Wood impacted against his cranium, body sailing into cement. Victoria Song huffed, heart beating hard against her ribcage; knocking the sense she thought she lost after she met Henry Lau back into her. Charismatic with a hint of crazy. She always thought it was just a hint. A pinch of psycho. 

Murder. Murderer. Years without a confession left her scorned and slighted. Zhoumi, privy to all but this piece of information, looked upon the scene with condemnatory eyes. Her highness pointed at the chair left untouched in Victoria’s rampage.

“Might as well break the set.” 

Dragging the chair behind her, Victoria approached the fallen leader of the Boards. “Tell me you didn’t kill the Seeress of Exo.” She demanded. “Tell me you didn’t kill 53 innocent people.”

“Well,” Henry coughed, blood splattered, “then I’d just be lying.”

Another broken piece of furniture impacted against stone. Mere inches from his face. Victoria missed, eyes blurred with disillusioned tears.

“They were far from innocent, Vicky.” Henry looked to his Seeress, words stumbling from a bruised jaw, “And my reasoning needs no explanation, your highness.”

“I know.” She shrugged, impartial to his sins. “They don’t.” As long as he professed them. “Spin us a tale over salad?”

B2. A freight elevator ride down for a handful of minutes. Equivalent to renovated holding cells. White walls. White ceilings. Lemon-scented cleaning supplies singed away at his cuticles. 

“.” Xiumin picked at his peeling skin. Red burst from raw pink. “Where’s Lay when you need him?”

Black marks marred the floor of his Council-given accommodation. Charcoal? Permanent marker? Whatever it was, it was resilient. Overnight bleach treatments, bristled sponges, acidic solutions, nothing could erase it. Simple to the core, it bothered him that it bothered him; just another way to preoccupy his time at Court.

“Doesn’t it look familiar?” Chen commented over his shoulder. 

“Does it matter?” Xiumin kept scrubbing.

Twelve days passed since the Moon Guardians of EXO planet left the Hall of the Guardians. The Council greeted them with open arms. Pictures taken. Interviews scheduled. Government approval ratings were on the up and up. Kris’s campaign to help every pedestrian over seventy cross the street created a “Friendly Neighborhood Guardian" image the eagle himself abhorred. 

“Data analysis?”

“Data analysis.” Luhan repeated Chen’s question, working away in a space cramped to the brim with colliding holovision monitors. The egg whites of his eyes flashed blue and green as he scanned left. Right. Down. Up. Left again. 

In a cheery voice, Chen said, “Golly gee whillickers! Sounds like you’re having the night of your life!”

“I like that.” Luhan laughed. “Golly gee whillickers!”

Clearly, he’d lost his mind somewhere between his tenth and eleventh cup of coffee. Sanity was a virtue amongst the white. Xiumin, the order obsessed compulsive. Kris, the granny hater. Golly gee whillickers, Chen could hear exclaimed loud and proud five doors down; Luhan, the coffee maniac with a penchant for sarcasm.

Lay and Tao, taken to B1 six days ago only to never return. At Court, the Council was Judge and Juror. Chen fried a few lightbulbs for fun while waiting for Kris to finish his service to the elderly community of the Capital. “Mayonnaise. Old people smell like mayonnaise.” Kris hated mayonnaise.

Under the premise of praising the Seeress of Exo, Henry asked a "favor” of the 500 Jingxi elite in attendance that fateful day two years ago. “Let’s end this night with a bang!” Ironic, considering the explosion that rocked Exotians from Alberos to Beleuch. 

Military operation “Lullaby:” not a single case file existed at the Council’s Court. “Am I to capitulate myself before you while accompanied by a catchy tune?” Vernon Milford's, leader of the Council's, gardener of the Capital's, first response when questioned hours after a bomb fragment sarcastically labeled “Council Manufactured: If defective, meet us at Court” was discovered in the charred wreckage.

A saying, made by a young child, in an old cartoon, that simply stuck.

Henry found it all thoroughly rib-tickling. His entire body convulsed as he led the Seeress of Exo deeper into the rooftop’s green maze. “Doesn’t the Moon look like it’s smiling at us?” He cackled uncontrollably, waning crescent glowing blue in Jingxi's night sky. “A father’s pride: how envious.”

“He hasn’t missed a single birthday either.” 

“Boasting: how good you are at that.” The music faded to a hushed whisper. She followed the red-clothed rabbit further down her self-dug grave. “I like you.” He confessed, garbled above the water gushing from the pearled fountain. This was it.

“Tolerating otherwise distasteful human beings,” she smiled, “I’m also good at that.”

“After hours of planning, I imagined a more heartfelt response.” Henry frowned, then shrugged, “Unpredictability. No matter how certain of the future you may be, a sense of uncertainty laces your actions. I like you too much.” Pausing, he thought for a second. “We’ll take it slow.”

Reaching out, eager hands yanked at her up-do, throwing her against marble. Despite possessing the foresight to know how this would all end, she fought hard against his grip. Muscles spasmed uselessly; the desire to live was strong in the face of death. 

Tearing at pink embroidery, he shoved with all his might. Gems went rolling, crushed beneath his quivering fingers. He hushed her, ssh, ssh, ssh, it’ll be over soon. Like talking to a baby born into the world too early, too soon to survive.

Ssh. Ssh. Ssh.

Cascading water continued to surround her. Bubbles of air became few and far-between. Then, nothing. Nothing at the end of the tunnel. “Let her go!” A voice roared. Henry obeyed the command, sprinting for the fire escape. By the time Lay cradled her in his arms, she was already gone.

A martyr to the Board cause along with the 53 Jingxian citizens who were killed in the subsequent explosion. The Council’s use of the word “Board Sympathizers” while reporting the news of this tragic event lead the planet’s people to further outrage. “Exterminated” on the surface, the Boards retreated underground. Here, on the foundation of a rigged murder and a planted bomb, they built up a rebellion large enough to set the world on fire with a single match. 

The 70th Seeress of Exo gave Henry Lau everything: her contagious weakness; her pitiable image; her last moments of life. He had no idea what her plan was. However, yet again, she appeared when he needed her most — the spark of his revolution. He asked her now for the second time, “Join our cause, your highness.” 

She paused, thinking for a second longer than necessary.

The last thing Suho had patience for was an impatient woman. Shoes clicking against marble, he kept up with Chanyeol’s frantic pace. Multiple excuses spewed from his lips. She “yelled,” “cursed,” “threatened,” and “then she told” the firestarter “her name.” So he opened the door to the Hall of the Guardians.

“D.O’s blocking her at the entryway, but she keeps insisting—“ He didn’t finish, Suho interrupting him with a stringent palm to his strained set of shoulders. Mother Hen was exactly where Chanyeol placed him, staring down the unfamiliar woman with the familiar name. Ruffled feathers relaxed upon noticing Suho’s presence.

“Where is the 70th Seeress of Exo?” Her shrill shriek shredded his eardrums, the concept of “waiting” secondary to her immediate needs — of which she had only one. 

“Out.” Suho vaguely responded. Not at all to her liking. Sehun stumbled upon the scene, having heard the commotion from the training room. He didn’t take kindly to her following metaphor.

“So it’s true.” She jeered sarcastically. “The leader of the Protector of the Sun’s got a stick so far up his an insufficient supply of oxygen is powering his tiny brain.” Then genuinely laughed. “In case you didn’t understand the insult, said stick is clogging up your trachea — the air vacuum you call a mouth — thus effectively limiting your ability to comprehend the basic theory of Darwinism."

“Who are you?” The paraphrased version of Sehun’s display of foul wit; contraction of halitosis was unavoidable.

The short woman obliged, whispering something about this being the twenty-third time. “My name is Luna Snarr. Devoted delegate of the Council and generally gifted at assuming the worst.” Also unerring in the task of keeping count of any and all indiscretions against her. “Now, let me repeat myself, where on Exo Planet is the Seeress?” Businesswoman smile gleaming, she gave Suho a dour palm of her own. “Say ‘out’ again. I dare you.”

Luna Snarr’s bluff took the form of a battalion of the Council’s armed forces ready and waiting to storm the Hall of the Guardians at the slightest inkling of inhospitality. Suho, leader of the Sun Guardians, relented against her show of strength. Kai promptly departed in search of his queen. Her castle of cement appeared ransacked when he arrived. 

Broken pieces of wood sprinkled the floor. Molding salad brought life to the kitchen counter. Enemy at their gates, they prepared the battlements. War; the one who strikes first wins.

Three hundred forty three days, eleven hours, and eighteen minutes left.

A/N: New foreword. Yay! Meaning of chapter title? No maid service necessary. It's okay if things get a bit too muddied. Politics.