Young Writers Society

"God of the wild?" Kai said, focusing on the goat man walking with Poseidon and the two humans towards the trees. "I like the wild. He likes Poseidon, but he's still probably an okay person."

"I-I suppose," said Niwa. Kai looked back to see Niwa half-hiding behind Icarus, fur somehow looking even paler than usual. Why was Niwa afraid? He was usually so much more confident and calmer and willing to talk to people. Was it all of these gods?

Whatever - the others were almost at the trees, so Kai would have to take Niwa's place for a bit.

Icarus tried not to feel worried about Niwa suddenly hiding behind him, but it was hard not to. He didn't know how Pan would react to him, or even how the two newcomers would. When they finally did reach the treeline, Icarus tried his best not to look terrified - knowing that he was failing miserably.

"So this is Icarus?" Pan asked, taking a step forward so he was right in front of Icarus's face. Icarus couldn't help it. The sudden proximity made him give a startled cry, and he went tumbling back into Niwa - knocking him to the ground, too - as he tried to back away.

Pan turned back to Poseidon.

"I think I broke your human," he said.

"He's not my human," Poseidon replied, an almost childish expression on his face as he looked away.

Pan let out a sigh. "...We're going to have to have another talk later," he said.

Poseidon frowned. "I don't need talks."

"Oh, you definitely need this one," he said. "You'll thank me later for it."

Normally, Niwa would be a little annoyed at being shoved into the ground, but he could excuse Icarus for being scared of the two gods heading towards them. And, well, if Niwa's grabbing onto Icarus's shoulders for dear life wasn't a hint, the way that Niwa's heart tried to jump out of his chest as he saw Kai walk up to the said gods showed Niwa felt about the same as Icarus.

Kai, meanwhile, walked up to Pan. After staring him up and down, Kai poked him in the leg. "You look weird," Kai said.

Poseidon - ever the protective god he was - gave a glare in the stranger's direction. Pan could just barely hide his smile. He was so sweet, even if the way he tried to get across his opinions could use a little polishing here and there.

"Take that back-" Poseidon started to say, only to fall silent when Pan dismissed the comment from the stranger with a wave of his hand. He settled for taking an intimidating step forward and continuing his glare.

(He was just way too cute!)

"It's alright," he reassured Poseidon. "It's what people who aren't Greek say."

Poseidon stubbornly crossed his arms. "It sounded like he was insulting you."

"He was just stating a fact," Pan said, giving his best friend a warm smile. Poseidon faltered at the look - now he had a chance to reply to the comment itself.

"I was born like this," he said. "You can blame my religion."

"I don't get what that means, but I think you're fine," Kai said. He pointed to Poseidon. "If I wanted to make fun of anybody, it'd be him. He's grumpy and mean."

Poseidon frowned at the comment. Icarus, who was now in the middle of getting to his feet, desperately wished Kai wouldn't say anymore. He was bound to get on the god's bad side, and getting on a god's bad side was the one thing you were never supposed to do.

"He's lying," Poseidon growled.

Icarus took a nervous step back.

This was really bad.

Pan looked over at him with an almost amused glint to his eyes. "Is he?"

Poseidon nodded, his gaze traveling in the opposite direction of the group gathered.

"You seem grumpy to me," Pan commented. Icarus gaped at the god of the wild; if they were going by important, Poseidon definitely outranked him, and Poseidon seemed like the more terrifying out of the two of them. He didn't want a godly war when he was only a few feet away!

"...I don't."

"You do," Pan insisted. He took a step around Poseidon so they were face-to-face. "You're doing that thing again where you puff out your cheeks and glare off into the distance. You're annoyed, aren't you?"

"...Maybe," Poseidon admitted. He went to stare down at the ground, only to glance back up at Pan when the other god put his hand on his shoulder. He let out the air in his cheeks in one big burst. "Zeus isn't helping me."

"He doesn't usually," Pan reminded him.

"We're brothers," he said. "Family helps each other. And I don't like being stuck on this island with mortals - especially when I don't even know where here is!"

Kai crossed his arms. "We're on an island, dummy," he said. "Are you always this grumpy?"

"I know we're on an island!" Poseidon replied, exasperated. Icarus frantically glanced between the god and Kai, desperately trying to convey to Kai through the look on his face that it wasn't a good idea to anger a god. "But I don't know where the island is. And if I don't know where the island is, I can't get to Olympus, or the Underworld, or anywhere because you can't get to a destination without knowing where you started."

"He's not usually this grumpy," Pan helpfully chimed in. Icarus was having trouble believing that, but the god did seem to be telling the truth - if he went off of his tone alone. "He's just having a bad day today, and is in the middle of his terrible twos."

Poseidon blinked, then turned to stare back at him. "I'm not two."

"It's been a little more than twenty years since I found you, and you definitely weren't this agitated back when we first met," he said. "Ergo, terrible twos."

Laughing, Kai stood beside Pan and looked over at Poseidon. Now that there was another god, Kai felt like he could get away with annoying Poseidon, but he didn't want to take chances.

"He is pretty terrible," Kai said, pointing at the god. "He knows he's next to the sea, and he's the god of the sea, but he can't do anything with it."

Kai paused, then stared up at Pan. "You're the god of nature, right? What all do you do?"

It was one thing for him to joke around with Poseidon, and another for a stranger to make snide comments about his best friend. Pan didn't know how he felt about it. It might have been something that Poseidon deserved, seeing how he had been acting since he had shown up. But it still rubbed him the wrong way to hear someone insulting one of the people he was closest to.

He took a step back and walked over to where Poseidon was, throwing his arm around the water god's shoulder. Poseidon faltered for a second before leaning up against him.

"Our godhood isn't like what you hear about in legends," Pan explained. Poseidon didn't say anything beside him. "We each have a 'domain', or something that we're technically supposed to have power over. Mine is the wild, while Poseidon's is the sea. It manifests in different ways. For me, I look like this and have pretty strong control over plant life. For Poseidon, he can manipulate water and breath underwater."

He glanced over at Icarus - the only person there who really believed in them. He had to word things carefully, or else he would turn him off. It was something they just weren't supposed to do, but something told him Icarus would never be able to look at them in the same way ever again.

"We're not born like the stories about us say we were," Pan continued. He turned back to the original audience of his explanation. "We're born from people's beliefs in us. We still do some of the same basic things, though. Poseidon's brother Hades is in charge of the Underworld and deals with the deceased, while his other brother Zeus is in charge of all of us. We have immortality, we fall in love with mortals, and we help out those that our domain affects when we can - we're still basically the same, but with different origin stories."

Kai scrunched his face. "I don't understand any of that, and I don't really care, but you're the god of the wild, so that's cool," he said.

He turned back, tail swishing as he stared into the jungle. "Are we going in there?" he said. "Do we have any other choice? It looks like a really weird forest."

Pan followed his gaze.

"I think we have to," he said, already leading Poseidon towards. Icarus fell meekly into step behind them - he'd have to talk to the human later, seeing that he was absolutely terrified of both him and Poseidon. He tried to be as personable as he could possibly be, but sometimes his reputation made that a little difficult. "Staying on this shore isn't really an option, and we might be able to find someone or some kind of shelter further in."

Kai jogged up to the gods, keeping pace with them. He knew that Niwa was still cowering behind the human, but that was okay - if Niwa was scared by something, it was usually for a good reason. But Niwa didn't tell Kai to stop, so it couldn't be that bad.

Stepping through the plants and moss, scrabbling up and down logs, gripping the trees and pulling himself along, it felt almost like home. "I don't think there's any shelter," he said to Pan, sniffing the air. "This island isn't too big, I can't smell anything that says people live here, and I feel like we would've run into them by now. We're not quiet.

Pan thought for a moment.

"Good point," he agreed. He glanced around around at the plants around them. "I could try making a shelter with my magic, though I can't say how comfortable it'll be."