Young Writers Society

Seeing that Boris and Raiden were in the middle of, well, whatever they were doing, Nadira managed to scoot herself down the bed so she was closer to where Aegeas was currently cowering. She needed to occupy herself with something until her legs stopped being paralyzed, and Aegeas was the only person she could really talk to at the moment.

"It's weird suddenly being so tall," she said, trying to indicate that she was talking to him by keeping her gaze on him. He would relate to that, right? Kartiel was taller than him by a long shot no matter what body he used.


Kartiel remained far in the front of them all, leaving Codix with two people he desperately wanted to be away from at the moment. He mainly wanted to be away from Maahes because he was still more than a little terrified by what he truly was, though seeing himself walking beside him was certainly a reason. Bo was a pretty nice guy, but he hated looking over and seeing Nadira when he knew that Bo was not his best friend.

As he tried to figure out how he could deal with this situation, he slowly started to pay less and less attention to where he was going. It wasn't long before he bumped into a support beam jutting out of the ground.

And, when he did, it hurt like no pain he had ever felt before.

He gave a startled cry. He stumbled back into Bo, who had been walking behind him. The pain was so bad that he wanted to cry the moment he felt it, but found that he couldn't even do that. So instead he just stood there, whimpering in pain as he stared at the accusing support beam.

Aegeas blinked. "I guess so," he said, relaxing and stretching out a bit. If he'd heard the earlier conversation correctly, Bo and Nadira had switched bodies, so he was talking to Nadira. He hated how he couldn't keep track of all the body swaps. "I can't even fit down here all that well. Maybe I can reach up to the shelves for once." He laughed at this - while part of him was terrified to be talking to someone, Nadira had brought up something he'd never considered. It distracted him from his hands and from his concerns.

Bo caught Codix as he fell back into him, still unaccustomed to being smaller than most people, and slightly overwhelmed by the size difference. “Codix! Are you alright?” He looked back at Maahes. “Were you injured in any way before you got here? Is Codix only feeling it now?”

Cosarn it all, now I had to think of an 18th century backstory for this confused child. I stroked my chin wisely, hoping it would buy me a few seconds of time to think up something.
"Well, young one, what would you like to know?" I asked. Hopefully narrowing down what I needed to improvise would increase my chances of making something that sounded believable.

She smiled at what Aegeas said, glad that they were having a conversation instead of both remaining awkwardly silent. "Codix always gets the things on the highest shelves," Nadira said. "Because my body is just a little too short to grab them. His is, too, but he just makes it a little taller so we can get the things there. It's-It's kind of funny being the tall one, now. I want to tower over him for once, instead of the other way around."


Kartiel stopped ahead of them and looked back at the three, confusion clearly written across his face. But Codix didn't care - all that he cared about was figuring out the source of his pain and making it stop! "It was hurting a little before," Codix admitted, letting out another whimper, "but now it's hurting a lot! I've never been in this much pain before! My entire body feels like it's on fire!"

He looked almost accusingly over at Maahes, even though he knew he likely had nothing to do with this. Maahes was in the middle of staring at the support beam. He took a step closer to it, tentatively raising a hand and pressing it against the cool metal. Then he suddenly was at his side again, trying to direct him away from the beam.

"It's because you touched something with iron and silver in it," Maahes said. Codix would have protested being moved around, but he was in too much pain to argue. "My body doesn't like it. It's bad enough being surrounded by it, but touching it hurts even more."

"What about the other pain?" Codix asked. The pain he had felt from the support beam was already beginning to die down; apparently, Maahes was telling the truth about that.

"I'm not meant to be here," Maahes simply said.

"We know you're from another reality-"

Maahes shook his head, Codix falling silent when he did so. "I'm not meant to be in this type of place. I'm supposed to be back in my home. It's a place called the Other Place, where there's all sorts of people just like me. You could probably say that it's another dimension. We're allowed to be our true selves there and just kind of all flow together. It's hard to explain to someone who has never been there before, but you can probably get an idea of it from how my essence is moving about right now.

Codix gave a hesitant nod. He could kind of understand what he was talking about.

"When someone summons me here, they take all of my essence and compress it. And since I'm not meant to be like that, it hurts. It's not too bad once you get used to it, and it's easy to ignore when you're distracted. And changing my guise always helps with it, too, but I don't get to do that much."

"It's good to have a friend like that," Aegeas said. "I have a couple, and they don't judge me. Most of the time, anyways, depending on how patient Derrick is." He smiled. "It'd be nice to turn the tables on him for once."

"Start with where you grew up. Before you left Europe." I said, allowing him just one small hint.

Bo had been listening intently, but departed into his own train of thought at Maahes's last words. He stared off into space for a moment as he came to two revelations.

One.

He was seeing them with two eyes. That would explain why everything looked different and full of what he was actually able to comprehend as more depth. It'd been... seven years since he'd looked at anything with two eyes, and apparently, when popped into a body with two, he didn't even notice it right away. Brilliant.

Two.

"Wait. If ya'll are like, shapeshifters and can change form or whatever... doesn't that mean you can just... shift back to the normal form you're used to?"

Nadira's smile grew a little larger at the comment - who knew that Aegeas could be so amicable? He had just seemed so angry since they had gotten here, likely because he was just as desperate as the rest of them to return home. It made her wonder what it would have been like to run into him in a place he was supposed to be in.

"What's Derrick like?" she questioned, seeing an opportunity to continue their conversation.


They slowly looked at each other, then back at Bo. Why had neither one of them thought of that sooner? Maahes had already been aware of Codix's ability to shapeshift, and it should have been one of Codix's first thoughts when he realized something like that was possible.

"It wouldn't feel exactly the same, since I don't think I can replicate my essence," Maahes mused, looking his current body over, "but at least I'd be the same height and have the proportions that I'm used to!"

"Thank God," Codix said with a sigh.

Maahes gave him a look.

"I've been having to stare at myself for the past ten minutes," Codix said, already trying to figure out how he could change his guise - hadn't Maahes called it that? - to look like his own body. "There was the one time that Nadira had to pretend to be me, and that was awkward, but she was matching my human form and not my actual one."

Maahes stared at him for a few more moments, then turned his attention back to himself. After a minute had passed, the two had successfully managed to change their forms and voices to match what they were more comfortable with. At least, that was what Codix had expected - he nearly stumbled back in surprise when he saw a completely unfamiliar man standing next to him. He was wearing a black t-shirt, green pants and a green jacket with a patch on the side, but most surprising of all of was the different physical characteristics. He wasn't as tall, had darker skin and had a long scarlet braid running down his back.

"...That's still you, right?" Codix hesitantly asked.

Maahes gave a nod and adjusted the collar of his jacket. "Yeah. It's a form I use when I'm back on the base with the other members of the SGC - they all know the truth there, and are pretty okay with it, seeing that I'm not the first alien they've picked up."

"He's nice," Aegeas said, a dreamy look on his face. Or, as dreamy as this face could get. It'd been a long time since he'd had the chance to remember his friends, as chaotic and dangerous as this place was. "He's dedicated, reliable, and friendly. Back in the war, he stayed by my side and tried to be my voice of reason. Not with much success, but he tried. Even after I met Oniyore and Kellach - he didn't much like either - and he met his girlfriend, we were still pretty close. Haven't talked to him in a while, but I think he's still making money as a blacksmith."

"Hmmm..." Before I left England huh? I suppose I could work with that.
"I lived London in the 'Neath, with those whom i called family. Do you require more details?" I asked in an exasperated tone. I hoped this might stop him asking.

"Of course I do. I want to hear about this family of yours."
I said, grinning smugly.

Bo waited for the two to get back to whatever they felt their normal was, and finally nodded with a quiet little clap.

"Well! Okay then. So... if you guys are good, we'll keep walking?" he put a hand on Codix's back. "And you stay away from the support beams and stuff? Are you good to keep walking with uh, chronic pain and all?"

She hoped she wasn't prying too much, but they didn't have anything else to really talk about at the moment because the things that came up in the conversation. And it was Aegeas who was talking about his friends, not her. She didn't really have any, save for Codix. She couldn't risk more than that. He was the only one who could know the truth.

"Why doesn't he like them?" she asked. "Your new friends?"


The two nodded. Codix couldn't explain what exactly had made him change his mind on Maahes, but now he felt far more comfortable talking to him than he had after the switch first occurred. He looked over at him. "So the group you're with has worked with other aliens before?"

Maahes nodded again. "They tend to do it a lot, though not as much since I've shown up. There's the Asgard. They look a lot like you, actually, minus the shapeshifting part. There used to be the Tok'ra, but they were wiped out in the fight against the Goa'uld. Then there's the Jaffa. They recently became their own people, so there's been a bit of a power struggle with them recently. One of the members of my team is actually this really legendary one - his name is Teal'c. He's super cool, and also really seems to like Star Wars."

"Oh shoot!" Bo said, looking over to Maahes with a surprised smile. "Ya'll really have Star Wars all the way out there in space still? Or is your guy Tealc from earth?"