“Quiet,” Yifan urges and the others in the room instantly shut up. It’s quite clear who holds the real authority, although the tall assassin is nowhere near as important as the company he’s in.

“What’s up?” Chanyeol questions. Sehun already wants to smack him even though the next words have not yet left the prince’s mouth. When they do, however, the urge only grows. “Whatever’s going to show, it can’t hardly be scarier than mom.”

Sehun rolls his eyes, temporarily considering high treason by killing the future king and then decides against it for the sole reason that that would make him the next future king. Yifan luckily also does not seem to appreciate the eldest prince’s humour and grants him nothing but an unamused look. A smirk makes its way to Sehun’s face. Chanyeol pouts.

It’s but moments later that another disguised person joins their little group. Sehun looks over as his sister grabs hold of his arm in frightened surprise. He offers her a comforting smile, then turns to look at the newcomer again when he speaks.

“Coast is clear. Time to move. We’re almost through.”

Through what, Sehun wonders, but it’s of course Chanyeol who speaks the question aloud. Krsytal clutches at Sehun’s sleeve still, scared but surprisingly composed compared to her usual tantrums.

“The gates, your Highness,” Yifan replies to the question. Krsytal scoffs. Sehun barely manages to resist the urge to do the same. Chanyeol is stunned into silence for an actual second.

“You’re getting us in through the main gate?” The incredulous question follows only moments later, however.

“Of course not,” Yifan replies matter-of-factly. Relief sets in instantly in Sehun – and obviously in his sister as well. “You’re going through the front gate with me. The other two are going through one of the other gates respectively in case we meet with trouble. Only one of you has to get their hands on that horn, after all.”

Dread fills Sehun at those words. They’re splitting up? “I’m not letting my sister go alone. There’s only two of you here. Who’s going to go with her?”

As if called upon, a third, masked person seems to just materialise in their hiding place. “I will take her,” he says. Chanyeol stiffens in his position. Krsytal’s grip on Sehun’s arm gets painful because of the force she’s using. The silence is deafening for a moment despite the sounds of battle in the distance.

“But…”

“Sehun, shut up and go with them,” Chanyeol speaks, voice having lost all the playful jest it had still held before. His expression seems to have hardened as well, his eyes never leaving Yifan, despite his words being directed to his siblings. “Krsytal, you too. Listen to them carefully. Don’t disagree. They know what they’re doing.” A single, small nod follows his words and Yifan seems to take that as all the cue he needs.

“Let’s go then,” the assassin speaks, putting himself into motion. Chanyeol follows as if it’s the most normal thing to do in the world. Sehun sputters a little in protest, but the first newcomer steps in his line of sight and motions for him to follow.

“You’re coming with me. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe,” he hears the other stranger say to his sister and turns to look at yet another black clad man. Krsytal surprisingly lets go of his arm and follows the man into the darkness outside of their room. Sehun doesn’t get the time to protest to any of it, nor to the ridiculousness of just following total strangers into a battle zone, as his own guard just takes hold of his wrist and tugs him into motion. The moment his feet touch the ground outside of the building they’d been hiding in, they seem to move on their own, following his questionable guard as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

They’re making their way through the dark streets quickly. Sehun wonders if this kind of clear streets is even possible in the middle of a siege, but it has to be since no one comes even close to them. His guide doesn’t leave time for questions – or even proper breathing – as he keeps going. Sehun has to push himself past his limits it seems to be able to keep up.

“Over there,” his guard suddenly says, coming to such a sudden halt that Sehun unceremoniously runs straight into the other male’s back. The assassin’s stance is so solid that it feels like he ran into a stone wall and the wind is knocked out of him for a second.

“Where?” he questions breathlessly, rubbing the sore spot on his chest where the hilt of the guy’s sword collided with him. His eyes search through the darkness, only to find a large tower in front of them. Before he can ask another question – like how they got there so fast – his guard is off again and Sehun drags himself into another panting run.

Through the door they go, up the stairs and up more stairs. Even more stairs. Unending stairs. His guard always just out of arm’s reach. So many stairs. The world seems to consist only of stairs anymore. Spiralling stairs, that go on and on, never ending.

All of a sudden the stairs end and he stumbles into his guard once again since the male has stopped again. He almost falls back down the endless set of stairs, but a hand grabs hold of the collar of his robes and one solid tug brings him back onto his feet.

“Careful, Sehun.” He wonders how the man knows his name, but doesn’t get to ask. For a royal prince he’s honestly being treated poorly. But then what royal prince has to sneak into his own city? Sighing deeply, he simply follows his guard through the door into the tower room.

The bronze artefact sits solidly on its holder, as if waiting for him, even somewhat calling to him. Frowning lightly, Sehun walks closer to it. But as his hand rests on the bronze surface, he suddenly realises that if he got there first, that means Chanyeol met with trouble. He starts, turns to his guard to complain, question, panic, or just something, but the black clad guy doesn’t even give him the chance to.

“Yifan will take care of your brother. They must have been held up, that’s all,” he speaks, the dark eyes fixated on Sehun with something akin to sympathy sounding through in his voice. “Do you want your city to fall? Sound the horn.”

Sehun doubts for another moment, but the urgency in the other male’s voice reminds him of the people of his city dying outside. Leaving behind all other care, he closes the distance and grabs the artefact.

It sounds like the call echoes around the city when he blows the horn, but it is another sudden thought that makes him realise the mistake he’s made. The Horn of Defence, as he has been taught many years ago, is in fact made of gold, not bronze. What he is holding is something different entirely. He just sounded the Horn of Captivity. And those two horns should never be used at the same time by members of the royal family to avoid grave consequences. What if the echo had not been that but had in fact been Chanyeol sounding the gold horn?

It is all that flashes through his head as he lowers his hand and turns his incredulous gaze to his guard. The next moment, the silence of the night is broken by a loud roar and the world outside lights up in blinding fire.

Stunned by the unexpected turn of events, Sehun can only watch through the small window of the tower room, the destruction that falls upon his city. And then the form of his guard blocks his view, the black clad male making a run for the window and simply throwing himself through. Shocked, Sehun rushes forward, but stops dead in his tracks when his view on the city is blocked by shimmering blue scales. Another roar sounds up, much closer than the previous, and the next moment a rainstorm seems to wreck through the city.

Fear and guilt course through him as he watches the blue shimmer outside of the window ripple and move. The next moment whatever creature the scales belonged to heaves itself upwards. He sees the upward movement of scales and spikes until the window clears and his view on the city is restored. But before he can go closer, what appears to be a scaled tail flickers past the window too and the head of the creature appears a little further as it flies over the city.

It takes only one look for Sehun to recognise what is outside of the tower. He’s learned plenty about them, studied hours and hours on end until boredom would close his eyes for him. Dragons. It’s a dragon. There’s a dragon in the city. Realisation knocks him into movement, closer to the window, hands grabbing hold of the edge of the broken window so he can lean out and try to get a better glimpse at the creature.

There is not just one, is what he realises then, there are three. Three scaled creatures each roughly the size of a quarter of the city, able to spit fire if his lessons were even somewhat correct and with a viciousness that surpassed anything they’ve ever known or seen.

His city is going to be destroyed and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. In fact, he starts to think more and more that he may even have caused it. Simply because he has trusted these assassins. Well, Chanyeol told him Yifan was trustworthy… Chanyeol! Krsytal! Love for his siblings is what brings him back to the present. Pulling back from the window, Sehun doesn’t even notice the lack of blood he leaves behind after gripping tightly onto the remaining shards of glass that used to be the window.

Somehow, running down the stairs makes them look a lot less endless than going up them. He reaches the door downstairs sooner than he expects, but simply keeps going, running out into the city streets. He runs for a couple of steps before coming to a halt again as a particular realisation hits him then; it’s quiet. Not in the ‘all you can hear is fire burning because everyone is dead’ kind of way, but in the ‘there’s no more sounds of the disgusting Gurgs attacking’ way. Halting in his step, he turns his head into the direction where he was certain they were while he’d been making his way to the tower with his guard.

Don’t worry, brother. The sound is calming, soothing. He feels more at ease instantly at the mere words, a smile already appearing on his face as he turns to look at Chanyeol. But there is no one even remotely near him. Confusion comes first, then once again fear, then curiosity, then familiarity. Eventually his feelings seem to settle on distrust, however, and he does the first thing he can think of; step further into the shadows. He is right on time, because before long two shapes appear in the distance, heading over to the tower he just came from.

“What’s going on, Chan?” a more than familiar voice sounds up from the pair and instantly Sehun starts back out of his hiding spot.

“Krystal? Chanyeol?” He calls out, making both figures turn to him. Relief courses through him the moment he recognises his siblings and he instantly walks closer to them as well. “We can’t stay here,” he states even before he reaches them. “There’s dragons in the city, Chan, dragons!” Krystal’s face contorts into the disbelieving surprise he expected both his siblings to have. Chanyeol, however, simply nods his head.

“I know. It’s alright. They’re here to help,” is what his clearly insane brother tells him next.

“Help? Chanyeol, have you remembered nothing of those endless hours of dragon classes?” Sehun instantly exclaims. “They’re vicious!”

“Really?” Chanyeol simply asks, motioning towards the city which is slowly starting to become more visible in the rising light of dawn. “If they were really so vicious, do you think we would still be standing here? Do you think any of the houses would still be standing here?” Chanyeol’s gaze returns to him and Sehun finds a conviction on his brother’s face he’s never seen before. “Trust me, Se, they’re on our side.”

“Wha…” Sehun still sputters, but Chanyeol just keeps looking at him with that same expression and he grows quiet. Krystal, who just before looked like she was going to protest as well, doesn’t speak up at Sehun’s own silence. If her second oldest brother isn’t speaking up against him, that usually means that Chanyeol is right – however rare such an event may be.

Brother… The sound echoes and Sehun turns to look around them, but they’re alone amidst the abandoned part of the city they’re in. We wait for you, brother. Another turn has him bumping into his older brother, who quickly steadies him with two hands on his upper arms.

“Sehun, what’s going on?” Chanyeol questions, frowning and looking around as well, but Sehun can’t explain. He’s hearing things. Well, not even exactly that. He’s pretty sure the voice is not even a sound, more like a thought in his own head. As if he’s thinking to himself in someone else’s voice. Not Chanyeol’s voice, he realises at this point. Someone else’s. A familiar one, but still not one he can recognise straight away. He looks at his two siblings in hopes of finding an explanation with them.

The answers are on the inside, brother, not with others. The thought echoes in his mind as if spoken in threefold and he finds himself shivering at the implications. Fly, brother. Fly with us. Fly… There is an urge in those words that have Sehun look at his hands with a sense of wonder, then makes him look back up at his siblings. Krystal’s staring at him like he’s a ghost, Chanyeol is smiling almost sadly.

“You should go where you belong, Se,” he says, and there lies sadness in his voice as well, but his smile widens to a more genuine one. Sehun faintly notices Chanyeol’s arms are draped around Krystal, who is standing close to her oldest brother, almost afraid it seems of Sehun himself. “You should go to them.”

Them? He wonders what Chanyeol is talking about, but doesn’t get the time to ask as suddenly the light of the sunrise gets blocked. Krystal’s eyes nearly pop out of her head whereas Chanyeol just smiles and tilts his head a little further upward. Sehun turns his too, only to be faced with three pairs of glowing eyes, way up ahead in the sky. Still he knows their colours, instinctively almost. Copper, for Earth. Platinum, for Wind. Cerulean, for Water. The dragons themselves shimmering in the most intense yet natural Brown, Grey and Blue respectively.

And he knows, although he’s not sure how, that there is one missing. Eyes the colour of Vermillion, scales a blazing Maroon. Fire. The youngest of the Elementals and… He pauses at the next piece of information his own mind brings him, takes a step back from it and eyes it in wonder and disbelief. Yet with a hint of curiosity as well. Yes, brother. It echoes in his mind once more and he tilts his head upwards more consciously, looking at his three brothers up in the sky.

Him. Fire. He is Fire.

The knowledge, the acceptance of it, seems to split open something inside of him and as power and knowledge start to seep into him, he shifts into his true form. Maroon wings spreading, he heaves himself up into the sky, careful not to damage any of the buildings of his citizens, and joins his three brothers high up.

Welcome home, little brother. He knows the voice now, knows the human face that comes with it, despite only having seen it partly hidden behind the assassin’s mask. Yifan. The oldest. Earth.

It’s been too long, brother, welcome back. Another voice only vaguely familiar just moments before but now more than recognisable. The male who had accompanied Krystal and kept her from harm. Yixing. Second oldest. Air.

I was wondering what took you so long. It’s all that he gets from the third male, but the voice is probably the most familiar one to him at this point. He knows the face too, although it had been hidden just the same before. Luhan. Second to youngest. Water.

His brothers. Guardians of the lands. Captured within the binding magic of his so-called father, the King. Released now with help of his supposed brother, the Future King.

Brothers. He doesn’t understand in the first split second how he knew how to talk back to them, but the knowledge comes to him soon enough. The response is instant as well, the three dragons sending him waves of joy and celebration. He grins at first, then does what feels the best and throws his head up to roar.

Reunited once more.