An Emerald forest. The forest itself looked endless, just like the blue sky, the green trees tread until the horizon. The colours inside the forest were warm and bright. Flowers, grass, trees, rivers, rocks painted a gorgeous, sparkling view. 

The forest was alive. Not just the birds, rabbits, squirrels, slugs and wolfs made it so. But the trees, water and nature itself seemed… more than alive here. 

Near the river, there was a boy playing with wolfs. 

Purple wet hair glistening in the sun, tan skin and a perfect square smile made the boy look amazing, almost magical. 

“Taehyung, you should start preparing for the festival tonight,” said the white wolf, eyes piercingly red. The wolf was the only one who wasn’t participating in the games, just watching calmly from the shade, “It is your day today.” 

Taehyung flashed a smile at the old wolf and jumped into the stream, “I’ll get ready in time don’t worry,” he shouted swimming down the river, leaving his playmates to play without him. 

Taehyung was relaxing in the water, turning on his back and letting the flow carry him, as he observed the forest.  

The sky was bright; it was a hot day. The birds were singing a song Taehyung liked, he enjoyed one bird in particular. He watched the branches so he wouldn’t miss the place where he was going. 

As soon as Tae noticed a blue ribbon tied to a branch he splashed around a bit and jumped out of the river. Just under the ribbon there was a door, a small door, reaching just above Taehyung’s knee.   

He knocked. 

The door was immediately opened by a small creature, a rabbit. The rabbit looked a bit nervous as it swiped his little paws on the old-fashioned jacket it was wearing.  

“H-how do I look?” the rabbit with stunningly white fur stuttered.  

“Great!” Taehyung smiled as he knelt to fix the crooked bowtie on the rabbit’s neck, “we should get going, Red told me to get ready and we still have to gather food for the festival. Should I carry you?” 

The white rabbit nodded. 

Taehyung took the rabbit into his arms and started going through the forest. Along the way, Taehyung gathered all the barries, fruit and vegetables he could find into a pile, lifting them to float in the air beside him. He felt the white rabbit looking at him with awe. 

Taehyung was powerful. His magic was stronger than anyone’s in the forest. Despite that he wasn’t the leader of the forest nor did he want to be.  

He would play with his friends every day. He would explore the vast forest where he would play with his powers testing their limits.  

Taehyung smiled to himself; every day was fun. 

As the sky painted itself red and the sun was almost down, Taehyung and the white rabbit started heading for the middle of the forest. 

Soon they were at the place were all kind of animals, very few humans and a number of elves were gathered. The bonfire was ready before Taehyung even entered the camp. Preparations of the festival. 

 Suddenly an elven girl grabbed Tae's hand and took him to a tent.  

Taehyung loved her hair, it was long, so long in fact that the pink ends of the blond hair reached the ground. 

‘Hope’ the name suited the girl well. Taehyung smiled at Hope as she started putting paint, first on his face and then body.  

“Hope?” 

“Hmm.” the girl hummed. 

“You remind me of someone a lot,” Taehyung said looking at her curiously. 

Hope lifted her head just enough for her eyes to meet eyes with Tae's “and who could that be?” 

Taehyung smiled widely, “I don’t know.” 

Hope’s pouted as she continued her work. 

Hope came to this camp around a month ago and Taehyung quickly became friends with her. She was kind and playful not to mention good at painting body tattoo’s. 

When the tattoo painting was done, Taehyung got out of the tent with smile disappearing little by little from his face. The bonfire was lit and the now dark forest looked like it was on fire. 

Taehyung stepped on to a platform near the fire. The whispers in the crowd suddenly went quiet and the last bits of the smile on Tae's face disappeared, a look of pure concentration replacing it. 

You could hear the start of slow, tribal drumming as Taehyung started moving his body. Keeping it relaxed, flexible with a loose kind of feeling. As the pace increased he started dancing and running, moves changing form fast and sharp, to relaxed and sedated. You could feel a certain intensity in the air.  

Taehyung danced and he danced passionately, concentrating everything he had. This continued for few hours. At some point the drumming started slowing down and Taehyung stopped moving. 

His sweaty body glistened under the light of the golden flame. A smile started playing again on Taehyung's lips as an applause erupted in the crowd.  

Taehyung sighed he was happy. He loved this life, this world…his world. 

* * * 

“V, will you go with me to the river?” a white wolf ran up to Taehyung “we need water in the village.” 

Taehyung nodded with a grin plastered on his face. 

They started going for the river, it was as hot a day as always. Taehyung suddenly looked at the white wolf; 

“Red, I have a few questions.” 

Red eyes looked at Taehyung curiously, “go on.” 

“Why do they call you Red? Is it your personality?” 

The wolf rolled its eyes, “yes, Taehyung, my personality is red.” 

Taehyung nodded maintaining a serious look on his face, “okay, then why do you call me V? No one else calls me that.” 

“Well… It suits you?” Red sighed, “I have no reason for this. Let’s just say I believe you will be victorious in life hence V, next question?” 

Taehyung stopped making Red stop beside him, “why not Viktor then, that’s a cool name.” 

“Taehyung stop. What’s with these questions anyway, we lived together your whole life just now you ask? Next question.” 

Taehyung formed a pout on his face, “no further questions,” they started moving again with Red towards the river.  

After few minutes Red spoke again because the pout was not disappearing from Taehyung’s face, “V, your dance at the moon festival was beautiful, I’m really proud of you.” 

“Really?” Taehyung laughed and started skipping. Making him happy didn’t take much. 

Red nudged Taehyung’s leg, “someone told me you were practising a lot.” 

Taehyung let out a dramatic gasp, “noo! I knew I couldn’t trust the birds, they betrayed me.” 

The wolf giggled, "The little birds graced you with their songs for a week exclusively, you should be more then thankful.”   

Taehyung didn’t say anything just went on with a blank expression. The forest was as beautiful as ever, today more alive than ever. Something made it stir, even the grapevines of the trees were moving. Slowly but moving. 

The movement made Taehyung worry, since movement wasn’t always a good omen. They entered a forest clearing, with a huge field of blue flowers. It was Taehyung’s favourite place in the forest. 

The trees haven’t taken over it just because the river had few streams branched out here from the main one. 

Red went straight for the river, while Taehyung ran into the opposite direction. Tae ran for a while, stopped and started fiddling with something on the ground. 

Red slowly approached the river, the stream looked clear and, like always, safe for drinking.  

Taehyung stopped his activities with the gorund and approached Red from behind, “do you need help lifting up the water?” 

The wolf hesitated for a moment before responding, “yes, I’ll need that. My power is not strong enough to lift up the water, but I think I’ll be able to carry it back.” 

Taehyung smiled and moved his wrist lightly making a large bubble of water from the river form up in the air. He looked at Red and the wolf nodded.  

Taking that as a sign, Taehyung released his power, but the bubble remained. Red had succeeded in taking over. 

“Do you need help carrying it back?” 

“No, I’ll be fine,” The wolf shook its head, “you should go to the white rabbit, he’s been closed up in his house again. You’re his only friend and you know how he gets when he’s insecure so take care of him, okay?” 

“I will.” Taehyung came closer to Red. He put his hand on the wolf's ear and ran his fingers through the fur. Red pushed its head into Taehyung’s palm, embracing the touch. 

Taehyung took out a flower from his hair, red one and put it on the wolfs ear tangling it with the hair so it would remain there. 

“What is it?” Red asked watching Tae's actions curiously. 

“It’s a red flower, it suits you.” 

“You found a red flower in a field of blue,” Red shook her head in amazement “Taehyung you are amazing… Go now and have fun.” 

Taehyung didn’t need to be told twice. He sprinted down the river bank to the rabbit’s house. 

Racing through the forest had its benefits such as getting fit, enjoying the blurred view. 

It also had its downsides, one of them being The forest being filled with tons of roots which made it terribly easy to trip.  

And Taehyung did just that. 

He almost fell face down into the ground. Taehyung’s instincts were good and fast so, he managed to throw his hands in front of his body to stop his face from reaching the ground. Unfortunately, while he was doing that one of his hands accidently hit a rock. The rock unfortunately flew straight to his face hitting his nose. 

Taehyung landed on his side with a whimper, immediately after that he got into sitting position and inspected the damage. Taehyung’s knees and hand hurt, they were scratched and blood had started gathering into small drops.  

Suddenly, Taehyung started feeling heat on his face and saw droplets of blood falling to the ground. Great now his nose was bleeding too! 

A heavy sigh left Tae's mouth, he pushed himself closer to the river and washed his hands, legs and face. Since the blood from the nose was still pouring like a waterfall Taehyung decided to stay in his sitting position until it stopped. 

The blood was dripping into the water making it slightly red, dissolving and becoming a neutral colour again. 

It was quiet for a while. The silence only filled with sounds of the forest Taehyung was already used to. But then something else happened.  

A sound. A melody he hadn’t heard before sounded somewhere in the forest. 

Taehyung lifted his head and saw something, or rather someone, in the distance. The bleeding and the pain forgotten, Taehyung started crossing the river to the person in the distance, the water was shallow so it wasn't long until he reached the other side. 

The person wasn’t moving as if they were under a curse. Taehyung went closer, but he was still good ten metres away when he noticed they were sitting.  

Taehyung heard the music again. It sounded like someone was singing a song with a heavy and rough voice. Taehyung had never heard music like that, but he liked it and it definitely came from the direction the person was at. 

The closer to the person Taehyung got the more scared he got. he wasn’t sure what exactly he was afraid of maybe the moving forest made this situation more uncomfortable, or maybe he sensed danger. 

Even though he felt all that fear, Taehyung still felt the need to get closer. 

Taehyung came closer. 

The person became clear. It was a regular human; he was fully clothed and didn’t seem to be from Taehyung’s tribe. The guy had dark hair, he had his eyes closed. Maybe he was sleeping.  

The guy was handsome, seemed strong with well-developed muscles. His raven hair was fluffy like a cloud. 

Music completely forgotten Taehyung shifted into a defensive position as he started sneaking. The man was within his hands reach.  

Taehyung stopped. His heart beating fast, he stretched his hand to touch the guy’s face. 

Suddenly, everything became painfully slow and he started feeling every detail: The sweat forming on his forehead, every beat of his heart, even the blood still dripping from his nose and soft breath of the other man. 

His hand touched the man’s cheek and at that moment Taehyung drew in a sharp breath, a face flashed before his eyes and everything disappeared.  

Taehyung found himself standing in total darkness, he didn’t see anything further then his still outstretched arm.  

Then he was blinded by light and everything bit by bit came into focus. Taehyung was…somewhere. It wasn’t the forest, since there were buildings and people and… moving things. 

Taehyung curiously looked around and wiped the blood from his face. He had no idea what was going on. He was standing on the edge of a street with other people. Taehyung observed the movements of people and the world with wide eyes, like an animal. 

The light on a strange stick switched to green and the people accumulated beside him started walking, Taehyung was left standing alone. 

His brain wasn’t working, it was like some glitch, it was just blank.  

Taehyung heard a scream and froze. 

He would ignore the scream considering all the other unfamiliar sounds if it wasn't so different.  

He heard someone scream his name. 

“V!” the scream sounded a second time and this time Taehyung started running.