Young Writers Society

Nathaniel and Asmira both nodded.

I didn't nod until Nathaniel nudged me with his toe, but I understood what Megara was saying - I just hated being ordered around.

I gestured in front of me with a sweeping gesture.

"Show the way," I said.

Megara hesitated for a moment, brushed a curl from her face, and nodded in return. Then she turned on her heel and led the way through the streets, keeping her head down and moving at a pace to make it clear she was in a hurry.

They wove through the streets, taking the occasional back alley and eventually ending up at the water's edge. There were a few other people there, loitering around in strange clothing composed of interlocked fabricks and silver and gold armbands with stripes, circles, and beads in what appeared to be distinct patterns.

Megara took a gold armband of her own out of her pocket and turned to the others as she fastened it over her coat, "Do you guys have mer wherever you're from?" she asked.

They wouldn't take this well if they didn't, but the only way to cast anything powerful enough to get them home would be to use a team of proficient casters, and the only place where such a group could be found was where magic wasn't a rare skill learned only by doubles. In other words, the academy. How Megara was going to talk any of the mer there into doing anything for these people was another matter entirely, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

Nathaniel, Asmira and I all exchanged confused looks. While I knew that I had ever heard of them before, there was always the possibility that Nathaniel and Asmira - both from a different reality, and Asmira from another time - would have heard of them before.

But it looked like they hadn't.

"Nope," I said, answering for our group.

"What exactly is a mer?" Asmira slowly questioned.

There was a pause.

"...Are they like mermaids?" Nathaniel asked - a small blush beginning to appear on his cheeks after he posed the question.

Megara sighed. This was perfect. Simply superb.

"Yes, mermaids," she said shortly, "They're..." she glanced at the loiterers, "...sensitive. Just, don't talk to them. I don't have time to explain exactly what they consider impolite and why. This-" she gestured to her newly-secured armband, "-is a sort of marker. A symbol of rank. The symbols explain what my rank actually is, as do theirs. Basically, they're combat-trained mages, or, he is," she gestured to one of them, "and his friends over there. The other two are more...servant class. I'm marked as combative as well, and as castle-dwelling. They're going to assume I'm a guard or something. You guys are going to be assumed to be people of rank whom I'm escorting." She paused for a moment, thinking. If they said or did the wrong thing, the whole deal was up. There were no do-overs, no safety nets.

"Skull," she turned to him, "Do you still know sign language?"

I shook my head.

"That was just because of the robot body," I said. Asmira and Nathaniel gave me funny looks, but I didn't clarify - I could tell them all of that story when were back on our world. "I don't know any of it."

An awkward silence settled on our group.

Nathaniel took a step forward.

"I know some sign language," he offered. "My signing is rusty, but I know basic phrases and words."

She switched to sign language, "Do you understand this well enough?" she signed, slower than usual to give him a chance to catch every word. She really shouldn't be the one left to plan things. With one only one person in the group aside from herself who knew any of the language at all, her idea to keep them quiet was viable to fall apart fast.

He struggled to remember what some of the signs meant, but he was still able to get the general idea of what she was signing.

"I do," he signed.

She nodded and returned to the spoken word, "Alright then, here's what we're going to do. You guys are going to stay absolutely silent unless I tell you to speak. Nathanial, I'm going to need your help with translating if we run into any human magic users. They don't tend to speak out loud and I've been busy trying to get conversationally fluent in just about every language in this gods-forsaken world to figure out how to understand more than one person talking at once. Just...Look, I'm not sure what's going to happen down there, and you guys asked to be directed to you best shot at getting out of here, so here we are."

She considered, for a split second, trying to send them down alone. She could just wash her hands of them here and head back home. It was tempting. But they wouldn't make it past the front gate without her, and gods knew what the mer would do to trespassers. Despite all her talk, she realized with some disgust, she didn't actually want Skull dead, nor his friends, for that matter.

So here she was, about to cash in on years worth of favors for a gods-damned ghost.

All three of us nodded, and Nathaniel - I couldn't tell if he just wasn't thinking, or was feeling a little cheeky - signed some kind of answer.

"You owe me after this," she hissed, more to Skull specifically than the others.

She then turned on her heel, regretted turning on her heel as she faltered and regained her balance before striding up to the water's edge and turning to address one of the loitering mer.

His eyes scanned her for a long moment. She crossed her arms, "We need passage to the university."

His gaze lingered on the armband before returning to her face, "Business?"

"Business."

He looked over the other three, looking them over each in turn. His expression didn't change as he looked back at Megara, "Any weapons?"

"Yes."

The corner of his lips quirked up in an amused smirk, "Level?"

"One through three, non-magical."

He nodded, then turned to one of his companions. With a wave of his hand, he signaled the others to raise their arms. The water, previously blue, turned transparent like the shimmer of air on a hot day. Megara glanced back and tilted her head to signal the others to follow her as she walked directly into the water where a path was now visible leading down into the depths.

Under the waves, the water was breathable, like air only thicker.

Once they were out of earshot, she turned to the others, "They enchanted us, not the water, so I would recommend not pissing them off, unless, of course, you're impervious to drowning."

Nathaniel and Asmira both wasted no time in nodding, but I felt a fresh, sudden wave of terror wash over me. Dying a first time made me a little more self-preserving than I had been before, but getting brought back to life like this made me even more cautious with things that could easily kill me.

Like water.

...I had never learned how to swim.

"Will do," I quietly said, my gaze lingering more on the water than on Megara.

Megara smirked when she saw Skull's expression and turned back to guide them further down. The temperatures, cool, but comfortable enough at first, soon plummeted to the point where Megara had to make a conscious effort not to shiver. If they were breathing air, she knew that it would be coming out in clouds before them. Something darted by on the left, too quick to see properly, but big as any of them. Megara didn't even look, continuing toward where a drop off was becoming steadily more visible as they went on.

Soon, they were at its edge, looking down on a magnificent city, stone and crystal spires reaching up from the depths of the pit, illuminated by red and blue glows that shone through carved designs in a strange language spiraling up the towers. As the buildings got lower in the distance, more and more red light was visible, becoming more like a faint glow encompassing the buildings from a distance.

Megara turned to her companions and gestured to the cliff, "Who wants to go first?"

If I wasn't so distracted by being underwater, I might have noticed the worried looks that Asmira and Natty boy gave each other after I spoke - or the worried looks they shared when they saw something move on the left. Everything was so cold. But even though my body minded it, I didn't. Ghosthood did weird things to how I thought, and the cold was something I was actually used to.

And then we arrived at the city.

Or above it, anyways.

If I wasn't so scared of accidentally drowning, I would have been impressed.

Before either Nathaniel or Asmira could offer up suggestions in response to Megara's question, I gestured at her and down the cliff side.

"Ladies first," I said.

She barked a laugh, "I'm most certainly not a lady, but thanks for the compliment. And I have to go last to ensure you little morons don't get attacked the moment I'm gone. There are protections inside the city for outsiders, out here, not so much. So," she flashed Skull a grin and mad ea sweeping gesture toward the cliff, "thank you for volunteering. Don't worry, you're still underwater, the landing shouldn't hurt too badly."

It really shouldn't hurt at all, but she liked messing with him. There was paranoia in his eyes and, based on the timing of its arrival, the things he was so afraid of was drowning. The idea that he could drown at all would contradict some of his claims in their last little adventure, but there was always the possibility that it was irrational. Just a leftover fear from when he was living.

But that idea was so much less fun.

I took a step forward and peered down over the age, trying to quell the growing fear in me. The air was beginning to get a little colder, but it wasn't enough for anyone to notice - and, if they did, I hoped they would just blame Asmira. Even if I was scared, I had to go first. I couldn't ignore Megara's taunt.

But I didn't get a chance to.

"I'll go first," Asmira offered. She sounded a little uncertain, but she still moved towards the edge of the cliff. She turned back to glance at Megara. "I just need to step off?"