She was lost in her own world.

No matter what he said or did, there was no dragging her out of there. Not without hurting her even more. But he understood. He more than understood.

She’d lost someone before they could even become precious. There was no vision-altering actions any of them could take to go back in time and stop what happened. The past was set in stone — a fact Tao had been itching to break with a hammer as he paced back and forth in front of her tent. 

And he’d watch him. 

Just back and forth and back and forth. 

Lay would come out, smile, say she was “fine,” mean she was anything but. 

Chen would go in and not leave until the early morning, saying she “needed him,” meaning he wanted to be needed by her — if only that would help her somehow.

Kris wouldn’t visit her at all, claiming she was “strong enough,” not knowing what he meant.

She could only be fixed so many times. She had been broken too many times to count.

He understood. 

Xiumin more than understood. 

But it was with anything but a relieved heart that he entered her tent, a smile forcing itself onto his face as he approached her where she talked to Henry and Victoria. They were discussing the route they’d be taking through the surrounding cities and towns. She insisted on visiting Zhoumi’s home, despite the distance they’d have to travel to get there. 

Saying she had a “vision,” pretending to understand everything. 

But Xiumin wasn’t sure how much she was saying was true. 

Because even though he believed in her and trusted her, for the past three days, she wouldn’t look him straight in the eyes when she’d say his name. 

And it irked him, because he couldn’t understand why.

“Change clothes.” Xiumin commanded as soon as Henry and Victoria exited, hands shifting through his Seeress’s bag, Baekhyun’s clothes already torn and tattered. After finding a simple black shirt still in decent condition, he tossed it her way, proclaiming, “I’m going to take you somewhere.”

Of course, he hadn’t expected her to follow him so easily. He expected her to ask the hard-to-answer questions, say something witty that threw his entire world upside down, and, overall, manage a laugh at his impulsivity. To fight back somehow, instead of doing what she did then.

Instead of picking up the clothes she’d failed to catch, peeling her cardigan from her shoulders. Giving in to him without even a single word, silence enrapturing him as she pulled off her white tee to reveal a thin undershirt that hung loosely on her frame, revealing everything and yet nothing at all.

“You’re not going to say anything?” His eyes met hers after she pulled the black shirt over her head, hair a fluffy mess from the struggle, only to look away. Only for her to look away, her eyes drawing downwards to her toes, wiggling within the confines of her socks. 

And he got angry.

He grew enraged and he knew full well why.

“I figured there was no use fighting a battle I can’t win.” She smiled to herself, crumbling right there in front of him. And a part of him understood why. She was still a girl, after all. But, for some reason, the other part of him jeered at that notion.

Gender didn’t matter.

No, gender didn’t matter. No, inexperience didn’t matter. No, because this would never be easy.

There was no getting used to it. Growing into it. Learning to live with it. 

As a Guardian, he had it easy. As the Seeress who guided him, she had hundreds upon thousands of reasons to crumble. To fall. To break. 

Her weakness never bothered him in the past. It still didn’t. What the other part of him couldn’t understand, the part of him that wanted to yell at her, scold her, as she began to change right before his eyes, to hold her in his arms only for a bit, only while she regained her strength, only until she’d learnt how to fix the new crack that’d formed in her heart, until she was strong once more, was why she was giving up.

“Why not?” 

Fingers curling in his pockets.

“Why not fight until your last breath?” 

Feet rooted where he stood.

“Being complacent won’t get you anywhere.” 

For the fear of going to her when now was not the time to coddle her.

“It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you won’t. You’ve made a conscious decision to stop being able to ‘can.’” 

When that time had long since passed.

“Because there’s nothing stopping you. Not if you find the cracks and slip through. Not if you make them bigger for your friends and for the people you care about. Not if you want to. Not if you consciously decide to want to, your highness.”

When it was time for her to make the hard choices. For him. For everyone. But, mostly, for herself.

And when he’d finally gotten through to her, when she heard his words with the utmost attention to every syllable and intonation, as she always did and will do, she once more did something he didn’t expect in the least. 

“What’re you doing?” He asked, confused as she moved past him, rummaging through her bag.

“I’m rebelling against the system.” 

She proclaimed by herself, for herself, as she pulled a long-sleeve shirt on. 

“I’m fighting,” she straightforwardly declared, shoving her body into a hoodie so large it engulfed her.  

“I’m fighting,” she recited, pulling a cap over her tortured hair. 

“I’m fighting,” she reached deep down, searching for ways to convince him, to convince herself, of that single, heavy phrase. 

And as she stared on at him bravely, looking him in the eyes, not turning away, tears for a friendship lost that had been long since due welling up, she succeeded, “I’m fighting, Xiumin.”

Xiumin took steady steps over to her, discarding her cap, pulling her hoodie and long-sleeve both up and over her head, stripping her of the cocoon she’d wrapped herself in. What he found underneath was a girl. But, not just any girl. 

EXO Planet’s Seeress.

With hands resting firmly on her shoulders, straighter and harder than he remembered under his fingers, he promised, he vowed, as he said, “We’re fighting.” 

Taking advantage of the Boards’ choice of camp for the night, I went to the place Xiumin wanted me to see, Kris, Lay, Chen, and Tao in tow. There, between the rough brush of the trees, settled contently in a small clearing, was a clear lake. Skimming past my fingertips as I raked them over the surface, knees deep in the cool water where I sat on a bright green patch of grass, I listened to them talk.

I listened to their stories and their laughter. 

“Remember the last time we went swimming?” Tao brought up, kicking his feet excitedly beside me.

“You mean when Suho flooded the sparring room?” Chen questioned, floating on his back, eyes closed, giving out a pleased sigh like — as his thoughts said — he was the water and the water was him, “How old were we again?”

“I was seventeen.” Kris spoke up, having challenged the deep end of the natural lake to best his height — earning a scoff of, “no one asked you specifically,” from Chen in jest.

“Math’s hard.” Lay commented, soaking wet where he lay on the grass, the afternoon sun drying him off.

“We were teenagers.” Xiumin groaned as he rested his head on his arms, belly down on a piece of ice that floated gently by, swaying ever so slightly, “Just young babes.”

“I remember Kai teleporting Chanyeol into the water.” Tao added, reminiscing fondly as he smiled on at nothing, lost in his own little world.

“I remember Baekhyun’s laugh that echoed into my ears for the entire week following that,” Chen grimaced, body sinking downwards as he inwardly wanted to give Baekhyun a good sock in the mouth for subjecting him to such torture.

“Chanyeol’s doggy paddle technique was amazing,” Lay dreamily breathed out, too tired to think before he let his — for some reason, unsurprisingly — simple thoughts loose upon the planet.

“And our beloved mother D.O couldn’t be bothered to listen to his pleas for help.” Chen suddenly recalled, laughing surely just as hard, if not harder, than Baekhyun had that day I wasn’t there to experience.

“He didn’t want to be subjected to the same fate, of course.” Kris laughed, blowing bubbles from his lips as he waded water, having more fun than I’d seen him have in a long time — and even if he’d say otherwise, Xiumin’s regular chess matches didn’t count as an all too “fun” activity.

“Sehun’s mini hurricanes right before Chanyeol could make it out were breathtakingly beautiful, your highness.” Lay’s hand tugged at the hem of my shirt from behind me, his entire face smiling as I turned to him with one of my own.

“Getting manhandled by Luhan who lifted him right out with a flick of wrist didn’t help his ego too much either.” Chen cackled, standing up completely in the water, thinking about memories too fond to remember without eliciting the best kind of happiness.

And, truthfully, the word “family” never seemed to ring truer, Luna. 

“I wonder how they’re doing.” Lay, ever the worrier, mused out loud.

“They’re okay. Just like us,” Tao assured him, eyes on me, telling me he’d heard, that he’d heard my conversation with Xiumin and couldn’t have adored me more for it — though his thoughts definitely helped solidify his straight and sturdy affection, “they’re fighting.”

“Then we better fight harder.” I kicked his way, splashing his legs, “A little friendly competition never hurts.”

And it was without hesitation that Tao pushed me in, laughing like a hyena as I came up sputtering, my hair sticking to every part of exposed skin, Baekhyun’s clothes ruined quickly and without mercy. 

“Good, because the last thing I want to hear after waiting for you for years on end is that you don’t want me to follow you.” Kris said, drenched from head to toe, as he abandoned the deep end, strong hands lifting me to my feet effortlessly — and I think I understood Chanyeol’s past pain, just a little bit.

“You know what they say, go big or go home,” Chen joked, his smile a blur as I wiped my hazy eyes. “There’s no way you’re ever scaring us away, your highness.”

“We won’t abandon you.” Lay promised from behind me, and I could practically see his own smile curving, dimples dropping by to say “Hello,” shoulders slouching downwards.

Xiumin went gliding by on his pseudo-pool float, the water pleasantly cool thanks to him in the first place, “And if our track record proves anything, it’s that.”

In the face of the Council’s backlash, felt first hand by Baekhyun. Despite receding back and letting Cera take the reigns, detaching myself from them completely. Even when I selfishly sought out the Boards, not thinking to ask for their opinions first. Not to mention my continuous, past and present, fight with the fact that I am the Seeress of EXO. 

Yet, they were still here.

We were still here, fighting.

“So, where to next, your highness?” Kris asked, inquiring about my earlier conversation with Henry and Victoria, looking just as curious as Tao: who’d been ease-dropping the entire time.

“Flior.” I revealed, “The town of flowers.”

“Sounds lovely.” Lay sung out from where he lay embraced by the lush ground beneath him.

“It does, doesn’t it?” I couldn’t help but smile, but laugh as Tao kicked more water my way, our own splash fight starting right then and there. Xiumin watched as Chen joined in and Kris refereed from above. I still don’t know who won, the thin skin of my palms stinging as I landed one last hit upon the thick water’s surface before she arrived. 

Before Victoria appeared through the trees, eyes harshly lined in black seeming to judge us for our horseplay — our act of making fond memories while I was there at long last. I didn’t have the time to read her mind, to determine whether her thoughts matched her stern actions, as she thoroughly distracted me with her next statement of, “One of your Guardians has requested a meeting with you.”

I didn’t have to ask who.

I knew. I think we all knew, before his name ever rolled off Victoria’s lips.

“He claims his name is Luhan.”

He’d claim a lot of things by the time the night was through.

A/N: Happy Father's Day! This update is for you, Papa. There's no action scene, and I know how much you cringe at the gooey heart-warming stuff, but I hope you enjoy it anyway -- I promise, it only gets better from here. I love you. 

Sidenote: I started a new Chen & Xiumin story. Click here to check it out. 

Sidenote #2: I actually have quite a few stories with EXO in them. Here. Here. & Here, too. Just sharing the EXO love.

Sidenote #3: Shameless self-promotion? A shameless author is the best kind.