"PARK CHANYEOL!"

The booming, anguished voice makes Eun trip on her path down the mountainside, startling a flock of birds into the early morning sky.

"oh dear," she mutters, gathering up the skirt of her handbok and dropped basket of mountain berries, "what did oraeboni* do this time??"

Another cry comes up from the clearing below.

"That fool," Eun rolls her eyes with a snort, grabs her basket and hurries down the path, scattering startled mice and rabbits as she goes. Such an accident has been happening since the moment they arrived on this mountain. First it happened every few weeks, then every week. In recent days, it has become a daily occurence. She skids down the steep mountainside, kicking up dirt and rocks and she goes. At first the path seemed treacherous and far from stable, but she'd adjusted to it quickly after climbing it everyday to reach the stream above. Now she skidded down it so fast she was practically sliding, grabbing slender tree trunks as she went to keep herself from gaining too much speed.

Just as the glistening green roof of the mountain temple--the origin of the voice--barely comes into Eun's view, the voice calls again.

"CHANYEOL GET BACK HERE!"

This time the sound of something breaking follows suit.

Eun stops a moment and bites her lip. He's really mad this time.

The mountain path isn't fast enough. Even at the rate she's going, Scholar Kyungsoo will have killed her older brother long before she could make it.

"There must be a faster way, a faster way.." she glances around, but the only way is even more treacherous than the path she's on; to go straight down the cliffside. Slowly, she inches towards the edge of the road. The drop is...survivable. The mountainside is mottled with red and yellow ferns and spindly pine-trees. Thanks to the chilly autumn weather, the ground is stiff and frozen. If she could just get decent footing, it wouldn't be impossible. She dusts off her skirt, tucks the basket under her arm, and looks over again.

The view makes her dizzy.

"Oh no I can't do this," she mutters to herself, and begins to pace back and forth on the path, "I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't--" she in a sharp breath and bites her lip, staring at the sheer drop.

Another crash reverberates from the temple below, followed by a man's scream.

"Oraeboni!"

Without second thought, Eun throws herself over the side of the cliff.

Her feet instantly meet soil, as well as her backside. Ground barrels away beneath her. It's not hard and frozen like she'd thought; the heat of the morning sun must have melted it, turning it into a slippery mud.

"Help!" Eun shrieks, desperately grappling for a hold of something--a trunk, a branch, a stone, anything. But nothing comes into her hands. She stares helplessly as she hurtles down the mountainside. But the mountainside is quickly vanishing. Before her is a drop-off. The mountain ends and is met by only the sky. Was this here before? She'd never seen it. Not from when she looked down above, either. Earlier she had seen only the temple. Oh what a fool she had been, blindly sliding down a mountain. Now she would fall off this cliff and die, never saying goodbye to her brother or friend ever again. Maybe they would never even find her body, and spend years and years wondering what had become of her. The endless blue sky grows nearer and nearer as she runs out of ground.

"I don't want to die!" she screams helplessly, "Someone help! Save me!"

Mercilessly, not even the mountain answers, and she is thrown off the cliffside like wood to fire.

Yet the image of hellish fire is quickly doused when her body crashes into deep water. It takes her a moment to register she is, in fact, alive. Saved by a fresh pool tucked away in a cave on the underside of the cliff. She opens her eyes, but only a single ray of light from the hole in the cave where she fell lights the darkness.

Where am I?

One by one, balls of light drift up from the abyss below Eun's feet. She turns her body in the water to avoid them, confusion and fear cloud her eyes. Fireflies? What are fireflies doing in water? She twists again to avoid its touch, but the movement causes the tip of her pointer finger to collide with one. She shakes her hand, but it clings to her, shining like a tiny sun. As she attempts to shake off the light, another attaches itself to her skirt, then another, and another. The lights go from a single ball to a massive wave of light rising up from the deep, swallowing her up until her vision is taken by the white.

"PARK CHANYEOL!"

Chanyeol jumps, dropping his ink brush into the fountain he's sketching.

"Oh, bother," he grumbles, sending a sour glance over his shoulder before bending down to pick it up.

Angry footsteps thunder on the stone ground behind him, getting closer with each passing second.

"Here he comes," he takes in a breath, and pivots around with one leg, holding his brush and sketchbook behind his back.

"Why, Scholar Do!" he booms, flashing a bright smile, "whatever is the matter?"

The tiny man before him is fuming. Even the tips of his ears burn red with anger, his thick brows are pressed so low into his eyes you'd think they'd disappear, if only his eyes weren't so large, instead making him look like an aggravated toddler.

"What have you DONE with the temple layout sketches??"

Chanyeol blinks, tilts his head.

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

Kyungsoo lets out an exasperated GAH and, trying to regain sanity, scratches his head, then bounces a finger pointed at Chanyeol.

"I.. I, I know it was you, Park Chanyeol," he cautions, attempting to keep his voice low.

"Me?" Chanyeol raises his eyebrows and steps around Kyungsoo, out of the underhang and into the courtyard of the temple. Frost on the green rooftops sparkles in the morning sun. "Now that can't be right."

Kyungsoo turns around too, "You're sure you didn't do something with them? Anything?"

Chanyeol's warm brown eyes look upward and he purses his lips in thought, then he shakes his hand, offering a warm smile.

"Nope! Not me."

Kyungsoo massages the bridge of his nose and puts a hand on his hip, "N-now, you're sure you--"

"But," Chanyeol interrupts, tapping the end of his brush on his chin, "now that I think about it..."

Kyungsoo's head flies up, "Yes? Yes, what is it?"

"Of course I didn't do anything to them," he says, nodding his head in agreement with himself, "but if I did,"

"If you did?" Kyungsoo growls through clenched teeth.

"I might put them in say," he glances around the clearing, his eyes stopping on a jar--One used for bathroom purposes, "a jar, perhaps."

"A jar," the smaller man repeats.

"Yes, yes, a jar," Chanyeol nods.

"A jar like that one?"

He points to the toilet-jar, still reeking from its use the night before.

Chanyeol beams, "yes. Exactly like that one."

Kyungsoo balls his fist. His tiny body begins to quiver.

"I mean, doesn't it look to be the perfect size?" Chanyeol defends, referring to the jar with his brush, "the sketches would fit just splendidly--"

Kyungsoo's eyes cross to the pot. He squints. An edge of yellow paper barely sticks out of the jar's opening. He recoils on Chanyeol, fists bunched and ready to meet their target.

"Huh?" he breathes. The spot before him is absent of a certain tall, skinny man. The sound of running footsteps draw his eyes up to the temple room before him, where the edge of Chanyeol's purple hanbok vanishes behind the door. His brush and sketchbook have been abandoned on the ground of the courtyard.

"CHANYEOL GET BACK HERE!"

Kyungsoo dashes to the jar, whirling it at the temple's stone door. It shatters, splattering last night's waste, as well as three neatly folded yellow papers. Upon seeing the filth and papers Kyungsoo drops to his knees.

"My sketches!" he cries, "What have you done to my sketches!!"

Clearing his throat, Chanyeol slowly opens the temple door and steps out, careful to avoid the splattered excrement.

"You'll just need to draw them again," he says matter-of-factly.

"I spent days drawing those sketches!" Kyungsoo interjects, "I walked all up and down this temple sketching every detail--"

"You'll start again immediately," Chanyeol steps down into the courtyard and retrieves his sketchbook from the ground, then dusts it off, "practice makes perfect."

"You and your pranks," Kyungsoo wails, plopping onto his backside. He stares at nothing, as if he cannot even make sense of it himself, "Why did I ever decide to study under such a teacher. Not only is he younger than me, he's a god foresaken maniac. Why, why, why, why, why."

"That's no way to treat your mentor," Chanyeol counters, "this temple has been here thousands of years. Its an honor to be able to draw it more than once!" he wiggles his brush at the boy on the ground, "All this detail work and calligraphy could be drawn a million times and still something may be missed. With a negative personality like yours you'll never become a great historian."

"History, shmistory," Kyungsoo grumbles, pouting.

Suddenly a scream resonates from the mountain, drawing the two men's attention away. They gasp, and meet each other's eyes.

"Eun."

The two men scramble up the path behind the tample, ducking under trees and clambering over rocks that block the ancient road.

"It came from the spirit pool, I'm sure of it," Chanyeol explains, bounding over a fallen tree that Kyungsoo must hoist himself over to pass.

Realizing his apprentice isn't behind him, he stops and turns.

"What on earth are you doing? Hurry up!"

Kyungsoo huffs a breath and jumps down from the top of the fallen tree. He storms past, shooting piercing glares at the taller man's long legs. Chanyeol follows suit.

"I told you if you just drank more milk you would grow--"

"SHUT IT!"

With a gasp Eun startles upright, in haggard breathes and swiveling her head around. Wet cave walls surround her where she sits on stony ground beside the glassy water of an underground pool. Light from a hole in the cavern's ceiling lights the dark blue water. A shiver shakes Eun's body, and she hugs her arms around her wet torso.

"Where am I?" she thinks aloud, and her voice bounces off the cave walls.

"Eun!" Chanyeol comes running through the entrance of the cave, dropping beside his younger sister. Kyungsoo follows soon after, looking red in the face from all the running.

"What happened? Are you alright?" In a panic he checks Eun's body, lifting her arms and tilting her face in his hands, "no injuries, cuts, or concussions? Do you feel light headed? How's your pulse?"

Eun takes a deep breath and smiles at her brother, setting her hands in her lap.

"I seem to be just fine, Oraeboni."

"Was that scream really you?" Kyungsoo asks from behind Chanyeol's shoulder.

"Kyungsoo oraeboni," Eun smiles, and nods, "It was me. I heard your call and hurried down the mountain, but I slipped and fell. I thought I would die!" she motions an arm around the cave, "I didn't know a place like this existed here."

"Its the monk's spirit pool," Chanyeol explains, "they gathered here once a month on the full moon," he points to the hole in the cavern's dome, "the moonlight would shine through there and into the water. It was said that on that night the mountain god would come to bathe in the pool."

"This is no time for a history lesson," Kyungsoo interrupts, pushing the younger man out of the way and helping Eun up, "can't you see she's drenched? In this cold weather she'll catch fever."

"R-right. Take this."

Chanyeol removes his overcoat of his handbok and drapes it over his sister's shoulders. As Kyungsoo begins to usher her out of the cave she looks over her shoulder.

"Oraeboni."

Chanyeol stops, "Hm?"

"Are there fireflies in this cave?"

His eyebrows furrow, "fireflies? There's no grass in this cave, so there wouldn't be fireflies."

"Then what was that?" she breathes.

"What?"

Eun turns back to her brother and shakes her head, "nevermind, it's nothing."

Kyungsoo flicks his head at Chanyeol to follow her out, "let's just get you back to the temple."

It was still hard for Eun to adjust to the nights on the mountain. Coming from the constant-bustling of Hanyang to live at an ancient temple in the mountains was not something she'd thought herself suitable for, but someone had to come along and watch over her troublesome brother. Judging by the day's earlier events, Kyungsoo alone was certainly not enough to handle him. Eun lets out a sigh and lowers herself farther into the steaming water. Moonlight seeps in through the tearing paper walls.

"A full moon," she utters under her breath.

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo's voices can be heard from outside. Kyungsoo angrily complaining about his mentor's "unorthodox teaching methods" and "reckless tact." Eun laughs, knowing he'll be over it by morning. He always is. No one can stay mad at her brother for long.

By the time Eun leaves the bath and enters the main room of the temple, her companions are fast asleep in a pile beside the fire, heads together and Kyungsoo's arm draped across chanyeol's chest. Tall candles still shine light on Kyungsoo's half-finished sketches of the temple. Smiling faintly, she pulls the fur blankets farther up their bodies.

"You bicker ceaselessly," she whispers and releases a laugh, "and yet you sleep together so well."

A noise from the temple courtyard draws Eun's eyes to the door. Careful not to wake her sleeping friends, she lifts her skirt and creeps towards the source of the sound. She pushes the door open slightly and peers outside.

A shadowy figure rises up the steps to the temple. Clothed in black with hanging hair caked with some mysterious liquid, the figure limps into the courtyard, clutching his arm. Eun glances over her shoulder at the pair of sleeping men behind her, then back to the stranger. His breath clouds in the moonlight and frozen air, but he hobbles on, reaching the center of the temple before crumbling to the ground.

"Wait!" Eun gasps, hurriedly leaving the sleeping men behind and slipping on her shoes.

She trots toward the figure, pushing hair behind her ears before dropping beside him, "are you alright?"

His face is discontorted with pain, teeth clenched to reveal white teeth. Blood cakes his hair from a wound in his forehead, and drips from a lesion on his cheek and neck. He holds his bicep tightly with his hand.

"What happened?"

The man lifts his hand from his arm, wincing, and digs his fingers into the fabric of Eun's skirt. Looking down, Eun sees his hand in the moonlight and supresses a scream. It is covered in scars and veins as black as night. Monstrous claws grow where nails should have been. He digs his claws in deeper as he writhes in pain, streaking blood on the pale yellow fabric.

Looking him over, Eun's eyes widen, "your arm!"

The cut splitting the muscles of his bicep begins to glow. Familar balls of light generate from darkness and float towards it, sticking to it one by one until the cut shines white. The man squeezes his eyes shut and in a sharp breath. Then the light dissapates. Eun's eyes flash between the cut--which has now vanished, instead replaced by flawless tanned skin beneath torn tunic--and the mysterious man. His face is free of pain now, and he appears to be sleeping. Shallow breaths move in and out of his lips.

Eun lets out the breath she'd been holding all this time and stares down at the man. Or should she say boy. He couldn't be much older than her, and by the looks of it, younger than her brother and Kyungsoo as well. His jet black hair was long and wavy, and shaped his handsome and youthful face. His hand still clings to her skirt, but it isn't the hand of a beast anymore. It is a clean and youthful hand, with no scars or even freckles. It balls around the fabric so tightly the knuckles are white. In her shock, she must have imagined the monster claws. 

A low rumble makes Eun jump and she moves her eyes to the man's face. He takes in a breath, and the sound rumbles again.

Eun can barely withhold her astonishment. She snorts a laugh.

"Is he...snoring?"

* * *

Thanks for reading chapter 2 of The Fox Child! I'll be trying to update this as often as possible, but may get busy after this week. You can expect at least one chapter before next week, but after that I can only try to upload as much as I can, which may end up being only one chapter every week or so. If you like this story please subscribe and leave a comment! Hearing your opinions really encourages me to keep writing an make this an interesting story for all of you.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

Love,

Violet

Oraeboni: older brother