Young Writers Society

You decided to go sailing. Maybe you went onto a fishing boat with a couple friends, hopped onto a ferry to the nearest town, went on a cruise to the Caribbean, or joined one of those icebreakers patrolling the Arctic Ocean. And, as you can probably guess, something went wrong. A freak storm swept in; a rouge wave rose out of the water; lightning struck the boat. You had to evacuate. You had to either dive into the water or climb into some raft and hope that you drifted to safety.

And you drifted, but not to safety.

The island you’ve landed on isn’t on any maps (for good reason, as you’re going to find out). It’s barely even holding itself above the water. The rocks piled up into a mountain on the other side of the island from the beach you’ve landed on is your best hope for shelter. Between those two points are an array of forests and swamps, surprisingly quiet and devoid of life, but no less dangerous. Quicksand, mosquitoes, rotting trees, and thunderstorms are your greatest obstacles.

And you have the sinking feeling that you don’t have a lot of time to get to the mountain.

Rules:

1. Third-person perspective (preferred)

2. Past tense (preferred)

3. I'm pretty open to violence or romance, but ask if me you think anything will be too explicit.

4. Have fun!

As Niwa woke up, he regretted not having spent the extra money to buy a room – his back was in agony. But Kai had wanted to be as far away from the water as possible, and the voyage wasn’t supposed to have taken long anyways. In fact, Niwa was a little surprised not to hear the crew walking down the hallways, knocking on doors and telling people that they’d docked.

Egh, not a problem; he could try and get a little more sleep in the meantime. Niwa shuffled around, surprised to find the hammock underneath him so hot and shifting. He also found that he could only move a short distance to the right or the left before a stabbing pain shot through his hip. Had his leg fallen asleep? Was that one of Kai’s claws? How crowded was their compartment?

Something poked at his face. Groaning, Niwa reached out a hand to brush aside what he was reasonably sure was a piece of food as he blinked his eyes open. The sunlight over his head almost blinded him, throwing dots in his vision that blended with the familiar face that now peered down at him.

Kai mumbled something, poking Niwa in the snout with a stick.

But, as much as Niwa’s brain tried to wrap itself around where he was and what had happened, and as much as his ears rang, he couldn’t hear a word Kai said. And Kai would be a little unhappy if he didn’t get a response, so Niwa threw out a weak, “Yeah?”

Kai crossed his arms. “Don’t be mean,” he said, pulling his head back and laying himself down on the sand beside Niwa. Kai stared up at the sun and pouted. “I just wanted to be sure.”

The sun beat down on Niwa again. Raising a hand and tilting his head to the side, Niwa stared into Kai’s eyes. “What happened?” Niwa said slowly, starting to piece things together. That Kai was partly covered in sand, and that his fur was either matted or puffed out, helped.

“You don’t remember?” Kai said, glancing in Niwa’s direction. “I guess you were asleep. Something happened, and they came down and pulled us up, and threw us onto a boat and pushed it into the water. I think they left us to die, which is why I wanted to know if you were dead or not.”

“I don’t think they’d-” Niwa began, before Kai pointed at something nearby. When Niwa looked, he saw the fragments of a boat splintered across a few rocks scattered on what turned out to be beach. “Oh.”

Kai rose up, trying to shake some of the sand off his fur. Unfortunately for him, his soaked fur was the perfect environment for the sand to cling on to. Grumbling, Kai reached for Niwa’s arms and hauled the silver fox up, beginning to drag him away from shore. “We need to get out of here,” Kai said. “The sand sucks and I don’t like getting wet and I think there’s a mountain this way. It’s probably a safe place.”

Niwa craned his head back to look up at Kai. This was too much to take in. They’d crashed? They were stranded in the middle of nowhere? They had no idea if anyone knew where they were? It couldn’t get much worse than this.

Then the silver fox noticed something. He frowned. “Kai,” he said, “Why are you wearing my shirt?”

Kai looked away. “So I could get a good look at what happened to you,” he said, voice trailing off by the end. Niwa caught it anyway

Niwa looked down and froze. There was a piece of wood embedded in his side, between his hip and his stomach. A trail of blood ran down onto the sand, staining his pants and fur.

Oh. It could get worse.

Back in his father's workshop, he had caught glimpses of the man now sprawled across the sandy shores of the beach. He had seen him conversing with the king - not as equals, but as his superior. He had marveled at him then, and marveled at him even as the mystery of a man coughed up water onto the shore. His pristine white chiton was drenched. The seaweed he had braided into his light brown hair had begun to fall out, and his blue eyes were brimming with tears as he furiously tried to wipe the sand out.

"You're a fool," the man declared, then promptly spat more water out onto the beach.

He stared at him.

The man angrily gestured at the mass a short distance away from where he had awoken - a mix of metal, wax, feathers and the remnants of his father's magic. "That," the man said, "was the stupidest way I've ever heard of someone ever escaping."

He bristled with annoyance. "Don't insult my father's craftsmanship-"

"I wasn't," the man interrupted. "I was insulting you. It was your idea, not his. He just made the thing - you were the one who thought flying was a good way to get away from your king. Have you just heard of sneaking out? I know you think you're smart, but you're not. You're just a pain in the a**."

He blinked.

"And now your old geezer thinks you're dead, so congratulations on that, Icarus of Crete."

His eyes widened as the memories came flooding back to him. It didn't matter that the wings had been bound by magic - they were ultimately held together by wax, and he had been foolish enough to fly too close to the sun! The feathers had started to fall out, and even after the first fell, it had been enough. He had been falling and falling and falling-

The man threw himself onto the beach with a loud noise, staring up at the sky above.

"Oh, I bet you're getting a kick out of this," he said, glaring at the sky "Couldn't even be bothered to help me, you b****** - what, didn't want to meddle in something like this? Fates, whoever thought it was a good idea to leave you in charge?"

Icarus followed his gaze. Memories flashed through his mind - this man had saved his life. He should have been thanking him, but he suddenly realized he didn't know how to act around him. He had admired him for the three years he had seen him wandering through the king's workshop, but this man was incredibly different than the one he had seen conversing with the king and his workers.

"Who are you talking to...?" he uncertainly asked.

"Zeus," the man replied. "Who else?"

He glanced back over at his rescuer. "...Are you trying to make him mad?" he hissed. "We don't even know where we are, and I think I heard something moving on the beach-"

"He can't do anything," the man interrupted yet again. "Don't give him your respect - he doesn't deserve it."

Icarus just stared.

Before they reached the treeline, Niwa heard the clunking of metal and saw two figures flop onto shore, joined by some metal and feather mess. Based on the way Kai jumped, he'd heard the same thing.

Kai yanked Niwa around, resting him against the nearest tree. As Niwa's arms flopped listlessly on the ground, Kai crouched in front of him. "Are you going to be okay?" Kai said, trying to balance Niwa, who was now listing to the side.

Niwa nodded his head. "As much as I can be," he grunted, using what little energy he had to prop his arms against the ground. Every muscle and bone in his body quivered, his breaths were shallow, and his brain sparked through random thoughts in a heartbeat.

"Good," Kai said. "I'm going to need to borrow your pants."

"Why?" Niwa said, voice shaky.

"Because you're good at talking to people, and I think there's some people there. They smell funny though - like the sea and blood. So I should pretend to be you."

Despite himself, Niwa smiled.

"What's so funny?" Kai said, crossing his arms and pouting.

"If it were anyone that I actually knew, they wouldn't believe for a second that you could possibly be me," Niwa said. "And I don't mean to be rude, but we're vastly different people. I love you, but you don't have a way with others."

Kai rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said, grabbing Niwa and pulling him into a spot underneath a couple of the larger roots in the tree. "I'll do the backup plan." Pulling off Niwa's shirt and tossing it over the silver fox, Kai grabbed onto the tree and began shimmying up. It wasn't long before the red fox vanished into the canopy.

Wrapping his shirt around himself, Niwa shivered. Hopefully Kai wouldn't do anything stupid.

The man suddenly got to his feet, a surprisingly alert expression on his face as he turned his back to the shore. Icarus followed his gaze as he also got to his feet. There was a line of trees behind them, and their species was both unfamiliar and enticing - he couldn't remember the last time he had seen a forest. He went to take a step forward, but felt a hand get placed on his shoulder.

"Do you want to see Hades?" the man hissed.

Icarus turned and stared at him. "No. Why would I-"

"Well, you're going to if you keep it up," the man said. He gestured back at another section of the beach. When Icarus followed his gaze, he saw that there were the mangled remains of what had to have been a ship, and a small trail of blood leading to the treeline. "We're not alone. One of them is injured. They're not going to like being cornered, and the other is going to try playing protector. Out of the two of us, you're the easier target, so they wouldn't have hesitated to kill you the moment you stepped into the treeline."

Just as he finished saying that, the man strode forward. Icarus went to give a cry out in protest, but the man didn't seem to care. He just spun something around in his hand. Icarus stared at the thing that was beginning to form. At first, it looked like some of the water was rolling off of his hand. But that wasn't it at all - it wasn't falling into the ground. It was going outwards, forming a long, solid staff of water. It was when the top split into three prongs that he started to question the true identity of his savior. He was spinning the trident casually in his hand now, watching one tree in particular as he reached the treeline.

Icarus gasped.

"You're Poseidon?" he managed to get out.

"You really are stupid," was the response.

Kai gripped the biggest branches he could get his claws on and scowled. So much for his backup plan. He'd been hoping they'd follow the blood right to the tree, and then he could swoop down on them before they were quick enough to pull out any weapons. And yet, not only did one man guess what was going to happen - Kai suspected the man knew exactly where he was, which annoyed him even more - that man was also waving around a trident made out of water.

Stupid mages.

The fox scanned his surroundings, looking for a weak enough branch. Finding one beside one of the ones he was gripping onto, he ripped a claw out from the wood, wrapped it around his target, and tugged. A couple pulls later, the branch ripped right off. Pulling off leaves and quickly sharpening the edge with his claws, Kai hurled it down at the man. Hopefully that'd catch him off guard.

Icarus could only watch in awe as Poseidon easily deflected the branch hurled at him. He could barely comprehend that his savior was none other than one of the most powerful gods - that the gods even existed to begin with was a miracle. In a place like Crete, one was supposed to believe in the gods. It was a sin not to, but he had been an outcast his entire life. If the gods existed, he had told himself, they would have rescued him and his father. They never had.

But Poseidon was real. He had rescued him when he had fallen into the sea, and he was saving him now. What was he supposed to do with this overwhelming set of new information?

Poseidon suddenly stopped underneath the tree, eying the branches above him. After a moment passed, he jabbed the trident up. Icarus had no way of knowing it, but it wasn't meant to impale whoever was up there - it was just meant to scoot them off of the branch they were on.

Kai ducked to the left, trying to get out of the way of the trident. He knew it wasn't aimed for him; the angle was too high. But it was obviously an attempt to scare him, and he figured he could at least try to take the trident, if at all possible for something made out of water.

Unfortunately for him, he mistimed the move - the trident scraped one of his shoulders. Swinging onto a branch weak enough to creak under his weight, Kai hissed. Rubbing his shoulder with his free paw, he stared down at the blood. Without a second thought, he lunged at the man below him, claws extended.

Poseidon raised an eyebrow and stepped to the side as the...person came hurdling out of the tree branches. He could hear Icarus giving another startled noise behind him, but there wasn't any concern - he'd be an embarrassment if he let a mortal beat him in combat.

"Was that supposed to do something?" he asked, peering down at his would-be attacker. He casually pressed his foot against the person's back, pointing his trident at their face as he prevented them from getting up. "If it was, you failed spectacularly."

"Yes it was!" Kai said, twisting himself around and reaching his arms out to grab the trident. "It was supposed to get you to stop hitting me!"

Icarus wasn't sure what he expected when the person - where they a monster? - reached up a hand to grab onto the trident, but it certainly wasn't what happened next. Poseidon studied his prisoner for a moment. Then the trident suddenly burst apart into a cascade of water, drenching the person even more than before.

"I haven't even hurt you yet," Poseidon said. An almost evil smile danced across his lips as he leaned down, and suddenly Icarus felt a jolt of terror instead of awe - gods were feared for a reason. "But I will if you don't stop struggling."

Ugh, that stupid, smug grin. Kai shook himself, spraying beads of water at the stranger's face. Then he aimed a fist up at the stranger's nose.

Poseidon easily caught the fist before it connected. "You should be careful with this thing," he said, the smile remaining as it he reached for one of his fingers and gave it a slight tug. "Hands are useful. It would be a shame if something happened to damage yours, especially when you already have an injured member of your little group..."

Kai winced, but growled. "Ha!" he said. "You don't know where he is!"

He froze. Should he have said that? He just admitted that he knew exactly who all was in the 'little group' to the man who was currently trying to torture him.

Extending the claws on his trapped hand, Kai tried to slash at the man, also swinging his head up to headbutt him.

Icarus watched in horror as the exchange continued.

"I do, actually," Poseidon said. "He's on the other side of the tree, hidden underneath the roots."

The claws barely touched the god, and the king of the sea barely flinched in the few areas that the claws made contact with skin. His elbow pushed his head back down into the ground below, violently enough that Icarus was sure a bruise would be left.

"Hm," the god mused. "I forgot how weak mortals are. That was barely more than a shove, but your head must be throbbing right now. I bet if I added just a bit more strength, I could easily break this finger. That would hurt, wouldn’t you? You can barely handle the pain-"

"Stop it," Icarus demanded, finally having enough of the torture. He stormed over to Poseidon's side, trying - and failing - to get the god's hand off of the person's wrist and finger.

Poseidon looked over at him. "Are you trying to stop a god? You're even stupider than I thought."

"I'm not letting you hurt an innocent person," Icarus declared.

Poseidon studied him for a moment, then let his prisoner go. "Your loss if he kills you, then."