Jihyo’s eyes washed over every inch of the mansion they walked through the hallways of in awe, the structures made of what must’ve been Helliostone, a rare element that was mined in a town called Hellio, millions of years before the magical world was what it is today. 

 

Helliostone was a pale white color with a plethora of different colors that veined through it like marble, only each color represented something different, reeking a different benefit from each. 

 

Blue Helliostone was specifically mined for its potent healing properties, the only substance in existence to revive a man after disembowelment or blood poisoning. 

 

After the Great Elemental War at the turn of the seventeenth century, blue Helliostone went extinct. 

 

Green Helliostone was used for mind control. 

 

Jihyo remembers reading about it in the Great Library back home, and she also recalls being grateful that her father --whoever the man really is-- couldn't get his hands on any. 

 

Green Helliostone was rarer than dragons in any realm, as it was destroyed by the governing witches back when Yerim had taken rein, a fact Jihyo learned from her mother's journal.

 

Yellow Helliostone, the rarest of all, has no record of its abilities, only that the aftermath of its use and appearance was catastrophic. 

 

Every known record of its presence has been described with words like 'Apocalyptic,' and 'of the most grave atrocities ever committed.' 

 

Some helliostone had much less terrifying and consequential uses. 

 

Like purple helliostone, for example. 

 

It's what Jihyo was looking around at as she ventured the corridors of the white and purple marbled home. 

 

Purple helliostone floats.

 

Hence why this house is floating five feet above the ground.

 

It's also known for its protective abilities, having only been found and mined around ancient witch's burial grounds. If mined properly, and with the right charms, it has been known to burn a man with ill intent to ashes in honor of protecting the miner.

 

If mined improperly or disrespectfully, it can erase the existence of an entire bloodline, with no trace, no memory or their mark on the planet. 

 

Everything they've ever done will be erased, every person they've affected unscathed by their footprint. 

 

Pink was Jihyo's favorite. 

 

Pink helliostone, commonly used and mined in the Spiritus Mountains, is used to ensure luck. When crushed into thin dust and sprinkled over the crown of any creature, it brings fortune and great coincidence. 

 

Only, it has to be sprinkled, unprovoked by someone who holds the subject dear and cares for them deeply. 

 

"So…" Chaeyoung clicked her tongue as she dragged her hands along the walls, watching as the stone glowed under the tips of her fingers. She could feel the soul in these walls. She could hear them harmoniously holding the house up in pure contentment.

 

Something about this blissful feeling made her feel just a little less heavy hearted. 

 

"... how long have you lived here?" Chaeyoung asked, trying not to seem too intrigued by the vampire she spoke to. 

 

"In Oracle bay, about three hundred years." She hummed before looking forward to her lover, who was busy talking animatedly with Dahyun and Momo as they led the nine women to the key to leaving this place. "With Chanmi, seven hundred and seventy three." 

 

Wow. 

 

"Wow." Chaeyoung gasped, and Sunmi chuckled. 

 

"You've lost your first love." She said pointedly, making the death witch look up in a start. 

 

"How did you-" 

 

"Loss is something I'm painfully familiar with." She interrupted assuredly, "I lost many many people I love, and I've seen that same sorrow in many. The sorrow of losing the first person you opened your heart to." 

 

"I'm a necromancer." Chaeyoung admitted, and Sunmi hummed in response. 

 

"You've seen many come and go then." She bowed honorifically, as the dead --or undead-- often do when addressing Chaeyoung, who stood as the only true, pure gateway between the living and the dead.

 

"You probably felt my soul when it left." She sighed, to which Chaeyoung stopped in her tracks, holding her hands out, and Sunmi smiled before allowing her chin to rest between the witch's palms tenderly. 

 

The witch closed her eyes, and, before the eyes of the only other person paying attention, Chaeyoung's flesh burned over her bones, allowing them to shine through, almost blindingly translucent to Tzuyu's eyes.

 

Remnants of Sunmi's death washed over her gaze, her life flashing before her eyes for Chaeyoung to see.

 

She saw the sight of Chungha, pleading and begging, refusing to lose Sunmi who, oddly enough, was fine. 

 

Though, rather than Sunmi's soul, it was Chungha's that seemed weary and weighed down. 

 

She looked weak and pale, as though she hasn't slept, and she seemed barely able to stand. 

 

Flashes of Sunmi holding her up, and pulling her to lie down while she held her. 

 

Chungha was sick, eyes heavy and red, coughing up blood as Sunmi begged her for something.

 

...

 

"Let me." Sunmi begged sorrowfully from where she sat, looking down at her lover whose head was in her lap.

 

"I can't, I-" The witch was cut off by a coughing fit, and Sunmi's eyes spilled, lip quivering as she cried over her dying lover. "I promised I would make this love as human as possible for you." She reminded, and Sunmi smiled sadly, wiping her eyes. 

 

"What is more human than dying for the woman you love?" Asked the human, and Chungha sniffled.

 

"I can't live on without you." She whimpered, to which Sunmi scoffed. 

 

"And what, you think I can just go back to selling fish with my father?" 

 

Chungha chuckles sadly, reaching a shaky hand up to pull Sunmi down by the head for a searing, desperate kiss. 

 

One that, should it be their last, Chungha would be happy with it.

 

"I can't… lose you." whispered the messenger witch weakly, and Sunmi sighed. 

 

"At least let me stay with you." She pleaded, "Sleep, and I'll hold you in your final moments." 

 

Chungha whispered one last shaky goodbye before closing her eyes, and Sunmi waited, caressing her dry, cracked hair until she fell asleep with soft snores.

 

The girl slipped out from under Chungha's  head and out the door of the tattered old cabin, into the woods around it where the full moon shone through the trees. 

 

She stood in a clearing near a lake and waited until she heard the sound of rustling nearby. 

 

"You can skip the theatrics." Sunmi rolled her eyes, and before she could blink, there was a familiar face staring at her with a concerned look.

 

"Are you sure about this, child?" Asked the vampire, and she sighed.

 

"The curse takes the soul of her first love." She recalled, "Vampires are known for being soulless." 

 

"Yes, but are you ready to feel like a shell of a woman?" He asked, walking around her, much like Chaeyoung recalls Sunmi circling her friends. "Are you ready to leave behind all you know as a human? Are you ready to change your life for an eternity at the risk that you and this girl won't work out?" He asked, and Sunmi closed her eyes. 

 

"You can't talk me out of this, Tae." She insisted, "I would give my soul to the Gods, even if it meant I'd have to endure an eternity of it being ripped in half over and over again until what's left is dust if it meant I'd be able to keep the world from losing someone as perfect as Chanmi." 

 

… 

 

What came next was the second most painful display of soul splitting to exist. 

 

It included sixteen long nights of draining Sunmi's soul from her body in the form of her human blood, and the feeling of electricity ripping through her veins as though attached to barbed wire, tearing the walls of her flesh with every ounce of blood being extracted. 

 

"It was all worth it." Sunmi whispered when Chaeyoung pulled away, inky tears running down her cheeks that slowly went back to their original tint.

 

Not those words again.

 

It was worth it. 

 

It was worth giving up a normal, blissful life to be with the very thing that destroyed her. 

 

How could it ever be worth it?

 

"I know all about loving a dead woman." Chaeyoung whispered, wiping the ink from her eyes before looking up at the vampire again in sudden worry.

 

"What does that mean for my friend?" She asked, eyes falling to Nayeon, who walked with Jeongyeon, laughing and talking animatedly. 

 

Sunmi smiled sadly, patting Chaeyoung's shoulder softly. 

 

"It means that she's only here for as long as it takes to help you fulfil the prophecy." 

 

"Here we are." Chungha interrupted unknowingly, a smile on her face as she opened the large oak doors wide enough for everyone to see. 

 

It was a glass room at the very top of the ten story house, booming with foliage and life, moss growing up the walls and vines curling around the Hellio Pillars that kept the house on its foundation. 

 

"This is…" Sana gasped as she looked about, the ceiling so high that she could see clouds surrounding the peak of the ceiling, where the two giant glass panels met. 

 

"Magical?" Nayeon finished, eyes glossy as she stared at Sana in adoration. She stepped forward and took the girl's hand in hers, caressing it with her thumb.

 

This time, a third pair of eyes watched cautiously, aside from those same two. 

 

Chungha disappeared behind some wild plant while the others looked around in wonder. 

 

"I grow some of these in my rooftop garden." Dahyun grinned as she toyed with a bushel of sage between her finger and thumbs. 

 

"Are you gonna go back to that after all this?" Jihyo asked, and Dahyun sighed. 

 

"I'm not sure." She admitted, "As much as I love this place, I built the place in new york for myself, and it's just as much a part of my life as Oracle Bay." 

 

"W-what about my mom?" Jihyo asked, too discouraged by everything to be sure of anything other than the fact that she needed her family.

 

"We'll have to see where this all goes." Dahyun assured, "But I will never leave you, or your mom again." She promised, eyes filled with a sincerity that couldn't be feigned. 

 

"Why'd you leave last time?" Jihyo asked, and the woman sighed sadly. 

 

"I died." She admitted, "I only got to see a glimpse of you as a baby before I was torn away from you and your mother." 

 

"How..?" Jihyo asked, voice weak as she tried to keep herself from crying. 

 

"It was sudden…" Dahyun shook her head, eyes squinted in an attempt to remember, to no avail. "I last remember handing you to your mom." 

 

Jihyo's lip quivered before she opened her arms to pull her parent in for a hug tightly. "I'm glad I got a chance to meet you." She mumbled into Dahyun's neck, and Sana watched as the other human's eyes grew soft, and as she wrapped her arms around her daughter at last. 

 

"Alright," Chungha sighed as she walked through with a handful of what could only be described as grains of bright green rice. "these time grains will allow you to walk back through the most defining moments to the prophecy." She explained, passing one to each girl. "It will not allow you to change time, only to look through it, and each grain is one trip." 

 

"Where will we end up when the grain wears off?" Asked Sana, and the older messenger witch smiled. 

 

"Exactly where you need to be." She promised, "You can take up to two people with you, so I suggest you each grab two partners and stay united. Getting lost in time will render you mad when you come back, as you'll have no perception of reality." She warned, and everyone looked around in anticipation. "There is no telling whose destiny path you'll land in, so I hope you all trust one another enough to roam around each other's pasts." 

 

Nayeon stepped beside Jeongyeon instantly, causing the fire witch to smirk arrogantly, only for that smirk to fall when Nayeon reached a hand out for Sana to join.

 

"Great…" Jeongyeon huffed under her breath as Momo immediately clinged herself to Jihyo's side. 

 

"Would you…?" The Quizmaster witch inquired of the human, whose eyes lit up in pure excitement 

 

Tzuyu looked between Mina and Chaeyoung, who both seemed painfully unbothered by who they would be paired up with.

 

Though Tzuyu couldn't have asked for a better duo to have with her. 

 

"Now," Chungha hummed as she stood between the nine women, hand in hand with Sunmi, "Place the grain on your tongue and close your eyes. Make sure you‘re thinking about the mission at hand, to avoid any detours on the way back.” 

 

“This just gets more and more exciting, doesn’t it?” Chaeyoung scoffed, arms crossed over her chest. 

 

“It’s not like you’re gonna die anyway.” Jeongyeon scoffed, making Chaeyoung’s lip quiver. 

 

“There are things much worse than death.” She muttered, making Nayeon roll her eyes. 

 

“Since when are necromancers so dramatic?” Asked the messenger witch, and Sana sighed. 

 

“Can we just get on with this? I’m sick of hearing everyone fight.” 

 

“Alright,” Chungha responded, standing in the circle and rubbing an orange powdery substance between her palms, making it fall to the feet of each girl inside the circle, missing Charlie by a hair. “‘By the sun and the moon, by the skies and the seas, by the light and darkness, I pray and I beg that you allow us to access the ability to turn back the hands of time. We plead with you and we beg that you let us uncover the truth of history.'” She chanted softly, kneeling in the circle and pulling a match out of her pocket, lighting it and tossing it at Jeongyeon's feet and igniting the circle into a bright blue flame, surrounding the couple and separating the two from the nine women before them. 

 

Over the sound of Chungha's incantations sounded a loud hissing noise, as though the magic has begun working. 

 

The light became blinking, a quite literally sentiment, as Jihyo's sight vanished, leaving her in a sea of darkness for what seemed like an eternity, until it dawned upon her that she just needed to open her eyes. 

 

Upon lifting her heavy lids, Jihyo was met with the sight of… 

 

"General Hyuna," Sounded a voice from behind Jihyo, and she, along with Momo and Dahyun, all turned to see a familiar face. 

 

"M-mom?" Sputtered the Quizmaster witch before reaching out to touch her, only for her hand to pass through the woman's shoulder. 

 

"Oracle Yerim… I heard you were on your way here." Answered the General, opening her arms to pull Jihyo's mother in for a hug.

 

"I have news about a prophecy." Yerim cleared , handing a folded up sheet of parchment to the General. The woman unfolded it, and Momo creeped behind the woman to read the paper over the General's shoulder quietly. 

 

"It only has eight." Momo hummed, walking back around to address her companions.

 

"Which one is missing?" Asked Jihyo, and Momo rolled her eyes. 

 

"Yours, obviously." 

 

"Well, D-" Jihyo cut herself off from calling Dahyun when she saw the woman's longing gaze locked on her mother. 

 

Her eyes seemed red, and her fingers were trembling as she fought against herself, knowing that there was no use in reaching forward when Jihyo had just tried.

 

Charlie, somehow, stood at Dahyun's feet, mesmerized by the woman everyone seemed to be paying attention to.

 

"Let's go." 

 

… 

 

"That was awesome!" Sana giggled excitedly, looking around at her surroundings, which seemed to be near an old watering hole near Spiritus, assuming Sana had known her surroundings well. 

 

Which, she did.

 

"It's… nothing like interdimensional travel, that's for sure." Nayeon grunge, stumbling to the side, just barely stopping herself from falling into the watering hole. "Jeongyeon, are you-" Nayeon was cut off when she saw her companion laying on the ground, staring up at the sky. 

 

"No, I'm not." Jeongyeon grumbled, covering her eyes with her arm. "I feel like I'm gonna throw up." 

 

"Must be from the water earlier." Sana shrugged, and Jeongyeon rolled her eyes. 

 

"Well, we did just suspend our subconsciousness into a sea of time, so it is natural to feel uneasy." Nayeon rationalized, making Sana do a double take in her mind.

 

She had always read that time travel had nothing to do with time exactly, but the space that is taken up around the person trying to manipulate it. 

 

And if Nayeon's statements were true, why was she, a totally normal human, the most well adjusted out of the three. 

 

Sana's eyes wandered across the pond, to a beautiful brunette woman walking the trail around the water. 

 

She sat on the ground patiently, legs crossed over one another, hands folded in her lap, eyes closed peacefully as she meditated, allowing herself to become one with the nature surrounding her.

 

Something about the woman drew Sana near. She stepped closer while Nayeon had distracted herself with reviving her friend.

 

The human slowed down when she got nearly a meter away from the woman, taking easy steps, so not to distract her.

 

It was just that something about this woman made Sana's entire chest lift with the rush of being so close to something she had never experienced before. 

 

Before she could call out to the woman in front of her, the sound of marching came along from the distance. 

 

The brunette woman stood up calmly with no effort and began a slow walk toward the sounds. 

 

Nayeon called out to Sana, only for the human to ignore her and continue following the mysterious woman. 

 

"What brings you here to our world, traitor?" Spat the voice of a man Sana had never seen, but one that Nayeon and Jeongyeon had a vague memory of. 

 

"I wanted to warn your coven of the prophecy." She offered, trying to hand the man a folded up sheet of paper, but the man looked down at it and scoffed. 

 

"You lost our trust when you decided to love a human." He spat hatefully, and suddenly, Jeongyeon remembered who he was. 

 

"That's Mina's dad." She whispered to Nayeon, who's eyes went wide at the memory of his last moments

 

...

 

"Where are we?" Asked Tzuyu as the three looked around at the town they ended up in.

 

This town didn't look even remotely familiar, as it was packed with cobblestone and horses attached to buggies occupied by humans in big poofy clothing clopped past them, other humans speckling the streets to buy things from the stands.

 

"Is this some kind of market or trading post?" Mina asked, and Chaeyoung sighed. 

 

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to relive this." She admitted before walking in the opposite direction, knowing like muscle memory where she was supposed to go. 

 

"Is this your timeline?" Asked Mina, to which the shortest witch rolled her eyes. 

 

"Seeing as though I've been alive longer than recorded time, I had a feeling that I'd be reliving a memory." She admitted as she left the other two through a rusty old barn door about a hundred pages away. Her eyes fell upon the back of a much younger version of herself, one with long, jet black curls that went down to her backside, then sighed, "I was just hoping it would be of the time I found a wild cayote and took him home." She admitted, and Mina looked over the necromancer's shoulder to see the memory, but Tzuyu laid a hand on Chaeyoung's stiff shoulder kindly.

 

"I don't have to watch if you feel uncomfortable with sharing something so intimate with me." She offered, to which the shorter witch looked up, eyes warm, despite the way this memory made Chaeyoung's blood freeze. 

 

She took Tzuyu's hand from her shoulder, and instead of shoving it away like Tzuyu expected, the shorter woman kept it in hers, twining them together for support.

 

"Just don't let go of my hand." She whispered, fighting off a sob, and Tzuyu nodded before holding on tighter and watching intently. 

 

"I've missed you so much, my love." Muttered the voice of eery familiarity, though now, she noted, it was much less heavy and aged, despite Jinsoul not having aged in centuries.

 

"And I, you." Muttered Chaeyoung in return, pressing her lips to those of the woman she so loved. 

 

Jinsoul sat in a pile of hay in a stable beside the one occupied by a majestic white horse.

 

"I hate having to sneak around like this though." Jinsoul sighed, eyeing the animal who let out a gruff winnie.

 

"I know," Young Chaeyoung whispered, a thumb coming up to caress the lip of her beloved. "I promise that, one day, I'll get you out of this." She assured, and the taller girl smiled sadly before lying her head on Chaeyoung's chest, allowing the shorter woman to lie back, pulling her love with her. 

 

"I had been crossing the threshold to see her every day for nearly two years when this day came." Present day Chaeyoung uttered, her body trembling as she tried to stand steady. "I had proposed to her, but since it was the human world in the 1700's, we knew we'd never be able to love each other in public…"  A tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek, hitting her dimple as she smiled, a bitter sob coming from in the form of a chuckle. "It was still worth every second." She admitted, and Tzuyu frowned, watching as Jinsoul straddled the younger version of Chaeyoung, unlacing the strings connected to the bust of her dress and pulling them down, revealing her to the three witches. 

 

"I think they're- or… you're…" Mina blushed, and before she could finish her sentence, the two began to moan together, the stable wood just barely obscuring their sight from the . 

 

"We should go-" Tzuyu tried pulling Chaeyoung away, but the girl stood still, tears spilling from her eyes as she watched her former self make love to who she thought was her soulmate. 

 

"You'll miss the best part." The shorter woman uttered under her breath, tone cold and bitter, face unchanging, totally void of emotion. 

 

Suddenly, Tzuyu's attention was brought to the sound of the barn door being busted open behind them, and through the doorway bursted two angry older men, one welding a dagger, and the other, a riding crop and a hefty fist. 

 

"Cease this deviance at once!" Shouted the man with the whip, lashing Jinsoul's before she could take herself out of her -feuled daze. She let out a sob at the feeling, and young Chaeyoung immediately wrapped her arms around her beloved to lessen the blows until she could stand and turn so she was taking the blows. 

 

Tzuyu eyed her companion and felt her heart break at the way the woman's body trembled and shook and sobbed upon reliving such an incident. 

 

She pulled the girl closer and wrapped her arms around the necromancer, allowing the woman to sob into her shoulder, unable to stomach reliving the rest. Tzuyu cradled Chaeyoung's head under her hands and hushed her, rubbing other her hand on the woman's back for support while she watched over Chaeyoung's shoulder. 

 

The two half women cried and plead with the men that they stop, but one yelled while the other continued to lash away at the two with no resolve.

 

"You have corrupted my daughter, heathen!" Shouted the man with the dagger once the man with the riding crop stopped, and he rose his weapon to lunge at Chaeyoung, but before she could feel the sting of the knife being plunged into her back, she felt herself fall. 

 

Tzuyu watched as Jinsoul shoved Chaeyoung out of the way, receiving the knife through her bare chest. 

 

"No!!" Screamed Chaeyoung, a deafening sound that made Mina cover her ears, as well as the two men, one of which in shock, eyes wide and tears already spilling at the realization that he just killed his own daughter, and that at his feet, she was being cradled by the one person who truly loved her. Chaeyoung's eyes turned black, and her flesh turned inside black as her bones cracked out of place. She rose from where she kneeled, walking calmly toward the two men who seemed terrified. 

 

"May the power of Christ compel you!" Shouted the man with the riding crop, holding up a wooden cross from under his clothes and waving it at her as her jaw fell open, revealing six rows of pearl white teeth. She attacked the man and strangled him until his soul left his body through his eyes. 

 

She stood up and turned to face Jinsoul's father, looking him deep in the eyes as he crossed silently, trembling from every ounce of his body as he watched his life flash before Chaeyoung's eyes.

 

"Take me out of my misery, great Goddess of Death!" He plead, throat tight and lungs gasping for air as he fell to his knees and prayed for forgiveness. "I have committed the gravest of atrocities, I do not deserve your forgiveness, almighty deity." He sobbed, and Chaeyoung responded by snapping her fingers, and Tzuyu watched in terror as the man slowly deteriorated into a thick cloud of black smoke. 

 

She rushed to Jinsoul's side and cradled her dead body, sobbing from the very pit of her being, waiting for her soul to leave her body so she can guide her safely to the one place good enough for someone like her. 

 

Bliss.