Darkspawn.

Darkspawn. Not a word that Sehun expected to hear, not out of Baekhyun's lips, not accusing of Kyungsoo. Not something Sehun thought was even possible. Darkspawn don't exist above ground. They live in the earth, beneath the surface, in the abandoned Deep Roads carved by the dwarves of long ago. Spawns of devils and controlled by the Archdemon. 

"That's... impossible," he said softly. 

"Is it though?" asked Baekhyun, his voice deadly cool.

Sehun continued to shake his head, petrified but in denial because Kyungsoo was neither confirming it nor denying the elf.

Darkspawn did not talk, they don't even appear to think. They arise as a mass like a hive of bees when the Archdemon calls, pouring across the land like vicious beasts and attacking everything that moves. A Blight. Yet the last Blight was two years ago and the Archdemon was defeated. So were the Darkspawn, and those who weren't killed rushed back underground. They certainly didn't stay above to socialize with the other races. And they didn't normally look so... human. Like Kyungsoo.

The... human though only smirked. And it was a curious expression, like Sehun halfway expected Kyungsoo to congratulate Baekhyun on his testimony, halfway expected Kyungsoo to sigh and start denying the whole thing. In the end, Sehun was right. Halfway right.

"I'm not Darkspawn."

"Then what are you exactly?" Jongin asked with no second to spare. He held his sword arm aloft again, shield before his chest. Chanyeol was now doubly panicking and begging Sehun to step away. 

Kyungsoo didn't answer though. He continued to smirk, half-smiling, almost resigned to the accusation. 

"You're not Darkspawn," Baekhyun repeated carefully, unbelieving, "yet you carry the taint. We've seen what your hands can do. Do they turn everything they touch? Is that why you wear gloves? Why now when you obviously didn't before?" 

Again Kyungsoo shrugged. His hood had slipped off his head, dark messy hair on display, and Sehun was reminded of how splotchy was his skin. Pale, but dirtied, sallow and ill-looking. Sickly. Whatever else Kyungsoo was, he was definitely sickly. 

"Your friend leant them to me. Said I wouldn't scare people so bad if I couldn't mark them."

"A little late for that," Baekhyun scoffed.

"Our friend? You mean Xiumin?" asked Chanyeol with a scowl on his face. 

Kyungsoo nodded, putting his hand back into the glove. He lowered his head while he wrestled with the leather cloth, completely at ease with the situation about himself and appearing not the least bit scared. It was condescending, to say the least, to ignore the four sets of weapons pointed in his direction. Once on, however, he looked back up and one gloved-hand languidly behind Alistair's ears, ruffling the hound's fur and causing it to pant happily. 

"What has Xiumin to do with you anyway?" Jongin asked cautiously.

"Nothing," said Kyungsoo. "We've chatted. That's all."

"About what?"

"About life?" Kyungsoo chuckled, lips opening into a sneer, like he was in possession of a great joke that he wasn't about to share. It was an eerie, disturbing sound, yet oddly not terrifying. Sehun's throat felt dry, but he was no longer afraid. Especially when Kyungsoo stopped abruptly and said with an unnaturally serious turn, "But really, I'm not Darkspawn." He shook his head, almost pleading them to believe, however nonchalant his tone.

"I also don't have anything against any of you. I just want... company?" His eyes flicked towards Sehun's for a brief, solitary moment. Then they were back on Jongin. 

The warrior had a decision to make. Sehun wished he could help him do it, however, this wasn't his place. No matter that he believed Kyungsoo wouldn't harm him. No matter that he claimed not to be Darkspawn. Because he was definitely something, and that something was tainted. Sehun should have recognized it before. The Blight hadn't affected his home very much, not personally, but a lifetime of books and studying ought to have been enough. Only dark magic left such a stain. Dark magic or something rotten. 

"Tell us about the group you eavesdropped on, and maybe explain why you reek of Darkspawn," said Jongin finally, "and maybe we'll let you stay. Get within five paces of Sehun, however, and you're dead. I don't care what or who you are, or whether you've brainwashed Alistair or not. Those are my rules. Take it or leave it."

In the confines of a partially hidden cave, dark with markings on the walls, there was a heavy door. Steps after narrow steps leading into the earth, lit only by torchlight and no moving air. A long ago abandoned entrance to the Deep Roads, now cut off from the dwarven *thaigs but still accessible partway by the surfacers. 

It should have been familiar, almost comfortable, for a dwarf, and yet Suho was not reassured at all. 

"Will ya quit sweating like a nug!" somebody, one of the Carta dwarves whose names Suho had not paid attention to, shoved him harshly in the back with his boot. Suho cried out and toppled sideways onto the ground, legs out before him tied and manacled, and arms likewise. "By the stones, you'd think this one had never been away from the sweet, sweet skies. What's the matter, dwarf, afraid of falling back into the earth? It's a long way down but fortunately for you it's caved in! Or maybe we could use your thick skull for a battering ram?" He laughed maniacally and kicked him again for good measure until asked to quit by another of the Carta thieves, purely on the grounds that Suho's tears were becoming obnoxious.

"Halfway tempted to throw him back to Orzammar and let him survive in the poor quarter if he can take it," another one muttered.

"Now, now, there'll be none of that," said Yonghwa, the leader, cutting him off. 

"When'd you become so compassionate?" one of the females sniffed. She had short blonde hair, a cute face, and a personality that did not match. There were only two of them, and Choa was currently much more vicious than the other, Jimin, had been. 

"Nothing to do with compassion," Yonghwa sniffed. "More like, this one owes us a debt and now, since he's run off and lost our goods, I'd say he owes us doubly?" 

Suho caught his smirk, as if Yonghwa were asking his opinion for his own worth. Taunting him by upping the value. "Maybe triply? I mean, how convenient that all the stocks were stolen by bandits and everybody died but you. Four better smugglers than you were lost. I wonder how you plan to make up for it?"

Suho whimpered and pressed his eyelids shut. Anything was better than being on the receiving end of one of Yonghwa's glares. When he was first turned casteless, Yonghwa was there, the first of the Carta ringleaders Suho had the mispleasure to come across. The memories of it still burned in his mind, being pressed into the earth, knees skinned along the stone, and his face breathing in soot by the boot holding down his head. 

'You have two options now, scum. Try to make it on your own and likely die, or work for us. What do ya say?'

The rags of his once fine clothes were torn away fiber by fiber in order that something might be salvaged for value, either threads or jewels. The fine silver bands on his wrists were stripped for plunder and sold to 'pay your entry into the Carta. Aren't we generous, see?'

Generous was a life of pseudo-slavery. Surface dwarves liked to call themselves free, but to dwarves like Suho, born to do other things, it was more hell than the fiery pits of the deepest Orzammar mines. When the Carta caravan Suho was supposed to be 'protecting' was attacked by human bandits, it wasn't so much skill that Suho had survived, but mere providential luck. He was very good by then at playing dead, only moving again later when prodded by the flat end of somebody's sword. Jongin's, he learned soon enough. What a shame he'd never see them again. He could almost imagine a life wandering Thedas, learning by an assassin's sword, leading a mule, stewing pots of gruel, and hearing more than just one kind word a day. He even missed that wretched hound as big as he that had given him nightmares. As it turned out, Alistair didn't eat him whole but he did slobber a great deal too much. Everyone else was just tall enough that his tongue didn't slap them in the face. 

"Jungshin, why don't you go check on the others?" Yonghwa's voice was acid. "They should have been back by now, lazy dust snffers, they're probably smelling the roses as they go. But I'm hungry!"

"Somebody say food?" Minhyuk, the tiniest of the dwarves - although still faster than Suho - poked his head through a narrow door that lead to another cavern. 

"Nobody said food. Until the others return. Why don't you go with him if you're so desperate," Yonghwa complained. 

"No, thanks. I'll wait."

Suho watched expressionlessly as Jungshin and a few other Carta threw weapons over their backs and began to ascend the crumbling stone steps. He figured they were at least several levels below ground, one dungeon twisting upon the other down the old dwarven ruin. No hint of light pierced this far down, and Suho almost didn't want to see it again if it meant a life again on the move with the Carta. He wondered if he moaned and complained long enough if somebody wouldn't just end his life. Maybe that would be easier. However, he was too much of a coward to actually try. 

Without the sun to tell the time, he had no way of knowing how long he'd been underground. They had moved so fast through the forest, almost to the point that he could barely keep up and had to be dragged, half-carried the remainder of the way. His body ached, every muscle was sore, worse than the few days after which Jongdae and Chanyeol had begun to teach him weaponry. He dozed, eyes lurching closed against his will, happy memories fading in and out, friendly faces and smiles and good-humored teases unlike the kind given by the Carta. Sehun's face when he brought him something to eat, Jongin's frown when he was caught thinking too much, Luhan's bright eye smiles when he looked at Xiumin, and the always there, always attached form of the assassin that once scared the piss out of Suho, and then drove him crazy. He'd probably miss Jongdae the most. It had been nice while it lasted. 

Suho woke up from his stupor to an extremely different environment. Still in the cavernous ruin, he panicked and looked around. Yonghwa was gone, so were the other Carta dwarves, but all of them appeared to be up one level and there was the sound of steel upon steel and a few heavy blasts that shook the carved ruin walls. A pile of dust unsettled from the ceiling and dropped on Suho's head as he struggled to sit up, shifting only slightly but just in time to avoid a heavy boulder collapse and shatter right into the ground where he had been. Was he about to die? Had they been attacked by more bandits out to steal everything? Would Suho's life end so simply, just one more smuggler and thief to add to the pile of the dead?

"Suho?!" 

He gasped. That wasn't Yonghwa's voice calling out to him with such worry and concern.

"Suho?!"

"Suho, where are you?"

It was Jongdae. And Xiumin. 

"Here! Down here!" he called back, giddy from excitement and disbelief. It was impossible - no, but it was possible! - that they had come to rescue him!

"Suho!!" Jongdae kept calling him. 

"Here!" Suho returned, just as a billowy cloud of smoke exploded through the narrow doorway flowing down the steps. Jongdae emerged through it first, coughing and with a hand covering his mouth. He ran towards Suho as soon as he saw him, Xiumin appearing immediately in his shadow. Far above them a battle raged on, carried on no doubt by others in the party against the dwarves. 

"Suho, you're alright!" Jongdae crouched his side, already fiddling with the chains around his feet and hands. "Can you walk? Is there a key? We have to be quick and-"

"Move over," said Xiumin, the mage kneeling as well with his staff in his hand. Jongdae wasted no time getting out of the way and Suho winced as the mage began to say a spell. "Don't move a moment, this might feel sharp." Then he plunged the bottom of his staff against the steel manacles. Instantly, frost lines streaked across the metal, nearly freezing Suho's skin as they burned a white, hot cold. Suho shrieked anyway while Jongdae held him still, and then Xiumin tapped his staff again and the shackles shattered into a million tiny pieces, disintegrating like ice and then melting away. 

"Come on!" Jongdae pulled him by the arm. Suho's legs wouldn't hold his weight, and he found himself halfway suspended between the two as they lifted and dragged him up the steps. The second level wasn't much better than the first, except that Luhan was holding the fort against several stunned dwarves who lay upon the ground. He quickly ran to Xiumin to take over his roll and the mage dashed ahead of them with his staff held aloft. On the first level, there was Yixing waving his staff high as a fire wall thrice Suho's height blocked the rest of the Carta into a corner. 

"Have you got him?" cried Yixing steadily, not taking his eyes away from the dwarves huddling in fear on the other side of the flames.

"Got him. Let's go!"

Then Luhan shoved Suho up the last small path, Jongdae pulling from in front, and Suho saw the stars again. He promptly cried out in joyous exclamation, ignoring the shouts of the coming dwarves. Xiumin battled Yonghwa before the tunnel entrance. Yixing fled from inside the cave, doubling the attack on the Carta leader who dodged their attacks cunningly with his shield. Suho hardly noticed how the two mages were fencing him in, circling the dwarf until Yonghwa's back was to the cave wall. Jongdae was still dragging Suho with his weak legs and limbs towards the horse they'd stolen from the party. He scampered to hold on, Jongdae lifting him up and climbing on behind. Then the assassin reached around him to pull at the reins and the animal reared its front legs with a fleeting, terrified neigh. 

“Now, Yixing!” Xiumin called, just as Luhan darted in between the two mages to stall Yonghwa in the entryway, effectively shoving him back inside before pulling out. Suho nearly panicked again when Yixing fired his staff at the rock hanging above. It struck the boulders as if by lightning and crumbled down while everybody dodged the debris, including Suho who was nowhere near it. Jongdae held him tight though, Suho’s eyes barely open as he peered terrified through half-closed lids. Yonghwa was nowhere to be seen, blockaded inside the cave. Luhan had jumped to avoid the falling rocks. Yixing was safely out of the way, but one mage was not.

"Minseok, look out!!" Yixing cried as the mage he called... Minseok... barely dived to avoid one last shuddering boulder. 

The scene leveled out, dust settled over the earth. Everyone panted heavily, even Jongdae as he struggled to calm the horse and Suho as well.

Luhan looked twice as stunned. His robes were filthy, dust staining his sweat-slicked face and hair, but as he crawled to his knees and pushed himself up to his feet, his eyes were on Xiumin. On... Minseok. He glanced briefly at Yixing who panicked visibly, evidently mortified at his utterance and already stuttering to try and explain.

"I mean-"

"Shut up." Luhan didn't even look at him again. He stalked towards the other mage, Xiumin, Minseok, who lay in the dirt, flustered and exhausted, but also unusually calm and composed, like he was waiting for something. Like he'd been waiting for this. "What, did he call you?" Luhan panted. He stalled half a body length away and stared with almost unseeing eyes. 

"Luhan, I can explain," Yixing tried to interject, but he was met with a palm held out in the air. He actually choked, his hands converging upon his throat and chest as he doubled over, eyes watering like he was suffocating.

"Luhan, stop! You're hurting him!" Xiumin, Minseok, hurled himself to his feet, dragging Luhan's hand down in fear as Yixing dropped to his knees. The templar jerked, actually unaware that he'd resorted to magic in order to stifle the mage's power. He cringed away from both of them, fear and disbelief and confusion all swarming at once and his face grew red from his exertions. "Luhan, please!" Xiumin, Minseok, tried to hold him. "Let us explain-"

"Us?!" Luhan suddenly roared, backing away on his own with his sword once again in his hand. "There's an us?! Do I even want to hear this?!"

Xiumin, Minseok, looked ready to cry. Yixing did not try to speak again. He knelt in the dirt, still holding his chest although he was no longer bound by any strange power. 

"Who is Minseok?" Luhan asked, deadly calm. The other did not answer, so Luhan repeated it again. "Who is Minseok? Are you Minseok? Then who is Xiumin?" He did not drop his sword, although it wasn't pointed at anybody in particular. It was probably on this assurance that the mage replied. 

"I am Minseok..."

"Answer the second question then," said Luhan without pause. 

"I... Xiumin is..." Minseok swallowed heavily, eyes darting towards Yixing for aid.

The templar followed his glance, fury lighting up his countenance. "Is he Xiumin?! Is he the blood mage?! Have you been hiding and helping each other all this time?!"

"No!" Minseok pleaded bitterly, loudly. "He's not... He's just Yixing, a friend."

"A friend you've still been lying about!?" Luhan railed. "What else aren't you telling me? Who is Xiumin? And where is Xiumin?! Because I thought I was arresting a blood mage named Xiumin, and if that's not what I did, then tell me, Minseok," he snarled, "what have I done?!" 

He was halfway to furious. So too, apparently, were the dwarves trapped behind the blocked cave opening. Their shouts and hammers echoed through the rubble, jostling a few smaller pebbles which effectively distracted everybody except Luhan. And Minseok. 

"We need to get out of here now," Jongdae said, overly loud. For a few minutes Suho had almost forgotten what was going on. He'd been rescued, but they weren't out of the woods yet. Jongdae's arm tightened around his waist as he turned the horse away from the scene. "Argue later about names! Come on!" 

Yixing wasted no time following the assassin's command, Suho noticed forlornly, head swiveled around Jongdae's shoulder to make sure they were coming. The other two, however...

"I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything, I promise," Minseok practically begged. His voice wavered and almost broke. Luhan looked nowhere near mollified, but this was not the time to do this, or the place. Especially the place. Another rumble from inside the dwarven ruin had Luhan sheathing his sword and throwing his shield over again behind his back. He tred quickly towards the horse, ignored Yixing completely, and then looked scathingly back at Minseok who had half-collapsed in the dirt again. 

"Get up and follow me, and don't you dare think about running away. Or I will. stop. you."

3,295 words

Ta-da. Was anyone annoyed that I used his stage name instead of his real name for the fic? Well, now you know why! Sorry to leave you (again) on so many mysterires. Or, well, maybe I'm not sorry. Hehe. See you again next week.

♡ Rosie

*Glossary entry: thaig