Young Writers Society

Harry laughed at the order for poison. It was such an obvious grab for attention that he couldn't help it.

"Ah well, I'm not in the mood to explain all that unfortunately," said Harry, "Jen, how about you? Jen?"

He turned to see his sister staring intently at a boy in the corner. It was small figure hunched over a bowl of stew, almost as if he didn't want anyone to see his face. He didn't want anyone to see his face, realized Harry as he looked a little closer. His surface thoughts were all but screaming "Don't see my eyes. Don't see my eyes"

"That's someone who hasn't had the greatest of lives," said Jennifer, finally turning around. She put down her glass.

"Come on, I want to talk to him," she said getting up.

"Okay," said Harry, gulping down the rest of his drink and getting up himself. He nodded to the bartender. "Gonna go do that. Excuse us."

"If you think about it - isn't every name a codename for something else?" Wilson said, tapping her chin and then spinning around. Not to go anywhere, just to rotate for fun.

"Anywhoozle, nice to meet you, Greed!"

Greed rolled their eyes. "Mine is perfectly literal," they muttered and downed the rest of the poison. The acidic liquid burned their throat as it went down and, very quickly, their senses began to sharpen. Heart rate rising, mild disorientation, fight or flight starting to kick in. This human-based body was much more ideal than the others they'd tried. Far more complex when it came to instincts.

More people were coming closer. What had Elem done wrong? He followed everything he always did when he went to different towns and taverns. Maybe he should have sat somewhere in the back of the tavern to avoid attention. The seat at the bar had seemed so warm and convenient, but that shouldn't have meant everything.

He was so done for.

Titling her head, as the boy stuttered out a hi, she kept quiet. He was clearly nervous, best not to try and make him talk.

Somthing moved out in her prereferral vision, the boy saw it too, he twitched ever so slighly.

She kept her cool demeanour, leaning on the chair, but swivelled her head, scanning the approaching strangers, carefully.

Oliver grabbed Harry by the shoulder as he passed. It was a gentle expression, though one could not tell this was because of his lack of arm strength or lack of aggression.
Harry seemed like a responsible... somewhat human, adult.
"I don't know if you've noticed the overabundance of interest of folk in here," Oliver commented glancing about, but his eyes falling on Elem once more, "What do you think we should do about the nervous child? Just leave the poor kid alone? Watch and makes sure no trouble happens?"

Glena looked over at the shrinking boy, and decided these adults were jerks. The little guys gotta stick together, right? She got up and walked over to him.

"Hey there. I'm Glena, and this place is great. Have you tried their apple juice?"

Harry turned to face the man.

"Oh um...hi," he said, frowning, "we were investigate into that right now actually, weren't we Jen?"

"Yeah," said Jennifer, whirling around, "Well I need to talk to this kid regardless, something isn't quite right there." She kept walking.

"Yeah, I think I'll also go do that oh and to answer your question, I think the kid can decide that, I mean who are we to make decisions for him." Harry shrugged and jogged to catch up to Jennifer.

The air was growing hot and heavy.

Elem felt like he couldn't breath. His mom had always said that it was his anxiety. Even the capitol's councilors had said it was just his anxiety. But this didn't feel like the anxiety he had read about in the pamphlets his parents had given him when he was seven. It never did. It felt like something inside was about to snap.

"N-No," he managed to get out. The girl who had come over wasn't an adult like the other people in the tavern, but she had wings, too. Elem was still trying to wrap his head around that. How could people have something that birds were supposed to have? "I haven't had...apple juice."

He hadn't ever heard of an apple, but he didn't dare admit it.

He kept staring down at the bowl.

"I'm Elem," he softly said, the air right around him practically trembling.

Harry and Jennifer arrived came to a halt next to the boy. It was then that they realized just how many people were hanging out in that area of the bar. The boy didn't look to be doing all that well. He was almost trembling.

"Jen, you sure you want to talk to him?" asked Harry, frowning at the sight of the boy.

"You know what," said Jennifer, "on second thought, let's go join in the poison drinking." She whirled around and sped off.

"Oh come one," mumbled Harry, "you do all of that just to run off again." He punched the air and trudged after her.

Greed raised an eyebrow at the pair who abruptly turned to approach them. "Need something?" they asked and took another swig of the toxin. It wasn't nearly as strong as they wanted it to be, but then, nothing ever was.

Wilson stepped into the back room behind the bar to check her watch and tapped it with a pout.

"Oh dear, I gotta get going now, don't I. Guess I better clock out!"

A few scribbles on a clipboard later, she poofed and was gone.

"Um, not really," replied Harry, shrugging, "I'm okay. Jen, you want anything?"

Jennifer shook her head. "Nope, I'm good."

"Yeah, so anyway, umm...hi, you got a name?" asked Harry.

"Greed," Greed said and downed the last of their drink. Not even a buzz. What was even the point of an interdimensional tavern if the strongest poison couldn't even fog up the brain. The concept of a brain. Greed didn't pretend to understand their own anatomy.

They spun in their seat and crossed one leg over the other. "What brings you two to this little anomaly?"

The sun glared down on Amoku. He sighed; it seemed like everything glared down on Amoku now. Emphasis on "Down". He felt so short that the trees felt higher than him! TREES!

He had wandered in the wilderness for a long time now. Decades? Centuries? A few minutes? Time was weird in this area. As if it didn't belong.

He stared up at the Tavern.

Yeah, the Tavern glared down at him too.

It was about midday, and Amoku didn't really want to go back into the forest to be harrassed by mountain trolls. The thought gave him an idea. He could appear as a mountain troll in the tavern! That would certainly give a reaction! Unless, there were a bunch of mountain trolls in there. He could also appear to be a human, but that seemed too weak. Maybe he could appear as . . . No! He would appear as a mouse! He could spectate the creatures inside this Tavern and THEN become what would be most appealing.

That plan could never go wrong.

Amoku breathed a masking spell and morphed into a small rodent.

Now he was Really, really, really, really small. The concept of mice was actually pretty new to Amoku. In his eons of living as Aamokan, he always thought of mice as that thing that lives on your toe. He was completely weirded out at the crazy looking rodents. But morphing INTO a mouse was a whole new level of weird.

Of course he couldn't appear as a dragon. In his runty dragon form, he would get laughed at. Amoku could already hear whoever was inside there speaking, Ha! The runty dragon! So stupid! Let's kick him out!

No. He would go in as a mouse.

That plan went wrong almost immediately. Not in a bad way; He just couldn't open the door.

Growling, Amoku searched for a place to enter as he squeaked and chattered curses.

Finally, he found a small hole in the wall, which he struggled to fit through, and he finally entered. He stumbled around and accidentally began to roll.

". . . you two to this little anomaly?" said an extremely loud voice. Everything was amplified through Amoku's little mouse ears. He scrambled away frantically

So, thought Amoku, They ARE mostly humans. Well. I've never seen any humans with wings. Or any humans with green hair. Or much humans anyway. I'll just sneak out of here and burst inside as a mountain troll! HA HA!

Amoku the mouse began to search for his original entrance until he found that it was gone.

I'm not that incompetent, am I?, he thought morosely, forgetting that he was in a room filled with a bunch of humans who could easily step on him.

He was incompetent that way.