“Okay…so now that we’ve got the ages figured out…what about the pendants? And what does Aithyr have to do with the prophecy?” Key inquires. “You never wrote anything about this in the letters, and we’re finding out so many things about you guys right now… How the hell did Novae Alliance know so much about your pendants before we did? And wait, how is it that you guys were able to just stop aging?”

“Whoa, don’t get your in a twist,” Luhan says, who would have sounded indignant if it wasn’t for his weak chuckle. “One at a time, Key…”

“The heart of the elemental powers lies within the eternal offspring relative of a burning star…” Taemin mutters to himself, staring at the giant, silver flaming metal rock behind the glass wall. “Aithyr is a meteor, isn’t it?”

“In a basic sense, yes; it’s more of an everlasting burning meteor.”

“Everlasting? The flame doesn’t burn out?”

“Nope, it never has. We found it at the crater of Mont Sol, a dormant volcano in the Old World.”

Key whistles low. “And who’s your goddess that protects you? Or god?”

Tao looks a little disdainfully at Key. “We don’t have a deity to protect us, if that’s what you mean… We have a divine superior being, whom we call Mama.”

“The same name you called out earlier?” Onew questions Suho, in which he gets a nod in response. “Okay…who is this Mama? She’s…the mother of…?”

“Not exactly; she is the royal divine queen of the universe.”

Silence.

“Of the…of the universe, you say?” Key sounds flabbergasted.

“Mhm,” Tao says calmly, with assertion.

“And who’s her husband, the king?”

“None, she alone rules the universe herself.”

Now the whole Lucifer crew looks astonished, but not long before Minho speaks up. “…And she can hear your prayers from way out there?”

“…Not exactly prayers? I mean… there’re not really any routines or rituals done to communicate with her. We just…call her for her aid when we need to, or talk to her for answers.

“Well, this is the first time I’m hearing something like this,” Key mutters. “A royal divine being, watching over the universe? We have a goddess who watches out for us; and she never intervenes unless it is for a good reason, which almost never happens.” He chuckles.

“So now, since you all have this ‘superior divine queen’”— Key does the air quotes with his hands —“surely you guys should have some kind of deity associated with this ship? Our allies, they have their deities… Shock with Coincidence, ours with Fate, New ABO with Truth…”

“…Uhm…” Suho looks around, not knowing how to respond to that. “We…uh…”

“…Are you serious? It’s just Mama?” Key gives a look of disbelief.

“Well no not…exactly…” Suho hesitates. “We actually have minor deities, though they’re pretty ancient…”

A moment of silence befalls the room for the umpteenth time.

“…what?”

“Annnd we’re digging more deeper to this legend about the twelve of you…gee whiz,” Key mutters.  “This is kinda a lot to take in, you guys. But let’s just keep going at it.  What is it about these minor ancient deities that isn’t really considered for this ship?”

“The deities…they’re more like protectors of the chosen ones with the corresponding pendants. These pendants, they each have a name, but the locations where they are hidden, often has a temple, shrine, or monument dedicated to the deity.”

“So the names given by Mama herself, are the names of the ancient deities?”

“No, the names are of the pendants themselves, the power is from the deities. When we summon our powers, we call the names of the pendants to awaken the powers within.”

“The deities not only protect the locations where these pendants are held, they protect us too. They had created riddles for anyone to solve, in order to gain access to the pendants. That’s what the prophecy meant by ‘Where they are hidden, they must be solved.’ Riddles are one of the highest protections that the deities can offer to the pendants, because they usually require deep logic and sometimes…sacrifice.”

“Sacrifices, including lives?” Minho asks.

“We don’t know… We may live to be only twenty-two years old for eternity, and we aren’t exactly immortal; we are prone to death…and pain. I almost drowned under the sea not too long ago after discovering the pendant in an underwater temple, and I thought that was the end of it. But somehow, I don’t know if it was the deity or the pendant that rescued me and willed me to live. Giving ourselves to the pendants and deities, we earn protection from them.”

“These pendants…as well as the other eight of them, were devised by Mama long before the Great Divide happened. She gave them names, and scattered them across the Old World.”

“And the names of the pendants…? What are they?” Taemin studies Kris and Suho’s pendants resting on their chests.

“And don’t mention the deities’ names, please, for our sakes.  Just the names of the pendants would suffice,” Key interrupts.

“Vitaquæ, Water of Life.”

“Draconi, Dragon.”

“Ge’Qan’Dong, Telekinesis.”

“Qanik, Frost.”

“These are indeed ancient languages…languages of the Old World.” Taemin marvels.  Suho nods.

“Anyway, when the solar eclipse happened, Mama came to us in our ethereal forms. She didn’t expect to find out just before the solar eclipse that the gods of this world were planning to break up the Old World due to the magic overdose on the lands. And so, still in our ethereal forms, we were told that Time has decided to pass on much slowly for us than it would in the physical world. We had witnessed the transition of the Old World to the New World, the breaking up and the creation.

“That delayed our search for the pendants, or rather, the calls’ of the pendants to us. When the lands broke up, it messed with the connection between the pendants and us, the supposed masters.  The four pendants we’ve found, each of them had been displaced from where they had originally been in the Old World.”

“I’m sorry… Dis