Minseok was crying.

Loudly.

That alone made both his Guardians tense.

“Now do you see why we haven’t got children?” Kris indicated the bawling Northern Prince, who appeared to be suffocating himself using a combination of his pillow and his tears. Tora winced as a particularly loud wail shattered the atmosphere of the room which dampened her argument about their lack of children.

“Minseok…” she cooed gently, sitting down beside him on his bed. The Northern Prince moved like a blur when he felt the bed sink, wrapping his arms around the Serpent’s waist and sobbing into her side. Tora rubbed comforting circles on his shoulders, giving a hard look to the Dragon who rolled his eyes and sat beside Minseok, laying his long body over the Prince’s smaller one. The trio remained unmoving for a good twenty minutes, Minseok’s sobs quieting to sniffles, and finally dry hiccups that made him sit up and wipe his eyes because he needed to get some good breaths in to stop his hiccups.

“Are you ready?” asked the Serpent.

“No…” hiccupped the Northern Prince, “I can’t do it. Not yet.”

“Minseok, Luhan has to go back. You know what Eastern politics are like,” Tora soothed, “Think of our Northern politics, only they get more sun so it fries their brains further.” Minseok snorted a laugh through another bout of dry hiccups, giving a little smile to his female Guardian. He knew that this day had to come, but he was hoping to get in at least one more night before Luhan left for his home. Sighing with a heavy heart, the Northern Prince stood up from his Guardians’ embrace and stretched his arms above his head.

“I’m going to go have a bath.” he declared, moving toward the door that led to his private bathroom. Tora waited until the door had closed before turning a deadly glower to Kris, who had fully stretched himself out over Minseok’s bed.

“You really had to bring up the kids thing, didn’t you?” she scowled at him.

“We don’t have any children.” the Dragon replied, matter-of-fact.

“Kris, our child just spent twenty minutes bawling his eyes out because his boyfriend is going home. You can’t tell me that you haven’t been at least the tiniest bit fatherly toward Minseok during our time as his Guardians.”

“Name me one time.”

“Minseok was twelve and he’d fallen off the icebergs for the first time. You were the first one in the water after him and you had pneumonia for a long while afterward.” Kris opened his mouth to retort, but closed it when he found that he had nothing to retort. The more he thought about it, the more he realised Tora was right; ever since Minseok had been able to recognise faces, the two of them had been there in his life, especially during his most important times. They’d stood proudly beside him when he was crowned the Northern Prince, they’d taken many an assassination attempt against his life, and they’d even been the first ones his potential suitors had to impress before they could get to him and his powers over ice and snow.

Tora raised an eyebrow above a smirk and folded her arms. “Just worked it out, huh?”

“Shut up.” The Serpent rolled her eyes at the childishness of the Dragon and reached up to her hair, teasing out the two tone strands from the braid she’d woven it into and shaking the strands above Kris. He slowly sat up and tangled his fingers into Tora’s hair and began to run them through, occasionally pulling out long emerald feathers and discarding them onto Minseok’s bedroom floor. Tora sank onto the bed and leaned against Kris’ frame, the feeling of having someone else’s fingers in her hair that weren’t her own making her relax and make rumbling sounds she was sure she wasn’t supposed to be making.

“You two sicken me.” Minseok appeared fifteen minutes later, wrinkling his nose at his two Guardians still on his bed, Kris still with his hands in Tora’s hair.

“My next statement would probably make you cry, so I won’t say it.” the Dragon said, dropping another feather onto the floor, “You still collecting Tora’s feathers?”

“Yeah.” Minseok swooped forward and swept the small pile of green into his closet, tucking them underneath his array of cloaks and closing the door.

“What exactly do you use my feathers for?” Tora asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

“None of your business.” replied the Northern Prince.

“Twenty says he’s used one on Luhan.” Kris murmured, leaning down so Minseok didn’t hear him. Tora wrinkled her nose at her fellow Guardian.

-

Sehun was going to murder Kai. In his sleep, so the bastard didn’t have time to teleport away from whatever implement the wind walker had decided to murder him with. He was going to make it painfully slow for the teleporter too, just to make things more fun for himself.

“I don’t want to go home!”

“You’re sounding like a child, Luhan.” A pillow contacted the right side of Sehun’s face, though Luhan hadn’t lifted his arms since he’d buried his head in them and begun to wail and protest in an adult version of a tantrum. Kai had promptly teleported away, throwing out a weak excuse of how he was too young to deal with this, though both he and Sehun knew full well that he was only a few months older than the wind walker. Pushing all images of Kai’s bleeding corpse from his mind, Sehun slowly neared Luhan’s trembling form on his bed and sat next to him, wary that the slightest movement may see him thrown into the opposite wall and possibly out the door.

“It wasn’t long enough…” Luhan finally sighed, lifting his head up so he could breathe in air other than his expelled carbon dioxide, “it’s been two weeks, and it’s been too short.”

“A lot has happened since you’ve been here, Luhan.” Sehun didn’t correct his slip of tongue, “You’ve seen how Northern politics work, you’ve met Xiumin and his Guardians, you’ve been accepted by his Guardians and you’ve ridden them. Not many people can say they’ve actually ridden both a Dragon and a Serpent.”

“That’s true…”

“And you’ve successfully won the heart of the Frost Gem. You’re the only one who can say that, aren’t you?”

“That’s true too…” Luhan sat up properly and faced his Guardian, his eyes red from all his tearless wailing, “Thank you, Sehun.” The two shared an embrace, interrupted by Kai who chose that moment to return to the room.

“Let me in!” he cried, throwing himself at his Prince and his fellow Guardian. Sehun groaned as Kai’s weight toppled them backward onto Luhan’s bed, the Eastern Prince laughing for the first time since he’d woken up that morning.

Sehun, however, returned to plotting the teleporter’s death.

-

Minseok had invited the entire population of Port Flake to see the Eastern Prince off, which made Luhan’s heart swell at the number of people who had actually attended. He supposed it would save the two of them from bursting into tears and having to be carried away by their Guardians, who were busy saying goodbye to each other.

“It was nice meeting you.” Sehun said to Kris, who was shaking his hand.

“Likewise. We’ll need to organise a gathering of all the Guardians sometime.” replied the Dragon, looking over at Tora who had caught Kai in a headlock.

“Good idea. I’ll write to Chanyeol tomorrow and see what he says.” she grinned, releasing the teleporter before wrapping him in a hug.

“Why do you always leave me to deal with Suho?”

“Because I love you?” The look the two shared had both Sehun and Kai inching away toward the two Princes to say goodbye to Minseok.

“I’ll miss you.” Luhan whimpered to the Northern Prince, holding his gloved hands tightly. Minseok bit his lip to stop his tears and looked up at the Eastern Prince.

“I’ll miss you more.” he whispered back, leaning up to kiss his Eastern lover one more time before he boarded his carriage. The gathered crowd cheered as their Prince showed his affection for his suitor, some even going further and pumping their fists in the air while wolf-whistling. Minseok growled at them all, dropping the outside temperature a few degrees to shift their focus onto keeping warm.

“Really my Prince, did you have to do that?” Tora groaned from the side, her hands reaching up to her scaly mask to keep it protected from the sudden harsh chill in the air. Kris reached out and pulled her into his body, one of his own hands over his own onyx scale pattern.

“We had a good time here in the North, Prince Xiumin,” Sehun took a hint from the Northern Guardians and used Minseok’s official name, bowing low out of respect, “We hope to come back North again in the future.” Kai mimicked the wind walker’s actions, throwing in a thumbs up for good measure.

“All three of you are welcome back any time.” Minseok smiled as they stood, reluctantly letting go of Luhan so he could clamber into the green carriage. Luhan waved politely at the gathered crowd, who cheered as the carriage began to move away from the castle slowly, giving Minseok one last longing look before it disappeared out of the castle gate and into the town, away from the North for now.

“You know, I’m upset that they’re leaving,” Tora spoke up as the crowd began to disperse, “but I get the feeling that we’re going to see Luhan again.” Minseok frowned at her. He just left; what the hell had he done to the air to have her hallucinating like that?

“What makes you think that, Tora?” Kris asked, moving his arm off her shoulders to link their hands together.

“Just a feeling.” She grinned both at her fellow Guardian and her Prince as they turned to enter the castle, making the suspicious feeling in Minseok’s stomach rise to his throat.

“What are you two planning?” he asked once the main doors had closed behind them.

“Nothing.” they replied in unison. A single eyebrow was raised.

“Come on Minseok, don’t you think if we were planning something we wouldn’t have made it so obvious to figure out?” Kris tugged on Tora’s arm and led her away toward the kitchens, where they could smell something delicious, and leaving Minseok standing in the middle of the entrance hall to stew in his own suspicion.

-

The messenger really shouldn’t have been surprised by what he saw when he entered the courtyard. Not at all.

“Message for you, my Prince!” he yelled above the turbulent winds generated by two sets of large, beating wings. Kris and Tora paused their conjuration of cyclonic winds to allow Minseok to slide off Kris’ back and receive the message from the stunned delivery boy. As the messenger fled the courtyard, the Northern Prince opened the message.

“It’s about time.” Kris murmured as he shook the last tingles of his transformation from his arms.

“Damn it!” Tora suddenly shouted, making Minseok turn around in surprise, “I just remembered something I forgot to do yesterday. That’s all!” The Northern Prince shrugged and returned to reading his message. Kris smirked at the Serpent, who mumbled under her breath as she searched her pockets for the money she’d bet the Dragon two weeks ago.

A loud squeal bounced off the icy decorations of the courtyard, making everything tremble in its place. “He’s coming back!” Minseok squealed joyously, bouncing on the balls of his feet amidst the small blizzard blowing around his body.

“Who’s coming back?” asked Tora, hiding the smile on her lips.

“Luhan! He wants me to meet him at the gates to Port Flake…today?!” Ignoring the cries of indignation from both his Guardians and dropping the message to the ground, Minseok tore out of the courtyard and into the streets of Port Flake, ignoring the surprised calls of the people around him as he fled to the inland entrance to the town. He was out of breath when he arrived, but what he saw made his heart stop briefly before he gathered enough energy to throw himself forward.

Luhan was back.

Author's Note: In the absence of either Prince Luhan or Xiumin, I hereby declare this story FINISHED! Feel free to give your feedback; it is greatly appreciated. Also, I am offering cyber hugs to the person who guesses where I got the inspiration for Kris' onyx scales on his face from. It's not made up, I assure you.

Hope you enjoyed the story!

-GuardianOfTheDawn :3