Years passed in which Hakyeon travelled the country, sticking to the lesser populated areas. He never stayed long in one place, leaving whenever he was recognized or people started asking questions.

Despite telling himself he had nothing to be ashamed of, it took him a very long time until he managed to gather the courage to go see his family.

And he didn't stay long.

While they didn't outright say it, he could tell his parents were extremely disappointed with him, and while they repeatedly made sure to tell him they loved him regardless, he couldn't stand the sad looks they gave him whenever they thought he wasn't looking.

The only one who truly didn't judge him was his grandmother, and more often than not he found himself hiding in her little living room or back porch, helping her make candles and listening to her stories from times long gone by that he’d heard countless times but didn't mind hearing again from her.

“Son, I’m proud of you for going your own way and standing up for your beliefs. Mind you, my magic is weak and never amounted to enough to warrant attending the Academy to hone it, but you… You are something else, my son. You won't need to use the remains of poor tortured creatures to achieve greatness, I know that much. Just keep on doing what you believe in, and you will get there. Maybe not in a hundred years, and maybe not in two hundred. But at the very latest in three hundred, you will feature on the pages of history as one of the greatest, if not the greatest sorcerer of all time. To me, you already are.”

Hakyeon laughed at his grandmother’s answer when he asked her if she wasn't bothered by his unhonorable discharge from the Academy and the life he’d led since then, a tear or two of gratefulness and love mixing in his laughter as his grandmother hugged him close.

“Thank you, Grammy. I'm looking forward to you telling everyone that you knew it all along.”

His grandmother chuckled.

“I will. Do you think by then I will be old enough to angrily hit all your doubters in the head with my cane without repercussions?” There was a mischievous glint in her eyes as Hakyeon sat up and slid back into his own seat across from her.

“I will make sure to time my breakthrough so that you can do that.” He promised with a grin, and his grandmother cooed at him, what a good grandson he was.

Despite how well he got along with his grandmother, the judging glances of his parents, siblings and neighbours eventually got to him enough that he decided to move on, to find a new place to stay. Of course, he spent most of the time until his planned departure with his grandmother. And of course, his grandmother doted on him and spoiled him, showering him with precious gifts, such as her magic vase collection, and never let him doubt her love for him.

Eventually, he left, travelling light and leaving most of his new possessions with his grandmother. Now, though, he was always looking out for a place that would lure him in to settle down. Staying with his grandmother had awoken the desire in him to find himself a place to stay for longer, to make uniquely his in the same way his grandmother had done to her own house.

It took Hakyeon way longer than planned to find that place that lured him to stay. He would never have thought to find it in an old mansion on a cliff by the sea, set deep in an ancient forest, hidden away from the world, yet still relatively close to a small fishers village.

He stayed two years, learning that the winters were short but cold, and the summers as long and humid as they were warm in this part of the country. That climate fostered the most fascinating flora, though, and the endless, peaceful forest seemed to hold more secrets than Hakyeon could imagine. The combination eventually led him to buy the mansion he’d rented until then, and he went to retrieve his grandmother's vases and other gifts as soon as the house was officially his.

Now, that had been years ago already, too.

And still, Hakyeon didn't feel like moving. While he felt like he was starting to know the forest like the back of his hands, he also regularly kept discovering new things in it, never letting it become boring.

And while the middle of the winter certainly wasn't the ideal time of the year to study plants, he still couldn't help but wander through the snow-covered forest daily, at least for a few hours.

On this particular day, something was off with the serenity of the forest, though.

An aura of fear seemed to permeate the air, and an eerie silence reigned under the ancient trees, only disturbed by an occasional, short fluttering of small wings or minimal rustling of pine needles. It was as if the forest was holding its breath, and Hakyeon didn’t like it. He considered this his forest, and his forest was supposed to be a happy, safe place. Fear had no place in it.

Furrowing his brow, he felt around himself with his magic, expanding it further and further to find the cause of the disturbing atmosphere. He recoiled when his magic found a footprint in the snow that definitely didn’t belong there, and without waiting any longer he ran towards it.

Of course, that footprint he had sensed wasn’t the only one there, but around that particular one magic had burned the snow.

Hakyeon shook his head in disapproval. Snow shouldn’t burn; if it had, some terrible magic must have been cast here… He followed the footprints; there were two sets of them, and they had been running. He found more and more of the burned snow around them, and eventually, a tree that must have been blasted with a heavy of magic, too.

Hakyeon winced at the damage done to the poor giant, inspecting the deep wound in the bark for lingering magic. What he found, though, was not what he had expected. There was magic, alright, but… it wasn’t the magic that had damaged the tree.

Carefully, he ran his finger over the tendrils of gold and green that sat in the cracks of the wood, warm and cold to the touch at the same time.

He swallowed heavily; he could only think of one thing that had those properties, and if he wasn’t wrong, there was something else he should worry about a lot more than this tree.

Making a mental note to come back to the tree later, he broke into a run, almost flying over the frozen ground as he followed the footprints deeper into the forest. He didn’t stop to examine further patches of burnt snow and damaged trees, deciding to worry about those later.

He stopped abruptly when a thick of thorny bushes appeared between the trees, but not because of the blocked path. He had found where the footprints led, and he clasped his hands over his mouth, muffling a cry and forcing himself not to retch at the sight.

It was as if he was back to that fateful day in the beginning of his seventh year at the Academy, in that cold, damp dungeon.

The snow in front of the bushes was trampled solid, barely recognizable as snow anymore for it was mottled in red, gold and green, glittering eerily in the vanishing light of day. What took Hakyeon’s breath away was the small, crumpled heap in the middle of it all, though. It was only due to the clues around him that he knew it had to be a fairy, and he was almost afraid to find out if it was still alive or already dead.

Hakyeon had his magic clear a path towards the creature, unable to bring himself to step on the dust and blood around it, and approached it cautiously. The more he saw of the extent of the creature’s injuries, the more he started to wish it was already dead so it didn’t have to feel them, didn’t have to live with them.

He swallowed heavily, forcing his stomach to calm down when he eventually reached the fairy and kneeled down next to it.

“How could they do this to you…?” He mumbled, gasped, close to tears as his gaze roamed over the shredded wings, torn clothes and bruised skin, bleeding cuts everywhere, but especially on its head where its hair had been shorn of brutally, and he couldn’t even bring himself to look at the hands and feet.

He almost didn’t dare reach out to feel for a pulse, fearing to do even more damage, and he actually jumped in surprise when he did still feel a pulse in the broken, cold body. Faint, but still there.

From then on, he no longer thought about what he was doing, acting on instinct alone as he used his magic to lift the fairy off the ground and wrapped it in his cloak to protect it against the cold, heading home with it as quickly as possible.

It took Hakyeon well into the early morning hours of the next day to clean and heal the fairy as much as he could, leaving him exhausted and drained of his magic. And still, the fairy was far from healed, for he didn’t know how much he could do without causing possibly even worse damage with his magic.

He slept through most of the day when he eventually gave in to his exhaustion, but still when he woke up in the late afternoon, the fairy remained unconscious. It didn’t wake up the next day or the day after that, either, but Hakyeon was confident it would eventually. The wounds were healing, the glow returning to the skin, and a fine sheen of the golden and green dust hovered about an inch over its skin. The only part that worried him were the wings, since they didn’t show any improvement at all.

As he waited for the fairy to wake up, Hakyeon became more and more antsy, confined to his house. He longed to return to the forest, tend to the damaged trees and refill the supplies he’d used up tending to the fairy’s wounds. At least leave the house for a little bit…

He couldn’t, though, and so the next best thing he could do was retreat to his library and study the books the previous owner of the house -also a sorcerer- had left behind. He hoped to find anything on how to heal magical creatures, though he was mostly disappointed as he only found literature on how to most efficiently catch, imprison and exploit them. To be fair, he found a few books about the biology of different creatures, too, but those didn’t help much, either.

It was the late morning of the fourth day since Hakyeon had found the fairy when it woke up.

As Hakyeon entered the room, expecting to find it unconscious, still, he found it cowering against the wall as far away from the door as possible, gaze panicked yet defiant and body shaking.

Hakyeon stopped in his tracks.

“You are awake… How are you feeling?”

The fairy hissed threateningly, dust billowing out around it angrily, but didn’t answer.

Hakyeon rose his hands in a placating gesture.

“Whoa, easy! I’m not here to hurt you!”

The fairy narrowed its eyes at him.

“You’re a sorcerer. You lie whenever you speak!”

Indignantly, Hakyeon started to protest, but then thought better of it, shrugging with a sigh.

“I guess you’re not wrong to think like that about sorcerers… Anyway. I’m going to get you some clothes. Would you like something to eat?”

The fairy glared at him, and Hakyeon shrugged, leaving the room. He returned shortly after with clothes and food (he had found a book about the proper nourishment of the different magical creatures), setting them down on the chair and desk, respectively.

“You’re not a prisoner, you know… You can leave whenever you want; all the doors are unlocked from inside. I’d suggest you change into some warmer clothes before going out, since it’s still incredibly cold, though, and you should eat something, too, since you haven’t in at least four days.”

The fairy’s hostile glare remained unwavering.

“You lie…! How would I know it’s not a trap?”

Hakyeon rose a half amused eyebrow.

“If I wanted to keep you imprisoned all I’d have to do is lock this door. Why should I bother setting up a trap to catch you?”

For the first time, the fairy’s expression changed, eyes going wide in surprise as Hakyeon’s logic made sense to it.

Shaking his head, Hakyeon made to leave the room.

“Since you’re awake, I’ll go out for a bit. Feel free to leave, or to stay and rest for a bit longer, if you want. Either way is fine with me.”

With that, he left the room, gathered a pouch and a few supplies and made his way to the forest to tend to the injured trees and erase the malicious magic that lingered along the path the two sorcerers had taken. It was a lot of work, and by the time he’d managed to clear away the traces of the fight where the fairy had been taken down, night had fallen almost completely, shrouding the forest in darkness.

When Hakyeon returned home, he wasn’t surprised to find the fairy gone. A bit disappointed, maybe, and somewhat worried, for it still wasn’t healed properly, but not surprised. He was glad to find the clothes he’d set out gone as well, though, and the bowl with the soup he’d made was empty, too.

With a small smile on his lips, Hakyeon cleaned up after the fairy, leaving the room he’d had it stay in as pristinely clean as before.

Now that that worry had been taken care of, he could return to his usual business, further his studies about the properties of plants and minerals, feathers and furs, and other materials he found in the forest.

Or so he thought.