*** Peaceful
What a peaceful night, I thought mindlessly while plucking rose petals, leaving a trail of fallen petals behind me as I walk towards a black lake that located not so far away from the castle backyard nearing a dark misty forest,
I’ve been walking around aimlessly for hours now, I cant even get enough sleep during the day, constantly turning from left to right after the so called bed time stories with my grandmother the night before. Her story keeps bugging me, she didn’t even confirmed my question and only told me to get up and quit after a long silence, I couldn’t even protest or anything as I hesitantly obeyed her, because the looks on her face that night, she looked hurt and angry, almost mad, eaten by her own painful memories,
So, here I am, from the lack of sleep, trying clear my jumbled mind even for a bit and I think its worked, more or less. Finally reaching the side of the seemingly bottomless lake -judging from how dark the water is- I crouched slightly before deciding to just take a seat on a rather big coral just a few step away from the hazy looking forest, thoughtlessly picking one of the many beautiful pebbles that scattered around the coral. Seriously, everything in this realm is beautiful, in a very dark and mysterious way. The shadows, the lake, the dark forest, the color of the sky under concealed sun and moon, everything,
And the forest inhabitants
I turn my head slightly as I catch a ghostly shadow in a shape of a stag watching me closely behind the thick mist that covered almost all the forest edge,
The slender figure keep on watching me as it start coming closer from where it stood towards me and I could make out its golden hued eyes staring back at me before a rather loud cracking sound of a snapping branch heard followed by a rather low threatening growl and the beautiful animal whip its majestic head towards the source of the sounds before dashing away, leaving no trail of its existence and disappeared into the mist. I let out a disappointed sigh before turn my eyes to look at the intruder,
A gigantic black wolf emerged from the forest slowly, each steps looks elegant and graceful despite of its body, two hypnotizing blue eyes staring back at me then turn away to change before coming back in his human form less than a minute later, trotting towards me with a smirk on his face and I frowned “harming a white stag is a bad luck, you know?”,
He scoffed, obviously mocking me “I make my own luck and besides, I’m not harming it, I just scare it enough to make it go away” JoonMyeon casually answered and I roll my eyes at his arrogance but choosing to seal my lips anyway as he stretch, groaning when the muscles finally relaxed, adjusting back to the different body form, I know being in a wolf form could be tiring, especially in a long period of time, Sehun keep on whining about it to me whenever he could. That big brat sure need some exercise,
“what are you doing here anyway? I’m just about to go to your quarter” he ask after a silence and I tilt my head slightly without swarming my eyes away from the lake “why?” I said back, didn’t bother to answer his question as I start to daydream in my attempt to ignore the wolf all together but JoonMyeon shrugged,
“I dont know if you ever paid attention at all or not but, the Empress scheduled your training tonight”,
My eyebrow lifted as I turn my attention fully at him now and grimaced “with you?”, all the remaining rainbow and butterflies that left inside my mind vanished, replaced by pile of gores and explosion as I groaned. I know how merciless his training is from the other boys and I couldn’t help but shivering in fright at the thought he clawed on my neck, I guess pure horror obviously showed in my eyes because I saw JoonMyeon laughed in amusement before shaking his head “no, with Yuri noona” he answered lightly and I couldn’t help but exhaled in relief. The butterflies come back and start playing around with the pile of gores. But at least the explosion’s gone, I get to keep my limbs together still, its definitely something to celebrate,
“oh, okay then” I said gratefully, I’ve heard about my grandmother most prized thaumaturge, whoever this woman is, I was more than happy that I am free from the possibilities of losing a limb or two but that was before I saw a sympathizing looks on JoonMyeon face and also, before I finally meet the woman face to face.

 

***
I, change my mind
Training with JoonMyeon sounds like a better option for me than with Yuri,  at least JoonMyeon would go softer with me and I still haven’t tried my ‘oppa’ card on him yet, I wonder if that method would work just right on him, I could still be saved but this woman...
This woman is a devil in disguise!
In first one minute, I cried in horror, in the next hour, I plead to the heaven above to send me help. After four hours, I wanted to die. She tortured me!, and with an angelic smile on her face on top of that! This woman makes NamJoon’s training looked like a happy walk in a garden full of flowers compared to hers because she practically attacked me with her shadows and Soul seeker at once, not even let me rest to catch a breath as she keep on attacking me in a pace that gradually grew quicker, each strike stronger and deadlier that than the ones before. Now you see why I wanted to die that badly?!
I barely withstand her shadows precise attack and I also have to worry about Nox too! His opposing side is a freaking pitch black gigantic python for ’s sake!, that monster could eat my poor jaguar in one bite. Even his wolf form wouldn’t do more damage than his feline form. I’m sure that black moving pipe just felt a slight tingles in the place Nox scratch it, I bet my entire worthless life on it,
My shadows wasn’t as powerful as usual because I’ve been skipping my ‘meal’ for almost a week now, I’m starving, lack of sleep and I’m definitely exhausted. I immediately knew that I’m  having a losing battle, so do my opponent and spectators,
“I think that’s enough for tonight, noona” JoonMyeon said out loud and we stopped. Oh thank you Lord! You’re an angel Kim JoonMyeon!, I cried in joy mentally as I heard my brother’s voice,
Yuri deformed her Soul seeker and freed me from her shadows clutch. I breathed aggressively, inhaling the air as much as I can as I fall kneeling on the mattress, Nox whimpered as he nudge the side of my head. I pat his furry head whilst keeping my head down to catch my breath,
“are you okay, princess?”, I jolted and cringe both from the touch and the name. No matter how many time I heard that I would never get used to it, the last time one of the castle staffs called me that, I end up accidently dropping a hundred kilos hall ornament onto the floor jus a few inch from where his right foot stepped on and all that happened just because I got surprised and self conscious by the term he called me, the poor man kindly ask me what am I gonna do with the heavy ornament for Pete’s sake and I almost amputated him. From that day on, I prevent myself from taking any ornament from its rightful place to observe, no matter how curious I am at the thing, who knows I may end up enwrapping any unlucky people with a tapestry?,
I look up and grinned weekly, showing my thumbs up “all good, unnie” I answered meekly in between my mouth guard and she smiled, stand straight on her two feet as I watch how the tanned beauty skin glistened with sweat, hair looked as perfect as before we start the training with not even one strands sticking out of her braid while my own hair looked exactly like a bird nest above my head,
Focusing my upper body weight on my knee, I tried to stand up and wobbled a little before Yugyeom hands catches my wrist to balance me on my feet and I gave him thankful smile before taking the offered towel from his hand, he throw a worried smile back at me. Adorable boy,
JoonMyeon pushed away from the door frame, where he stood all along, observing my training with the worried looking Yugyeom as I got my -literally- whipped by Yuri, “her defense is excellent, but I felt it went weak every once in a while during the battle” Yuri stated as she run a thoughtful finger on her chin when JoonMyeon went to stand with us in the middle of the room, both hands in his pocket,
“you’re struggling to hold your shadows intact, why’s that? And also,”JoonMyeon start to comment, pausing to look at my Soul seeker for a second before continuing “I don’t remember your Soul seeker form were this small, they used to be bigger”. Uh, well, , he noticed
I turn rigid under his stare, I felt Yugyeom fidgeting on his feet nervously beside me while Yuri brows shot up as she turn to look at JoonMyeon, “oh? Bigger than this? I knew it! Soul seeker with different shapes are rare! Their hosts usually have a huge amount of shadows so there’s no way this would be its limit size! How big is it?!” she ask excitedly clearly oblivious of her colleague reprimanding looks on me and I bit my lip, JoonMyeon keep his eyes steady, not even bother to look away when he answered Yuri question,
“a huge majestic lion, the wolf even as big as my wolf form”. Yeah, Nox definitely used to be a majestic animals back then when I still taking my meal regularly, alright?. I never said this but his Lion form size sure is breathtakingly amazing,
Yuri whistled “now that’s what I would call quite impressive, is it still changing form?” she ask again and I nod my head, forcing my eyes to turn to look at her, ignoring my oldest brother suspicious stare and let out a nervous laugh before he finally cut us, “take a rest, you clearly didn’t have enough rest,” he said, pausing to look at Yuri “I’ll head out first, is it okay for you to take the report for the training from here, noona?”, the older girl nods then smiled at me,
“take a rest, you did well even with lack of sleep, the Empress would be proud” she said as she pat my head and I grinned awkwardly, waiting until the back of her head disappeared into the shower room before turning to look at JoonMyeon disapproving glare, waiting for the hell to arrive,
“go to your room, I’m expecting a good explanation for this”,
My teeth unconsciously planted deeper into my mouth guard as I cursed mentally,
Well, crap.

 

***
I groaned in frustration as I threw my sweaty body on top of my bed when we finally reached my quarter and Nox trotted inside, still in his wolf form before slowly change to his feline form and laid cross legged on the bedroom bench, his now -self-proclaimed- exclusively personal throne to rest. Nox took a quite good beating earlier, all the extra aches that I felt in my body proved that,
“um, Your Highness”, I cringed deeply as I whip my head to look at Yugyeom who just emerged back from the closet, sleep wear in hand as he stood a few steps away from my bed with unsure looks on his face,
“I told you to not calling me that, you know what happened last time someone called me any of that terms, gosh its so cringy, call me by my name” I said and the boy gulped but complied anyway as he rushed over to help me undress, unbuckling all this heavy battle armors from my body. All this metals makes all my school armors weighted like a feather. I remembered how Mina always complained about the heavy material back in P.E class, now how I’m willing to paid highly just to see what kind of face she would make in this armors. They’re literally weighted tons!,
Yugyeom looked uncertain as he pull the strap on my knee, as if something just bothered his mind and he couldn’t state it out loud so I went my way and ask him instead, startling the timid boy, making him dropping the heavy armor accidently and Nox hissed at the loud crashing sounds,
He scratch the back of his head while I just stare at him with a raised eyebrow, “well, I know you’ve been rejecting this but seeing how weak your shadows earlier, I think shouldn’t you take your meal now? I’m okay with that” he said quietly and I catch what he meant immediately,
“drop