He was woken in the night by small noises around him, harsh in his ears accustomed to the dreams he was having, but he disregarded it as he always had been a light sleeper. The bat of a moths wing by his ear could wake him up often enough or the wind if it danced past the curtains and onto his sleeping form. He soon fell back asleep with little effort, the noise subsiding as footstep made their way downstairs and left the inn.

When he woke again in the morning, the sun rising late and his room was pleasantly warm to say that outside was blessed with white. He found that the other men had left the inn when he went downstairs to get breakfast and so he found himself eating in total silence. The noises he heard last night made sense now. He regretted not speaking more to them.

He was in no hurry to leave but the lady at the desk seemed impatient for him to go.

The cold of the outside bit at him when he went to saddle his horse though and he mounted still quite sleep ridden. It had snowed lightly in the night, dusting the pines with icing sugar frost, and the further north Sehun went, the colder it grew. Growing up in the south he had never dealt with much cold and the change brought a shock to his system. He was used to warm winters and even hotter summers where he'd fall asleep under trees and wake up covered in butterflies, a town where everything was dry and paintwork on houses flaked away like confetti on the ground. The only time it wasn't dry was when the autumn floods came.

Snow was not like rain. The gentle cascade was different and kissed him. Rain was merciless but snow was forgiving despite its cold nature.

He arrived in Xila with almost blue fingertips, clinging onto his horses reigns for dear life for fear of tilting off the horse with his stiff body, rigid in hopes of conserving body heat. His bones cracked like burning wood that spat and his blood felt like a solid in his body that snapped when he moved.

He had a penchant for finding inns and once there he got a hot chocolate that fitted the snowy scenery perfectly. As opposed to the patchwork of stones and timber that made up houses in his town, the shady lanes sheltered by lush green trees that flowered pink in the spring, the willows by the water that dipped into the river playfully and the clean streets that smelt like cut grass all year round, Xila was a soft layer of white upon buildings and slanted roofs that dropped snow onto people passing by. Houses made of logs and the glow of fire from windows and a feeling of forever because the snow was a constant, even if the sun shone. It was almost nightmarish to Sehun when he thought of it for long enough. Burners pinpointed the town, sources of heat for the almost frozen, and piles on coal stood by the town walls, ready for the taking for townspeople who needed safety from the cold. The town was on two layers of rock, one higher than the other and reached using stone steps, the richer a person, the higher up they lived, then right at the top, perched at the bottom of the mountains, was Castle Xila, flying its crest in a breeze that didn't exist. It was all a snapshot, frozen in place.

After warming himself up enough and not feeling like he was going to die anymore, Sehun got on with his responsibilities, making his way to the blacksmiths to pick up his employers order, the shop on the higher level of town.

'Hello, welcome to Duizhang's Defense, keep your hands where I can see them.' the icy looking shop keeper said, monotony in his voice like he'd already said it one thousand times before. There was nobody else in the shop apart from them and so he was watched with full attention, a stare that burned.

'I'm here for Woo-jin's sword.' Sehun passed over the slip of paper with all the details on. The shop keeper nodded after furrowing his brows, the feature most striking on his face. He left the counter for a moment, Sehun curious as he went to the back room and pushed things around determinedly until he found the correct weapon. When he brought it out he held it proudly. 'Tell him that if he lets it rust I'll personally kill him. Same goes for if he doesn't get it sharpened regularly.'

Sehun nodded vigorously, slightly fearful of the shopkeeper and his scornful gaze. 'Okay, repeat after me...Yifan will kill you if you let it rust or blunt.'

Sehun repeated the sentence in a drawl until he seemed pleased enough. 'You came all this way on your own? You look young.'

'I'm eighteen.' Sehun rolled his eyes despite his own excitement over being left to his own devices for the time being. The excitement was wearing off though.

Yifan turned his back to Sehun. 'If you ever want a weapon custom made, you come to me okay? I use elven glass and ebony. Sometimes dragon bone if I can get it. Have you ever tried to kill a dragon? It's quite hard because...' Yifan spoke, after a while realising that Sehun wasn't particularly listening to him. Unappreciated was a word that Yifan used a lot.

He was instead looking into the large display case to the side, weapons laid out perfectly vertical to each other on a deep purple velvet rest. He would likely kill to own weapons like those. Weapons such as the void black dagger that floated in precious gems dug from the Xila Mountains, handle curved to fit the palm and the blade sharpened to an icy point. He read the carefully printed ink beneath the small knife on a display card. 'Opal'. He didn't think he'd ever wanted something so much in his whole life, but toys like that were for rich boys, and although Sehun got by and never went without, this time he would have to say goodbye to the masterpiece Yifan had created. The weapons in the case, Opal, a silvery sliver of a sword with a large gemstone embedded into the handle, and a shield with a black dragon crest, seemed to be more for display purposes rather than combat though. Practically did not usually come with a side of diamonds despite the charm they added.

'This is art.' he said to himself quietly, poring over the intricacy and wondering how such things could even be made by hand and not crafted by Gods of weaponry. There was a time as a child when he would fawn over the blacksmith, desperately hoping some knowledge would rub off on him, and although he tried, moulding metal was something we just couldn't do. Because of this he had both admiration and jealousy.

He didn't know Yifan was standing behind him until he spoke. 'You really think so?' he asked, and Sehun validated him before a small thank you. 'Come back again. You appreciate real art.' Sehun doubted he ever would though. He wasn't even sure why his employer needed a sword anyway.

He left the shop feeling cold and empty. A new sense of knowing that he thought he was happy but now without that knife he felt incomplete, and cold because Xila was even colder when given the chance to warm up. Sehun had never been materialistic but he was hollow knowing that there was something that he would never be able to have. He knew he was ridiculous.

He didn't care to stay in Xila any longer, saddling his horse and setting off straight away, eager to be out of the cold weather and back into the spring time of Senihayl. He didn't stop at the inn on the way back either, passing by completely much to his steeds dismay. When the snow began to thin and melt he stopped by a river for his horse to drink and for him to get rid of the motion sickness that had come from the rhythm of travel on twisted paths of dirt. His journey back did not feel the same. The scenery didn't repeat itself anymore but instead could be appreciated for it's individuality.

He thought of the other towns he had yet to visit. Xila was so different from what he knew and he pondered that the other villages and settlements would offer him more than the idyllic pathways of Senihayl. Lands filled with wild animals an untrodden grounds, sacred places and wizened people with stories to tell of adventure and not just rumour. Impulse never was something Sehun fell for, but with an almost full coin pouch, horse, albeit not the perfect dagger, and a bloodlust, the idea of adventure reached out for him.

A small black beetle ran up his arm and lingered there. He killed it with his thumb, washing it away in the fast flowing waters.

He slept by the river, salmon jumping upstream for him, urging him to go and wishing him luck along the way.   

He had killed a wolf once when he was younger, the results of a dare with nothing else to do to fill his time. Finding one just out of town wasn't difficult, he just had to wait by a farm at night in silence, eyes adjusted to the dark enough to see the darker shape in the distance, ears tuned finely to hear its breathing the closer it got.
 

He attacked first before it got the chance and then attacked last so it could meet its death, blood sticky on his hands as he pulled out his knife from hard muscle and skin. It whimpered as it drew final breaths and Sehun almost felt sorry if he had not the day before witnessed the same wolf gorge on a stag until just a carcass and a few stains of smeared and glistening red remained. He himself couldn't quite believe that he had managed such a feat what with his size compared to the animal and it's teeth and claws compared to his sole knife. It was strange to see it dead, waiting until the life had finally drained out of it with both anticipation and remorse.
 

He didn't care for dares anymore after that. There was no pride for what he had done, despite the admiration he received from those who told him to do it.
 

His second kill was for no reason at all except practise making perfect and liking the warmth that blood brought to his skin, painting it in eye-catching shades with stark contrast to his alabaster hands. His third kill and fourth followed in the same way, but his fifth death was unintentional and made him empty the contents of his stomach onto the floor. It was just a fawn, abandoned by its mother, on the verge of passing. Sehun helped it along in that direction, along its neck and back until it slept.
 

His kills up to eleven grew in size, and his twelfth kill was human and would be the reason he knew his actions were noticed by an unknown force.
 

He killed an innocent human being because he was angry. There was no other way of arguing why he'd done so. It was a bad day from start to end and he took it out on another in the night when he could no longer take anymore frustration, likening it all to an animal kill, breaking into their home and tipping a restless head back as his sharpened blade touched jugular and carmine seeped down a shaking neck to the beige bedsheets.
 

He didn't completely realise what he had done until it was over. The congealing blood on his hands smeared to brown iron oxidation. He didn't leave until all was quiet and the mewling had stopped and the gasps for air that would not come were diminished into the hushed night time. He would've been happy but the tear stained face said otherwise, and the glassy eyes of the other made him feel a guilt like nothing before. It was not the killing itself that took him aback, but rather how long it took for the man to die. His cuts were practised but not clean nor deep enough for a quick death and he stayed and listened until all was silent except for his own pulse in his ears. He felt it would be the least he could do. He did not know if the man had a family and he did not care to linger for enough time to find out.
 

He ran to the town stables and buried his face in his horse's mane, shushing himself and controlling the ragged breaths that cut into the night like Sehun just moments before. 'We have to go' he mumbled into her neck and she seemed to understand his panic.
 

He rode fast, wind whipping his face and pulling him back to face what he had done. He thought he would have been used to it by now but he was still so scared of what he was. He knew he had killed three people in his life, two of them just a memory, blocking them out of his mind for as long as he could remember. His only reconciliation was that they were not innocent. If they were then EXO would have recruited him two years ago. It was strange how he could forget parts of his life that he didn't need anymore. The wind kept him awake, forcing his eyes open and cooling his flushed face. The wind seemed to be his only friend at that moment, the only one to calm him.
 

He rested at the same inn from his first journey and although only a few months had passed, to Sehun it felt like years. His long forgotten home town was only a day away and he wondered what would happen if he went back that night. Would open arms welcome him or would he be shunned by the townspeople who had once loved to see him around town. He had never returned with Yifan's sword that day and so he supposed his arrival would not be a happy one, but rather one where he was run out of town and told to never bother coming back.
 

His horse was secured and he ached all over when he finally sat at one of the tables in the inn. There was a person sitting in the corner, openly staring at him and if Sehun wasn't so busy being upset with himself then he would have appreciated his cheekbones and the captivating little smile on his face, turned up at the corners. 'Are you okay?' were the first words that passed his lips, his tone almost musical and mellifluous, raised at the end of his sentence. 'You look troubled.'
 

Sehun looked up and smiled faintly out of politeness. 'I'm fine. I'm just tired.'
 

'Go to bed.' Sehun wasn't entirely sure if it was a demand or a suggestion, but he obliged to whatever it was. Usually he wouldn't have been happy with a stranger telling him what to do but for once he didn't mind. The stairs creaked under his feet and he could feel eyes watching him as he made his way upstairs. He was glad to be alone in his room.
 

Despite being so tired he found it impossible to drift off. His night was heavy and troubled with clouds of sleep and heat. His conscience was not clear enough for him to find peace in his dreams. There was a state between deep sleep and awake where he lay, unsure of what was real and was wasn't. There was no nirvana, no place he could go except for lucid dreamscapes where his flesh felt like it was melting away and this was just the price he had to pay for his crimes.
 

His sleep, when it finally came to him, began to repeat on him in restless stages. The people in his head did the same over and over until he could stand it no longer, tired of the same blank faces staring at him. He woke many times, never fully, once with a figure by his bed, his mind too misted to scream or even push himself away from what seemed like death, black robes and a shrouded hood. There was no use in making a sound because nobody would believe that he had been visited by a man wearing dark, heavy clothing in the middle of the night even if he swore it to be true.
 

The man put a cool hand to his forehead, and Sehun didn't flinch at the contact, instead welcoming the feeling it brought. Death had the softest hands.
 

'I'm so glad you're awake. You have troubled rest...but it is to be expected of a person who spends their days in horror.' he said thoughtfully, his voice softer than anything Sehun had ever heard. Perhaps it was because the night was so quiet, or perhaps he was just naturally silken spoken.
 

He made a noise of acknowledgement, a small grunt more than anything, graceless compared with the romantic tones of the other man. 'Your actions were recognised.'
 

Sehun stayed silent, the black clad figure seemingly happy to do all of the talking. 'You and I are very alike, we enjoy the silence as the night prefers it to be. I am Yixing, and I come as a speaker for EXO. We are pleased with your work and so I bear an offering to join our little family.'
 

Yixing took Sehun's silence and worked with it. 'I'm glad I have your full attention. Listen closely because we do not repeat ourselves. Halfway on the road to Haslin there is an inn where you will find a man named Jin. He is old and weak but his crimes are many and he shall die by your hand. Once he is dead I will find you again and your initiation will be complete. If you choose not to kill him however, we will not resent your decision and will not contact you again.' Eyes adjusting to the dark, Sehun could make out Yixing's face, seemingly too sweet and young to be a messenger for something that concerned murder.
 

'I will kill him.' Sehun said, unsure of his own voice that was doing the speaking after neglecting to use it for so long. Yixing nodded and bowed forward. 'Then let me grace you with this blade, thirsty for blood, and wish you luck. May your silence serve you well.' He placed the knife on the night stand and bowed once more before leaving the room. Sehun fell asleep again somewhere halfway between delight that his time had finally come and fear that EXO knew of his presence. 

comment and sub!! 

thanks for reading!