NEW, BUT FAMILIAR FACES

Right after Sehun stepped onto the twig and cursed, the dragon turns its head around and tries locate where they are.

Sehun immediately points his arrow towards it and that is when it starts to growl ferociously. Gathering his power, he combines it with the arrow on his hand to make the speed faster when he shoots.

The dragon begins to dash forward and that is when Sehun starts to shoot towards its head.

Unfortunately, the dragon opens its mouth and releases fire that soon made the arrow vanish and burn into dust.

“Damn it-“, he shouted and starts to push it away with strong wind towards it. The dragon did slow down for a bit, enough for the two to run towards a safer side.

Sehun began running to the side while Haneul flies upwards to the tree, landing on of the tree branch. Her eyes then scan the area and saw Yeseul still being not far away from the dragon.

The faerie wonders what is going through her mind because she looks very confused, any normal person would already be running away when the threats’ attention is not on them. Why is she still there?

“Yeseul run!”, she shouted towards the girl to break her from her reverie and Yeseul got startled by the shout. Right until then, she finally snaps out of it and scrambles to her feet.

“Up here!”, Haneul urges her and Yeseul immediately flew towards where she is. The faeries reach her hand towards her and quickly pulled her into a hug, “Did it hurt you?”, she asks as she tries to spot any scratches on Yeseul, however to her relief she shook her head

“It didn’t”, Yeseul told her and shifted her attention back to the dragon. It is currently swishing its strong tail every time Sehun shoots.

“We should help him, do you by any chance have any weapon with you?” Haneul asks her but all she receive was no reply.

Haneul stares at her with worry after that because her mind seems pretty occupied as Yeseul stares at the dragon with unreadable expression.

What weirder is that there’s not actually a hint of fear in her eyes but just pure confusion.

“Yeseul”, she called out, her voice a bit harsher this time because it’s starting to scare her that she’s being unusual.

She didn’t budge, as if she’s ignoring her so Haneul grabbed her shoulder and made her turn to her.

“Huh?”, her attention went back to the faerie and Haneul frowned. “What’s wrong? Are you really okay?”

Yeseul let out a shaky breath and open slowly, hesitating to tell her.

“Spill it, what happened?”

Yeseul was about to reply but Sehun suddenly shouted, alarming both of them.

“Sehun!”, Haneul screamed when she saw him fly towards a tree trunk after being hit by the dragon’s tail.

She came down the tree, flying forward to help him get up before the dragon reaches him first.

She has her dagger with her and managed to throw it towards the dragon but unfortunately it only managed to graze its cheek, merely creating a small cut.

The dragon once again let out a growl, dashing towards the duo. Haneul quickly grabbed Sehun by the waist and took him with her when she flies upwards, of course grunting in the process

“So heavy!”, she complains but manages anyway as they landed to another spot, above the ground.

The dragon looks confused as it tries to find them on the ground.

Sehun frowns as he stares at it, “I thought it could smell us? Not that I’m complaining but I really thought it can locate us through smell”

“It could but thanks to me it can’t but it will be able to locate us if you don’t put that stupid bulb away”

Sehun cursed and grabbed Baekhyun’s bulb that has been hovering above him, covering it with his shirt.. it didn’t make any difference however. It made him look like a firefly.

Nevertheless, its better than before.

“What do you mean?”, Sehun’s eyebrows lifted up as he questions her.

“Faeries could mask our smell from potential threats, the reason why I took you with me here. It probably can’t locate us for the time being so let’s just stay quiet-“

“Are you saying we just let it go away? Haneul we have to kill it; my group is not that far away from here it could potentially attack without them noticing”

Haneul’s eyes widened, “How are we supposed to do that?”

“Stop the time, then we’ll pierce something only it-“

“That sounds cruel”, she winced and suddenly felt her heart drop on the fact that they have to kill it on behalf of everyone’s safety.

But it has to be done.

“I hope this arrow Yeseul made is sharp enough- wait what is she doing?!”

Their eyes lands onto the said girl who actually; previously sitting on the tree branch has already made her way down. Yeseul is making baby-steps towards the dragon carefully and slowly, that made their blood run cold and their eyes widened

“She’s completely out of it! I should’ve stayed with her”, Haneul panics then shouted, “Yeseul! Snap out of it!”. She spreads her wings and dived down without losing any more time

Sehun who is beside her once again points his arrow towards the dragon and gathers his wind to the arrow.

Yeseul on the other hand didn’t realise that Haneul is about to pull her away any second now. She kept quiet as she approaches it with her heart pacing really hard.

‘I’m going crazy, why am I doing this’, she cursed in her head but something about it feels right. It somehow feels like.. the dragon is connected to her.

Whenever the dragon makes some sort of noises, it is as if her mind could translate it; she swears that she could hear it asking her questions about who she is earlier. Of course, it’s not in word or sentence form but she somehow understands which is quiet odd.

Yeseul then halted into a stop when the dragon turns its head around, its big black eyes staring right to hers in an alarming way.

Yeseul froze, already regretting her poor choice and the minute the dragon laid eyes on her again, she already accepted her fate of dying to her stupidity.

But what happens next throws her off because immediately, she was yanked backwards by Haneul and a scream went out of the mouth.

The dragon once again lets out an angry growl and is ready to attack when suddenly, an arrow pierce through the air and shot its right hand.

Another one followed after that it went straight to its tail.

The dragon then lets out a painful whimper and it plops down to the ground in a sitting position, trying to take the arrow off its hand with its mouth.

“What the hell?”, Haneul whispered in shock as she stares the dragon

It’s sitting on the ground, whimpering in pain like a vulnerable creature. That’s definitely not right

“Sehun are you watching this?”, Haneul asks him loudly, the man climbs down from the tree before approaching the two girls, his eyes stay on the dragon; arrow ready to shoot just in case.

The dragon then huffed and abandoned the arrow on its hand because it couldn’t take it off, it then went straight to its tail where the other arrow is.

Once again, the trio find themselves in disbelief when the dragon starts chase its tail to take the arrow off.

“It reminds me of a dog, are you sure this is a dragon?”

“I’m having second thoughts as well”, Haneul replied to him, her eyebrows furrowing deeply in confusion.

The dragon then halts into a stop and let out a cry before lying on the ground sadly.

This is definitely not a dragon that they’ve read of from books. It can’t be.

“I’ll help”, Yeseul suddenly said, trying to go through the two people who were guarding her earlier.

She squeezed through them without thinking and Sehun pulled her back, “Are you crazy? This might be its way of attacking, by being vulnerable then attack-”

“You don’t understand!”, Yeseul’s outburst startled them and Sehun immediately lets her go when he saw that there’s tears in her eyes.

“I told you that I’ve been hearing things these days, didn’t I? I really thought I was going crazy but..”, Yeseul blinks away her tears to prevent them from falling. She felt stupid that her emotions consumed her easily like this but she can’t help it, she has been feeling anxious for the whole week when she realised that she’s hearing stuffs.

She can’t slow the others down because she’s experiencing this, she can’t. There’s no time for that

But now that the answer is probably in front of her, she has the strong urge to find out whether it really is the dragon that has been trying to reach her out for whatever reason.

“I hope you know what you’re doing Yeseul”, Haneul told her and Sehun kept quiet on his spot, his eyes still watching the dragon warily.

“I know.. if something goes wrong, just freeze the time”, Yeseul answered with a smile before turning her back on them, approaching the dragon slowly and nervously.

Yeseul took a deep breath before crouching down to the ground, “Hey..”, she softly said, trying to get it’s attention in which it did because it’s floppy ears perked up before its head lifts up.

Its eyes narrow at her and it snarls, showing its sharp teeth. ‘Go away’, it says and Yeseul’s eyes widened.

“Do you hear that?”, she gasped and turns her head around as she asks the other two.

“What?”

“It asks me to go away!”, Yeseul told them, her eyes sparkles in excitement in a way that the other two can’t understand. If its anything, they’re beginning to be concerned over her.

“I don’t think you should feel happy about that..”, Haneul told her nervously and her eyes go back and forth between Yeseul and the dragon.

Yeseul shifted her attention back to the dragon and held her hand out, “I can help you- do you understand me?”

The dragon’s gaze softens and it lets out a sound, ‘It hurts..’, Yeseul could her him say as it extends its hand out, where the arrow has pierced it.

Yeseul came closer and carefully sat in front of it, “I’m sorry.. we thought you were about to attack us”. She then lifts her hand to pet its head; startling the dragon because she could see that it backed away a little bit.

“Oh, I’m sorry.. may I?”, she asks and the dragon just stares at her hand, its eyes getting completely crossed eyes and Yeseul chuckled and went for it.

The dragon relaxed when she starts to pet it and if she’s not wrong, she could hear it purr

‘Exactly like a cat’, she said in her head and smiled.

“I’ll take the arrow out now, don’t scratch me though”

The dragon immediately shut its eyes closed. Yeseul took a quick breath and stood up, “It’s going to be quick-“

She then pulls the arrow out with all of her strength and actually stumbled backwards because she used too much strength when its actually not needed.

Its actually not that deep.

However, the dragon whimpered loudly and quickly it paws to soothe the pain.

“How thick is your skin? it didn’t really pierce through your flesh that much..”, Yeseul threw the arrow away from her hand and walked backwards to proceed taking the one on its tail out as well

Before she could pull it away, before she could even touch the arrow; a shout from a far made her pull back her hand

“Get away from him!”

Yeseul almost jumped away due to the possible warning; she was about to run away but after seeing that the warning was neither from her friends, she frowned. A hand on her heart in shock to calm her heart.

She stared down to the dragon and saw it sitting up straight now, anticipating someone to come.

Both Sehun and Haneul were staring at the path of the forest where the voice came from and when they saw who they were, one immediately ran towards the new faces while the other stared at them in confusion.

“Sehun?”, the man calls out in shock and also in relief, he’s really glad that he finally met one of his friends because after the explosion, he can’t deny but thought of the worst that could happen to any of them.

It’s good to see that atleast one of them is not as injured as he is

Sehun turns his head towards the familiar voice who called him and his eyes widened.

“Kai!”, Sehun dropped his bows and arrow immediately and went straight towards his close friend.

Kai rolled his eyes; a smile appeared on his face anyways but he quickly extended his hands out when he saw that the youngest almost crash onto him to give a bear hug

“Don’t touch me! My skin is still burned”

Sehun skidded into a stop, almost tripping on his feet as he cursed, “Oh sh*t, I forgot- how are you though? We were worried sick!”

“Still breathing, thank the skies for that” Kai chuckled, half wincing because Sehun starts scanning his injuries with a painful expression on his face

“It’s bad right?”, Kai asks and Sehun nods.

“We need to find Yixing as soon as possible, your skin looks disgustingly painful”

Their conversation then got cut off when someone starts shouting no far from them

“What did you do?!”, a high pitch voice cuts through the silent air and Yeseul starts panicking, “I didn’t do anything!”

“Then why is there an arrow on him?!”

Yeseul took a step backwards because the girl in front of her seems like she’s about to start a fight.

“I didn’t-“

“Who the hell are you? Shouting at people that you just met is not a good first impression don’t you think?”, Haneul steps forward and glares at the new face.

The girl simply ignores her and went over the dragon. It is currently standing and when she came in front of it, the dragon bows a little bit so that she could take its face in her hands.

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