COUNTDOWN: 15 DAYS TO FULL MOON #2

                Kita had not mentioned the door to the wolves again, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t pouring over it in her own mind. The wolves had agreed to refurnish the basement, and so the last week had been filled with moving furniture around to make the basement livable.

                This had of course been paired with certain wolves (aka Sehun, Baekhyun, and Tao) going missing for long lengths of time, conveniently returning when all the work was done for the day. Today was like no other, everyone was piled in the living room helping themselves to food from the kitchen, and the three wolves strolled in the front door.

                “Nice to see you made it back in time to help out.” Xiumin rolled his eyes at the three, swatting Sehun’s hand away from his food. “Go get your own.”

                “What are you doing out there anyway?” Luhan asked, once everyone had settled down.

                “Just walking around the barrier mostly, speaking of which, I think Taemin has been on our territory.”

                Kai perked up, “why?”

                Baekhyun shrugged, swallowing his mouthful, “the edge of our land stinks of him, he must have come over our line when he was doing rounds.”

                “who’s Taemin?” Kita asked, feeling completely lost.

                “There’re packs of wolves on either side of us, Taemin is a part of Onew’s pack to the west of us. On our other side there’s a pack run by a wolf called Jiyong. Nice guys all of them, dedicated.”

                “Pretty small though, there’s only 5 of each of them.” Luhan chimed in.

                Chen chucked a piece of bread at him, “that’s the normal size of a pack, idiot.”

                “So you guys have 12 because…..?”

                Suho shrugged, “we all just found one another and it just… I don’t know… stuck.”

                Kita rolled her eyes at the less-than-helpful vague explanation, and grabbed an apple as she headed back to the basement. “You know where to find me if you need me.”

                The furnishings down there was still pretty sparse, but it was homey. They’d covered the floor with mis-matching carpets and moved a couch down here. They hadn’t done anything about the hanging bulb in the centre of the room, but at least they’d changed the bulb so the light was now a filtered white instead of dusty yellow.

                She’d seen Suho’s disapproving furrowed brows when she’d moved the couch, but she’d ignored him and faced the couch towards the wall with the mark on it, and now she sat on the floor in front of it staring and thinking about what could possibly behind that wall.

                She’d also been practicing something else, something that she wanted to avoid Suho finding out about at all costs. Slowing her breathing until her ribs were barely moving, she closed her eyes and shut out everything piquing her senses. After a while, she couldn’t feel the chill of the basement, she couldn’t smell Suho’s cooking, and eventually even Chen’s whining dwindled into the background.

                She’d spent years practicing this. She’d told everyone she was meditating, and she supposed that in essence, she was. But it was so much more. Rejecting the external world, ignoring the physical elements, becoming more than what she was born to be. It was a risk, she knew that. Anyone could walk up on her, anything could happen to her and she wouldn’t even notice. She had cut herself off from every sensation, burying herself deep within her own self, enough that there was only a thin tether to her mind that kept her anchored there, hopefully it was enough to yank her back.

                Every day she’d practiced this she’d delved deeper, exploring every vein, every artery, massaging every cramped muscle and putting her body completely at rest because only then, only when she was completely relaxed and sure that every piece of her body was in perfect functioning order could she delve that one step deeper. Past muscle, past cartilage, past organs, bypassing it all to focus on that nugget of magic within herself.

                Which is where she was today, immersed in the soft pulsing of magic, somehow enveloping it within her just as it cradled her within itself. Her magic was a soft white, tinted with a golden glow, emanating a warmth that swaddled her, acquainting itself with its vessel who had never yet dared to venture this far. Kita could feel every pulse of magic, a beat that was independent of her heart because magic itself was not bound to the body, it was bound to the soul. She could feel the current as it pooled below her ribs, stretching out to her fingertips, tingling as it trickled over her neck and down to her toes. The magic ran throughout her, it was her, incorporated into her being and lifting her above the planes of regular mortality.

                Yet it was languid, coursing through her like a lazy river, taking its time to explore every part of her and Kita felt herself being swept along the way, giving her a view of herself that she’d never seen before. And it was when Kita was immersed in this river that she felt a painful jerk from the sinuses behind her nose, painfully pulling her back to awareness of herself, and the last thing she saw was a trickle of wintery blue amidst her white and gold.

                Her eyes snapped open and began gasping for breath, coughing and doubling over for lack of it.

                “Kita, just breathe, it’s ok, just breathe, you’re going to be fine.”

                A warm hand was on her shoulder but she could barely feel it, all of her senses were dulled, even the voice speaking to her was like he was yelling to her through water.

                Water, her river, what was the blue –

                “Can you hear me Kita?”

                She covered her ears, the voice ringing like a bell tower in her mind. She opened to tell him to be quiet but was too dry to speak. The voice must have noticed this because seconds later a glass was in her hands, warm fingers wrapping around her own when it was clear that she had no strength to hold the glass. It was raised to her lips, which parted greedily for the cool liquid.

                “Hey, go slow ok?” The voice urged her when she spluttered, rubbing smooth circles on her back before helping her to drink again. Her breathing under control, Kita looked up at the owner of the voice, and even through the blurring edges of her vision she could tell it was Kai.

                He watched as her eyes struggled to focus on him before he saw a flicker of recognition buried deep within them. “Kai?”

                “Yeah, it’s me, what were you doing, are you ok?”   

                She nodded, still sluggish as he helped (and half carried) her to the couch, watching as she curled her knees under herself. “Just gimme a minute.”

                She sounded drunk, and if not for the fear that something would happen if he left her alone, he would have ran upstairs for help. He hadn’t really been thinking anything when he came down the stairs to see what she was up to. D.O. had suggested he visit her, and Kai didn’t really have anything better to do so why not. He’d thought she was ignoring him at first, she’d been doing a lot of that recently ever since he’d sided with Suho against her. But he was just, conflicted. What would the rest of the pack say if he started dabbling in magic? He wasn’t a monster, he was barely even a wolf anymore, he should have no reason to be interested in it.

                So her not responding to her the first time he’d called for her hadn’t really concerned him, the second time had only made him a little cautious. It was the third time when she didn’t even make a motion, no furrowed brows in frustration, no tilting grin in amusement; that was when he began to feel a gnawing worry in his gut.

                He’d kneeled in front of her, looking at her face which was relaxed in what he could only describe as a look of serenity. Cross-legged, her hands were placed palm-up on her knees, the skin of her forearms seeming to writhe under his gaze. It was like something was alive under her skin, threading its way to her palms, lighting her skin like the first wash of warmth in a sunrise. It was subtle, whispering at all the things Kai didn’t understand, spreading slowly up her arms.

                It was when the light reached her shoulders that Kai had realised they weren’t moving. She wasn’t breathing.

                He’d moved without even thinking about the consequences, without thinking about what the light could be or what it could be doing to her. He’d just grabbed her shoulder and shook her, saying her name over and over again as if somehow she’d hear him. He hadn’t expected the rush, the exhilaration that would come with it.  

                He knew this feeling, he remembered exactly the sparks that were now travelling up his arm to the centre of his ribs, this feeling had been plaguing his dreams ever since the last full moon. And like a junkie he revelled in it, encouraging the sparks to continue, knowing that if he was receiving Kita’s magic then she must be receiving his. He was giving her strength, even if he couldn’t control how. He waited with baited breath, and moments later it was like she burst back to life, eyes blaring open as she began gasping for air.

                And as he worried over her he couldn’t help the thoughts in the back of his mind. He had helped her, his magic had helped her, his magic had done something good.

                Kita was finally becoming herself again, and as her mind sharpened back to its usual self she was painfully aware of the awkward situation she could find herself in. Kai had found her, what would he say? What had he seen? She had no idea what she looked like when she was meditating, did she speak? Was she like a sleeping person who could be cajoled into doing tasks and answering embarrassing questions?

                “Are you ok?” He asked hesitantly, letting out a breath when she nodded before going back to business. “Then what the hell were you thinking! I don’t know what you were doing but you weren’t breathing Kita! You could have died if I hadn’t been here-” He stopped talking, looking at how her expression hadn’t changed. If this was news to her then it didn’t seem to bother her. “It was your magic, I know that much. Are you seriously willing to die to get this stupid wall open?”

                “I am magical Kai, and I, unlike you, will not try to ignore that part of myself.”

                “But can’t you-”

                “Changing the essence of yourself is an act that defies the very nature of this world. You have all made your choices but you can’t expect me to choose the same. I will embrace every part of myself, magic included. And I will find out what’s behind this wall, and whatever it is, I will embrace that too.”

                Kai was taken aback, never before had she spoken so seriously, with such solid determination. “Why does this matter so much to you?”

“The Fey have gone against everything we stand for. Doing this to you, I don’t care if you asked for it or not!” She overruled him as he tried to interject, “you are as you are born to be, it’s the oldest law of this world. Fey are Fey, wolves are wolves, what you have done is twisting and contorting the fabric of magic, it will not come without consequences. I may be the only Fey who knows about this other than those who did this to you, and that gives me the duty to do something about it.” She wasn’t sure when she had come to this conclusion, but it hadn’t hit her suddenly like a revelation, it was more of a creeping unease that had pieced itself together in a weaving tapestry. She knew she was right, ever since the unsettling feeling when Suho had first told her, she’d known this was more than the wolves would ever have thought.  

“But, it’s just us-”

“Magic is magic, it will ripple through all magical creatures, and this will affect us all.”

There was silence between them as Kai poured over her words. Rejecting the wolf inside them, would that really do damage to other people? He found his eyes drifting over to the mark on the wall, would there really be something behind this wall to help fight the inevitable? The two triangles facing one another, encased in the circle of a snake eating its own tail, how could something so small make such a big difference?

“So you really need to know what’s back there?” He asked, turning his gaze back to her as she nodded resolutely. “Then let me help you.”

If not for the seriousness of the situation he would have chuckled at the way her lips parted in surprise. He continued, “You said you could harness my magic right? And that way I’ll be here to make sure you’re ok.”

“You’d do that?”

“If you’re right, then this is bigger than both of us.”

“But Suho-”

“Won’t be able to do anything if it’s done before he finds out. Let me do this with you.”

Slowly, she nodded. Her body was back under her own control as she stood and walked over to the wall, gesturing for him to follow.

“So just run through what I should be expecting here?” Kai asked as he followed her, cautiously sitting in front of her, feeling his bravado at the suggesting seeping away and being replaced by a jittery nervousness.

“I will revert into myself, bolstering my magic to the max.” She saw his confusion, “don’t worry about the specifics, it’s what I was just doing.”

“So when you were glowing, that was your magic?” He hazarded a guess, hoping that he at least understood the gist of everything that was going on.

I was glowing? Kita paused, she knew she had her magic close to the surface, maybe it was close enough to shine through. That meant she only needed a little more to break through the ceiling. “So what I’m going to need is to take more of your magic than I give you of mine. If I give you an equal amount then I’ll not have enough to raise my magic levels.”

“So…?”

“You’ll probably feel weak, drowsy, maybe a headache? You’ll probably want to resist or to grab hold of my magic but you’ve got to try and resist.”

“And if you stop breathing or I think anything’s going strange, I’m pulling you out.” His tone was firm with this, he would risk her safety for this.

She nodded, “Take off your shirt.”

“What? Why?”

“If I have a direct line to your core it’ll be easier for me to pull on your magic.”

Kai felt uneasy doing it, a little shy as he basically sat in front of her half but she was focused and looked at him with a clinical eye, seeing his body not as muscles and sinew but as an electric current she was about to tap into.

“One more question.” He asked, continuing as she waited for him, “you said that you’d be making my wolf magic obey Fey laws… what does that mean exactly?”

She laughed, “I can only assume really, based on the little I know about magic. But wolf magic is transformation magic, it acts on a person, that’s why you don’t see wolves harnessing their magic and casting spells. Your magic is bound to your body, that’s why you wolves can be made through a bite. Fey, however, have magic that’s bound to our souls. We have to be born with it, it’s non-transferrable. And it doesn’t act on us, it acts with us.” She could see Kai was getting a little lost with her explanation, “So when I tap into your magic, I won’t transform into a wolf. When I use it, it will be Fey magic, no matter where it comes from. Just like if you try to use my magic you won’t be able to cast spells like a Fey could. Your magic will help you transform into a wolf, no matter where you get that magic from.”

Kai perked at that last sentence, “So… if I tap into your magic, theoretically, I could transform into a wolf again?”

She pondered, never actually having considered that, “I suppose… it might be possible…”

Kai waved his hand, “let’s think about that later, we’ve got enough on our plates right now.”

She nodded, agreeing with him. “I’m going to have to let my entire body relax, so you’re going to have to hold my hand here because there’s no way I’m going to have enough conscious thought to keep it there myself.” She raised her left hand and placed her palm just below the joining of his ribs. Again, Kai had to laugh at her tiny palms, but kept it to himself because he felt like she’d probably hit him if he mentioned it. He secured his fingers around her wrist and felt her drop the weight of her arm into his hand. Adjusting her seat so she was cross-legged as before, she raised her other arm and placed it on the wall, her palm covering the mark the Fey had left there.

She frowned, and Kai caught on immediately what the problem was. “You need me to hold that hand there too.” He moved to cover her other hand but she shook her head,

“It’s not secure enough, you making a single movement while I’m under will break my trance, we need something steadier.”

“Can’t I touch the mark?”

“No, it needs to be my magic because it’s probably designed to only react to Fey magic.”

“Then how can you use my magic at all?”

She sighed, “Just think of your magic like a step ladder that my magic can climb. I’m not using you to break the ceiling, I just can’t reach it on my own.”

Ah, now that was something Kai could understand.

Kai looked at the mark on the wall, and shuffled over to it until he was sitting against the wall with his legs splayed out in front of him. “Come here.”

Kita looked at him, eyebrow raised.

“Just get down here.” He ignored the blush rising at the tips of his ears at the thought of what he was proposing, but he couldn’t see another way of making this work so she could sit there and not exert any effort and reduce the chances of him moving and distracting her. Cautiously she settled herself so she was straddling his thighs, but she was just above his knees.

“You’re going to need to come closer for this to work.” She edged closer until Kai just sighed and tugged her forward until her chest was brushing against his. “Left hand.” He said, waiting until she’d placed her hand over his solar plexus before pulling her one step closer, sandwiching her hand between their bodies. He secured his hand around her hips to anchor her there. He lifted his other arm, revealing the mark on the wall. “Right hand.” Again, she placed her hand and Kai let his arm fall back down, squeezing her wrist between his bicep and his ribcage, solidifying it in place. “Does this work?” He asked her, keeping his mind focused on the task and attempting to ignore just how intimate this position was.

She nodded softly, lowering her forehead to touch his bare shoulder, and then he felt her completely relax. The difference was so stark that he almost moved to catch her, like her body was melting into him. “I’m going under. It might take a while, just don’t move. Try to breathe as evenly as you can. If you have to sneeze, don’t.” Her voice tickled his skin, but she didn’t wait for a response as he felt her breathing even out, growing shallower with every breath until he could barely feel it.

And it was as if a spell had been cast on him, everything began itching. He wanted to twitch his nose, blink his eyes, wiggle his toes, the sheer knowledge that he wasn’t allowed to move just making him want to so much more.

No. Stay focused. Oh no, did he need to pee?

He tried to match her breathing, just to give his mind something to focus on, and it worked for a while. It worked until he felt the tugging under his skin, the prickling wherever Kita’s skin was touching his which, considering he was shirtless and they were pressed up against one another like lovers, was quite a fair few places.

He felt a trickle and almost ruined everything to check down to see if his ribs were leaking before he clocked in and actually remembered what they were doing. Slowly, he felt her bright magic building up within him, spreading throughout his body as she bolstered it, raising her magic to the surface. It reached the level they’d shared on the full moon and then just kept rising, surpassing the level of magic he’d ever felt, even when he could feel his own. And then he felt it draining as she pulled it back to her own body. Even though he couldn’t bend his neck to look, he knew she was doing that weird glowing thing again, he could feel it as her body began to heat up against him.

But with every drop of magic that she pulled away from him, he felt a weariness replacing it. Focus Kai, she said this would happen. He fought against his dropping eyelids until they popped open as a sharp pain pulled at the exact point her palm was touching him. He grit his teeth, trying not to make a noise lest he pull her out of her trance. He could feel her magic running along her skin, literally feeling it weave and wriggle as it searched for a way to rise even higher, to try and break free of the constraints she kept it in.

Kita, however, noticed none of this. She was deep within herself, swimming deep in the river of her magic. The familiar white and honey gold surrounded her, lapping at her as it welcomed her back, excited that she was taking charge for once. Her magic wanted to be used. The difference from last time was that the pale wintery blue was more frequent, threading fluidly through her own and she knew this time that it was Kai. This time, the sight of it didn’t fill her with the panic of a threatening invader, but comforted her with the knowledge that there was someone else with her. Mustering her spirit, Kita continued pulling her magic back from Kai, holding onto the magic she’d taken from him, building a dam at the contact point to stem the flow of magic back to him. She felt her level of magic rising until it was pressing at her seams, curling and writhing against her skin as it tried to find an exit point, wanting to be used.

Back in the outside world, her breathing was dangerously low, and Kai began wondering whether burning this hot would actually damage her. A fever this high would definitely have repercussions so why should this be any different?

The pain was growing, spreading over his chest, digging in deeper and burrowing itself in his muscle, but that was the least of his worries as the door to the basement opened and he saw shoes that were distinctively Chanyeol’s begin descending.

No not Chanyeol, he’s noisy, he’ll ruin everything. But he couldn’t say anything, anything he did could wake Kita, and if he was honest with himself, Kai wasn’t sure that he could open his mouth without vocalising his pain. Hurry up Kita!

As he watched Chanyeol descend two more steps, he felt Kita turn cold. All of the heat rushed through her, building up in her hand which glowed with the force of it all, a white light brighter than any before laced with gold, lighting up the basement for a second that seemed to hang in the balance before dropping. Kita was already slumped against him, but he knew that whatever she’d been trying to do was over.

“Kita!” He yelled, pulling her back to look at her face, she was still breathing but he wasn’t yet convinced she was ok. But it didn’t take half as long to rouse her this time, her eyes were already blinking open when he registered Chanyeol yelling loudly, calling others down to the basement and asking the two of them if they were ok.

But as three more sets of shoes rushed down to join them, no-ones eyes were on Kita slumped on the ground looking like she’d been hit by a bus. No one was watching the way Kai was cradling her in his arms, like he was trying to protect her from some invisible force. Everyone was watching the wall, and the way that the two triangles encased in the circle were glowing, the ouroboros symbol writhing and beginning to slither around in its path.

“What have you done?” Suho breathed, his eyes flickering between the fey, the wolf, and the wall, “everyone back up!”

All of his wolves backed up to the staircase, the furthest point from the mark. Kai scooped a weak Kita in his arms and quickly joined them. The snake was growing, spiraling around itself, until it deviated and began slithering straight up the wall, leaving a dark black line in its wake. Once at the ceiling it turned back down, making it halfway before turning and coiling itself back in its small circle, remaining immobile as if it really was just ink on a wall.

“Is that it?” Chanyeol asked, his voice a whisper in the darkness as nothing else seemed to happen.

“Kai let me go.” Kita stumbled out of his arms, and Kai had only the sense to catch her as she almost tripped over her own feet, just as weak as she had been the last time he’d pulled her out of a trance. If not more so. Out of the corner of his eye he saw D.O. fling out an arm to stop Suho lunging forward, and made a mental note to thank him later.

He led Kita over to the wall and she stumbled against it, bracing herself for support. Her hand fell against the new circle and she reached blindly for Kai once again. “One more push.” She slurred, pulling deep at Kai’s magic to give herself one more burst of strength to force her magic out through her other palm onto the circle, feeling it solidify under her touch. She wrapped her hand around it, letting Kai hold up her weight because she just couldn’t do it anymore. Her legs were turning to jelly beneath her, her arms were limp and she could barely keep the grasp around the circular object in her grasp.

But she needn’t have worried, because she wasn’t there by herself. “Together,” Kai whispered in her ear, wrapping his hand around hers, feeling the chill of the circular metal door handle under his fingers. He winced a little as he felt the pain in his chest flare up again when he pulled on the handle, but this was more important.

They’d finally made the door, now was the time to see what was behind it.

  _________________

I really enjoyed writing this chapter, finally explaining about magic and the deep meaning it has for Kita, hopefully it gave you all a deeper view of the world she comes from.    

Till next time! ~