Young Writers Society

I chuckled lightly at Aegeas, and moved to help him up. "Do you need some assistance, friend?"

It was just as well he only caught me two glasses in. Otherwise, someone may have had to save me from saving him.

"Yesh," Aegeas said. He tried to wave off Boris and pull himself up, but fell back to the floor again.

He crossed his arms. Getting up was too much effort, and he didn't want to deal with it. The floor felt warm enough anyways.

"Aegeas, once I return to that table, I fully intend to incapacitate myself, so if you want me to help you off the floor, it will have to be now."

"I'm fine," Aegeas said, waving Boris off. "It's fine. The floor is fine. Everything's fine. If I want to get up, I have, uh, I have mister evil over there." He gestured in Kartiel's direction. "It's the least he could do after today."

Having returned to the table, I took a long draught of Kartiel's wine.

"He has excellent taste," I said, between sips, "And I take back everything uncouth I ever said of him."

Kartiel paused in his drinking, looking over at Aegeas with a raised eyebrow. He carefully placed the bottle down on the table beside him - or, at least tried to. This body must have gotten more intoxicated quicker than he thought it would. It took him a few tries before he could get it fully on the table.

"Mister evil?" he questioned, his words starting to slur just a bit. Yes, he was definitely getting drunk already. (Which wasn't fair, considering that he could drink all the wine bottles on the table without getting drunk when he was back in his own body.)

"Karty he's talking about you my guy," Raiden said, looking at Aegeas on the floor.
Drunk people are weird, he thought, sipping at his juice.

Bo smiled, nodding along with Codix and Nadira. "Yeah, of course! Just 'cause you came late to the chaos party doesn't mean you can't hang with us. It's all good man. I mean, please! Stay. This place is lonely to wander around alone."

"As was I, but doess he notice when you say ssomething nice? No." I murmured under my breath.

"Yeah," Aegeas said. He rolled over onto his stomach and crawled on the floor, finally grabbing onto Kartiel's shoe. Without looking him in the eye, Aegeas continued, "Ya kinda, kinda did all this. I snapped cuzza all that, and it isn't going to be fun when I'm sober and I have to deal with that. And ya know that, but yer gettin' angry 'cause we're wearing yer shirts and drinkin' your drinks. So, yer pretty evil. Dunno you even know what love is. I do, but ya took me away from that. Great job."

Maahes returned Bo's smile with a small one of his own.

"I-I'd like that," he said.


His grip on the bottle tightened - so much so that it quickly began to crack underneath the pressure. Wraiths were somewhere in between the strength of humans and gods; when the top part of the bottle suddenly broke apart into little glass shards, he wasn't too surprised.

His tone was cold as he (somewhat unsteadily) got out of the chair. "I know more about love than you'll ever know." He attempted to shake Aegeas off of his foot, but the otter's grip was simply too strong.

Consarn it, I wasn't even halfway through my third glass, yet, and already I found myself in the position of mediator.

"We'rre all acquainted with love, now, therre's no reason to presume each other's knowledge of it." I said, with little conviction.

"Kartiel, I know Aegeas said some, some things, some unwarranted things, but he has more than a right to feel that way.

Aegeas, our host is a cold son of a mother, holding his foot hostage won't help anything.

Why don't we all just get drunk, and do civil things, like rant about Shakespeare, or make fun of each other's dress sense?"

If Aegeas had been listened to Boris, he showed no signs of it. "Really?" the otter laughed. "Ya know more 'bout love than me? What's love to ya? Whoever yer gonna kill last?"

He finally managed to get his foot free of the otter's grasp.

"Everything I do is for love," he replied, "but you'd never understand that."

Knowing that he had already said too much, and that he was already too intoxicated to be making more than a handful of rational decisions, Kartiel grabbed the remains of the bottle, threw it in the trash and stormed off towards the door - blood already beginning to seep out of the small cut he had gotten on his hand from touching the broken bottle.

Would it be wiser to let Kartiel take his leave, or to try reconcile the two? Aegeas was being unreasonable at the moment, and Kartiel had become emotional, so I couldn't muster any more conviction for this attempt than I could for the last one.

This was by far the worst drinking party with a man who'd almost killed me that I had ever had.

"Look what you've done now," I droned in Aegeas' direction. "You'vvve trod on a soft spot, and now he's in a huff, and I'll never convince you to apologize, so I'll apologize for you, and I'm too drunk to pretend that I really care that much, and he'll be able to tell I'm being disingenuous, and you'll make me look bad.

Yes, you've made me look bad. You have somehow achieved that elusive, mythical feat. I hope you're happy." I said, sardonically.

"Oh, and I'm sorry he hurt your feelings." I said to Kartiel, as an afterthought.