Everyone knew about EXO. The rumours spread through the towns like wildfire, burning slowly and with control at first but soon finding its fuel and burrowing into the shells of ears until it burned bright and angry, all over until the name became infamous through hushed whispers in the streets and doors shut tight with fear. The fear was the fuel that kept them alive. 

The name was at first only uttered in Senihayl, but people being people, connections meant that word spread, soon the whole Dry Lands area hearing the name whenever they stepped out of their houses to practise in their routines. There was a film over the town that kept the rumours from dissipating and finding their deathbed that nobody cared to lift away because it kept everything interesting, the speculation was an addiction. 

That name. Three letters to put worry in even in some of the bravest souls. A word that had no apparent meaning but still instituted a thousand definitions. 

The only thing you have to do to join EXO is to kill an innocent person.  

Sehun had heard countless tales of how they committed silent murders in the night, each member with a different method of human disposal. They were silencers, surrounded by shrouds of grey mystery and pearls, kings in the hours of dark, a second opinion in the politics of the Dry Lands. There was no hiding or running away. Once EXO wanted your life to cease they would have their way, the more you ran, the angrier they became. The success rate was a crisp one hundred. 

This, strangely enough, wasn't what worried him. What stemmed fright in him most was EXO's anonymity. The members  lived amongst them and went about their lives often enough by day, but in the dark of night they killed those who needed to be rid, one day a person there and the next taken by a force that nobody had ever seen coming. 

That was the rumour anyway. 

Sehun didn't know how much truth there was in anything the towns people had to say as sometimes words could get out of hand and spill away from truth and almost into the realms of fantasy. Not everything was to be believed. Working in the tavern had it's advantages though. Weary travellers frequented The Lakelands Inn and brought their words with them from afar, much more interesting than the stories gone stale from their overuse. With ales in their veins they spoke freely and Sehun didn't have to strain his ears much to hear what they had to say.  He could quite easily pretend to clean the bar right next to where they spoke, or he could frequent the room just as well collecting tankards and catch the snippets of what he wanted to hear. They were not quiet with their speech anyway, inviting curious listeners to take them in.

EXO just got a new member. They call him Mantis. He's the youngest yet. 

They've started putting up posters. You must have seen them? The towns guard don't dare to rip them away from walls in case they become the next targets. 

Have you seen their calling cards? A friend of mine stumbled across one of the guards sorting out the scene and there were playing cards scattered all around the room. I don't see the point. 

Sehun wanted in. Pure and simple. 

He was not a natural born killer, but he had grown to resent. Although working in the tavern allowed him to hear of EXO, it also opened his eyes to other horrors in the Dry Lands. The murder, the thievery, the assaults and the lying. 

Whilst seen to kill anyone that had had the misfortune to get on their bad side, the reality was of pure intention to clean the streets of the immoral and depraved, one step closer to utopia with every loss of life. 

EXO were not murderers. They were redemption. They were assassins, hired to kill. 

Sehun didn't know who he'd kill. He didn't particularly understand why EXO asked for an innocent person to be killed when they were supposedly about ridding evil. He had to kill somebody that didn't deserve to die, and he had no idea who that might be. It was not often that he would stumble across someone who had sinned so badly that they needed to be put to death. He was sure that the guilt would cling to him for as long as he lived, following him around as a second shadow and weighing down on him. A heavy price to pay for what he wanted most. 

Nonetheless he practised every day for when his time would come. His small knife was not elegant but it served it's purpose well enough. It drew blood and that was all he asked of it. It was a gift for his sixteenth birthday but now two years had passed and he was more that efficient in using it, whether it be for throwing or gouging or slicing, thin but deep lines made with the sharp edges in whatever he could lay his hands on. He was not stylish in his work but he was efficient and quick. There was no art in his work, no signature to mark it as his own, but there was passion as his medium and the canvases did not matter. The cochineal on his fingertips allowed him to play with swirls thick in viscosity, brushes unnecessary for his masterpieces. The pace was sometimes slow if he wanted it to be that way, putting twists into his blade and if someone was to watch him they may label him with madness but he knew better than that. No madness. Only retribution. 

He found that he could coat his blade tip in substances to cause different effects on a target, poisons to cause sickness, paralysis, or hallucination. He spent his early morning and evenings roaming the wild lands looking for flora to extract the essence of; bergamot to silence, frost salts to damage, peony to lower speed. Alchemy became life to Sehun, taking his hours until all he could do was sleep and think of new things to interlace with each other to create the most horrifying of effects. There was nobody to test on though, and Sehun had stopped being his own patient a long time ago in case the damage was permanent. 

He read books on stealth and athletics to try to improve himself further, and lifting the barrels of ale in the tavern's basement succeeding in increasing his muscle. If life was a test of improvement then he was getting the highest score he could.  

As his skill increased and his days drew nearer, the rumours accumulated alongside. 

I heard that Candlelight almost got arrested last night. EXO have too many connections with the towns guard. It makes me uneasy. We can't trust anybody, not even those who are meant to protect us. 

The one they call Shadower wears coal dust on his hands before he kills. That's creepy if you ask me, marking things like he owns them or something. 

He was fed with them, raised on them, filling his curiosity nicely enough for the time being. 

Sometimes when the landlord could tell that Sehun was listening too intently he would send him out on errands. The list in his hands would surely take him all day and Sehun sighed as he told the grocer what he needed. His days had become noticeably repetitive as of late with errands and dagger play. If there were no lists to fulfil then Sehun may be sent to the cellar to check the food stores, or to the stables to check on the horses, or on one occasion to conduct a customer survey on ale quality which he did not find interesting at all. He refused to do it at all, spending his day amongst the flowers and the butterflies, making up the answers his boss wanted to hear. 

"It's not good for you to listen to such filth." The landlord had said to Sehun when he caught him eavesdropping. "There's really no such thing as EXO. It's something the royals made up to keep everyone from behaving without order." Sehun disregarded his employer entirely though. He had worked there long enough to know that he was an idiot. Perhaps he only said such things because he too deserved to die at EXO's cold hand. Was he an innocent man? 

One particularly cold day when Sehun went to work at the tavern he was sent not around town to pick up the food orders, but instead to another town, at least two days journey away. He was told to take the horse and he nodded solemnly, telling himself that he didn't get paid enough for all his efforts. 

He set off with heavy cloaks and his boots of thicker leather, fearful of the cold and the idea that it could get worse. Sehun was a spring time person but winter was close enough for him to wince. Blankets were laid out on the horse, both for it's warmth, and for Sehun's comfort above the hard saddle. He'd never left the town alone before for lack of trust and he didn't quite know whether to be nervous or excited at the new freedom. His stomach couldn't seem to decide either, a sick feeling residing there. 

The emotion he was feeling however, was boredom. The gravel track went on endlessly and the scenery changed only little. His path was lined with infinite trees and rocks that seemed to have just been copied and pasted along the road, the only difference in his travel being the occasional deer skipping out in front of him and bringing with them all the joy in the world then skittering away and taking it along with them so there was none left for anyone else. He had nothing to do but look ahead at the few differences and he wondered when nature had managed to get so repetitive. When he was a young boy the areas outside of town brought him affection for all things natural but he was obviously not let out far enough from the town walls to realise that it had nothing more to offer than replication. The cold bit harder the further he went and there was little else to do but dwell in it, sulking about not being at home in a warm bed. 

With the night drawing in, Sehun's journey began to feel more dangerous as he led himself to believe that shadows lurked in every crevice, following after him and asking for him to slow down to stay the night with them. Noises that would once mean nothing now sparked nerves and made his skin itch. An inky sky and cold did not slot together well. 

He prayed for light and was shortly answered. 

He arrived at an inn with a sore backside and tired eyes. With his horse in the stables and safely tucked away, Sehun made his way to the front of the inn. It wasn't busy and the young lady at the oak desk guided him to his room for lack of anything else to do. He laid his things on the bed, softer than he expected for a place in the middle of nowhere, and made his way downstairs to the tavern to see if he could get something to eat. It was a nicely rustic place, mostly wooden with accents of copper and steel, and the addition of a boar's head mounted on the wall next to the Xila and Senihayl town crests, one a brown bear and the other a stag. The oak tables were empty apart from two men who sat in the corner, speaking in soft tones to each other. They were interesting to Sehun, the first man with a soft, caring face and hair dark against his pale skin, dressed in wool and felt, and the second man more slight and deer like, dainty with large eyes that screamed mischief and never seemed to focus solely on one thing. The latter fluttering in his seat until the other man put a hand on his shoulder to subdue him.  

Companionship was sometimes a strange concept to Sehun. He had always been quite secluded as a child with lack of people his own age and fear from his mother in the streets of the Thieves Guild taking away the pale, sickly child despite knowing that they had no business taking children. It was nice to see the two men laughing together as they huddled over some pieces of paper that may have been maps or floor plans or something. 

Whatever it was they were being secretive about it, but Sehun knew that many dealings in the Dry Lands were of a bad and suspicious nature, if not for the cause of exploration.  He had once had the misfortune to meet a few cave explorers who boasted of butchery and treasure, the pair of them carrying far too much on their backs, an accumulation of unused weapons and potions that served no purpose except slowing  them down in their journey. He sincerely hoped that the young men at the table had nothing to do with such things. 

Sehun walked up to the girl at the front desk, a pleasant smile resting on his face. "Have you heard any rumours of EXO?" He asked her quietly. He hadn't intended to ask but his time away from the Senihayl tavern seemed to give him withdrawal symptoms from lack of idle talk. 

"They've been quiet for some time now. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they strike soon." she said thinly, writing names in the lodge book. Her tone was flat and she crossed her arms against her chest. "I'm tired  of people asking about them, you're the third this week." Sehun was about to apologise, but then turned sharply when one of the two men spoke up from the back of the room.

"I heard that they're planning something big, right Junmyeon?" The doe-eyed boy said ominously, his voice just as pretty as his face. The other man, Junmyeon, hit his arm hard. He looked exasperatedly at his opposite and shook his head."You know that EXO rumours aren't true." he shrugged. "Come on, let's go to our rooms. We have a busy day tomorrow." 

Sehun watched them as  picked up their documents and trudged upstairs, hearing them above head as they prepared to go to sleep in their respective rooms. He noticed that one of them made a lot of noise whilst the other made none. 

"Do you get a lot of travellers here?" he asked the lady. It was a stupid question and he regretted asking it. She nodded her head then yawned, and Sehun took this as his cue to find sleep of his own. According to the sky outside it was beyond late, one moon large by the window, the other just as bright but further away, orbiting at a slower pace than its sister. This second moon was the one that dictated time, the first the movements of the tides, working in a perfect harmony to grace the Dry Lands with just enough light to get through the later hours. 

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(the parts in bold and italics are the rumours Sehun hears if you didn't catch on~)