Young Writers Society

It's one of those ships that can only be described in one word - cozy.

The size is cozy. The wood glistening in the sunlight is cozy. The brass buttons and supports on the sides are cozy. The round windows looking out of every room are cozy. The bedroom, the dining room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the stairs onto the deck, the propellers that whir and pop and keeping the ship floating - all cozy.

The only thing it's missing is the captain.

You know that they were a person who believed in comfort. A fireplace roars next to the dining room, powered by whatever's driving the ship. Blankets have been draped over the couches, while colorful carpets break up the wooden floors. At the bottom of the ship, barrels of drinks and boxes of food litter the storage room. It's not hard to feel at home here.

But you can't find the captain's quarters. You don't know where the captain is. You don't even know where the ship is going.

And, with the clouds far below you, it's not like you have anywhere else to go.

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!

This wasn't the first time Aegeas had woken up inside a barrel. But he'd been hoping the last time would stay the last time.

He shifted around, tapping at the lid. He had all his stuff, swords included, and he appeared to be sitting on top of a pile of dried meat. The smell of spices and salt flooded into his nose as his eyes adjusted to the light. Whatever was outside of the barrel was also dark, but that didn't mean too much - for all he knew, he was in a cellar. Not that that was anything reassuring, but it was an answer.

Fortunately enough, the lid didn't take all that much effort to pry open - hitting it twice with the butt of his scimitar, Aegeas was able to send it flying.

The otter pulled his head out of the barrel, taking a deep breath. Sure enough, it appeared to be some kind of cellar. A few boxes and barrels scattered around, cool and dry, smelling vaguely of alcohol. One of the nicer cellars he'd ever been in.

If he didn't know better, he'd tell himself that he must've gone to a bar with Kellach. But he was starting to know better.

The room took on an overwhelming silence as Aegeas pulled himself out of a barrel, stepped onto another one, and then dropped onto the floor. It wasn't right. Nothing about this place was right. He couldn't smell any earth, nor hear any creaking of the floorboards above and below him. And he couldn't help but feel like, past the pepper and salt, he smelled something. Something familiar.

Aegeas looked over at the barrel beside him. He sniffed - sausages? Readying his sword, he reached for the lid with his other paw. A few deep breaths later, he tugged on the lid, prying it off the barrel. As he did, he heard something that sounded like a muffled scream.

Looking into the barrel, Aegeas found Arlais looking back up at him.

"Oh," she whispered, after a few seconds. "Nice to see you again."

Nodding, Aegeas extended a paw, but Arlais was already pulling herself out.

"Where are we?" Arlais whispered, standing next to Aegeas.

"Not sure," Aegeas whispered back. He pulled out his other scimitar and offered it to her; she took it, though she rested its edge against the floor. Aegeas understood - she could fight (thanks to her girlfriend), but that didn't mean she wanted to.

A muffled voice came from one of the other barrels. "Aegeas?" it said, the barrel toppling onto the floor. "That you?"

It took a few seconds to get past the shock, and Arlais was a little quicker on the uptake. She walked over to the barrel, crouching down and yanking open the lid. And the otter that was also clinging onto it.

"Tristan!" Aegeas said, running over to his brother. Radishes poured out of the barrel while Tristan got onto his feet, just in time for a hug.

Tristan rested his head on Aegeas's shoulder. "Good to see you too, big brother," he said.

Another barrel shook. The eyes of the three otters immediately darted over to the corner it had been stuffed in. Letting go of Tristan, Aegeas stepped over a few boxes to get to it. To what he imagined was the surprise of the rest of the group, he set his scimitar down. He was starting to get used to the rhythm of this place.

Sitting on the barrel next to the one of interest, Aegeas grabbed the other barrel's lid with both paws and tugged. It came off a few seconds later, revealing Fyrsil in a bunch of carrots.

"Yo," Fyrsil said with a wave.

"Is that everyone?" Aegeas said, looking back to the rest of the room. "I'd really not like to spend all day opening these things."

"I think so?" Fyrsil said. He frowned. "But I could've sworn I heard something in one next to-"

Aegeas toppled backwards as something pushed the lid beneath him up. His head smacked against the floor before he could react, blinding him for just a second.

When the black spots flitted away from his vision, he saw Kellach peering out from what looked and smelled like a barrel of pickles.

"Yeah," Kellach said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Me."

Zogin awoke to discover that she was laying in a bed with someone. Considering that her last memory had been walking with Soul, and that she didn't recognize the room she was in, she was more than a little wary of the figure underneath the covers beside her. She silently withdrew her gun.

The person beside her - whoever they were - didn’t seem to notice that she had drawn a weapon. They moved a little closer to her, resting their blanket-swathed head on her lap and grabbing onto her with warm hands.

This prompted her to press her gun against their forehead.

The figure shot up with a start the moment the pressure registered, tangled up in the sheets. They panicked - they started tearing at the sheets with pale hands, and tried to scoot back. But they were too close to the edge of the bed, and they went tumbling over the side with a - surprisingly familiar - startled cry.

Pointing her gun's barrel at the struggling figure, she peered over the side of the bed. After a few moments passed, a head finally managed to break free of the tangled mess. She and its owner stared at each other for a moment.

Then she returned the gun to its holster and hopped off of the bed, helping the struggling demon get out from the blankets.

"Thank you," he said, tail swishing slowly behind him. He looked around the room, a nervous glint to his eyes as he saw how unfamiliar it was. "...Where are we?"

Zogin crossed her arms. "You were supposed to be the kidnapper."

"Oh," Mage said. He looked back at her, eyes wide. "I don't have my cloak with me. Should I pretend you're my slave-"

She abruptly draped one of the sheets over his shoulders and pulled it up over his horns, effectively hiding his hair and horns. "I'm not playing your slave," she said. "For all intents and purposes, you're human right now."

Mage nodded, then readjusted the sheet so it covered more of him. Now that they had taken care of that problem, Zogin started to head to the door - after all, no one messed with her and her partner and got away with it.


When Janos woke up in a strange bedroom, he knew that something was off. But he had always prided himself on his ability to adjusting well to unfamiliar situations, so he didn't let this turn of events phase him. He simply made sure all of his notable belongings were present before leaving the bedroom. He had spent the next portion of the time exploring what was apparently a ship. Besides being wholly unfamiliar, nothing stood out.

It was only when he heard the startled yelp from one of the rooms and a clattering of metal that he realized he wasn't the only one on the ship. Armed with only his magic, he approached what had to be the kitchen door and slowly pushed it open-

-only to be threatened by an armored person wielding a kitchen knife.

He and the knife's owner stared at each other for a moment, gold meeting black as their eyes met.

And then Soul lowered his knife.

"I thought you were who brought me here," Soul quietly said, letting a sigh of relief. He went to put the knife down on a counter, but then apparently thought better of it and brought the knife back to his side.

"I was not," he confirmed. "I can assume I was the first person you met so far during your time on this vessel."

"...Vessel?" Soul repeated.

Janos nodded. "We are on a ship."

Soul blinked. "I've never been on a ship this big," he slowly said, staring around the kitchen. "Is this-Is this from before the calamity? No one would have a ship this big if it wasn’t."

"I do not know," he admitted, "but we should keep searching for more answers."

Aegeas propped himself up with a paw, using the other to rub the back of his head. He didn't have any reason to blame Kellach for wanting to get out of there, but couldn't Kellach have used a little less force?

"Eugh," Fyrsil said, setting a paw over his nose. "He stinks."

"Let's get him out of there," Aegeas said, slowly standing up. Kellach tried to stick his head back in the barrel, but Fyrsil and Aegeas each quickly grabbed an arm and hauled him out.

Kellach smiled awkwardly, which Aegeas would've noticed better if he wasn't trying to hold Kellach as far back as possible. Kellach reeked of brine.

Setting Kellach on his feet, Aegeas turned back to the others.

"If there's anyone still hiding in here," Aegeas said, a little louder than normal. "We'll be leaving soon, so feel free to show up at any time. We're not here to hurt you, and there's too many of us for you to hurt."

Silence. Aegeas nodded and walked towards what he was fairly sure was the door in this dark room.

Before he turned the knob, however, he heard screaming from upstairs.

Running back to the other side of the room, Aegeas grabbed his scimitar. Arlais raised the other one; Tristan pulled out his staff; Kellach flashed his knives; and Fyrsil grabbed one of the barrel lids now scattered around.

Heading back to the door, with the other otters crowding around him, Aegeas nodded and pushed it open gently. It led to a small, dimly-lit corridor, a flight of stairs to the right leading up to some kind of room. Aegeas stepped onto the green carpet, walking as patiently and quietly as possible to keep his claws from getting caught up in the fabric.

He stopped when he could peer over the top of the stairs. Raising a paw to signal for the others to stop, he looked around. It appeared to be some kind of living room. A couch sat in front of a fireplace. The roaring blaze inside threw shadows around the paintings on the wall - ice and snow - the tables and drawers at the edges of the room, and the doors that led to the other parts of wherever they were.

Now all Aegeas needed to do was wait for someone to come.

Despite the reassurances of whoever was in the room, they didn't dare to venture out until they were gone. There was something disturbing about waking up in a barrel full of pickled goods; it didn't make them feel all that trustworthy of the mysterious group of people that had just left. Their lid, unfortunately, was on surprisingly tight - it took a little inhuman strength to get it off, and they ended up knocking over the barrel in the process.

They went tumbling to the ground.

Then they hopped up to their feet, fully intending on changing their appearance to get rid of the juice that clung to their attire-

-only to pause when they saw the woman sneaking towards the door.

The woman had frozen when she heard the sound of the barrel being knocked over. Now, she just turned and slowly looked at them, taking in the sopping wet clothes, the overturned barrel and the distinct stench of....well, they didn't even want to know what they had been stuck in a barrel with.

"You're not with them, are you?" she asked.

They stared.

"Guess that's a no," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "You do look...different than they did, but I just had to make sure. They were all in barrels, too."

"What are you talking about?" they asked. They quickly made their way over to the door, only to be stopped by the woman when they went to take a cautious look into the corridor.

"They're not like..." She let out a sigh. "They're not like us, I guess. Look, they're weird. They're small, and furry, and honestly look like otters but as people."

"...Otters?" What was an otter?

"Yeah, otters," she confirmed. "I mean, they might have been in a similar situation to us, seeing that they were in barrels, too, but something rubs me the wrong way around them. They're just...different. I've never seen anything like them before. So it's not safe to just going running out there."

They didn't like the idea of remaining in the room, but they also weren't their brother - they understood that being impulsive wasn't always the best option. They let out a sigh and held a sticky hand out in greeting. "I'm William Drago," they said.

She shook their hand, only to draw hers away when she realized how sticky theirs was. "I'm Robin. Robin Hunt. Can I call you Willy?"

They gave her a look.

"...What about Will?"

"My name is William," they said, and left it at that.


Zogin was about to turn the corner when Mage suddenly pushed her up against the wall and wrapped his arms around her waist. She struggled against the sudden action; she didn't appreciate the invasion of her personal space, especially after the incident back in the bedroom. But then she had begun to hear what the demon had heard before her. There was a pair coming from the opposite direction - she could hear their footsteps. One of them was wearing the armor, while the other was dressed in regular shoes.

Warmth filled the hall.

When she felt something wrap around her leg, she looked down to see darkness shooting up from the wooden floor. Her struggling ceased. The darkness continued to grow, blanketing the two as the footsteps grew louder. When the footsteps finally were before, Mage's magic had completely enveloped the two. She couldn't see anymore, but it was a price to pay for the safety offered by blending in with the shadows.

The footsteps ceased.

A second later, two hands were thrust into the darkness. An armored one grabbed onto her and pulled her out into the light, while a pale one jerked Mage away from her. The demon kicked and swung his fists as his captor held him up. Zogin's hand shot for her gun's holster, but faltered when she saw the golden eyes peering out at her.

"Soul?"

"Zogin-"

"Put me down!" Mage demanded, wiggling in Janos Everheart's grasp.

Janos raised an eyebrow and looked almost amused by the request, but did as asked. Mage gave an angry huff in response. He crossed his arms and looked away from Janos.

Soul let go of her. Giving her a hesitant glance, Soul walked to Mage and stood silently beside him. The demon's shoulders grew less tense, but he still said nothing.

"Do you know where we are?" Zogin asked the newcomers.

"We are on a ship," Janos answered.

"That's impossible," Mage scoffed. Zogin didn't miss the way that he scooted a little closer to Soul. "If we're on a ship, it must be gigantic - it would have to have been from before the calamity, and one like that couldn't possibly still be around."

Janos shook his head. "I was on vessels like this one before the calamity, Magestorrow Rian. I know what a ship of this size looks like. Can you not feel the movement of the world around us just standing here?"

Mage didn't give a response; Zogin hadn't expected him to. He just turned his back on the three and stormed down the hallway, Soul hurrying after him with his armor clanging. Zogin frowned. She still couldn't understand what her partner found so appealing about the demon. But they did need to search for more answers, so she followed after the two.

Janos fell into step beside her as they continued down the hallway. Neither one spoke. They never really did - not since he had tried to take Soul away from her.

Soul and Mage came to a stop when they arrived at a door at the end of the corridor. Mage readjusted his makeshift cloak; Soul began to push open the door. The door was open for only a minute before Soul and Mage both shut it, the two staring blankly at the wood.

"I-I think I'm hallucinating," Soul said, glancing between Zogin and the door.

Mage rubbed his eyes. "Me too."

Janos frowned again. Giving a brief look at Zogin, he approached the room and opened the door. Zogin waited for him to give some sort of explanation - or, at the very least, enter the room - but he did exactly what the other two had. He closed the door and turned back to her. "I must be as well."

"You can't be sharing a hallucination," she said, exasperated. She quickly bridged the gap between herself and the three, kicking down the door with her boot and entering the room. It took her a moment to see what the other three had seen: there was a furry face looking up from what presumably had to be stairs.

She stared at the face.

The look on it was far too intelligent for it not to be sentient, even though she didn't have an explanation for what it was. It had to be real - she just knew they couldn't all be seeing the same hallucination.

Soul gave a startled cry from the doorway and hurried on after her, but she had no intentions of stopping. Her hand lingered on her holster; she was going to get answers, and getting them from whatever was looking at them was her first plan of action.

So much for that plan. Not only were there humans in the living room - including one who appeared to be reaching for some kind of weapon - Aegeas could hear noises from the basement as well. He had to think quickly. It was too late to hide, so he might as well go for the more direct approach.

Looking back, Aegeas pointed to Fyrsil and Tristan, then to the basement door. The otters nodded and walked down the steps. Setting a lid on the door, Fyrsil looked back up and gave a thumbs up.

Aegeas didn't notice - turning back, he walked up to the top of the stairs, holding out his scimitar in front of him. "What do you want?" he said, looking up at the human. He could hear Arlais walked up behind him, scimitar also raised. "Leave us alone. We're doing nothing wrong."

Zogin had withdrawn her gun by the time the fur-covered person emerged with the weapon and had yet to fire it - a sign that she would the moment she considered them to be a threat. Soul took a step in front of her, though he knew she would protest the decision; he wasn't made of metal and magic anymore, and they both were aware of how weaker he was now than he was then. But he did have a sturdy suit of armor, so that had to act as a good source of protection.

"We're just a little...confused," Soul said. Zogin tried to sneak on by him as he heard Janos and Mage approach, but he refused to let her get in harm's way. "We just woke up here, and were wondering if you could..."

"...Point us in the direction of the captain of this vessel," Janos suddenly added in - Soul nearly jumped when he heard him speak from behind him. "I believe he would be able to help us."

Crap, there were more people. Not only the human with the gun - it looked smaller and shorter than any gun Aegeas had ever seen, but it had to be one - but the man in the suit of armor. To say nothing over the other two, neither of whom looked or smelled all that human (though one was covered up).

Reaching his scimitar forward to push the barrel of the human's gun down, Aegeas took a step back. He saw Kellach out of the corner of his eye, peeking between the bars of the railing beside the staircase with a knife in his paw. Not that it'd help; Aegeas knew what guns could do.

"I don't know who that is," Aegeas said. "You're the first people we've run into on this ship."

Zogin slipped her gun back into its holster.

"It looks like we're in the same boat, then-"

She was cut off by Soul barely hiding a snicker at the accidental pun. Shooting him a brief look that quickly shut him up, she turned back to the creature before her.

"As I was saying," she said, shooting another look at her partner, "we're in the same boat. We have no idea where we are or how we got here."

Aegeas heard what sounded like a snicker from down the stairs. Probably coming from Fyrsil.

He rolled his eyes and set the tip of his scimitar on the ground. She could still outshoot him, so better to have some kind of protection in case she decided he was a threat. "So, what now?" he said.

"We find whoever us brought us here," Zogin replied, giving a smile that didn't go up to her eyes, "and we make them bring us back."

Janos and Soul looked at Zogin before nodding in agreement; both of them were relatively close by. Mage, on the other hand, hadn't even left the doorway, and was currently covering his nose with a pale hand. She stared at the demon. Mage stared back before moving a little farther away from the door.

"Something smells," he informed her.

"Suck it up, then."

He frowned. "You don't understand how badly it smells right now."

"I don't care," Zogin replied, and was fully intent on arguing more with the demon - if Soul hadn't put an armored hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

"Zogin," he said, his voice quiet, "demons live underground with bad lighting, remember? Mage has stronger senses than we do."

"I'd like that," Aegeas said, returning the smile. It wasn't that genuine of a smile - he still didn't know who all to trust - but the idea of finding the captain and throwing them off the side of the ship was appealing.

While the human - Zogin? - started talking with the others about some kind of horrible smell, Aegeas noticed Kellach beginning to pull his knives back and head down the stairs. Ah, that explained it. Grabbed Kellach by the edge of his coat, Aegeas yanked him back up the steps. If Kellach hadn't been paying attention, Aegeas might've ended up throwing himself down the stairs, but the element of surprise was all Aegeas needed to set Kellach down in front of the others.

"It's him," Aegeas said, while Kellach gave an awkward wave. "He woke up in a barrel of pickles and he needs a shower." Aegeas pinched his nose. "Hopefully soon."

After several more minutes passed, Robin quickly decided that she didn't like all of this standing around. She had never been good at it. She always needed to be doing something, and waiting - as wise as it was - didn't satisfy her drive. She wished she had her fidget cube with her, but she rarely took it out with her during her little escapades; it would give people a way to categorize her, and she couldn't have that.

Right now, she was occupying herself with a little piece of metal that had popped off one of the containers, but it just wasn't enough. She peeked out into the hallway. Seeing and hearing nothing out of the ordinary, she turned back to William.

"I think we should go now," Robin said.

He crossed his arms. "I thought you wanted to wait."

"I did, but they should be gone by now," she said. Besides, she could use a bit of an adrenaline rush. The decision to remain her had mostly been to protect William, but that would be easy if she just made sure to stay in front of him.

He studied her for a moment.

"...Okay," he said.

She grinned, then eagerly led the way out into the hallway. She could hear him fall into step behind her, but something about his footsteps sounded off - almost like there was more weight pressing down on the ground than there should have been.

But that didn't make any sense at all, so she just kept walking.

When they finally arrived at the door that presumably led upstairs, Robin encountered another obstacle. The door was unable to be opened. She gave it a little, gentle push, but it barely went up. It wasn't locked; there was something on top of it.

Well, that certainly made things a little easier.

She dug her lockpicking set out from her pocket. She could feel William's eyes on her as she obscured the lock with her body. Now that he would think that she was picking the lock, she let a little strand of darkness through the crack. She closed her eyes and felt around for what was blocking the door. Apparently, it was a lid to something. Now that her assessment had been made, she worked on obscuring it from view. She pushed it off to the side wall, and, as she slipped her lockpicking set back into her pocket, she pushed the door open...

...revealing a staircase full of the people she had been trying to avoid.

"Oh, yes," William said drily from behind her, "they're definitely gone by now."

Wow, these people weren't even trying to be quiet. Fyrsil could hear the humans - despite all the overwhelming smells around them, they sure sounded and smelled human - as they talked to each other. Not that he could pick out the words, but they didn't sound all that worried. Their muffled footsteps came through the door, getting louder and louder. Louder than they should've been, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Fyrsil set all of his weight against the lid and the door.

Yeah, they weren't all that bright either. Fyrsil could feel someone try to push open the door, but without success. Duh. Otters were supposed to be pretty-

Something was pushing the lid back. Something was pushing the door back. Fyrsil blinked and stared as tendrils of darkness gently pushed him, the lid, and the door against the wall.

Leaving Tristan to stare through the open entrance.

"Aegeas?" Tristan said, voice loud and shaky. "I, I might need your help?" He swung his staff at whatever it was that he was staring at. "Get back!"

Robin had known the reaction to their arrival wasn't going to be a pleasant one, but she hadn't expected it to be like this. The otter person right in front of her was downright terrified of her. His fear seemed to have spread to the group lingering at the top of the stairs. It was when she saw them that she realized there was something horribly wrong with this situation. She had assumed the human appearance was the problem, seeing that none of them looked human. Maybe humans had messed with them before, or just were some strange new thing to them.

But there were four of them at the top of the staircase.

...Had they noticed the darkness?

Dang it, she thought she had been good about that. She knew she had the whole human thing to keep up, but her powers were just too darn useful in her line of business. She took a step back, giving the otter waving a staff at her a nervous laugh and smile.

"Hi," she said. She eyed the staff, waiting for the right moment. "This is kind of awkward. I thought that this staircase was going to be empty, but it looks like I was mistaken."

Three...two...one!

A tendril of darkness shot out from the floor, wrapping around the staff and easily disarming the otter with a very strong tug. Robin ducked and used the darkness to chuck the staff behind her; William, just as she had hoped, caught it.

"...What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Make sure the angry otter doesn't get it," Robin told him, giving him a thumbs up as she approached the staircase again.