In the brightly moonlit night, he found himself walking to his friend’s house. He had a goal to achieve and his friend had agreed to help. The cool breeze slowly rustled his overcoat, as he rapped lightly at the wooden door.

“Why are you here now?” the person who opened the door asked.

“Donghae, you agreed to help”, he replied, brushing past him and entering his home. “Come on get dressed already”.

“At this hour?” Donghae was exasperated, “Yunho you better treat me well when you achieve your goal".

Yunho smirked and gathered the scattered pages, stuffing them into Donghae’s satchel. Donghae who was dressed in casual baggy pants and vest, turned to change his clothes. “Why didn’t you tell me you’ll be coming tonight? Jungsoo hyung was relentless in getting all the heavy lifting done by me, literally. My shoulders are stiff.” 
Yunho lightly massaged Donghae’s shoulders while staring at him across the mirror, “I couldn’t wait. I found an important clue that we’ve been missing.” Yunho’s eyes sparkled with excitement, “I think after this I’ll be done.” Donghae took the satchel from his hands avoiding further comment, “What is it?”

“I’ll show you” Yunho guided him out his house.

___

Jung Yunho, the son of an aristocrat, had wandered off on his own and apparently lost his way in the forest. He reached a cliff and stopped to admire the beauty that stretched across the vast lands. Clear sky up above, green lands down below and the sparkling water rushing by. He stretched his hands to either side of his body, craned his neck up, closed his eyes and took in a deep inhale.

The constant company of his servants was suffocating him and he needed time off. This serenity that he found himself in, calmed his mood.

A rustling sound behind him broke his tranquility. As the rustling sound got closer, with no sight of what it was, Yunho unknowingly inched closer to the cliff. The sound abruptly stopped and Yunho leaned forward, trying to see the intruder when a head peeked out of the shrubs, startling him, making him loose his footing. Flailing his arms, trying to stop his fall unsuccessfully, Yunho slipped off the cliff as the last thing he saw was a young boy with big doe eyes running towards him.

Splashing sound, unable to keep his head above water, Yunho who didn’t know how to swim, was slowly losing consciousness. As his vision was engulfed in darkness, he saw the same young boy swimming towards him. The young boy deftly held onto Yunho, his frail hands looping around his arms as he swam to the shore with much difficulty. 

Back on the shore, Yunho was unconscious and the young boy was equally out of breath. He pumped Yunho’s stomach a few times, pushing out the water that might have invaded his body. After a couple of minutes Yunho coughed out the water and the young boy slumped right next to him breathing heavily, equally exhausted.

Yunho stirred awake and saw the young boy laid beside him. He coughed a couple of times, spitting out water, when he noticed that the boy had his eyes closed. He had a frail body, his chest moved up and down seeming to calm himself, his dark black hair a stark contrast against his pale skin, clothed in thin brown colored clothes. The red string holding an ancient looking coin was hung around his neck, its bright red color standing out against the blackened coin. Yunho was focused on the engravings on the coin.

The young boy turned his head to notice Yunho’s gaze settled on him. He asked in a timid voice, “Are you alright, young master?” Yunho coughed again, embarrassed at being caught staring and nodded his head. He sat upright, slightly grimacing, “Who are you?” he asked the young boy.

The young boy also sat up and ran his hands through his hair, settling them down. The movement exposed his chest and Yunho saw faint red mark on the left side of his chest, similar to the engravings. It was then he realized where he had seen the symbol. His silent musing was interrupted when the boy spoke up, “I am Donghae. I am sorry I scared you. It wasn’t my intention.” Donghae was kneeling with his head bowed. Yunho placed his hand on Donghae’s shoulder making him stand up with him, “Its ok. Thank you for saving me.” 

___

Yunho's friendship with Donghae was frowned upon by his family, but being the one and only son of an aristocrat who directly served the Royals allowed him to have certain privileges. One of which he made sure was to have Donghae as his friend. Donghae was an orphan and even though Yunho had insisted several times, preferred to stay with his hyung, Park Jungsoo, son of a merchant. 

“I’ll talk with your brother”, Yunho said as the duo walked out the village, heading to the forest.

“You’ll do nothing of that sort. I had agreed to help hyung in managing the shop”, Donghae replied.

“You could have joined me, would have spared you of the labor work”.

“And be your servant, no thank you Young Master”, Donghae spoke cheekily. “I know you favor me but you don’t have to be so blatant about it.”

“You would’ve been my companion, not servant”, Yunho replied as he looked at Donghae from the side, a sadness creeping up.

___

Since Yunho was a young child he was fascinated with the legends about magic and power and how some can even obtain immortality. He would often bury himself in books about the mythologies and legends. He would make his servants accompany him on his errands to find books about the various myths. As he grew up, he realized that most of the legends and stories he read, were just that, Myths. 

On one of his errands to the library, he encountered an old woman in the library, cradling an old book. As Yunho entered the library, his servants standing guard outside, the woman approached him and handed him the book.

“What you have been looking for is in this”, she pointed to the book. Yunho glanced down at the book, flipping it open cautiously, its pages threatening to spill out of its binding. Before he could read it, the old woman turned and walked away.

“Wait! Where are you going?” He followed her across the aisle watching her turn to the other aisle. When he reached the other side he was stumped to see no one there. Astounded by her disappearance he checked the other aisles too, but couldn’t find her.

“Strange”, he looked down at the book in his hands, “What I’ve been looking for!”

The next few days Yunho was engrossed in reading the book and trying to figure out what it meant. It had details on spells, ingredients needed and how he could use them. He ordered his servants to fetch him the stuff required without indulging in specifics.

Subsequently fumbling with the procedure on couple of occasions, one particular day he was successful in setting up the altar and aligned the ingredients properly in a circle. He sat in the middle of the circle, chanted the spell slowly.

After a couple of moments, the air swirled around him, sweeping dust with it. It was weak at first, but as he continued chanting the spell, it turned fervent, making it hard for him to see. A dark chunk of energy sharply hit him, entering his body, causing a surge of pain, as few tears gather