Chapter 3

Minseok came to on the back of a horse- he was probably still asleep. Dreaming.

“Why am I on a horse,” he mumbled, rubbing his head. Last he remembered, he was walking through the forest.. then he had smelled smoke.. then somebody had knocked him out. How rude.

“I am not a horse, actually. I am a pegasus. My name is Yixing, and you?”

Minseok was sure he was dreaming by now, but kept the conversation going to humor himself. “Minseok. Pleased to meet you, Yixing the pegasus.”

“Minseok, huh?” Someone else spoke and Minseok was becoming confused. “You have been sleeping for half a day, I suppose Jongin did not hit you as hard as I thought.”

“I did not want to harm him!” the one who was presumably Jongin said defensively.

“Thank you,” he said to presumably Jongin.

“How old are you?” A different voice. “My name is Sehun! I am fourteen years old!” Minseok noted the lisp.

“Me too! My name is Jongin,” said the one confirmed to be Jongin.

“Er, just how many of you are there?”

“At the moment, ten humans, and Yixing. He is a human too. Technically.”

“This is the strangest dream ever,” he mumbled to himself.

“Not a dream. And will you tell us your name?”

Sure it is not, Minseok thought to himself. “My name is Minseok. I am nineteen years old. I used to live in a village near the First Root but it was attacked recently and my cousin was carried off and I was going to look for her but it seems now that I cannot wake up and I have no idea where I am in reality.”

“In reality,” Sehun informed him, “you are on Yixing’s back, and he is a pegasus right now because it is easier to carry you that way, and we are on our way to the First Root.”

Minseok just accepts it. “Okay. I am on the back of a shape-shifter. With ten other people. Are you all shape-shifters too?”

“Yes, we are,” yet another voice pipes up and Minseok thinks that maybe he never should have left the village, but he remembers Sohee and figured things could be worse.

“What about you?” Sehun asked, full of childish curiosity, “Are you a shape-shifter? Do you have powers? Or different-colored eyes?”

“Uh. No, no, and I do not know.”

“How can you not know?” A deep voice spoke, startling him.

“I have never seen them,” he shifted uncomfortably.

“Are there not mirrors in your village? Or water?”

“No, there is a river. I do not know about mirrors.”

“Then how-“

“I have no eyesight. I am blind, I have been since birth,” he states plainly. An awkward silence ensued.

“We are sorry-“

“Do not be, there is no need to be,” he interrupts. “I never lost my eyesight.. you cannot lose what you never had.”

“Wait,” Sehun piped up, “So you have never seen colors?”

“No. I have only heard of them. I know the sun is yellow, the sky is blue, clouds are white.. but what are yellow, blue, and white?” Nobody could answer his question, like usual.

“I rely on sound, mostly,” he fills in the silence. “Sometimes smell.”

“Is that how you found us?” the deep voice speaks again.

“Yes. I smelt smoke, and followed the scent. The forest was beginning to thin and I needed to find people, so I reasoned that where there was smoke, there was fire, and where there was fire, there were people.”

Fascinating, Luhan thought. His disability, in turn, enhances another ability.

“I apologize, but could each of you introduce yourselves to me? So I can put a name to a voice?” he requested hesitantly.

“Of course we can!” Sehun walked alongside Yixing, swinging his arms happily. “I am Sehun!”

Minseok laughed. “Hello, Sehun.”

“Jongin here,” the voice came from Sehun’s side.

“My name is Chanyeol!” the deep voice from earlier boomed.

“And I am Baekhyun,” said a husky voice.

“My name is Yifan,” another deep voice, this one with an accent.

“My name is Zitao,” came a quieter voice, this one also with an accent.

“I am Jongdae!” a mischievous-sounding voice.

“And I am Yixing,” an accented voice came from underneath.

“I am Junmyeon.”

“I am Kyungsoo.”

“And I am Luhan, the leader of this group,” a voice with a barely-noticeable accent spoke from up ahead. “We have decided to take you with us because we do not have time to spare to take you back to your home-“

“And we might need you,” the pegasus said bluntly. He and Luhan exchanged a few phrases in another language, Luhan’s voice filled with harsh sounds and intonations.

“Need me? What for? I do not see how I could help anyway..” Minseok was confused.

“Well, that is what most of us thought, but the young ones thought well of you.” Minseok mentally thanked Sehun and Jongin again.

“But,” Luhan broke into his thoughts, “You will have to prove your worth. Somehow.”

“Um. I used to lift rocks and logs at the village,” Minseok tried to remember anything that made him useful. “Advanced hearing and sense of smell?”

“Kyungsoo here is very strong too, maybe you two can haul things together,” Junmyeon says and Kyungsoo? snorts.

“Great, I will be happy to help in any way possible,” Minseok felt a bit uneasy but pushed it down. Maybe these shape-shifters could help him find Sohee.

By nightfall they had reached the outermost edge of the First Root. Luhan directed them to set up camp in a small clearing in a grove of trees.

“Do you mind sleeping outside?” Minseok sat next to Chanyeol, feeling his attempts to start a fire. Smelling it, too. “No, it is alright.”

“Ah, there it is,” Chanyeol exclaimed when the warmth in front of them was finally constant. “Must have rained recently, the brush around here is not very dry.”

Sehun plopped down on the ground, Jongin appearing next to him with a puff of black smoke a moment later. “So, is it just completely black in your head?” Sehun asked.

“Yah, you cannot just ask someone that! Be polite,” Jongin scolds. The two bickered childishly and Minseok felt a touch of nostalgia and wistfulness as he listened. “Yes, maknae. Complete darkness. Sometimes when I wake up I do not know whether it is morning or night.”

“Whoa,” both kids attempted (and failed) to imagine it.

“I suppose it is not so bad,” Minseok pondered. “If I had been born deaf, I would not know voices, or music.”

“A life without music is not one worth living,” Yixing agrees, startling him.

“But not being able to see is also unsavory,” Zitao joins in. “If you could see Luhan’s face, you might give up your hearing in a heartbeat!”

“Enough,” Minseok could hear a scowl in Luhan’s tone. “Dinner, then sleep. We have a full day ahead of us.”

A few rustles, and most of them had left to hunt. Minseok stayed by the fire.

“What? Is it impossible for you to get your own food?” Luhan remarked. “Just because you are at a disadvantage, does not mean you have to be waited on.”

“Luhan,” Yixing interrupts, before launching rapid-fire in a foreign tongue. The two argued before Luhan snapped in a harsh manner, silencing Yixing.

Natural-born leader, Minseok thought, getting up to find something to eat.

“You are about to step in the fire,” Jongdae warned. Minseok promptly swerved. “Better?”

“No, other way,” Jongdae replied. Minseok turned again. “No, not that way, the other way.”

Minseok is tempted to just walk forward but does not want to risk setting himself on fire. “Here?”

“No.. turn back the way you were before,” he said without a hint of humor.

“Ah, cut it out, Kim Jongdae,” Junmyeon took Minseok gently by the arm and steered him over to a blanket on the ground. “There is food here, eat however much you would like.”

“Thank you,” Minseok sighs gratefully.

“Pay no attention to that one, he likes to fool around.”

“I can tell,” Minseok smiled. He took a bowl of stew. “This is delicious. Who made it?”

“Kyungsoo, my partner,” Junmyeon replied, full of pride. “Out of all of us, he is the best cook.”

“Give him my thanks and admiration,” he swallowed another spoonful.

“You are welcome,” someone laughed and Minseok blushed.

“So, are there five couples here?” He strikes a conversation.

“No, only three.” Kyungsoo settles on his side, probably by Junmyeon. “Junmyeon-hyung and I, Yifan-hyung and Zitao, and Baekhyun-hyung and Chanyeol-hyung.”

“Ah, so the rest are not interested in each other in that way?”

“Not at all. Especially since Sehun and Jongin are too young.”

Their voices lowered. “Actually, in the past half of us have attempted to win over Luhan, but he never swayed. Not even for Yifan, but that is a good thing since he has Zitao.”  

“Why not?”

“He has a bit of a..” Kyungsoo looked for the right word.

“..pride,” Junmyeon finished. “That, and he is a bit focused on leading. We all think him finding a partner could help him loosen up, but he does not listen. As usual.”

“Oh.” Minseok wanted to keep the conversation going, to avoid Luhan’s scolding. “How long have you two been together?”

“Oh, a year now? We have known each other longer though. We did not identify until last year though.”

“Identify?”

“Among our kind-“

“The shape-shifters,” Kyungsoo clarifies.

“We identify with someone when the souls.. link, I suppose.. and it bonds you to your partner.”

“That makes sense.” He nodded.

“Baekhyun and Chanyeol have been identified the longest; I recall theirs happened when they were ten.”

“That young?!” Minseok is shocked, to say the least.

“Yes, at that age they knew they were soulmates, but their relationship did not develop past platonic until they were maybe fourteen or fifteen,” he explained.

“Is it possible to know your soulmate but not identify with them?”

“Yes, it is. Baekhyun and Chanyeol were friends from birth. And like I mentioned, Kyungsoo and I did not identify until last year,” he reminds him kindly. Minseok flushed anyway.

“I remember, that is right.” He realized something. “If I were one of your kind, I could not identify? Since my soul could not look into another’s?”

They fell silent. “I do not know, to be honest. I have only ever heard of it happening through eye contact.”

“No big deal,” he brushed it off. “I am not of your kind anyways.”

“Among ordinary humans, love is a less complicated matter, so do not worry about it,” Kyungsoo said gently. Minseok finds them to be much friendlier than their leader.

An hour later finds him lying on a blanket in the grass, Junmyeon and Kyungsoo not too far away, and the others not far from them.

Things could be worse, he thinks to himself. I could be alone, lost, and starving. With that thought, he drifted off to sleep.

Luhan sat by the now-extinguished fire (courtesy of Junmyeon). He was the only one still awake- unless the newcomer was still up as well. One cannot tell when his eyes are always closed like that. He kicked a rock. Something about the boy unnerved him. As the leader, it was his job to make sure no harm came to any off his companions, his brothers. He did not understand how they accepted him so quickly; were they really that naïve, or maybe were they pretending? But Yixing called him out earlier on his rightful hostility..

He shook it off. He would deal with it tomorrow. At the First Root, he would see if their ‘guest’ could show him a reason why he should stay.

a/n: thank you to all readers, I'm glad this fic is anticipated!

I made member profiles, there will be one for each chapter^^

Let me know if they're hard to read, I have a feeling they kind of are..