Young Writers Society

Arryn had asked Bear about how his magic worked.

He didn't know.

No one had ever really asked Bear about his powers outside of the times when he and Carter were young. When Carter had told him that Bear needed to get stronger and shouldn't have been ashamed of where his limits laid. The Thompsons were a family long standing in the agriculture community, their strengths came in a magical connection to nature, and it was something they could use to succeed.

Bear and Carter both had to study.

They had to learn things outside of the automatic vibes and control they could have on different things. But while Bear could talk to any plant and most animals, Carter seemed to be able to talk to the very air itself.

But Arryn wanted to know about here and now, and Bear would answer the man when he woke up. Bear would tell him in great detail and soothing words how the vines were connected throughout the castle. How the vines were then connected to the rest of the plant life and as long as he kept Bob on his shoulder, and kept sweating along his neck, he would stay in communication with the very castle itself.

Now Thytes was looking to him, asking what happened, but Bear didn't know an answer. He could start asking the vines for information but from the short description of the poor man's mind before, it would be hard to get such an answer.

"I...I don't know. I can try and ask them though."

Bear felt along Arryn's wrists, glancing down at the bracelets and listening to the vines commentary. A slight shock lit into his fingertips but Bear kept his hands in place to study the pieces. If only Carter were here to listen to the electric hum and determine what this all meant.





Carter landed on a cold stone floor, immediately calling out for "Bear!" as soon as he was through the portal. It had only been three seconds since his best friend had been pulled in by the vortex, but Carter didn't know how time would passed.

A look towards his surroundings revealed a stone room, and a glance out the window showed he was in a tower of a castle. He could hear a faint electrical hum throughout the building, a knowing presence of humans and humanoids, and other life forms. But there were so many that he couldn't hear Bear.

So many that the whine picked up and he had to let himself slump against the wall as it slowly forced Carter out of his own head.

"I'm sorry," Ollie apologized in Fern's voice. As she hopped back to her feet - a little quicker than normal, thanks to Fern - she held out a hand to Taleweaver. "I should have been watching where I was going."

"Not acting same," her symbiote observed.

"...What do you mean?" she asked, her voice quiet. She knew that Taleweaver could overhear what she was saying, seeing that they were only a few feet away, but she had grown just as tired of the silent game as Fern had. Besides, one did expect sanity from symbiotes and hosts. Venom and whoever his host was were some of the strangest people she knew.

"Scared earlier," Fern reminded her. "Acting friendly now."


"You look absolutely miserable," Daniel remarked.

They were standing in the middle of what appeared to be an abandoned, old castle, and Benji was giving him an downright murderous glare as he tried (and failed) to shake the water off of his trench coat.

"I don't like water," Benji remarked. He fished a beanie out from his jacket's pocket and stuck it on his head - it was the one piece of dry clothing he had left. The sight made him want to laugh, but something told him his friend wouldn't take kindly to that.

"I don't mind it," Daniel cheerfully replied. He stretched a little, then jumped into the steady stream of rain coming in through a hole in the ceiling. It was refreshing - a nice, little wild touch, even if Benji hated it with a passion. He crossed his arms and surveyed the room from his spot. "So, Benjamin Frost, why do you think we ended up here? Got a little too close to a cryptid?"

"Maybe," Benji mused, running his hands across the damp stone walls. "But I'm not sure who could do something like this. I don't think it was a human, either..."

"Doesn't make much sense if it was," he agreed.

He hopped out from the makeshift shower, summoning a warm gust of air to work as a drier for both of their clothes. In less than a minute, it was like neither one of them had been soaked. Benji, thankfully, was the polite type - he gave him a word of gratitude for the kind deed. He liked that about him.

"What do you in a situation like this?" Daniel asked. "We've already done what I do - ask stupid questions while looking around strange, abandoned places and hope I get attacked. But that's a cryptozoologist's thing. What about a reporter?"

Benji closed his eyes for a moment and thought.

"...We go to the room with the people," he said, opening his eyes. He raised a hand and pointed down the hallway before him.

"God, I love your hearing," Daniel said with a grin. As the two started to head down the hallway towards the people, he started to hear people talking, too. And even more than that - he could smell them. The smells were confusing and unfamiliar, so he focused on the familiar thing: the smell of old, musty books.

"I hope you're ready to do some reading," Daniel said, kicking open the door with his foot. The sudden change in light temporarily blinded him - his eyes had grown used to the almost pitch black darkness of the hallway, and even the slightest bit of light irritated them. A glance back at Benji showed that he was just as thrown off-

-and that he was making a beeline for someone's flashlight.

Hiding another grin, Daniel grabbed onto Benji by his scarf and collar and jerked him back to the library's entrance.

"Not so fast, bug boy," Daniel whispered. Benji, in response, pulled his scarf up to hide his blushing face.

"I have known about the two of you since we met." Tale said flatly as they swatted away her hand and got up. There were a few dents in their body but they were going away. "I shall keep your secret."

Thytes watched as Bear ran his hands along Arryn's wrists. It was a little disconcerting to see Bear twitching ever so slightly - Thytes wasn't sure if that was a consequence of Bear's particular brand of magic, or whatever had knocked Arryn out in the first place.

In any case, a couple more strangers had wandered into the library. Goodness, this place was getting crowded.

"Hello!" Thytes said, waving a paw at them. "Would either of you know how to assist an unconscious man?"

The twins wandered the halls dimly lit by Danny. "Danny, I don't think we are in Mark's castle anymore."

"I think you're right, sis. This doesn't seem familiar at all."

"I hope no one misses us too terribly." Tammy said and the two grinned evilly at each other. "What was that word Chara used once?"

"Yeet?"

"That one. We yeeted ourselves to another world!" Both of them giggled in delight at using the word they learned from the foreigner.

"I think we've spent too much time around the proper folk because we are talking like them a bit, sis."

"No wonder you sound so strange Danny!"

"You sound strange too!" Both giggled again.

"Are those voices?"

"Yes, I think we should follow the sound." They both tiptoed through the halls and came upon the library doors. Both stayed to the walls incase

"They are in here!" Tammy whispered.

"Should we prank them?" Danny whispered back.

"Hmm... Let's see who they are first."

They peeked in and looked at them. "Should be safe enough." Tammy concluded. They were able to quickly put together a water trap to dump water on the head of the unfortunate person to move the door. They both hid nearby afterwards.

Cathal felt Nuada cede control, and stumbled back a step. He hadn't been expecting that, and now he could actually focus on what was happening. There were two strangers nearby, hesitating just inside the library. And Arryn was on the floor after having mentioned something rather disturbing about killing mages and having them in his head. If Ishkur had managed to put a Goa'uld symbiote in Arryn, then that might have been an interesting and potentially disturbing experience for the symbiote. Cathal knelt down on the floor, watching Bear and Thytes tend to the human.

Somehow, I doubt the symbiote would have enjoyed that.

Indeed.

He frowned as the potential Goa'uld called Bear flinched each time he touched Arryn's wrists. Cathal caught a glimpse of the bracelets, of the way they lit up or sparked upon contact with Bear. Nuada made a sharp noise of surprise and horror in his head, and Cathal sent him a questioning thought.

The bracelets... Nuada whispered, but seemed unable to continue.

I saw them, Cathal whispered back and then stood. He approached the table that the lion-man was hiding beneath and where Bear was crouched beside Arryn. Cathal produced his healing device and held in out to Bear.

"Will this help?" he asked, and crouched next to him. "Unfortunately, only a Goa'uld--or Tok'ra--may use it... May I try?"

Ollie hadn't expected either of the responses - the swatting of the hand and the reveal that Taleweaver knew the truth - but both of them made her feel strangely okay. Taleweaver didn't seem to hate them; it was more like they didn't seem to care.

"Oh," Ollie said. She gave Taleweaver a smile - something that looked quite ominous, given how many sharp teeth Fern had. "Thanks. We appreciate it. But...how did you know?"


He was getting overwhelmed.

Not by sensory details - that was Daniel. His friend (?) was looking around the room, covering his nose absentmindedly with his arm as he approached the unconscious figure on the ground. And, sure, the room was loud, and he could things out in the hallway, too, but Benji was more overwhelmed by the sheer multitude of people present. His job involved interacting with other people, but he managed to avoid doing it to this degree.

"I don't know how," Daniel admitted, popping back up to his feet after looking the man over. "But he doesn't seem sick or injured, so he's probably going to wake up soon."

He joined Benji by his side.

"This is an...interesting group," Daniel said. Benji kept quiet. He was listening and observing, trying to figure out what was going on in the darkness of the library. He could see through the darkness perfectly fine, but there was still so much they didn't now. "I've never seen anyone like half of you. So what's the deal with you guys, exactly?"

He went to casually lean up against the door, but Benji pulled him away last minute before he could.

"There's two people outside," he said. "I think they're children - a boy and a girl. They were talking about pranks, and I heard them moving things around by the door."

Daniel spun around and stared at it.

"Where?"

He pointed towards the top. Something told him Daniel knew exactly what the kids had been up to when Daniel turned back around, but the cryptid hunter didn't acknowledge it further.

"I am a telepath and I read the minds of everyone when we met."

----------

"Aw no, sis! They found us out. He could be a wind bender."

"Or maybe we were whispering too loud or he just has good hearing." Both sighed and said. "Oh well."

They both came out of their hiding place and removed the trap. Afterwards they entered the library. "Hi!"

Bear glanced between the kneeling Cathal, the waving Thytes and the once again increased number of people inhabiting the library. When they lost Fern/Ollie to the outburst and altercation with the bookcase, Bear hadn't been expecting anything further to happen. He had barely noticed when the Taleweaver person slipped out of the room in a near surveillance mode. He could have followed after at that point, but with the vines trying to hold him back and someone requesting his aid for a patient, Bear had remained in the library.

And now there were even more people.

To Cathal/Nuada, in the least sarcastic voice he could manage, Bear said, "Oh please be my guest."

As his hands let up from the bracelets on Arryn's wrists, another shock sped through his body and Bear leaned back slightly on the table leg. Or at least what he thought to be the table leg until it shifted slightly beneath him, and was discovered to be Thytes.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Don't take this the wrong way but I thought for a moment that you were the table."

That was the first time that Bear had spoken to the lion without intending the line to be flirtatious. He couldn't think of a way where comparing the person you were attracted to with a table would end in romantic advancement. Though there was still the question of why this being was interested at all.

Bear shifted up from his position on the floor, eyeing the two people who stood by the door, and listening carefully to the words that Bob said.

More.
Yes, Bob, I see the people.
More than them.

The vine went silent against his shoulder, no longer wriggling about and only taking from the droplets of sweat along Bear's neck. Bear saw an orange spurt growing further down his arm and he realized that the vine was growing more comfortable with him.

Children. Children who want to cause trouble.
Oh.




Carter woke up to his head throbbing against the stone floor. He tried once again to find Bear in the sea of readings and measurements, but there were now even more people than before. He had even less of a chance of finding his friend and Carter was quickly panicking about why there were so many people. How was it that they all ended up in this place? And how could it be so many different types of life?

"Agh, damn."

He could feel that the life presence was in one main space, with a few dots spread out across the rest of the board. If he could make it to, what felt like a library from the amount of paper and empty space, then maybe he could get some answers about Bear.

Carter shouldered his backpack covered in little trains that Bear had given him that morning. Bear had taken the packs from the donation box in Mrs. Thompson's stack, and collected a few of their other supplies as well. The justification for Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine possessing their bullets, holy water, and salt, was that the two packs were expendable.

A perfectly Bear way to explain the willingness to let their childhood heroes die.

He didn't count the minutes it took to reach the library but he certainly saw the small figures rigging a container above the doorway. Carter would just have to wait for someone else to come out before he was willing to go in.

"Fricking kids."

One shot him a glance as they removed the careful engineering and continued into the library.

Carter would still wait.

"Oh, that is perfectly alright," Thytes said. He wasn't sure if Bear was flirting, given how almost every conversation they'd had beforehand had been exactly that, but Thytes guessed Bear also recognized this situation was a little too serious for flirting.

Fortunately, it didn't sound like Arryn was in serious danger, and Cathal appeared to have a solution in his hand. "Absolutely!" Thytes said, scooting out of the way to make more room for Cathal. "Is there anything you might need of me?"

Cathal took a moment to deactivate and remove his kara kesh completely before he started. He set the hand device aside gently and then fit the healing device onto his hand. “I am...not sure how Arryn’s physiology will respond to this,” he said, glancing towards Thytes and Bear. He’d registered the new-comers conclusion but wanted to make sure that he’d truly be alright. “You may want to be prepared to restrain him if this doesn’t work as intended.”

With that, he leaned over Arryn and gently turned the man’s face towards him. He studied it for a minute and then activated the healing device. And then Cathal hesitated, he expression curiously blank. He wasn’t sure it was wise to use the healing device. What if it hurt him?

He’s handsome, Nuada observed calmly and Cathal sent him the mental equivalent of a raised eye and a questioning look. What? He is! And besides, you have to risk it. What if he never wakes up and we could have helped him? Don’t the Tau’ri help people if they need it? If they’re asked to?

Cathal blew out a small breath. I suppose you are correct, he sent back, and then he swallowed his hesitation and scanned the healing device over Arryn’s chest and then his head. Information from the device rushed into his head: residual pain, a lingering ache in Arryn’s right thigh, the snarled knot of whatever the hell was in his head, and several minor cuts and bruises. Nothing of a serious nature that needed immediate attention.

He sat back on his heels and deactivated the healing device. “Your... friend is correct. Arryn appears to have minimal injuries and should wake up soon.” He put the healing device away and moved to pick up the kara kesh before reconsidering putting it back on and instead stashed it in one of his many pockets. He glanced towards where the two newcomers stood. “In the meantime, who are you two?”

"Easier to talk with you," Fern happily commented. It was a little scary to have her conversations with Ollie not be private, but she liked the idea of not alternating like they did around the other symbiote that they knew. "...Nice to meet you."

"We apologize for what happened earlier," Ollie added. Her host gave a smile, showing off all of Fern's teeth. "That was rude - Fern just is frightened by loud noises. It's a symbiote thing. But you probably figured that out already, right?"

Ollie let out a content sigh.

"This is just so interesting," she said. "Sometimes I feel like I made a mistake going into botany, when I can be bonded with an alien and be talking to a mind reader."

"Good with plants," Fern reminded her. Ollie really was good with them - she had seen it during their first meeting. She had a way of talking with them and interacting with them that Fern had never seen before; she knew it was why Ollie had taken a kind interest in her when no one else had.

"I guess I am," Ollie agreed, and she let Fern take control to give a smile.


Daniel took the lead - it was his thing, after all, and Benji was just beginning to get into all the nice juicy parts of his new occupation. He slung his arm around Benji's shoulder. "I'm Daniel Leeds, and this is Benjamin Frost. He prefers Benji - I honestly don't care what you call me, as long as it isn't Dan."

Benji squirmed a little under his grip, but stopped when Daniel gave him a squeeze on the shoulder. It wasn't just because he wanted to show how casual he was - a great tactic to get people to underestimate him - but he also wanted to show that Benji was his. He would protect him no matter what, and he had to make it clear to all present parties.

"We're cryptozoologists," Benji added.

Daniel gave a grin. "Or, as I like to call the profession, cryptid hunters."

"Thank you," Thytes whispered to Cathal. It wasn't as though he didn't trust anyone, but having a few confirmations helped. Thytes would've been a bit louder, but Cathal was preoccupied with Benji and Daniel, and the lion decided it'd be best to focus on them too.

"Cryptid hunters?" the lion said, looking over at them. From the way that Daniel had wrapped his arm around Benji, it was obvious that Daniel would probably dominate the conversation a bit more, so Thytes focused on him. "What does that mean, necessarily?"

"We hunt cryptids," Daniel said. "We seek them out in their natural habitats, lure the monsters out, and, well, hunt."

Benji shifted uncomfortably in Daniel's grasp. He knew exactly where he was going with this, but he wasn't going to speak up unless Daniel did his whole speech again. He did it every single time it came up in conversation with people who knew the truth about their profession - but it would be a very bad idea to draw attention to it in front of people who clearly weren't normal.

"Guns usually work," Daniel added, "but it really depends on the cryptid in question, and what you want to do with it afterwards. I personally keep mine on display, nice and stuffed - I'm a collector at heart-"

Benji elbowed him.

Daniel turned and stared at him. "What?" he asked.

"Stop it," he hissed. "Don't you see who we're around?"

"They're not cryptids," Daniel replied.

"They might be," he said. "You don't know what every cryptid looks like, and cryptids are abnormal creatures. No one here seems to be normal."

Daniel glanced around the room at the group gathered, then turned back to Benji with a shrug. "Don't see it."

Thytes blinked. "I do not suppose any of us is exactly abnormal, so I am not necessarily concerned? However, it does seem rather harsh to hunt and stuff what is. What are these monsters, per se?"