Chapter 5;

Warding Talisman

Hair darker than black itself, and ghost white skin. The woman’s red lips twisted into a sinister grin, revealing her fangs. The demoness wrapped her 10 arms around Miran’s body, and dragged her into the hellish water. Hair grabbed at her neck, choking her. Her snake-like body danced in the water, but Miran couldn’t move an inch.

Tighter.

Darker.

Deeper.

Until she drowned.

Miran woke up, panting heavily and in a cold sweat. She wiped the beads of sweat off her forehead, then cupped her face in her hands. She focused on regulating her breathing; inhale, exhale. Repeat.

Miran wished for nothing more than to rid her conscious of the traumatizing experience, but the nightmares prevented her from doing so. She looked up at the cloud-shrouded sky; the faint glowing ball that she presumed was the sun just barely peaked over the horizon. Miran stood up and wrapped Baekhyun’s white coat around her arms.

She had gotten used to wearing the jacket, whether she liked to admit it or not. It gave her an odd sense of protection, even if it belonged to a demon.

Demon, the word passed by her mind.

The image of the water demoness’s sinister face and scarily stoic expression haunted her still. She had been the exact type of creature Miran expected a demon would be like: evil, creepy, and sinister to the core. Baekhyun was also a demon but he wasn’t like the water spirit. For reasons unbeknownst to her, he seemed to want to protect her.

How did Baekhyun save me in the river? Miran pondered the question. Baekhyun was obviously a fox demon, and his element was clearly fire. Fire spirits were weak against water, and yet he had somehow won against a water demon in her own element. How had he been able to accomplish such a feat? Shouldn’t he be weak, considering he only had 2 tails?

Miran shook the thoughts out of her head. She really needed to stop asking so many questions about Baekhyun, and thinking about him in general.

Miran passed by the extinguished fireplace in the centre of the clearing. She looked to her right and spotted a package clothed in red fabric. She made her way to the bundle, and untied it. Carrots fell out, just like they had the day before. Miran grabbed a few and began nibbling on them.

Baekhyun brought her food quite often because he knew she didn’t know where to look for it. It was one of the many acts he did that made her question his character. Why was he doing all this? For what reason?

Once Miran finished her breakfast she ventured into the forest. The fog was lighter today, but she kept a firm grip onto the dryweed and dewleaves Baekhyun had given her. There were no demons in sight, which she found odd because she expected at least a goblin or two.

When she reached a good distance into the forest, Miran noticed a few berries that grew on the sidewalk. They were a dark purple colour, almost black but not quite so. They were round like blueberries but significantly larger. They were unlike any fruit she had seen before, and she was hesitant to pluck one out. What if they were poisonous?

“Tae Miran.”

Miran recognized the voice immediately. She instinctively shot her head up towards the trees, because she found that Baekhyun favoured standing on branches. He stood there, looking refined and elegant as always. His white hair shone despite there not being a whole lot of sunshine, and his twin tails danced behind him. She was almost tempted to hand back his white coat because the sight of his red shirt seemed unbefitting of him. Baekhyun looked good in white, she found.

Baekhyun jumped down to the ground and walked towards her. His mask covered every inch of his face, and because of that his voice always came out a bit more muffled.

“Were you looking at those berries?” he asked her.

“Yes, they look like they would make a good pigment,” she answered.

“Their juice definitely stains easily, so it would make a fine ink if you grinded them up. They’re edible too,” Baekhyun explained.

Miran squatted in front of a bush and began picking some of the berries off. She didn’t want to risk staining his jacket, so she placed them in a nest she made from the loose parts of her blue robe.

Baekhyun tip-toed behind her and asked, “Why do you require a pigment, Tae Miran?”

“I want to write some scribes. That, and you said so yourself that they were edible,” Miran replied. She decided she wouldn’t try consuming the berries until she saw Baekhyun eating one. She was grateful to him for saving her life, and the fact that he seemed to want to protect her convinced Miran to trust him a tiny bit more – but not entirely.

Baekhyun nodded his head slowly. “So, humans can eat more than just carrots?”

“Of course,” she snorted. “We don’t just live off of one type of food.”

“I just wanted to make sure it was normal, is all,” he mumbled.

Miran stood up and started making her way back to the area she called her ‘camp’. It was a nice spot near the river, but not too close. The miasma was never too strong there, which allowed her to sleep peacefully (for the most part). Strangely enough, there weren’t a lot of demons there, either.

“Tae Miran, wait up!”

Baekhyun jogged after her, and even though she wanted to tell him to stop following her, she didn’t. She had a mountain full of questions, and he was the only one who would be willing to give her answers. “There aren’t a lot of demons in the forest, surprisingly,” Miran said quietly. The statement was more so directed to herself, but Baekhyun heard it and decided to respond.

“There are millions of species in this forest,” he told her.

“What?” she said in disbelief. “But I never see any, plus at night too… I haven’t had to worry about waking up in the middle of the night to fend for my life or anything.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun started, his voice trailing off. “That’s because of my foxfire. Weaker level demons are afraid of it.”

The fireplace, Miran thought to herself. Baekhyun didn’t light a fire for her every night to keep her warm – it wasn’t actually that cold. He did it to protect her while she slept, she realized.

When they reached the camp, Miran looked around for a few rocks. She found a curved rock that had a dip in it, and a thicker piece of stone to act as a mortar and pestle. She began crushing the purple berries in the mortar, but quickly discovered the consistency was far too pasty. She would need water.

Miran gazed at the river. It would only take a second or two to grab a handful of water. But then again, it had only taken two seconds for the water demoness to lunge up at her and drag her to the depths of the river. She was scared of going near the water, and scared that the same incident would happen twice.

“Tae Miran?” Baekhyun’s voice rang her out of her thoughts.

“I – um,” she stumbled. Miran took a breath of air, then said in a much calmer voice, “Water. I need some water to mix in.”

“The river is right there.”

“I – I…” Miran stuttered. I’m afraid.

Baekhyun saw the fear in her face, and his expression softened behind his mask. Though it would sound crazy to her, he was able to relate to the feeling. Fear, and a bitterness about the past haunted him every so often. And sometimes he found he almost wasn’t able to keep up with it all, yet he continued to live. It was a struggle; life was a struggle sometimes.

Baekhyun walked to the river and scooped up a handful of water. He brought the water back to her, and asked, “Where did you want the water?”

Miran absentmindedly pointed a finger towards the makeshift mortar in front of her, and Baekhyun squatted down to pour the water into the mixture.

She began re-grinding the berry mixture, the consistency a lot more like an ink this time around. Baekhyun sat cross-legged a few feet away from her. He was never too close, she found, but close enough that the silence between them almost seemed awkward.

Miran cleared . Without sparing a glance at him, she asked, “That day when the water demon had me… I thought I was a goner. She – the demon – held me so tightly I couldn’t even move a muscle. How were you able to save me from her?”

“Foxfire can’t be extinguished by water,” Baekhyun began to explain. “It can only be extinguished by the user, or by a demon who is far stronger than the user. Water demons are weak at fighting, so it wasn’t really difficult to scorch her a little and make her let go of you.”

“But… fire in water? How does that work?” she gawked. How can someone be burned if they’re in water? And that water demoness is considered weak? If she’s considered weak, then what’s Baekhyun supposed to be?

Weak were the tiny goblins she had ran away from the other day. She could swat a couple of them off by herself, if needed. The water demoness, on the other hand, was not weak in Miran’s eyes. It might have not been the strongest monster but it was in no way, shape or form, weak.

Perhaps Baekhyun was too strong. But when Miran’s eyes trailed down to his 2 tails, she was forced to dismiss the theory. Technically, Baekhyun was only supposed to be a bit stronger than a newborn baby.

“I’m sure a lot of things don’t work the same way they do in the human world, Tae Miran,” he spoke.

Baekhyun meant her no harm, that much she could see. She didn’t understand why he was treating her the way he did, but she felt relieved to know that she had someone who she could say was on her side through all this. Maybe not all demons were bad. After all, not all humans were good.

“You don’t always have to say my last name, you know,” Miran told him.

“Last… name?” Baekhyun asked in confusion.

“Tae is my last name,” she said.

“No, Tae Miran is your name,” he frowned.

“No, Tae is my family name. Miran is my first name. You can just call me Miran, it’s weird to hear you say my full name all the time.”

“I don’t get it,” Baekhyun started. “Why do you have two names? Is Tae Miran not your name?”

“Don’t you have a last name? Something before Baekhyun, a name that’s shared by members of your family or clan or something?” Miran asked.

He shook his head in response. “My name is just Baekhyun. Nothing before it, or after.”

Miran let out a laugh. She found the entire scene hilarious, and she was sure he was kidding around. But when Baekhyun kept his gaze in her direction, not uttering a word in response, she stopped laughing. “Oh, you were being serious.”

“What is a last name?” he asked her in wonder.

“Um, it’s something that people in your family have. Children get it from their father, if the mother has a different last name. Your siblings and you would all have the same last name, but your cousins might have a different one if their father isn’t directly related to you by blood,” she explained.

Baekhyun nodded his head slowly, taking in all the information that was new to him. Miran rested the pestle in the mortar, and asked him, “Don’t you have something similar to that? Like a clan name or something? Something that you share with others; a name that tells others you’re a part of that group?”

Baekhyun remained silent for a while as he thought long and hard about what Miran had told him. “A clan… everyone in the spirit realm is tied together within the same ‘clan’. A father in the human world is like the leader of that small group. Here, the leader of the ‘clan’, which is comprised of every demon living here, would be the King.”

“What’s the current King’s name?” Miran asked.

“Sejo,” he replied with a light scowl.

“Sejo,” Miran let the name roll off her tongue. If the current King’s name acted as his people’s surname, she wondered how it would sound like. “Sejo Baekhyun.”

The kitsune stood up, and turned away from Miran. He scoffed, “I’d rather die than have his name attached to mine like that.”

Knowing that she had somehow offended him in some way, Miran called out to him, “Baekhyun –“

“I’ll see you later, Miran,” Baekhyun said to her coldly. He turned around and made his way into the woods, his figure shrouded by the mist until it disappeared completely.

.::.        .::.        .::.

The pigment Miran mixed had more than just berries and water in it. For good measure, she threw in some of the dryweed and dewleaves that Baekhyun had given her. They were supposed to cleanse demonic miasma, after all. She mixed in some dark blue berries, and a viscous sap she imagined was the equivalent of honey.

Miran picked up a tiny, flat stone she had found rubbed her thumb over its smooth surface. She dipped a finger into her pigment and began drawing the same characters that decorated the Temple. A large circle, followed by intersecting lines, and finally a large dot in the middle. The drawing was supposed to ward off evil spirits.

She had also found strings of dry grass. They were a strong material, like hay, and by tying a few of them together Miran was able to produce a long chain. Once the markings had dried, she wrapped the chain around the stone like she was wrapping a present, then tied the ends together. She wore the talisman around her neck, and prayed that it would actually do some good in warding off the miasma.

She used the leftover pigment to draw markings on a few other stones, which she then tucked away in the pockets of her robe after they had finished drying. She hadn’t made too many, since the rocks were quite the additional weight. Miran made a mental note to search for a paper-like substance, such as large leaves, to make more talismans out of.

A bush near her rustled, and Miran whipped her head to the side. She dug a rock out of her pocket, and aimed it at the bush. She was armed now, and she was ready to face whatever was approaching her. As soon as the figure came into sight, Miran threw the talisman towards it.

Baekhyun yelped when the rock hit his mask, and he dropped all the vegetables he had in his arms. He rubbed the forehead part of his mask, even though Miran was quite sure he hadn’t been hurt by the attack. Baekhyun removed the mask from his face and flipped it around to inspect it for any dents. He looked at the mask with pristine concentration, his gaze not leaving it until he was sure the mask was free of damage.

And all the while, Miran found she couldn’t avert her gaze from him.

It was but the second time she had seen his face, and even though he was standing some distance away, his bright eyes glimmered like actual gold. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his delicate lips had formed a pout. Baekhyun was beautiful, ethereally so. Clad in white – except for his red shirt – he looked divine. He was exquisite, elegant, and –

A demon, she reminded herself.

As Miran watched Baekhyun handle the kitsune mask with utmost care, she told herself that if things ought to be fair in a world where demons wore white, then angels could wear black. She prayed, desperately, that not all angels wore white, and even more so that not all people dressed in white were angels.

Because Baekhyun was a demon, and no angel.

A/N: That moment when you realise that you haven't updated in half a year :') Are you guys still there? Haha XD I wouldn't be surprised if some of you thought I was giving up on this fic, but rest assured, I'm not. I love this fic equally as much as Pick Your Poison, and I have full intentions of finishing both. It might be a bit selfish to say this, but I hope you guys will stick with me <3

\\ xoxo