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Young Writers Society


The Princess and the Prince



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Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:54 am
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Mageheart says...



I shrugged. "Magic," I said. "We're guessing that, anyways. We still don't know a lot about our world, so trust me when I say we're just as confused by it as you are."
mage

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roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Fri Oct 25, 2019 1:18 pm
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Teddybear says...



She nodded along as she led them around one more sharp corner. Suddenly, the sight that had been obscured by the buildings was revealed.

The university was huge. To call it a castle was to call the great sea a puddle. Spires, these ones with spiraling platforms like teeth jutting out of them from the sides, reached for the surface, three longer than the others. One of those three stood before them, wide at the base and melded together with all the others like melted wax. A circular doorway stood high above them, the occasional student or professor coming or going through it. One ground level, there was a comparatively small, neglected doorway.

Megara led them through this into a corridor lit only by glowing runes lining the floor.

"Welcome to the university," she said.
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Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:39 pm
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Mageheart says...



The three of us came to a collective stop.

Nathaniel gaped.

I did, too.

And Asmira looked increasingly pale.

"London looks so plain compared to this," Nathaniel muttered, eyes wide as he studied the impressive structures before us. I thought the same thing, but I wasn't going to agree with Nathaniel out of principle.

Asmira gave a pitiful nod. "It puts Sheba to shame," she whispered.

I just stared.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:43 pm
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Teddybear says...



Megara raised an eyebrow, "Remind me never to take you jokers to the mer palaces," she said good-naturedly as she ushered them down the hallway.

"Don't wander off," she said, "I'm serious, if you cant find air before the spell wears off you will drown." Not that I care, said the part of her brain one would usually dub the liar.
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Sat Oct 26, 2019 9:37 pm
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Mageheart says...



Megara apparently didn't understand our shock at the buildings was entirely natural, but none of us were able to get a word in edgewise. We were still marveling over what we had seen by the time that we followed her down the hallway. The most any of us could do was a nod, and my nod didn't even come until Nathaniel nudged me with his elbow.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:30 pm
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Teddybear says...



She acknowledged them before fulling taking up the lead.

After a while, the small hallway gave way to large corridors populated by hurrying merpeople. Some of them carried books protected by bubbles of air, presumably sustained by magic, while most of the others carried strange scrolls of a greenish material bound closed by different colored ribbons and clip-on emblems that were either left blank or had the subject of the scroll scrawled onto them.

The group was mostly ignored by the students save for the occasional curious glance. That is, until a particular merperson, who appeared to be older than most of the students with greying black hair and a certain slowness to the way they swam that suggested age. Their face, however, was ageless, with no clear feminity or masculinity to it, and their form was concealed by loose-fitting clothes that didn't seem to follow the trend of interwoven materials, instead being more reminiscent of the clothing worn above the surface.

The moment they spotted Megara, they hurried across the hall from the circular doorway into what was presumably their classroom to confront her. Taking her by the arm, they dragged Megara into an empty classroom and was about to reach for the door when they suddenly froze.

Megara pushed the knife a little harder into their side, angling the tip up so one good thrust would send it under their ribs. "Fenn!" she greeted them with a friendly grin, "Just who I was here to see."
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Sun Oct 27, 2019 12:11 pm
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Mageheart says...



I really hated how she did that.

It was one thing for me to be threatening people with a grin on my face, but I usually added a sinister undertone. If I hadn't seen the knife, I would have guessed that it was an entirely friendly conversation - no threatening on Megara's part involved.

Nathaniel shifted uncomfortably, and Asmira's hands went for one of her many hidden knives.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Sun Oct 27, 2019 2:11 pm
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Teddybear says...



Fenn grimaced, their eyes flitting to the others for a fraction of a second before returning to Megara, some mix of annoyance and fear on their face, "I assume your father sent you?"

"I'd really like some time with your students," she responded, still as cheery as ever. With the knife hidden by their bodies, the students would assume they were good friends.

They winced away from the knife, "What use has The Count for my students?"

She rolled her eyes as if to say, you just don't get it. The knife pressed harder into their side, hard enough to puncture human skin, but only enough to cause Fenn enough pain to reset their priorities. "How about you call together a circle and then I'll tell you once the casting begins, hm?" Her grin turned to something more akin to a smirk.

They winced away from the knife once more before nodding, "I'll have them ready for you in ten minutes, you may await them in my classroom," they said the same way a servant would tell their master how long until the guests arrived.

"Thank you Fenn," Megara chirped and backed away, her knife vanishing seemingly into nowhere as she did. "Come on guys," she said to her companions, still maintaining the cheery facade as she crossed the hall to the classroom Fenn had been leaving when they'd spotted her.
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Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:16 am
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Mageheart says...



We all hesitated for the first second that followed the interaction, only to each go after Megara with expressions that did nothing to convey how we really felt. I knew that Asmira felt threatened. I felt a little disturbed. But the one of us who seemed the worst off was Nathaniel, who had found the ground to be a lot more interesting than any of us.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Mon Oct 28, 2019 2:06 pm
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Teddybear says...



Inside the classroom, Megara hopped up onto the desk and crossed her bad leg over the good one, leaning back on her hands.

She looked over each of them in turn, "You guys uncomfortable?" she asked casually.

It wasn't like Skull didn't know her profession; he had no right to be surprised by it. The others, however, could have a moment of shock if they wanted it. She just hoped they'd get over it sooner than later. There was a portal they had to get through, and, as far as Megara knew, it would take a great deal of focus on their part to get them to the correct place.
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Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:21 am
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Mageheart says...



"Not really," I said. Megara and I had a bit of history; I wasn't too thrown off by it. But Asmira and Nathaniel definitely were, even as they shook their heads in denial.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Tue Oct 29, 2019 1:56 pm
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Teddybear says...



She raised an eyebrow, "You're are acting like I killed your guys' dog. I'm sure you can forgive my not believing that particular statement."
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Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:25 am
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Mageheart says...



None of us spoke for a moment.

"...I'm naturally wary of possible threats," Asmira admitted. "It's because of how I was brought up. Even if you are helping us, I can't ignore my instincts."

I shrugged. "I don't know - it's one thing to feel a knife up against me, and another to see you doing it to someone else. But, hey, I get that a little intimidation is necessary sometimes."

I waited for Nathaniel to voice his opinion, but he was keeping stubbornly silent. I raised an eyebrow and turned to him - shocked to find that he was staring at the floor instead of any one of us. What was wrong with him? This wasn't like him at all.

I nudged him with my shoulder.

He popped his head back up, giving me an annoyed yet surprisingly distant look.

"You...You remind me of someone I know," Nathaniel said. He wasn't looking at Megara when he spoke - he wasn't looking at any of us. He was just looking at somewhere close enough to us that if you weren't paying too much attention, you would think he was actually making eye contact. "...Someone who didn't mind using intimidation to get what they wanted, and ignored the needs of others."

"Well, she does have to do that," I pointed out. "If we want to get to our world, she had to rope that guy into giving us a free ride back."

Nathaniel shook his head.

"You're not getting it," he said. "It doesn't matter if it's what's needed most. The person I knew didn't care about others until the last possible moment, and then realized how stupid they had been to ignore what the people around them actually needed. They just kept abusing their power."
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.





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Wed Oct 30, 2019 2:23 pm
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Teddybear says...



Megara clapped her hands in her lap, "Well," she said in a breathy, sarcastic rush, "I, for one, am overjoyed to be compared to someone I've never met. Can't wait to help you guys out again."

With a huff, she rolled her eyes a final time and leaned back on her hands again, looking over the group. Ten minutes, Finn had said. She only had to deal with this for ten more minutes, then they'd be out of her life for good and she could get back to getting paid for her troubles.
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Wed Oct 30, 2019 9:09 pm
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Mageheart says...



I didn't think Nathaniel's little speech was going to ruin our chances of getting back to our world, but I had to at least consider it. I glanced over at him - ready to say something about how the least he could do right now was treat Megara nicely. But then I saw the look on his face, and I realized exactly why he was getting so flustered about what Megara just did.

"Oh, I think you've met them before," I said - I was talking to Megara, but I was looking right at Nathaniel. "I think Natty boy is talking about himself."

Nathaniel didn't confirm or deny it, but that was all the confirmation I needed.
mage

[ she/her, but in a boy kinda way ]

roleplaying is my platonic love language.

queer and here.








Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a different place from where he started. I would like him to be slightly disoriented at the end, like I drove him outside of town at night and dropped him off in a cornfield.
— Billy Collins