Note: The first part of this is violent. Not gruesome level (at least compared to what I've read in certain books), but just be warned. 

_____

That year

Dahyun couldn’t stop the flow of tears. She couldn’t look away from Teresa. She wasn’t moving, but she was feeling. She was feeling too much. She was being consumed. 

What Dahyun did next was based purely on instinct, not centuries worth of knowledge. She grasped hold of the worst emotions coursing through Teresa. She took them as her own. She was overcome by the consuming heat of her own anger and the cold of Teresa’s sadness. 

It wasn’t working. Teresa’s fear wouldn’t leave her. Dahyun pulled harder on the rest. As soon as her body spasmed, she knew she had taken too much.

Her vision was overcome with red and blue. She didn’t see the blade of ice.

Frost seeped into her veins. An elemental fae. There was enough anger in her to stop the ice from spreading too far. She forced the red in her vision into the physical world and into her blood. She cried out. It burned. 

Another blow. This was only a fist. Her body fell to the floor. Moving was difficult. She felt every consequence of her imprisonment. She should have trained her body to react, to act, to fight. 

They were coming closer. Dahyun let herself go further into the emotional world. She saw the triumph of her captors. She grabbed for it. Pride flooded into her. She smiled. 

“Stop her!” someone roared. 

Dahyun felt the magic of a mental fae reaching towards her. She used the strength of their pride to push herself up. She dove away from another attack, reaching out into their emotions in the next moment.

She forced the mental fairy into a spell of sadness. She watched dark blue ropes curl around their being. She used the opportunity to take more emotions. More. That was what she wanted. Her mind yearned for the emotions that had been stolen from her. She would take theirs.

The new emotions didn’t overwhelm her. They gave her focus. She saw through the hazes of grief, anger, and fear. Her captors stood, looking at her with what might have been fear. Her smile widened. 

She looked down at her hands, allowing two black daggers of grief to grow. 

When the first attack came, the ice fae, Dahyun was able to dodge and sink a dagger into his chest. The second fae caught her, drawing a shard of something across her stomach. She stumbled.

The other fairy neared, slamming her foot down on Dahyun’s leg. Something snapped, but she pushed the physical world away from her. Not enough to lose her sight completely, but just enough to escape the worst of the pain. 

She saw that her attacker was enveloped by a layer of sadness. Inside the dark blue cocoon, she saw anger, satisfaction, and the remains of excitement. Dahyun recognised her own emotions within the fae. They had consumed them. The disgust she felt strengthened her anger. 

There was no hesitation in what she did next. She tore away the girl’s emotions, forcing anger into the holes she left. She heard the girl’s screams. It only made her add more. Too much. 

The thud of a body against the floor brought her back. She looked around, seeing that more were coming. The first elemental fae lay dying, tears on his face, while the other was flat on her back. Her eyes glowed red, but there was no expression within them. The mental fae was slumped by the wall, tears running down her face. Teresa was beside her, still motionless. She was still filled with fear. 

She looked back to the newcomers, swaying where she stood. Then she struck. 

The next minutes were a blur for Dahyun. She didn’t know how many she had killed. 

The next moment that she knew for certain was being at Teresa’s side again. She felt invigorated by the emotions flowing through her, having not felt their presence for over a year. Any happiness she might have felt disappeared. She tried to push all of the new emotions into Teresa. The fear within the girl resisted. Nothing Dahyun did could pierce it. She couldn’t even take the fear for herself. Teresa’s skin was grey, her hair was grey, and she was freezing to the touch. Consumed by fear. She was lost. 

As the thought truly dawned on her, Dahyun stood. She felt no anger, no fear, not even loneliness. There was only grief. Grief that was purely her own, one that formed in that moment. It closed around her chest. She couldn't breathe. She had failed. 

Dahyun stumbled to the wall of the corridor, putting out a hand to steady herself. Her skin was slick with the blood of her captors. She fell and did not get up again. The exhaustion of the fighting and the pain of her injuries joined the grief. In her prison, only her sobs broke the deathly silence.

_____
“What you’re describing is the turning point of English literature!” Chaeyoung’s eyes were wide, clearly eager to discuss art in any of its forms. 

“But it’s written so strange. Little is clear upon first read.” Dahyun frowned. She stared at the text in her hands. The pages were full of notes and highlights. There was a system in them, but nothing that could be figured out at first glance. 

Physics look, Momo thought. She wished Sana was here. They had both picked up on that look.

Instead, Sana was giggling away with Jennie. That had lasted almost a week now. She really hoped it wasn’t because of Momo. If it was, this had the chance to be the most confusing love triangle. Was it already?

“What do you gave to gain from writing like that?” 

“It’s artistic expression,” Chaeyoung replied. “Without it, the text would lose so much.” 

“‘The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King’,” the fairy said, flicking several pages back, only to point out the line she’d just recited. “I understand he wants to expose his uncle there, but it requires too many associations and translations to comprehend the many lines before.”

“Dahyun-ah,” Momo called, smiling as she did. “I think you just have to accept that it’s like that.” 

The girl’s frown became something awfully similar to a pout. Was this her sulking? Momo found it adorable. 

“Plus, you can’t ask him to change his work, Shakespeare’s dead,” Tzuyu said. “Chaeyoung and I checked.” The way she said it was so matter-of-factly. Some of them chuckled. 

“Anyway,” Nayeon cut in, “don’t think all fiction is like that. Most of the books are written normally.” 

“Fiction?” she repeated. Dahyun pressed her hands to her temple, kneading it. “I thought I’d learned enough about this society.” She looked defeated. 

“Hey,” Momo poked her cheek, “do remember we’ve been around longer. It took me ages to figure out how a radio worked, let alone the old computers.” 

“Modernity is tiring,” Dahyun murmured. Then she rested her head on the table.

Momo reached out to pat her head. Dahyun leaned into the touch. Something in her chest fluttered at that. She tried to ignore the feeling.

“Shakespeare died about four hundred years ago,” said Chaeyoung.

“Then this world is confusing,” she grumbled. She spoke softly. Only a vampire would be able to hear those words. Even the werewolves would miss those words.

Momo saw the eyes on them, but she continued Dahyun’s hair anyway. She’d changed the colour to dark brown. It suited her, but she missed her natural look. This was just another thing she was hiding. 

Then Dahyun raised her head, her brow rising with her. “You said you had to check if Shakespeare was alive, but how old are you if you came too late?” 

“Nayeon is the oldest,” Jihyo said. “A little over four hundred years, same for Mina, but Tzuyu's the youngest with about three hundred.” She spoke quietly, because that really wasn’t something to be overheard by the wrong people. Not even the wolves.

“Three eighteen,” Tzuyu corrected. 

“And the rest of us are somewhere in between.” Momo knew the year she was born in, but that was simple math she didn’t bother with. Even so, they celebrated the day when their coven became eight. Every year, sometimes twice if they missed out on any other celebrations. 

Her brow raised even higher. Her gaze fixed on the far corner. “So I was tricked,” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. 

Momo followed the look. Even from here, she saw that Sana’s cheeks were a bright pink. 

“I think I’m older than you,” she told Nayeon, “though I’ll still use those formalities. It would be strange not to use them as I did before.” The fairy didn't use them much, but when she did, she sounded them out as if they were the strangest words to her.

“Good,” the semi-eldest grinned, “because I haven’t called anyone unnie in a while.” 

“You’ll still call me unnie?” Momo asked, tilting her head so that they were at eye level. 

The corner of her lip tugged up. “Even though there is an even larger ,” Dahyun said, “I’ll make an exception.” 

____
Dahyun scoured the shelves. The library of the girls was incredible. There was a mixture of modern and older books. It all combined to form a scent and atmosphere that she enjoyed greatly. She ran a finger down the spine of one. It was leather bound, attached to it were several different threads of curiosity, not as much calm. Pulling it out, she looked at the cover. No title. 

“We used that when we were trying to figure out what you were,” a voice said. 

“You did research?” She smiled at the thought. “Is there any information about us?”

“Not much,” Sana said. She didn’t take the book from Dahyun, but she did open it. “Is it true that a vampire fed on one of you?”

She nodded. “My brother. It was one of the few times we went into the human world. I am the one to blame there, because I was convinced knowing human emotions would further my own research. It did,” she frowned, “I saw emotions I had never felt before in potencies I sometimes thought impossible.” It had certainly been a humbling experience, as well as highly inf