and the rarest of thy all

birth of celestial parts they beat

one heart till they stop

twice born shall never meet

‘Now?’ Krystal was slightly overwhelmed.

‘Why not?’ Kyungsoo said, smiling at Krystal.

‘But-‘

‘Think about it. You don’t have anything here that holds you down. You’ll get to go out there and find yourself.’ Kyungsoo told her.

‘You’re coming aren’t you?’ she held onto his arm. ‘You don’t have anything here too,’ she said.

‘I’ll join you, of course. But only after I close up everything here,’ he said. ‘Take your time. If you don’t want to go it’s fine. I’d understand why you wouldn’t want to trust them,’ he whispered. ‘It’s not going to be forever. We can come back here. Consider it a trip,’ he understood her concerns. She had not left Mount Rye in a very, very long time. The only trips she ever made were short; and most were hunting trips to catch game or practice her sorcery in secret. Krystal leaned back in her seat.

‘How do I know I won’t be attacked?’ she asked. Kai opened his mouth to say something but realized her concern was valid; even he could not control himself or protect anyone from his outbursts.

‘Oh, we thought of that already.’ Baekhyun sounded keen. He pulled out an instrument that hung from the belt of his pants with a chain. It looked like a lily, but made of black steel.

‘What’s that?’

‘A tranquilizer,’ he said. It looked like an advanced medical item.

‘What does it do?’ Krystal was curious.

‘This,’ he pulls one petal out, which reveals to be joined to a fine needle point and within an instant, stabbed it into Kai’s arm. Kai lets out a jerking yelp, before his head collapses onto the table. Kyungsoo and Krystal’s eyes widened as a thud followed his collapse. His eyes are closed. It was almost as if he fell asleep.

‘H-He-‘

‘Passed out,’ Junmyeon said, shaking his head disappointingly. Baekhyun sat down and smiled triumphantly.

‘Ten minutes. That should give you enough time to think it through, right?’ Baekhyun grinned at Krystal. Somehow, Krystal did not feel more at ease at all, although Baekhyun has made his point concerning Kai. Krystal clasped her lips, standing up and pulling Kyungsoo towards the kitchen.

‘What do I need?’ she asked, turning to Kyungsoo.

‘Determination,’ he smiled. ‘And your cane.’

‘Is travelling hard?’

‘It’s like living, but without going back somewhere. No bread too,’

‘That’s not so bad, is it?’ Krystal was still unsure.

‘Nope,’ Kyungsoo shook his head. ‘They’re a nice lot. The Montagues aren’t the type to hunt out people and kill them.’ He said. ‘They have laws as well. A very civilised lot. Kai’s maybe an exception but that’s his medical problem. We can’t really blame him for being that way.’

It was one of the thing Krystal feared. When Kyungsoo heard her story, he was sure she had run into one of them. ‘The Lupus Montague is considered the head of the Terra Nymphet state. They used to live among humans, just like everyone else, but they were nobles. They owned lands and participated in Court, maintaining the peace between humans and non-humans. But even so, they disguised their identities. They began as pure-bred wolf animorphs, very small in number. And then when political winds blew against them, they had to do something. So they allied with sorcerers, who got kicked out just like they did. They married off their sons and daughters to witches and wizards and the person you ran into, is probably the first generation of Lupus Montague’s wolf-sorcerer hybrid. Leflores already started a hunt-down for these creatures after they accepted the new Religion. Lupus Montague ran, leading a mass escape plan with almost a thousand other animorphs, and they crossed the Borders, found a coastal area where they tried to build a new state. Most of them were starting anew from loss of loved ones. During that time, two hundred got captured and killed. So Lupus Montague was voted by majority to lead the state, and they invested a lot of what they had into scientific research. They became the main subjects and so did its people. Now they’re living a fairer life than before.’

Kyungsoo had initially expected them to be a little cocky of their status, but they were not. They looked extremely modest in clothing, wearing what was practical and not stylish and they seemed to be skilled in their own ways. Times have changed, he thought. The last time his mother told him about her experience in the Leflores Court with the Lupus Montague, she mentioned how distinctive they were compared to the other courtiers. They were stylish, well bred, friendly and proud. But of course, Leflores was a state that enjoyed hot summers and blooming spring seasons.

Terra Nymphet was up north, a cold beach area that demanded change in adaptation. It was a wilderness that they conquered, and besides, without humans to police their every action, the sense of freedom allowed them to flourish as animorphs.

‘I’ll go,’ Krystal made up her mind. Kyungsoo nodded in approval. He went upstairs and helped her gather some things including medication. He fastened her defensive braces onto her shoulders and wrists, made sure she got into her travelling boots and gave her a pouch of co, for her to spend in whatever towns she should enter. He made sure Baekhyun walked through the route they would use and predicted how long it would take.

Kris was apparently outside on the balcony, watching just in case any danger would come to them. Upon hearing the news, he prepared himself as well. Apparently, he was not the only one who was on guard outside the bakery, but another one of Kai’s cousin.

‘There were three of you,’ Krystal pointed out.

‘Someone had to make sure nobody barges in on our secret meeting,’ Baekhyun smiled. Yixing nodded his head as a polite form of greeting.

‘Zhang Yixing,’ he held out his hand. Krystal took it, finding that his grasp was soft and assuring. She relaxed.

‘Pleasure,’ she said. ‘You guys didn’t come into town using the main entrance right?’

‘Definitely not,’ Kai shuddered. ‘Too much attention,’

‘Good. So do you guys need to use my shortcut?’

‘Any shortcut is a good one,’ Baekhyun said. Kris and Krystal kept their farewells to Kyungsoo brief, and he promised them he would join them as soon as he could. ‘Lead the way, Krystal.’ He said after Kyungsoo saw them off from the gate of their small backyard.

She passed them through an area thick with tall pine trees that hid them out of sight just as soon as they left the bakery area. Then, upon reaching the tall stone wall that surrounded the entire kingdom, Krystal led them to one particular tree.

The tree had a shorter stump with two large wood joints branched out, right beneath its shade. Krystal took the first step and easily stepped onto that stump before she reached onto the taller tree, climbing through its branches until she came to a branch closest to the wall. She sat, hidden, pulling a hair ribbon from her arm and tying her hair up with it. It was starting to get in the way. The distance she had to the wall was too small now and she swiftly stood on a branch large enough to support her before she tugged at the top of the wall and hoisted herself up.

Catching her breath after a rather long climb, she sat on the wall, then looked down. It was a tall wall, and those who had a fear of heights would not dare jump off it, despite the promise of a barely deadly fall. Below was a blanket of thick snow, and beyond had just more pine trees. Kris had caught up to her. Krystal dropped herself off the wall, barely landing stably. Kris followed suit, and so did one wolf, and after another, up until Kai. He looked like a wolf, at least the manner of which he moved when agility was needed made it seem so.

Junmyeon, Baekhyun, Zhitao and Yixing assumed their human form just as soon as they landed. Krystal had watched with awe. It was nothing she could trace in detail. A smoky apparition would hide them in such a way that within a blink, it fades and they are humans again. ‘What? You’ve never seen an animorph change before?’ Baekhyun teased.

‘No, not really.’ She shook her head. Kai merely rolled his eyes.

‘I can’t believe I’m about to follow a pack of wolves out into the wild to some place I don’t know to see someone I’ve never met to help someone who had tried to kill me just a few days ago. This has got to be the craziest work I have ever done in my entire life.’ Krystal murmured under her breath as she speed-walked down a slightly steep snowy terrain outside the high walls of the Mount Rye kingdom. ‘Tell me I’m not crazy,’ she said to Kris.

‘You’re not crazy,’ he said. ‘Besides, don’t you feel a little excited?’ he grinned, expressing a true form of satisfied curiosity and adventure, like a child. Krystal rarely ever sees him that way. He had always been the one with composure.

‘So, you guys are-‘ she cleared . ‘-half sorcerers right? What emblems do you own?’

‘Zhitao can meddle with time, Yixing’s a healer, I control light, and Kai can teleport.’ Baekhyun explained.

‘Wait,’ she stopped. ‘So why didn’t he-‘ she pointed at Kai.

‘He’s sick. He can’t use them much, besides, he hasn’t mastered joint teleportation yet. He can only do it solo.’ Baekhyun answered.

‘Amazing,’ Krystal whispered. ‘So all we do is walk until it’s dark for a week and we’ll be at the Borders?’

‘Walk?’ Zhitao repeated as if it was a forbidden word.

‘Aren’t we walking?’ Krystal asked.

‘We could but that would take a month at least.’

‘Are we riding dragons?’ she gasped almost too excitedly.

‘Soon,’ Baekhyun assured her.

*

‘Your Highness?’ Court Rye’s Privy Council had no choice but to disturb the Queen’s walk with her husband. ‘I have news to inform regarding the Hufeirat Court.’ He leaned and whispered to the couple.

‘Of course, how does our friend fare there?’

‘Rather well,’ he said, although his face lacked much satisfaction. ‘Too well, in fact. She refused to obey the Temple’s bill.’

The Queen turned to him with tightened brows. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She casted a vote in her Parliament, who voted for a mass voting from the people. Majority did not want to implement such “harsh laws” they called it.’ He explained. ‘She announced it yesterday, explaining about the Temple’s new reform and their decision about it. It was finalized.’

‘Thank you,’ the King dismissed him. Upon seeing his wife’s uneasy expression, he took her arm and they continued walking. ‘Come to think of it, she never made a formal announcement on accepting the New Religion, did she?’ he said.

‘No she did not,’ the Queen hated to admit it, but it was true. ‘I wanted to believe she needed time. She had said she wanted to study it deeply, and I foolishly thought it was to prepare herself, so that she could bring it to her people in the best of manners.’ She said. ‘She always had a way with her peculiarly smart strategies.’

‘Maybe we could pay her a visit, and we can talk about this. After all, we know whatever we hear from our courtsmen are mostly words of the mouth. Perhaps it’d be better if you were to see her directly, Ailee.’ he suggested with a warm smile.

‘Perhaps you’re right, Eric. I should not finalize my judgements on this too quickly,’ she thanked God for her husband’s existence in silence.

‘Let’s head inside. Your hands are getting a little cold,’ he grasped her hand in his tightly. She contained her disappointment. She and Queen Victoria had been allies for quite a long while now. It traced back to nearly twelve years ago when the famine attacked their land, Hufeirat. It was ruled by a selfish king who saw not his people’s sufferings; only cared for his carnivorous needs. When the weather turned bad, crops died out and so did animals. The land turned barren, and people ran out of food. But the king had to have what he wanted. So he had small children slaughtered to feed his meat cravings. His young wife, Victoria had been overwhelmingly shocked. She had written to the rulers of Mount Rye, knowing the King Eric to be cousins with her own husband and asked for help way before his inhumane, cannibalistic order was executed.

The very night after her husband ate his first meal made of a child, she crept up to his room and killed him.

She confessed to it, told the people that should they wish her dead for her sins, then they are free to put her to trial. She was judged the hero of her people. She rebuilt the nation again, having to plead help from so many people and ten years later, Hufeirat flourished as a bustling power stronger than her husband had ruled.

Ailee could not forget how Victoria first came into view.

The story had gone like this: the King of Hufeirat was on a hunt with his kinsmen in the Woods to Nowhere when he came across an unconscious girl by a small river bank. She was Victoria. He sympathized her and took her in, made her his mistress and she became pregnant with his children. His queen then had quarrelled with the mistress for fear of losing her position and threatened to kill her. The King, upon finding out, grew outrage and imprisoned her. Evidence also showed that she tried to poison Victoria, and she was sentenced to death.

The King, needing heirs and having a fondness for Victoria then married her.

It was a journey from emerging out of her image as a helpless girl to a powerful Queen, and she was acknowledged for it.

However, Ailee would have thought she would have done a different approach to the new Religion. She felt connected to her because both of them had experienced being wanted dead by a queen. And while Victoria could have been killed by poisoned meat, for Ailee it was an apple. She had never loathed the fruit more ever since. During dinner, she barely ate, could barely focus on the dancing and music that was going on in her court. She could only keep on drinking wine but she made sure not to drink too much.

Her court had gotten livelier with the presence of younger members. Ailee prized her young, athletic soldiers and favoured the military head more than anyone else. She found that she admired the hot spirits of teenagers in Mount Rye and their loyal support to her new cause. She would need it greatly now, to pillar the New Religion into her kingdom. After all, she would not want to repeat what had happened before.

They were vicious, but they enjoyed the favour they received. Such motherly attention from the Queen, made them spoilt; for they ate good food and danced to good music. They were given provisions and facilities to tend to their training needs, and people often referred to them as the Queen’s adopted sons. She appeared warmer to them than her other courtiers.

‘You seem distracted, darling.’ Eric laid his hand on hers. She gave a smile. ‘Still thinking about it?’

‘Would you accompany me?’ she asked.

‘I would go wherever you bid me,’ he said in such gentleness. He was known for it, his softness, his untainted friendliness to all, even his servants. Ailee could never find a moment she was ever displeased with her husband. He was an angel to her, her sweetheart, her sunshine.

‘Then I shall write to her and we can leave within a week to Hufeirat,’