Chanyeol finally started to get the hang of it. He was able to make the fire dance to his will. His practise started early in the morning and ended late in the afternoon, when the sun was already down. He was now able to hold little fires in his hand, shoot fireballs, create a dragon of fire and, my favourite trick, manifest himself into a huge fire phoenix. I was so proud at him, he worked so hard. I bet he himself didn’t even know what he was capable of before he started practising. He was astonished and more happy than I’d ever seen him. The practising took long though, and he still wasn’t there yet. He must have felt the pressure too, as one day, in the 14th week of training, he told me that we had to speed up. He was very nervous suddenly. There wasn’t much time left, if he didn’t control his power before his 22 birthday, there would be no way he would ever get his master sign and he would lose his power for good. And his birthday was in two weeks already. I found it rather fishy though, why hadn’t he told me about this before? He was getting there, becoming a master slowly, but he certainly wasn’t ready for the final scroll yet. His work was still too messy and he was quite inexperienced too. I wondered whether he would get much better when there were only two weeks to go. So I asked him why he hadn’t told me earlier, but he said someone told him only now. He didn’t know either. I felt bad for him, he had never looked this hopeless before. I put my face in front of his and looked at him.

‘Listen to me,’ I said with a convincing voice, ‘you’ll make it, and I’ll help you.’

He smiled, ‘I know you will.’

I gave him a hug, ‘good!’

‘You know, normally an Elder must say whether you can start with the last scroll or not, but all The Elders are dead.’

‘I’m your mentor, remember? I say that you can make it, if you do your absolute best!’

So we practised harder, even though I got weaker and weaker, I slept terrible lately and it was hard for me to think well. The dizziness and nausea in the morning got worse and worse. I put up with it, he was more important now. Two weeks to go, he did splendid. He worked harder than all those weeks before. And as time seemed to go faster and faster, the day was suddenly there.

 

This morning, Chen had sung him awake and surprised him with a fruit salad and an extensive breakfast. When he went over to Cara, she had searched all night for his favourite fruits and vegetables. It was not much she’d given him, but to him it meant the world. It was the only thing she could give him, he knew she was sick so it made her present even more special. He was so nervous for today. Today it had to happen, Tao had told him. He said that Chanyeol would lose his power if he didn’t become a master the day he turned 22. And Chanyeol didn’t want to lose his power, not when he had come this far. He looked at Cara, although she didn’t show it, he knew that she was nervous too.

‘Let’s open the last scroll.’

‘But you don’t master anything perfectly yet!’

‘I have no choice, Cara.’

‘But what if you fail?’

He remained silent.

‘I don’t know, normally, when the last scroll gets opened, I’d have the time of exactly one week, if I haven’t done the sequence perfect before that time, I will never become a master. But…’

He stopped for a minute.

‘What is it?’ Cara got a bit impatient, probably because of the nervousness.

‘Based on what Tao told me, I only have until the sun is gone. It’s almost on its highest point now, that means I only have half of the time of a day.’

Cara sighed, ‘okay, let’s start then.’

They opened the scroll and saw that a sequence of movements were carefully drawn on it. Now Chanyeol sighed. He memorized all the different movements together with Cara.

‘Okay, I got this, I can do this.’

He got ready, ready to try this for the first time. Cara looked at him, full of expectation. She would help him by screaming the right order of movements. He started off really well but messed up somewhere in the middle.

 

In the middle of the sequence, while he was keeping a fire in his hand, he suddenly stopped and screamed. What was he doing? What was wrong? Everything went pretty well, or was it just me that thought so?

‘I made it way too big.’

‘The fire in your hand? No, it was perfect!’

‘No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t perfect, and it should’ve been perfect.’

‘I think it was great, you were doing so well!’

‘No, it was not. You don’t understand, if this is not perfect enough, I will fail.’

‘I do understand, listen to me. You. Were. Doing. Great. Believe in your mentor, okay?’

Chanyeol nodded. This must be horrible for him. I admit, I was pretty nervous too. But Chanyeol, god, he must’ve been way worse. I understood that he was taking it out on me, it annoyed me a bit, but I understood. I would probably have done the same thing. Luckily, Momo wasn’t here, otherwise he would go all out on him. We told Momo it was the best if he kept an eye on who was entering their valley, this way he was out of the fire’s reach and I was a little safer too. I looked up, the sun had passed the highest point in the sky now. I sighed.

‘Okay, come on! Try it again!’ I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible, but he only faintly smiled at me as he started the whole sequence over. And over. And over. He kept messing up something. Sometimes, he made slight mistakes that I barely noticed. Sometimes, he said he made mistakes while I didn’t even notice anyting at all. Sometimes, he made huge mistakes that resulted in fire everywhere. He had to be more careful. The sun slowly came closer and closer to drowning into the big sea. There was not much time left. Barely enough to do the whole sequence one last time.

He took a deep breath, ‘it’s now or never.’

 

He started the sequence, fire danced in front of my eyes, for the last time this afternoon. This time however he did great, absolutely great. He had reached the fire-dragon-technique. After this one, there was only one left. Changing into the huge phoenix. He could do this, he had done this thousands of times, he was going to make it! The sun however, slowly sank into the sea, only the upper edge was still visible. He surely had to rush now.

 

‘Only the phoenix to go, I’m going to make it!’ was the only thought that flew through Chanyeol’s mind. He inhaled deeply, focused and tried to make the correct movements that would turn him into a fiery phoenix a few seconds later. He looked at Cara, but she wasn’t looking at him, she looked at the sun. Chanyeol lost his focus and turned towards the sun, there was still some time left. He inhaled another time, closed his eyes and tried again. He felt the heat of the fire spinning around him, and he changed into a magnificent phoenix. Chanyeol spread his wings and went up a little, he spread them again and he floated three or four metres in the air. He had to stay like this for at least thirty seconds. He opened his eyes, he wondered whether Cara was looking at him, he knew this was her favourite of his abilities. But she was looking at the sun again, opened wide. He turned his head around and looked at the sun. But which sun? The sun had disappeared a few seconds ago. Chanyeol felt that his heart dropped and his stomach turned upside down. This was it. He lost complete focus and control of the fire around him, but he didn’t care. All the fire around him, that had created the majestic phoenix before, now turned towards the first material object that it could touch, him. All the fire attacked Chanyeol, hurt Chanyeol. He was literally on fire and this time it hurt. When the fire started to turn against him, he was still floating, but now he could feel himself falling down. A muffled smack. Chanyeol had fallen on his back and had trouble breathing. He was covered in burns.

 

I couldn’t look at this. Not another body covered in burns. They weren’t as bad as those from Custos once were, but it reminded me so much of him. I turned away and started to cry, then I turned back. I had to help Chanyeol. He was breathing fast and squeaky, it sounded gruesome.

I took his hand, ‘easy, Chanyeol. Easy. You’ll be fine, everything will be okay.’

He breathed slower now, he calmed down.

‘I’m going to get Momo, and Momo is going to get help, does that sound like a good idea?’

Chanyeol nodded.

 

Soon I rushed towards the cave, not too far from Chanyeol, I wanted to keep him in my vision. I called Momo’s name as loud as I could. He had probably heard me, because he suddenly jumped in front of me, out of the bushes.

‘Momo, Chanyeol is in trouble. Get someone, it doesn’t matter who!’

Momo nodded and ran off as fast as possible. I hurried back to Chanyeol.

‘Momo is going to get help, it’ll be okay now.’

I laid down next to him and hugged him. I hold him as tight as possible.

‘You’ll be okay, don’t worry.’

‘Hide… They’ll… Find you…’ Chanyeol whispered, it still sounded squeaky.

‘No, I’ll stay with you, I’m not leaving you till I know you’re in good hands.’

‘Go…’

‘No.’

Chanyeol closed his eyes and sighed, I didn’t know whether he sighed because he found me annoying or because he was in pain. I kept holding on to him anyway. Not planning to let go soon. There I was, holding on to him for ten minutes, twenty, thirty. Then suddenly, out of nothing but air, a boy popped up. He had black hair and warm, dark brown eyes, that seemed confused right now. His mouth fell open, but he quickly recovered.

‘Who are you? What are you doing here? You’re not allowed to be here!’

 

Why isn’t she going away? Chanyeol’s eyes were still closed, but he recognised Kai’s voice. He didn’t understand, she was doomed now, Kai has seen her, there was no way that Kai would be okay with Chanyeol keeping a secret girl over here. Why isn’t she running away?

 

I quickly sat up straight and stammered, I had totally forgotten about the fact that I wasn’t very welcome over here and that these people would probably want to kill me if they find out where I came from.

‘I… I am…’

The boy came closer to me, I nearly stopped breathing. He was right in front of me now. I tried to turn my face away, but he grabbed my chin, and looked me in the eyes. He then studied my whole face, it seemed like he did this with a lack of understanding what he was actually looking at. Like he couldn’t believe I was a real person.

‘Who are you?’

I tried to turn my face out of his grip, but he kept holding on to me and forced me to look at him.

‘It’s not important right now, Chanyeol is important.’

The boy blinked a few times and let go of me, he turned to Chanyeol.

‘I need to look for Lay, Chanyeol. It’s good that Momo came, you look horrible.’

The boy looked at me again, ‘I’m going to get Lay, you need to watch over Chanyeol, get him anything he asks for, you hear me?’

I nodded.

‘It’s not really a big or dangerous deal, but he is in pain. So take good care of him.’

I nodded again, and the boy disappeared, magically. He was gone, just like that. Dissolved in the thin air. I was about to wonder how the hell that was possible, as I reminded myself that that was not what I should be doing right now. I focused on Chanyeol again, I took his hand.

‘Is there anything you want?’

He shook his head.

‘Go, before more members see you.’

I started to cry, ‘I’m not going to leave you alone. Not again.’

‘Again?’

I looked at Chanyeol, there was no again. I’d never left him alone before. He was not Custos. Why did he remind me so much of him?

‘I mean… I’m just not going to leave you alone.’

I softly held his hand a bit tighter, ‘I want to be there when everything is okay again.’

‘Cara, Lay will heal me and everything will be over.’

I shook my head, tears made it impossible for me to see anything. Suddenly I heard a voice from behind me.

‘There they are! Now, I don’t know who that girl is, but she took care of Chanyeol, so I insist we don’t tell Kris or Suho.’

I looked behind me, there was the disappearing boy again, together with someone else, probably Lay. Lay’s hair was brown like oaken wood and his big brown eyes looked at me the same way those of the disappear boy had looked at me. He whispered something of which I could make up ‘wow, you were right’ but then he averted his eyes and walked over to Chanyeol.

‘What happened to him?’ Lay asked me urgently.

‘He was trying to become a master, but when his time was up, the fire turned against him.’

While I was explaining what happened, I lightly panicked again. Lay asked me to take a step back and kept his hand floating a few centimetres above Chanyeol’s forehead. He then moved his hands towards all the burns, as he kept his hands above a burn, it disappeared. Chanyeol fell into a deep sleep.

‘That’ll do,’ Lay said, satisfied.

I looked at Lay and gave him a big smile, ‘thank you very much.’

‘No problem, can you come a little closer, please?’

I walked over to him, he was at the other side of Chanyeol’s sleeping body.

‘Kneel, please.’

Slightly confused, I kneeled.

He hold both his hands above my head, I instantly felt a little better. Then he moved towards the sides of my head, one hand for each side. He smiled and took one hand away, with his other hand, he carefully my hair behind my ear. I don’t think I felt this great ever since I got here, my brain worked brighter than ever and I swear that even my vision got slightly better.

‘I could sense your pain, you had broken your skull. It was seriously damaging you from the inside. It was damaging your brain.’

My eyes widened, ‘what did you say?’

‘It could have been lethal. You are lucky I was here and felt it.’

‘I could have died?’

‘Yes, if you had walked around with this a little longer, it might have come that far.’

I hugged him, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you.’

‘It’s okay, it was nothing but my job.’

The disappearing boy coughed.

‘Lay and I better be going, we take Chanyeol with us. You could better go back to the city as well, at least make sure you’re gone. Don’t ever wander in the forest again. We have never seen you were here, kay?’

I nodded as fast as I could, ‘yes, that sounds great, thank you so much!’

‘Well, this is a goodbye then.’

The disappear-boy waved, Lay too.

‘Take good care of Chanyeol!’

Lay nodded, and the three of them disappeared. What did I have to do now? Luckily, the disappear boy and Lay thought I had just been wandering in the forest. But I had to hide, what if one of them came back? I decided to listen to Chanyeol for once, and ran to the hidden cave. I waited for a long time. Momo found me in there, he had brought some food with him and together we ate in the narrow cave. Momo curled up and allowed me to rest my head on his soft coat of hair. I fell asleep faster than I had done in weeks, thanks to Lay, my head didn’t hurt anymore. Not much later, I got woken up by the voice of someone calling my name.

 

‘And, has the boy turned into a master yet? Has your plan worked?’

‘No, he’s no master, not yet at least…’

‘You’re worthless! This time I’ll make up the plan. We need to get rid of him. We’ll toss him off the chessboard. Didn’t you tell me he’s hanging around with that girl, she isn’t a girl like other girls, remember?’

‘Yes, that’s true, she’s from outer space.’

‘Outer space, that means she’s probably an alien, right?’

‘I think so…’

‘Aliens are illegal, by law, they need to get killed. But helping an alien, that’s worth the highest punishment of all.’

‘You mean…’

‘Yes, the death punishment, just make sure one of the leaders gets to know about this. Preferably Kris, he’s fiercer than Suho and he deeems justice as a very important thing.’

‘But… Chanyeol will die! I can’t let Chanyeol die!’

‘You’re protecting him? That good-for-nothing boy? Listen, if you don’t handle quickly, we will die. Do you want that to happen?’

‘No…’

‘Stop crying, if you hadn’t messed up, this wasn’t needed. Now we need to get rid of that useless boy, this is the best way. Trust me.’

 

---

 

Hai hai!

 

It's been almost a month, way too long, I know, I know.. I have lots of excuses but well, I don't think you care so much for them.. ;p BUUUT, it's a 3000+ words chapter again, not filled up with background stories, I can still do it! :D

Anyway, I (finally) have a summer break and have more time to write! I also started another story this week, if you want, you can check it out! ^^ I don't know why I'm being so ambitious all of a sudden, two completely different stories at the same time haha. 

Anyway, thank you so very much, dear subscribers, for still putting up with me and this story, I hope you still enjoy it!

 

Love,

CNBlueBird