Word Count: 8991

Of the things Sehun expected to find in the morning, for last night to be a silly dream was one of them. Seeing four people at breakfast without him was not one of them. Sehun sat up, hair sticking up in many unusual directions as he scanned the immediate area. Yixing was the first to notice Sehun's waking and he looked over Kyungsoo's turned back to get a better look.

"He's finally awake," he said, alerting everyone to Sehun's state.

"Well," Jongdae said with a bright smile on his face as he turned to the youngest of their little band of misfits. "Get yourself over here and have breakfast. You'll need all your energy for today."

Sehun tilted his head in confusion, but he got to his feet and came to the table. They squeezed another chair in to accommodate an extra body, but it was an uncomfortable fit. Kyungsoo's table was, in truth, too small for this, but they made due. Sehun's chair found himself pushed right up against Luhan's chair. It left him feeling a little awkward sitting this close to a stranger, but Luhan didn't seem to notice.

Sehun tried to get comfortable in his seat, and that was about when Luhan finally looked up at him. He gave Sehun that same gorgeous smile from last night, all teeth and gentle creases of his features. Sehun stared at it, unsure of how to respond at first.

"Good morning," Luhan greeted, his voice soft and sweet.

"G-good morning..." Sehun greeted back, still feeling strange. He dug into his food to take his mind off things.

"Luhan tells us you two met last night," Kyungsoo hummed. "But his reasons for excusing you from telling anyone he was awake were a little vague."

Sehun shrank a little bit. If he had been less exhausted, he would have gone and gotten Kyungsoo as soon as he realized Luhan had woken. But things had happened as they did and there was nothing he could do now. Didn't stop Kyungsoo from making those expressions of irritation. Sehun liked to avoid those.

"I was trying to come to terms with my lightning again," Sehun told him. "But when I meditated, it struck at me the way it did on the ship. So, when it was over, I was too tired to get up."

"That would at least explain why no one could wake you for breakfast this morning," Yixing muttered. "I all but shouted in your ear to get you to wake up, but nothing."

"Kind of assumed you were dead," Jongdae admitted with a smile. "But Kyungsoo said he could see the rise and fall of your chest from halfway across the house."

"It's an obvious sign of life, Jongdae," Kyungsoo huffed. "No need to go burying the living. Don't the royal guard accept people with some level of intelligence?"

Jongdae laughed and so did Luhan who seemed to find everything amusing. He looked a lot better than he had the night before. He was still covered in bandages, but he was moving around as if he weren't injured at all. It was as if the injuries didn't bother him one bit. Sehun averted his eyes and went back to his food when he feared someone might catch him staring. He didn't want to look like a strange person to their new guest.

Jongdae did seem interested in the meditation that Sehun had done, though. He stuffed another bite into his mouth, swallowed after almost no chewing. Then he moved on to his question.

"How did chatting with your power go, anyway?" Jongdae asked.

Sehun smiled a little at that question. "Well," he answered with some confidence bubbling up in him. "It went well. I don't know. When we finished...uh, 'talking', it felt like we had reached a truce."

Beside him, Sehun noticed Luhan tense and then relax his hands. A quick glance at his face told Sehun he looked almost proud.

Jongdae's smile got brighter as he took in Sehun's words. "That's great to hear," he hummed. "You might make progress now!"

He was eager to test that hypothesis a lot sooner than Sehun would have liked. Right after breakfast, Jongdae insisted on taking Sehun out to attempt control again. Sehun complained that he had eaten too much and didn't want to. Jongdae wasn't listening.

Yixing ventured into the forest in search of something to do. He said something about herbs and medicines and no one questioned what he was doing. Kyungsoo stayed inside, cleaning up after breakfast and mixing whatever Yixing brought back. Luhan chose to watch Sehun and Jongdae's magic session while he rested.

Sehun, though nervous, did have a better command of his lighting today. It was a relief to see that the electricity was not only easier to call, but friendlier. No longer did Sehun shock himself with every call of the gift. It skittered up his arms in playful curves that almost tickled. And by the end of practice, he was able to make it arc from one hand to the other. He could even create small, condensed balls of electricity in his hands. It was nothing like Jongdae's control yet, but he was well on his way to learning at long last.

"I told you," Jongdae said with a pat on Sehun's back. Sehun noted with relief that such actions did not hurt anymore. Pats on the back didn't even produce phantom pains anymore. At least something was going back to normal. "Accepting the gift was a help to you," Jongdae finished. "You can't fight power like that. It's not going to go anywhere. It will bring about negative side effects."

"I tried to find a good way to think of it. I still think of it as dangerous and a weapon," Sehun admitted. "But now I'm trying to consider it a way of someday protecting people. After I started thinking that way, accepting it was easier."

"Is that how you came to terms with your wind abilities?" Luhan asked from the side.

Sehun looked at Luhan and shook his head, a small smile on his face. "I was born with the wind," he told Luhan. "I've always known it. I know how dangerous it can be, but I also know it's gentle side. It can bring cool breezes in the summer, and warm winds to help seeds spread." He held out a hand in Luhan's direction and called on the wind to supply him with a little proof. He produced a small gust to ruffle the boy's golden-brown locks. Luhan giggled and swatted at the invisible magic. Sehun gave him a stiff smile. "But wind can also rip trees from the ground and tear houses from their foundations. I used it to protect myself once, and it brought me here."

Composing himself, Luhan took in what Sehun had said. "You would not have come here?" Luhan asked with a blink. Sehun shook his head.

"As awful as my past home was, I would have lived there for the rest of my life if nothing had happened." It was honest. Sehun knew it to be the truth. Change was often scary and Sehun had done many things to keep change at bay. He could have told his father of Sir Choi, but his father would have done something about it. Sehun wanted him to remain oblivious. That way, nothing of significance would change.

The answer seemed to make Luhan look sad.

"I'm glad it happened," Luhan finally said. "You deserve better than a life devoid of happiness."

Sehun only had a small smile to offer in response. He didn't tell Luhan about the new, red scars on his back. He didn't mention the shattered bones in his arm where fragile magic had knit him back together. He didn't want to make Luhan feel bad about being glad he protected himself.

But even if he had said something about it, Luhan might have still held firm. There was a fire in his eyes that told Sehun so. Luhan was a lot stronger than he was currently letting on, in both body and spirit. His thoughts were completely his own and no one would change them but himself.

Sehun looked away from those eyes when Jongdae called him back to attention. Practice was over, but instruction was not. Sehun remained aware of the eyes on him as he listened to more of Jongdae's lectures. He tried not to think about them too much. But those wide, passionate eyes were sweet like a doe's and ever curious. But, while curious, they held a secret wisdom of their own. It brought forward many questions, but Sehun couldn't bring himself to voice any of them.

At the end of the day, Sehun went back to his now shared room and made use of the bed while no one else was in there. Practice had taken a lot out of him, but he was feeling a sudden need to hit the road again. Every day he thought about Taeyeon and how much he owed her. His life should have been the one to fade away. But she had taken his place. He owed her his life, and she asked for something small by comparison. He needed to fulfill his promise to Taeyeon. The problem was, he was still healing, and he had no idea where to begin anyway.

He took out the moonstone that sat heavy in his pocket and looked at it. The moon had risen in the sky only an hour ago. It now sat in his window, showering him with buckets of cool moonlight. Sehun held the little stone up until it appeared to match with the round, bright shape in the sky. The light shone bright through the gray-blue shades of the stone.

It was beautiful, and Sehun wondered where Taeyeon had acquired a gem of such perfection. Why she had given it to him? How was this going to help him find her lost brother? And what was this curse that the two unfortunate siblings suffered from?

He couldn't bring them together anymore, and that saddened him. It was too late to renew their bond. But more than that, would the curse prevent him from finding Jongin? He sighed and closed the moonstone in his hand, clutching it to his chest. What should he do? Where should he start?

"That looks familiar."

Sehun bolted upright and looked at the door to the room, startled. He hadn't expected someone to be there, watching him. But there stood Luhan, arms behind his back as he looked at Sehun. Sehun sighed in relief, letting his sudden panic fade, quick as it had appeared in his throat.

"I don't know why," Sehun hummed. "It's a little moonstone. There's many more of them somewhere in this world, right?"

Luhan shook his head. "Yours is something special," he tried again. "It has something about it that I recognize. But I could be wrong. I don't know." His face seemed to scrunch up at the thought and he seemed to be struggling with something in his memory. Then his eyes lit up. "I know!" he finally bubbled. "Have the Moon Witch look at it for you! She'll know!"

"Moon Witch?" Sehun repeated, staring back at Luhan with a dumb expression. Then the connotations of the word "witch" came to him and he was quick to shake his head. "If she's a witch, I don't know if I want to go anywhere near her."

"Oh, but she's not that bad," Luhan hummed, waving his hand past the tip of his nose in dismissal. "You have to bring her a gift, but as far as I know, she's not picky. She only wants something thoughtful."

"What could I get a witch that she would approve of?" Sehun asked. "I would rather not get myself turned into a toad." Luhan shrugged.

"She could do a lot worse than turn you into a toad," Luhan laughed. "But it's like I said, you have to think about it. Don't worry about it too much. If you want to see the Moon Witch, you must travel quite a way, first. You'll have plenty of time to think of something she would like."

Sehun wasn't so sure this was a good idea, but he did give Luhan's suggestion some thought. He had no other leads, and if this Moon Witch could help him, then it might be worth a long trek to visit her. He looked back at Luhan for a moment, still noting the scrunched expression on his face.

"All right," Sehun sighed. "Where is she, then?"

Luhan opened his mouth to speak, but no words came to his lips. He was quick to shut his mouth again, looking sheepish. "I forgot."

Sehun stared at Luhan in disbelief for a moment before dropping his head into his palms. He couldn't believe this. That was the most useless bit of helpful information he had ever received.

"I know someone who can help you," a voice said. Kyungsoo entered the room, dusting one of his knickknacks that he kept in the living area. He must have been cleaning and overheard. "You know him too, actually. You met on the boat and again in the city."

Sehun thought back to his brief stay in the city. He had met very few people there, and one of them had been the boy at the shrine. The other had been-

"Chanyeol?" Sehun asked, the name coming back to him. "Tall guy in a red cloak who serves the royal family? He knows where to find the Moon Witch?"

Kyungsoo nods. " I know for a fact he can at the very least tell you something of use. He has never spoken of knowing who the Moon Witch is or where you can find her, but I know he can help. Chanyeol has a lot of secrets and a lot of connections."

Now, that was good news. Sehun felt his hopes rise, and he was already thinking of packing up and leaving. But Kyungsoo raised a finger to halt his thoughts. He seemed to see exactly where Sehun's head was going.

"But you need to finish healing, first," he reminded Sehun. "I'm not sending you off on an adventure without giving you your best chance at living through it. And that requires you to be in good shape."

In this forest, Kyungsoo's word was law. Sehun deflated and sank down onto the bed once more. He would be stuck here for who knows how long. He didn't even know what Kyungsoo's standard of "good shape" was. If it was completely rehabilitated, that could take months. Luhan came over and leaned over him with an apologetic smile.

"I can help."

Sehun glared up at him in annoyance. "Sure you can," he grumbled, disbelieving. But then there was a familiar bright light emitting from Luhan and he was reaching towards Sehun. "Whoa!" Sehun shouted, jumping up from the bed to get away from Luhan's glowing fingers. "What are you doing?" he demanded. It was already weird enough letting Yixing and Kyungsoo touch him with their magic hands. At least they told him what they were doing.

"I'm helping," Luhan repeated himself, mimicking Sehun's annoyance. He even stamped his foot, much like Sehun did when he was feeling picked on or childish. "Hold still!"

"No way!" Sehun said, rushing out of the room. He found safety behind a very confused Yixing who had only walked in the door a moment prior. "Keep him away from me," he whined, pointing to Luhan.

"What's going on?" Yixing questioned in an irate tone. He didn't like all this noise. Even as a human, his hearing was sensitive, and he didn't like loud noises.

"I want to help!" Luhan informed Yixing, letting his hands fade back to their normal color." Yixing cast a confused glance at Kyungsoo as if he might offer an explanation. Kyungsoo wasn't sure what had happened either. Neither of them recognized that form of magic that Luhan seemed to exude. It was also present around his wounds the morning after he woke up after his crash to earth.

"Luhan," Kyungsoo said, breaking the confused tension. "May I ask again where you came from?"

Luhan laughed at that, seeming to find something amusing and yet trivial. "I'm not sure I should tell you that, yet," he hummed, voice both playful and serious as he placed his hands behind his back. Kyungsoo, confused by that response, sighed.

"Sehun, you don't have to let him touch you if that makes you nervous," he said. "I would be nervous not knowing where that magic came from, too." Sehun nodded and Luhan stuck his tongue out at the two of them.

"Fine! Don't take my help!" he huffed. "I only wanted to speed things up. But we can do this the slow way if you want." He went back to the room and slammed the door shut with a loud bang, locking it from within. It looked like Sehun and Yixing weren't getting a bed that night.

"Great!" Yixing whined, turning to shove a finger at Sehun's chest. "You made him mad. Guess I'll be sleeping with Kyungsoo tonight."

"Not my fault he won't tell me what he's doing with that magic!" Sehun retorted, batting Yixing's hand away. He didn't like surprises. If Luhan would be up front about what exactly he was going to do, Sehun would be more inclined to let him. Even though he himself was magical, he had grown up fearing magic as much as loving it. The strange looks Kyungsoo and Yixing were giving each other made him more nervous as well.

"So, can anyone tell me what type of magic he was going to use?" Jongdae asked from the door. But everyone shook their heads.

"Usually you can feel the aura," Kyungsoo said. Then he turned to Sehun, knowing he needed the explanation more than Jongdae did. "Your wind, Jongdae's wind, Chanyeol's fire, and my earth are all different. I've never felt anything like Luhan's magic before."

Though this topic was fascinating, Sehun's attention deviated to other places.

"Wait, Chanyeol can do magic, too?" he asked. Kyungsoo and Jongdae both burst into loud fits of laughter at that question. Sehun looked at the both of them in confusion. "I fail to see what is so funny!" he growled.

But neither of them replied until they were both finishing up their laughing fits. Even then, it wasn't them who replied. Yixing turned to him once the noise had died down and asked, "You couldn't feel it rolling off him?"

That question only further confused Sehun. "Feel what?" he asked.

By this point Kyungsoo was going back to normal and wiping the tears of laughter off his face with an amused smile. "Go ahead and explain, Yixing," he said, still holding back his giggles. "He wasn't brought up around magical people. He might not know how to tune into that kind of thing."

"Useless upbringing," Yixing muttered before turning back to Sehun. "Chanyeol is powerful," he informed the boy. "Very powerful. Anyone paying attention can feel the heat coming off him. It's a different kind of heat than you are imagining. He has very fine-tuned control over his power, but magic users are able to sense it as an aura. Fire presents itself as heat."

"Chanyeol is the most powerful mage in our country," Jongdae added. He had finally recovered from the stitch in his side that he received from laughing so hard. "I'd actually be willing to bet he's more powerful than any mage in the world. It's why he's so close to the royal family. They know how powerful he is and he's more than happy to help them."

"He could teach you the finer points of magic that I'm not able to," Jongdae pointed out. "He's also got this tone about him that tells you he's a good person. Making friends with him would be a smart move on your part."

"I'm not about advantage," Sehun muttered. "I want to find Taeyeon's brother, give him her message, and find a way to get back to my first home to give her a proper burial. I would also like to find my father, but who knows if that will ever happen." He sighed and hung his head in his hands.

"I don't know about finding your father, Sehun," Jongdae said, voice soft as a hand came to rub his back. "But I know Chanyeol can help you with finding the Moon Witch. He seemed to like you when you met in the market. I would assume meeting on the boat was also pleasant. I'm sure he'd be happy to help you in all the ways he is able to."

Sehun looked up at that and Jongdae seemed both certain and genuine. It eased his mind a little. He looked at Kyungsoo and asked, "How long until you see me fit to travel?" he asked.

"You're still weak," Kyungsoo hummed. "You need to build your strength and the aches need to go away. The bones have pulled together on their surface, and that's good. But I suspect the deeper cracks have yet to repair themselves yet, making them still fragile. You are still at risk of renewed breaks if you're not careful. I would say a few weeks of careful exercise to build your strength back up and you will be good enough to travel."

"A few weeks?" Sehun groaned. "I don't know if I can sit around that long." But if he had no choice, he had no choice.

"Chanyeol won't have returned before then anyway," Jongdae told Sehun. "He had another mission handed to him before we left. He's halfway across the ocean by now."

"It's a good think you have to wait," Yixing said. "If you go after that man without thinking, you could very well get yourself worse than a broken arm. And that's not much of a birthday gift."

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