Young Writers Society

"What are we waiting for?" Aegeas said, pulling himself up. And paused, since he was a little dizzy. "It could be a weird village, but I don't think it's going to be any weirder than that forest."

Helenah was quiet for a moment. What if the people from the village weren't nice? What if they threw them out? What if...

"Aegeas has a good point." she said quickly. "If the forest is this crazy, the people of that village are probably insane. They probably... fly or something." she shrugged.

Ruby bit Helenah's ear, from her position on her shoulder. "That is offensive. I fly."

Helenah rubbed her ear, wincing. "Jee, sorry."

She continued, "But it's worth a shot, right?"

Kiran's eyebrows drew together, "I fly, occasionally," she said to Helenah, "What's wrong with it?"

She almost ripped out her hair.

"I didn't mean it in that way." Helenah huffed. "It's the first thing I thought of." she crossed her arms.

Kiran frowned and turned her eyes back to the village. As rude as Helenah's example had been, she was right, to a certain degree. They could be hostile. They could be a lot of things. She rubbed her hands together. She didn't want to have to...It didn't matter. She wouldn't have to.

"I agree with Aegeas," Lex said. "We've already dealt with that forest - I think we can handle whatever happens in the village."

He wasn't sure if he had embraced his role as the impromptu leader or just felt more confident thanks to the armor, but Lex wasn't nearly as worried about the situation as he had been before. Something told him it would be alright.

He just hoped he could trust that something.

"If everyone's ready, let's go," he said.

Aegeas nodded, walking over to Lex. "Let's get this over with," he said.

Kiran nodded and took an extra step away from the group just to be sure she wouldn't accidentally brush up against someone and cause some serious damage. She shoved her hands in her pockets.

Gravity was feeling lighter on her than usual, or, well, that wasn't quite it. It was like the sky was pulling on her from above with a gravity of its own. It wanted her back. She glanced up as a storm rolled in across the side of her face, lightning arching across the bridge of her nose.

Then she looked away. Up was good. The sky was good. Nina was better. She had to focus on getting home.

Rayden liked crowds.

Crowds were gullible, and he liked how they never thought to check if their purses were safe beside them. He liked the little golden nummus they kept dropping in their hurry. He liked that no one, and especially no guard, could ever catch him inside the crowd.

But most of all, he liked being invisible inside crowds.

He bounced lightly on his feet, ready to get going - but also, slightly wary.

This was not home, he tried to remind himself. You can't steal here. But try as he might, his heart still beat with excitement at the prospect of finding civilization. Too long, he'd wandered among murderous forests and traitorous gravities.

So, ask for the way to home, also ask for some food (because he was pretty sure everyone had figured out those deep rumblings were coming from his stomach), and maybe try not to steal anything.

Cool, cool. This was gonna be cake.

Ugh cake!

Dara was on board with Rayden, whose attitude seemed more than welcome of the crowd sounds drifting through the thinned forest. If she had to stare at another damn tree motif ahead of her for extended periods she might not have made it, and the potential to clean her now mud-caked boots almost coerced visible relief onto her face. As if sensing the other opportunities awaiting them, Dara's stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten since much earlier that morning. It also occurred to her...

Maybe this meant they would find a way back to their worlds.

The prospect triggered something she would have never expected, something uncomfortable. Looking around, she imagined none of the others had the same uncertainty nagging at them.

It made Dara want to break away from the group, but she didn't. Instead she came to Kiran's side. With a tinge of jealousy, Dara commented, "You must really love the sky. You seem like you belong to it." Dara walked a couple steps in the direction of the unknown village. She barely turned her head back to Kiran as she added, "That's cool."

Kiran gave a barely perceptible nod, "Yeah, I'm...I kinda am part of it?" It came out like a question. She glanced back up, then returned her gaze to her feet, and to the little arcs of uncontrolled electricity sparked out from where her sleeves were pushed up by the material of her pockets.

She let out a breath, thinking, "I...well, I wasn't really born. I am, kinda, part of the sky," her skin shifted again, the storm clearing up and giving way to stars speckling her face like freckles against midnight skin, "I was created, a long time ago, by magic, from the sky, I guess is the best way of putting it. So was my date-mate, Nina. Well, not the sky. She's more..." she shook her head and blushed in the form of the beginnings of a sunrise across her cheeks, "Um, how about you? How's your magic work?" she hastily changed the subject.

Helenah shifted impatiently.

Get the chat over with, already. She screamed in her thoughts at Dara and Kiran. Grinding her teeth, she started walking between them, and when she took her first step, she felt her feet sinking.

Looking down, she crumpled up her face, beyond disgusted. "Ew."

She pulled out her foot from the wet mud and stared at her feet covered with thick mud. "Ew ew ew! Ugh!"

Gagging, she wiped it off the ends of her jeans and wiped it on the ground.

"Can we go now?" she whined.

Dae finally managed to tear his eyes from the village. Something inside him still feared it, but he was swiftly growing outnumbered. Besides, maybe he could find some way to stay safe from whatever it was he was scared of.

He flew down to the ground and quickly turned human again, looking to Dara. He had noticed her rings a while back, and though he certainly hadn't thought of stealing them, the rings did give him an idea.

"Dara! Can I pretend to be your bracelet?" He asked.

Master of disguise, this one is.

"Uh, righto," Dara replied to Dae, too thrown off guard to consider what having a dragon attached to her wrist would feel like. For someone capable of turning into powerful beasts, Dae seemed timid by the village they were heading to. He seemed to trust her more than the civilization awaiting them, and Dara couldn't help but take a liking to him at that.

Dara hadn't expected Kiran to go to the length of starting a conversation with her, so she walked a little in silence while determining the best way she could answer. And it wasn't only the best way, but the way that avoided revealing who she really was, what she would one day do – because she didn't want to be rejected today. Not by this world. "My... magic is inherited. Only very few people can use magic on Earth..." Dara glanced at Rayden. "... Uh, my version of it anyway. So my particular genetic energy resonates or relates to the energetic vibrations of the crystals – but they need to be close to me." She conveniently left out that her inherited energy partly relied on disharmony, that it would become more engulfing overtime, until—

Few things troubled Dara to the point of terror, but images of her parents flashed in her mind. She could never forget.

"Thank you!" Dae said, looking visibly relieved.

He changed back into an amphithere, flying over and wrapping tightly around her wrist. To make sure he would stay on, he bit his own tail, before going completely still, a little band of warmth around her wrist, the tiny little wings spread out to either side.

It was surprisingly effective; without looking too closely, he truly appeared to be a green dragon bracelet with two little ruby eyes.