Young Writers Society

Following in Thytes's movement of putting his weapon away, Bear relaxed the shotgun on his shoulder and tightened the grip of the handshake. He was a touch surprised by the reciprocation of his flirtatious actions, but he could certainly work on a follow through.

"I'm quite sure that I could. But being the great southern gentleman that I am, I'd have to take you out to dinner first, before answering my ability to such an inquiry."

He smirked a bit as he released his hand, maintaining eye contact the entire time and allowing himself a slight wink in the delivery.

"What a bold proposition," Thytes said, smiling. "Were we to have a spare evening, I would love to entertain such a hospitable gentleman as yourself. As for right now, however, I suppose we have other matters to worry about."

Tale watched this all with some degree of amusement and they turned to walk away but somehow over balanced and fell down with a loud clang.

Why?

Bear wanted to take more from the smile he received but recognized that the lion was right. This wasn't some gay bar where they could pop out onto the street and amble on down to hole in the wall restaurant near immediately. This was a castle on an alien planet, a war zone where the weapons were the animals and the plants inhabiting the halls, and he was with a group of strangers.

And they all looked dangerous.

"If we successfully get out of the maze of place, I will most certainly be arranging something."

He started over to the two figures in the door way, still holding the off feeling of their presence, but pushed his nerves back down. There was suddenly a sharp sound and his nerves were back to operating capacity, the tension rising up and making his amber eyes glow.

To the small crowd he announced, "We are not as alone as we think."

A jolt of fear.

"He knows." It was a unison, this time - for a moment, a brief, brief moment, even Ollie was convinced that they had been discovered. But then her fear was quelled. The source of the comment wasn't an action she had taken. It was in response to the noise - which was caused by the person who had been watching them from the distance.

"It's alright," she said, though she wasn't sure who she was trying to comfort. "They came in right after you."

"...Bad idea," the voice warned, but a little bit too late - she had already admitted to being more aware of her surroundings than she should have been, as well as more comfortable with bizarre strangers.

"You can come out," she said. "Don't worry - we won't hurt you."

"Us we or them we?"

...She wasn't really sure about that one.

"Don't want to hurt. But hungry. Chocolate soon?"

Well, that was a nice change. It was always good when she wasn't focused solely on her own thoughts; it made her feel a little less lonely in a such a big and now unfamiliar world. She could use the burst of confidence, too. She was always so worried - it made Ollie want to hug her.

But she couldn't really do that, so she settled with pulling out wrapped up chocolate and plopping it in her mouth, letting the warm, sweet goo run over her tongue as she savored the taste.

They sighed and got up stiffly. "I am not worried about being harmed as I can not be harmed. I just do not wish to socialise."

Thytes was about to argue that, as many people as there were, they were hardly alone, but Ollie start talking first.

And, while Thytes bent down to get a look under the table, he realized that Ollie had noticed the newcomer before he had. Which was a little odd - even though he hadn't been paying much attention to his surroundings while flirting with Bear, a human couldn't have out heard him.

Well, he was sort of used to non-humans pretending to be humans (on Fayne and on other worlds), so he didn't give it too much thought. Shooting glances at the hostile stranger and the hostage, Thytes also saw Jaron picking apart the chunk of metal, staring at and prodding different parts with a wrench.

Thytes stood back up - Jaron looked focused, and it'd be best not to bother him.

Cathal stared back in confusion from beneath his hood. What... Why were they being so friendly? And did the girl just say she was from Earth? Great, now he had the Tau’ri to worry about. First the system lords, and now a Tau’ri. Who talked to herself. He frowned. She probably wouldn’t like that he was Goa’uld.

He grunted when the human elbowed him again and grabbed at the hand holding him. Fingernails dig into his wrist sharply and Cathal abruptly let go with a hiss. The human scurried away towards the group, moving surprisingly fast for someone with a slight limp. He growled out a few choice words in Goa’uld and half-turned away to inspect the tiny wounds the human had left. They were shallow and barely bleeding. He knew it wouldn’t take long to heal them.

Cursing some more, he straightened up and pulled the zat he carried. He aimed it at the human and tried to ignore the way that Nuada was laughing in his head. At him. He scowled. Not helping!

“I was trying to rescue you!” he shouted, shaking the zat at him. “He was going to force you to be a host! Trust me, you don’t want that.”

He wasn’t sure if it was himself or Nuada influencing his words, and he didn’t particularly care. His mother had had multiple hosts, and he understood that consent was a thing and that the host did survive. Cathal had not understood that with his first host until they’d had a rather enlightening conversation. And because of that very conversation, he’d changed. He’d promised to find another host, one that consented to the blending, and he did. Nuada has been sick and dying, and Cathal had offered a mutually beneficial alternative to dying. He’d been glad when Nuada accepted.

“Please, believe me,” he said, practically begging now. He slowly put the zat away. “It was better to take you and run than to leave you to an eternity trapped in your own mind while someone else uses your body as they see fit.”

The human snorted. “Been there, done that,” he shouted back. “Would really rather not do it again!”

Cathal sighed, and then tensed up when one of the human men approached him. The human he’d rescued had run straight into past him. And this human’s eyes glowed. Cathal glanced between him and the girl. Between the two of them, he wasn’t quite sure if they were Goa’uld...or Tok’ra. Or something else entirely.

“Who are you?” he asked in Goa’uld and reached up with his now free hand to shove his hood back. “I am Cathal, and my host is Nuada.” He lowered the kara kesh but kept it actives. It couldn’t hurt to be cautious. “I swear, I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

The man was finally giving an introduction, but she couldn't understand a single word of it. Ollie helplessly looked at him for a moment, briefly glancing in the direction of the person he had also been looking at.

She tapped her leg to convey an unspoken message. "Do you know?" she asked without words, trying to figure it out on her own. There were words that had more emphasis than others. Names, maybe, but she couldn't be sure.

"...Sort of know."

Ollie waited a moment.

"Similar, but different to own." There was another, long pause. Then a jolt of fear - fear that wasn't her own, but was as familiar as the fear that belonged to her. "Host and not host. Host is Nuada. Not host is Cathal. Don't know Cathal. In danger, Ollie. Really scared. Going to hurt you!"

The movement that had been lurking underneath her sleeve grew more frantic. She tried to calm - and hide - the unnatural movement with her hand, but it was spreading too quickly. No amount of chocolate could fix this problem, and no amount of tapping could, either.

"Obviously." They said with a roll of their strange eyes. "You are just being cautious. It is very reasonable for you to be acting the way you are when you end up on an unknown world. I am Taleweaver and you may not shorten my name or give me nicknames."

They glanced at Ollie's arm.

Thytes walked up to Bear, both to make sure Bear would be in a little less danger (though the stranger didn't sound especially hostile, even if Thytes didn't know understand a word they were saying) and because Thytes was growing fond of Bear.

"A pleasure to meet you," Thytes said, looking over to Taleweaver and bowing slightly. "You have an interesting name - may I ask why you have it?"

"I made a story for a child and he called me The Weaver of Tales. He then asked me if I had a name and so I told the child I was not given one. With a large smile he named me Taleweaver and to this day I use it proudly."

Bear noticed the multitude of things occurring in the room. He noticed that the being called Jaron was still carefully ducked under a table and still fiddling around with an incendiary device. He noticed that Ollie’s sleeve had far too much movement for the amount of wind rushing through the room. Bear of course noticed the person calling themselves Taleweaver, the one who was resisting a nickname and that only tempted him more.

And he heard the commentary from the vines as they were carefully translating Cathal/Nuada’s words. The presence of the vines continued to be extremely helpful in such a confusing place.

But most of all he noticed Thytes’s presence at his side, being ashamed of the blush lighting his face, and kept his gun lined up with the one person he didn’t know the name of: the blatantly human one.

“Pardon me stranger but who is your friend?”

He hesitated. “I... don’t actually know,” Cathal admitted in English, which seemed to be what everyone else was speaking. But the fact that this man—Bear, was it?—had responded to him meant that he was Goa’uld, right? Or at least, possibly, Tok’ra? He deactivated the hand device and held his hands out, palm first. “All I know is that Ishkur had him and was about to force a symbiote on him. Nuada and I were not impressed.”

“The name is Arryn! Which you’d know if you’d even bothered to ask me.”

Cathal scowled at him. “Well, sorry if we were in a bit of a hurry to escape, Arryn!”

Arryn scoffed at him and ducked behind the human and the non-human. Cathal watched him with a frown. Nuada whispered something in his native tongue that Cathal didn’t bother trying to translate. After a moment, he relented and crossed his arms over his chest with a snort.

“I save him,” he muttered, mostly to himself and Nuada, “and this is the thanks I get? How ungrateful.”

Maybe you should be a little less self-absorbed, Cathal. People might actually try to get along with you.

Cathal rolled his eyes at the comment. Well, if you think you can do better, why don’t you try talking to them?

Maybe I will.

Nuada didn’t waste any time on taking control, and Cathal gladly retreated into the back of their mind. He’d let Nuada speak for a bit. Nuada cleared his throat and let his arms drop.

“My apologies for my friend. He is easily frustrated,” he said, adopting a more relaxed stance. He offered them a shy smile. “We’ve been on the run for some time now and we’re not used to company.”

The movement calmed.

A small smile appeared on her lips as she gave her arm a little pat; Fern wasn’t scared - at least for now. It seemed like the switch between host and symbiote was all that was needed for fear to begin to ebb away. Some still remained, but it wasn’t the kind that caused actions they'd both regret.

"...Not bad?"

"Yeah," she softly whispered. "Not bad."

She patted her arm again, then turned back to Nuada. She could see the differences - he was much more relaxed and less confrontational. "It's alright," she said. She gave him a small but warm smile. "You don't have to apologize for him."