Namjoon laughed at her and said, “As you all use your powers more frequently, your true faerie form will begin to show. You wind fae will need to be careful of your wings. But, yes, your physical appearances are subject to change from here on out. So long as you continue to use your powers, which you hopefully will, that is.”

“But, we’ve all used our powers, how come I’m the only one like this?”Elyssa asked flabbergasted.

“Well, you’ve used your powers a lot in these past 24 hours. Your level is higher than that of your friends now. Maybe even ours.”

 

“Okay, okay, but, guys,” Julia tried directing attention back to the more important situation at hand, “Did we get robbed last night? Where’s Jazzy’s cat??”

 

“Right. That cat must be some sort of shapeshifter.” Hoseok mused.

    “Is shapeshifting a form of imagemagick?” Elyssa asked. Hoseok nodded and she started walking towards Jazzy’s room.

“What are you gonna do??” Jazzy asked.

“Just watch.” She opened the door and the ‘cat’ ran out. It headed straight to the living room and started sniffing everybody. It stopped at Julia and started rubbing it’s head on her leg. She squirmed around and tried to get away from it, but it kept following her.

“D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E, I see things that nobody else sees.” Elyssa only had to recite the spell once for it to work. The cat stopped trying to get Julia’s attention and tried to pounce on Elyssa’s face. It landed in the middle of the living room.

“Looks like your depth perception is a little off, huh?” Elyssa crossed her arms and stared at the thing that was writhing on the floor. The cat slowly transformed into a figure that looked almost human, but it was very clearly anything but human. The transformation ended and what was once fur and paws was now a pile of branches and leaves.

Everybody looked around at each other in confusion. There were only two moments of silence before the front door was broken through. Shards of wood flew in every direction and some barely missed Jimin’s face. He would have stood up and said some snide remark about his face being too beautiful to damage, but he was fear stricken by the thing that had burst through the doorway. Standing there in front of them was a man that looked like he was the son of a tree and a Bob Marley fanatic. He had to have been at least six feet tall, with a beard made of vines and grass, his arms and legs were made of branches covered in the palest bark any of them had ever seen, and his eyes were a deep, dark green. Despite his eyes being dark, they twinkled. He made sure to make eye contact with every single fae in the room before he spoke. His eyes lingered on Julia a beat longer than on anyone else, then, “Which one of you destroyed my precious Aine? Speak now and I shall do you no harm.” He scanned the room once more and rested his eyes on Elyssa. “You!” He started walking towards her and she threw her hands up in the air and apologized more sincerely than she ever had in her entire life.

“I didn’t know it would disappear like that! I’m so sorry! I thought it would just turn into it’s true form!”

“She did! I created her from my very being. She was my first successful child.” The creature almost looked sad before it raised its hand above its head. He morphed his hand into a blade and was about to decapitate Elyssa when Julia calmly said, “Just make another one.”

He stopped his blade and turned his attention to Julia, “You. You’re the one who gave me the idea to make her in the first place.”

“What? I’ve never seen you before. I think I would remember you.”

“Oh, but you speak to me every night. Unless it rained, of course.”

Julia racked her brain to see if she could ever remember speaking to somebody who looked so...different. Every night...Unless it rained?... I’m always playing video games at night… unless I go out to… She gasped, “No, you can’t be. That’s crazy!”

“What, of the world you now know, is not madness?” His blade returned to looking like a hand and Elyssa fell on the floor in shock.

“So, then you’re… the willow tree from the front yard???” Julia squinted her eyes and furrowed her brows in confusion. “That-”

“Doesn’t make any sense?” He cut her off.

“Well, yea.”

“Maybe if I explain my situation to you it will be clearer and easier for you to understand.” He stepped towards the remains of his beloved Aine and waved his fingers while chanting something in a language nobody knew. SLowly the leaves and branches became the cat once again and it lept into Julia’s lap. She smiled this time and rubbed its head while it purred. This made him smile.

“My people are rare in this region. I hail from the Slavic regions and I reign over all natural life. This is my natural form. I am quite young for my skill level, but then again, aren’t we all.” He raised his arm and glanced at everyone in the room. “I was planted here as a sapling to make sure you four girls stayed away from those seven boys over there. I can not unveil my master's name, but he made it very clear that you were to never meet. I also had to make sure that you four girls would not realize your powers and remain as mortals. I was planted with the hands of hatred and madness. I had not known that there was any other way to grow and so I grew here for the first year seething in unforgiving hatred. Then you four girls moved into this apartment complex. Right away I knew you were the four I was told about because of the familiars floating above your shoulders. They looked as if they were growing weaker by the second and I rejoiced.

“I plotted so many ways to torment you girls all day, but when nighttime came I felt my heart shift. I had Not known kindness until that first night when Julia came outside and quenched a thirst I did not know I had. I forgot that there had been a drought that summer and I had not drank a single drop of rain water for months and then this young girl came and poured water on my roots. In that moment I felt extreme gratitude and relief. I also began to question the motives of my master. Why did he want these girls to die? Surely he knew that if you girls did not use your powers then you would die. I have grown extremely fond of Julia over the years, because of her kind and caring heart. She denies it to others, but I see it very clearly. She cares for her plants as if they were extensions of her own body. I found this very admirable and decided to protect her at all costs. She mentioned one day that she wished there was a clone of Jasmynne’s cat because it kept running away and was such a  hassle, so I created my first companion, Aine. I didn’t really care much for you three simply because you didn’t care for me. I decided to give up on my mission to make sure you girls didn’t find out about your powers, but made sure to keep you separated from the boys. I had no idea why he wanted you separated from them, but it seemed reasonable since you were of the opposite and a distraction from their jobs. I did know that they were employees of my master, so I decided to keep them in line by making sure they stayed focused on their jobs and didn’t so much as glance at your apartment door.

“I created a magical barrier that seemed like a hedge on both ends, so nobody would even realize that there was another apartment complex nearby. As the years passed I began questioning my master’s orders once again. I heard the girls, particularly the small one, listening to a lot of the music produced by my master and these boys, so I decided that maybe I could repay you for being very kind to Julia by letting you ‘accidentally’ bump into them. Your magical abilities were far too weak to notice that Aine existed, but she was what your crow and their birds were chasing. Your meeting was not fate nor was it destiny. I planned for it. Now, you spending the night at their accommodations and realizing your true powers was most definitely not a part of my agenda. My master will have my head for this now.” He fell to his knees and cradled his head in his hands.

Everybody was shocked and silent, trying to absorb all the information that was just dropped. The man’s sobbing broke the silence. Julia felt a great pressure on her heart and she started walking towards him. She placed her hand on his head and he looked up at her.

“Is there any way I can help you?”

“I do not think there is a way. My master cast a spell on me so that I will always be bound to him. I am his slave.”

“Every spell can be broken.” She looked over at Elyssa, her mind going a million miles per minute, “Hey, can’t a healing spell work? Since a curse is kind of like a wound, right?”

Elyssa looked over at Hoseok, Yoongi, and Namjoon. All three of the boys shrugged their shoulders and Yoongi said, “It’s worth a shot. I haven’t heard of any curse-breaking healing spells, though, so you’re going to have to think of this one on your own.”

She sighed heavily with her cheeks puffed out and walked over next to Julia, “Any tips, Creator?” He smirked at the name and looked her in the eye, “That is not my name, I do not have one. The only way I can help you is to say that in order for your spells to be more powerful, then you must be able to conjure words that deal with the occasion and your power.”

“Well,” she sighed again and let her hands hit her thighs, “That didn’t help. I’ll give it my best shot, but I’m not guaranteeing anything. I’m technically still a newborn.”

“So are we,” Julia gestured at herself, Jasmynne, and Emilee, “Just, please hurry so we can break his curse. If he really is bound to that guy that wants us dead, then he probably already knows that we have our powers.”

“Okay, no pressure.” Elyssa popped her fingers and Julia glared at her. Elyssa just shut her eyes and tried to channel every word she possibly knew that could pertain to the situation. She let out a high-pitched, “Ooh!” and moved Julia away from the man. She placed her hands just above his head and he closed his eyes.

She began to hum a tune and her black shirt began to flow in the wind storm that only seemed to be surrounding herself and the man. Her hair flew back and upwards while her hands began to glow. Her blue and black butterfly flew to her back and merged itself with her so that she now had wings. She opened her eyes and sang in a melodic voice,

“Lose yourself, Let go your pain. Taste the air you breathe and kiss the sky. Goodbye. Let the butterflies cry, let them cry for you. You just dry your eyes, because this world is wonderful.”

Invisible chains began to glow around the man’s neck, wrists, and ankles, and a giant binding spell symbol appeared below him.

“They're telling me it's beautiful, I believe them, but will I ever know the world behind my wall? The sun will shine like never before, one day I will be ready to go see the world behind my wall.”

The chains on his feet cracked and the wind grew more intense.

“I’m ready to fall, I’m ready to crawl on my knees to know the world behind my wall. I’m ready to heal, I’m ready to feel.”

The heaviness in Julia’s heart disappeared and the chains on the man broke off. He looked up at Elyssa and thanked her so many times that she couldn’t keep up. She had exerted so much energy that she collapsed onto her knees and announced, “I think I’m gonna take a nap.” Before her head could hit the ground Taehyung rushed over and lifted her off the ground, “Good idea.” Her wings disappeared and her butterfly floated above her head. Taehyung walked her over to her room and placed her on her bed. He stayed there to watch over her while the others continued to interrogate the nameless man.

 

“You really don’t have a name?” Julia asked him.

“I do not. My master did not deem it necessary for someone of my species to have a name.”

Julia got so angry that her face resembled a very ripe tomato, “That’s so stupid! Well, I’m going to give you a name.”