The truth is not always something you want to hear....

A week went by since their escape from Manoa. They kept off the roads, trudging through the forest and trusting Chanyeol to lead them to Alor. Days seemed to get longer and Baekhyun grew weary of being on such a fast-paced journey. Occasionally, they would take turns keeping watching at night to watch out for Tracers.

Baekhyun could see that his brother was not any better. Jongin fell into an inconsolable depression, worsened by the nights. He would wake up gasping as if someone was choking him in his sleep.

Baekhyun had panicked the first night. The plan was to run in the shade of night, at least to get enough distance so that the soldiers couldn't track them. He went to wake up his sleeping brother only to find the latter unconscious and not breathing.

Chanyeol had quickly concocted some mush from herbs he pulled from his bag and shoved them down Jongin's throat, which abruptly woke the boy.

"A nightmare," Jongin had tried to explain the weird blackout, "like I was being trapped underwater. I couldn't breathe, and the blue was........"

Those words would haunt Baekhyun for the entirety of their journey for it was the first time he had ever felt so helpless.

His brother refused to speak about what had happened in Manoa, and truthfully Baekhyun was grateful because he wasn't quite sure he could handle the subject with everything else on top of that.

The sun had set and they were all crowding around a campfire that Chanyeol put together.

Baekhyun had to admit, having the lanky man had been incredibly useful. Chanyeol had shown them how to pick the right fruits in the forest, which roads to avoid, and which streams to drink from. And the man had volunteered for most of the nights to stay up and watch.

No one knew how he could go without sleep for so long and still have so much energy. The chatter was non-stop like Chanyeol was spewing out every bit of knowledge he had gained within his first years as a Trader to the rest of the group.

No one really minded either, save for Jongin who would go through mood swings - one time comfortably walking beside Kyungsoo and another time not even acknowledging his presence. Poor Kyungsoo didn't even know what to make of it.

Baekhyun was used to it, though - he could see the inner turmoil going on within his brother's brain. Jongin was trying to decide whether to forgive Kyungsoo or not. In reality, it took only two days for his brother to completely forgive Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun  endlessly for it.

Jongin was never good at staying mad.

Truthfully, Baekhyun was a bit jealous of their sudden friendship, not that it was never there. It's just that he felt his role as an elder brother slipping away, and he wasn't ready to let go, especially not after what had happened.

Surprisingly, Sehun's presence had been more consoling than he could imagine. Time seemed to go by faster when he was able to play random games or chat about different sparring techniques with the silver-grey-haired boy. Sehun was a kind young man, he would always laugh at his jokes or smile sweetly back at him.

"You okay?" Sehun would question, patting his head as if he were older.

Baekhyun would swat his hand away every time. "Hmmm.."

"You should sleep, you didn't get as much last night."

"I'll be fine." Baekhyun would chuckle, "I am older than you, you know?" he would smirk quizzically.

This time, though, Baekhyun caught a slight rouge creeping into the ears of the young soldier and that was the start of their friendship.

"Chanyeol, how much longer?" Kyungsoo asked. They were resting against a large tree trunk with Jongin, who was seconds from sleep - his head bobbing from weariness.

"Get rest tonight, we should reach by noon tomorrow. Hey!" Chanyeol poked at Jongin with his makeshift cane [a/n: Its just a stick, Chan =_=].

"Wha..?" Jongin rubbed his eyes, a big yawn stretching his jaw.

"Sleep properly. There's no point in you staying awake," Chanyeol scolded.

Jongin nodded, curling himself into the ground and pulling his coat over his head - leaving Chanyeol to face the very intense stare from Kyungsoo.

"What?"

But Kyungsoo didn't answer, just simply walked off with a gruff as if he couldn't stand being near the man.

The fire flickered to a dim as some of them, one by one, slowly drifted to sleep. Well, except Chanyeol, who had volunteered to stay awake.

He had mainly done so in order to keep check on Jongin and make sure the boy didn't stop breathing during one of his nightmares again. But Jongin was sleeping soundly, a light snore fleeing his breath. 

Chanyeol leaned up against another fallen trunk, staring up at the vast collection of bright orbs that twinkled in the sky. The crackle of the fire was soothing, familiar. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a shadow emerging from the trees.

He stood up, his makeshift cane [*cough* stick] held across him. He scrunched his eyes to see better through the dark.

"It's me," Baekhyun's voice followed.

"What the hell?" Chanyeol remarked, "I could've killed you!"

Baekhyun chuckled and pointed, "With that?...yeah right." He tossed a small bundle over to the man.

"Here, for breakfast."

Chanyeol caught it, his eyes widened as he peeked into the sack.

"I didn't know you could hunt" he voiced, surprise on his face.

Baekhyun shrugged, "There's a lot you don't know about me." He slumped down onto the trunk, pulling out a flask and gulping down an unnatural amount of water.

"These are really hard to catch," Chanyeol took out what looked like an abnormally large and now limp bunny from the bag, "and harder to kill," he pointed at the sharp fangs protruding from the bunny's mouth.

"What can I say?" Baekhyun smirked proudly, "I'm just that good."

"Right..." Chanyeol cringed as he proceeded to clean the game, removing the fur, and slicing out portions to slow cook in the charcoal.

As far as he could remember, Baekhyun had never been that fast. At least not enough to catch a Sky rabbit - they were original to Manoa, known to be fast, abnormally fast, and one bite from their fangs and you'd be paralyzed in bed for days.

Although, his friend had always been hard to read, especially when it came to situations such as these. So he didn't make much of a fuss about it, not knowing. But what bothered him the most was that Baekhyun didn't seem to have any weapon on him, not even a pocket knife.

So how exactly did he kill the creature?

He looked up to see the other watching him or rather his hands as he sliced at the meat - the red-orange of the campfire reflected in Baekhyun's eyes - dancing. It only took a moment but he saw a glimmer, of something he had never seen before. Something he thought he recognized. But it was gone in a flash when Baekhyun caught him staring, a -ed yawn erupting from his lips as he slowly laid down beside the flame, his arm crossed over his eyes.

"Wake me up when it's ready," he muttered and then fell asleep.

Chanyeol was left to his thoughts then, at the strange oddity of it all. There was so much he still didn't know about the two brothers, well, adopted brothers. He had arrived in Manoa a year after Kyungsoo's "death" and even through years of trying to gain the brother's friendship, there was always this invisible line he could never cross.

At least Baekhyun would never let him cross it.

He was still concerned about the blood link between the Ancient weapon and Jongin. There was something unsettling about it; the way it had linked to the boy so suddenly. In truth, there was not much material on the Ancients, most of the stories were erased from history and the few who knew of it kept their mouth shut for fear of the wrath of the Red King.

There was a journal, however, in Joonmyun's library - Chanyeol remembered and he was hoping it would have some answers when they reached Alor the next day. It was a book he had stumbled upon in his youth, it had a story about a strange prophecy, and he remembered reading bits that Ancients would only ever link with those with the tendency to use dark magic. He had not gone through all of it, Joonmyun had caught him reading and taken it away.

He would have to figure out where Joonmyun had hidden it. He stooped down to turn the meat,