“Father.”

The Lord glanced up from his desk full of documents and saw his youngest son standing before him. He could tell he was deeply agitated, but it didn’t hinder the blooming pride he felt that his son was growing up so handsomely. Charming looks never hurt in affairs of state.

“Good evening, Son.”

Sehun glared at the mahogany carpet beneath his feet and tried not to let the anger diffuse into his voice. “Kris should be punished.”

The Lord raised a brow and put down his pen. “Why is that?” He immediately sensed what he was referring to; rumors always spread quickly like an infectious disease, from one sickly person to another, but he didn’t see how the matter concerned Sehun.

“He hurt the Slave.”

The Lord clasped his hands together in front of him, unimpressed. “Yes, I heard so.”

His father’s indifference added fuel to his rage, but he suppressed it, because in front of this formidable man, emotions were a sign of weakness and vulnerability. “He should be punished for abusing her like that.”

“She is just a Slave.”

“But she is also a human being with rights.”

“She is a Slave.” The Lord stated with finality, slightly annoyed by his persistence. 

Sehun clenched his teeth, and the Lord raised another brow of disapproval at the young one’s display of anger. He knew his sons well, both legitimate and illegitimate, and Sehun had never been the type to let anything get under his cold, apathetic armor and blatantly reveal his emotions to an opponent like that. Something had changed in the three years of his absence, and the Lord had an inkling that it wasn’t a favorable one. He had been a bit perturbed when he first took captive of that Slave girl; her unbreakable optimism was dangerously close to fearlessness---a troublesome quality that often threatened the thrones of the nobility. Should I have killed that Slave along with her mother that time? He reasoned against it, for it would have raised suspicion if a mere child was executed, or if she died coincidentally near the date of her mother’s hanging. She was a pretty one anyways, and the Lord liked to hoard all the cards he could use later, no matter how small the value, because sometimes, it was the single overlooked card that would reverse the course of the game.

“I apologize for disrupting your study, Father. I will take my leave.” Sehun bowed, and the Lord, noticing how naturally refined and prince-like his movements were, twisted his lips into a smirk of fatherly acknowledgement.

“Tis a splendid night tonight; why don’t you use that telescope I gave you?”

Sehun froze mid-breath and closed his eyes as the anger morphed back into sadness. After a moment of hesitance, he replied soullessly, “Yes, Father, I surely will.”

The trees overhead were only seen as black silhouettes against the starry night sky, adorned by curious wisps of frost in the air. Mother Nature never failed to amaze mankind in its breathtaking beauty, so familiar yet mystical at the same time.

But Mei saw none of it. The sharp outline of trees resembled dangerous daggers, the millions of stars only a cynical imitation of her countless tear drops and the frost chewed on her bare skin with merciless teeth.

She was cold, so cold, from the deepest, most hidden chambers of her heart to the outermost layer of her frostbitten skin. Her body took its natural reaction to shiver against the seeping chill, but her mind had long since lost the ability to feel or think; she lay there lifelessly against the tree, empty beyond words, numb beyond sensation. When she falls into an eternal slumber, would she return to Earth? Would a brand new cycle of life branch off from her corpse? She closed her eyes.

There was no reminiscing over past memories anymore, just the single longing to fall quickly asleep and never wake up. Blankness, absoluteness, nothingness; why did they appeal to her much more than a proposal of treasures and luxuries---

---a wet warmth tickled her cheek and she jolted back in utter surprise, banging her head against the tree in doing so. A shock of pain dashed down her spine as she stared into a pair of pearly black orbs, and suddenly, she felt so strangely alive.

A stag stood before her, its magnificent antlers reaching out to the star-studded heavens. Without thinking, Mei scrambled to her feet and stared at the beautiful creature, in awe of its unpretentious majesty.

The deer looked back at her, with eyes of wisdom and understanding incomprehensible by human means; its knowing gaze plucked a string of her abandoned heart. He slowly turned, and strode away from her.

Mindlessly, she followed after him, weaving through the maze of trees. Each time she thought she lost him in the thick darkness, she would spot those splendid antlers again and be washed over by a sense of relief that slowly detangled the grasp of death from her thin ankles.

Leaving a trail of white puffs in the air, her cheeks tingled as the warmth returned after being left frozen for such an eternity. The blood rushed determinedly through her veins as she scrambled clumsily over fallen trunks and branches after the deer, and before she realized it, she stood in front of the Manor’s back gates.

Wait. Her unkempt hair arced around her shoulders as she looked for the stag again, but he was nowhere to be seen; he had vanished as quickly as he had appeared.

“Mei!” a voice cracked in the darkness. The Manor’s light that seeped through the rows of burgundy curtained windows revealed a figure running towards her. It was Eula, streaming rivers of relieved tears that twinkled welcomingly, and Mei ran into her open arms.

Kris had been chatting idly with his blood brothers, Tao and Jongin, when Sehun barged into his room. The three looked up in surprise at the unexpected appearance of the youngest true son; Kris noticed his brothers had tensed immediately in suspicion.

“Long time no see, my brother Sehun,” he spoke calmly, despite the sudden tension, and gracefully stood from his chair.

Sehun glared at Kris, his hatred intensifying even more to the fact that he was taller than himself and possessed a king-like aura with his undeniable resemblance of a Greek sculpture.

“What brings you all the way here to where us illegitimate sons reside?” sneered Tao. Kris frowned at his brother’s immaturity, but his curiosity got the best of him.

“Yes, what’s the reason to your visit tonight?”

Jongin silently watched the scene with cautious eyes and was the first to react when Sehun suddenly lunged at Kris. He grabbed him by the collar and Tao pitched in to wring his arms to his back, while Kris just watched with a mildly amused expression.

“Dear goodness, is that how a true noble offers his greetings nowadays?” he asked, taking sadistic delight in seeing Sehun struggle under his brothers’ harsh grip.

“You hurt Mei! You crushed her into pieces!” Sehun yelled, veins popping on his temples and neck.

Tao scoffed, and Jongin just studied the boy trying to wrestle away from their iron hold on him. Jongin stared at the veins that were popping on the side of Sehun's forehead and wondered if this boy was actually stupid enough to fall in love. Kris, on the other hand, clenched his fists and spat, “She’s just a Slave.”

“Stop calling her that!” Sehun roared, “She’s a human with as much intelligence and wisdom and caliber as us, and on top of that, she actually had a heart, which none of us have and will ever have! She never allowed lies or jealousy or resentment to dictate over her life like us nobility do, and she never deserved to be tainted by a lowly scum like you!”

Lowly scum like you. Kris had seen it in the eyes of society since he was a child, because he was the son of a Mistress; society never recognized him because of his damned secondary bloodline that he never chose for himself. Sehun had unknowingly stabbed his most sensitive nerve, and his anger exploded violently.

He advanced towards the younger one with strides scorching in ferocity. Jongin glimpsed the awful wrath in Kris’s eyes, and his grip on Sehun unconsciously loosened in fear; Kris was born a patrician with his masculine grace, but inside him was a dark demon that even his siblings were afraid of.

Kris struck Sehun with such a force that he was knocked out of Jongin and Tao’s hold on him. Sehun collapsed onto the floor, his whole body ringing from the pain. An ugly cut ran from his left temple to the browbone, and the blood trickled across his cheeks and down to the corner of his lips. The burning rage from earlier was nothing compared to what he felt; it had merely been a flicker of flame. But now, the fury was a sea of magma, boiling and sputtering toxic fumes.  

Kris hovered above him, his chest heaving in anger, and Sehun quickly pushed himself off the floor. But before he could properly stand on his feet, Kris seized his collar and yanked him up to meet his savage eyes. Sehun didn’t flinch a single muscle at this, and glared back with the same searing intensity.

“You just wait, I will crush you. I will crush you in the most horrible way that you will regret ever looking down at me with those ugly, judging eyes. You scorn down upon me because you think the throne is as good as yours without your two older brothers, but no---I will make sure to rip it away from you, just you wait,” growled Kris.

This stupid throne? Take it! Give me back Mei! Sehun wanted to yell, but he was flung harshly to the ground again, taken advantage that he was four years younger than Kris. With an imperious gesture of his head, Kris signaled his brothers to get rid of him, and they obeyed. With rough hands, they picked Sehun up and hustled him towards the door.

Struggling against their grip, Sehun glared back at Kris and swore, “If you ever hurt Mei again, you will die!” before the door was slammed in his face.

The blood from his open gash streamed down his face, staining his cheek like tears of crimson.

For those of you who aren't familiar with EXO, Luhan means Deer of Dawn in Chinese. So there goes a really obvious hint, espeically since this deer appears at dusk instead of dawn ^^