn't think he did, but the more he thought about her the more familiar she seemed.

"Taber?" he started softly, still cowed. "Have you been getting visions too?"

"I don't know who this Jaron is, either," Azazel said, "but you are right on me not being normal. A robot is a metallic being. Most do small tasks, but a few - like me - are more complex."

He kept his tone slow and his words as simple as possible; he wanted to convey the knowledge with as little time needed as possible. He also opted to exclude the bit about him being a demon trapped in a robotic body. It would be easier if he kept things basic.

"The other boy was something called a vampire," he said. He gave them a warm smile, though he knew it didn't look quite right. "Vampires need to drink blood. I had some blood in me so I appeared more human - robots aren't especially accepted where I come from."


Gabriel would have thought that there be some kind of warning before the vampire kid suddenly became an adult again, but it looked like fate really wanted to mess with him today. The vampire grew up without warning, and became startling hot - although, in retrospect, vampires did seem to score when it came to eternal sexiness.

Oh, and the vampire apparently knew him, which could either be great or horrible-

Wait. It was harder to make the distinction now that he wasn't inside a dark night club, but the vampire quickly looked familiar. He was easily able to put a name to his face, too: Ciaran, the owner of a night club called Entranced. It had been quite some time since his last visit, but Ciaran apparently still remembered him.

"Hey," he said. He threw his hands up in mock surrender, just to be on the safe side. "My friend and I - Issac, remember him? - think that this forest takes adults, wipes their memories and turns them into little kids. Like you. And like me and Issac, if you remember meeting a certain Saentiel and Azazel earlier. I don't know why you came to the forest in the first place, but there must have been some kind of reason for it that you're just not remembering off the top of your head."

He looked down at the blood bag, then pointed at it.

"Are you going to finish that? It's a waste of blood if you don't."

While Tristan was more than content to keep poking the adult, Aegeas crossed his arms. Memories tugged at him, but he brushed them aside. They couldn't be memories. He'd never been around metallic people; he'd never even heard of metallic people before. It was obviously the visions trying to drive him crazy. And he wasn't 100% sure the metal man wasn't a vision. Then again, he looked real enough, and Tristan could see him too, so might as well keep up the conversation.

"Why does blood make you look more human?" Aegeas said. "I've got blood and I'm not human. And how do you know that kid was even a vampire, or whatever you're calling him? What if he was just hungry for normal things?"



"Go!"

"How dare you, I am not about to leave you and risk-"

"She's coming for you! I can hold her off long enough for you to get the palace."

"No, no, no no no no no, I already lost-"

"Go! I'll be fine! You're going to lose everyone if you don't go!"

"He is dead, he died in my arms, I cannot just-"

"Please be selfish for once. She's almost on top of us."

"...Please stay with me."

"I'll find you when we're done."

Shaking and wrapped his arms around himself, it took Taber a few seconds to notice that the other person had said something. The wolf nodded, sitting down on the ground. Was she fine? She had to be fine. He just found out he had a girlfriend, he wasn't about to lose her. But, it had been such a whirlwind of color and sounds and smells, it had been impossible to tell.

A couple tears fell down his cheeks.

Sevy's face softened as he saw the wolf's tears, and he quickly walked forward, a sympathetic frown on his face. Without hesitation, he wrapped his arms around him gently, patting his back.

Usually, he wasn't really a touchy person, but Taber had been comforting Seantiel earlier, and by rule he never resisted comforting a person who was sad.

"Did you have a sad vision?" He asked gently. "I'm so sorry. Do you want to talk about it? You don't have to if you don't want to."

Ciaran stared a Gabriel for a moment, tilting his head as he studied him. Gabriel's reasoning was sound, but something niggled at him, and Ciaran wasn't quite sure how to respond to him. He sighed and glanced down at the blood bag, grimacing at the small pool of blood seeping into the ground beneath it. As much as he'd prefer Luca, something told him that that blood bag was his best bet for now. He also really did not want to test himself or Gabriel, especially not with tainted blood. Demons, he thought sourly, glowering at Gabriel.

"No, I suppose I had better not waste it," he said and swooped in to pick up the bag, retreating a few steps back. He eyed it with distaste before glancing towards Gabriel again, and then down at himself. All he wore was his shirt and a pair of underwear. He blinked. When had he ended up partially naked in the middle of the forest. "I think someone was threatening Luca, so that's why I can here. It might've had something to do with a local Fae lord. I'm not sure. It's hard to remember properly."

He sighed and went to drink the blood when a shrill chirping noise rang out through the clearing and something began buzzing against his chestt. Ciaran blinked and plucked the phone out his pocket, glancing at the screen. He groaned when he saw his son's name on it. Why did his son have to call him now, of all times? When he was partially naked, in the forest, in front of a demon? Honstly, the timing!

Ciaran sighed. "Hang on, I need to answer this." He turned away and hit answer, rasing the phone to his ear. "Ethan," he said smoothly, voice betraying nothing. "You have excellent timing."

"Dad! Where are you?" his son demanded, sounding strained and exhausted. That was...unusual for him. Ciaran frowned. "You've been missing for days! Where have you been? I was so worried--"

"Ethan," he warned, well aware that the demon was probably listening in. Ciaran kept his back to Gabriel regardless and lowered his voice. "I am fine. I'm...in a forest. Not sure where. I'll let you know when I leave..." He turned to glance back at Gabriel. "I will not be alone."

Without waiting for an answer from his son, he hung up and put the phone away. He turned back properly to find Gabriel staring at him. He stared back, unblinking.

"What?"

Azazel had to think carefully on how to answer the question. He was beginning to suspect that Aegeas and his brother weren't from Earth - he couldn't easily match their outfits to a specific time period, and also couldn't recall a species they might have been from. People like them seemed to be prevalent, wherever they came from, which meant his usual explanation might seem odd to both of them.

"Where I'm from, being human is normal," Azazel said. "Most humans don't even know that things other than themselves exist, and it can be...dangerous to reveal that you aren't human. It's suspicious if I don't bleed. I already look the part of a human, so it makes my story more credible."

He thought for another moment, then gestured at his teeth.

"All vampires have fangs," he said. "My friend and I noticed that the boy had them earlier, and, after interacting with his kind for as long as both of us have, there's a certain feeling you get around specific kinds of people."


"Nothing," Gabriel nonchalantly said, looking away. Despite Ciaran's best attempts to hide what was being discussed, Gabriel still had been able to pick up on the conversation. He had to be aware when on a job - it was second nature to listen in on things now.

He scanned the horizon for Issac and the two otter kids, as well as any other children that might have appeared or strayed from the original group.

"It's just that I didn't see you as the type to have a kid," he finally said, voicing the thought that had been nagging at him. He didn't say anymore on the topic; he didn't want to. It made him think too much of Nick and the life they could have had together, and how they had been planning on adopting right before he had been murdered.

"Anyways," Gabriel loudly said, resting his hands behind his head as he leaned up against a nearby tree, "it looks like you and I are in a similar boat right now. A...friend of mine decided to threaten me into seeking out the source of the forest's power, threatening the lives of both Issac and our favorite human, Quinn. He must have gotten tired of waiting and sent Issac in."

"Appearances can be deceiving," Ciaran said, not looking at him. His hold on the blood bag tightened, causing the bag to scrunch up a little and squirt blood right into Ciaran's face. He froze, breathing shallowly. Surely he wasn't so compromised as to lose control? Ciaran closed his eyes, fighting the urge to drain the bag dry and attempt to take Gabriel's blood by force. He was not his sire; he would not kill if he could help it. "And yes, it seems that we are indeed in the same boat... Hmm..."

He turned his back on Gabriel and drained the bag before his conscience could get the best of him, or before his need for privacy compromised his need to feed. If he had, indeed, been here for days like Ethan had suggested... He dreaded to think what might have happened back at the club while he was gone. Ciaran shuddered, taking a moment to compose himself, and felt a heavy weight settle in his gut at the memory of himself, as a child, leaning against the demon and jiggling his leg as he drank from the blood bag like a child would from a juice-box. He scowled.

"Have you, by any chance, seen the rest of my clothes?" he asked, still not looking directly at the demon. "I seem to have...uh...lost them..."

Gabriel shook his head, only to stop when he realized that Ciaran wasn't looking in his direction right now. "Haven't seen them," he cheerfully replied. He could offer him his leather jacket, but Ciaran hadn't exactly been the most friendly since turning back into an adult. He had his guesses that Ciaran's sudden dislike of him had to do with him being a demon - when wasn't that the case these days? - which definitely ironic, since humans were usually the ones that gave his kind slack.

As he continued to wait for Issac's return, he suddenly heard movement from nearby. His hand immediately went for the knife he had hidden away in one of his pockets - it was impossible to tell what the source of the noise was-

Two children suddenly came wandering out of the bushes, one proudly leading the other along as she held onto his wrist. Gabriel suddenly felt grateful that he hadn't taken out his weapon. The first of the two had to be only five or six, and the second was just a toddler. They looked vastly different; the girl was dressed up to the point that he had initially thought she was a doll (same frilly dress, ribbons in her black hair and long white socks) while the toddler was wearing a cotton pants and a cotton shirt that were both obnoxiously bright colors that didn't match.

"Hi!" the girl chirped. She waved at them with her free hand.

He hesitantly waved back.

"Are you his papa?" she asked, looking at him with frustrating familiar dark brown eyes. "He needs to find his papa, and he started getting all upset when I didn't know where to find him. So I promised to help Ethan, and he's letting me be his big sister!"

Gabriel glanced between the toddler and Ciaran. Wasn't Ethan the name of his son? "I think your kid decided he couldn't wait for you," he said. He turned his attention back to the girl. Why dd she look so frustratingly familiar? He crouched down in front of hair and stared into her dark eyes, narrowing his own considerably as he tried to figure out her identity-

No. It couldn't be, could it? Quinn would have never dressed like that! It was too frilly for her, and she had always loved her jeans...But if this forest was replicating actual childhoods, then Quinn would have been dressed incredibly well by her parents, and she had always said that they treated her more like a doll than anything else.

"Quinn?" he asked.

She gave an amazed gasp.

"You know my name!" she exclaimed.

Gabriel paled.

"Issac!" he shouted, not even sure if the other demon could hear him from wherever he was. "I think we have a problem!"

Ciaran stared in disbelief at the two children, and especially the toddler. It couldn't be.. But Gabriel was right. That was his son. That was Ethan. And when his son caught sight of him, he pulled away from the girl just a tad too fast to be full human and bolted towards him.

"PAPA!" Ethan cried, and Ciaran just knew that there should have been some stumbling or a face-plant or something. He sighed, swearing in a dozen different languages as his son practically launched himself at him. "Papa! I find you! Quinn help!"

"Ethan," he said softly, catching his son and hefting him up onto one hip. "What are you doing here? I told you to stay put."

Ethan pouted. "Dunno. But need to find Papa." He scrunched up his face, expression bordering on painful as he apparently tried to think. "I dun 'member, but it's.. imp... im-por-tant."

"Important, Ethan?" Ciaran asked, frowning. Did Ethan coming to find him have something to do with Ciaran entering the forest for Luca? Probably. He sighed. Stupid dhampir, he thought and hugged Ethan close. "You shouldn't have followed me, little one."

"Had to!" There was a pause as if Ethan were trying to find the right words in his child-like mind. "Need...help. Im-por-tant!"

Ciaran glanced towards Gabriel, who was pale as a ghost and stared at the little girl. He vaguely remembered overhearing him call her 'Quinn' and then shout for Isaac. Ciaran glanced around the clearing, then moved a couple steps closer to Gabriel.

"Perhaps we should find the others?" he suggested, glancing between Quinn and Ethan. Honestly, Ethan had either the best or worst timing. What was he supposed to do with a dhampir child who might not know what he was or how to control his...urges. Ciaran looked skyward, as if that might hold the answers he sought. It did not. "This is not ideal." He met Ethan's bright, young eyes. "You are the most impossible child I have ever met."