A/N: This particular oneshot is dedicated for my sister-from-another-mother and fellow OUL founder, the amazing, adorable, awesome-sauce Nikdae. Love you, girl!! :D <3333

Time frame: Iola's childhood

Mrs. Verdier swallowed down her sigh. When she got the call an hour ago, she never expected it to be from the school, asking her to come straight away. They told her that it concerned a fight her child got into and her first reaction was surprised. Yunho was a calm boy; hardly ever lose his temper or even raise his voice so it was surprising to hear him got into a fight. Imagine her shock when she discovered that it was instead her second child, her daughter, who was involved in it and was found by the teacher punching a boy in the face.

So here she was now, sitting on the long, hard wooden bench in front of the principal’s office with another woman who was currently holding a sniffling boy and glaring dagger at her. Mrs. Verdier assumed she was the mother of the fight’s participant.

“Are you the mother of that beastly girl who attacked my precious son?”

Mrs. Verdier narrowed her eyes. Her daughter may have been involved in the fight, but that doesn’t necessarily means she would let this woman insult her baby.

“If you are talking about Iola, then yes, I am her mother.”

The other woman scoffed. “Then you should apologize. Look at what she did to him!”

She pushed the boy forward and Mrs. Verdier could clearly see the beginning of a bruise on his left jaw. Her skirt was then grabbed in a weak hold and Mrs. Verdier looked down to see Iola, clearly upset with the way her lips trembled but her eyes shone defiantly as she glared at the other boy. The boy himself looked uncomfortable by the glare and tried to hide behind his mother.

Mrs. Verdier looked the boy over and scoffed internally. “Your son looks like he’s older, and I know that he is bigger than my daughter.”

“And your point is?”

“Well, normally a much smaller, younger girl would not just go out and started a fight with boys much bigger than her. There must be a good reason why she punched him.”

The other woman bristled. “Are you saying the fight was my son’s fault??”

“I’m saying that my daughter would not do what she did without a good reason.”

Before the woman could answer the door was opened and the principal came out, beckoning them in. Mrs. Verdier straightened her shoulder and patted her daughter’s head, telling her to stay there before walking gracefully inside. She would get to the bottom of this for sure.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Iola’s lower lips trembled as she tried to hold back her tears. Big girls don’t cry anymore and mommy said she was a big girl; next month would be her seventh birthday so she should not cry.

But it was really hard not to when she didn’t know what would happen. Her Mommy didn’t look angry when she came to the school, but she did look upset and slightly disappointed and Iola doesn’t like for Mommy to be upset. Then Mommy also didn’t let her come with her, asking her to wait outside while she went to see scary principal. What if scary principal said Iola was a bad girl and Mommy won’t love Iola anymore??

The thought brought out the threat of a fresh wave of tears and Iola hiccupped as she jumped down from the wooden bench, running out of the door to the small garden at the school’s side. She ran passed the swings set and the slide, over behind the dense shrubberies and slumped down on the base of a big tree before letting her tears fall and bawled to her heart’s content as she curled down on the ground.

If Mommy doesn’t love Iola anymore, then maybe Daddy and Yunho and baby Min also won’t love her too and Iola would be alone and she doesn’t want to be alone. The dismal thought went over and over again in her head and she couldn’t stop crying.

Finally her chest hurt too much and her tears dried out, leaving behind small sniffles. Her cheek still pressed into the grass, she gazed listlessly at a colony of ants marching silently on the ground.

The wind blew then, ruffling her hair and Iola blinked, turning her head up at the sun bursting through the tree’s thick branches. The branches swayed and danced, as if waving to her and Iola felt a smile blooming at the silent, merry sight. Slowly she sat up and crawled to lean against the tree’s trunk, still amazed by the dancing branches. Her bangs flew all over her forehead, parts of it loosened up from the pigtails mommy had braided her hair into this morning and she giggled as it tickled her nape.

The air was warm yet cool, and Iola felt drowsy. She snuggled deeper into the trunk, folding her small body by the protruding roots and closed her eyes with a yawn.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yixing marveled at his surroundings, finding new sights to arrest his interest. This wasn’t the first time he had visited the Forest of Dreams, but every time there was always something new to discover, something amazing to wonder about, that he think he would never be tire of it.

As he walked slowly to appreciate the sights, a part of his mind was still mulling over anything that might be out of the ordinary. There had been some reports of mysterious happenings at the Forest; people from the nearest city gossiped about numerous strange light and odd voices coming from it. The report reached Sagiv and the Elders sent the Guardians to investigate about the matter.

As Yixing marveled at a red tree with yellow leaves that were so big just one leaf could cover half his body, he wondered whether there was any truth to those report. So far he and his brothers had spent several days at the forest and had encountered nothing unusual.

Well, he chuckled in his head, not counting the strange place that is the Forest itself. Besides being the natural border that separated the kingdom of Zolora from others, the Forest of Dreams was known to be an almost magical place, what with having every trees and plants of the world in one place, no matter the weather or environment. It was also said that the forest was the habitat of the world’s numerous animals and beasts, and as a bird flew close by, a species that Yixing was sure couldn’t be find in anywhere in Zolora, he knew it to be true.

He watched the bird’s flight as it soared into the air, before resuming his trek. Even though they haven’t found anything wrong during their stay, Wufan and Joonmyun ordered them to roam the forest some more, insisting on a more thorough search before concluding their mission and returning back to Sagiv. And that lead him to his trek alone over the beautiful forest. He didn’t mind, though; this mission was at the very least a nice distraction from their regular duties, though important as it was can become a bit dull.

He shook his head; only a little more than a decade after his Maturity and becoming a full-fledged Guardian, and yet he was already becoming restless.

Suddenly his steps were halted when he spot something at the base of a tree. Narrowing his eyes, he observed the thing carefully before his eyes widened when he realized what it was he was seeing. Quickly hurrying closer, he stumbled on his knees as he approached what was now clear to him as a sleeping girl. Judging by her small stature he deducted she was still in childhood, with little arms and legs and chubby cheeks, framed by two pigtails of dark hair.

Yixing silently sat down and observed the girl some more. Now that he was closer he noticed the strange garment the girl was wearing, a set of skirt and blouse colored soft yellow and pale orange, the bright orange ribbons that adorned her pigtails matched the color scheme perfectly. On her small feet were black shoes of materials that were so shiny he wondered what animals’ hide the shoes came from.

He shook his head. Now was not the time to wonder about a child’s clothes. The more important question here was how the child even came here. The Forest of Dreams was hardly a place a child would wander into, seeing that even adults would think twice before entering the place. Could it be that the child had wandered alone from home and was now lost?

Making up his mind, Yixing reached out a hand to shake the girl gently. The sooner he could ask the girl where she came from, the sooner he could return her to her family. She squirmed from his touch, burrowing deeper into the pillow her arm made and Yixing doubled his shaking.

Finally the child stirred, yawning a few times before looking up and Yixing was greeted by a pair of lovely, hazel eyes that twinkled sleepily. He smiled at the sight; the child was really adorable.

“Hello, little girl,” he said softly to not startle her. “What are you doing here? Are you lost?”

The girl blinked some more before hesitantly sat up. Once she was seated upright her eyes darted here and there, and Yixing waited until her gaze landed back on him before repeating his question.

To his concern the girl didn’t answer. Perhaps he talked too fast? He repeated it again, much slower and making effort to pronounce his word more clearly, since he knew sometimes his accent would still come up and mangled his sentences. Yet the girl still didn’t answer.

When she did open , though, it was Yixing’s turn to be stupefied into silence. Her words were nothing that he had ever heard before, and briefly he wondered whether the girl comes from a faraway country that spoke a different tongue, since that would’ve explained her strange clothes too.

The girl spoke some more, her voice raising slightly but Yixing shook his head, silently telling her he didn’t understand. How he wished Wufan was here; he knew his leader had learned other languages growing up, perhaps he knew the one this girl used.

Yixing tried to grab the girl, thinking of taking her back to his brothers but she flinched and shuffled back, so he let her, only watching carefully as she pulled her legs to her chest, making her looked even smaller than before. Though his eyes widened in alarm when he saw her lips trembled and the way her eyes quickly filled with liquid. Oh no no, is she going to-

His question was answered soon enough when loud wailing filled the otherwise silent air and he grimaced. In general he loves children, and it broke his heart to see one crying, always trying to make them smile instead. Moving closer, he tried to shus