Young Writers Society

"It's fine if it's just one," Kai snapped, snatching the cigarette from Carter's hands. He held it up in front of his face, eyes fixated on the smoke coming out of the glowing end. "And I don't need Niwa to punch people for me."

He stuck it in his mouth and almost spat it back out - it was bitter and weird. Still, he didn't want Carter to say he wasn't a worldly person, so he sucked in a breath and forced it back out just as quickly.

Only to kneel down on the sand, coughing smoke out of his lungs.

"It's defective," Kai growled. He threw the cigarette on the ground, then went back to coughing.

Carter couldn't keep himself from laughing when looking down to Kai coughing on the ground. The young fox seemed to be rather shocked by the presence of the smoke when he drew in from the lit cigarette. And while Carter tried to push the dirtier thoughts out of his mind once again, he decided to provoke Kai a bit further.

"Honey, it's not defective, you are."

Kai looked back at Carter and hissed. "No, you are," he said, trying to wipe bits of ash from his face.

While trying to keep the thoughts out of his mind, Carter quickly flashed up images of a scantily clad Flynn and a host of other people who made unwanted advances.

"Kai, just admit that you don't have the slightest clue how to smoke." Carter leaned down and lifted the fox's chin up to meet his eyes, and continued, "You didn't even know what the damn things were until a few minutes ago."

Kai puffed his cheeks up. He knew he should've stopped arguing with Carter a long time ago, but something about Carter made Kai feel inadequate. And Kai hated looking like a fool in front of him.

"It was a bad cigarette," Kai said. "Give me another one."

"Look, kid, that's really not a good idea."

Carter looked down on the stare he was receiving. The level of intimidation the small fox was trying to gather against him was rather adorable. Carter took another puff of his own cigarette and then presented it to Kai.

"But if you do insist, try taking a drag off of mine. Obviously if I'm smoking it, then it's not defective, right?"

"Same here," Pan agreed. He really had no plans of hurting Flynn and Carter unless they proved themselves to truly be threats. As of right now, all they were doing was chatting and sharing strange things with Kai.

A moment passed, and he glanced over at Kai.

"Quick question," he said, turning back to Flynn. "Do you know who Poseidon and I are? Kai and Niwa don't seem to, but Icarus does - which makes sense, seeing that Poseidon ended up here with him."

Kai hesitated, then took the cigarette. "Yeah," he said. He set it in his mouth, then held his breath. If he didn't inhale or exhale, he could pretend he was doing it right.

A few seconds later, Kai nodded at Carter.

The fox was proving more adorable by the second of trying to convince Carter he knew how to smoke a cigarette.

“Kai, if you want that to work, you actually have to inhale. That’s where your trouble came before, wasn’t it?” Carter softened his expression a bit and looked at the fox with kinder eyes, “It’s okay to admit you don’t know something.”

He looked away from Kai’s fake attempts to make a brief moment of eye contact with Flynn.

Flynn looked back with one of his regular glares of “I have this perfectly under control.” And Flynn did have it under control.

“I’m aware of you and Poseidon and the rest of your relatives, yeah. We’ve come up against quite a few pagan gods who lost their strength and were trying to recapture it.”

Kai frowned; he wasn't going to admit anything if he didn't want to, and he didn't want to admit he couldn't use a cigarette.

The fox took in another breath, immediately coughing out the cigarette and a cloud of smoke. Nope, he wasn't going to deal with this. Sitting down on the sand, Kai wrapped himself up in Niwa's shirt and pressed his head against his knees.

Carter watched as Kai sunk into the sand, slightly regretting his rude demeanor. He took the cigarette from the fox’s hand, extinguishing in the sand as he took a seat beside Kai.

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings any. You’re a tough folk.”

He left a gentle hand on the paw in the sand, looking toward the palm tree to the faint outline of a figure.

“I know you won’t accept comfort from me but maybe your boyfriend could help with this?”

Feeling the hand over his paw, Kai sighed. "Yeah," he said. He took a deep breath - he didn't want to say it, but Carter really had proved him wrong, which sucked. "You're right - I'm not worldly, I don't know how to use a cigarette, and I'm a virgin. You're pretty cool, and I'm, sorry for being kinda stupid."

Kai pulled the shirt off and stood up, nodding at Carter. Then he walked over to the tree in question, where Niwa rested on the other side, practicing his breathing.

Dropping Niwa's shirt over its owner, Kai sat beside Niwa and rested his head on Niwa's shoulder. "Hey," Kai said.

The breathing slowed. "...Why do you smell like ash?" Niwa said.

"Long story," Kai mumbled. He pressed his snout into Niwa's fur and closed his eyes.

"Well, I imagine it has to be better than anything else that has happened here," Niwa said. "I am tired of all these gods and fights and trying not to get killed. I would like to go home."

"Yeah," said Kai. "Same."

Carter watched as the fox walked away and turned his attention to where Flynn was still conversing with Pan. He could get up from the sand and perhaps have a chat with Poseidon and Icarus, but instead he laid back in the sand. Carter pulled the brim of the combat helmet over his face, slipped on sunglasses and settled further into the sand.

It would have been nice to have Bear here, but it also would have been nicer to have the other boy. Someone he could run off to and share a cigarette with and relate to someone how terrible it was to be here.

But there wasn’t.

So Carter kept silent in the sand with one hand on the service pistol and the other tucked behind his head.

It was going to be a long mission.

Pan stared.

He was trying to wrap his head around what Flynn was saying, but the words just weren't making sense. Pagan? Trying to get back their strength? The word "pagan" was a completely unfamiliar one, and he didn't even know how a god could lose their strength to begin with. Though they might have been created by people's beliefs in them, they weren't kept alive by those same beliefs - it just didn't work like that.

Besides, his and Poseidon's religion was at its peak. He didn't know how long it would be - no god ever knew something like that, according to the older ones - but they were still one of the active religions. Poseidon had even been on assignment; dying religions didn't get that.

"...So you do know who we are," Pan hesitantly concluded. "That's good, I guess."

He thought for a moment.

"I've never heard 'pagan' before," he finally said, "and I'll admit that I'm a little confused. Why would other gods from our religion try to regain their strength? Our religion's doing good right now - we're present in all of Greece."

He probably shouldn't have been getting so into depth about how gods and religions worked, but it seemed like Flynn knew a thing or two about that. He just had to figure out what exactly Flynn was referring to.


Poseidon had completely misinterpreted the gestures. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel happy or worried about that. On one hand, Poseidon wasn't angry. On the other hand, he would be if he found out the truth. That much Icarus was sure of.

But this current side of the god was one he hadn't expected, and he found some of his fear of him begin to fade away as he hesitantly approached his side. "...You're welcome," he finally - and quietly - said. "Is...Is there a reason why you don't want to fight?"

Poseidon glanced up to give him a look of disbelief. "Do you want to fight?"

"No," Icarus was quick to answer.

The water god crossed his arms. "I don't want to, either."

Icarus glanced between Kai and Niwa, and the two down on the beach. Not want to fight? All he had done was fight! "I don't want to fight because I don't know how and don't think I would win," he said. "But...But you're Poseidon, and you don't seem afraid of fighting. You're a god. You can't be beaten that easily."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Poseidon muttered, gaze dropping back down to the beach. "Fighting...Fighting isn't right. It's disrespectful, except if you're doing it in defense. You're supposed to exhaust all of the other options, but gods like fighting. It helps with the boredom. And they all do it so much that they fight whenever they think they can - even Pan does it."

"You sound like you're not like other gods," Icarus softly said. "But you're Zeus and Hades' brother - you're one of the most important ones. How could you be so different from them?"

Poseidon looked back up at him, arms still folded. "It took them awhile to find me. Gods...Gods aren't what you think they are. We're created by people believing in us. And we don't always know what we are and who we are, so we're found by other people." He glanced off towards Pan. "I wasn't found by humans."

"...What else is there to be found by?"

"Mermen."

He blinked.

"...What?" he managed to get out. "Those...Those exist?"

Poseidon nodded.

"Mermen?" Niwa hissed. Kai could feel him shake his paws in frustration. "What are those?"

Blinking one eye open, Kai stared over at where Icarus and Poseidon stood next to each other. "Maybe he'll tell us how weird he is," Kai said.