elsewhere

"Alright. Alright, fine!" you bat Mingi away from you as he ushers you towards the door. "I'm going!"

"Come find me later and let me know how it went, okay?" he smiles at you, before pulling you into a bone-crushing hug. "You've always got me."

Touched, you smile back up at him. With a final shove, you make your way to the king's office, nervously playing with your fingers.  The short, familiar walk through the castle hallways seems to take forever. Each footstep lasting a hundred years in your head but in reality only taking a second. You play out the conversation in your head, mentally rewriting your speech, scratching words out with an invisible pen.

You're so scared.

You don't even care if they're angry at you, you just really hope they aren't upset. After everything they've done for you, upsetting them is the last thing you would want to do.

Eventually, you find yourself standing directly in front of the door. For a few moments, you shut your eyes to brace yourself. Truthfully, you're praying that San, the snitch, had already told them and that you wouldn't have to. Or maybe that they were observant enough like Hongjoong to have been able to figure it out themselves.

You raise your arm to knock, and with a final exhale, your fist connects with the cold oak.

"Come in!" a familiarly comforting voice calls from the other side.

Twisting the brass handle, you shakily enter the room, not daring to raise your eyes to look at them.

"Oh, hey, there you are." you slowly look up at Yeosang, who stands over Hongjoong's desk rifling through sheets of parchment and rummaging through countless open books.

You look over to your right, at Wooyoung, who is carefully studying the spines of a pile of books to put them back on the correct place on the shelf. He turns at the sound of you entering, and his face lights up at the sight of you. His amethyst eyes glitter with joy, and your heart is consumed by guilt.

"Iris?" Yeosang's voice is laced with concern. "What's wrong?"

"I- I have to tell you something." you stutter out, looking at him with wide eyes. You turn to look at the elf. "You too."

Confused, the two men take a seat on the bench in the middle of the room. You grab one of the chairs facing Hongjoong's desk and drag it opposite them. The sound of the wood violently scraping across the floor pierces your ears and the noise goes directly to your stomach, fueling your nausea.

The sit opposite from you, poised and waiting for your news. You feel like you're the one who should be berating two naughty school children for provoking the pigs out in the school yard, not their protege and lover respectively, who is about to break some horrifying revelation to them.

"What's the problem?" Wooyoung asks you, leaning forward a little to inspect your eyes. "Are you alright?"

"What?" your voice cracks a little, the way Wooyoung is asking you if you're okay jams the dagger more into your heart. "Yes, yes, I'm fine."

"Then what's wrong?" Yeosang says, beginning to get a little impatient.

"I- I messed up. Really, really, really badly." for a moment, you let yourself study their faces.

Wooyoung's brows, furrowed with concern, relax slightly. He leans back and crosses his arms across his chest. His one pointed ear flexes just a little. You don't know what to make of it. Then Yeosang, is completely stoic. There is little to no emotion written on his face. It's scary.

"I got really mad when you guys wouldn't let me help out with the prophecy." you admit, staring down at your clasped hands in your lap. "All I've wanted to do was help, ever since Yeosang took me in, I've wanted to learn and do my best and help you. And I'm so sorry. I didn't think about it properly and it was such a stupid thing to do-"

"Hey. Just tell us, it's okay." Wooyoung cuts off your rambling by leaning over and grabbing one of your  hands. The sensation of his thumb ghosting over your own soothes your frantic mood, and grounds you enough to speak clearly.

"A few weeks ago, I snuck out of the castle to the town, and I went to see Yunho."

You see Yeosang stiffen at the sound of his old friend's name.

"I visited him and I begged him, despite Yeosang's refusal, to teach me magic-"

"You did what?!" The blonde mage bursts out. "I'm going to murder Yunho, I swear-"

"He didn't teach me anything!" you cry out, and luckily that seems enough to calm Yeosang down. "He flat out refused. He told me about what happened to him- to you both - at magic school, and that he was sorry, but he wouldn't help me."

"Oh. Then that's fine."

"That's not everything."

"Oh."

"Before I met you, Yeosang," you look him his bright, cobalt eyes and hope he doesn't hate your guts after this. "I was a street rat. I was homeless, I had no family, no real friends. I stole food and clothes to keep myself alive. So when Yunho refused to teach me, I had no issue stealing his magic book. So I did, I stole it and I kept it hidden, and at night when everyone else was sleeping, I tried to teach myself magic from the book."

There's a few moments silence whilst the men process exactly what you're telling them.

"Did it work?"

"W-what?" increduously, you gaze at Yeosang's curious but untelling eyes.

"Did you succeed in doing magic?"

"Not properly, but I made a little something happen."

"What spell did you use?" Wooyoung suddenly speaks up. His body is tense, you can tell from his crossed legs, crossed arms and stiff, furrowed brows.

He knows.

You cast your mind back to the conversation you had with him, recalling his reaction to the spells even then.

"What did you just say?" he demands.

"Feinn ichaer?" you repeat. "Aevon bleidd was another-"

"Stop!" he practically screams at you. "S-stop saying those words!"

"Why? What do they mean?"

"Where is that book?" Wooyoung glares at you, angry, crimson fire bursting through the usual calm lilac of his eyes and for the first time since meeting him, you're scared.

"I-I do-"

"Where is it, Iris?!"

"I don't know!" you cry. "I just left it somewhere and it got tidied up!"

The elf exhales shakily, running his hand over his face and keeping them over his eyes for a few moments.

"Feinn ichaer, Aevon bleidd" the elf says after some time.

So that's how you say them.

"Sun blood and river wolf. They are two of the most dangerous spells in the realm of dark magic. In the hands of corrupt people, well, you could conquer entire planets with them."

"What does it feel like? When you cast them, I mean." you really were pushing your luck now but Wooyoung was probably too shocked to care.

"I've never used them myself, but," he looks up to meet your gaze, his eyes glistening, but not burning brilliantly like they usually do. "Feinn ichaer feels like a forest fire rages through your veins. Like your heart has been plucked out and replaced with the sun itself, or like the air you breathe has turned into scorching hot lava... It's like physical hell, apparently."

Interesting.

"You stay far away from those spells, Iris. Do you hear me? And if you find that book, give it to me immediately, okay?"

"I tried two, but I'm not sure I said them ri-"

"What spells did you use, Iris?" the elf lurches forward almost aggressively, moving in a way you've never seen from him before.

"Feinn ichaer and aevon bleidd," you say quickly. "I don-" you stop speaking abruptly, as the colour drains from Wooyoung's face, and Yeosang drops his jaw.

"Are you serious?" Yeosang leaps up, practically yelling at you. "How could you be so stupid? Those are forbidden, ancient elf spells, Iris. They're tied to a banished elf clan! Why on earth did you think that learning magic by yourself was a good idea!"

"Because you never let me in!" you scream back at him, standing up from your own seat. "You never let me help! I just wanted to be included!"

"Is that so?" Yeosang glares at you, speaking through gritted teeth with an air of anger you didn't know he could possess. "Well, I hope you're happy with yourself, because everyone is in danger now, Iris. Everybody." before you can respond, the mage marches out the room, slamming the wooden door closed behind him.

You force yourself to look at Wooyoung, and the second you do, you can only wish you hadn't.

The elf looks up at you, broken. His usually sparkling, purple eyes are dampened, darkened with tears that read a mixture of rage and betrayal. You can't find any words in you to say to him, except-

"I'm sorry, Wooyoung." your bottom lip trembles as you fight back tears of your own.

Still, he remains silent. Fresh tears roll down his pale skin as he looks at you. Slowly, he begins to stand up, his movements sluggish. He paces towards the door, before suddenly stopping and whipping to look at you. The movement is so sudden, his black hair jumps and grazes the tops of his pointed ears.

"I-" is all he can muster up, before biting his bottom lip and rushing out of the room.

You stand, alone and motionless in the center of the room for a few moments before breaking down into your own fit of tears. A flurry of emotions swirling inside your brain like a suffocating snowglobe, so many thoughts bashing against the dome of glass trying so desperately to get out.

Yet, you had nobody to blame except for yourself. If you had just listened to what Yeosang told you, none of this would have happened.

But it was too late for that now. You simply had to live with the consequences of your actions.

"If fate is real," you sniff, wiping your nose with the back of your hand and kicking the leg of the bench with your booted foot. "Then it's a real bitch."

"Don't speak ill of the gods, kid." Hongjoong's voice grows louder as he enters the room. He examines your face, noting the wet, puffy eyes and redness around your nose and lips.

"So, you told them?" you nod. "I take it didn't go well?" you shake your head.

Hongjoong sighs, spreading his coat out behind him before shutting the door and heading over to sit in his throne. He motions for you to take a seat opposite him, and you do.

"If there is one wisdom I wish to impart on you Iris," he begins. "and this is regardless of whether or not I like you, it is that good and evil do not exist.

There is no such thing as wholly good or wholly evil. I have done terrible things in my past, I have murdered people, tricked people, betrayed people whom I loved, and yet I have devoted my all to people, taken people in, given those in need necessities to survive. You are not defined by the bad things you have done, if you can reedem yourself of those shortcomings."

"I don't understand." you sniffle.

"Yeosang and Wooyoung will come around," he sighs. "There are bigger problems at stake here. I shouldn't tell you this, but I'm going to, because to be honest, it is basically your fault."

Here we go.

"You remember that Seventeen didn't attend the ball, correct?" you nod. "That appeared to be a statement, so Seonghwa and myself organised a little chat with Commander Jeonghan, who deals with inter-kingdom affairs for them. They somehow got wind of the magic going on within Ateez walls, and as a result they refused to attend."

"But why do they hate magic?" you ask.

"Hundreds of years ago, the kingdom of Seventeen was entirely a magical kingdom, their queen I believe, was an elf, and she would willingly take in magical breeds and look after them. Until one day, a group of humans turned up, and as Seventeen was soley a magical refuge, they refused help to the humans. You see, the humans didn't like it, and that very same night while the kingdom was sleeping, they snuck in and burnt the entire city to the ground.

Legends say that the thirteen heads of state that rule Seventeen now are direct decendents of that group of humans that massacred the elves and mages."

"So they're waging war on Ateez because of something from hundreds of years ago?"

"Yes, essentially."

"Well, that's stupid."

Hongjoong nods in agreement and it only hits you then that he's the one who has to deal with this. He has to defend his kingdom and his people from a much stronger force, just because of a bit of magic.

"Anyway," he carries on. "The talk we had with them did not go well. They threatened to invade if we didn't get rid of the magic, I promised that we would. But evidently, there is still some traces of it here, as magical residue does not disappear quickly. Even less so if it is dark magic. This morning, Seonghwa recieved a letter informing us that Seventeen will attack."

"What? Are you serious?"

He nods.

"How long do we have?"

"Seventeen is quite far, so I would say roughly a week until they get here."

"Why are you so calm about this?"

Hongjoong takes a moment to think over the question, playing with a strand of overgrown hair at the base of his neck.

"I'm the king." he shrugs eventually. "Everybody looks to me for guidance, If I am panicking like a headless chicken, or freaking out like Mingi when he plays his chords wrong, nobody will have faith in me as a leader. This is my job."

As you examine him, you don't see royalty. You see a young man with the pressure of the world on his shoulders.

"How old are you, Hongjoong?"

"It's your majesty to you, you know."

"I'm not a citizen," you retort. "I don't have to."

Hongjoong chuckles.

"I'm twenty seven years old."

"Is it even legal for a king to be that young?"

"My grandfather was crowned when he was six," he replies. "They had to remake the crown to fit his tiny head, we buried him with it in the family crypt, he hated when we teased him about it."

You laugh along with his fond chuckling, happy to at least have one person who didn't hate your guts right now.

"That reminds me," he says, straightening up in his seat. "Yunho contacted me about your request to learn safe magic, which, seeing as we're being invaded anyway, I will allow you to do in the safety of the castle.

I have also invited Jongho -you remember him? the tailor from the ball, yes?- to come and measure you up for some clothes better suited for battle. I haven't forgotten about that. Oh, and Seonghwa will give you some sword fighting lessons, too."

"I'm supposed to learn how to do magic and to swordfight within a week?" you ask, astonished.

"Yes." Hongjoong casually nods. "If you hadn't disobeyed me, you would've had much longer, but you didn't so..."

"Okay, okay, I get it."

"Great," he grins, standing up and pulling his tawny fur coat straight. "I believe Yunho should arrive any minute now, so head down to the courtyard at the front of the castle and you can start your training immediately."

He heads towards the door, with an aura of regality and power.

"Hongjoong." you suddenly call out to him, causing him to stop in his tracks.

"Hmm?"

"Thank you." you say sincerely. "Thank you for giving me a chance."

"Of course," he smiles a little. "You're welcome."

He turns to leave again, before stopping to look at you a final time.

"And it's your majesty, to you."

-----

hello everybody! huge apologies for how many months it took me to get this out! i started my second year of university in october, and for some reason i thought taking an extra class would be a good idea, so now i am so ridiculously busy.

i hope everyone had a good christmas and new year, or if you don't celebrate, i hope you had a wonderful holiday season!