dreams don’t happen when you’re asleep (they happen when you’re awake) [1/10]
Title: dreams don’t happen when you’re asleep (they happen when you’re awake)
Pairings: Sehun/Jongdae, side!Chanyeol/Baekhyun, hinted Minseok/Lu Han, Junmyeon/Victoria, Krystal/Amber and Jongin/Kyungsoo
Rating: pg
Length: 91k~
Summary: Sehun trips into Jongdae’s dream and everything changes.
Warning: language, very brief mentions of torture
Author's note: for januarys_lovers's birthday ♥ (pls read a/n at the end of the fic)
It all begins with a dawn; pretty and pale over the skies of the end of the world.
The sun rises in triumph over the Sentinel of Northeast, the White Tower, announced by a chorus of golden bells that cascade over the valley like a waterfall of joyous laughs. The people of the tower are the first to see the light coming out of the water every morning and it is tradition that they proclaim it to the whole realm, but even without the trumpets and the jingling bells, it would be impossible to miss the sight. Levels and levels of towers, spires and pinnacles of candid marble and carved platinum, flags and banners stirred by the winds like colorful pixies, flowers that fall from elegant and decadent windows, wide arches that look towards East bask in golden light and battlements shine like they are made of diamond. The blade of the first light of the day slashes through the darkness and rises, rises until it hits the top of the tower, until it hits the Diamond, and everything explodes in a flash of white, pure light, so bright it hurts Sehun’s eyes enough to close them, to keep them shut, but the light is everywhere, passing through his clamped lids and-
i
The White Sentinel is more than a tower; it is a jewel, the mightiest proof of the talent of the Titans that survived the Three Wars. Originally, there were four lookout towers, built at the four corners of the world, but time, invasions, dragons and men wiped out the other three until only the White Sentinel remained.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
Sehun opens his eyes and is greeted by a reality far duller than the one he’s designed in his dream.
Out of the window, the city is enjoying its only hour of sun. The precious golden glow seeps inside the tower through the giant arches, dripping down the columns and over the tiny houses of the Low City, before the golden disc is swallowed by the eternal clouds that surround the peak of the fortification, trapping all the upper levels in a cold, foggy embrace.
The boy bats his eyelashes, once, twice, trying to remember the details of his dream. There was light, the sun was rising and the skies were clear. Sehun has never seen the blue of the sky over the top of the tower. To be honest, Sehun has never even seen the top of the tower, given that it’s usually swallowed by the magical, dark clouds of the Dome. He squints, trying to hold tight onto the remains of the dream, but details slip away from his hands like seeds of dandelion, lost in the wind. Time clocks away too fast for the boy’s liking.
The Lauds are ringing loudly through the warren of cramped little rooms and messy corridors of the Low City. From the kitchen the smell of tea and Zitao’s voice greet him. Sehun’s roommate is making breakfast for the both of them, singing an old nursery rhyme in the dialect of the coastal tribes. If Zitao is already up, it can only mean one thing. Sehun is so going to be late for History of Riders of the North.
“Sehun, you lazy bum, it’s Lauds already! You’ll miss the first class.”
Sehun is never late and he’s usually the one who scolds Zitao for his lazy antics, but today he snorts as he slips on the pale blue vest of the Academy of Magic Arts students. His head emerges from the golden embroidered hem just in time for Zitao to stuff a sandwich in his mouth. With a chuckle he tries to comb Sehun's pale strands of hair, now that his arms are trapped in rigid fabric and he can’t fight back. Sehun hisses like a kitten in retaliation. Finally Zitao manages to make his hair look decent and pushes him outside. Before he can ask for it, a bag full of books is thrown at him. An evocative swear word is the only greeting Zitao receives before Sehun turns on his heels, diving into the colorful, loud crowd of the Low City and starts to run.
Lauds is the first set of bells and marks the beginning of the day of the White Tower. It’s also the worst moment to try and reach the Middle Districts, where the Academy is situated, because the streets are packed with people. Sehun is forced to jump over handcarts and brake dangerously at the corners to avoid toppling over enthusiastic children. Jump, run, duck, and steal a honey pastry from the basket of a blonde girl who blushes at Sehun's impertinent smile and forgets to be angry for the theft.
The sun shines weakly over the city - a pale ghost of light - but for people used to living in the darkness, even a single strand of gold is precious. This is the only moment of natural light, when the sun emerges from the water and is low enough to avoid being blocked by the Dome. In the afternoon the Western Blurry Peaks cover Sehun’s path until it disappears westward and can only be seen again at dawn the following day.
The Low City unravels in front of Sehun’s eyes; with its countless narrow streets and houses that clutter up the tower, making it look like the playground of a messy child who forgot to tidy up before he went to sleep. Sehun drinks in the sight in front of his eyes, thinking that maybe he should be late more often. It's not every day that the young scholar gets to see the city like this, pulsating with life. Almost like the few rays of sun that are hitting the white walls are giving life to everyone that lives inside the tower. His schedule forces him to wake up before the dawn, when the sun is still hidden behind the sea, and the couple of hundred steps of the majestic staircases that connect the Low City to the Middle Districts are lonely and deserted, except for patrol guards.
He curses inwardly when the bell of the Temple of the Stars stops ringing, soon followed by all the other White Tower sister bells. He knows, and his heart dreads the notion, that Lady Kwon has already started name calling to see who’s present. It’s more a formality than anything else, since the classes are quite small, and the teachers can tell when someone is missing with a single gaze, but at least the calling will buy Sehun a couple of minutes.
While he usually takes the inner route through the Old Stairs - the shortest one - he knows that at this time of day there are too many people around. He therefore decides to go for the Outer Staircase: a long, white spiral that coils around the whole tower, from the base to the top - or so they say, Sehun wouldn’t know that - trapping the Watch in its ancient embrace. It has no railings and almost no one uses it because the winds that surround the tower, both magic and natural, are very strong.
The guard recognizes Sehun’s uniform and lets him pass with a look of pity, imagining that the detention for arriving way after Lauds must be very harsh.
“Just be careful not to fall, lad.” It’s the only warning the guard sends, but Sehun is already running up, jumping three steps with every stride of his long legs, to hear him.
The first gush of wind is unexpected, but pleasurable, like the whisper of a lover and a caress on Sehun’s neck. It tells stories of lost love, of women patiently waiting for their men to come back home after a season spent hunting in the Wide Lands near the City of Flowers. Sehun knows this wind, he always hears her whispering in the night every spring. He greets the Spirit of the Eastern Wind with a quick bow and an elegant smile and the wind chuckles coquettish in response. Another voice joins the chorus, a different texture, a bit more rowdy and juvenile, and Sehun recognizes the smell of sea and adventures. The Wind of Northeast wants to play, and if the threat of weeks of detention and the disappointment of missing one of his favorite classes weren’t hanging over Sehun’s head, the boy would please him.
Sehun was born lucky, in the sign of the wind. His magical powers are, although not very strong, innate, instinctive, carved in his soul like the laugh of the breeze is painted on his memories, probably the first thing he heard in his human life, together with the doting voice of his mother. She used to tell him how Sehun was born in the middle of a storm so powerful that the Southern bastion of the Thirtieth Level fell under its fury and even the Dome was swept away by the power of nature; no matter how strong the spell surrounding the Tower was. “The morning after you were born,” Sehun’s mother said, “for the first time and last time since the Insurrection, we woke up and we saw the sun in the Upper Levels. That’s when I knew you were a special kid.”
Obviously, the curse of the Dome is too strong for nature to be able to break it, and after a few hours the top of the tower was dressed in clouds and darkness back again, so thick that not even the spirits of the wind were able to pass through it. However, as far away as they were, for the first part of his life Sehun could always hear the call of the winds, their songs and their tales, and longed for the sun he couldn't remember but knew through the words of the South Wind and the dreams of the East Wind.
Of all the winds though, the Northeast Wind has always been his favorite. The other winds come and go with the season and come back with new stories that he will drink eagerly while he sits on the colonnaded galleries, his legs hanging down and swinging and his eyes closed while the nimble hands of the breezes play with his hair. But the Wind of Northeast never goes away. He’s always been there for him, to listen to his secrets and cradle them in its playful fingers, always threatening to spill them but never doing it.
Sehun’s magic gift is the only reason why a Nobleborn like him, only son of one of the most powerful households of the White Tower, can afford the freedom to live alone with a son of anglers like Zitao, or to have a best friend with no parents like Baekhyun.
That freedom does come with a price, though. He can't afford to be late or his mother will know, and that would lead to her summoning him at home and submitting him to an endless questioning of his life choices and “Why do you even want to become a wizard when we have everything you need, here, in the Upper Levels? Wealth, companionship, elegance, what else could Sehun ever want? Except Sehun wants the sun, lives for the few seconds of light that fill the streets at dawn and makes the people's eyes shine like precious stones. Sehun lives for the dusty books he finds in the library of the Academy and for the silly hope that one day he’ll get to leave the Tower and sail to see the lands hidden on the other side of the sea.
The boy pauses to take his breath when he feels the air getting colder. A strange, artificial mist starts blurring the air and the golden steps of the staircase tremble under the pressure of magic. Sehun has finally reached the Dome, the giant cupola of clouds that surround the Upper Levels of the White Tower like an undying, eternal winter mantle. The air is thick inside, static and fixed, and everywhere the pressure of magic threatens to crush those reckless enough to challenge it. The cowl of clouds - they're not even real clouds, more like dark, magic smoke choking the white perfection of the Tower - is lower today, too low, extending its smog on the Middle Districts. During certain days, it is low enough to haunt the Low City too.
Sehun snorts. He hates the Dome, has hated it since he was a child. The Wind of Northeast pulls on his sleeve, trying to stop him from entering the wall of clouds, where he won’t be able to follow him. Sehun shushes him with a parting gesture and a promise of playing together later. He steps inside the Dome and blindly looks for the closest portal, not wishing to continue his walk on the slippery staircase.
ii
After the Titans disappeared, wiped away from the surface of the world by their own wanderlust, men came and claimed the Sentinel of Northeast for themselves, calling it White Tower. Wanderers, beggars, bandits and crownless kings fought for two hundred years. Finally, during the first full moon of spring of the year 1738 of the Second Era of Men, a foreign king who came from the sea defeated all his enemies and crowned himself Starking I of the White Tower, starting the first year of the Third Era of Men.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
Since he was young, Sehun has only had two great passions. One was the wind and the other has always been history. He was especially fond of stories and legends regarding the White Tower, his home, especially tales of a time before the spell of the Dome was casted. That’s why he didn’t want to miss this class, History of the Riders of the North, where Lady Kwon teaches the Scholars the story of the Starlords, the royal house who ruled over the Sentinel for more than six hundred years.
Their teacher is an energetic mage who fought for years in the Southern Wars before retiring from the soldier life and deciding to dedicate her life to teaching. She's a kind woman, little and pretty, with the lively eyes and the grace of a cat. She's also terrifying when she's angry and rumors say she was called Dark Angel on the battlefield, for she brought destruction upon his enemies despite her angelic looks. Sehun has no difficulty believing those rumors after the look she sends to him when he finally slips inside the classroom like a thief, thirty minutes after the call of his name, trying to be inconspicuous and failing miserably.
The Scholar sighs, hoping she won't make him tidy up her desk in the teachers meeting room again. He doesn't like to go there because it's full of pretentious people who know his parents and are more than happy to bother him on their behalf.
At least, Baekhyun has saved him a seating spot, right next to him, and Sehun takes him with a grateful nod.
He absent-mindedly listens to his friend filling him in about the content of the lessons, nodding more out of obligation than real attention. His personal interest in the subject means that he already knows everything about the Starlords, so he’s only half-listening when Baekhyun suddenly mentions the first Starking and his Diamond. Only then, his dream comes back to his memory with a devastating clarity.
“I dreamed about it,” he says, without even realizing, and Baekhyun stares at him funnily.
“The Starking?”
“No, silly, the Diamond. I dreamed of the Diamond of the Starlords hit by the first light of the day. When the sunlight hit it there was like an explosion, it was like the stone was taking the light and sending it back multiplied, and then the whole tower was shining and the Moors were filled with light and it was...”
Baekhyun snaps his tongue at him, shaking his head. “Your dreams are so strange, Oh Sehun. Are you sure Zitao didn't give you something strange to drink last night? Mark my words, that kid is handling too many strange things since he's started his apprenticeship at the apothecary's shop.”
Sehun dismisses the words with a roll of his eyes. He knows that Baekhyun is just being a little jealous. Being chosen for an apprenticeship is a great luck for someone who doesn't have a solid familiar background. Baekhyun is a very talented wizard, but he's a son of the Temple, no mother and father willing to pay someone to teach their son a job. Zitao has a mother and a father, but they wouldn't be able to afford the cost of an internship in a potion emporium in the Middle District for their only son, and that's why Baekhyun hoped that Zitao would've shared his misfortune, at least. But then that Wu Yifan had come, with his silk clothes and his shining piercings, and he had snatched Zitao away from the Academy to work for him without even asking for a compensation from his parents, because he thought that the boy had talent. Zitao has been working at Kris’ Emporium for two months already and he comes back home every night with burnt clothes and shimmering hair.
Still, Sehun feels the need to defend himself. “I didn't eat yesterday night, nor did I drink anything Zitao offered me.”
“You're right, you're stupid but you're not that stupid.”
Sehun pauses, fairly sure that Baekhyun has just insulted him, but then Mrs. Kwon says something that catches his attention and he focuses his attention back on her words.
“Legends say that Starking I of his dynasty brought the Diamond with him when he first settled into this tower, after he defeated all his enemies. We actually don’t know the location of the stone, or whether it’s still stored inside the Royal Palace, at the top of the White Tower. For what we know, it could've been stolen or destroyed eighteen years ago, during the Insurrection. But there is a fair amount of proof that document its existence; even a rough sketch signed that art experts bestow to Yifan I the Great who was the official painter of the first Starking court. The sketch portraits a stone in the shape and dimension of a dragon egg that…”
Sehun raises his hand, silently asking for permission to make a question. He can see the indecision in Mrs. Kwon's eyes, she clearly wants to make him pay for being late to her lesson, but in the end he knows he's her favorite student and she surrenders. “Yes, Sehun?”
“I've read in a book,” he says, overlooking the fact that it was a prohibited book in the restricted section of the library where ungraduated scholars shouldn't be allowed to enter, “that the Diamond was the only thing able to dispel the Curse of the Dome and lift the veil of clouds that has oppressed this city for the past twenty years. Is it true?”
Lady Kwon pierces him with an inquisitive glare.
“I don't know where you read such a thing, Oh Sehun, since I'm sure that this kind of information can either be fake or only found in a prohibited book.” If gazes could dig a hole in Sehun's mind and find out what he was doing with a forbidden book and how he put his hands on it, Sehun would be royally fucked. He smiles angelically and Lady Kwon’s eyebrows reach her hairline. “The Dome was originally a protective spell casted to protect this city from a dragon who wanted to destroy us all and only the royal family knew the necessary protocols to its removal. But I'm afraid, Oh Sehun, that the Starlords all perished in the tragic events of twenty years ago, during the Insurrection.”
Sehun thanks her, moping a little. Of course he already knew, but wouldn't it be fucking convenient if someone could find the magic diamond and break the Dome, returning sunlight to the city?
“However, legends say that the Diamond of the Starlords had the power to break curses,” finishes Lady Kwon, a few seconds before the Tenth Bell rings, signaling the end of the class.
“You're all dismissed, except Oh Sehun who's awaited in my office for detention.”
In between the cheers of the students happily chatting and leaving the room, Sehun meets Baekhyun's eyes over the tower of book his friend is trying to read. “What are those, anyway?”
“Etiquette and other rubbish like that. I’ve told Junmyeon countless times, this stuff is useless. There's no way I'm ever talking to a Noble, they wouldn't even hire me to clean their houses, let alone giving me an honest job that involves magic.”
Sehun pats his shoulder in what is supposed to be a reassuring gesture, fairly ruined by his following words. “Hey, I'm a Noble, and if you want to clean my room you're more than welcome. Zitao does nothing for the hygiene of our flat.”
Baekhyun punches him and, for being a little midget, he sure punches hard.
“I hope she makes you clean her desk,” he singsongs before disappearing with his bag full of books, “and I hope Lord Kangin sees you and tells your mom that you’ve ended up in trouble, again.”
Sehun sticks out his tongue but the little pixie has already disappeared towards his Hypnosis Enchantments class.
iii
The official division of the White Tower in Low City, Middle Districts and Upper Levels can be dated back to the revision of the Public Register Books in 1502. However, the deep differences in the cultural, economic and social background between the people living in the upper levels of the city and the people living at the bottom, near the base, sink their roots in the first colonization of the White Tower, even before the arrival of the Starlords.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
The evening finds Sehun sloped against Zitao, Baekhyun leaning onto him on the other side, the wind mage emptying the barrels of beer of the Bonamana while Baekhyun does the same with the pockets of the customers under the vigil eyes of Heechul, the bartender. Zitao complains about the amount of work he has to do at the Emporium, and though the topic usually puts Baekhyun in a sour mood, the sum of money the boy has managed to cheat at cards from the other regulars of the tavern is consistent enough to paint a satisfied grin on his cheeky face.
“All the books,” complains Sehun, talking about his punishment for being late, “I have to clean all of them. Do you know how many books are there in our library? Thousands, millions... The sun will never rise on the day of my freedom...”
“At least you enjoy books,” whines Zitao, “Master Kris today had me tidy up the storage room. A vial bit my hand and tried to eat my middle finger, can you believe it? What next? Cannibal baskets and sacks? Poisonous coins? And when I told Master Kris, he only worried about the vial, asking if I broke it. This is so unfair.”
“Stop moping, you two,” says Baekhyun, as he throws his Five Aces on the counter next to a guard's Royal Flush. The guard swears loudly and looks at Baekhyun malevolently, before leaving in elegant hands a bag that probably contains at least two of his wages.
Baekhyun beams in delight. “Heechullie, another round!”
Heechul laughs and brings more beer, “Anything for my favorite guest,” he says, taking the golden coins. “But maybe it's better if you stop playing for today, my Baekhyunnie, some of those guys are not happy with the outcome of the last games and I wouldn't want blood to end up on my counter.”
“Oh, shut up, it would be the cleanest thing that's ever been there.”
Baekhyun laughs at Zitao's joke, but he prudently puts the cards away and starts stroking Sehun's hair.
“How can your hair be so soft, Sehunnie?” he sighs, stroking beneath the ears, making Sehun purr like a contented cat. Zitao joins him, but Sehun pats his hand away.
“Not you, Zitao, you' don't know what's grace is. Only Baekhyun is allowed to give me scalp rubs.”
Zitao snorts. “I know why his hair is so soft, Baekhyun-ah. Must be all those Nobleborn genes. We should be grateful enough to be allowed to spend time with someone like him.”
Sehun hisses. “Lower your voice please, the worst cutthroats criminals hang here at the Bonamana and they already hate Baekhyun because he counts cards, if the rumor that I'm a Nobleborn spreads, they'll kill you and kidnap my beautiful person for a generous ransom.”
“Oh, don't worry Sehunnie, I will protect you with my life,” promises Baekhyun in a solemn voice, and both Sehun and Zitao explode in amused giggles.
It's difficult to say when Sehun's, Zitao's and Baekhyun's relationship begun. It wasn't on their first day of school, for Sehun clearly remembers spending that day all alone, watching around himself with wide eyes and wide mouth. He was short as a cork back then, tiny and pale, like most of the kids grown up in the Upper Levels are. He had only seen the sun once, the night he was born.
After his twelfth Name's Day, his parents were finally convinced that if they didn’t send him to the Academy soon, he would've run away and applied for it himself. He was too curious, too out of control, and the voice of the winds wouldn’t let him sleep, so they decided to let him learn how to control his magic. That’s how Sehun found himself in a room full of other kids who looked at him with suspicion in their eyes because his skin was whiter and his clothes were fancier and he always talked in a soft, elegant voice and basically everything in him screamed Noble.
He wasn't the only rich kid in the school, but he was the only one who came from the Upper Levels, for usually Noble households don't send their kids to the Academy, they raise them in luxury and extravagance to prepare them for a life of splendor and boredom.
They found themselves, Zitao and Baekhyun, Sehun and Jongin, because they were the only ones who didn't fit. Sehun was too rich and Zitao was too poor, a boy from the Moors who had fished oysters and lobsters for the table of the rich people of the White Tower for the first ten years of his life, traveling the distance between his poor village of wood and straw, sea and misery and the capital everyday to help his father sell the treasures of the sea. It was during one of these travels that he was noticed by Lord Zhou and his quick, agile mind and knowledge of herbs and magical creatures was the key that allowed him to enter the doors of the Academy. Maybe that's why he puts so much care in his choice of clothing, in the way he speaks, in his accent, so that no one will ever know he once fished for a living.
As for Baekhyun, he is a son of the Temple, a kid of nobody grown up between warrior monks and polite diplomats like Junmyeon. Sehun has heard his father tell his mother that the Temple of the Stars is one of the strongest economic supporters of the Academy, and that's the only reason why someone like Baekhyun managed to enter the school, but Sehun has seen his friend putting his everything into his studies, hoping to forge a better future for himself. Baekhyun's greatest wish, drunkenly whispered into Sehun's ear after a couple of rounds of ale, is to become someone. He longs for recognition in a world full of people who despise him for his unknown origins.
And then there was Jongin, whose dad died during the Insurrection, fighting to protect the last Starking, leaving alone a young desperate widow with three young mouths to feed. Jongin had entered the Academy for birthright, like his father had done before him, hoping to receive the Scholar's monthly allowance and send it to his mom and sisters.
What a group of misfits they were. They've been together for six years and Sehun has learnt to trust those three kids, the lowest of the lowest, more than he would ever trust any Nobleborn. Now it's easy for him to lose his composure in the comfortable slope of the fingers cradled in his short hair as he drowns the tiredness of the day in a nice pint of beer, while Zitao forgets for a moment that he's supposed to be a sophisticated White Tower boy and starts speaking in the slurred, guttural accent of the Moors, of his little village near the sea.
Sehun leans his head on the table and relaxes his shoulders, half lost in the comfortable background of the tavern, of glasses bumping and people screaming and loudly greeting each other. Over his head, Baekhyun and Zitao are betting over the outcome of a brawl near the old pianoforte.
Like this, Sehun is at peace. There are no dreams of diamonds and clouds in his mind and even the whisper of the wind, the usual soundtrack of Sehun's life, struggles to reach the boy in the stuffy tavern. Only if he closes his eyes and concentrates, he can hear the howls and the dances and the fights of air outside.
“I miss Jongin,” he says, after a moment, and both Sehun and Zitao turns towards him. “It's been a while since the last time we've received one of his letters.”
“Three months, at least,” confirms Baekhyun, “but the City of Flowers in the South is pretty far away from here, so it's not really a surprise.”
Sehun has made a mistake. Baekhyun's eyes are hooded again, his expression more guarded. He had applied for an apprenticeship in one of the southern cities last year, hoping to run away from this tower where everyone asks for his surname first and looks down at him when he has none to offer.
Junmyeon, Dean of the Academy, Superintendent of the Temple of the Stars and also Baekhyun’s caretaker, had utterly refused the offer for him and Jongin ended up leaving in Baekhyun’s place. Now instead of having to worry about Baekhyun lost on the other side of the world they worry about Jongin, but mentioning it never fails to drain Baekhyun’s good mood away.
Zitao elbows Sehun in the liver and he hastily apologizes. “I'm sorry Baekhyun, I shouldn't have talked about Jongin.”
“No, you shouldn't be sorry Sehun. It wasn't your fault, nor it was Jongin's fault if Junmyeon refused the apprenticeship offer for me, nor is it Zitao's fault if he has found a job at Kris' Emporium while no one wants me. It's just... I can feel all the opportunities slipping away from my hands. I'll graduate soon and what will I do when the Temple won't feed me anymore? No one would want to hire me, you know what they say about orphans…”
Baekhyun is too busy moping and staring at the remnants of foam at the bottom of his stein to notice that the door of the Bonamana has opened and a furious and pompous, tiny figure is now walking towards them.
Junmyeon catches him by the ear in a swift motion, pulling him up on his feet and sending deadly stares to Sehun and Zitao.
“You're coming with me, young man!”
“Let me go, let me go!” Baekhyun kicks and trashes, but Junmyeon is as sophisticated and well-mannered as he is strong.
“Stop whining like a child! Is this the way you're going to repay the monks' gentleness? By spending your nights in this stinky hole with your friends? Cheating at cards?”
A complete silence has fallen in the room, everyone's eyes are fixed on the scene near the door. Someone, a threatening man with long moustaches, dares to whisper under his voice, “I knew he was cheating,” before Junmyeon pins him to the spot with a deadly stare. The man shrinks down under his fury.
“We’re going home, now. And you,” he storms, piercing Sehun’s chest with an icy glare, “what would your mother say, Sehun? Should I have a talk with her?”
Sehun is tempted to answer for a moment that he’s not sure that his mother would receive Junmyeon in her house. Junmyeon and Sehun are cousins, but even since when the older boy decided to join the Temple of the Stars, his whole family has stopped talking to him.
He doesn’t know what Junmyeon has read on his face, just that, after a long, agonizing moment, the boy bids everyone goodnight as cold as he manages, and leaves the speechless inn dragging forth a recalcitrant Baekhyun.
iv
The glorious household of the Stars lasted for most of the Third Era of Men, 2994 years, until it was wiped away by a mysterious rebellion, known as the Insurrection, in one single night. After the incident, the Starking’s most trusted advisor took power and administered the city, assuming the role of Ruling Steward.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
“Did you see his face? Oh, Baekhyun is in big trouble this time!”
“Naaah, Junmyeon will scold him for a few hours and then send him to bed and tomorrow we'll all be there at the tavern like always.”
It's strange, though, the level of attachment that Junmyeon is showing towards Baekhyun. He's only his caretaker, not his father... Or brother, since Junmyeon is definitely not old enough to be Baekhyun's father. Maybe Sehun is just being jealous. After all, when he was a tiny awkward thing who liked to climb on his mother’s closet, Junmyeon had always been the kind cousin who came to help him get down and taught him to overcome his fear of heights, a great obstacle for a child of the Upper Levels. Sehun only hopes that in his worry to keep Baekhyun out of trouble, Junmyeon doesn't end up clipping the boy's wings.
“Baekhyun is so moody lately. He tries not to show it, but he's really worried that no one will take him as their apprentice.”
Zitao nods. “We should do something for him. Maybe take him to see the sea, would you like that?”
Sehun laughs, but it's sour. His mother would never let him leave the city without a little private army to escort him. But it would be nice. Baekhyun looks like the type of boy who jumps in the water and fall like a stone just because in his eagerness he has forgotten he can’t swim.
Sehun tries to chuckle at the mental image, but his head spins and he's forced to lean on Tao. They almost crumble on the ground in a giggling heap of limbs that smell of alcohol, and one of the patrolling guards at the door that connects the Low Commercial District with the Council Houses of the Low City, gives them a disapproving glare.
Sehun struggles to get up on his feet and pull Zitao up with him. They both bow in a mockery of respect to the guard, making the young man shake his head, before they finally slip in familiar, dark alleys.
At night, the Dome covers all the stars and the city fall in complete, utter darkness. Mages light up magic fires in the widest streets and at the giant doors that connect the different districts and quarters of the conglomerate of houses, little palaces, mansions and gardens that fill the White Sentinel. However, most of the Low City stays in the dark. It's impossible to cover all the little alleys, tunnels, porches and basements, and the overlapping streets that crash into each other like confused snakes only to run away in different directions and get lost in the confused daedalus that is the base of the tower.
The district of the Council Houses is one of the darkest areas in the entire city, because it's inhabited only by young couples with dozens of screaming children that never go out during the night and penniless students that know their way home better than the content of their own pockets. Sehun doesn't really fall in the penniless category, but he loves his little room in the Fifteenth Level, even if he has to share with Zitao and argue with his friend all the time because he hogs all the space for himself. At least, when they're drunk and their steps falters and their foot get tangled into invisible obstacles, they can fall together and make a good laugh out of it. And, after all, despite what his mother thinks, it’s not a dangerous neighborhood, only extremely gloomy after Vespers.
“Almost there,” Zitao warns, stopping Sehun from putting his foot on a draining pipe. “Hey, listen, I was thinking of what you said...”
“About what?”
Sehun's voice is slow, the words more drawled than usual. He can feel the tang of alcohol at the back of his throat. Zitao doesn't seem to be coping with the binge better than him.
“About missing Jongin. I know a way to talk with him, even if he's far away.”
“Are you kidding me, man? He's on the other side of the world...”
They stumble in front of the door and Sehun starts to argue with his bag, trying to get it to spit out the keys.
“It's something I found at the Emporium,” confesses Zitao. “We had too much and Yifa- the boss said I could keep it.”
“Hell no, Zitao, I'm not touching one of those strange potions.”
“It's not a potion,” protests his friend, voice going all high and defensive. “It's pixie dust. If you pour it on yourself during a night of full moon and say the name of the friend you want to talk to, you'll enter their dreams and you will be able to talk to them. Cool, right?”
Sehun finally manages to get a hold of the key despite the numbness of his hands.
“I call bullshit on this story. You're making it up on the spot and you're so drunk it doesn't even sound believable.”
Zitao pushes him over and shoves the key in the keyhole, turning it three times with rough motions. “Well, at least I'm not drunk enough to be unable to open the house door, Sehun. Look, I'm only offering because both you and Baekhyun looked miserable today and I can't make Baekhyun happy so at least I wanted to make you happy, but if you don't want it I can keep it and use it to talk to my grandparents.”
Sehun's head has stopped spinning but now it's throbbing, rhythmically. He vaguely recalls Baekhyun saying that only a stupid would trust Zitao's potions. It was just this morning, but it seems so far away. But after all what evil could it do? It’s only pixie dust. Pixie dust it's pretty unharmful. Not-harmful. Sehun clicks his tongue as he looks inside his head for the right word. Safe, pixie dust is safe. Sehun has read somewhere in his mother's library that fairies can use their dust to enter dreams so Zitao is not totally making it up.
“No, ok, I want it. Just a little. To know whether Jongin is still alive or not. It's really been three months since the last letter...”
The door slams closed behind the two boys. Both of them throw their bags on the floor. Zitao hiccups and rubs his tired eyes. He rummages in the drawer next to his bed while Sehun closes the door and murmurs a few protective runes against the wood.
Finally, Zitao comes back, bearing a little jar that shines in the dark, full of what looks like shimmering sand. When Sehun takes it in his hand, the sand swirls in inside its glass prison, forming hypnotic spirals.
“Just a dash,” insists Zitao. “Don't waste it, okay?”
“You said full moon, right?”
Zitao doesn't answer. When Sehun turns towards him, the other boy has already collapsed on his mattress, snoring with his mouth hanging open, eyes squinting and his left foot hanging from the bed.
Sehun shakes his head and think of a spell they learnt last year, to reproduce on paper what the eyes are seeing, just like a painting but instantaneous. He'd like to use it now, so that he can show Zitao exactly how unattractive he is when he sleeps. Unfortunately, his memory doesn't want to collaborate and he’s not even sure they have a clean piece of paper in the entire house.
He only remembers to get out of his clothes and throw them on the ground, before he lets himself fall on his messy bed, his hand still holding the pixie dust. He falls asleep, and the little glass jar drops lost on the tangled sheet, unnoticed.
v
No one knows what happened the night of the Insurrection. Who were the soldiers who attacked the Royal Palace of the Starlords, exterminated the whole family and burnt the Temple of the Stars? Where did they go after the slaughter? Where were the Black Masks and why did they not intervene? Advisor Park hides himself behind the title of Ruling Steward after he betrayed and plotted the death of our rightful Lord!
Anonymous pamphlet escaped from the burning of illegal books in 2994, three months after the Insurrection
The next morning, a torrential rain falls over the tower, big, thick droplets hitting the marble like grains of rice, silent and strong. Water flies through the big arcades, brought by the angry howling of the wind, and splashes over the buildings close to the Outer Walls. The dawn is swallowed by the heavy squall.
A furious knocking on his door and some furious, tired curses spluttered by Zitao's mouth are Sehun’s wake up call. He's the one who rolls out of bed and opens the door in just his undergarments, shivering at the chilly air.
It's a messenger. His livery bears the colors of the Oh household, its elegance completely out of place in the dark alley of the Fiftieth Level. He arches his eyebrows, sending a disapproval glare to Sehun's naked ankles and collarbones. The letter he gives Sehun smells of violet and cyclamen, his mother's favorite flowers.
“Tell me who woke us up so that I can kill him,” comes Zitao's voice, still choked against the pillow. Sehun rips the envelope and inhales the familiar smell of high quality paper.
“My mom. She wants me to come home for lunch.”
Zitao moans. “I'm going back to sleep, my head hurts like a dragon slept on it.”
Sehun leaves him a glass of water and some reinvigorating potions on the sink, because he knows that Zitao will still go to work this afternoon, even if it's the Day of Sun and no one works.
When he leaves his home, the streets are deserted. Even the usually crowded market of the Twenty-sixth Level is painfully empty, only a few mothers muffled in heavy mantles hastily buying last minute groceries for the Day of Sun lunch.
The people of the White Tower don't like the rain. Their life is already grey enough because of the Dome without adding the whims of nature to it. Moreover, the tower is old and cold. People in the Upper Levels and in the Middle Districts can afford to pay for the personal services of mages who will dry the streets and keep their houses warm, but when it rains in the Low City, humidity insinuates itself in the holes between bricks, festering the stone and polluting the air, proliferating thanks to the absence of solar warmth.
Sehun doesn't dare to take the Outer Staircase, not today. The North Wind is old and unforgiving, it wouldn't help him if he was to slip and fall down. This time, he goes for the Little Spiral, a minor winding set of stairs in the Eastern Quarter. It's not used very often for it's narrow and only lit by natural fires, not magic ones, and the guards often forget to light them again when the flame has consumed all the oil, which makes it dark a bit uncomfortable to use. It's more like an emergency exit, only connected to the most important levels of the tower. Sehun walks through it alone, his footsteps the only sound that keeps him company as he climbs the thousands and thousands of thin, tall, irregular steps that separate the Low City from the Upper Levels. Hidden under the simple coat, he's wearing one of his best outfits to please his mother. The material is soft and slippery on his skin, already used to the coarseness of the Scholar tunic.
At the Northern Silver Door, one of the four that connect the Middle Districts and the Upper Levels, a guard stops him.
“Tell me your identity and what business do you have in the Upper Levels.”
While the rest of the city is open to everyone, only the citizens in possess of a particular permission granted by the Ruling Stewards are able to enter the Upper Levels. That includes the Nobleborns or those common people rich enough to afford to buy their way into Nobility with the power of money. At the top of the Upper Levels, somewhere around the Seventieth, resides the court of the Ruling Steward, who took the power in his hands after the slaughter of the Starlords. All the levels above that palace, the Forbidden Floors, are close to everyone and trespassers are usually punished with death.
Sehun easily passes the guards block. All it takes is a look at the ring he wears at his neck, hanging from a thin, golden chain. It bears the emblem of his family and proves that he's a Noble, hence he can step in the Upper Levels.
The Low City is dirty, messy and chaotic. The Middle Districts are neat and elegant, with great gardens, clean streets and wide, classic building lit by magic stars set on the naked stone of the galleries. The Upper Levels are like a painting of fallen times. Here, nothing has changed in thousands of years.
The base of the tower has been rebuilt hundreds of times, ravaged and pillaged. Men has come and gone, molding the rocks with their own hands, bringing forth new material, completely destroying the original design of the tower and creating that masterpiece of well-orchestrated chaos that is the Low City. But in the Upper Levels, no one has dared to touch the masterpiece of the First Architects.
In front of Sehun's eyes there’s a wide stone clearing, adorned in gold and pearls. From the vaults covered in mosaics of rubies and emeralds fall majestic diamond chandeliers that shed eternal, magic lights on the ornate palaces. The game of light, precious stones and gold makes the Upper Levels look irradiated with light, even if it's been years since the last time these wall actually saw a glimpse of the sun.
All this brightness is magic, strange and unnatural, but if only a ray of sunshine were to enter from the titanic white arcades, the whole place would shine like the sun itself.
Sehun sheds the simple coat and straightens his back, assuming the posture of a Noble that he can so easily forgo when he's wandering through the Low City.
He greets his mother with a kiss on her hand and his father with a bow. They eat in silence for the first part of the lunch, and even though Sehun usually cherishes the freedom of his student life, he lets the taste of the delicious meals cooked by his mother personal's cook fill his mouth and doesn't complain, for once.
“Have you heard about the robberies, Sehunnie?”
“Do you mean the Thunder Thief? Oh, yes, I've heard of him, but I thought people were exaggerating, you know how tavern talks work...” His father stiffens and his mother pales. Of course they wouldn't know how tavern talks work. “My bad. Anyway, is it true?”
“I'm afraid it is. I heard Miyoung, the youngest child of the Hwangs, talking about it the morning after the Festival of the Red Moon. It looks like someone broke inside their houses and rummaged through her father's things, but nothing was stolen.”
“They didn't take anything?” he asks, dubious. Why would someone make a titanic effort to introduce themselves in the Upper Levels, go past the small private army of Lord Hwang and not steal a single gem?
“Not a thing,” confirms his mother, ticking her polished nails on the elegant wooden table. “Not even money.”
“This is why I'm so wary on letting you wander between those criminals in the Low City, son. They only wish to steal from us!”
Sehun clicks his tongue, knowing that his attitude will anger his father. “What makes you think that they're not Nobles, father? I think it's highly unlikely that two commoners managed to find a way into the impregnable Upper Levels, go past a thousand of guards patrolling every single tile of our golden floor, enters a house full of people during one of Lady Hwang's extravagant party - you were there too, mother, right? - and make it back unnoticed and unscathed. But if they were Nobles, and moreover, guests invited to the party, it would've been extremely easy to squeeze into the private rooms.”
“That's enough, young man! Pray that the servants didn't hear you accusing Nobles of theft.”
Sehun raises his hand in surrender and goes back to his oysters. “Is that all?” he asks.
“Well,” his mother hesitates, worrying white teeth on the lace of her glove. It's a nervous habit that not even years of etiquette have managed to take away from her. “Its not really official, but rumors say that the same thief have also managed to enter the palace of the Ruling Steward, a few months ago.”
Sehun's fork falls on the table with a loud clang. “Really?”
“Yes, and the other night the guards chased two people, both wearing a mask, down the Golden Staircase until the Middle Districts, but they lost them near the Academy. It's still unconfirmed, but it looks like the Black Masks are investigating a possible engagement of some of your school's Scholars in illicit activities.”
Every single word of Lord Oh hits Sehun like a stab. The Black Masks are the eyes and the ears of Steward. Spies, sly and malicious. If they’re really snooping around the Academy for culprits it will be a scandal. That's why they called him here today.
“You don't want me to get caught up in the storm, when it'll blow up. You want me to retire from the Academy.”
There's sauce on his father's fingers. He cleans it with a white tablecloth brought by a steadfast waiter. Lord Oh can be so clumsy, but Lady Oh, always the perfect wife, never dirties herself.
Sehun looks up at these two Nobles, his parents, sitting at his same table, expressionless and still like the statues that crowd the white boulevards of the Upper Levels. He looks at them and he's afraid that one day he'll turn up exactly like them, cold and detached from the rest of the world.
“You can't be sure that the thieves are students. Even if they were, a single student's wrong doings won't taint the reputation of the entire school. I have things to do, I'll graduate in less than ten months and I yet have to find an apprenticeship for my abilities...”
His father all but growls. “My only son! Working and dirtying himself like the child of a beggar!”
“Sehunnie, please think this through! Death penalty will be the destiny of this thief and his accomplices, you can't risk...”
He brings silence to his mother's lips with fingers on her mouth and he sees her grimacing because his fingers are covered in little scars, the marks of a wind mage, imperfection that shouldn’t mar the skin of a Noble.
“I won't leave the school,” he says, his voice calm and composed. “I am already of age and I will make my own choices.”
Lady Oh wears disapproval on her face like a beautiful, handmade dress, in an impeccable way. Sehun's father is not so lucky. The wrinkles in his brow become more pronounced, his eyes harsher, upper lip shaking in rage. Sehun knows he wants to whip him for his insolence, wipe down the calm from his features like a storm surging ready to surge on the flat surface of the sea.
Challenging the head of the family like this is a risk. In this, the son of a Nobleman is no different from a son of anglers like Zitao, or a son of bankers like Yongguk.
“For how long do you want to wear your parents' patience thin, Sehun? Haven't we spoiled you long enough?”
“Dear, the servants... They'll hear.”
Every hope that his mother would've tried to defend him crashes like a wave against the cliff.
“Let them hear. It's not like you can keep it a secret from the rest of the world. I'm a Scholar. I want to leave this house and travel around the world.”
“You're my only son!” His father's voice thunders in the wide dining hall, reaching the farthest corners. “I won't allow you to disgrace the name of our family by behaving like a sewer rat, Oh Sehun.”
Sehun tries to control himself, feels his blood boiling. Far away, an entire cursed cloud to separate them, the Wind of Northeast is laughing of him, laughing of all of them, little figures all caught up in their games of appearances and webs of lies.
Aren't you trapped, little one? it seems to say. Look at yourself, Sehun, you're suffocating. There's no air up there, no wind. You're alone. Isn't it time to stand up for yourself?
“I won't allow you to shut me in this palace forever, Father.”
He gets up and the entire room shakes. The pale, detailed glasses tremble after his fury. Lady Oh covers her eyes as her dress starts to dance around her, moved by the power of her own son. Little swirls, spirals of wind comes out of Sehun's hands.
Lord Oh finally sits down, defeated, and Sehun releases the pressure, the wind dying until the air is still and static again.
“Thank you for the lunch,” he says. He throws the napkin on the table. “It was nice to see you.”
It's his final word, before he leaves the building.
vi
Among the items, products and alchemic ingredients acquired from anthropomorphic winged creatures, pixie dust is one of the most difficult to obtain. It is especially used in potions to relax the minds before foreseeing and clairvoyance sessions. It is also said to be useful in that uncertain and mysterious branch of magic known as Dream Science.
One Million Magical Items and Ingredients
Zitao has to work overtime, Jongin is abroad and Baekhyun is still grounded at the Temple. The only thing Sehun wants more than getting drunk is getting drunk with his friends, but eventually he ends up splayed on the cold stone floor of his and Zitao's flat with the only company of a half-empty bottle of ale and his heart, which has finally stopped beating like crazy.
Sehun laughs, drunk and broken, all by himself. “I can't believe I talked to Father like that. Mother looked like she was going to faint.” He only had time to steal a look at her, she was whiter than a sheet. He wanted to see his father's face too, but that would've ruined his dramatic exit.
He was a fool. His parents are powerful and his father especially shouldn't be defied like that. He'll probably retaliate and Sehun won't like the consequences. Maybe they'll be able to talk about it. Maybe, if he promises he will be good and marry the girl they choose and do everything they ask, they will let him finish the course at the Academy and graduate.
The world dances around his eyes as he struggles to get up, hands scrabbling on the wall. He probably knocks over half of Zitao's stuff in his staggering attempt to reach his room.
When he finally lets himself fall on the bed and he sees something shining under the sheets very near to his sternum, he thinks that this time he's really overdone himself.
“I've been drunk before, but never so drunk to see purple lights in my bed. What the hell are you?”
He pats the bed, blindly, until his fingers close around a little, hard thing. It takes a lot of struggle to realize it's trapped under the sheets, and even more to actually take it out of the bundle of tangled fabric. Only when he's holding it in his hands Sehun realizes what it is.
Pixie dust. Shimmering, shining, colorful pixie dust. It flares inside the bottle, asking to be left out, so tempting.
Sehun's dazed fingers slide around the lid. At the third attempt, it comes out with a loud pop that echoes in the silence of the room. The dust shakes impertinent inside its jar. It looks ready to fly away, but it stays inside. Sehun stares, mildly fascinated by it.
The City of Flowers is not that far away and Jongin has always been an early sleeper. If he uses it now, he may be able to enter his friend’s dream and talk to him. After all, this is all he wants now. A friend, someone who’ll listen to him.
He only wavers for a moment. Entering someone else's dreams can be not only extremely impolite, but also quite dangerous.
Baekhyun would have something to say about trusting the strange concoctions that Zitao's boss creates at the back of his potion shop, but Baekhyun is at the Temple, probably studying the genealogies of Noble families or something as equally useless under Junmyeon's strict scrutiny.
Zitao would probably remind him that pixie dust should only be used on a night of full moon, because in the silver light shines the path dreamers use find their way into each other's dreams, and without the blessing of the Lady Moon at her full power it's so easy to get lost in the darkness. But Zitao is at the Emporium and he won't come back before tomorrow.
Sehun takes a dash of powder. It shines pink and purple, maybe just a little bit of blue, in his hands. He smears it on his closed eyes and with clear voice he pronounces, “Kim Jongin!”
Nothing happens.
“Kim Jongin!” he repeats again, slightly nervous now that he's realized it's not working. “Kim Jong- Oh, damn you Zitao and your useless stuff!” He throws the bottle against the wall, watching it disappear in the dirty laundry basket. “See if I'm trusting you again, you fucker.”
He turns on his side and closes his eyes. Some dust get caught in his lashes and he rubs it away furiously. The bed is unmade, sheets and covers all over the place and it's cold. He manages to recover a blanket from the floor and he wraps it around his shivering body, basking in the cocoon of warmth he's created. Then, with a long breath, he falls asleep, and the pixie dust on his eyelids turns blue and silver, just like his dreams.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Pairings: Sehun/Jongdae, side!Chanyeol/Baekhyun, hinted Minseok/Lu Han, Junmyeon/Victoria, Krystal/Amber and Jongin/Kyungsoo
Rating: pg
Length: 91k~
Summary: Sehun trips into Jongdae’s dream and everything changes.
Warning: language, very brief mentions of torture
Author's note: for januarys_lovers's birthday ♥ (pls read a/n at the end of the fic)
It all begins with a dawn; pretty and pale over the skies of the end of the world.
The sun rises in triumph over the Sentinel of Northeast, the White Tower, announced by a chorus of golden bells that cascade over the valley like a waterfall of joyous laughs. The people of the tower are the first to see the light coming out of the water every morning and it is tradition that they proclaim it to the whole realm, but even without the trumpets and the jingling bells, it would be impossible to miss the sight. Levels and levels of towers, spires and pinnacles of candid marble and carved platinum, flags and banners stirred by the winds like colorful pixies, flowers that fall from elegant and decadent windows, wide arches that look towards East bask in golden light and battlements shine like they are made of diamond. The blade of the first light of the day slashes through the darkness and rises, rises until it hits the top of the tower, until it hits the Diamond, and everything explodes in a flash of white, pure light, so bright it hurts Sehun’s eyes enough to close them, to keep them shut, but the light is everywhere, passing through his clamped lids and-
i
The White Sentinel is more than a tower; it is a jewel, the mightiest proof of the talent of the Titans that survived the Three Wars. Originally, there were four lookout towers, built at the four corners of the world, but time, invasions, dragons and men wiped out the other three until only the White Sentinel remained.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
Sehun opens his eyes and is greeted by a reality far duller than the one he’s designed in his dream.
Out of the window, the city is enjoying its only hour of sun. The precious golden glow seeps inside the tower through the giant arches, dripping down the columns and over the tiny houses of the Low City, before the golden disc is swallowed by the eternal clouds that surround the peak of the fortification, trapping all the upper levels in a cold, foggy embrace.
The boy bats his eyelashes, once, twice, trying to remember the details of his dream. There was light, the sun was rising and the skies were clear. Sehun has never seen the blue of the sky over the top of the tower. To be honest, Sehun has never even seen the top of the tower, given that it’s usually swallowed by the magical, dark clouds of the Dome. He squints, trying to hold tight onto the remains of the dream, but details slip away from his hands like seeds of dandelion, lost in the wind. Time clocks away too fast for the boy’s liking.
The Lauds are ringing loudly through the warren of cramped little rooms and messy corridors of the Low City. From the kitchen the smell of tea and Zitao’s voice greet him. Sehun’s roommate is making breakfast for the both of them, singing an old nursery rhyme in the dialect of the coastal tribes. If Zitao is already up, it can only mean one thing. Sehun is so going to be late for History of Riders of the North.
“Sehun, you lazy bum, it’s Lauds already! You’ll miss the first class.”
Sehun is never late and he’s usually the one who scolds Zitao for his lazy antics, but today he snorts as he slips on the pale blue vest of the Academy of Magic Arts students. His head emerges from the golden embroidered hem just in time for Zitao to stuff a sandwich in his mouth. With a chuckle he tries to comb Sehun's pale strands of hair, now that his arms are trapped in rigid fabric and he can’t fight back. Sehun hisses like a kitten in retaliation. Finally Zitao manages to make his hair look decent and pushes him outside. Before he can ask for it, a bag full of books is thrown at him. An evocative swear word is the only greeting Zitao receives before Sehun turns on his heels, diving into the colorful, loud crowd of the Low City and starts to run.
Lauds is the first set of bells and marks the beginning of the day of the White Tower. It’s also the worst moment to try and reach the Middle Districts, where the Academy is situated, because the streets are packed with people. Sehun is forced to jump over handcarts and brake dangerously at the corners to avoid toppling over enthusiastic children. Jump, run, duck, and steal a honey pastry from the basket of a blonde girl who blushes at Sehun's impertinent smile and forgets to be angry for the theft.
The sun shines weakly over the city - a pale ghost of light - but for people used to living in the darkness, even a single strand of gold is precious. This is the only moment of natural light, when the sun emerges from the water and is low enough to avoid being blocked by the Dome. In the afternoon the Western Blurry Peaks cover Sehun’s path until it disappears westward and can only be seen again at dawn the following day.
The Low City unravels in front of Sehun’s eyes; with its countless narrow streets and houses that clutter up the tower, making it look like the playground of a messy child who forgot to tidy up before he went to sleep. Sehun drinks in the sight in front of his eyes, thinking that maybe he should be late more often. It's not every day that the young scholar gets to see the city like this, pulsating with life. Almost like the few rays of sun that are hitting the white walls are giving life to everyone that lives inside the tower. His schedule forces him to wake up before the dawn, when the sun is still hidden behind the sea, and the couple of hundred steps of the majestic staircases that connect the Low City to the Middle Districts are lonely and deserted, except for patrol guards.
He curses inwardly when the bell of the Temple of the Stars stops ringing, soon followed by all the other White Tower sister bells. He knows, and his heart dreads the notion, that Lady Kwon has already started name calling to see who’s present. It’s more a formality than anything else, since the classes are quite small, and the teachers can tell when someone is missing with a single gaze, but at least the calling will buy Sehun a couple of minutes.
While he usually takes the inner route through the Old Stairs - the shortest one - he knows that at this time of day there are too many people around. He therefore decides to go for the Outer Staircase: a long, white spiral that coils around the whole tower, from the base to the top - or so they say, Sehun wouldn’t know that - trapping the Watch in its ancient embrace. It has no railings and almost no one uses it because the winds that surround the tower, both magic and natural, are very strong.
The guard recognizes Sehun’s uniform and lets him pass with a look of pity, imagining that the detention for arriving way after Lauds must be very harsh.
“Just be careful not to fall, lad.” It’s the only warning the guard sends, but Sehun is already running up, jumping three steps with every stride of his long legs, to hear him.
The first gush of wind is unexpected, but pleasurable, like the whisper of a lover and a caress on Sehun’s neck. It tells stories of lost love, of women patiently waiting for their men to come back home after a season spent hunting in the Wide Lands near the City of Flowers. Sehun knows this wind, he always hears her whispering in the night every spring. He greets the Spirit of the Eastern Wind with a quick bow and an elegant smile and the wind chuckles coquettish in response. Another voice joins the chorus, a different texture, a bit more rowdy and juvenile, and Sehun recognizes the smell of sea and adventures. The Wind of Northeast wants to play, and if the threat of weeks of detention and the disappointment of missing one of his favorite classes weren’t hanging over Sehun’s head, the boy would please him.
Sehun was born lucky, in the sign of the wind. His magical powers are, although not very strong, innate, instinctive, carved in his soul like the laugh of the breeze is painted on his memories, probably the first thing he heard in his human life, together with the doting voice of his mother. She used to tell him how Sehun was born in the middle of a storm so powerful that the Southern bastion of the Thirtieth Level fell under its fury and even the Dome was swept away by the power of nature; no matter how strong the spell surrounding the Tower was. “The morning after you were born,” Sehun’s mother said, “for the first time and last time since the Insurrection, we woke up and we saw the sun in the Upper Levels. That’s when I knew you were a special kid.”
Obviously, the curse of the Dome is too strong for nature to be able to break it, and after a few hours the top of the tower was dressed in clouds and darkness back again, so thick that not even the spirits of the wind were able to pass through it. However, as far away as they were, for the first part of his life Sehun could always hear the call of the winds, their songs and their tales, and longed for the sun he couldn't remember but knew through the words of the South Wind and the dreams of the East Wind.
Of all the winds though, the Northeast Wind has always been his favorite. The other winds come and go with the season and come back with new stories that he will drink eagerly while he sits on the colonnaded galleries, his legs hanging down and swinging and his eyes closed while the nimble hands of the breezes play with his hair. But the Wind of Northeast never goes away. He’s always been there for him, to listen to his secrets and cradle them in its playful fingers, always threatening to spill them but never doing it.
Sehun’s magic gift is the only reason why a Nobleborn like him, only son of one of the most powerful households of the White Tower, can afford the freedom to live alone with a son of anglers like Zitao, or to have a best friend with no parents like Baekhyun.
That freedom does come with a price, though. He can't afford to be late or his mother will know, and that would lead to her summoning him at home and submitting him to an endless questioning of his life choices and “Why do you even want to become a wizard when we have everything you need, here, in the Upper Levels? Wealth, companionship, elegance, what else could Sehun ever want? Except Sehun wants the sun, lives for the few seconds of light that fill the streets at dawn and makes the people's eyes shine like precious stones. Sehun lives for the dusty books he finds in the library of the Academy and for the silly hope that one day he’ll get to leave the Tower and sail to see the lands hidden on the other side of the sea.
The boy pauses to take his breath when he feels the air getting colder. A strange, artificial mist starts blurring the air and the golden steps of the staircase tremble under the pressure of magic. Sehun has finally reached the Dome, the giant cupola of clouds that surround the Upper Levels of the White Tower like an undying, eternal winter mantle. The air is thick inside, static and fixed, and everywhere the pressure of magic threatens to crush those reckless enough to challenge it. The cowl of clouds - they're not even real clouds, more like dark, magic smoke choking the white perfection of the Tower - is lower today, too low, extending its smog on the Middle Districts. During certain days, it is low enough to haunt the Low City too.
Sehun snorts. He hates the Dome, has hated it since he was a child. The Wind of Northeast pulls on his sleeve, trying to stop him from entering the wall of clouds, where he won’t be able to follow him. Sehun shushes him with a parting gesture and a promise of playing together later. He steps inside the Dome and blindly looks for the closest portal, not wishing to continue his walk on the slippery staircase.
ii
After the Titans disappeared, wiped away from the surface of the world by their own wanderlust, men came and claimed the Sentinel of Northeast for themselves, calling it White Tower. Wanderers, beggars, bandits and crownless kings fought for two hundred years. Finally, during the first full moon of spring of the year 1738 of the Second Era of Men, a foreign king who came from the sea defeated all his enemies and crowned himself Starking I of the White Tower, starting the first year of the Third Era of Men.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
Since he was young, Sehun has only had two great passions. One was the wind and the other has always been history. He was especially fond of stories and legends regarding the White Tower, his home, especially tales of a time before the spell of the Dome was casted. That’s why he didn’t want to miss this class, History of the Riders of the North, where Lady Kwon teaches the Scholars the story of the Starlords, the royal house who ruled over the Sentinel for more than six hundred years.
Their teacher is an energetic mage who fought for years in the Southern Wars before retiring from the soldier life and deciding to dedicate her life to teaching. She's a kind woman, little and pretty, with the lively eyes and the grace of a cat. She's also terrifying when she's angry and rumors say she was called Dark Angel on the battlefield, for she brought destruction upon his enemies despite her angelic looks. Sehun has no difficulty believing those rumors after the look she sends to him when he finally slips inside the classroom like a thief, thirty minutes after the call of his name, trying to be inconspicuous and failing miserably.
The Scholar sighs, hoping she won't make him tidy up her desk in the teachers meeting room again. He doesn't like to go there because it's full of pretentious people who know his parents and are more than happy to bother him on their behalf.
At least, Baekhyun has saved him a seating spot, right next to him, and Sehun takes him with a grateful nod.
He absent-mindedly listens to his friend filling him in about the content of the lessons, nodding more out of obligation than real attention. His personal interest in the subject means that he already knows everything about the Starlords, so he’s only half-listening when Baekhyun suddenly mentions the first Starking and his Diamond. Only then, his dream comes back to his memory with a devastating clarity.
“I dreamed about it,” he says, without even realizing, and Baekhyun stares at him funnily.
“The Starking?”
“No, silly, the Diamond. I dreamed of the Diamond of the Starlords hit by the first light of the day. When the sunlight hit it there was like an explosion, it was like the stone was taking the light and sending it back multiplied, and then the whole tower was shining and the Moors were filled with light and it was...”
Baekhyun snaps his tongue at him, shaking his head. “Your dreams are so strange, Oh Sehun. Are you sure Zitao didn't give you something strange to drink last night? Mark my words, that kid is handling too many strange things since he's started his apprenticeship at the apothecary's shop.”
Sehun dismisses the words with a roll of his eyes. He knows that Baekhyun is just being a little jealous. Being chosen for an apprenticeship is a great luck for someone who doesn't have a solid familiar background. Baekhyun is a very talented wizard, but he's a son of the Temple, no mother and father willing to pay someone to teach their son a job. Zitao has a mother and a father, but they wouldn't be able to afford the cost of an internship in a potion emporium in the Middle District for their only son, and that's why Baekhyun hoped that Zitao would've shared his misfortune, at least. But then that Wu Yifan had come, with his silk clothes and his shining piercings, and he had snatched Zitao away from the Academy to work for him without even asking for a compensation from his parents, because he thought that the boy had talent. Zitao has been working at Kris’ Emporium for two months already and he comes back home every night with burnt clothes and shimmering hair.
Still, Sehun feels the need to defend himself. “I didn't eat yesterday night, nor did I drink anything Zitao offered me.”
“You're right, you're stupid but you're not that stupid.”
Sehun pauses, fairly sure that Baekhyun has just insulted him, but then Mrs. Kwon says something that catches his attention and he focuses his attention back on her words.
“Legends say that Starking I of his dynasty brought the Diamond with him when he first settled into this tower, after he defeated all his enemies. We actually don’t know the location of the stone, or whether it’s still stored inside the Royal Palace, at the top of the White Tower. For what we know, it could've been stolen or destroyed eighteen years ago, during the Insurrection. But there is a fair amount of proof that document its existence; even a rough sketch signed that art experts bestow to Yifan I the Great who was the official painter of the first Starking court. The sketch portraits a stone in the shape and dimension of a dragon egg that…”
Sehun raises his hand, silently asking for permission to make a question. He can see the indecision in Mrs. Kwon's eyes, she clearly wants to make him pay for being late to her lesson, but in the end he knows he's her favorite student and she surrenders. “Yes, Sehun?”
“I've read in a book,” he says, overlooking the fact that it was a prohibited book in the restricted section of the library where ungraduated scholars shouldn't be allowed to enter, “that the Diamond was the only thing able to dispel the Curse of the Dome and lift the veil of clouds that has oppressed this city for the past twenty years. Is it true?”
Lady Kwon pierces him with an inquisitive glare.
“I don't know where you read such a thing, Oh Sehun, since I'm sure that this kind of information can either be fake or only found in a prohibited book.” If gazes could dig a hole in Sehun's mind and find out what he was doing with a forbidden book and how he put his hands on it, Sehun would be royally fucked. He smiles angelically and Lady Kwon’s eyebrows reach her hairline. “The Dome was originally a protective spell casted to protect this city from a dragon who wanted to destroy us all and only the royal family knew the necessary protocols to its removal. But I'm afraid, Oh Sehun, that the Starlords all perished in the tragic events of twenty years ago, during the Insurrection.”
Sehun thanks her, moping a little. Of course he already knew, but wouldn't it be fucking convenient if someone could find the magic diamond and break the Dome, returning sunlight to the city?
“However, legends say that the Diamond of the Starlords had the power to break curses,” finishes Lady Kwon, a few seconds before the Tenth Bell rings, signaling the end of the class.
“You're all dismissed, except Oh Sehun who's awaited in my office for detention.”
In between the cheers of the students happily chatting and leaving the room, Sehun meets Baekhyun's eyes over the tower of book his friend is trying to read. “What are those, anyway?”
“Etiquette and other rubbish like that. I’ve told Junmyeon countless times, this stuff is useless. There's no way I'm ever talking to a Noble, they wouldn't even hire me to clean their houses, let alone giving me an honest job that involves magic.”
Sehun pats his shoulder in what is supposed to be a reassuring gesture, fairly ruined by his following words. “Hey, I'm a Noble, and if you want to clean my room you're more than welcome. Zitao does nothing for the hygiene of our flat.”
Baekhyun punches him and, for being a little midget, he sure punches hard.
“I hope she makes you clean her desk,” he singsongs before disappearing with his bag full of books, “and I hope Lord Kangin sees you and tells your mom that you’ve ended up in trouble, again.”
Sehun sticks out his tongue but the little pixie has already disappeared towards his Hypnosis Enchantments class.
iii
The official division of the White Tower in Low City, Middle Districts and Upper Levels can be dated back to the revision of the Public Register Books in 1502. However, the deep differences in the cultural, economic and social background between the people living in the upper levels of the city and the people living at the bottom, near the base, sink their roots in the first colonization of the White Tower, even before the arrival of the Starlords.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
The evening finds Sehun sloped against Zitao, Baekhyun leaning onto him on the other side, the wind mage emptying the barrels of beer of the Bonamana while Baekhyun does the same with the pockets of the customers under the vigil eyes of Heechul, the bartender. Zitao complains about the amount of work he has to do at the Emporium, and though the topic usually puts Baekhyun in a sour mood, the sum of money the boy has managed to cheat at cards from the other regulars of the tavern is consistent enough to paint a satisfied grin on his cheeky face.
“All the books,” complains Sehun, talking about his punishment for being late, “I have to clean all of them. Do you know how many books are there in our library? Thousands, millions... The sun will never rise on the day of my freedom...”
“At least you enjoy books,” whines Zitao, “Master Kris today had me tidy up the storage room. A vial bit my hand and tried to eat my middle finger, can you believe it? What next? Cannibal baskets and sacks? Poisonous coins? And when I told Master Kris, he only worried about the vial, asking if I broke it. This is so unfair.”
“Stop moping, you two,” says Baekhyun, as he throws his Five Aces on the counter next to a guard's Royal Flush. The guard swears loudly and looks at Baekhyun malevolently, before leaving in elegant hands a bag that probably contains at least two of his wages.
Baekhyun beams in delight. “Heechullie, another round!”
Heechul laughs and brings more beer, “Anything for my favorite guest,” he says, taking the golden coins. “But maybe it's better if you stop playing for today, my Baekhyunnie, some of those guys are not happy with the outcome of the last games and I wouldn't want blood to end up on my counter.”
“Oh, shut up, it would be the cleanest thing that's ever been there.”
Baekhyun laughs at Zitao's joke, but he prudently puts the cards away and starts stroking Sehun's hair.
“How can your hair be so soft, Sehunnie?” he sighs, stroking beneath the ears, making Sehun purr like a contented cat. Zitao joins him, but Sehun pats his hand away.
“Not you, Zitao, you' don't know what's grace is. Only Baekhyun is allowed to give me scalp rubs.”
Zitao snorts. “I know why his hair is so soft, Baekhyun-ah. Must be all those Nobleborn genes. We should be grateful enough to be allowed to spend time with someone like him.”
Sehun hisses. “Lower your voice please, the worst cutthroats criminals hang here at the Bonamana and they already hate Baekhyun because he counts cards, if the rumor that I'm a Nobleborn spreads, they'll kill you and kidnap my beautiful person for a generous ransom.”
“Oh, don't worry Sehunnie, I will protect you with my life,” promises Baekhyun in a solemn voice, and both Sehun and Zitao explode in amused giggles.
It's difficult to say when Sehun's, Zitao's and Baekhyun's relationship begun. It wasn't on their first day of school, for Sehun clearly remembers spending that day all alone, watching around himself with wide eyes and wide mouth. He was short as a cork back then, tiny and pale, like most of the kids grown up in the Upper Levels are. He had only seen the sun once, the night he was born.
After his twelfth Name's Day, his parents were finally convinced that if they didn’t send him to the Academy soon, he would've run away and applied for it himself. He was too curious, too out of control, and the voice of the winds wouldn’t let him sleep, so they decided to let him learn how to control his magic. That’s how Sehun found himself in a room full of other kids who looked at him with suspicion in their eyes because his skin was whiter and his clothes were fancier and he always talked in a soft, elegant voice and basically everything in him screamed Noble.
He wasn't the only rich kid in the school, but he was the only one who came from the Upper Levels, for usually Noble households don't send their kids to the Academy, they raise them in luxury and extravagance to prepare them for a life of splendor and boredom.
They found themselves, Zitao and Baekhyun, Sehun and Jongin, because they were the only ones who didn't fit. Sehun was too rich and Zitao was too poor, a boy from the Moors who had fished oysters and lobsters for the table of the rich people of the White Tower for the first ten years of his life, traveling the distance between his poor village of wood and straw, sea and misery and the capital everyday to help his father sell the treasures of the sea. It was during one of these travels that he was noticed by Lord Zhou and his quick, agile mind and knowledge of herbs and magical creatures was the key that allowed him to enter the doors of the Academy. Maybe that's why he puts so much care in his choice of clothing, in the way he speaks, in his accent, so that no one will ever know he once fished for a living.
As for Baekhyun, he is a son of the Temple, a kid of nobody grown up between warrior monks and polite diplomats like Junmyeon. Sehun has heard his father tell his mother that the Temple of the Stars is one of the strongest economic supporters of the Academy, and that's the only reason why someone like Baekhyun managed to enter the school, but Sehun has seen his friend putting his everything into his studies, hoping to forge a better future for himself. Baekhyun's greatest wish, drunkenly whispered into Sehun's ear after a couple of rounds of ale, is to become someone. He longs for recognition in a world full of people who despise him for his unknown origins.
And then there was Jongin, whose dad died during the Insurrection, fighting to protect the last Starking, leaving alone a young desperate widow with three young mouths to feed. Jongin had entered the Academy for birthright, like his father had done before him, hoping to receive the Scholar's monthly allowance and send it to his mom and sisters.
What a group of misfits they were. They've been together for six years and Sehun has learnt to trust those three kids, the lowest of the lowest, more than he would ever trust any Nobleborn. Now it's easy for him to lose his composure in the comfortable slope of the fingers cradled in his short hair as he drowns the tiredness of the day in a nice pint of beer, while Zitao forgets for a moment that he's supposed to be a sophisticated White Tower boy and starts speaking in the slurred, guttural accent of the Moors, of his little village near the sea.
Sehun leans his head on the table and relaxes his shoulders, half lost in the comfortable background of the tavern, of glasses bumping and people screaming and loudly greeting each other. Over his head, Baekhyun and Zitao are betting over the outcome of a brawl near the old pianoforte.
Like this, Sehun is at peace. There are no dreams of diamonds and clouds in his mind and even the whisper of the wind, the usual soundtrack of Sehun's life, struggles to reach the boy in the stuffy tavern. Only if he closes his eyes and concentrates, he can hear the howls and the dances and the fights of air outside.
“I miss Jongin,” he says, after a moment, and both Sehun and Zitao turns towards him. “It's been a while since the last time we've received one of his letters.”
“Three months, at least,” confirms Baekhyun, “but the City of Flowers in the South is pretty far away from here, so it's not really a surprise.”
Sehun has made a mistake. Baekhyun's eyes are hooded again, his expression more guarded. He had applied for an apprenticeship in one of the southern cities last year, hoping to run away from this tower where everyone asks for his surname first and looks down at him when he has none to offer.
Junmyeon, Dean of the Academy, Superintendent of the Temple of the Stars and also Baekhyun’s caretaker, had utterly refused the offer for him and Jongin ended up leaving in Baekhyun’s place. Now instead of having to worry about Baekhyun lost on the other side of the world they worry about Jongin, but mentioning it never fails to drain Baekhyun’s good mood away.
Zitao elbows Sehun in the liver and he hastily apologizes. “I'm sorry Baekhyun, I shouldn't have talked about Jongin.”
“No, you shouldn't be sorry Sehun. It wasn't your fault, nor it was Jongin's fault if Junmyeon refused the apprenticeship offer for me, nor is it Zitao's fault if he has found a job at Kris' Emporium while no one wants me. It's just... I can feel all the opportunities slipping away from my hands. I'll graduate soon and what will I do when the Temple won't feed me anymore? No one would want to hire me, you know what they say about orphans…”
Baekhyun is too busy moping and staring at the remnants of foam at the bottom of his stein to notice that the door of the Bonamana has opened and a furious and pompous, tiny figure is now walking towards them.
Junmyeon catches him by the ear in a swift motion, pulling him up on his feet and sending deadly stares to Sehun and Zitao.
“You're coming with me, young man!”
“Let me go, let me go!” Baekhyun kicks and trashes, but Junmyeon is as sophisticated and well-mannered as he is strong.
“Stop whining like a child! Is this the way you're going to repay the monks' gentleness? By spending your nights in this stinky hole with your friends? Cheating at cards?”
A complete silence has fallen in the room, everyone's eyes are fixed on the scene near the door. Someone, a threatening man with long moustaches, dares to whisper under his voice, “I knew he was cheating,” before Junmyeon pins him to the spot with a deadly stare. The man shrinks down under his fury.
“We’re going home, now. And you,” he storms, piercing Sehun’s chest with an icy glare, “what would your mother say, Sehun? Should I have a talk with her?”
Sehun is tempted to answer for a moment that he’s not sure that his mother would receive Junmyeon in her house. Junmyeon and Sehun are cousins, but even since when the older boy decided to join the Temple of the Stars, his whole family has stopped talking to him.
He doesn’t know what Junmyeon has read on his face, just that, after a long, agonizing moment, the boy bids everyone goodnight as cold as he manages, and leaves the speechless inn dragging forth a recalcitrant Baekhyun.
iv
The glorious household of the Stars lasted for most of the Third Era of Men, 2994 years, until it was wiped away by a mysterious rebellion, known as the Insurrection, in one single night. After the incident, the Starking’s most trusted advisor took power and administered the city, assuming the role of Ruling Steward.
Chronicles of the Last Tower
“Did you see his face? Oh, Baekhyun is in big trouble this time!”
“Naaah, Junmyeon will scold him for a few hours and then send him to bed and tomorrow we'll all be there at the tavern like always.”
It's strange, though, the level of attachment that Junmyeon is showing towards Baekhyun. He's only his caretaker, not his father... Or brother, since Junmyeon is definitely not old enough to be Baekhyun's father. Maybe Sehun is just being jealous. After all, when he was a tiny awkward thing who liked to climb on his mother’s closet, Junmyeon had always been the kind cousin who came to help him get down and taught him to overcome his fear of heights, a great obstacle for a child of the Upper Levels. Sehun only hopes that in his worry to keep Baekhyun out of trouble, Junmyeon doesn't end up clipping the boy's wings.
“Baekhyun is so moody lately. He tries not to show it, but he's really worried that no one will take him as their apprentice.”
Zitao nods. “We should do something for him. Maybe take him to see the sea, would you like that?”
Sehun laughs, but it's sour. His mother would never let him leave the city without a little private army to escort him. But it would be nice. Baekhyun looks like the type of boy who jumps in the water and fall like a stone just because in his eagerness he has forgotten he can’t swim.
Sehun tries to chuckle at the mental image, but his head spins and he's forced to lean on Tao. They almost crumble on the ground in a giggling heap of limbs that smell of alcohol, and one of the patrolling guards at the door that connects the Low Commercial District with the Council Houses of the Low City, gives them a disapproving glare.
Sehun struggles to get up on his feet and pull Zitao up with him. They both bow in a mockery of respect to the guard, making the young man shake his head, before they finally slip in familiar, dark alleys.
At night, the Dome covers all the stars and the city fall in complete, utter darkness. Mages light up magic fires in the widest streets and at the giant doors that connect the different districts and quarters of the conglomerate of houses, little palaces, mansions and gardens that fill the White Sentinel. However, most of the Low City stays in the dark. It's impossible to cover all the little alleys, tunnels, porches and basements, and the overlapping streets that crash into each other like confused snakes only to run away in different directions and get lost in the confused daedalus that is the base of the tower.
The district of the Council Houses is one of the darkest areas in the entire city, because it's inhabited only by young couples with dozens of screaming children that never go out during the night and penniless students that know their way home better than the content of their own pockets. Sehun doesn't really fall in the penniless category, but he loves his little room in the Fifteenth Level, even if he has to share with Zitao and argue with his friend all the time because he hogs all the space for himself. At least, when they're drunk and their steps falters and their foot get tangled into invisible obstacles, they can fall together and make a good laugh out of it. And, after all, despite what his mother thinks, it’s not a dangerous neighborhood, only extremely gloomy after Vespers.
“Almost there,” Zitao warns, stopping Sehun from putting his foot on a draining pipe. “Hey, listen, I was thinking of what you said...”
“About what?”
Sehun's voice is slow, the words more drawled than usual. He can feel the tang of alcohol at the back of his throat. Zitao doesn't seem to be coping with the binge better than him.
“About missing Jongin. I know a way to talk with him, even if he's far away.”
“Are you kidding me, man? He's on the other side of the world...”
They stumble in front of the door and Sehun starts to argue with his bag, trying to get it to spit out the keys.
“It's something I found at the Emporium,” confesses Zitao. “We had too much and Yifa- the boss said I could keep it.”
“Hell no, Zitao, I'm not touching one of those strange potions.”
“It's not a potion,” protests his friend, voice going all high and defensive. “It's pixie dust. If you pour it on yourself during a night of full moon and say the name of the friend you want to talk to, you'll enter their dreams and you will be able to talk to them. Cool, right?”
Sehun finally manages to get a hold of the key despite the numbness of his hands.
“I call bullshit on this story. You're making it up on the spot and you're so drunk it doesn't even sound believable.”
Zitao pushes him over and shoves the key in the keyhole, turning it three times with rough motions. “Well, at least I'm not drunk enough to be unable to open the house door, Sehun. Look, I'm only offering because both you and Baekhyun looked miserable today and I can't make Baekhyun happy so at least I wanted to make you happy, but if you don't want it I can keep it and use it to talk to my grandparents.”
Sehun's head has stopped spinning but now it's throbbing, rhythmically. He vaguely recalls Baekhyun saying that only a stupid would trust Zitao's potions. It was just this morning, but it seems so far away. But after all what evil could it do? It’s only pixie dust. Pixie dust it's pretty unharmful. Not-harmful. Sehun clicks his tongue as he looks inside his head for the right word. Safe, pixie dust is safe. Sehun has read somewhere in his mother's library that fairies can use their dust to enter dreams so Zitao is not totally making it up.
“No, ok, I want it. Just a little. To know whether Jongin is still alive or not. It's really been three months since the last letter...”
The door slams closed behind the two boys. Both of them throw their bags on the floor. Zitao hiccups and rubs his tired eyes. He rummages in the drawer next to his bed while Sehun closes the door and murmurs a few protective runes against the wood.
Finally, Zitao comes back, bearing a little jar that shines in the dark, full of what looks like shimmering sand. When Sehun takes it in his hand, the sand swirls in inside its glass prison, forming hypnotic spirals.
“Just a dash,” insists Zitao. “Don't waste it, okay?”
“You said full moon, right?”
Zitao doesn't answer. When Sehun turns towards him, the other boy has already collapsed on his mattress, snoring with his mouth hanging open, eyes squinting and his left foot hanging from the bed.
Sehun shakes his head and think of a spell they learnt last year, to reproduce on paper what the eyes are seeing, just like a painting but instantaneous. He'd like to use it now, so that he can show Zitao exactly how unattractive he is when he sleeps. Unfortunately, his memory doesn't want to collaborate and he’s not even sure they have a clean piece of paper in the entire house.
He only remembers to get out of his clothes and throw them on the ground, before he lets himself fall on his messy bed, his hand still holding the pixie dust. He falls asleep, and the little glass jar drops lost on the tangled sheet, unnoticed.
v
No one knows what happened the night of the Insurrection. Who were the soldiers who attacked the Royal Palace of the Starlords, exterminated the whole family and burnt the Temple of the Stars? Where did they go after the slaughter? Where were the Black Masks and why did they not intervene? Advisor Park hides himself behind the title of Ruling Steward after he betrayed and plotted the death of our rightful Lord!
Anonymous pamphlet escaped from the burning of illegal books in 2994, three months after the Insurrection
The next morning, a torrential rain falls over the tower, big, thick droplets hitting the marble like grains of rice, silent and strong. Water flies through the big arcades, brought by the angry howling of the wind, and splashes over the buildings close to the Outer Walls. The dawn is swallowed by the heavy squall.
A furious knocking on his door and some furious, tired curses spluttered by Zitao's mouth are Sehun’s wake up call. He's the one who rolls out of bed and opens the door in just his undergarments, shivering at the chilly air.
It's a messenger. His livery bears the colors of the Oh household, its elegance completely out of place in the dark alley of the Fiftieth Level. He arches his eyebrows, sending a disapproval glare to Sehun's naked ankles and collarbones. The letter he gives Sehun smells of violet and cyclamen, his mother's favorite flowers.
“Tell me who woke us up so that I can kill him,” comes Zitao's voice, still choked against the pillow. Sehun rips the envelope and inhales the familiar smell of high quality paper.
“My mom. She wants me to come home for lunch.”
Zitao moans. “I'm going back to sleep, my head hurts like a dragon slept on it.”
Sehun leaves him a glass of water and some reinvigorating potions on the sink, because he knows that Zitao will still go to work this afternoon, even if it's the Day of Sun and no one works.
When he leaves his home, the streets are deserted. Even the usually crowded market of the Twenty-sixth Level is painfully empty, only a few mothers muffled in heavy mantles hastily buying last minute groceries for the Day of Sun lunch.
The people of the White Tower don't like the rain. Their life is already grey enough because of the Dome without adding the whims of nature to it. Moreover, the tower is old and cold. People in the Upper Levels and in the Middle Districts can afford to pay for the personal services of mages who will dry the streets and keep their houses warm, but when it rains in the Low City, humidity insinuates itself in the holes between bricks, festering the stone and polluting the air, proliferating thanks to the absence of solar warmth.
Sehun doesn't dare to take the Outer Staircase, not today. The North Wind is old and unforgiving, it wouldn't help him if he was to slip and fall down. This time, he goes for the Little Spiral, a minor winding set of stairs in the Eastern Quarter. It's not used very often for it's narrow and only lit by natural fires, not magic ones, and the guards often forget to light them again when the flame has consumed all the oil, which makes it dark a bit uncomfortable to use. It's more like an emergency exit, only connected to the most important levels of the tower. Sehun walks through it alone, his footsteps the only sound that keeps him company as he climbs the thousands and thousands of thin, tall, irregular steps that separate the Low City from the Upper Levels. Hidden under the simple coat, he's wearing one of his best outfits to please his mother. The material is soft and slippery on his skin, already used to the coarseness of the Scholar tunic.
At the Northern Silver Door, one of the four that connect the Middle Districts and the Upper Levels, a guard stops him.
“Tell me your identity and what business do you have in the Upper Levels.”
While the rest of the city is open to everyone, only the citizens in possess of a particular permission granted by the Ruling Stewards are able to enter the Upper Levels. That includes the Nobleborns or those common people rich enough to afford to buy their way into Nobility with the power of money. At the top of the Upper Levels, somewhere around the Seventieth, resides the court of the Ruling Steward, who took the power in his hands after the slaughter of the Starlords. All the levels above that palace, the Forbidden Floors, are close to everyone and trespassers are usually punished with death.
Sehun easily passes the guards block. All it takes is a look at the ring he wears at his neck, hanging from a thin, golden chain. It bears the emblem of his family and proves that he's a Noble, hence he can step in the Upper Levels.
The Low City is dirty, messy and chaotic. The Middle Districts are neat and elegant, with great gardens, clean streets and wide, classic building lit by magic stars set on the naked stone of the galleries. The Upper Levels are like a painting of fallen times. Here, nothing has changed in thousands of years.
The base of the tower has been rebuilt hundreds of times, ravaged and pillaged. Men has come and gone, molding the rocks with their own hands, bringing forth new material, completely destroying the original design of the tower and creating that masterpiece of well-orchestrated chaos that is the Low City. But in the Upper Levels, no one has dared to touch the masterpiece of the First Architects.
In front of Sehun's eyes there’s a wide stone clearing, adorned in gold and pearls. From the vaults covered in mosaics of rubies and emeralds fall majestic diamond chandeliers that shed eternal, magic lights on the ornate palaces. The game of light, precious stones and gold makes the Upper Levels look irradiated with light, even if it's been years since the last time these wall actually saw a glimpse of the sun.
All this brightness is magic, strange and unnatural, but if only a ray of sunshine were to enter from the titanic white arcades, the whole place would shine like the sun itself.
Sehun sheds the simple coat and straightens his back, assuming the posture of a Noble that he can so easily forgo when he's wandering through the Low City.
He greets his mother with a kiss on her hand and his father with a bow. They eat in silence for the first part of the lunch, and even though Sehun usually cherishes the freedom of his student life, he lets the taste of the delicious meals cooked by his mother personal's cook fill his mouth and doesn't complain, for once.
“Have you heard about the robberies, Sehunnie?”
“Do you mean the Thunder Thief? Oh, yes, I've heard of him, but I thought people were exaggerating, you know how tavern talks work...” His father stiffens and his mother pales. Of course they wouldn't know how tavern talks work. “My bad. Anyway, is it true?”
“I'm afraid it is. I heard Miyoung, the youngest child of the Hwangs, talking about it the morning after the Festival of the Red Moon. It looks like someone broke inside their houses and rummaged through her father's things, but nothing was stolen.”
“They didn't take anything?” he asks, dubious. Why would someone make a titanic effort to introduce themselves in the Upper Levels, go past the small private army of Lord Hwang and not steal a single gem?
“Not a thing,” confirms his mother, ticking her polished nails on the elegant wooden table. “Not even money.”
“This is why I'm so wary on letting you wander between those criminals in the Low City, son. They only wish to steal from us!”
Sehun clicks his tongue, knowing that his attitude will anger his father. “What makes you think that they're not Nobles, father? I think it's highly unlikely that two commoners managed to find a way into the impregnable Upper Levels, go past a thousand of guards patrolling every single tile of our golden floor, enters a house full of people during one of Lady Hwang's extravagant party - you were there too, mother, right? - and make it back unnoticed and unscathed. But if they were Nobles, and moreover, guests invited to the party, it would've been extremely easy to squeeze into the private rooms.”
“That's enough, young man! Pray that the servants didn't hear you accusing Nobles of theft.”
Sehun raises his hand in surrender and goes back to his oysters. “Is that all?” he asks.
“Well,” his mother hesitates, worrying white teeth on the lace of her glove. It's a nervous habit that not even years of etiquette have managed to take away from her. “Its not really official, but rumors say that the same thief have also managed to enter the palace of the Ruling Steward, a few months ago.”
Sehun's fork falls on the table with a loud clang. “Really?”
“Yes, and the other night the guards chased two people, both wearing a mask, down the Golden Staircase until the Middle Districts, but they lost them near the Academy. It's still unconfirmed, but it looks like the Black Masks are investigating a possible engagement of some of your school's Scholars in illicit activities.”
Every single word of Lord Oh hits Sehun like a stab. The Black Masks are the eyes and the ears of Steward. Spies, sly and malicious. If they’re really snooping around the Academy for culprits it will be a scandal. That's why they called him here today.
“You don't want me to get caught up in the storm, when it'll blow up. You want me to retire from the Academy.”
There's sauce on his father's fingers. He cleans it with a white tablecloth brought by a steadfast waiter. Lord Oh can be so clumsy, but Lady Oh, always the perfect wife, never dirties herself.
Sehun looks up at these two Nobles, his parents, sitting at his same table, expressionless and still like the statues that crowd the white boulevards of the Upper Levels. He looks at them and he's afraid that one day he'll turn up exactly like them, cold and detached from the rest of the world.
“You can't be sure that the thieves are students. Even if they were, a single student's wrong doings won't taint the reputation of the entire school. I have things to do, I'll graduate in less than ten months and I yet have to find an apprenticeship for my abilities...”
His father all but growls. “My only son! Working and dirtying himself like the child of a beggar!”
“Sehunnie, please think this through! Death penalty will be the destiny of this thief and his accomplices, you can't risk...”
He brings silence to his mother's lips with fingers on her mouth and he sees her grimacing because his fingers are covered in little scars, the marks of a wind mage, imperfection that shouldn’t mar the skin of a Noble.
“I won't leave the school,” he says, his voice calm and composed. “I am already of age and I will make my own choices.”
Lady Oh wears disapproval on her face like a beautiful, handmade dress, in an impeccable way. Sehun's father is not so lucky. The wrinkles in his brow become more pronounced, his eyes harsher, upper lip shaking in rage. Sehun knows he wants to whip him for his insolence, wipe down the calm from his features like a storm surging ready to surge on the flat surface of the sea.
Challenging the head of the family like this is a risk. In this, the son of a Nobleman is no different from a son of anglers like Zitao, or a son of bankers like Yongguk.
“For how long do you want to wear your parents' patience thin, Sehun? Haven't we spoiled you long enough?”
“Dear, the servants... They'll hear.”
Every hope that his mother would've tried to defend him crashes like a wave against the cliff.
“Let them hear. It's not like you can keep it a secret from the rest of the world. I'm a Scholar. I want to leave this house and travel around the world.”
“You're my only son!” His father's voice thunders in the wide dining hall, reaching the farthest corners. “I won't allow you to disgrace the name of our family by behaving like a sewer rat, Oh Sehun.”
Sehun tries to control himself, feels his blood boiling. Far away, an entire cursed cloud to separate them, the Wind of Northeast is laughing of him, laughing of all of them, little figures all caught up in their games of appearances and webs of lies.
Aren't you trapped, little one? it seems to say. Look at yourself, Sehun, you're suffocating. There's no air up there, no wind. You're alone. Isn't it time to stand up for yourself?
“I won't allow you to shut me in this palace forever, Father.”
He gets up and the entire room shakes. The pale, detailed glasses tremble after his fury. Lady Oh covers her eyes as her dress starts to dance around her, moved by the power of her own son. Little swirls, spirals of wind comes out of Sehun's hands.
Lord Oh finally sits down, defeated, and Sehun releases the pressure, the wind dying until the air is still and static again.
“Thank you for the lunch,” he says. He throws the napkin on the table. “It was nice to see you.”
It's his final word, before he leaves the building.
vi
Among the items, products and alchemic ingredients acquired from anthropomorphic winged creatures, pixie dust is one of the most difficult to obtain. It is especially used in potions to relax the minds before foreseeing and clairvoyance sessions. It is also said to be useful in that uncertain and mysterious branch of magic known as Dream Science.
One Million Magical Items and Ingredients
Zitao has to work overtime, Jongin is abroad and Baekhyun is still grounded at the Temple. The only thing Sehun wants more than getting drunk is getting drunk with his friends, but eventually he ends up splayed on the cold stone floor of his and Zitao's flat with the only company of a half-empty bottle of ale and his heart, which has finally stopped beating like crazy.
Sehun laughs, drunk and broken, all by himself. “I can't believe I talked to Father like that. Mother looked like she was going to faint.” He only had time to steal a look at her, she was whiter than a sheet. He wanted to see his father's face too, but that would've ruined his dramatic exit.
He was a fool. His parents are powerful and his father especially shouldn't be defied like that. He'll probably retaliate and Sehun won't like the consequences. Maybe they'll be able to talk about it. Maybe, if he promises he will be good and marry the girl they choose and do everything they ask, they will let him finish the course at the Academy and graduate.
The world dances around his eyes as he struggles to get up, hands scrabbling on the wall. He probably knocks over half of Zitao's stuff in his staggering attempt to reach his room.
When he finally lets himself fall on the bed and he sees something shining under the sheets very near to his sternum, he thinks that this time he's really overdone himself.
“I've been drunk before, but never so drunk to see purple lights in my bed. What the hell are you?”
He pats the bed, blindly, until his fingers close around a little, hard thing. It takes a lot of struggle to realize it's trapped under the sheets, and even more to actually take it out of the bundle of tangled fabric. Only when he's holding it in his hands Sehun realizes what it is.
Pixie dust. Shimmering, shining, colorful pixie dust. It flares inside the bottle, asking to be left out, so tempting.
Sehun's dazed fingers slide around the lid. At the third attempt, it comes out with a loud pop that echoes in the silence of the room. The dust shakes impertinent inside its jar. It looks ready to fly away, but it stays inside. Sehun stares, mildly fascinated by it.
The City of Flowers is not that far away and Jongin has always been an early sleeper. If he uses it now, he may be able to enter his friend’s dream and talk to him. After all, this is all he wants now. A friend, someone who’ll listen to him.
He only wavers for a moment. Entering someone else's dreams can be not only extremely impolite, but also quite dangerous.
Baekhyun would have something to say about trusting the strange concoctions that Zitao's boss creates at the back of his potion shop, but Baekhyun is at the Temple, probably studying the genealogies of Noble families or something as equally useless under Junmyeon's strict scrutiny.
Zitao would probably remind him that pixie dust should only be used on a night of full moon, because in the silver light shines the path dreamers use find their way into each other's dreams, and without the blessing of the Lady Moon at her full power it's so easy to get lost in the darkness. But Zitao is at the Emporium and he won't come back before tomorrow.
Sehun takes a dash of powder. It shines pink and purple, maybe just a little bit of blue, in his hands. He smears it on his closed eyes and with clear voice he pronounces, “Kim Jongin!”
Nothing happens.
“Kim Jongin!” he repeats again, slightly nervous now that he's realized it's not working. “Kim Jong- Oh, damn you Zitao and your useless stuff!” He throws the bottle against the wall, watching it disappear in the dirty laundry basket. “See if I'm trusting you again, you fucker.”
He turns on his side and closes his eyes. Some dust get caught in his lashes and he rubs it away furiously. The bed is unmade, sheets and covers all over the place and it's cold. He manages to recover a blanket from the floor and he wraps it around his shivering body, basking in the cocoon of warmth he's created. Then, with a long breath, he falls asleep, and the pixie dust on his eyelids turns blue and silver, just like his dreams.
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