I was blinded. Blinded by the words that left Chanyeol’s lips not long ago. The utterance, the mere thought, that Baekhyun was in danger. I was driven by my mindless state down the hall, despite the pleas of Chanyeol beside me to remain calm. Why was he asking me to do so?

I am calm. Completely and utterly calm. In fact, I’ve never felt so sure of something before. So sure that upon reaching Baekhyun, I would mend the situation. I would leave the mending of his body to Lay while I would mended the problem his injuries arose from. It didn’t matter what it was. It didn’t matter how out of reach the solution was, I would find it. Of this, I was sure of.

How was I so sure? What made me so confident despite hearing what I just did from Chanyeol? I don’t know. I truly don’t.

I don’t know why despite hearing that Baekhyun was injured by none other than the Council, I felt so empowered. Despite hearing that the Council had called him out to observe once more the death of another Exotian, he refused. He refused because I told him to never just stand back and watch such a thing again. As a result, while crossing Main Street, heading back to the Hall of the Guardians with a group of Exotians surrounding him, he was attacked. He was stabbed as the large group walked across the street, secretly and discreetly. He was stabbed without a single person noticing a thing, even as he held tightly onto the pole of the crosswalk sign after he reached the other side of the street, bleeding out. Despite hearing this from Chanyeol, who fumbled to explain it all to me and who included much more detail than I could recall, I didn’t feel helpless or weak. Quite the opposite.

I felt offended.

I felt belittled.

But most of all, I felt like I needed to see him, no matter how many times Chanyeol warned me to stay in my room until Lay finished tending to him.

However, when I arrived at his room, walking inside without bothering to knock and found only Suho, D.O., and Kai by his side, by his side as he laid in his bed, his chest weakly heaving up and down as his hand clenched his stomach, blood streaming from beneath his fingers and staining his covers, I certainly couldn’t go back and wait around in my room anymore.

“Where is Lay?” I asked, and though it was me speaking, my voice, it felt different.

Someone stumbled into the room from behind me, clamoring to Baekhyun’s side. He, Lay, had apparently run to get here after hearing the news from Luhan moments before, something I read his mind to figure out.

“Lay, heal him.” Lay turned back to me, confusion on his face yet he turned back around, doing so nevertheless, his hands glowing a faint green as he placed his palm over Baekhyun’s own. “Suho, go get some water to clean the wound.” Suho stood from Baekhyun’s beside, trusting me beyond any doubt and complying with my words as he quickly left. “D.O., prepare something to eat for him when he comes to.” D.O. nodded his head, his hand tracing over the edge of Baekhyun’s bed as his eyebrows furrowed downwards before he too left the room.

Chanyeol remained behind me, soon joined by Xiumin and Sehun who before they could ask a single question, I spoke again. And it felt odd. It felt as though I were watching myself from somewhere far away, somewhere detached from the entire situation. Detached as I let this other side of myself, this side of me that bravely faced such a situation, that would have left me speechless, with grace and most of all, composure.

“Chanyeol, Xiumin, Sehun, you three will go into the city. Baekhyun rejected the Council’s orders to oversee another incident. They won’t stop just because he refused them. Go and make sure it doesn’t happen.” I paused for a moment before continuing, remembering one particular guardian who most likely had no idea what was going on, “And take Chen with you.”

Chanyeol began to back away, bumping Xiumin’s shoulder in the process. He nodded, his expression firm as he patted Xiumin’s and Sehun’s backs before taking off down the hall. Sehun shot me a glance, shot myself that wasn’t myself a glance, before leaving as well. Xiumin’s lips parted to speak, to address me, before he too ended up leaving.

“His blood vessels won’t clot.” Lay announced, his eyebrows causing a crease to appear between them as he concentrated on the wound. He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, his expression sullen.

I’ve never had to heal a wound this deep before. Since we’ve never disobeyed the Council before, wounds like this are always near misses. I’m not sure what I can do, your highness.

I drew my eyes away from his own, letting them lay on Baekhyun’s face. His was dripping in his own sweat, his lips parted as rugged breaths escaped his throat. It was because of me he was like this. Because he listened to me, he was like this. I wasn’t going to let him fade away so easily. No. Not now. And a voice in the back of my head whispered to me a faint murmur. A murmur that said, Not ever.

“Kai.” I spoke, causing his eyelashes to flutter. He had been staring at me this entire time, most likely as baffled as I was about how I was handling all of this. Was it even me though? Right now is not the time to question it however. “Bring Tao here. He’ll slow down Baekhyun’s blood flow.” Kai, in less than a second, dissipated into thin air, only a wisp of his black cloak left before it too faded away like particles of sand disappearing into the wind.

Within a few seconds more, Tao was there, Kai holding onto him. “I was in the city, what’s going on?” Tao explained. Most likely, Luhan’s explanation to him whilst he ran back to the Hall of the Guardians was insufficient as he looked completely and utterly confused. Then again, Luhan’s ability to explain was probably not what left Tao confused. Rather, the question of “What am I supposed to do?,” the same question I was and still am asking myself even as I appear so in control at the current point in time, must have been what left him in a state of apprehension.

Lay began to fill him in then and, soon after, Baekhyun’s wound stopped bleeding as Tao and Lay worked to heal him together. Suho showed up as well then, a tub of water in his hands that he laid by Lay before busying himself with cleaning Baekhyun’s wound that was closing up slowly but surely, his skin healing itself as though the deep wound was never there. And Baekhyun began to breath more easily, his body sinking into the curves of the mattress as he relaxed. And Luhan’s voice echoed into my ears, telling me that Chanyeol, Xiumin, Sehun, and Chen succeeded in stopping the Council’s latest planned disaster.

And I felt my knees go weak, having to lean against the frame of the doorway to steady myself. Before I could however, a pair of arms that belonged to someone I had only realized now was with me since I had asked Kai to get Tao, held me upright. Kris’s arms. Kris whose single touch made me feel like I was floating high above the clouds.

Floating high above the me I didn’t recognize, the me who took over just earlier. The me who I could feel pushing me from behind, pushing me to become like her. To be strong like her. To be there for them like she was just now. To be the Seeress of Exo.

“Lay says that Baekhyun will be back to normal in two days at the most. Thankfully, the situation was handled well due to her highness.” Suho spoke to all of them, all gathered in the main Hall of the Guardians, the circular room with twelve pillars that Kai had brought the Seeress to upon first meeting her.

There was silence around the room as everyone threw glances at each other, each one wondering if the other would say what they were all thinking. The door to the main hall shifted open, revealing an auburn haired male from behind it, Luhan. He was the one who spoke the words no one was sure about saying.

“Her highness seemed as though she were a different person.” He walked to his pillar on the opposite side of the room, his black cloak dragging across the rock floor. When he turned, the other nine guardians, excluding Chen and Lay, were looking to him for answers. Fortunately, he had them, “Her innate, what we can call, “Seeress Persona” was brought to the forefront of her personality, taking over during the difficult situation that she couldn’t handle on her own. Many of the Seeresses before her have had the same thing occur. However, they were able to handle it much better as they faced it at a young age and were able to grow into it, to grow into their reflexive actions and thoughts. Her highness, however, already has an established personality, an established being. She is facing a conflict within herself now, I’m sure. I can not even imagine how she must be feeling.”

All of this was information the Guardians had already known yet had simply forgotten to take into account. Thus, it didn’t take long for the others to process Luhan’s words and subsequently add their own input.

“Then, we can’t do anything for her?” Tao asked, not liking his inability to do something for his Seeress. “Nothing at all?” He asked again, his voice panged with worry.

“Her highness seemed so frightened.” D.O. reminisced, thinking about the look on her face when he entered Baekhyun’s room, a tray of food in his hands. He tried to persuade her to eat upon seeing her condition but she rejected it, saying that it was for Baekhyun and not for herself to indulge in. This only further worried the earth guardian.

“Frightened.” Kris repeated the word, feeling as though it encompassed well the emotion their Seeress displayed as she collapsed into his arms, her eyes hazed over with confusion, “The thought of having a part of you that isn’t like you is frightening, isn’t it?”

Sehun groaned, tilting his head back as he spoke with a tone suffused in impatience, “I don’t get what we’re trying to figure out. We’re not going to get anywhere talking about it to ourselves. She can deal with it. She’s our Seeress. She’s strong enough to handle it on her own.”

Xiumin nodded, agreeing with him as his eyes drifted around the room, facing many conflicted faces, “He’s right, tiptoeing around it will only make her more uncomfortable.”

“Then, we’ll just pretend nothing’s wrong.” Chanyeol surmised, his hands gesturing outward to everyone.

“We should pretend that it never happened?” Kris asked indignantly, reprimanding Chanyeol for his less than thought out statement, “Not acknowledging that she changed in that moment will be inconsiderate to her, don’t you think?”

Chanyeol grimaced in response, biting back his tongue because he knew that Kris was right. He crossed his hands against his chest and leaned back. Back onto his pillar that still had on it five streaks that revealed the true color of the dark stone through the dust. The streaks left when the Seeress touched his pillar for the first time. When she called him for the first time and he felt unabated energy flowing through him. His casted his gaze downwards, thinking only for a moment longer in the silence surrounding him as he was sure everyone else was doing as well.

“Right, but then where does that leave us? What are we supposed to do?” Chanyeol addressed, feeling as though as Sehun had said, the conversation was going nowhere. He decided to ask the person who hadn’t spoken at all this entire time, the person whom had met their Seeress first and whose opinion Chanyeol wanted to hear, “What do you think, Kai?”

Kai’s eyes were staring forward, he himself blinded by his own thoughts. Blinded as the biting poison he had laid eyes on infected each and every cell of his being. This poison that hath no mercy and conquered him within moments could be described in the one sentence that left his lips, “She was beautiful.” That was all he had thought as he watched their Seeress take control of the situation. As she commanded them with a stern yet gentle force behind her words. That was all he had thought as the look in her eyes changed, coating over with a dull sheen. He felt it, her beauty in that moment, overtaking him. Like an illness inflicted via poison.

He was so taken with his thoughts that he failed to notice the stern glances directed towards him and the silence that once more engulfed the Main hall of the Guardians, their conversation ending there after, as Sehun had said, going nowhere.

“Luhan.” I called out this night, this night as I sat at Baekhyun’s bedside. He had woken up to eat earlier and he apologized. He apologized for something I didn’t understand. His mind was so muddled, his thoughts such a mess, that I couldn’t decipher what the apology was for. Still, whatever it was for, he didn’t need to say it. He didn’t need to say he was sorry.

I should have been there for him. I should have had the insight to be able to help him even if I wasn’t there for him. Guilty thoughts such as this plagued me as I sat here, watching him breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, his head titled away from me as he slept peacefully.

But, what good does just watching him do? What can I do for him by just watching him sleep? What can I do for Chen by just watching him every day? What can I do for Exo planet whose beauty is stained hues of gray when all I do is watch?

I think I understand now. I think I understand why I cried in the garden yesterday.

It was because I felt helpless. I felt useless, unable to live up to the greatness of my title. Unlike my other half, I wasn’t decisive. I wasn’t able to act swiftly without deliberation, to act for not only Exo planet but for them. For the Guardians. For them who needed me the most after waiting for such a long time for me to appear. For them, for whom my heart aches, the pressure on my chest like a stack of books, when they worry about me or when they’re conflicted about the future. But, most of all, when the possibility of them getting hurt is staring me in the face boldly, meeting my eyes with it’s own, scaring me.

Frightening me.

But, what’s more frightening is the me who took over, who stared down that danger, that possibility, without a second thought. The me who didn’t feel like me. The me who felt so foreign and distant from me that I felt undeserving of the thanks that left Baekhyun’s lips before he dozed off into slumber almost an hour ago.

I can’t help but differentiate between that me and the me that I am now. At this very moment in which I called out to Luhan, my voice a tremulous whisper, as I decided on something.

Me.

This me.

I’ve decided that I won’t keep on watching.

Through the ceiling of the room, a translucent orb floated downwards, Luhan having heard my call, “Your highness.” He addressed me, the orb that he saw me through settling in the air at eye level with me, as it always did.

“I want to learn how to use the pillars in the Main hall.” I announced to him, figuring that if I was going to start somewhere, if I was going to be the Seeress of Exo, that was the first thing I should learn.

There was a long pause as I stared into the transparent glass. He must have been questioning to himself why I would suddenly ask to learn such a thing, after not showing interest in learning much of anything about the Seeress of Exo until now. After not showing interesting in learning what it meant to be her.

Maybe it was out of fear that I asked him that. Fear of becoming that other person again. That other me I didn’t recognize. While I may have been scared, I was never the type of person to give up so easily. So next time, next time something like this happened again, I wanted to be able to deal with it before it happened. Before any of the guardians ended up laying in front of me, their lips cracked and dry as they in weak breaths.

Luhan’s voice carried through the room, the beginning of his answer to my proposition almost made known to me, when the door to Baekhyun’s room opened and from behind it stood a shadowy figure. A shadowy figure I knew to be the Lightning guardian without even having to think twice; Chen.

He bowed his head there before speaking, saying something that diminished my fears of being able to handle this by myself just a little bit. Why? Because he was trusting me. His next words showed that he was trusting me.

“Your highness. I’d like to speak with you, if you’d let me.” 

A/N:

This chapter was late. Why?

Because I fell asleep. 

Simple and easy. 

Time to go and and do it again~