This is a ‘For Your Information’ about At Worlds End

SECTION ONE: General Info about the Universe

1) The Planet:

• ·         The planet that the Guardians are from does not have a name. The citizens usually just refer to it as “Our Home,” they’ve never needed a name for it, and they wouldn’t know what to call it anyway.

The planet is “divided” into North and South by natural geography—the South is warmer and more appropriate for growing crops, and the North is colder and so it’s more devoted to living space. In the South you get large towns with few citizens because everyone owns a farm and works the land and animals to some degree, whereas in the North they can’t use the land for farming so they build more houses and get smaller towns that are more densely populated.

The planet is contemporary with late 19^th-early 20^th century Europe in terms of technology. The people don’t have phones, their basic communication is in letters, and they don’t have cars but they do have trains. The people evolve in a way similar to that of the people of Earth, and those technologies might have been created, but the planet lacks fossil fuel because it doesn’t really have fossils. There were no dinosaurs on this planet, ever. They do have spaceships though.

The Guardians know that there are other planets out there, and they don’t make contact with them but they do spy on them. One past Guardian can see through time and space, and sometimes when she’s bored she spies on other planets. She and a Guardian who could control technology built a lot of the more modern inventions on the planet, like the train and the spaceship.

I mentioned in the fic that they all speak the same language, but there are different dialects and Guardians need to learn how to speak without their dialect, but they also learn the dialects of both sides of the planet so that they can understand what’s being said to them.

• ·         The story of how the planet was created goes like this:

It was created, as most planets are, from the remains of a great explosion in space. Over thousands of years a kind of consciousness floated over a chaotic mass of land. Inside the land was tons and tons of power, later called magic. The consciousness decided to form the land mass into something less chaotic and to consolidate the great power, but in order to do that the consciousness needed a form. The land mass was kind of evolving on its own, and while there were no animals or people there was water and plant life, and so the consciousness took the form of one of the most stable life forms on the planet—that of a tree. This consciousness became known as The Tree of Life for that reason. It concentrated its most basic self inside a single central area—its heart. It spread the other parts of itself out in its roots, which grew to cover the entire planet, and it formed the land into one solid mass and trapped the great power under it. (Yeah you’re not imagining those subtle parallels to Genesis)

2) The Creation of the Guardians:

The Tree caused human beings to evolve from more primitive life forms, and as they evolved it realized that the humans would need some kind of powerful leader, or some ruling body that could create order for them. The Tree also realized that it would not be able to control these people because it could not speak to them; their own consciousness was not strong or stable enough to establish contact with. That is one reason why the Tree created the Guardians, but the second reason was that the great power was getting to be too massive to contain underground. The Tree released the power from the ground in small spurts in a bunch of different locations, and the power latched onto a person it found to be suitable to handle it. This is how the first Guardians were created, and the power—later called magic by the same Guardians—is what gives them their Affinities or Gifts.

• ·         The Creation of the Order of the Guardians:

Once the first Generation of Guardians had reached Maturity, the Tree was able to call out to them and gather them together. It gave them the responsibility of ruling the people, and the rest they did on their own. They split in half, one half would guard the Tree and attend to it, and the other would have audiences with the people. As the population grew, the Guardians created lesser positions of power for the people. These people dealt with small problems (like petty crimes), and when they couldn’t solve an issue (like a murder trial), it would be sent to the Guardians.

• ·         Maturity:

I discussed it a bit in the story, but Maturity is the point where a Guardian stops aging, and up to that point they age like a normal child would. There is no set time for a Guardian to reach Maturity, but it generally happens after age sixteen. At this point their bodies and brains stop developing, so if it happens at age 17 you’ll have the physical, hormonal and mental status of a 17 year old forever.

Once a Guardian has reached Maturity they cannot have kids—this goes for both Genders (none of that Twilight nonsense where male vampires can father children…NOT IN MY WORLD). However before Maturity they are perfectly capable of having kids once they are ually mature. But this doesn’t happen, because they have no one to have kids with.

Most Guardians reach this point by age 25 at the latest; The oldest in EXO, Xiu Min, reached it at age 22. Sehun, the youngest, was 17 (it’s pretty contemporary with their current ages as of 2012). Their case was unlike any other because they all reached it pretty much within a week of each other, normally it happens to a single group over a period of a few years.

There’s really no tell-tale sign that a Guardian has reached Maturity, but it’s the point where they really freeze in development and so it’s something that they feel rather than see.

Even before this point a Guardian cannot be killed—even if their neck snaps or they get speared in the heart, they will heal themselves BUT there will be some damage; there have been cases of paralysis, amputation and so on in past Generations (see further down for elaboration on Lu Han’s state).

When EXO first crash landed on Earth, they were very concerned that they would start to age again since Maturity was due to the effects of the magic, and they thought that they left the magic behind on their home planet. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen (see the section on the Tree of Life).

• ·         The Subsequent Generations:

It took a lot of magic to create the first Generation, so the Tree managed to get away with not releasing the magic again for a long time. Following that, however, there had to be a new Generation about once every two hundred years, give or take.

The thing about the magic in the planet is that it keeps building up on itself—think of cancer cells, they grow and divide at an unregulated pace and sometimes build up into tumors, the magic is the same. At certain points the pressure under the planet needs to be alleviated, and then the Tree will release the magic in short spurts and a new Generation of Guardians will be created.

Pretty much after the magic is released the Tree can’t control it all that much. The Tree doesn’t pick the Guardians, the magic does that all on its own. So that’s why the first Generation created the Affinity test. Basically what happens is the Tree tells the previous Generation when it’s releasing the magic and then the Guardians send out notices to the towns and cities saying ‘Okay kids born in the next two years have the potential to be Guardians’ and everyone kind of shrugs like ‘Okay yeah’—like, it’s not really a big deal to the people because it’s only 12 kids and so the chances that yours will be a Guardian are slim, so it’s not like OMG START HAVING BABIES. And the Guardians really don’t search for the kids; everyone on the planet knows most if not all of the Canons, they all know about the birthmark anyway, and so if they suspect that their kid might be a Guardian then they tell the head of their town/city, and the head contacts the Sanctuary in their region either by sending a letter or a delegate to the Sanctuary and then a Matron comes to see the kid and if she (Matrons are always female) thinks the kid is a Guardian she comes back to give them the affinity test. If they pass, she makes arrangements for them to come to the Sanctuary.

The first Generation of Guardians were all male, the second were all female. That’s pretty much the only thing that the Tree controls: the gender of the next Generation, and they alternate between male and female. For one thing the Tree thought it would be easier for those involved in raising/training the Guardians to just have one gender of pubescent kids to deal with. For another thing it makes it easier to find the next Generation if you at least know that you can cross out all the girls or boys.

The current or most recent Generation of Guardians are the ones who do the most work; they attend to the Tree and the planet. The older or retired Generations become  scholars for the most part—they write and study and so on. Technically retired Guardians are still supposed to go see the Tree—they’re supposed to want to keep in contact with it—but thanks to the Darkness that doesn’t happen too often, or not for long anyway. A lot of books used in schools on the planet are written by former Guardians, however there have been intellectuals who are totally unrelated to the Tree who write about the Guardians themselves.

Guardians don’t tend to mass produce books about themselves, however they usually give Sanctuaries copies of their journals so that future Generations can read them and learn about what it’s like to have their affinities.

Guardians can get married, and they have in the past. They don’t marry civilians because 1-they don’t meet a lot of them and 2-they don’t live as long so it’s kind of pointless, I guess? They could marry a civilian if they really wanted too, it’s not like it’s outlawed but it has never happened (and will never happen).

Same- marriage does happen, but Guardians will also marry other Guardians from previous Generations. They don’t think too much about age, because they’re all going to live forever anyway so why worry?

There are always 12 Guardians. Why? Because it’s a good, even number and it makes things easier.

EXO are the Ninth Generation of Guardians.

There are other kinds of Affinities besides the ones that EXO has, like technopaths (people who can manipulate technology).

The move to Earth changed nothing in terms of succession: the tenth Generation of Guardians will be all female.

The practice of renaming the newest Generation of Guardians in honor of past Guardians and other important people was started by the first Generation, however the ninth Generation (EXO) did away with that practice and instead decided to let the future Generations decide if they wanted new names. The only condition is that the new name must be approved by a past Guardian (so the kids aren’t calling themselves something ridiculous like ‘Rainbow Muffin’).

• ·         The 10 Canons

I mention The 10 Canons a few times in the story…the word ‘Canon’ means “A general rule, principle or standard." In Art History we use Canons when we talk about styles of art and specific people—ie a Canon of an image of Buddha is that he will have the third eye in the center of his forehead, coiled hair and will more often than not be seated on a lotus throne/flower. The Canons of the Guardians are traits, physical and behavioral, that are apparent (canonical) in every Guardian that has ever lived. They are:

1) The Birthmark

2) The affinity test (picking the object associated with the mark)

3) The Affinity (duh)

4) High intelligence at an early age—i.e. able to grasp difficult concepts quickly

5) Learning through imitation; usually getting actions down in one or two tries

6) Showing signs of independence early on

7) Born at least 2 weeks late

8) Not fitting in with/being outright rejected by family and peers

9) Healing quickly or not being severely injured in situations where severe injury would be expected (i.e. their arm should be broken and it’s only fractured); Not getting sick often if at all (it’s very rare for a Guardian to get even a slight case of the sniffles).

10) Maturity (another duh)

Most of these Canons are a result of another Canon—usually the fourth one. The Guardians learn through imitation because they are so smart, they are independent at an early age due to their high intelligence, and at times they are alienated because of their intelligence too. However, alienation from parents, mothers especially, is due to the meddling from the magic. You see, a mother usually bonds with her child while it’s in the womb or shortly after birth, however in the case of the Guardians they never really ‘belong’ to their parents. From the time the magic latches on to them (which can happen any time between in the womb and the first four months after birth) they belong to the Tree, and this is something that other people can sense even if they don’t know what it is, mothers especially have a feeling that the child isn’t hers, and it is for this reason that they will usually ignore or outright abandon their child.

It’s not really a case of cruelty, even though it can seem that way (especially to the child), it’s a scary thing to look at for a mother to look at her baby and feel like it’s not hers. For fans of the Fruits Basket manga/anime, it’s kind of similar to that. In Lu Han’s case once his parents realized there was a reason for their feelings they were able to establish a weak relationship with him while Lu Han was stuck at home waiting for transport to the Sanctuary. It was a “Oh, good, I wasn’t the one who messed him up” kind of relief. In most cases a child is removed from their home shortly after they’ve been confirmed as a Guardian and there is no time for that relationship to be established. It’s also in that way a defense mechanism for the young Guardian—it’s a hell of a lot easier to leave your home and family behind if it never felt like your to begin with. This is also why Guardians tend to bond so quickly with each other; they all belong to the Tree, and so it really is like they’re all siblings.

There really is no esteem associated with family members of Guardians, and the reason for that partially goes back to the idea that a Guardian never truly belongs to their birth “family,” and that group of people is more viewed as a foster home. The bigger reason is that the Guardians are very big on equality—being a Guardian doesn’t mean you get special treatment, they eat the same foods that the people do (in some cases they even grow their own) and in theory if a Guardian was accused of a crime they would be tried the same way a normal civilian would (not that any Guardian has ever committed a crime). So for the Guardians honoring a family for birthing a new Guardian would be a crime in itself. And since the Guardians really don’t make a big deal out of it, neither do the people. The Guardians lead more by example than by force, if they can avoid it (see the section on Baekhyun for more info).

3) The Tree of Life:

The Most Important thing to remember about the Tree of Life is that it is genderless. It is also NOT a God. It is not worshipped by the citizens of the planet, and in fact most of them rarely even think about the Tree at all, because it doesn’t concern them. They learn about it and they know it’s real, but as most of them will never see it in their lifetime they pretty much forget that it exists. The Tree certainly doesn’t think of itself as being Godly at any rate.

I described the Tree as being ‘child-like’—it’s very curious and eager to learn, it loves without conditions, it doesn’t get jealous but it does get lonely, and most importantly it makes mistakes.

When  the Guardians ‘Attend to the needs of the Tree’ basically it means that they keep it company. Once the world is created and the magic is under control the Tree really has very little to do with itself. When you have a consciousness that powerful it needs stimulation otherwise it kind of goes crazy. More than anything the Tree craves knowledge, and that comes in the form of interactions with Guardians, since those are the only intelligent people it can make contact with, and over the years the Guardians tend to shy away from the Tree thanks to the influences of the Darkness. This is why in the story when the Tree first met the Guardians it was like “YAY NEW BRAINS TO PICK ASDFGHJKL :DDDD” and it kind of startled everyone with its enthusiasm.

The Tree eventually finds out (it is not all knowing—it learns as it goes) that the reason the magic keeps building up on itself is that it creates magic as a byproduct of its actions, like CO2 emissions from a car. So a big action like uniting the land masses created a lot of magic, and even a smaller action like every day thinking and conversing can create small amounts of magic. Why? Because the magic is really just a backlog of power with nowhere to go, and the Tree is the single most powerful being on the planet, and it significantly downplays its own strength every day. If the Tree operated at full capacity all the time it would blow itself and anyone who came in contact with it apart, and the excess power has to go somewhere, so it goes in back under the ground. The Tree was pretty flabbergasted when it realized that (thinking about strange things: side effect of being left unattended for long periods of time) and was pretty embarrassed about it for a while.

The Tree can keep secrets/keep thoughts hidden (though it rarely finds the need to do so), however it is damn near impossible to hide something from the Tree because it can overpower any human being, even a Guardian. That being said, the Tree does not use this power ever, because it feels it would be a violation of its power to do so. However it will whine, wheedle and pout until you give it what it wants (child-like, eh? Eh?)

The Tree was big on keeping as much of the planet intact as it could—It was very careful when it moved the continents around, yes it only took about 300 years but it made sure that it had vines holding ancient ruins like Rome and the Pyramids and the Great wall of China up and in one piece, it invaded museums and again used plants to secure works of art (a lot of which had actually been taken with the Earthlings when they left but there were still some things left in the museums). The move meant that some plants and animals wouldn’t be able to adapt to the change but again. Most of those creatures had already been killed off by the general desecration of the planet before EXO even landed there. It avoided destroying coral reefs and oceans though, because literally what the Tree did was it skimmed off the top like 2 miles of the continent’s surface and dragged it across the ocean. Now earth looks kinda like it did when the dinosaurs first started eating each other.

4) The Sanctuaries & the People who work in them:

Technically there are 3 Sanctuaries: One in the north, one in the south and the third one is near the Tree of life where the Guardians live—JUST the Guardians, that’s why until they reach Maturity the Guardians need to stay at the other Sanctuaries, because there would be nobody to care for them. The third Sanctuary’s location is hidden to protect the Tree and the Guardians.

In the Sanctuaries you have Matrons, Healers, Teachers and the Leaders.

Matrons are always women, they are meant to be motherly caretakers and usually roam around the Sanctuary and offer to help the kids out whenever they need it.

Teachers can be men or women; however their gender usually matches up with the gender of the current Generation—EXO had all male teachers. Why? Because it was an old idea on the planet that children learned better in single- environments (once they got to Earth EXO did away with this). The Teachers not only cover school subjects but also coach Guardians on how to use their powers.

Healers can be men or women, but usually there are more women than men, again because they are a motherly presence for the Guardians. There’s always one Healer who’s in charge—the Senior Healer, usually he or she is the oldest one.

The Leaders of the Sanctuaries can be men or women, and they are responsible for overseeing the Guardians  training—i.e. making sure they have good teachers. They are also in charge of ceremonies in the Sanctuaries, like renamings.

Sanctuaries are always occupied even when there aren’t and Guardians living in them. During such times they don’t have Teachers or quite as many Matrons and Healers around, but the Sanctuaries are always open to guests like Scholars and even ordinary citizens, if they need a place to stay. Even when EXO were living in their Sanctuaries travelers would sometimes get lost and have to spend a night or two at the Sanctuary to recuperate.

SECTION TWO: Specifics on The Guardians

In addition to doing away with the process of renaming, the Ninth Generation also did away with the idea of specific trainers teaching Guardians how to use their powers. The tenth Generation still spend their early years with the Matrons in two separate Sanctuaries, but once all their affinities have manifested they are brought to the third Sanctuary—the one where the Guardians stay to watch over the Tree of Life. The have teachers for things like history and science but when it comes to Affinities they are trained by the ninth Generation themselves.

·         Lu Han:

Once the Guardians were reunited he regained most of his brain function—MOST of it. Occasionally there will be an instance where he’ll draw a complete blank on something he’s been doing for years, like how to tie his shoes or how to say something. He also can’t write anymore, although he can read. His memories are still coming back to him even hundreds of years later, because
A) he makes new ones every day and
B) He has a lot of them—most Guardians have photographic memories.

·         Tao:

His Affinity manifested at a very young age, but it’s something that only he can see—nobody else knows when you’re freezing time, you see. So when he started babbling that he had frozen time (high intelligence means that Guardians talk at a younger age as well), his parents kind of freaked out earlier than most would.

·         Baekhyun

As mentioned in drabble #6, his city tried to use him as a bargaining chip to get aide from the Guardians for their town. That didn’t happen and there are several reasons why.

1-The Guardians are not cruel in that they wouldn’t help a village in need, but the Guardians are also very big on the idea that you reap what you sow. In this case Baekhyun’s city got itself in trouble by borrowing too much money from other cities—against the advice of the Guardians themselves—and by wasting their resources, so when they asked the Guardians for help the first time they said “No, you made your bed now go lie in it.” Had it been an instance like an earthquake or a forest fire or something else beyond human control then certainly the Guardians would have stepped up to help.

2-There is no particular esteem associated with raising a Guardian—a family doesn’t get compensation when the Matrons come to take their child away and really the main reason for that is that the Guardians decided long ago that you can’t put a price on service to the Tree of Life, so the idea that the city leaders thought they had a right to do something like that was extremely disrespectful. Guardians don’t take money from the people of the planet and the people who work in the Sanctuaries don’t get “paid” for their services, they get housing and food basically, and not even really fancy food—ordinary stuff you’d find on a farm really. Yes the planet has rich people but that’s because those people work hard to get where they are.

3-Guardians are some of the poorest people on that world in that they own nothing but the clothes on their back, so the Guardians couldn’t have afforded to pay the city leaders even if they’d wanted to.

·         Chanyeol

The Fire Affinity is really, really tricky—Flight and Fire are considered the most difficult affinities  in terms of stress on the body. With the water and air affinities it’s easier because Guardians can pull those elements from the world around them. Fire is an element that man has to make on his own more often than not, so for Chanyeol to use fire he has to heat up the air around him, and he does that by concentrating all his body heat in one area, which means he needs to have a lot of body heat. The human body can only get so hot before it shuts down, and the magic plays a big role in how they’re able to stay alive.

·         Chen and Xiu Min

Yeah I’m going to take care of them together because I’m a lazy girl. So, how did they get picked to be a part of the Southern Guardians?

First of all I mentioned it in the fic, but even though there’s an even number of Guardians it doesn’t always mean that 6 will come from the North and 6 from the South—the magic goes where it wants to go and sometimes you get an uneven divide, such as in the Ninth Generation. When that happens, the head of the Sanctuary decides which kids get to switch groups.

Now again, they really only split to handle responsibilities—it’s not like they’re even really apart for too long. The citizens come to the Sanctuary (or someplace near it) when they need advice from the Guardians so everyone still sees each other.

So how do they decide who switches to the other side? In this situation, The leader of the Southern Sanctuary sent little profile write-ups of the Southern Guardians to the leader of the North, and he decided based on those profiles who’s personality would best suit the Southern Guardians. The Southern members were very quiet and soft spoken around their elders and were fond of calm games, they liked to read and were good at studying. He decided that Xiu Min and Chen were the ones who best suited the group.

How did Xiu Min and Chen feel about this? Well they really didn’t get a choice and they weren’t too thrilled about that, but it wasn’t like they were being permanently ripped away from their friends either. The two of them were a bit anxious about fitting in, but they figured that if their personalities matched they wouldn’t really have a problem. They had their names changed so that it would sound like they had come from the South (the citizens are supposed to think that the divide is even, you see—makes it seem fairer) and in all honesty that upset them more than anything else. Name changes are tricky, you either like it (Kai) or you hate it (Lay). But in the long run it didn’t ruin their lives and the two of them took it rather well—they were very mature about it.

I really think I’ve said enough on Lay, Sehun, Kai and Kris, and I’ll cover Suho and Kyungsoo in future drabbles ^^