Young Writers Society

Hearing snippets of the conversation, Robin glanced over at Envy - who didn't have the scowl she would have expected, given the context. They were smiling at the comment. It wasn't a big smile, but it was a smile all the same.

"...You don't mind what they're saying, do you?" she quietly guessed.

Envy gave a small nod of the head.

Robin glanced back at Greed and Fyrsil; the former of the two was saying, "They're really not a bad person" in defense of Envy. But she had seen the look on his face before he had started talking, and she could see the reason for messing with Greed.

"The look on his face was pretty funny," she admitted.

"It was my turn to mess with him," Envy simply said, clearly proud of how easily the task had been done.


"We did, actually," Zogin said. "It used to belong to the man who raised me. He left me everything of his, and the armor was one of those things."

...Soul was another, but she obviously wasn't going to broach that subject, especially when that didn't technically apply anymore.

Fyrsil paused. Ugh, of course it had been Envy messing with them. Fyrsil had pegged Envy as a little too serious and honest for that, but they'd proved him wrong.

"I'll give you credit," Fyrsil said, walking out from behind Greed and fighting the blush that wanted to spread across his face. "You're probably used to that, I'm guessing."



"It's perfectly fine if you're honoring him," Arlais said, speaking slowly as she wondered if she'd started saying something inappropriate. "It's just not the most comfortable way to do that, I guess?"

"A little," Greed said, staring at the back of their head. He could have sworn that they didn't do that as much when they were kids, but maybe all of those years alone had gotten to his sibling's head and made the homunculus just a little more devious than before.


"Beggars can't be choosers," Zogin said.

"It's alright," Soul said, at exactly the same time as Zogin. The two exchanged a look. They had been so focused on answering Arlais in a way that deflected suspicion that they hadn't paid attention to the other - now they were in the uncomfortable situation where they didn't know who was supposed to speak next.

Fortunately enough, before Arlais had any chance to reply and figure out why Soul and Zogin were tripping over each other, the door to the house slowly swung open.

An arctic fox stepped out. Wearing oil-splattered, brown overalls over a white undershirt, the fox waved hello with his one good paw. His other arm, from the shoulder down, had been replaced by a mess of metal in the vague shape of an arm, which now rested against his side.

"Uh, hello," Jaron said, smiling awkwardly as he stared out at the group. From the way his eyes darted around and he quietly mouthed something, Arlais wondered if he was trying to count how many people there were. The way he shrunk back said it wasn't quite what he'd been expecting. "You're probably wondering-"

A blur flashed past Arlais; it took her a couple seconds to realize it was the hound, sprinting towards Jaron. Kendrik threw his arms around Jaron, resting his head on Jaron's shoulder.

"You're, uh, probably wondering, uh," Jaron said, glancing between Kendrik and the others. He finally gave up talking, sighing and running his paw through the fur on Kendrik's neck. "You're not going to let go of me, are you?"

The hound shook his head.

"You know each other?" Soul hesitantly asked - he was still clinging to Zogin's arm.

"Oh, they definitely know each other," Zogin said. "From how close they are."

"That's good," Mage softly said from a few feet away. "Then we can get back sooner, right?"

"This is my boyfriend," Jaron said, nudging Kendrik's head with his own. "And hopefully? Maybe?"

"Why're ya so chatty?" said the hound suddenly, still clinging onto Jaron. "Ya ain't a fake or anythin' like that - ya smell an' look an' feel like yerself - but it's, weird to hear ya talk ta people and be so calm 'bout it."

Jaron's smile faltered ever so slightly. Gesturing at the door, the fox said, "That's a long story. It might be better to get everyone inside first. I don't want to make this any more stressful and awkward than it already is."

Looks were exchanged among the group, and then they collectively filtered into the building.

All things considered, Arlais wasn't terribly surprised that the inside looked a lot like the outside. Jaron had one interest, and it showed up in the tools, machine parts, and metal that covered almost every square inch of the floor. Diagrams and notes scrawled on papers buried almost anything that suggested she was in a house, including the stone walls and the wooden ceilings.

Except for the path that led into a surprisingly bare living room. A few green couches and wooden chairs sat in front of an empty brick fireplace. Other than the translucent window that looked out into the front yard, the room lacked the character of the rest of the house. No lamps, tables, rugs, carpets, or any of the little details of a regular house. It both looked hollow and quite like Jaron.

With everyone else in the room, Jaron and Kendrik shuffled their way to the couch closest to the fireplace. Jaron sat on Kendrik's knee, the hound still giving him a hug.

"You can sit wherever you want," Jaron said, gesturing to the rest of the room. "I, uh, don't get a lot of visitors here, but hopefully this is fine."

The group made their way to the couches and chairs - Soul and Zogin sat down in one of the couches together, Robin and Envy found seats in chairs right beside each other, Janos stood off to the side partially in the room's shadows, Mage and Zest sat down on a couch together, and Greed leaned up against the window.

"It's fine," Robin reassured him. "So I'm guessing you have an idea of what's going on?"

"Yeah," said Jaron. The fox glanced over at Aegeas, who had been laid out over Kellach and Fyrsil's laps. The trio took up a couch, so Arlais and Tristan had to pull up chairs to either side and sit down. Jaron blinked - that was a lot of otters.

Well, at least he wouldn't have to worry about Aegeas flipping out (for the moment, anyways). Jaron took a deep breath.
"You've probably noticed this is a pretty weird place, and I think that's because it's my mind? So, sorry about that."

Greed stared, then let out a groan.

"This is as bad as when Gluttony swallowed us that one time," he said. Though he wasn't near Envy, it was clear he was addressing the other homunculus in the room. "I hate being stuck in other people."

Envy just held their head in their hands.

"That doesn't make any sense," Janos slowly said, staring at Jaron in what seemed like an attempt to prove that he was lying.

"It doesn't have to make sense," Zogin said - which was ironic, considering that Robin had just heard her tell Soul how impossible that had to be, and how Jaron had to be a liar. A short distance away, Mage was awkwardly trying to give Zest a pat on the back - the wraith was muttering things under his breath that presumably only Mage could hear thanks to how close they were.

"Well," Robin said, sitting up in her seat, "this is definitely going to make for an interesting story."

Looking over to the right, Fyrsil blinked. "Your brother ate you?" he said to Greed, eyes wide. Sure, he knew that Greed and Envy's family wasn't exactly normal, but he couldn't help but be a little relieved that he didn't have siblings.

While the other otters shifted in their seats, either trying not to think about Gluttony or that they'd ended up in someone else's mind (or didn't quite believe it, which was fair - Fyrsil didn't know Jaron well enough to lean one way or the other), Kendrik growled. "Don't call 'im a liar," he said, looking between Janos and Zogin.

Jaron, in the meantime, gave an awkward smile. "It doesn't make a lot of sense, and I don't know if it's much of a story," he said. "And it's not my fault, but the bad news is I'm pretty sure I know whose fault it is."

"I never said he was a liar-" Janos started to protest, only to be cut off by Zogin.

"It doesn't make any sense," she said. "You can't just go in someone's mind - there's no magic to do that."

Soul awkwardly cleared his throat. "No magic that we know of," he corrected, Mage nodding a few feet away.

"So who's fault is it?" Robin asked, trying to steer the conversation away from a potential argument.

Still a better start than he'd been expecting - a few people were suspicious or surprised, but none of them were outright calling Jaron a liar, and they seemed to be willing to accept the possibility of being stuck in Jaron's mind. And the fox had to take what he could get.

Gently tugging on Kendrik's ear to get the hound to stop glaring at the others, Jaron sighed. "Kendrik and I were up in the north," he said, the hound looking up to him with big eyes and a worried expression. Jaron almost paused - the ice fields were a dangerous place, and the last thing Kendrik needed was to have some of his fears confirmed - but they all needed to know what had happened. If only so they could help Jaron figure it all out.

"Kendrik went to visit a town, so I hid in the snow like normal. Except there was this person in a huge coat who walked by me. I couldn't get a good look at their face, but I could see them shivering and shaking. They kept tripping and stumbling through the snow, so I decided to get out of my hiding spot and see if I could help them out." The fox's arms started to shake. "And they just, turned to me, smiled, and tapped me on the forehead."

The fox threw his arm out. "So I ended up here. I figured out this was my mind pretty quickly - when I get scared or angry, I like to think about living in a house like this - but I also figured out I was stuck here. So I imagined all the toughest people I knew. Except, something happened? I don't recognize a lot of you."

"So this is either a shared hallucination and you're in control, or we somehow ended up in someone's head," Robin concluded. She crossed her arms and let out a sigh, her foot tapping against the ground. "I'm not sure which one would be harder to solve."

"You're taking this well," Envy muttered.

Robin thought for a moment.

"I deal with odd things," she said. "I've...I've never heard of something like this before, exactly, but I've definitely heard of strange things happening because of haywire magic."