((a/n now before anyone panics, there WILL be an epilogue.))

Death was something they had all dealt with in their pasts, whether conceptually or by their own hands, though the true horrors of those experiences had never quite been forgotten, even if they were repressed deep in the recesses of each of these Changelings’ minds.

Whether inside or outside of Arcadia, in the stories of their traumatic childhoods or recently in their adult life, death had colored each of their lives, like a stain of blood casting their daily trials and tribulations in a rusty, brown hue. And every once in awhile those memories would surface from wherever the survivor had tried to bury them, inspired by a familiar face, an old song, or the glint of a treasured trinket, and they would be transported back to that time when they had been broken by death. When they had been changed by it.

Because they were the survivors. They were the Changelings. And all they had left was each other.

So to stand there in that cave - with its incessant drip dripping of water, a mark of each second that passed, a reminder that time still moved - and watch their friend lie on the cold, damp ground and bleed out around the shaft of a great spear buried deep in her side, brought each of their individual traumas right to the forefront of their minds and they were once again reminded of the horrors of the True Fae with their mania and sociopathy.

They were reminded of which world they truly belonged to.

Another strangled cry brought them back to their senses as they watched Krystal crouch over Amber’s fallen form.

“You promised, you promised…!”

With a shaking hand, Amber fumbled until she had a grip on the spear sticking out of her gut.

There was so much blood seeping through her clothes around the wound, running down her side and turning the dirt beneath her to mud. It was all over Krystal’s hands as she tried to put pressure on it, and it was running out of Amber’s mouth in tiny rivulets as she coughed out a strained laugh.

“Oh my god,” Krystal was breathing over and over again. “Amber… oh my god…”

“Get her out of here!” Heechul shouted at them as the Horned One’s entourage began surrounding their group. “A hospital, now!” But the girls were in shock.

There was a hiss as Amber burned through the shaft and the rest of the spear fell to the ground at her side. She rested her hand on Krystal’s blood-slickened ones and tried to smile up at her.

“Victoria, she’s got to go!” Heechul commanded uselessly as he watched Victoria fall to her knees next to the discarded wood. He didn’t want to do this in front of the Horned One and his hunters, but Amber couldn’t wait. It might even already be too late for her.

“Song Qian, Jung Soojung, get Amber out of here NOW!” he screamed at them, and immediately the two girls stooped to cradle Amber in their arms as they attempted to lift her.

Amber groaned weakly in pain and she dangled in their grasp. “D… don’t,” she tried through a shuddering breath, but Krystal shushed her as they began to shuffle back towards the portal to the mortal world.

“Just shut up, okay?” she insisted, her quiet voice thick as tears coursed down her cheeks.

Amber laughed again, and blood flooded past her lips and down her chin.

“You promised,” Krystal iterated in a whisper, a very different tone from her heart-wrenching cry earlier. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me, so don’t you dare…!”

Victoria cried silently as she felt Amber’s blood soaking through her own shirt as she carried her.

The rest of the group closed ranks in an attempt to hold off any pursuit from the Hunters.

It called to something deep within Seulgi, the grisly scene and the satisfied, predatory smirk of the Horned One. The trauma was gone. The fear was gone. Her sense of her surroundings fell away.

And all that was left was anger.

She charged at him, and with each step she took, she changed. All semblance of humanity disappeared as she shifted up into this hulking, ferocious, bear-like form, with massive claws and long yellowed fangs.

Heechul started to cry out a protest at her advance, but he only managed to exhale in shock at her transformation.

“S… Seulgi,” Irene breathed.

Seulgi slammed into the Horned One, nearly a match for his height as she stood up on her hind legs, and they grappled.

That seemed to be the cue to everyone else on both sides to begin attacking as well. Flashes of lightning from Luna illuminated the low-lit cave, creating a strobe-like effect on the unfolding scene of violence and suddenly the whole area was alive with inhuman howls of pain. Goblins leapt into the foray, brandishing clubs and lengths of chain.

Heechul ran through the group and scooped up the discarded spear haft in his hand. He brought it down over his knee, breaking it into multiple lengths and tossed one such piece at a group of foes. It bounced off of a goblin’s chest and clattered harmlessly to its feet, and the small cluster looked at the Cobalt Knight with grotesque sneers.

He waited until they stepped over it in an attempt to rush him, and with a snap of his fingers, the oaken wood sprouted sharp spikes, impaling the goblins with such force that they were off the ground and hung suspended several feet in the air. They struggled futilely, skewered straight through the lengths of their bodies, and Heechul turned away. There was no time to watch the results of his work when they were still surrounded.

And there were those in their group whose Seemings weren’t quite so effective against violent enemies. Jessica quickly got a grip on Sulli’s shoulder, and the younger girl could feel herself being wrapped up in a blanket of the elder’s Seeming. Jessica wasted no time and suddenly headlocked Joy and dragged her over as well and covered her similarly. “You’ll just get hurt,” Jessica muttered to the two of them over the howls and shrieks. “Go with Krystal and the others. You’ve done enough today.” Joy wasn’t sure she had done anything today that could excuse her from the battle, but in the back of her mind, she knew her Seeming was too powerful to fall into the hands of the True Fae.

Jessica saw Sulli looking at her with such an expression of incredulity that Jessica wished she knew Sulli’s name so she could command her as Heechul had done the others. “Go. What are you going to do, charm them to death?” she asked the Fairest. “I don’t want to be carrying your body out of here too,” she admonished, her voice beginning to shake as she heard the echo of her sister’s screaming in her mind again.

Sulli put her hand on Jessica’s, and Jessica gave their a shoulders a squeeze before pushing them both in the direction the others had retreated. Sulli reluctantly obeyed and the two younger girls carefully weaved their way through the throng, not wanting to break their cover.

Jessica watched them go for a moment before a club struck her in the temple and darkness took her.

+++

Taeyeon had decided on a run after all, but instead of carrying her around the block, her feet had taken her to a very uncouth part of the city. It was a neighborhood she hadn’t visited for nearly a decade, but the cityscape had remained more or less unchanged. It was still every bit as dingy and dilapidated as she remembered: the same boarded up storefronts, the same smashed factory windows, the same dark alleys that held nothing friendly for a woman walking alone in the middle of the night.

Even the sounds of of the sirens were the same: the telltale warble of an ambulance as it rushed past and came to a screeching halt at a familiar… tiny bar… on the corner of the main road…

Taeyeon felt a strange mix of apprehension and numbness creep through her limbs and constrict her chest as she approached, and she saw such a strange cast of characters emerge from the building that she paused right there in the middle of the street.

For there were Krystal and Victoria, their clothes streaked with blood, watching Amber, strapped to a gurney, being loaded into the ambulance. Beyond, Taeyeon could have sworn she saw Sulli and Joy come into view in the doorway of the bar.

It was too much of a coincidence for Taeyeon to come to any other conclusion beyond the fact that she was too late. She had hesitated, and she had refused, and she had run away, and by the time she had finally gathered her courage and decided to face her past, another friend had fallen.

No more.

Taeyeon clenched her fists and walked up to the girls.

“Taeyeon?” Victoria asked in shock. Seeing the tiny woman here in the middle of one of the foulest districts in Seoul made virtually no sense, unless… “Wait,” the F(x) leader said, blocking her path.

Krystal was being helped into the ambulance as well, but spared a look back at Victoria. “Are you coming?” she asked in a hoarse voice. She couldn’t stand it if she had to ride alone, surrounded by the EMTs desperate to save an unconscious Amber. The harsh light, the blood, the beeping machines, the tubes, wires, needles, knives… she felt like she was going to be sick.

Sulli stepped out from the doorway and pulled herself up beside Krystal. “I’ll come,” she said. After all, Amber was in this condition because of her. Taeyeon had a very different opinion on Amber’s status.

Victoria looked grateful and waved the vehicle on as she put a hand on Taeyeon’s shoulder. As it sped away, lights flashing, she turned back to the Beast.

“It’s too dangerous,” Victoria explained, her voice still shaking. Joy walked over to them, sensing the rising tension.

Taeyeon took Victoria’s hand off her shoulder and gave the Dancer a wry smile. “If it’s the Horned One, then I already know.”

“Then please-”

“You guys are the ones who shouldn’t have gone. It should have been me. It should have been me a long time ago,” Taeyeon said quietly.

No more.

“Go home, Victoria. Or to the hospital. Be with your girls. They’ll need you,” she said. She gave Victoria a hug, stunning the F(x) leader. “Is that the real Sulli?” Taeyeon asked.

“Y-yeah…”

“Good. I’m glad,” Taeyeon smirked, walking past the two and up to the bar. She paused in the doorway and looked back.

“Hey… I’m sorry, you know?” Taeyeon called over to her.

“... For what?” Victoria asked, confused. That strange, wistful look Taeyeon was giving her, and the way she was talking…

“For all of this,” she said, with a wave into the bar. “For everything.”

“Taeyeon, wait…”

“I’ll see you around, alright?”

“Taeyeon-!”

Taeyeon disappeared inside and shut the door behind herself.

“She’s lying,” Joy said faintly, staring at the door.

“About being sorry?” Victoria asked numbly.

“No, the last bit.”

The bartender was scrubbing at a bloodstain on the counter, perspiration making the dim lights shine off of his bald head. He glanced up as she walked through and went back to scrubbing before doing a doubletake.

“You’re-”

Taeyeon gave him a small smile and the victory pose. She knew he wasn’t a fan.

“-that little girl…” How many more ridiculously pretty, yet horribly idiotic people were going to walk through his bar on their march towards inevitable death? And this particular idiot should know the risk better than most.

After all, he had watched her escape from the Horned One through the mirror of his bathroom himself, all those years ago.

Taeyeon wasn’t sure ‘little girl’ was how she would have described herself back then, though perhaps to a man of his years, teenagers were probably indistinguishable from children. Or it was a knock on her height.

“Pretty crowded tonight, hmm?” she asked as she eyed the bathroom.

He looked at the bloody rag in his hand and grunted. “It’s none of my business,” he grumbled, shaking his head. “They can do what they want.” Who the ‘they’ was to whom the bartender was referring, Taeyeon couldn’t quite be sure, but she was suddenly curious about how this man was able to do business with a portal to the Hedge for a bathroom mirror.

But she supposed that was none of her business. “They’ll all be coming back out in a minute,” she said as she walked ahead.

No more.

He didn’t respond as he watched her place her hand on the mirror and disappear. He tossed the soiled rag in the trash and grabbed a fresh one to resume cleaning.

+++

The cavern was alive with the echoing cries of pain and the snap of lightning. Taeyeon saw the bright flashes on ahead and guessed that was where Luna was, wreaking havoc upon her enemies. And indeed as she approached, she saw the chaotic skirmish unfolding, Heechul cracking a long thorny vine as if it were a whip, and Luna tripping goblins into puddles, frying them where they lay.

In the middle of the foray were Wendy and Irene sitting Leeteuk up against a stalagmite, struggling to protect him from the Hunters with borrowed clubs. Taeyeon’s attention was drawn however, to the sight of the Horned One slamming a huge, bear-like creature up against an earthen wall, making the entire cavern tremble.

The bear let out a terrible roar and headbutted the Horned One square in the face, sending him stumbling back several paces. But he just laughed and lowered his great antlers.

“Two can play at this game, Beast.” Seulgi’s massive paws were out as he went to gore her, and she held his horns at arms’ length, trying to twist them away from herself. It was a test of strength she wasn’t entirely confident she would win.

He was enjoying himself, if Taeyeon remembered anything about him, and she felt that overwhelming sense of gut-wrenching disgust wash over her. She couldn’t watch his gleeful expression as the points of his antlers inched closer to whomever it was he had pinned to the wall.

And as Taeyeon looked away, and saw Jessica’s unconscious form in the midst of the struggling group of SM Court Changelings, she finally decided. No more of her friends would be hurt by him.

No more.

She took a deep breath.

“STAND DOWN, CERNUNNOS.”

And the Horned One retreated so quickly from Seulgi, she almost fell forward on all fours.

He threw back his great head in laughter as he continued to back away from Seulgi, and suddenly the goblins stopped attacking and stood trembling in shock, clutching their weapons. Luna agreed to no such truce, however, and continued to pick them off in their confusion.

With horror, Heechul suddenly realized how she had been able to escape the Horned One. It all made sense now.

Leeteuk struggled to push himself up from his seated position. “Taeyeon... “ he called weakly.

“So you have finally come,” the Horned One greeted, his voice echoing throughout the cavern. “But I wonder, fawnchild, will you really stop me? This is just the start. After I have my fun with the Mirror King’s fae-touched, then the real fun will begin.”

There was no way Seulgi would let him have that chance and she threw herself upon him once again.

But this time the Horned One was ready for her and he turned, kicking her in the stomach with great effort and knocking her away. She landed on the ground heavily, tumbling into a row of stalagmites which crumbled under the impact.

“SEULGI!” Irene cried, watching her monstrous form struggle in the dirt, desperate for breath. As Luna and Heechul made short work of the rest of the hunting party, she was at liberty to turn her full attention on the Horned One and their fight.

“I said stand down, Cernunnos!” Taeyeon shouted again, but she suddenly fell to her knees, clutching the sides of her head. She screamed.

The Horned One grunted and retreated once more, backing his way towards the pool from whence he came.

“Taeyeon… no!” Leeteuk shouted, finally finding his voice. He scrambled up and stumbled towards her. “Don’t let her…! Don’t do it!”

Irene and Wendy were thoroughly confused, but as they looked at Taeyeon again, they saw her Masque had fallen away and she was in her fawn-like state. But Wendy noticed with curiosity that her antlers seemed a little longer, her rack sporting more points. Her hair looked a bit more wild, her skin darker…

“She’s already changing- TAEYEON STOP!” Leeteuk cried. This got Heechul’s attention and he was torn between continuing to assist Luna or going over to help his leader.

The Horned One noticed as well, and as Taeyeon vied for control over him, he saw her eyes beginning to darken. His swarthy face split into a wide grin and he resisted. He took a step forward. Two steps. Daring her to try again.

“Come, fawnchild, will you save them? Or will you run?”

Taeyeon gasped and reeled. She heard whispers on the edge of her consciousness, speaking to her in guttural languages older than any she could name. She saw blue lines beginning to paint their way up her arms in small swirls and spirals.

And she saw the Horned One turn on the prone form of the Beast he had tossed aside.

Seulgi pushed herself up on all fours, a strange weakness beginning to bleed into her exhausted muscles. This form she had assumed… was there a limit to her abilities? She wasn’t sure how much longer she could last like this, but she wouldn’t let him take Irene again. She wouldn’t let him take anyone.

With another throaty roar she was up again, rushing at him, and just as she crashed into him, they all heard Taeyeon shout again.

“CERNUNNOS…!”

+++

“So what does that mean?” Victoria’s voice asked through the phone.

“... It may mean I will need to make another Fetch,” the King replied as he held the phone in front of himself, with the F(x) leader on speaker. So many fetches lately. So many Lost.

“What?! You think she just walked in there to her death?” she cried incredulously. What a cold and dramatic thing for the King to say, like he was just giving up.

And maybe he was.

“Not her death,” the King said with a long pause. He had been pondering Taeyeon’s case for a long time after she had given her brief explanation of the Horned One. Escaping from him twice… Had it been luck? Perhaps. But the King suspected something more. Taeyeon seemed particularly terrified of her old master, and while he wasn’t usually one to judge the traumas of his children, there seemed to be something more to her story than she had been willing to reveal during their late-night conference.

He was brought out of his thoughts by a broken sob from Victoria on the other end of the line. “Don’t abandon her,” she pleaded.

Inside the emergency room, Victoria had a fast grip on Sulli’s hand.

+++

Leeteuk barreled into Taeyeon knocking her on her side before she could give another command to the Horned One, but the Horned One paused once again as he heard his name, taking the full force of Seulgi’s hit. She grabbed his antlers and wrenched him to the ground, twisting until he was off his hooves, and they struggled in the dirt.

“Stop!” Leeteuk said as he took Taeyeon’s wrists in his hands. “Look at you! You need to stop!” And he could see the fear in her face, her expression twisted up with the horror of what was happening to her.

But her eyes.

In her perfectly black eyes, all Leeteuk could see was the long, hungry howl of ages past.

“Get her out of here,” Heechul said as he came up to them. He tossed the last piece of the Horned One’s spear up in the air and caught it. “Go on. I’ll finish up here.” He gave Leeteuk a meaningful look after he glanced down at Taeyeon’s primal figure. “Please.”

Leeteuk looked up at him for a long moment before he stood, dragging Taeyeon up with him. “Don’t say his name,” Leeteuk warned him. “You can’t just take away power from a True Fae. They are power.”

Heechul was silent, but the Horned One was rising, slowly overpowering Seulgi again.

“Just go. Luna? Take them back!”

“Promise me,” Leeteuk growled.

What an undignified figure the Gold Knight cut, Heechul suddenly thought. Who knew how, or when, but he was missing his shirt, and what was left of his trousers was covered in mud - and worse probably, though Heechul couldn’t be sure in the low light of the cavern. Through his tangle of sweaty hair, his Captain had a crazed look in his eyes, and his cheeks were sunken.

Yes, Leeteuk was quite a sight just now. But Heechul had never been prouder to know him.

“I promise.”

Leeteuk smirked as Luna came up and hooked his arm and Taeyeon’s around her shoulders and led them away.

“Wendy,” Heechul said, though he was looking at Irene. “You too. Luna won’t get very far carrying them in that state. And Irene… I think I have an idea, but we need to be quick.”

Wendy was reluctant to leave Irene’s side after only having just found her again, but Irene took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s going to be okay,” she lied.

Wendy held her gaze for a brief moment, then finally withdrew, helping Luna with Taeyeon’s overcome form.

“Beast!” the Horned One grunted as he finally threw Seulgi off of himself. “I have not endured such a magnificent struggle in centuries.” And indeed, he sounded winded as his voice rolled through the cavern. “I thank you, but I can see that you weaken. Please tell me there is more, or I am afraid this fight is over.”

Seulgi reared up on her hind legs once again, unsure of what other tactic she might take to bring the Horned One down, when suddenly she saw Heechul chuck the small length of spear shaft at the stag-centaur. It bounced off of his flank harmlessly and the Horned One crushed it into the dirt beneath his iron-shod hoof.

“Nay, Cobalt Knight, I will attend to you after the Beast.”

“Nay,” Heechul responded mockingly. “You will attend to our little Fairest here,” he said, crossing his arms. “Irene? Do your thing.”

Irene looked up at Heechul in shock, just as she saw Seulgi charge at the Horned One in her peripheral vision. “W-what?” she sputtered. “I can’t! What about Seulgi?” she asked, gesturing at the two hulking figures as they grappled.

“Do it!” Seulgi shouted down to her. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was Heechul was trying to get her to do, but it seemed important, and Seulgi was game for whatever it took to take the Horned One down.

Both Heechul and Irene were stunned. Seulgi could talk while in that form? But no, she couldn’t. She was beginning to slowly shift down. Even as Irene watched, Seulgi’s eyes - those beautiful eyes that she loved so dearly - were returning to normal, and her monstrous fangs were beginning to recede.

“It’s our only shot,” Heechul said tensely, watching Seulgi as well.

“I can’t, she’ll get caught up in it. And you, too.” Irene swallowed past a lump forming in . Heechul didn’t know what he was asking. He didn’t know what she was capable of.

“This is it, Irene!” he urged. “This is everything I have, and if you don’t help me, we won’t survive either way.” And with a cry, he fell to his knees and plunged his hands into the dirt. As he grit his teeth and the muscles of his shoulders flexed under the strain, Irene’s attention was suddenly diverted to the ground beneath the Horned One’s hooves.

With a rumble, roots shot up out of the dirt and s around the Horned One’s legs. They pulled at him as he reared up in surprise and they tugged him back down forcibly.

“IRENE!” Heechul shouted, his eyes closed. The Horned One was tearing at the roots, grabbing the tendrils in his hands and ripping them out of the ground, even as more sprang up to take their place.

“IRENE…!” Seulgi joined, as she struggled to hold the Horned One down. She was only half his height now, even as she retained her mostly bear-like features.

Seulgi took another breath. She may not be terribly clever, but she was a fast learner.

“DO IT, BAE JOOHYUN!!!”

The cavern was lit suddenly, and Irene shone as brightly as a midday sun as she tried her best to walk around behind Seulgi’s still-shrinking form. She hoped that she hadn’t been caught up in it. She prayed that the two of them had their eyes shut.

But the Horned One had been caught.

He watched her brilliant form, un-Masqued and at her full strength, and she was just so beautiful. It was destroying something in him, and he despaired as he looked at her. In one so old as he, there were few feelings left that had any semblance of humanity to them, and he marveled at their sudden return. The roots and branches that s up along his legs and began wrapping around his figure were nothing to the emotions creeping through his heart, gripping him at his very core. It had carried many names throughout the course of the ages, and he knew many languages with which to express it, but the three figures before him would know it in the modern vernacular as devotion.

Seulgi finally broke away from him and fell to the dirt, returned to her normal self. She stared up at the ceiling of the cavern high above as she panted, lazily watching the undulating waves of light as it was reflected off of the pools around them. It was Irene, she knew.

She knew, because Irene had been having this effect on her for a very long time.

And as the Horned One was consumed by these feelings for Irene, he absently, feebly, tried to walk over to her before he paused in mid-stride, rooted in place in every sense of the word. His skin began to change, slowly, from his ungulate hooves and up the length of his muscled legs, to his flank, and his bare torso, along his outstretched arms as he reached for her, and finally, his mournful, bearded face.

He was stone.

As soon as it was done, Irene collapsed to her knees and she heard Heechul let out a desperate gasp. With one last roar, he poured the last of his Seeming into the earth and the branches and roots snapped whipcord around the Horned One’s still form.

Until his statue was enclosed, tangled in the trunk of mighty oak tree.

Seulgi, feeling the bruising in her ribs and arms from her fight, and the indescribable exhaustion from having spent every last bit of her strength, crawled over to Irene and pulled her equally exhausted form into a hug.

And they clung together there, on the floor of that cavern, a cleft in the Hedge, with the unconscious forms of Heechul and Jessica nearby. And the Tree of the Horned One towered over them, with its old god imprisoned inside for the rest of time.