Daesung awoke blearily, his body sore and stiff in a way he had no memory of. He felt like an iceburg adrift in the Atlantic, like some of the Albatros had told him about when he'd followed EXO-M's pod to British Columbia (the leader, Kris, was visiting his mother and the rest of the pod had wanted to come). Even his magic was sluggish, the first thing that sent a terrified bolt down his spine and rousing him completely from his unnatural slumber. 

Sitting up was an arduous task, but once he'd managed to get his hands under him and push up, he found himself looking at a blank white room - sterile, but in an unfriendly way. No doctor or patient would appreciate this horrible, sickly box. There weren't even any other fixtures in the room, only small vents close to the ceiling. It sprewed white mist into the room that vapourized, but he knew that it remained, locked with him behind the thick fourth glass wall.

A Hunter stood there, looking down at him the same way Seungri looked at locusts - disgust and mistrust coupled with venom and loathing. By human standards, this girl couldn't have been more than twenty. She had an impish face, like Seungri did, with baby fat clinging to her jaw and shoulders, though there was undeniably power in those wicked limbs. 

"Like it in there?" She asked, voice blank but eyes sneering. 

HIs body felt thick, slow to respond. It felt like he had to break his shoulders out of thick stone to move them, and even then they were unwilling and sluggish. 

She pointed idly to the vents. "Liquid nitrogen. Not too much, not too little. We don't want to kill you yet."

Oh. Oh.

Daesung was a deep-sea creature and cold didn't affect him like other things. But freezing was not something he was immune to, considering that when he didn't hold his outer shell together, he was completely salty water inside. 

"I gotta say, though, it's been interesting to watch you." She commented flippantly. "Sirens don't come out of the water and are so difficult to catch. I've never got to see one up close before. You're an interesting one, for sure. I'm almost sorry to see such a specimen go."

He lowered his head, collapsing his body in on itself in a vain attempt to keep warm. 

"Funny, though." She mused. "No matter what we did to you, those four little hole scars on the back of your neck don't leave. Where did you get them, I wonder? Maybe there was something else in Incheon other than you four. Doesn't matter. Your home is charcoal and we'll leave it to the archaeologists of the future to decide whether our preservation of you was whole enough."

He shivered, terror tingling across his body worse than any chill. Seunghyun's fang marks on the nape of his neck, usually hidden by his hair, were burning. It was searingly painful, but at the same time he was grateful. Pain kept him focused, awake and functioning, as well as a warmth settling in his soul that was not as easily daunted by the cold as his waters were. 

Seungri wanted to die. Thick, arid air and empty sand filled his little boxy room and it was draining the life out of him. 

There was no water, no life, to recourse to grow here and as the hours passed, it leeched the water right out of him. He felt brittle and vulnerable, something being in the fertile bend of Incheon and trapped between Daesung and Seunghyun had never occurred to him. It was suffocating, like his soul was being burned away from the outside in.

He never thought he'd ever feel the same things he did when his forest was ripped out of him, and he definitely hadn't expected it to work oppositely when it came back around. 

"It looks good on you."

Seungri would have scowled if he wasn't afraid of part of his face falling off as he decayed. As it was, his head grass was a sickly white, robbed of all substance during his starvation. He knew his voice wasn't trees-whispering-in-the-wind anymore, but he spoke anyway. 

"Choke."

"Swallow." The man smirked back, a middle-aged decrepid sickness. 

"Only on special occasions."

The man huffed a soft laugh, almost fond, but too cynical. "Don't you think dehydration counts as a special occasion?"

His lips quirked without his permission. "If you let me blow Daesung, I'll make the show worth your while."

"Naughty, naughty. A dryad and a Siren? What kind of unholy games have you been playing behind closed doors?"

"What can I say? He's a tall drink of water."

"Promises won't save you now." The man continued to smile. 

"I'm well aware." He replied, sitting down at the back of the room and facing him blankly. "But that doesn't mean I have to go down quietly."

"Cute."

He shrugged. "I'm not worried."

"Maybe you should be."

Seungri ran his hand through his grass, his fingers lingering a beat too long on the fang marks on the back of his neck, feeling the furor in the burn. "Whatever."

Jiyong had cloaked the room in darkness, unwilling to let the wicked Hunters see him weak and nervous. His hand was clasped over his neck like a prayer as he huddled in a corner, fearful and nervous. He wanted to back home to Seunghyun's small house in Incheon, bask in the beach sunlight and snooze on the sunwarmed rocks. 

"You can't possibly have the energy to keep it up forever, dragon." The Hunter he'd awoken to calling out to him. Jiyong knew he was correct too, but he was stubborn and would rather die in his murk than exposed to these villains. He would wrap himself in his power and weaken to nothing, become pummus and ash before he would let them see his suffering. 

"Antisocial, hmm? That's fine. We have camera in there that can sift through that voodoo of yours, don't worry. Even if you can't see us, we will always be able to see you."

He didn't believe that. His darkness wasn't something to be pierced by some lackwit's machines. Absolutely not.

His room was small, perhaps the size of a fridge box. He felt confined and restricted, his mind screaming at him to escape back to the sky. This was no comforting surrounding, like his mother, Thera, nor the sweet, cool embrace of Daesung. No, this was cruel and choking and mental agony. It had been such an adjustment to Seunghyun's home, assisted only by the feeling of Seungri, breathing life, and Daesung, lethargic tide, bracketting his sleeping form, Seunghyun's sky-born hand caressing his hair. Sometimes he was still afraid, the claustrophobia getting him worked and restless, but Daesung's sweet voice would lull him, and later, Taeyang's unquenchable heat. 

He wanted one of them here with him now, and the only thing keeping him grounded was Seunghyun's burning on his neck. He just wanted to live peacefully with his family, coven, whathaveyou, and sleep, eat, fly. He wanted to hear Daesung sing, nuzzle Seungri's mossy scalp, cuddle Taeyang's furry fire (and bask in their kindred flame) and purr himself to sleep as Seunghyun over his scales. 

The thought that he may never see them again only stoked his fears. His solitary nature had been overtaken by affection and though their roundabout family was new, it wasn't something he was willing to let go of so easily. 

Idly, as the Hunter banged on the glass once more to try and garner his attention, he wondered how much of his death TOP would feel.

Taeyang was a snarling mess, having rubbed raw and torn his skin as he pulled and writhed in his shackles. 

The Hunter out front of his cage had found himself a chair, smirking and laughing as he yanked once more so violently that he dislocated his arm. He didn't care. He wanted out, needed out. He was so livid, even without food and water, that his hair was ablaze and his teeth had all sharpened isnide his mouth. Oh, he was furious.

He wasn't violent - his kind didn't even hunt like werewolves did. He wasn't vicious, outside of his sometimes sharp words, and he most certainly was more tolerant than this. But something in him was triggered once he woke up in chains and he had been a roaring, raging beast of a man ever since, his hair immediately setting itself aflame and his spin glowing a molten reddened yellow. 

"You're such a bad dog." The Hunter chastised. "Took at you, trying to destroy the furniture and tearing up the living room. What are we ever going to do with you?"

He snarled, thick and ugly, and lunged once more, unflinching at the way the heavy steel dug straight into the unprotected flesh of his throat. He would cut off his own head if only he got to tear this man's throat out. Oh, he was so blinded by the bloodlust in his mind.

"You're not any good to us dead, mutt, so the least you can do is heel."

He gripped the chains close around his hands, dug his fingernails so hard into his palms they pierced the skin, then howled so loudly the man in front of him jerked off his chair, having to cover his ears. He slammed some button on the wall near the glass, a minty looking air poured into the room and Taeyang went slack, suspended in metal from the ceiling, the four puncture marks on the back of his neck staying molten long after he slumped down. 

" . . . hung for crimes against humanity - the threat their existence is to us."

Daesung only moved through resonated force as his face was struck. There was a sickening crack when the cane came down on Seungri's arm. Jiyong was bound tightly, an electrified collar jerking him awake again and again. Taeyang was bolted to the floor, chains on all of his extremedies and a muzzle on him. Noen of them knew that the human crowd thought of them. Some looked on with pity, others with confusion, most with blankness. 

"They may look human, but I assure you, they are not." The man speaking boomed across the speakers. "They are dangerous, but we have subdued them and before you, we will judge them."

A rough-looking young woman hauled Daesung up to the podium and locked him into the chair.

"This is a Siren, a folk known for luring sailors and beachgoers alike into the waters to eat them alive and sink their ships into the depths of the ocean to steal its wealth." The man announced. "We'll demonstrate. Jinho, make him sing."

The stuck something into his neck, but he didn't flinch. His blue lips opened and his throat shaking as he began, his voice raspy and weak.

"On the Morning Tide,/we'll hoist the sails to brave the crashing waves,/ won't you come with me,/and hear the ocean sigh,/and if to its depths it called us by our names,/ won't you sail to the shore with me . . . "

The people began to murmur, because Daesung's singing, no matter how poor, was a powerful force. He moved them to sorrow, his own suffering and longing laced into the ringing tone. 

"Ensnared already, are you? Did his song move you to sympathy for this vile creature?" The man rose in pitch, eyes on the crowd. "That is his magic, not his emotion. He does not know how to feel, only how to kill and that's what he'd been doing. Don't lie to yourselves and fall for his innocent looks. All of them are evil, violent creatures who'll-"

The lights of the stage blew out, along with the lamplight around the square. Even the lights inside the Hunters' home, the Tower of Saviours, went out. Golden lightning flashed across the sky, the boom loud enough to feel and strong enough as it struck the Tower's surface to blow out the glass. 

Taeyang, the only one able to twist enough to look around, spotted a tall man in black moving through the crowd.

"What the hell?" Jinho whispered, hands on Daesung's shoulders, though it was very obvious that part of his inner chest cavity had been frozen, along with his eyes, because they were closed and unmoving. He looked deathly ill. Seungri, too, was in particularly poor condition. His eyes were open, but void and the mosses and lichens that had once grown over his body were gone, died off. He looked almost like a rought wooden puppet, his hair hard and crunching when touched. Jiyong's wild eyes traced over the crowd, begging through his gag for help while Taeyang looked on, resigned and frustrated at himself for it. 

From within the crowd, there came a faint glow, like someone released the essence of dawn from a jar. 

"Don't let me interrupt you." A deep, liquid voice filled the ampitheatre. 

Humans moved aside as a man, dressed in black and hair a crystaline white, standing off his head, but still looking soft and flexible. His eyes were closed and he was looking down, but he slowly shed his jacket, then his vest, his dress shirt, his undershirt. All along his body were white-hot glowing runes, scriptures lit from behind to shine out at the reader. The closer he got, the stronger the light got until he was illuminating the whole theatre. 

"Kill him!" The man commanding the ceremony cried out, but the walking man raised his hand and the same golden lighting struck from nowhere, searing the Hunters reaching for weapons. It struck Jinho, dropping her to her knees with a scream. "What the ?!"

The walking man opened his eyes and those who attempted to meet his gaze were blinded by the glare of the sun trapped within. "Should not the most feared legends come from somewhere? And should they have been vanquished, do you not think those responsible would brag until history wrote them in to silence them before death?"

The man on stage went white. Taeyang and Jiyong looked at each other, still not quite sure what was going on. Only Daesung's soft, sweet and so broken voice reached through the ensuing silence. 

"Save me, hyung."

Seungri came more awake, then, returning to the present and unconsciously moving towards the warm light emitting from the man. "Hyung . . . " He echoed, empty of understanding.

The light man looked over at them, face softening momentarily. When he turned back to the Hunter leader, he roared, the very earth around him trembling in guilt and his four fangs shining in wicked reflection. The furor contained in the sound cracked the concrete, the very ground trying to flee his rage. 

"What the are you?" The Hunter whispered.

The light man bared his teeth in a cheap mockery of a smile. "You ask too late."

Jinho panted, crawling over to her boss, the skin of her arms blistering and peeling away. To her credit, she kept quiet in her agony. 

"Keep your slaves out of this." The man laughed. "They can't save you."

The Hunter knew he couldn't run from this man, but he also knew he had to flee eventually. Then the riddle clicked into place in his mind. "You're TOP."

Suddenly, the birth the human audience had given him wasn't near enough as they tried to fuse with walls in their need to escape. 

He smiled, fangs like white gold in the light. "I am Seunghyun the Dark. I'll not be named by you. Now burn, ant."

Less than a second, he was upon the stage, palm pressed over the man's heart and hand emitting blinding radience. The Hunter leader fell to the ground, his heart charcoal in his chest. Jinho tried to crawl away from him, but he wasted little time with her, only reaching down long enough to grab her neck and crush it. The other Hunters affected by his lightning would die soon. He would raze the Tower to the ground, rain a holy fire the likes of which false Gods and weak immortals could never imagine to conjure. His light would burn through this human mire, his Rapture would end this game and they would never dare to so much as gaze wrongly at his family. 

His hands were gentle but strong as he removed Taeyang's chains, his fingers running over broken skin and leaving behind clean bronze. Jiyong's bindings were less than paper, torn through without effort. The Dragon and the Hellhound fell into each other's arms, both beasts emerging. Hulking, board furred shoulders and massive wings coupled with inky velvet scales were still nothing on the prescence of the sun's grandchild, most favoured of them all. He was quick to Seungri, pouring simple and pure life energy and magic into the dryad, holding him close as his hair grew back to its rich, earthen browns, the mosses and lichens appeared over his body once more and his bark once more grew smooth; his arm even grew back together, that hand reaching up to trace the cheekbones of his hyung, the only of the four able to look directly at him. Lastly, he moved to Daesung, gently, gently pulling the Siren into his arms and sinking to the floor, pressing his palm to the singer's chest and filling the salty cavern with luminescence. 

When those navy eyes finally opened and his plush lips were pink once more, spread in a kindly smile, the light faded out. The runes were now fed by distant candlelight, hair a rich black and eyes filled with honey warmth. He pressed their foreheads together, holding Daesung tighter as the fear coiled in his chest finally unravelled and he began to cry. Like tiny liquid diamonds, they spilled across Seunghyun's cheekbones and down Daesung's cheeks, filled with light and promise and protection and care. 

The other three gathered around. Jiyong made himself small once more, along with Taeyang to nuzzle lovingly into Seunghyun's strong, . Seungri knelt beside Daesung, taking only his hand in quiet solidarity. 

The fire in the back of their necks, at the mark of their coven, ceased burning.