If the sky could dream, it would dream of dragons - AmoureusedeRimbaud - 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

“There’s another dragon in Seoul?” Seokjin murmured, voice hoarse. He leaned back in his chair, diamond bracelets tinkling together against his wrist.

The Council Member nodded, shuffling his papers in front of him. The short horns jutting from his head, and the furry goat hooves under his desk marked him out as a satyr, a follower of Pan, God of the Wild, albeit one laden down with mountains of paperwork.

“Apparently, they weren’t sure what he was for years. Thought he was some kind of nymph for a while, then a basilic, then even a unicorn, can you believe that?”

Seokjin stiffened in his chair. He understood why the fledgling would be unwilling to go to the magical authority that was the Council.

The Council that regulated all magical creatures had spent centuries murdering and massacring all those that stood in the way of their total dominance over the magical community. That included the dragon population, which had already been sparse and prone to inter-species murder. Dragons did not like sharing.

Coupled that with the magical properties in their scales and bones, the wars had wiped them all out, all but Seokjin. The last dragon.

Seokjin had been alone for over a millennium, traveling the world aimlessly, abandoned and alone. He’d settled in Seoul for no other reason than he liked the Han River, the way it curved against the night sky under the glinting stars.

He’d remained solitary, aloof from the rest of the magic community, and especially from the Council, no matter their claims of how they’d changed, embracing democracy and inter-species harmony.

But now, Seokjin thought, with a desperate, hurtful inhale, there was another dragon.

“When can I take him home?” Seokjin murmured through clenched teeth.

The fledging had been without another dragon his entire life. He’d never flown with another dragon, never felt the thrill of the chase.

Even Seokjin could remember in his youth being protected by his parents, the joy of learning to fly with the other young fledglings, uncaring if they fell, knowing the older dragons would catch them. The fledging had never felt that sense of community or of safety.

The fledgling needed to be near him, near his hoard, so he could protect them both.

The Council member cleared his throat, hesitation tracing over his face. “There is…Well there is a slight problem.”

“A slight problem?” Seokjin exhaled, “what problem?” His fingers trembled as he clasped them together. The gold and ruby rings he wore dug into his skin.

The Council member looked up from his paperwork. “The other dragon…Well…He already has another pack. They came to us simply to help him, as they had no information on dragons. When we informed them that there was another dragon in Seoul, they were very pleasantly surprised.”

The Council member’s smile brightened, “and that’s the good news! They’d like to offer you a position in their pack.”

“A position…In their pack?”

Seokjin’s voice trembled with barely contained rage. Submit to some ridiculous pack leader, bowing and scraping so that he could see and take care of the fledgling? He would rather tear off his own wings.

Unfortunately for him, the Council member took his tone as joyful emotion. “Yes, yes. You know the Council advocates for all magical beings to integrate into a pack for their own social development and emotional wellbeing. And you know we don’t discriminate between species. You never used to think you’d see a pack with a kelpie and a sphinx, for example, but now it’s almost commonplace! And well, you’ve been alone for a very long time, it would be good for you.”

Seokjin swallowed his snarl, “it would be the only way for me to see the fledgling?”

“Yes,” the Council member nodded agreeably, “we don’t believe in separating well-functioning packs, especially one as well-functioning as the Kim pack. You would be a welcome addition.”

Seokjin thought about going back to his penthouse overlooking the Han river, to curl up on his bed all by himself, and felt the weight of his age on his shoulders.

“Yes,” Seokjin finally managed to gasp. “Yes, I’ll join the Kim pack.”

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Seokjin wore his jewels as armor, to show that he was not afraid. Diamond bracelets on his wrist, layers of golden necklaces studded with emeralds around his neck, and golden rings, sparkling with rubies.

The pack rose to their feet as Seokjin walked in. Seokjin's eyes roamed over them, assessing his new pack.

The tall one on the left, with the whirlwind of shifting magical tattoos down his body, must be the warlock, Namjoon. As Seokjin watched, a bouquet of roses bloomed and shriveled along Namjoon’s forearm.

Namjoon smiled widely, his dimples showing. Seokjin knew warlocks gained tattoos depending on the amount of their power. Considering Namjoon’s tattoos, he could only be considered extremely powerful, especially if he was a pack leader controlling a variety of different species, including a dragon.

Seokjin scowled at him.

Next to him stood the faerie, Yoongi. He wore solid silver rings dotted with jade and a calm look in his eyes.

The vampire, Hoseok, was wearing a cheery expression on his face, and was pink-cheeked, which signaled a recent feeding.

The phoenix, Jimin, carried with him the unmistakable scent of fire, gold bracelets clinking against his wrist as he raised his hand in greeting.

The nymph, Taehyung, smiled the most of all, jumping on his toes as if to lean forward. He wore a flower crown, a mix of daisies and lilies, which bloomed wider as Taehyung’s eyes fell on Seokjin.

The pack reeked of power, as the scent of magic, pure and undiluted, rose in the air.

Then that left…

There…

The fledgling.

Jungkook.

He wore human clothes, and blushed at Seokjin’s glance. But underneath the scent of the pack, there was the unmistakable scent of dragon, of brimstone and ash. A scent Seokjin hadn’t felt in the air for eons. Seokjin forced himself to nod at the pack, to sit down instead of grabbing Jungkook and running for the door.

“Right,” the satyr council member announced. “We’re very excited for today, obviously. A new member of the pack is always a big occasion. I believe the pack has a gift for you, Seokjin. As you know, it’s a tradition for new pack members.”

“I have gifts as well,” Seokjin murmured, his gaze still fixated on the fledgling.

“Wonderful!” The satyr nodded. He smiled, indicating Namjoon with a flick of his hand. Namjoon approached, still grinning, with a small package wrapped in maroon paper. Seokjin nodded his head again, and started to tear the present open with methodical skill.

“It’s a journal,” Namjoon added, “we put our names and information about ourselves, as well as some pictures. The pages are blank at the end, so we can add what we do together. Our new chapter of our lives.”

Seokjin ran his index finger down the thin paper, tracing over the smiley hearts around Jungkook's name. “Thank you,” Seokjin said stiffly.

Namjoon nodded, but Seokjin couldn’t help but notice the slightly crestfallen look on the pack’s faces as they sat back down.

“I mean,” Seokjin started, clearing his throat. “I am very grateful. I…I look forward to these new memories we will make together as a pack.”

The pack perked up, smiling at Seokjin’s words. Seokjin forced himself to continue. “I…I have gifts as well.” He picked up the thin silk handles of the bags, golden and sparkly, with black gift paper lining the insides.

Seokjin continued to explain as the pack reached for the gifts and tore through the wrapping paper, nerves swallowing his words, “I thought they were appropriate…”

“Is this?” Taehyung gasped, eyes rising to face Seokjin’s. A small red box was grasped in his hands.

“Oh yes, a seed of Yggdrasil.” Seokjin agreed.

“The eternal tree? The tree from which Odin hung from for nine days and nights to gain all knowledge?” The satyr squeaked, eyes widening.

“Yes,” Seokjin nodded, his cheeks fixated on Taehyung, blushing at the intensity of Taehyung’s gaze. “I had to bargain for it from a fate. Three riddles to get one seed.”

Taehyung held the red box to his chest. “Thank you!”

“It’s no concern,” Seokjin added. “I like riddles. It’s a dragon quality,” he said in the fledgling’s direction. Jungkook kept his eyes on his gift, sitting unopened on his lap.

“Is this…” Namjoon muttered, “Merlin’s spellbook?”

“Yes,” Seokjin smiled, “I got a very good price from it, Nimue was desperate to leave Camelot in a hurry at that time. Treason and all that.”

Namjoon beamed. “That’s…Thank you…The wizarding community…”

“I gave it to you,” Seokjin said crossly. “It’s not meant to be shared.”

“Ah yes, I know this one,” the satyr added, “dragons don’t like to share.”

“No. No we don’t.” Seokjin snarled in the satyr’s direction, who immediately reddened at his gaze, and dropped his eyes.

“Right,” Namjoon said, voice serene, “I’ll just use it then.”

Seokjin nodded agreeably, as Jimin held up his gift in trembling hands. “Is this a phoenix feather? A feather from another phoenix.”

“Yes,” Seokjin announced. “It will keep you immortal, even if you were to be killed and destroyed by another.”

“But how?” Jimin asked. “Us phoenixes, we never give up our feathers that easily?"

“I asked Chiron where to find a phoenix,” Seokjin declared, “you know, at that point in time, he was busy training Achilles, and didn’t have time to go look for it himself. So I went and exchanged it for a part of the sun.”

“You have a part of the sun?” Jimin said incredulously. Seokjin blushed, “I had a bit of a thing with Apollo a few centuries ago. I mean who hasn’t really? But he gave me a bit of the sun as a gift.”

“And mine?” Yoongi questioned. He held the sharp-tipped sword in his hand, dotted with runes along the handle. “Oberon’s sword,” Seokjin clarified, “I gained it from him in battle. I thought you might find it useful.”

Yoongi’s eyes widened as his grasp tightened on the sword. “Yes,” Yoongi added, “it will be useful.”

“And mine?” Hoseok asked. He held a mirror in his hand, dotted with pearls and amethyst.

“It belonged to Empusa, the mother of vampires.” Seokjin added, “cursed by Zeus for her bloodlust, it will allow you to see whatever you will, whenever you will it.”

“Wow,” Hoseok said, mouth wide, “thank you Seokjin.”

“Of course,” Seokjin said, “they are but small gifts.”

“Small gifts?” The satyr murmured, voice strangled.

“Oh yes,” Seokjin contended, “it would be very difficult for me to part with anything from my main hoard. Maybe in a few centuries, when we know each other better.”

He turned back to Jungkook. “And yours, it’s…I know it doesn’t look like much, just a knife and a cover. But the knife is made of silver. We use…Us dragons…We used it in our traditional ceremonies. And the cover is made from some of my first scales. It’s invulnerable.”

The satyr gasped, “do you know how much a single dragon scale is worth?”

Jungkook’s head jerked up, curling in on himself. Seokjin stiffened, but it was Namjoon who climbed to his feet and approached the satyr, looming over him. “Have you been looking up the value of dragon scales and bones?”

“No…No…” The satyr added. “I just heard it in passing.”

Namjoon smiled, but it was a sharper smile, crueler. “I should hope so. If I were to find out that you were even talking about such distasteful subjects with anyone. Well…I would use this lovely gift Seokjin mentioned and turn you inside out. Are we clear?”

The satyr nodded, sweat dotting his brow.

“Now, I believe we have all the paperwork in order for Seokjin to be an official member of the pack?” Namjoon articulated.

The satyr nodded again.

“Great,” Namjoon grinned, turning back to Seokjin, dimples once again dotting his cheeks. “Let’s go home.”

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

The cottage was built of pale sandstone, with a gable roof and a single chimney.

A path of river rocks led towards the front door made of cherry wood, and the door-knocker was a large silver piece, shaped in the form of a crescent moon.

The cottage was charming, perfectly integrated within the larger beauty of the surrounding garden. The meadow was covered in a wild garden, white heliotropes and queen’s anne lace sunning themselves next to patches of lavender and purple irises, while red tulips bloomed next to pink chrysanthemums swaying in the warm spring breeze.

Seokjin could see a further garden behind the cottage, a willow leaning over a crystal blue pond covered in water lilies, as roses along the edge blossomed in pinks and reds.

As they walked towards the cottage, the flowers reached for Taehyung, and he caressed them gently, “hello, my sweethearts. Yes…Yes…This is Seokjin, he’s our new pack member. Would you take care of him like you take care of the rest of us?”

Seokjin bowed awkwardly in the flowers' direction, and the flowers flourished even brighter, stretching out their finest petals in his direction, a kaleidoscope of bright colors.

“They like you,” Taehyung smiled at Seokjin. Seokjin tried to grin back awkwardly. Taehyung really was beautiful, and Seokjin suddenly felt clumsy in his gaze as they walked through the front door.

“So this is the living room,” Namjoon pointed towards a bright room with high ceilings, comfortable golden chairs, thick persian carpets and a huge wood-burning fireplace.

“The conservatory is in the back, that’s Taehyung’s space technically, but we can all use it as long as we’re nice to the plants, and the bedrooms are upstairs,” Namjoon added. “We each have our own. And then a joint pack room. We sleep together there most nights.”

Yoongi chuckled, “all nights,” he emphasized.

“You’re welcome to join us,” Jimin grinned.

Seokjin stiffened, and the calm he had felt as he had approached the house dissipated into thin air. Would that be the only way they would allow him to touch the fledgling? With them in the room, controlling their every move?

Seokjin would open his legs if it would help (he had had to do so before, and he had stopped minding it after a while) but the fledgling wouldn’t even look at him, his gaze focused on the hallway and avoiding Seokjin’s eyes.

“Once you feel comfortable,” Hoseok added with a gentle smile. “I know this is a lot, and very quick too. But we’re grateful you’re here. Jungkook is too.” Jungkook looked up and his cheeks reddened at Hoseok’s words. “Jungkook needed you, and after meeting you, I think we all did.”

Hoseok’s words were honest and cheerful, and Seokjin fumbled for a appropriate response. “Thank you,” he said finally. “I will try my best.” He pointed down a long hallway, charming lights in the shape of flowers casting a warm glow. “What’s down there?”

“The kitchen,” Yoongi added. “I’m really the only cook in the pack.”

“Do you enjoy cooking?” Taehyung asked, with another smile.

“Oh yes,” Seokjin nodded, “most dragons have to be good cooks by definition. And it’s been so long since I ate.”

The pack stiffened at his words, and Seokjin could smell the magic rising in the air, the sharp gunpowder of witchcraft, mixing with the tang of burning fire, the smooth scent of dark groves and hidden trails, the sweet scent of springtime wildflowers, the unmistakable smell of blood, and underneath, a hesitant mix of brimstone and ash.

“They were starving you? The Council?” Namjoon growled, fists tightening.

Seokjin shook his head. “Oh no, no. Nothing like that. They couldn’t hold me at my age even if they tried. Dragons get more magical as we age, you know. But, the hunger never goes away,” he attempted a small grin in Jungkook’s direction, “I haven’t eaten since this morning."

“And you’re very hungry?” Jimin asked hesitantly.

“Of course,” Seokjin responded. “Could eat at least a cow right now, possibly two cows.”

At the incredulous looks on the pack’s faces, Seokjin forced himself to add, “I will pay for the food myself, if it is a burden. I know an elf in Seoul who can get me a good deal on some cattle.”

Yoongi shook his head, surprise still shaping his face. “Nothing like that. Just…You’re that hungry all the time?”

“Of course,” Seokjin said, tilting his head. “I was much hungrier than that as a fledgling. Most hatched dragons eat all day every day for at least a century. You’re…” He turned to look at Jungkook. “You’re not eating that much?”

“No,” Jungkook said hesitantly, red still staining his cheeks. “I eat a lot, but not… Not like a huge amount, not like a literal cow or anything.”

Seokjin took a step forward, closer to Jungkook. “And when you turn, you’re healthy? Not too thin?”

“That’s…” Namjoon cut off, voice low. “That’s one of the reasons we were looking for another dragon. But…It’s a longer story. Over dinner, alright?”

Seokjin forced himself to nod. Jungkook smelled healthy, brimstone and ash strong in the air.

But something was clearly wrong. Why would the pack accept him, old and ruined that he was, if not to save the fledgling?

Seokjin likely would have done the same thing in their position, swallowing their pride and forcing themselves to accept Seokjin. “Yes,” Seokjin said hesitantly, “we can talk more over dinner.”

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

The dining room had intricate moldings of unicorns and griffins, which were carved in so lifelike a manner that they looked ready to leap off the wall. Seokjin did a double-take as a marble unicorn moved, rearing its front legs and galloping around the wall.

Lit candles glistened under the sheen of golden chandeliers. Comfortable layers of colorful rugs covered the tile floor, while the ebony table was laid with silverware and plates of white and blue china, decorated with scenes of birds and butterflies.

Seokjin’s eyes brightened as a butterfly, painted on the china, flapped its wings and flitted off the side of the plate.

Crystal jugs were filled with lavender liquid that smelled like a hyacinth blooming at the first sight of spring. The food, though it looked like traditional Korean food, piles of chap-jae, bosam, seollangtang and galbi, had the undeniable tang of magic over it, wafting the scent of a bright summer day, crystal blue water lapping against the sand, as a light summer breeze drifted over the horizon.

The room, for all that it should appear grandiose or terrifying, a room of strong magic, of fantasy, was comfortable, cozy, and welcoming.

Seokjin forced himself to relax his shoulders as he sat down, and the rest of the pack followed.

Yoongi offered him some bosam with a smile. Seokjin forced himself to accept with a small grin. His hunger had receded to the back of his mind, to be replaced with a current of anxiety.

What was wrong with Jungkook? Was he ill? Or worse, Seokjin despaired. Perhaps he wasn’t a dragon at all. Perhaps they had tricked him with a false scent and his own desperation into believing Jungkook was a dragon when he was something else entirely.

If Jungkook wasn’t a dragon, if Seokjin had been lied to, deceived…Seokjin could not bear the thought of being alone again, the last one of his kind, as his hope slowly drained away.

“So,” Namjoon stated, cutting off Seokjin’s musings. “I wanted to apologize for earlier… Some of my pack members thought it was cruel for me to share our concerns about Jungkook without divulging further….” Namjoon glanced at Taehyung wryly, who smiled back at him. “That left you in suspense, and that was cruel. I am sorry for that.”

Seokjin’s hands twisted around each other. “You…You have nothing to apologize for…There is no need for you to care for me…I’m…I’m not pack.”

Yoongi raised an eyebrow, handsome under the glaze of the lamplight, “did you miss the pack ceremony this morning? Welcoming you into the pack?”

Seokjin shook his head, “I mean…No…No, I was there. But you added me to your pack to help Jungkook, which I can understand. The concern was not about me, you didn’t want me for me.”

Hoseok’s hand wrapped around a crystal martini glass filled with blood, his eyes were light with mirth. “Oh no, who wouldn’t want to add to their pack an all-powerful, ancient dragon, whose human form looks like he’s been carved by marble and given life by Aphrodite herself?”

Seokjin responded acerbically, “if it’s power you want, you aren’t going to get it from me. All the other dragons are dead, there’s nothing to rule over.”

Jungkook’s voice rose, trembling, “so they all are…They’re all dead?”

Seokjin swallowed, grief swallowing his words. “Yes…I…We were never a peaceful species, we always fought over hoards, over mates. But we were strong and practically invulnerable to each other…And then the Council…Well, they wanted our scales to amplify our magic. Our bones, to use as a magical foundation for their houses, our eyes, for use in potions. They used the magic of war, dark spells drawn from the deepest of dark arts. We were never many, and by the time all the wars had ended I was the only one left.”

Jungkook’s eyes teared up with sadness, and Seokjin forced himself to ask the question brimming on his lips. “Are you…Are you sure you’re a dragon Jungkook?”

Jungkook looked up, and his eyes were angry.

Seokjin added quickly, “I just…Namjoon said you haven’t turned…You smell right…But you could be a sea serpent or some other creature of magic.”

Jimin spoke coldly, “so you think we’re lying about Jungkook being a dragon? What would be the point of that? Why would we want you in our pack?”

Taehyung looked pointedly at Jimin. “Because of his bones, his eyes, his scales, just like he said.”

Taehyung turned towards Seokjin, voice soft, “but you think we would lie to you?”

“I don’t know you,” Seokjin responded, “but if there was even the smallest possibility that it was true, that there is another dragon in the world, I couldn’t give up that chance, even with all the risk it entailed.”

“I am a dragon,” Jungkook snarled, “I know I am. I feel the fire and brimstone in my veins. I know what I am. I’ve known it since I was a kid running on the streets of Seoul, unknowing of who my parents were, scrounging for food to survive. When I found the pack, it was a gift, not just because I love them with everything I am, but because they could help me find others like me, to finally understand myself. I just can’t…I can’t…”

Jungkook turned pleading eyes towards Namjoon, who sighed.“He can’t turn. Sometimes he gets eyes the color of flames, or nails that turns into claws, but nothing more, not a full turn.”

“Is that normal?” Jungkook asked.

Seokjin shook his head. “I don’t know. When I was young, no.” Disappointment crept over Jungkook’s face.

Seokjin continued, “But I was young a very long time ago. The world was a lot younger, and there was wilder magic then. The faes still met under a full moon in rings of mushroom. Werewolves ran free in the Hercynian forest. Djinn ruled over empires made of sand that disappeared when a dreamer sought reality. Knights went on quests and came home with a sword made by a mermaid, a ring that granted three wishes and a princess awoken from a sleeping curse. There was just more magic then. Dragons are creatures of magic. We came to this world from our ancestral plane seeking magic.”

Eyes widened across the room, and Seokjin forced himself to bite his tongue before divulging more secrets of his kind. They were pack, supposedly, but they were still strangers, and Seokjin shouldn't, couldn't trust them.

Seokjin continued, still breathless under the heat of Jungkook’s gaze. “I was never one of our great dragons, whose eternity was focused on magic, like Merlin, Quetzacoatl, or Ayidda-Weddo. My purpose was always different. But I will do all I can to help. To help you and the pack. I promise that, with all that I am.”

Jungkook smiled and nodded. “Tomorrow then.”

Seokjin smiled tentatively back. Namjoon raised a glass, “to Seokjin. Welcome to the pack, sweetheart.”

Seokjin blushed under their gaze, but he raised his glass and drank deeply, ignoring the burgeoning of hope in his heart.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

The dinner had ended on a softer note, under dim candlelight. Seokjin couldn’t help but let his eyes roam over the soft touches and kind glances the rest of the pack they gave each other.

How long had it been since Seokjin had taken a lover? Centuries now, Seokjin thought distantly, grief suddenly surging in him, thinking of the golden hair of Alexander, the wicked grins of Cesare, and he suddenly felt very old and distant himself from the joys of his youth.

Namjoon gestured with his hand, skin luminescent under the moonlight, towards a nondescript door set in a wall. “This is your room, Seokjin. Of course, we would like you to sleep with us in the pack room when you feel comfortable…”

Seokjin looked at the door, and thought about the quiet, lonely night that lay ahead, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

“I would like to do it now.”

“Do what now?” Namjoon asked, confusion darting across his features.

“Sleep in the pack bed now.” Seokjin did a double take at Namjoon’s expression, raising an eyebrow, “unless you would prefer I didn’t?’

Namjoon shook his head, “no…No…That would be great…We just didn’t expect you to…So quickly…But its great! So great!” Namjoon smiled broadly, gesticulating widely. “Pack room is down the hall!”

Seokjin nodded, following Namjoon down the corridor, catching Namjoon at his elbow whenever he tripped, which was strangely often.

It made more sense, Seokjin reasoned, to keep an eye on the fledgling at all times, in case of an attack.

Seokjin sighed, shame rising in him. Who was he kidding? If there was an attack, being a room away wouldn’t stop him from defending the fledgling. He’d just been so lonely, for so long. Was it really weak of him to want to bask in warmth and comfort?

And anyway, Seokjin considered, they were his pack, he had a responsibility to fulfill towards them, and he couldn’t do that if he was far away.

Namjoon opened the door so forcefully it slammed into the wall. Inquisitive heads turned towards him.

“Seokjin is joining us,” Namjoon announced.

The pack’s eyes brightened, except Jungkook, who shrunk back. Seokjin forced himself to ignore his disappointment at Jungkook’s reaction.

The bed was huge, piled with pillows and blankets, big enough to sleep seven comfortably. A golden chandelier glittered, while a floor to ceiling bay window filled the room with natural moonlight, plants swaying slightly, tendrils overlapping, flowers blooming under the midnight air.

Taehyung, who was closest to Namjoon, approached Seokjin and tugged him by the arm, pointing at the direction of the bed.

“I sleep on the left,” Taehyung announced, “Jimin’s next to me, and Hoseok is next to Jimin. Namjoon and Yoongi like to be at the ends, and Jungkook’s usually right in the middle. Where would you like to sleep?”

“I think on the right,” Seokjin announced. He would be closest to the door in case of any attack. “Do you mind if I change?”

“The door to the bathroom is through there,” Yoongi pointed. Seokjin nodded, and walked over.

The bathroom was huge, all-natural rock, it looked like the house had been built off the initial stone. A huge rain shower, all modern glass and sleek fixtures, stood next to a huge bath, big enough to swim in comfortably, which steamed with warm heat. Seokjin thought that he would spend several hours tomorrow soaking in it.

But in the meantime, he twisted his hands slightly, creating a portal between his palms. It was a door to one of his smaller hoards, hidden near the temple of Angkor Wat. Seokjin pulled out one of his sleeping robes, soft cotton but heavy with golden thread, closing the portal behind him with another twist of his fingers.

He shrugged it on, turning to look at himself in the mirror. It was strange, he thought, he’d been many things throughout his life; a general, a prince, a politician, but his experiences never shown on his face, which still bloomed with the freshness of youth. Was it a blessing or a curse? Seokjin wondered, as he wandered back to the bedroom.

Jimin’s eyes widened, blush staining his cheeks.

“Is there something wrong?” Seokjin asked, looking down at himself.

Jimin's eyes darted over his bare legs before redirecting his gaze to Seokjin’s face. “I…You…You look great.”

Seokjin smiled slightly, wandering over, hand tracing over Jimin’s shoulder. Jimin was beautiful, he thought, all fire and golden immortality.

“I’m your pack member,” Seokjin whispered, “you’re welcome to look.”

Jimin blushed even harder, but he smiled widely. “I’m glad you’re open to being part of our pack.”

Seokjin blinked at the honesty. Had his reticence really been so transparent? “I’m trying my best,” he said tentatively.

Jimin nodded kindly, wandering towards the bed. “Your outfit is very sparkly,” he added. Taehyung, already curled up in the middle, between Hoseok, Namjoon, Yoongi, and Jungkook, nodded. “Super sparkly, I’m going to up my pajama game.”

Seokjin was now the one to blush. “It’s just…Dragons sleep better when they are near their hoards. I’m not going to bring through the portal a bunch of Spanish galleons, that would be uncomfortable for everyone else.”

“Portal?” Yoongi asked. “What do you mean?”

Seokjin bit at his lip, but he sat on the bed, leaning back. “Dragons are by definition planeswalkers. We aren’t born of this earth. Portals are a natural magic for us. So I just pulled the outfit from one of my hoards.”

“You can open any portal anywhere on earth?” Hoseok asked with wide eyes.

“Anywhere in the universe.” Seokjin responsed.

Jungkook learned onto his arm, peering at Seokjin. “Then why didn’t everyone leave, during the wars?”

“Many were unwilling to leave their hoards,” Seokjin said, “others were unwilling to leave their families, or the packs they had formed. Some tried to leave at the end, when the magical world was nothing but desolation and ash, but they were young, foolish, thinking about a better world. They little knew how to planeswalk on this earth, let alone go to another plane. We found bits of them strewn across South America. Whatever world they’d gone to had spit them out, and they came running back to die. Our ancestors chose the earth as the best place for us to live for a reason. I’ve never really had an interest to test that by leaving this plane.”

Jungkook’s eyes were wide, and his gaze looked sad, and Seokjin knew he regretted asking the question.

Seokjin’s heart broke at the sight. “I’m sorry,” Seokjin sighed, “this isn’t a good topic right before sleep. If you would like me to leave…”

Jungkook shook his head, reaching forward to touch Seokjin’s shoulders with tentative fingers. “No…I…I appreciate your honesty. I want to learn more about being a dragon. I want to be a good dragon. Please stay.”

Seokjin nodded, pushing himself further under the weight of the covers.

The lights dimmed with a flick of Namjoon’s fingers. “Anyway…” Jungkook murmured, “it’s always better to be warm and with your pack.”

“Shhh…Bedtime…” Yoongi whispered.

The pack couldn’t see in the darkness, but Seokjin smiled wide, and slept the best sleep he’d had in centuries.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Seokjin had woken up to the sun peeking through the windows, and had padded out of the bedroom on silent feet. He’d slept the best he’s had in ages, warm and comfortable, settled in his skin.

He’d endeavored to make breakfast as a way to repay the pack for their kindness, to show that he was useful. He’d made a batch of kimchi pancakes, the last dregs of the batter sizzling in the oil as Jungkook wandered in.

Seokjin smiled awkwardly, straining for the right words to say. Jungkook had been hiding behind his pack since Seokjin had joined them.

Jungkook maybe wanted to be a dragon, but he didn’t want Seokjin, that was clear. Seokjin forced himself to ignore the sharp pang of hurt in his heart at the thought. “How…How did you sleep?”

“Well,” Jungkook nodded, eyes still looking everywhere but at Seokjin. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“No…No…” Seokjin cried, flailing his arms. “I’m just making breakfast. Would you like to help? You can flip a pancake if you like.”

Jungkook nodded again, coming to stand next to Seokjin, hesitation shaping his steps as he stared at the pancake batter. “I don’t know how to flip it.”

“I…It’s alright,” Seokjin murmured, “I made a bunch, just try your best.”

Jungkook bit his lip, hand reaching for the pan, as he threw the pancake high into the air... And it splattered all over the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Jungkook stated, tears welling in his eyes. “I’ll clean it up.”

“It’s alright,” Seokjin repeated, already reaching for the paper towels. “It’s just a pancake.”

Jungkook started sniffling at Seokjin’s pronouncement, his hand coming to rub at his eyes.

Seokjin hated himself. His first day with the pack and he already made the fledgling cry?

“Jungkook, really it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not mad at you, I promise.”

Jungkook started to cry harder. “Jungkook, sit down,” Seokjin forced himself to say with authority, “and tell me what’s wrong, I’ll fix it.”

I’ll burn heaven and hell to ash for you, Seokjin thought despairingly.

Jungkook sat down with a thump, still crying. “I…Just…The pack was so nice to take me in you know? I was an orphan, thrown out at eighteen. I worked a minimum wage job seven days a week, living in a tiny studio and counting the days until I could afford cornerstore ramen. I knew I wasn’t human, but I didn’t know what I was. I just knew I was wrong. I had nothing, until Namjoon saw me at the corner store. The pack took me in. They helped me go back to school, they were helping me to figure out what I am. They never judged, never pushed. They even…”

Jungkook looked up guiltily, and he continued in a lower whisper, “they even agreed to bring someone else into the pack to help me once we figured out I was a dragon.”

“That’s good,” Seokjin murmured, “they’re kind to you.”

“So kind,” Jungkook agreed. “I thought I could pay them back by being a good dragon, you know? Strong and powerful, able to protect them.”

“You will,” Seokjin said, “it takes time to become strong.”

Jungkook looked even worse at Seokjin’s pronouncement, “but then you came.”

“Me?” Seokjin said, pointing to himself, “I haven’t done anything.”

“You didn’t have to do anything,” Jungkook cried out, tears staining his skin. “You’re the strongest magical being I’ve ever met. You can make portals to other dimensions. You literally have piles of treasure. You can even cook! And worst of all…You look like that. You look like the gods made you out of marble and stardust.”

“Sweetling,” Seokjin said softly, “I can’t help how I look.”

Jungkook looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “But…They won’t want me, don’t you see? Not now that they have you.”

Seokjin shook his head, hand reaching tentatively for Jungkook’s arm. “Sweetling, they will always want you, they made the sacrifice to include me in the pack for you. I’m just an unwelcome addition. I could never take your place.”

Jungkook shook his head, but a frown now graced his features. “You’re not unwelcome. I want you here, the pack wants you here.”

“Sure,” said Seokjin pacifyingly. That certainly wasn’t true, but he didn’t want to upset the fledgling further.

“It is true!” Jungkook retorted, voice rising. “The pack even helped me put together my hoard so you could see it. Namjoon read in a book that that’s a thing dragons do to bond, so I wanted to do it for you. They helped me put it all together last weekend.”

It was a thing mated dragons did to bond before a mating flight, not simply packmates. Sharing a hoard was an intensely personal thing, baring your soul to another dragon, but Seokjin didn’t want to dissuade the fledgling. “That’s sweet of you. When we’re closer and you trust me, you can share it with me.”

Jungkook shook his head, “I want to show you now, to make you believe that we do trust you, that we do want you here. Will you wait here while I go get it?”

Seokjin smiled, “of course.”

Jungkook took a step to the door, but he stopped, tentative. “It’s just…You won’t judge, right? It’s not as nice as yours.”

Seokjin smiled more tenderly, “I’m sure your hoard is lovely.”

Jungkook walked towards the door to the living room, excitement making his steps buoyant, “alright! Don’t move!”

Seokjin waited in the golden morning light, admiring the daffodils on the windowsill as they swayed in the eternal springtime breeze. He turned as he heard the sound of padding feet against the hardwood. The pack came in, one after another, slowly stretching and grinning at Seokjin as they came in. Namjoon wandered over, dimples peeking out, inexplicably happy to see Seokjin.

“You’re up early.”

“I made breakfast,” Seokjin pointed towards the stack of pancakes. “There’s tea teeming in the pot, and coffee brewing on the stove.”

“You are a lifesaver,” Yoongi announced, trudging towards the coffee pot. He still looked half asleep, rubbing at his eyes, hair tousled.

“Jungkook’s showing me his hoard,” Seokjin added.

Jimin smiled even wider, sipping at his tea, as the pack sat down, already nibbling at the pancakes. “Is it just an instinct? Hoarding? Like when I get reborn.”

Seokjin looked up, “you get reborn?”

Jimin nodded, “phoenixes get reborn at the summer equinox, I go up in flames and get reborn from the ashes.”

“It was super dramatic the first time,” Taehyung said with a grin, “but now we’re kind of used to it.”

Seokjin blinked at them, the comfortable ribbing, the shared jokes, the easy intimacy. “That’s…I would love to see that. It is astonishing.” Jimin blushed beet-red at the compliment.

“And yes, hoarding is an instinct,” Seokjin responded, “what you hoard changes over the course of your life. The hoards are generally beautiful items, at least in some way, but you don’t always have control over what you want to hoard, it’s more like a compulsion. I spent a horrible year in 1497 trying to get every Botticelli painting I could get my hands on before it went up in the bonfire of the vanities, even at risk of being discovered as a supernatural. If they’d found out, I would’ve been considered a witch and burned. It wouldn’t have killed me, but it certainly would have been uncomfortable. And once I didn’t die the first time, they would have found more creative ways to kill me. Humanity is endlessly creative in that area.”

Jimin suddenly looked angry, as if at the thought of Seokjin being hurt. Seokjin brushed away the thought. Jimin upset because he could have been harmed? What a ridiculous hope.

“And what happens if you lose part of your hoard?” Yoongi asked, blinking awake under the influence of the coffee.

“It’s…Horrible.” Seokjin said, voice ringing. “You could go mad trying to get back what was stolen.”

“So how can we help you and Jungkook protect your hoards?” Hoseok added, brow furrowing.

“Once he can planeswalk, he can move them somewhere safe, but in the meantime, it would be sufficient to put charms and spells around the property to protect it from intruders, and to not allow strangers into the home.”

Namjoon nodded seriously, and Seokjin’s heart softened as he wondered at how much they cared about the fledgling.

Seokjin heard the door slam behind him and turned to face Jungkook, who had a pile of velvet boxes on top of each other, which he laid on top of the table. Excitement danced in his eyes, as he pulled a box from the top and gave it to Seokjin. Seokjin opened it to find a simple gold coin within.

“I found it on the beach!” Jungkook announced. “The guy at the pawn shop said it wasn’t worth much, but that made me upset, so then Hoseok had a talk with him and he apologized. And even if it’s not worth much, I still like it. The weight, the shine…”

Seokjin traced a finger along its sharp edges, “great edges.”

Jungkook nodded, bouncing on his feet, “right? I told Jimin that but he didn’t know what I meant. Oooh and see this photo of the beach, I found it in an antique shop in Busan…”

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

“What’s the plan?” Jungkook asked, blinking his eyes at Seokjin in the mid-morning light.

It had been a day since Jungkook had shown Seokjin his hoard, and the joy of the experience, the intimacy, had carried Seokjin through the night.

He’d curled up in the pack bed and woken up snuggled between Yoongi and Taehyung. He’d felt appreciated, and seen… It was… It had been nice. Such a small word for such a warm feeling, Seokjin wondered.

So, Seokjin thought, as the morning light started to seep into the cottage, it was time to pay the pack back for all they’d done for him.

They hadn’t needed to be kind to him, or listen to his silly additions to their conversation, or even to complement his cooking. Seokjin was going to do the best he could to help Jungkook to repay all that the pack had already done for him.

“I was thinking about it,” Seokjin spoke tentatively. “The main issue I have is that dragons don’t usually have an issue changing to their dragon forms...”

“Oh,” Jungkook said despairingly, peering down at the tabletop. “Right, because I’m not a very good dragon.”

“That’s not true!” Seokjin cried out, as the pack’s denials rose along with him. “I’m just not sure how to help.”

Yoongi turned a flat gaze to Seokjin, face unreadable. Seokjin winced internally. Being part of the pack was conditional; he needed to show his usefulness, not showcase his inadequacies.

“I just…” Seokjin continued. “Most dragons turn after they hatch. It’s instinctive, natural. Your body refusing to turn is a safety mechanism, it helped you survive your whole childhood. It kept you under the radar of the Council and others that would hunt you. But how to tell your body you’re safe enough to turn now is something else entirely.”

“I feel safe with the pack,” Jungkook argued, “I feel safe with you.”

“Sure,” Seokjin murmured. Why wouldn’t Jungkook feel safe with the pack? They were so nice, liberal with their compliments, and Jungkook was all sweetness and light.

Yoongi sighed, his face still harsh under the light. “I wish you would believe it when we said things like that.”

“I believe Jungkook, that he trusts you,” Seokjin stated. “How could I doubt that?”

“No,” Taehyung responded, “that he trusts you. That we all trust you.”

“You’ve known me for less than a week,” Seokjin said, hands twisting together, “it would be ridiculous to trust me.”

“We’re good judges of character,” Namjoon announced. “Can you try to trust us, and we’ll do our best to show you it’s worthwhile?”

“I do trust you,” Seokjin muttered, words filled with hesitation.

“Sure,” Namjoon mimicked, word harsh on his tongue. The silence stretched, long and hesitant.

Seokjin opened his mouth to apologize, to fix whatever he had broken and make it right…

Ring...

Ring...

Ring…

“What’s that?” Jimin asked.

“The doorbell,” Namjoon said, eyes turning towards the door. “I didn’t even know that thing worked. Hold on, I’m going to go see who it is. But Seokjin, this conversation isn’t over.”

The silence returned, hesitation and tension rising as the sound of voices emerged, Namjoon’s voice harsher and more recalcitrant.

“We’re going to the front room,” Namjoon announced as he passed through the hallway, the uninvited guests, shrouded by the light, trailing along behind him.

The pack rose to their feet to follow the sound of the voices.

It was strange, Seokjin wondered. The heart of the pack was clearly the kitchen, the front room was formal and rarely used. Why would Namjoon invite friends to the formal room unless…

The door swung open, and Seokjin’s gaze landed on the Council members sitting on the cream-colored sofa. The same satyr that had arranged their initial pack meeting, wearing a casual suit, hanging off his frame, with sweat dabbing his temples, and a very well-dressed witch.

The witch traced a critical eye over the pack squeezed together at the door as Seokjin examined him in turn. Pressed dark silk pants, a high neck white shirt, lace sleeves, a large amethyst necklace. Amethyst was for protection, Seokjin knew. What did this Council member need protection from?

And then, on his hand, rings, Seokjin noted, but rings of bone, bleached white and shining with dark magic. Seokjin’s stomach turned at the thought. How many nymphs or harpies had died to make this witch’s jewelry collection?

“The Council sent representatives,” Namjoon said, harshness cutting at his words. He was still standing, looming over the satyr and the witch.

The pack crowded together in the room, as far away from the Council members as possible. Why were they here, Seokjin wondered, ruining this little slice of peace?

The witch raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “We had some difficulty getting through your garden, your flowers were very…Untrained.”

Seokjin looked up through the bay window behind the witch, his eyes tracing over the mix of yarrow, peckled trillium and vervain, speckled with dots of purple violets. And there, Seokjin noted, eyes narrowing, a missing patch of color.

Taehyung following Seokjin’s gaze, snarled loudly, turning a hateful glare on the witch. “You burned my flowers?”

“They were a nuisance,” the witch announced with the same haughty voice, “you should really control your younger pack members,” he said in Hoseok’s direction. “A good beating with a cane or a whip would keep your weaker members in line.”

Hoseok crossed his arms, “Taehyung is fine. His flowers are lovely.” Taehyung was sniffling now, tears dotting his eyes. Taehyung was so connected to the flowers, Seokjin knew, calling them by name, telling them about his day as he watered and cared for them. Their pain must hurt him like a bleeding wound.

“Is there something you need?” Seokjin questioned, his voice chilly.

The satyr spoke quickly, words tumbling over each other. “We wanted to come speak to you about how you’re settling in…”

The witch rolled his eyes, raising a hand. The satyr stopped speaking instantly, fear shaping his expression.

“Is that how it is?” Jimin asked, eyes narrowing at the satyr. “A high-ranking witch council member orders you around and all your oaths fall by the wayside?”

The satyr opened his mouth to speak, but the witch cut him off. “Satyrs are weaker members of society, still dreaming of their lost god, Pan, who died out centuries ago. Their obedience should be expected to those of greater power.”

The witch turned his gaze on Seokjin, but he spoke in Hoseok and Namjoon’s direction. “I didn’t know if you would let your dragon speak,” the witch said. “My pack had a bet going on whether or not dragons could even talk, as they are in practice, little more than beasts. I’m glad to know I won the bet.”

Seokjin stiffened, anger rising, “why don’t you state what you want and get out of here?”

The witch reddened, but his eyes remained calm. The eyes of a killer, Seokjin thought dispassionately. Dangerous and merciless.

“My pack is one of the greatest witch packs. It has been an honor to serve as leaders of the Council for centuries. When your pack told us that you had a dragon fledgling and were searching for another dragon to join your pack, that peaked our interests. When we heard there was another dragon willing join your pack, meaning that we confirmed that there was not only one but two dragons, well… This is the first time we have known of living dragons in centuries. I came to offer you the opportunity to serve the Council.”

“Serve the Council?” Namjoon asked, still looming, as the satyr looked paler by the minute.

“Some gifts of scale, of blood.” The witch said dispassionately, “so that greater magic may be made to serve the Council.”

Seokjin could feel Jungkook’s horror, his fear rising.

“No,” Hoseok snarled.

“Then a small gift of bone,” the witch announced, “a little finger or a toe. I’ve heard dragon bones last for millennia, and can be useful for everything from good-luck potions to eternal youth.”

“No.” Namjoon repeated, his voice rising.

“Come on, you must have thought of it yourself…” the witch said to Namjoon, “when your spell didn’t work or your potion didn’t ruminate enough, a dragon bone could fix all that, it could make your wildest magical dreams come true.”

Seokjin felt anger rise in him, a pulsing fury. To come to their home and harm Taehyung, to threaten Jungkook. It was unacceptable. Seokjin was going to…

Yoongi stepped forward. He’d been in the background during the conversation, attentive but silent. Now, calm graced his face. He looked determined and uncaring. “Do you happen to know who I am?”

“A…a faerie…” the satyr said.

“Do you know who my family is?” Yoongi asked.

The satyr shrugged his shoulders as the witch glared in his direction, clearly unprepared for Yoongi’s question.

Seokjin’s mind raced. Faerie families were incredibly convoluted and secretive, generations of intermarriage and intergenerational murder making any family tree a web of treason and tragedy.

Yoongi’s smirk light up his face with a cruel knife-edged beauty.

“Our founder was the unseelie Robin Goodfellow, although he is more closely known by his nickname, Puck. The Lord of Misrule and Treachery is my family’s title. The most loyal knights of King Oberon. Would you like me to walk the treacherous path of hawthorn and oak, to arrive at the Unseelie Court? To kneel at my king Oberon’s feet and tell him that a silly little witch pack has been attempting to steel one of my pack members? Who is, by extension of being mine, a vassal of the King Oberon, and a citizen of Unseelie?

What do you think he will do to you and yours? Perhaps he will send the wild hunt after you, to be snatched into the coldness of the heavens on a moonlight night, or to be drawn into the deep to drown at the hands of a cruel kelpie. Would you like to see what happens when those of fable and rhyme walk this earth just to hunt your pack down? They will write songs about it, I am certain.”

As he spoke, Yoongi no longer could pass for mortal. Excitement and hunger burned in his eyes. He looked eerily beautiful, as his human glamor faded away. He looked radiantly perfect, a creature of myth and fairytales.

The witch had gone pale at his pronouncement. “I…I didn’t…I did not mean to insult you.”

“An insult has been made,” Namjoon snapped. “We are long-lived enough to remember. Now get out before I lay a curse on you that won’t be forgotten for a thousand years.”

The witch stood up, moving towards the door. Still elegant, and calm. The satyr trembled, tripping over his feet, sweat dripping down his face.

“If you ever change your mind, if you ever want to be unselfish and help your community,” the witch turned from the door to face Jungkook, “you can. Don’t let your pack stop you.”

Hoseok bared his fangs, Jimin silently calling fire to float around him. “Get out,” Hoseok repeated, “before we burn you to death just like your ancestors.”

The Council members turned and fled, but Seokjin could feel the thud of his heart, the fear of millennia of being hunted making him tremble.

How foolish he was to ever think he would be safe.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

Dragons were, by nature, possessive. Bristling with magical power, armed with fire and fang, they were not peaceful creatures.

As Seokjin looked over the garden that the Council members had trampled over, he’d been unable to feel anything but fury. This was his land, his pack, even if they didn’t want him here, and he was not going to let some silly little Council member, armed with desecrated bone and dark magic, try to harm what was his. Take what was his. That was simply unacceptable.

No matter that the rest of the pack had circled inside, cuddling a Jungkook trembling with fear and a Yoongi trembling with anger. Seokjin had stayed outside. He didn’t want to bother them, and it was safer in any case for him to guard them. To protect them.

Seokjin’s eyes narrowed at a sudden movement, and he walked forward as he peered at the barren patch of flowers that disfigured the landscape.

“Taehyung, what are you doing?”

Taehyung sniffled, his hand coming to rub his eyes.

The red poppies, pink carnations and golden marigold drooped in the breeze, which had turned colder and harsher, as if winter was setting on them like a shroud.

“I’m planting what was burned,” Taehyung announced, kneeling on the ground. Seokjin looked at the dark, damp earth, the soft soil, and the buds of the flowers.

Foxglove, Oleander, nightshade and angel’s trumpet, all clumped together. And there, in the middle, Taehyung, planting the seed of the Yggdrasil that Seokjin had given him. A gift made for a time of war.

“Taehyung,” Seokjin whispered softly. Taehyung’s garden was a haven of peace and beauty, not one of cruelty. “You do not need to take such actions, the pack will protect you. I will protect you.”

Taehyung looked up at Seokjin, his eyes ancient in the dimming afternoon night. His voice was calm, stripped of emotion.

“I’m not you, Seokjin. I’m not an ancient creature of great magic. I’m not Namjoon, with his wicked potions and cruel curses. I’m not Yoongi, with his weapons and his fae tricks. I’m not Hoseok, with his fangs and his bloodlust. I’m not Jimin, with his fire and literal invulnerability. Jungkook is even stronger than me now, when he can’t even turn or muster the power to planeswalk. When he can? His power will be more than mine would ever be.”

“That is not a bad thing,” Seokjin murmured, “you should not see yourself as weak, Taehyung, just because you are not like the rest of the pack.”

Taehyung shook his head, still looking at Seokjin, his eyes like fathomless pools of dark water. He looked like a man out of time, his face blooming with the beauty of youth, his eyes ancient and haunted.

“Nymphs, we’ve never been strong. When Daphne ran from Apollo, she had to transform into a laurel tree to survive. If one can call that half-life survival. Apollo then desecrated her further by taking his leaves as his own symbol. When Zeus consorted with her sister and ordered Echo to hide it from his jealous wife, Echo was the one cursed by Hera to only be able to speak the last words spoken to her. When Syrinx fled Pan and turned to hollow water reeds to escape him, Pan made panpipes of the reeds, stealing her voice for his own music.”

“That won’t happen to you, Taehyung,” Seokjin said, “I won’t allow it.”

Taehyung reached for Seokjin’s hand and came to his feet.

“But,” he emphasized, “Maia was a nymph and the mother of Hermes, who could walk both the land of the living and the dead. Amphitrite was made Poseidon’s queen, ruling the Seven Seas. The sirens were nymphs, who brought so many heroes to their doom. We aren’t strong, but we are survivors. We’re clever. We’re vicious when we need to.”

He peered down at the ground, where the purple bud of the foxglove had started to bloom. “I’ll down anything for my pack, Seokjin. Will you?”

Seokjin nodded, “I promise it to you, on my power and my name. My word is my bond.”

“Good,” Taehyung smiled, a blinding grin, all viciousness disappeared from his eyes.

“Let’s go inside then.” He reached for Seokjin’s hand, grasping it in his own.

His skin was warm and soft, Seokjin wondered. How long had it been since he’d touched someone outside of sex or violence?

Centuries, Seokjin considered, sadness making his heart heavy. Taehyung's hand was soft as silk, the breeze warming as they wandered back to the cottage.

After the war there had been nothing, there had been no one who understood him. They saw what he was, and they wanted his power, or his cleverness, but never him. Only a dragon could love another dragon, Seokjin knew. It’s what the elders always said.

It’s why he’d come for Jungkook, for that slightest morsel of hope that Jungkook would love him back one day. So why then did he feel something tender burgeoning in his heart when he looked at the rest of the pack?

Taehyung opened the door to the cottage, still holding on to Seokjin’s hand, affectionate and comforting. He walked down the long hallway in the dim light, towards the bedroom, which was empty, before heading to the attached bathroom. Seokjin could hear the voices of the pack rise from behind the door.

“Taehyung,” Seokjin murmured, “they don’t want me…”

“I want you here,” Taehyung argued with fierce intensity, as he swung the door open.

Seokjin felt his cheeks redden. The marble bath had gotten even bigger, wide and long enough to fit seven, but close enough that their bodies were pressed against each other.

Candles burned, the scent of lavender rising in the air, while the steam rose off the hot water.

Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Jungkook and Namjoon were already in the water up to their shoulders, muscles relaxed, softness shaping their expressions.

Jungkook’s eyes widened at Seokjin’s intrusion. Taehyung smiled wildly, “Seokjin’s joining us.”

Jimin scrunched his nose, “Tae, don’t push him if he’s not ready.”

“I’d like to,” Seokjin said softly. He’d gone into the room thinking that perhaps it would be helpful to offer his body to them, to please them. He’d done it before, during the war and after, when all that was left was desolation.

It would not have hurt him to offer himself in such a way. But now, being in the room, seeing the curve of their muscles, the closeness of their bodies... Seokjin wanted them to see him, to appreciate him. Heat rose in his belly.

“See?” Taehyung said triumphantly. His shirt and pants dropped to the ground quickly, shimmying his underwear down as well. Seokjin could just see the curve of his perfectly rounded ass before he slid into the water.

Seokjin sighed wistfully. “I’m not as pretty as Taehyung.”

Hoseok shook his head, “you’re beautiful Seokjin.”

“No, no. I mean…” Seokjin sighed, reaching for the buttons of his shirt. “I just…I’ve lived a hard life. I have scars. They are not so pleasant to look at it.”

Jimin smiled, stretching his beautiful arms, arching his back, his nipples peeking out of the water. “Scars just make you hotter Seokjin, seriously.”

“That’s not…” Seokjin sighed, stepping out of his pants, and pulling off his shirt in two smooth motions, before pulling off his underwear.

Seokjin sighed even more deeply as he straightened. The pack gaped at his chest.

There were knicks of scars all over his body, small skirmishes inscribed in skin across his flesh. The worse was the scar that traced across his chest, from his pectoral to right above his belly button. It remained harsh and white under the soft light, a clean cut.

Seokjin curved his hand over his body. “I…You see what I mean. It’s unsightly and ugly… Perhaps it would be best if I just left…”

“No!” Jimin cried, “I…I didn’t mean to sound so lighthearted about your scars, Seokjin, really. I’m sorry. Please come in the water?”

Seokjin nodded, approaching tentatively before following the rest of the pack into the bath. He sighed wistfully as the water warmed him, as he finally relaxed for the first time since the Council had come to threaten them.

Taehyung reached for his hand once more, and Jungkook eyed his body. Seokjin leaned against the marble side, waiting for Jungkook to speak. “I…who did that to you? The big scar?”

“Ah, you wouldn’t want to hear it,” Seokjin murmured, “it’s an ugly story.”

Jimin raised an eyebrow, “it’s not a burden on us for you to share your story, Seokjin. We want you here. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have invited you into our home, into our pack space.”

Seokjin nodded at Jimin’s words, carried with a tender expression.

Seokjin knew that Jimin thought he meant it, just as much as Taehyung had meant those words earlier about being part of the pack. But they didn’t know him.

They knew Seokjin in human form, who was quiet and carried too many scars. They didn’t sense what he truly was, the dragon in him, all fang, fury and fire. But Seokjin would take what he could, for the moment in which he had it. Dragons are selfish by nature.

“The big one,” Seokjin murmured, “was given to me by Saint George, after he’d killed one of our elders, Ascalon, with a lance forged by an angel.”

Seokjin stopped, looking at the pack’s faces, the wide, open, interested looks they shared. Seokjin wondered at the beauty of the gift they’d given him.

He would take this moment of trust and treasure it for the rest of his eternity. Even when the pack would finally grow bored of him and leave, at least he would have this moment.

His hand reached for Jungkook’s as his story continued. “It took ten of us to take him down after that, twenty days of endless fighting…”

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Seokjin said carefully. “I want you to think about changing.”

Jungkook blinked up at him. After their bath last night, the pack had crowded together on the pack bed, and Seokjin had fallen into a calm and easy sleep. He’d woken up with revived ambition to help Jungkook turn. He wanted Jungkook to succeed, he wanted the pack to thrive. They’d been so kind to him, generous with his flaws. He wanted to pay them back for all they'd done for him.

So here they stood, the pack in a loose semi-circle around Jungkook, who stood in a loose white shirt in black pants, eyes blinking in the morning light. The nearby pond shimmered under the sunlight, the willow tree swaying softly in the warm breeze.

The garden still seemed peaceful at first glance, but underneath, Seokjin could feel the tension of the flowers semi-alertness. Taehyung had put them on their guard, and they stood ready to defend the pack. Seokjin would do all he could to help.

They’d stood here for other an hour, while Seokjin asked Jungkook to change and he stood still in his human form, unable or unwilling to do so.

“Think about changing, Jungkook, it’s a natural process.” Seokjin repeated for the hundredth time.

“Right,” Jungkook responded, irritation darkening his words, “I mean, I’ve just…You realize I’ve kind of never seen a dragon? Like I’ve seen one’s in books, and I’ve seen sea serpents of the coast playing with mermaids when we went on that sailing trip a couple years back, but never a real one.”

“What if you described yourself to Jungkook, so he can visualize?” Taehyung said kindly, smiling softly at Seokjin. He’d been the peacemaker as Seokjin’s and Jungkook's irritation had risen over the course of the morning.

Seokjin inhaled sharply, “I’m…I’m big. Fangs, fire that’s so hot it’s blue, wings...I’m sure you can imagine.”

“No,” Jungkook argued, “I can’t imagine. That’s the whole point. Couldn’t you change so I can see what I’m supposed to look like?”

“You won’t look like me,” Seokjin said softly, “one dragon does not look like another.” He repeated the same words again, “just think about changing. It’s supposed to be the easiest process in the world.”

Jungkook’s voice rose to a yell, “that’s the whole point. I’ve never even seen a dragon! I don’t know what I’m supposed to look like. If you changed, I could visualize like Taehyung said!”

Seokjin’s face paled, but Jimin cut him off before he could respond, eyes narrowed at Jungkook. “Seokjin doesn’t want to Jungkook. You don’t make me change when I don’t want to, so why would you treat him any differently?”

Red tinged Jungkook’s face, “your other form is literally a red, blue and gold bird made of eternal fire! And people want you to change to steal your feathers, so that it brings good luck and immortal life. That is not the same thing!”

Jimin’s voice was calm, as Seokjin shifted, embarrassed. “Seokjin is a big magical dragon who’s literally been hunted for hundreds of years. You aren’t being very compassionate right now by trying to force him to turn when he doesn’t want to.”

Seokjin stiffened. He did not want the pack to fight over him, what a ridiculous thing to fight over. It was just…He did turn sometimes, after the war, in secluded places, most recently at Mount Paektu, only seventy or so years previously, barely a blink of an eye. He didn't enjoy it, however. What he was, he was not a creature of peace, a creature who deserved to be in this beautiful garden.

He did not want to do so now, but he did not want to harm the weak trust Jungkook had given him. Better to concede, he reasoned, as he moved to respond, to quell the tension, but Yoongi spoke before he could.

“What’s really going on, Kook? It’s not like you to not care about other pack members feelings?”

Seokjin blushed at the ridiculous notion of him being a pack member, and shifted on his feet. Yoongi was being far more kind than he deserved.

Jungkook sniffled, bowing his head. His sharp exhale quieted the anger in his tone. “No, you’re right, I’m sorry for yelling at you Seokjin.”

Seokjin shook his head quickly, “it’s fine Jungkook, really.”

Namjoon cleared his throat, “Seokjin, I think we could beat you and you would say it’s fine. Jungkook shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

“Would you like to beat me?” Seokjin asked, trying to appease the situation. It wouldn’t hurt too much, He’d suffered torture by witches before, the sting left quickly.

Hoseok stiffened, his voice now rising, “Seokjin we would never beat you. Has someone done that to you?”

Seokjin shrugged his shoulders, “I have had many relationships, and it is the kindness of the other party to welcome me despite my many flaws. To suffer some angry words or harsh fists, it is not such a pain. If you wished to do the same, I would not complain.”

Hoseok raised an eyebrow, “we would never harm you.” Hoseok inhaled sharply, voice deeper, “are any of these other parties still alive?”

“Some,” Seokjin said, “I have had both human and magical relationships.”

“Point them out to us,” Namjoon articulated, “if we ever…Run into them.” The tattoos on his arm shifted rapidly, the rose blooming and dying over and over.

Seokjin nodded his head, complacent with the end of the conversation.

Jungkook’s eyes had widened, his voice softer now, “I am sorry Seokjin, I don’t…You should never expect anyone to speak to you like that. I should never speak to you like that, I…I just…” He dropped his eyes to clumps of yellow daffodils below his feet. “Can we sit, please?”

Seokjin nodded as the pack dropped to the ground. The wildflowers crowding around them for pats and compliments. A clump of marigolds had started to grow towards Taehyung’s head, weaving around his hair like a crown. Taehyung giggled as Namjoon softly complimented their pretty petals.

“I…” Jungkook exhaled before continuing. “It’s not that I need you to change, it’s just, I don’t know anything about being a dragon. I don’t know what our culture is, or our food, or what we’re supposed to even like to do. You’re telling me it’s normal for a dragon, it’s easy, but I don’t know what a dragon is. I can’t visualize what I have no knowledge of.”

“Much is lost,” Seokjin said softly, “and I was not an elder who knew much of dragon-kinds secrets. Those who came from our original plane are no longer here to tell our stories.”

“But there must be some things you do know,” Jungkook articulated.

“Yes,” Seokjin said, Jimin hands reached for his, their fingers twisting together. His skin was soft as silk and burned with heat.

Seokjin started to speak with a warning, “I do not want you to think that you must do these to be a dragon, or to help you to change.”

Jungkook nodded, but excitement gleamed in his eyes. Seokjin's voice rose once more, voice soft like a wave lapping to shore.

“The older dragons, they must have come from a plane with more magic, stronger magic. For that is what we are, creatures of magic, not earth.

The older dragons, they could not walk in human form. They were creatures of pure magic, of immense power beyond our comprehension.

Our elders spoke of Apep, one of the original settlers, who had a roar that could cause thunderstorms and earthquakes. Dragons were not welcome when they came to this earth, but they were either too pleased with this plane or too frightened to leave. They never spoke of where we came from, but there was no discussion about attempting go back to our original home.

They fought with what we would now call the gods, who were planeswalkers too, and are the elders of many of your own magical bloodlines.

Some, like Apep, fought the gods constantly, while others, like Tiamat, who had such strength no weapon could harm her, allied with the gods. But the elders died, one by one.

Apep was killed by the trickster god Set, while Tiamat was killed by the god Maruk through the power of storms and winds. But dragons were already settled on this earth by then, hatched of the elders before they died.

As the gods’ power waned on this plane, and they walked here less and less, our power grew. We settled into this world, perhaps we grew complacent.

We immersed ourselves in human politics, in the games of stategy and risk that we so enjoyed, like when Ying Long helped the Yellow Emperor defeat a tyrant. Or one of my own family, Lady Aryeong, who founded the kingdom of Silla. Some settled to their selfish natures, hoarding magical weapons, like Níðhöggr, who had an agreement to guard Yggdrasil for the fates, in return for the ability to guard weapons of immense power.

We settled, we intermingled with the magical community, we formed packs with magical creatures. Some even fell in love, like Merlin and Arthur, until tragedy tore them apart. We lived, like many others of myth and legend.

But one day, we woke up and realized the Council had plotted against us, to steal our skin, our bones, our eyes, our hearts, for their own magic.”

Seokjin swallowed, his voice suddenly shaking, he took his hand out of Jimin’s, his fingers twisting together.

“There were a succession of wars. We won a few, lost a few. We were not so afraid in the beginning. But by the end, when the Council had desecrated our bodies to grow our power, we began to die. They had turned our magic against us, made us vulnerable. I was the only one who survived.”

Tears shone in the eyes of the pack, the sun still shining as Seokjin did not speak of his world ending. “I do not wish to speak of such a dark time, it will not bring peace.”

Jungkook opened his mouth to interrupt, but Yoongi quieted him, laying a calm hand on his shoulder.

Seokjin continued, “but the dragons characteristics are the same. We love to eat, for we must feed our other forms. We love to hoard, although different items. We enjoy riddles and games of trickery, for it is common to our nature. And, we are fiercely, intensely possessive over that which is ours.”

Seokjin’s voice ebbed to a close, and looked up, the pack’s eyes widening at whatever wanting was reflected in Seokjin’s stare. Seokjin felt his inside twist. The pack was his. His to protect. His to claim. He was not worthy of it, the sting of his own selfishness overriding him, but he would take all that they would offer him, and more besides.

Jungkook smiled softly, moving to stand, calmness overtaking his expression. “Thank you for sharing Seokjin, I appreciate it.” He grinned quickly, “I always wondered why I didn’t like sharing food when I first came to the pack.”

Seokjin and the pack members came to their feet, as Seokjin smiled back, voice soft, “I do not like sharing food either. I would rather hunt myself than have to share.”

Jungkook laughed brightly, all tension gone as quickly as it came. Seokjin wondered at the quickness of youth. Seokjin guarded resentment and anger for centuries until it bubbled over. Jungkook had forgiven him as quickly as he said words in anger. Jungkook closed his eyes, basking in the morning sunlight, calm overtaking his expression.

“No sharing, got it,” Yoongi responded to Seokjin’s complaint with a grin, voice light.

Seokjin shook his head, “it is not so when you are pack, for a pack is yours, then you are only sharing among which is already yours.”

Namjoon's voice teased, but with an undertone of seriousness, “we can be yours only if you can be ours.”

Seokjin smiled shyly. Why would they want to have him? He was nothing of note, unworthy to be a member of their pack. But who was he to disagree with Namjoon’s desires?

“If you’d like,” Seokjin murmured softly. The pack beamed from ear to ear.

Jungkook opened his eyes, jumping on his feet, hand displayed, “look! Look! My hand!”

Seokjin peered down at Jungkook’s hand, the smooth expanse of his skin, pale fingers and…Claws. Claws jutting from his hand, curved and sharp, entirely dragon.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

The shop was hidden on a little side street in Seoul.

The shop was lodged between a small, grimy restaurant, the scent of Tteokbokki wafting on the air, and a store selling second-hand electronics, a bored teenager yawning as he swept the front steps.

The shop would not appear to all, for it was a magic shop.

A white wooden door awning, the door closed, the glass grimy, so thick with dust it was impossible to see through. Human’s eyes passed over the shop as they walked by, and the shop would disappear from their memory before they left the street.

The store was both in time and out of time, both in Seoul and in other planes.

Every member of the magical community knew to be kind to the magic shops and their shopkeepers. If you offended them, the shop would swallow you when it disappeared, and you would never be seen again.

Seokjin rang the doorbell, the sound clear and bright against the rainy day. It had been Hoseok’s idea to come to the shop in the first place.

A week of Seokjin helping Jungkook to turn had been helpful, but not definitive. He could transform a hand into claws, had made a few scales appear along his shoulders, but no full transformation.

Seokjin kept repeating to Jungkook that their kind measured their time in centuries, not years, that it would not matter if Jungkook couldn’t change for another century.

But Jungkook was young and impatient, and Hoseok had wondered if getting magical ingredients might speed along the process.

Crushed tiger’s eye to motivate, meadowsweet for protection, lethe river water to remember, a feather of maat for truth, and the magical golden powder of a pixy, to motivate Jungkook’s innate magic.

Seokjin had agreed, which was how they found themselves bundled up in coats and scarves, leaving their home of eternal springtime, to wander into the city, the pull of the magic drawing them to this grimy little sidestreet, ignored by the human world.

The door swung open soundlessly. Seokjin stepped inside, the pack following, eyes widening. The store instead was much bigger and brighter than it’s unobtrusive exterior.

A large skylight shone moonlight into the space, and Seokjin peered through the glass of skylight to see two moons shining brightly down upon them. Another plane.

A spiral staircase made of silver, carved full of bouquets glistening silver flowers, flowers which flourished and died in an instant, curved upwards to the continuing succession of balconies encircling the room. Ornate pillars supported the levels of the magic shop, which reached endlessly to a ceiling so high Seokjin could only see the pillars swallowed by pale wisps of clouds.

The shop was filled with rows of cherry wooden shelves, curved and decorated with hundreds wooden cherubs, who danced, and frolicked, running across the shelves with reckless abandon.

Inside the shelves were every magical ingredient in no discernible order. A dozen unicorn horns were shoved next to pots of solid gold filled with hellebore.

Dozens of crystal balls reflecting scenes of war and sex shone next to smoking cauldrons, which rose a dark purple smoke and smelled like a summertime romp against silken sheets.

Piles of moonstones glinted next to the largest diamond Seokjin had ever seen, set in an ornate golden ring.

A statue made of solid gold, the man depicted cowering in fear, stood next to a tall and ornate golden mirror, with a note stuck on and written in cursive, “do not look into it!”

And in the middle, before the staircase, there was a middle-aged woman, perfectly unobtrusive, a person anyone would walk by any day and not give a second thought about. She appeared perfectly normal, sitting behind a small table with a simple cash register.

Seokjin bowed low as he approached, the pack at his back.

“Hello, most honorable lady. Do you welcome us into your shop?”

The woman shrugged her shoulders, eyes dancing over them. “The shop decides, not me. I just deal with payment.”

Seokjin smiled politely. “I am here with my pack. We are looking for some ingredients, if you would be most kind as to direct us…”

“The shop decides where you go,” the woman said, her voice perfectly calm, “either finding you what you came here for, or your most delectable nightmare made flesh.”

Seokjin nodded, and Jungkook’s eyes widened, sniffing at the air, voice rising with excitement. “Are you…Are you a sphinx?”

The woman’s eyes flashed golden. Seokjin took a step forward, hiding Jungkook between the pack members. If she was going to attack them, it would be a nasty fight.

“He meant no offense, honored lady.”

She sniffed delicately, “was your insolent pack member going to make a poor joke about how I smelled like both lion and bird?”

Jungkook stepped forward again, still smiling. “No, no. I’m a dragon you see, Seokjin is too.” He pointed at Seokjin. “I’m trying to learn more about dragons, and Seokjin always says how we’re the best at solving riddles. And you’re the best at making riddles, according to all the myths, so would you make us one?”

The sphinx’s eyes widened, but her voice was happier than before, “it is a poor thing to have dragons disappear from our plane. For they were creatures of magic, as this place is. To lose them is to lose a spark of that magic, to greed and vanity. No one has asked me for a riddle in a very long time, fledgling. But I am happy to ask a question. If you and…Seokjin lose, then I will, of course, according to the rules of old, eat you both.”

Namjoon let out a strangled yell, but Seokjin nodded, hand behind his back in the smooth motion to calm.

Better to have the sphinx be comfortable with them if they needed to fight their way out of it. Jungkook shifted on his feet, eyes worryingly darting to Seokjin. Seokjin opened his mouth before Jungkook could respond.

“Of course, most honored lady. Would you thread us a riddle that the poets might write legends about?”

The sphinx blushed prettily. “You have a honey tongue. Very well. There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?”

Seokjin closed his eyes, hand raising for silence. He hoped desperately the pack was getting ready to attack if he got it wrong.

There was a house…

You are blind when you enter…

You can see when you leave…

What was it…

Seokjin opened his eyes, voice soft, “a school.”

The sphinx clapped her hands together delightedly. “Another! Another!”

The pack let out an exhale of relief, coming to pat at Seokjin’s arm and chest, as if to ensure they were all safe. Seokjin wondered at it, concern about Jungkook, certainly. But concern about him?

“If you promise not to kill us,” Seokjin said sternly. “Once I understand, for tradition’s sake, but we’re paying customers after all.”

“All right, all right,” the sphinx said good-naturedly. “Your pack mates can go off and get what they can find. You and I will have a chat.”

“Alright,” Seokjin agreed, “buy what you’d like,” he said to the pack.

Jimin and Taehyung left to explore with a cheer, the rest of the pack trailing behind, Jungkook and Yoongi looking worriedly back at Seokjin as they followed the others.

“They like you,” the sphinx said with humor.

“How ridiculous,” Seokjin retorted. “I am most grateful that they have accepted me, but to like me, that is another thing entirely.”

“I smell lies remember?” the sphinx announced with an arched eyebrow. “They have nothing but joy, admiration, and love for you in their hearts.”

Seokjin blushed at her pronouncement. Love? He was glad the pack wasn’t around to hear.

“I like them,” Seokjin admitted, “but I do not wish to impose, they have already done much for me.”

The sphinx smiled, but it was a sad smile, a smile of brittle beauty and cold wind. “You do not need to punish yourself for having lost.”

Seokjin bit his tongue, blood welling, “how do you…”

“My siblings and I are long lived,” the sphinx said. “In any case, it would be very hard to forget what kind of dragon you are, dragon-who-now-goes-by-the-name-of-Kim-Seokjin.”

“I like this life,” Seokjin argued, “I like this name.”

“Then it is truth,” the sphinx shrugged. “But you should not assume peace. You form a pack of seven, a most magic and sacred number.

You form this pack with a most powerful and august warlock, a vicious and ambitious vampire, a titled and calculating fae, a commanding and potent phoenix, and a compelling and loyal nymph, alongside yourself and another dragon. When you hid, when you were all but dead in truth, there was little risk.

Now? Now you are a true threat to those who would wish to tame magic, to constrain it to magical practices and under Council supervision. We know that’s not what magic is, those of us who have walked this earth since the first bushel of wheat was tamed by human hands.

Magic is a wild and uncompromising beauty. Magic is the thrill before jumping of a cliff. The quiet of the sunrise. The heat of another’s skin against your own. The blaze of stars at twilight.

That is magic. That is what you represent, you and your pack.”

“Then I should leave,” Seokjin murmured, tension riding his shoulders, “before they are harmed by my fault.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the sphinx laughed, “they would never let you leave. Now would that be in cash? We also take gold doubloons, cornucopias, or a lightning bolt as acceptable payment currencies.”

Seokjin turned, eyes widening at the pack. Their hands were full of magical items.

Jungkook carried a compass, a rolled up map of Australia, and a giant box labelled “coins 1942-45.”

Taehyung’s hand were full of giant hogweed, bitter nightshade and oleander.

Jimin held a silk net filled with eternally burning fire, cradling it lovingly in his hands.

Namjoon’s hands were filled with magical scrolls and books, which came alive, snapping and roaring at each other as he held on to them.

Hoseok’s held a geom, with a handle inlaid with sparkling emeralds.

And Yoongi, who had drifted slowly after the pack into the shop, reticent to explore, held a ruby red pomegranate in one hand, and a lute, carved of solid silver, with strings threaded with gold, in the other.

They all smiled sheepishly at Seokjin, and Seokjin turned back to the sphinx with a sigh. “You mentioned gold doubloons worked for payment?”

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Jungkook had been thoroughly scolded by the pack on the way home.

Seokjin had assumed the pack would ignore the danger Jungkook had put them in by angering the sphinx. Jungkook had been coddled as long as Seokjin had been in the pack. He was young, and protected, naive to the dangers of the supernatural world.

Seokjin had the responsibility to protect the whole pack, and had almost failed. If anything, the pack should criticize him.

However, the pack seemed to take it quite seriously that Jungkook should have been more careful not to put them in danger, especially, as Jimin noted, “when it’s a clearly magical lady in a magic shop in another dimension.”

Jungkook had agreed with grace to be more careful, apologizing prettily to Seokjin. And how could Seokjin not forgive him easily, for he gave so much of himself so freely, with no expectations of anything in return?

The pack had come back to their home, Taehyung drifting to plant his new finds in the garden with Jungkook, Jimin and Namjoon at his side.

Yoongi had gone to play his new lute for the weeping willow, which swayed happily in the breeze, leaves dancing in the wind.

Seokjin had gone to the kitchen, happy for the silence, beef sizzling on the stove, afternoon sunlight painting the kitchen in golden hues.

Seokjin turned slightly as the door swung open, the grin on his lips faltering slightly as Hoseok walked in. Seokjin liked Hoseok, and Hoseok had been nothing but kind to him, with gentle smiles and easy laughter.

But, Hoseok had never shared much of himself with Seokjin, and Seokjin realized it was probably the first time they’d been alone together since he'd joined the pack.

“Is there something you need?” Seokjin asked softly.

Hoseok bit at his lip, hesitant, eyes darting away from Seokjin's, before pulling out a chair, rocking back and forth on his heels as he sat.

“I…I realized something today.”

“That is good news,” Seokjin said kindly, wondering at Hoseok’s hesitation. “Would you like to share what you’ve learned?”

Hoseok sighed, “I…I don’t think I realized how different you and Jungkook were before.”

“Different?” Seokjin questioned, “different how?” Seokjin certainly did not want Hoseok to look at Jungkook differently because of something Seokjin had done.

Hoseok huffed softly. “I…I knew the Council would want your scales, your bones, for their magical properties. I knew what you both are; dragons, creatures of power, of fire and brimstone.”

Seokjin swallowed as Hoseok trailed off. “I’m not sure I understand, Hoseok.”

“Would you sit?” Hoseok indicated with a sweep of his arm, “I’m not quite sure how to articulate this.”

Seokjin nodded, moving to the unoccupied chair, “would you like Namjoon or Yoongi…”

Hoseok shook his head, “you’re my pack member. I’m talking to you.”

Seokjin’s shoulders stiffened at Hoseok’s harsh words. “If you are angry at me about something…”

“I’m not angry at you,” Hoseok murmured, hand reaching out for Seokjin’s forearm. His touch was cold as ice, but Seokjin softened nonetheless, knowing his skin, in return, radiated heat.

“I…When we were in the magic shop, a place of wonder and fairytales, you and Jungkook fit in perfectly. I finally understand what you mean when you said dragons are creatures of magic. The Council, what they did to your kind, it was a desecration, leaving bleeding wounds on the face of our world. Magic is dissipating into mist. There are fewer fairy rings, fewer bridges to the underworld, fewer djinn lamps appearing for the unlucky.”

“Jungkook is safe with the pack,” Seokjin murmured, softening at Hoseok’s rising fear.

Hoseok shook his head, “no. There’s less magic now than there ever was. Mermaids hide in the deep, werewolves cower in the darkness of the forest, and unicorns have all been captured. The magic you and Jungkook have is rarer than ever. The Council will take greater risks to make you theirs, to use you.”

Hoseok sighed at his own rising voice, shaking his head again, hiding behind his hair.

“When I joined the pack, one of the most important things that drew me was that there wasn’t any politics. We had no involvement with the Council.

Namjoon could be the head of the witches’ school if he wanted, because he’s powerful enough for that, but he favors knowledge over all else. Yoongi hides from the inheritance he’s entitled to. Jimin never acknowledges that every other pack in the world would want him for what a phoenix represents. Taehyung has powerful family members that he never even acknowledges. Jungkook hid from any other pack but ours, because we loved him for who he was.

We’ve come together because we love each other, not because of power, or greed.”

Seokjin stiffened at Hoseok’s pronouncement, “if you think it’s best that I leave, because I put you all at risk, in order to protect the pack…”

Hoseok’s eyes widened, rising in his seat. “What? No! That’s not what I meant. Even though you came to us under…Less than ideal circ*mstances. You came out of love for Jungkook. You might love us too, one day.”

Seokjin wondered at the confidence in Hoseok’s tone. Was Seokjin's own wanting for the other pack members really so obvious?

Seokjin nodded, nonetheless, his voice rising again, “are you just worried that we won’t be able to beat the Council if they do come for Jungkook?”

A smile tinged Hoseok’s lips, but his eyes were cold. “No. I’m not worried about winning against the Council. I came to you because it seems like you’re the only one who would understand, based on what you did in the war.”

Seokjin stiffened. What did Hoseok know? What had he overheard?

“I mean…” Hoseok continued, “just because you were in the war, and I know they were violent times.”

Seokjin exhaled softly. Hoseok was only guessing then. He didn’t know.

“They were violent and bloody times,” Seokjin said, “I don’t regret my actions then. I won’t regret doing the same thing in the future to protect the pack.”

Hoseok’s stiffened, but his voice remained soft, “when I met the pack…When I came to them…I was already old, already separated from my sire. I’d left to wander the world, I’d assumed control of my bloodlust. I told them some of what I did, what I was…But I don’t think they understood. I don’t think they would understand, the way you would.”

“What you were?” Seokjin asked, voice tender.

“Vampires are creatures of the earth, of blood, of this earth,” Hoseok explained, “there’s very little magic in us, beyond the turning, the immortality and the invulnerability. The ones of us who survive, we have to be vicious, to be cruel.”

“You had to survive,” Seokjin murmured.

Hoseok’s voice was calm, his face pale, “I’m not as old as you or Yoongi. However, I have walked this earth for a long time, Seokjin. I was a kingkiller and an oath breaker as a human. I destroyed good men and women out of ambition and power. If I’d won the crown I desired, I wouldn’t have felt a second of guilt.

My sire chose me as one worthy of following him because of that. I was in a dank dungeon, waiting for execution. Outside my window I could see my followers being ripped apart by fellow humans, their blood staining the ground, their screams rising in the air. When my sire came, the guards thought him first a god wandering the earth, as perfectly formed in glory as he was. He laughed as the guards cried for mercy, a golden angel of death and destruction as he drank their blood.

I accepted his offer to turn anyway, despite what I knew he was, a monster. I was grateful to escape the emprise of mortality, to escape my own death, even if it meant following my sire.”

“He hurt you?” Seokjin questioned, wondering if Hoseok would mind if he found his sire and ripped him apart limb from limb.

Hoseok laughed softly, “it was not a time of tender kindness. But no, not more than any other sire would have. I loved being a vampire. Bloodlust and cruelty were natural to me as a human, and as a vampire, I could do that tenfold. My sire and I, we stalked the world, wetting our swords with blood on every battlefield.

We laughed in the face of terror. We drank the blood of innocents. We cherished every title they gave us. Children of Lilith. Dhampir. Moroi. Asasabosam. We wore each title like a crown, as if the terror humans had for us made us kings, proud of the destruction we wrought.

And then, like many immortals, we grew bored. My sire retreated from the world, and I left to wander a world transformed, a world of humans who had surpassed the supernatural world in viciousness and cruelty, who worshiped technology and refused to believe that the monsters they used to fear for millennia still crept in the shadows. I met the pack, and fell in love with the peace they offered. Love for them grew over the course of years. If the Council would hurt them…”

“You will do what you must,” Seokjin murmured.

Hoseok smiled, a soft, tender grin, “I know you will do the same as well.”

“Do you worry the pack will judge you, for what you might have to do?” Seokjin wondered. Hoseok, they would surely forgive, for they loved him, but would they extend the same grace to Seokjin, for following Hoseok into battle?

“No,” Hoseok said, “I think the pack will forgive me, justifying it in whichever way they must. I certainly won’t regret what I might have to do. I will set the world on fire to protect my pack. I’ll dance in the blood of my enemies and place their heads on spikes for the world to see. I just…I worry…That, once again, I’ll enjoy the massacres.”

Seokjin shrugged his shoulders, hand reaching and wrapping around Hoseok’s. “I am not the best one to come to for questions of morality, Hoseok. This is your nature, blood, earth and violence. Just as mine is ash and fire. And like you said, the pack will love you, whatever you do, even if the bloodstains never wash from your hands.”

Hoseok nodded, smiling softly, as the last rays of sunlight tinged his face in shadow. “I know, Seokjin. I think about the Council, safe in their beds, sleeping the dreams of conquerors, and I salivate at the prospect.”

Seokjin smiled wildly, heat and warmth consuming him.

Seokjin leaned forward, tentatively, his hand reaching for Hoseok’s cheek, pulling him in, their lips meeting. Freezing cold against blazing warmth, skin as soft as silk.

Seokjin could feel Hoseok’s hands tracing over his skin, Seokjin’s hand reaching to trace through Hoseok’s hair as they breathed each other in.

Giddiness filled Seokjin as he pulled away with a grin. Hoseok’s eyes were wide, blazing red dotting his cheeks.

“I will stand alongside you as you destroy our enemies, Hoseok. Of that, you have my promise.”

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

Seokjin was enjoying the sun. It had been a quiet few days with the pack, and he felt closer to all of them. They had not spoken of him kissing Hoseok, but Seokjin could not find it in him to regret the kiss. Every night, he curled up with the pack, and woke to kind words and soft hands reaching for his.

Today, Namjoon was picking some ingredients for his spells, Taehyung going along with him, always in the search of new plants. Hoseok had stayed inside reading the Art of War, Jimin curled up on his lap and falling to sleep.

Jungkook had spent the morning practicing to turn. He was getting better, the turns more consistent, the appearance of scales, of claws appearing every time now. But no full turn, not yet. Seokjin had forced him to take the afternoon off, and he’d gone to the living room to curl up next to Jimin.

Jungkook had invited him to join them, but Seokjin could not refuse the allure of the bright blue sky, and he’d gone out to doze in the grass, under the shade of a large oak.

He felt like he did when he was younger, when he would fly to a mountaintop and sun himself, spreading his wings wide. He still refused to turn in front of them, but the sentiment, the feeling of peace, that was the same, until a shadow covered him.

“Jin,” Yoongi hissed in a low voice. Seokjin opened his eyes, peering up. “Yoongi, what is it? Is something wrong?”

Seokjin blinked, sitting up quickly. Yoongi wore all black, heavy leather and metal boots, and a wool beanie which covered his face. In his hand was the sword Seokjin had given him, gleaming silver in the sunlight.

“Are you going somewhere?” Seokjin asked.

“I need you to come with me,” Yoongi said. “I need to go do something, and I trust you to help me.”

“I can get a few other pack members,” Seokjin said, “and…”

“No, just you,” Yoongi whispered, “I don’t want any questions until its done.”

“Are you doing something dangerous?” Seokjin asked.

“It’s foolish,” Yoongi said, biting at his lip, “but it needs to be done.”

“Will you do it anyway, if I don’t come with you?” Seokjin questioned.

“I’ll go alone,” Yoongi said, “but please come with me.”

Seokjin could see the tension in Yoongi’s eyes, the harsh set of his shoulders, his hand, gripped around the sword, was trembling.

“Alright,” Seokjin said, hand reaching for Yoongi’s, “where are we going?”

Yoongi took Seokjin through the city, through crowds of people, past blaring neon signs for gambling, past bright lights becoming prospective customers for 24-hour food, past darkened alleyways where kee-wakw waited for the drunks to stumble, under the slumbering giants of skyscrapers overhead.

Yoongi followed the curve of the river, a few hippocampi darting through the water, all the way to a tiny little park. It was nondescript, green grass, a few short trees, a playground for children, empty in the afternoon.

As Yoongi started to walk into the park, he’d been reticent to talk, but Seokjin had kept close at his heels, their hands gripped together.

As they walked, the park kept getting longer, stretching out. The sounds of the city disappearing. The trees grew taller, hewn oak next to gnarled maple, the rustling sounds of birds, the grass thicker and wilder, moss gleaming like jewels on the bark. They weren’t in Seoul anymore.

Yoongi turned left at an alder tree, which loomed and cast a shadow over Seokjin as he followed. Yoongi almost disappeared into the shadows as he stepped into a clearing, where stood a ring of mushrooms, white and stark.

Sunlight seemed to retreat from the circle, refracting and shattering.

“Yoongi,” Seokjin asked, “what are we doing?”

“There’s only one way into the Unseelie court,” Yoongi murmured, “the path of hawthorn and oak.”

“You want to go into Unseelie land?” Seokjin hissed.

Fear rose in him. They shouldn’t have gone by themselves, they surely should have told the pack where they were going. Faes were creatures of trickeries, of traps. No one entered the Unseelie Court as they left it.

The young left aged, returning home to families long turned to dust.

Cowards came home heroes, their swords turning to bramble as they re-entered the human plane once again.

Good people returned twisted, blood on their teeth and madness in their mind.

“No,” Yoongi spoke, voice trembling, “it would probably make you go insane, even if they couldn’t kill you. And in any case, I’m not allowed in.”

“Why not?” Seokjin asked, his hand reaching for Yoongi’s shoulder.

Yoongi laughed sharply, harshly, “I am the Lord of Misrule and Treachery. Our family has never been one for peace. My father made a move against King Oberon. A foolish treason attempt, not well thought out.

Faes were retreating from walking the earth then. My father and his co-conspirators thought it was a mistake. They thought they could turn back time, push back the tides of humans which overran the earth.

My father’s fatal flaw was always wanting to be liked. He thought his co-conspirators were his friends. I think his co-conspirators never thought he would succeed at imprisoning Oberon, that they were just inducing him into treason, a hilarious joke.

But my father won in battle against Oberon. He imprisoned him in iron chains and staked him to the earth. He thought he could have the crown and no enemies besides.

Queen Titania of the Seelie might hate her husband, but she would not abide his death, or his humiliation.

She invaded with the gleaming silver armies of the Seelie and saved Oberon. And once he was freed from the iron, his wrath was…terrifying and all-encompassing. My whole family was put to the sword.

But the founder of our line, Robin Goodfellow, he served loyally and true Titania and Oberon when they were still carving out their kingdoms from the wildness of fairyland, when faes still walked the earth. They could not abide the end of his line.

I was the youngest, innocent, so they chose to give me grace. Or rather, the fae version of mercy. They exiled me to earth, to walk among humans.”

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin murmured, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Yoongi shook his head, as if trying to shake off the grief that plagued him, “it was hard at the beginning. I had never known hunger or cold. I learned quickly how to beg for food, how to avoid the kicks and spits of the cruel, how to sell my body.

Then, when I was older, I sold a different part of myself, my skills with a sword, my skills of strategy, letting others gain the crown and the glory.

For millennia, until I found Namjoon, and Hoseok, and then our pack grew. I learned to love my life on earth, to love the pack.”

Seokjin felt the intensity of Yoongi’s words, desperately, incredulously wishing that Yoongi included him in the pack he spoke so lovingly of.

“You want to go to the Court of the Unseelie and ask Oberon for help against the Council?” Seokjin asked.

Yoongi shook his head, “no. Oberon forgave me centuries ago. He saw my talent for deceit, for duplicity, and wanted it for his own. I was lord of my line, even if my family’s castles had been razed, our land taken by the crown. I didn’t want to come back, I refused the land which had rejected me, which had shown me such...Such cruelty. Oberon grew angered, refused me entry into fairyland until I accepted his offer. I could not. But now…now I think I must.”

Yoongi sighed softly, kneeling down outside the circle. It was only mid-afternoon in Seoul, Seokjin knew, but the moonlight had crept in, overtaking them. Silver beams sparkled against the sharp cut of Yoongi’s cheek, his eyes gleaming silver, hands pale under the moonlight.

“I call upon thee faeries of mischief and merry. Who walks the road of rowan and cherry. I call upon thee faeries of glamor and misery. Who walks the path of the acorn and the oak.

I call upon thee, for I am a lord among you. I am lord of Misrule and Treachery. I rule all the solitary faes, those sprites, brownies, boggart, púca, pixies, and hobgoblins that wander the night.

Those faes of gloom that curdle the milk brought to the baby’s lips. Those faes of darkness that brings children golden swords that turn into leaves in the morning light. Those faes of madness that give a man a sword made of brambles and makes him believe he is a king. Those faes of illusion that sit behind the throne and whispers into the crown’s ear. I am the lord of dancing shadows. I bow to no one but King Oberon, the lord of moonlight, the lord of dreams, the lord of all Unseelie faeries. I call upon thee.”

Yoongi placed the sword against his palm, blood pouring from the wound, spilling across the earth inside the faerie ring.

Seokjin stumbled back as a woman appeared in the mushroom ring.

She had dark red flowing hair, red-rimmed eyes, and a pale face. Seokjin reached for his fire inside of him, uncertain if she was a threat, but Yoongi came to his feet gracefully, hand reaching for Seokjin’s once again.

The woman spoke with a beautiful voice, soft and tender in the moonlight. “Lord Yoongi. King Oberon has offered you a place at his court and you have refused our king. You now come crawling on bended knee to plead his succor.”

“He is not crawling,” Seokjin hissed, shoulders straightening.

“Seokjin,” Yoongi whispered worriedly, but Seokjin could see the soft gleam in his eye at Seokjin’s protectiveness.

The woman looked at Seokjin. “You have had many names. You have had many lives. You have been the desolation of many. My king lost to you once, when he wore the skin of a man, and you fought for a huckster king. My king has no quarrel with you.”

“Yoongi is my packmate,” Seokjin argued stiffly, “an insult to him is an insult to the rest of us.”

Yoongi nodded, turning back to the woman. “Lady of the Wailing, Lady of the Banshee, I have not refused my King thrice. I have refused him once, by pure selfishness. Is that not the way of all the faes? Would he want me to serve him faithfully, to bow to his whims like a boring hound?”

The woman, no, the banshee, smiled at Yoongi with a wry grin, “you are not boring, neither you or your pack, of that much is certain.”

“My pack?” Yoongi questioned, brows furrowing.

The banshee laughed, soft and sweet, “Even though we no longer wander the glens and woodlands of this earth, we still keep an eye on this plane. We have kept a close eye on you. On your pack.”

Yoongi shook his head, “then why does my king refuse to meet with me? I will swear myself to his service in return for his aid in the coming war with the Council.”

Seokjin gasped, hand tightening around Yoongi’s. If Oberon thought he could separate the pack…Seokjin felt the fire rise in his belly.

The banshee shook her head. “He does not refuse you. The King does not need a promise of service through gritted teeth. The Council has not just made enemies of you.

Changelings have been murdered in their beds, their bones sold to be worn like baubles around council members’ necks. We thought there had been peace after the last war with the dragons, but another war is coming, like a tidal wave to drown us all.

King Oberon, nor Queen Titania, can accept the death of their kin and subjects. The faeries cannot run away again.

You will be the sword of our king, Lord Yoongi, Lord of Misrule and Treachery. We will have our vengeance through you, and then, if you wish to come to court after you win, you will be welcome with the sounds of trumpets and lyres singing to your victory.”

“And if we lose? If we need to run and hide?” Yoongi asked, his face inhuman, gleaming perfection in the moonlight.

The banshee looked disdainfully at him, “you shall not lose. Keep the sword of our king, Lord Yoongi, and return here with the heads of our enemies.”

Yoongi nodded, eyes sharp.

The banshee smiled quickly, turning to Seokjin, “eventually, my king would like a rematch.” She bowed at the waist and disappeared like a cold breeze, leaving behind the scent of bluebells and chrysanthemum.

Seokjin turned to Yoongi, who held on to the sword with a trembling hand, grass stained with his blood. Seokjin reached for Yoongi, despairing at the sign of the blood dripping from his palm.

They were being moved around like chess pieces, and more blood would need to be spilt before this was over.

“Yoongi, let us go,” Seokjin murmured. Yoongi nodded, silence overwhelming them.

They walked back out, hand in hand, silent, through the dark woods and along the babbling brooks, out of that in-between place they had come from, back into Seoul, back into the park they had wandered from.

Seokjin blinked at the morning light, harsh against their tired eyes. He saw the playground, which had sat abandoned when they had walked past it only an hour or so before on that dreary afternoon, filled with children, laughing and yelling in the morning light. Parents sipped on their coffee, complaining good-naturedly to each other.

“Yoongi,” Seokjin murmured, eyes wide, voice rising, “how much time has passed?”

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

They had been gone two weeks. Two weeks of the pack searching for them.

Two weeks of the pack thinking they’d been kidnapped by the Council.

Two weeks of Taehyung calling to the trees and the flowers and only hearing silence in return.

Two weeks of Namjoon scrying with every spell he knew, only to fail, again and again.

Two weeks of Hoseok calling every vampire in Seoul, with no success, and then trying to get a hold of sire, slumbering and still as he was.

Two weeks of Jimin tearing out his own feathers and wishing good luck onto them, hoping Seokjin and Yoongi would come back whole.

Two weeks of Jungkook wandering around despairingly, trying and failing to turn, unable to help.

The pack had been happy, at first, to see them. They’d hugged them, making sure they weren’t hurt, patting at their arms and legs, fussing over Yoongi’s still bleeding cut.

The flowers bloomed ever brighter as their return, the trees waiving happily in the breeze, even the pond sparkled more brightly in the morning light.

But then…Once back home, curled up in their living room, fire crackling, warmth filling the room…The fight started, and Seokjin curled in on himself.

“What were you thinking?” Jimin asked, again.

“The Council is coming,” Yoongi repeated, in an infuriatingly calm voice. Even in the morning light of the house, he still looked slightly too perfect, too ephemeral, as if he’d assumed human skin to pass in the daylight. “We had to be prepared for what’s going to happen. King Oberon could offer us succor and protection.”

“And what did you get?” Hoseok muttered. “Nothing but a promise that means nothing. No protection, no support. It’s exactly the kind of promise the Unseelie Court would offer you. Golden and shining on the outside, but inside, it’s all air and mist. If we win, they get the credit, and if we lose they were never involved. All while we were all going mad with worry?”

“And what were you thinking?” Jimin argued, cutting Hoseok off, turning to Seokjin, his face red. “You know better.”

“I…” Seokjin turned in on himself, curling up. Why was Jimin asking him? Why did he matter here? Seokjin’s fingers twisted together.

“Yoongi asked me for his help. He said I wanted to go alone, I thought it would be safer for him if I went with him.”

“Yoongi would be safe in either case,” Taehyung pointed out, “he’s Unseelie. He’s of the land. They won’t reject him. You on the other hand…”

“You might be a powerful dragon,” Namjoon stated, “but you aren’t vulnerable, especially in another plane, as you yourself pointed out. You could have been tricked to dance forever on bloody feet, or eat a golden apple of youth that granted you eternal slumber.”

“Why would you care?” Seokjin murmured. Silence overcame the room.

“Am I talking to myself?” Jimin snarled. “You are pack. We care if you get hurt or die Seokjin! I don’t know how many other ways I can explain it to you. We show it to you every day. We want you here, in the pack. With us.”

Seokjin sighed, biting at his lip. Laying everything out in the open would hurt, certainly. But it would be like pulling off a bandage, with the injury healing quickly. They would forget about him, a dying memory in the moonlight.

“It’s not…I understand why I’m here. I understand my purpose in the pack.”

“Enlighten us then,” Jungkook snarled, crossing his arms.

Seokjin spoke softly. “I’m just here to help Jungkook, to make you safer. I appreciate that you tolerate me, that you’ve been kind and generous.”

“Tolerate you?” Yoongi asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes,” Seokjin said, “I’m very grateful. That you even act like you want me is…Appreciated. Jungkook will likely be able to turn soon, but I won’t leave while the fight with the Council is ongoing, if that is your concern.”

Namjoon’s voice was a little above a whisper. “Seokjin, you make us breakfast every morning. You help Taehyung with his plans, and me with my potions. You listen to Yoongi play his music and read next to Hoseok. You help Jimin think of himself as more than a good luck charm. And Jungkook…You’ve made Jungkook whole.”

“I know,” Seokjin responded, “I understand, I’m an asset to the pack. I help make you all whole.”

Yoongi reached out, laying hands on Seokjin. “Seokjin, you know I can’t lie. I say this to you with a true tongue of silver and no untruths between my teeth. We want you. And to be honest, if we don’t love you already, we will soon. When you said you were my packmate to the Lady of the Wailing in the mushroom circle, my heart skipped a beat. That’s what we want. We want you as a pack member, with all the good and love that entails.”

Seokjin laughed abruptly, hand coming to cover his mouth, “how ridiculous.”

“You don’t think we want you?” Hoseok responded, leaning forward.

Seokjin pointed at his body. It hurt of course, to ignore his feelings, but at least they wanted something from him, even if it was just his body. “You can want me. If you want me, I could want you to. I’ll give you what you want.”

“I want you to be with us, because you want to,” Taehyung murmured, hands reaching for Seokjin. “You don’t owe us anything. But how do we show you that we want to be with you. That we want you in the pack? We’ve done everything that’s worked well with the other pack members honestly, and none of it seems to resonate with you.”

Seokjin felt anger rise in him, feeling like he was the butt of a bad joke. “You wanted the other pack members because you had the choice, you chose them. You didn’t choose me. The Council foisted me on you, abandoned and lonely as I was. An obligation, not a desire.”

Namjoon rolled his eyes. “The Council can’t make us do anything we don’t want. We could have said no to accepting a new member. Yes, it would likely take longer for Jungkook to turn. But we would have found a way. Jungkook would have found a way. It was useful we found you, but you don’t think we talked about it? We were open to having a new pack member.”

Jungkook smiled softly, leaning forward. “And then you came, with your sweetness and your light. Your unending kindness in the face of everything you’ve gone through. You’re the strongest person I know Seokjin, and we want you for everything you are, everything you’ve been, everything you will become.”

Seokjin shook his head, but he thought of the words again his head. Could they really want him?

Seokjin laughed harshly once more, “I’m broken and ruined Jungkook. No one wants me. Not anymore.”

“You aren’t broken,” Hoseok hissed, “and your previous lovers, they did you a great disservice if they made you think that, even for a moment.”

Seokjin shook his head, “my previous lovers? I was desperate for them. Maybe before the wars, I was worth something, anything. But after? I was clinging and needy. I only brought pity.”

“We don’t pity you,” Yoongi said. “I’m truly sorry for what happened to you. If I could save you from a second of that pain I would. But in the absence of that power, I want you to be happy now. Happy with us.”

Seokjin sighed, looking out the window. The moonlight shining through the window, the heat rising as the afternoon sun glowed with golden light.

He thought about what his life had been. Those desperate lonely nights, where he curled up and sobbed for all that he’d lost. The places in his memories, gone. His family, bleeding to death in the earth.

What he’d had to become to survive had made him into something he hated, something he despised. How many centuries had he despised himself?

Looking for connection in the warm body of another, in games of strategy that left him cold, in the anonymity of crowds of people who would have no memories of the so-called-man who walked by them.

“I want to be happy,” Seokjin murmured, finally, haltingly. “I don’t know how to anymore, it’s like castles of sand. The waves of time have destroyed my memories of happiness.”

Jimin’s voice was soft, contemplative. “Haven’t you been happy with us the last few weeks?”

Seokjin’s voice rose with virulence, “of course I have! I just….It’s temporary. You’ve only known me for a few weeks. You’ve only seen the face that I show you. You’ll grow bored of me. You’ll see me as I am, and you’ll despise me for it.”

“Why would we hate you?” Jungkook murmured.

Seokjin thought of all that he had done, the blood on his hands, the lack of regret he held in his heart.

“I’m not human. I appear it. I smile and I laugh. But underneath my skin is a dragon. Ferocious and power-hungry. The core of me, the truth of me, only sees power and possession in equal measure. If I want you, there is no going back. I’m the same dragon I’ve been for millennia. The same dragon that has lead armies and struck fear in my enemies’ hearts. I have played with the shattered hearts of my lovers. I have destroyed my enemies, and I have never felt an ounce of regret. If you say you’re mine, if you mean it, truly, honestly. There’s no going back. You’re mine, forever.”

Seokjin felt the shame rise in him, the embarrassment at his words. They would ask him to leave now. To pack his bags and disappear into the night. Disgusted by his greed, his selfishness. And how could he refuse them that last act of leaving, mortified and flayed open as he felt.

Jungkook smiled, broadly, happily. The opposite of what Seokjin was feeling. He radiated with excitement, the blush of youth making his eyes sparkle. “We want that Seokjin, we want to be yours, if you become ours as well.”

Seokjin dug his nails into his palms. They didn’t understand, how could they really, what he meant by his words.

The dragon that he was, was possessive, selfish, and when such a gift as this, the love of the pack was offered freely, he would take it happily.

And…It would be nice, at least for once, to be desired and possessed in equal measure in return. He could not refuse them anymore.

They would be his forever, and he could not refuse what they were offering him any longer. To take, as well as to give.

“Yes, Yes…I want to be yours.”

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

The next few weeks had been calmer, more peaceful. Nights cuddled together, days spent laughing, joy in every interaction, even a few kisses.

The pack was slowly opening up to each other, and Seokjin could not find it to hate himself. The pack was his, and he would take care of them.

Jimin had been gorgeous in the morning light, thin white silk against golden skin, silver rings glistening, smile warm and inviting.

He had invited Seokjin out for the day, “just the two of us,” Jimin had asked.

“It’s my favorite café,” Jimin added shyly. “I want to share it with you.”

“I would love to,” Seokjin responded with a smile.

The first hint of spring warmed the air as they walked through Seoul hand in hand, under the sparkling lights of skyscrapers against the clear blue sky.

They walked past the business district into an older area, smaller buildings crammed next to each other, restaurants with dim flashing lights offering “all you can eat” deals, next to electronic stores offering second-hand goods in dingy windows and clothing stores with mismatched mannequins and 50% off sale signs.

“I know it doesn’t look like much,” Jimin said, pointing with his hand to a tiny storefront, blue and white striped awning waving in the breeze. “But it’s really very good.”

Seokjin smiled, hand warm against Jimin’s, “I trust you.”

Jimin beamed, approaching the front door, a thick dark blue with a huge griffin knocker. As they stood in front of the door, the griffin opened its eyes, glowing blue sapphires, and flapped it’s bronze wings, voice like gravel, “State your purpose.”

“I’m Jimin, Phoenix, and this is Seokjin, Dragon. We’d like to come in and have lunch.”

The door swung open, “you are both welcome, child of eternal fire and planeswalker.”

Seokjin bowed to the phoenix knocker, which swung shut behind him.

Seokjin blinked his eyes. The café was a large room, much larger than it appeared to the human world.

Corinthian white pillars held up the ceiling, which held a dark blue sparkling painting of the constellations, Orion eternally chasing the Taurus as Andromeda sparkled in the night sky.

Large bay windows let in sunlight, while roses of every color bloomed like a rainbow in sky blue pots under the windows. The windows opened onto another plane, an endless garden, rows of perfect roses blooming under the brilliant light of two identical suns.

Small tables and golden chairs filled the space, while the whole room smelled like warm chocolate chip cookies.

The room was filled with creatures of myth and fairytales. A mermaid, tail waving in a small saltwater aquarium, chatted across from a kappa, who sipped at green tea. An echidna blushed, her scales reddening, as a cacus leaned across the table, blowing fire. A co*ckatrice, serpent tail wagging with excitement, whispered gossip to a harpy flapping her wings happily, as they snacked on lemon tarts.

A cyclops approached, and Seokjin noted the single eye blinking in her forehead, as well as the cute blue and white apron she wore, which held the script “Welcome to the Rose Garden!”

“Table for two?” she asked.

“Yes please,” Jimin said, as they followed her to their table. “I usually start with some appetizers if that’s alright. They also have some really good co*cktails.”

“Whatever you’d like,” Seokjin said, pulling out the chair for Jimin as he sat. Jimin pouted at him, “whatever you’d like Seokjin, I’m treating!”

Seokjin blushed, red tinging the tips of his ears. Jimin really did care. He could really have them.

“We have some specials,” the cyclops noted, “of particular interest to you might be a new co*cktail made from the sacred fire of the Vestal Virgins with a dash of a merlot from Dionysus’s own vineyard, very popular.”

“We’ll start with that, thank you,” Jimin said. The cyclops nodded, turning away, and Jimin reached for Seokjin’s hand.

“I’m glad we’re here. Together.”

“Me too,” Seokjin murmured. “You look lovely Jimin.” Jimin blushed a soft pink, fingers twisting through Seokjin’s.

“You really do…”

A bleating voice cut Jimin off. “Excuse me! Excuse me!”

Seokjin turned with a frown. “Can I help you?”

A tall werewolf stood in front of them, muscles bulging under a too tight suit, rolex glistening on his wrist, golden chains encircling his neck.

“I wasn’t speaking to you!” The werewolf snarled. “I was speaking to the phoenix.”

“Do I know you?” Jimin asked politely, hands still wrapped around Seokjin’s.

“I need a feather,” the werewolf stated, hands reaching out. “Had a bad stretch of luck recently. Everyone knows a phoenix feather brings good luck. Give me a feather.”

Jimin’s face paled, and he stiffened in his seat. Seokjin leaned forward. “Would you like to repeat that?”

The werewolf rolled his eyes. “It’s one feather. He won’t even miss it once he burns up in the summer. He’s letting all those feathers go to waste. It’ll give me good luck for a decade!”

“Sir,” the cyclops waitress re-approached, “you’re bothering customers, and you didn’t pay your bill. I’m going to have to ask you to pay and leave.”

“Screw you,” the werewolf snarled, “I was speaking to the phoenix. Now do someone a good deed and give me a feather.”

Seokjin stood up. Jimin reached for his arm, “Seokjin…” Jimin murmured.

“One moment sweetheart,” Seokjin murmured to Jimin.

Seokjin eyed the werewolf dubitatively. “Based on the scent of gin on your breath and your too small polyester suit, you’ve run into more than a little run of trouble. If you have debts you should go pray to Macuilxochitl or Dazhbog. You won’t find any good luck here.”

“No one was asking you,” the werewolf growled.

Seokjin stepped forward, crowding the werewolf against the table. The cyclops took a step back. “You mistake me, wiro-wulpos. I do not ask. You bother my packmate, who has spent today planning a very nice outing for us. You are bothering us.”

The werewolf pumped up his chest, “do you know who I am? What I do in this city? My pack…”

“I know Lycaon,” Seokjin murmured, “and I will write him and say that his kin insults me. I will ask him to cut you lose from his protection.”

The werewolf paled, “you don’t…No one’s seen Lycaon in over a thousand years. He curled up and died. I know everyone in Seoul who matters. I don’t know you.”

Seokjin smiled softly, hand coming to caress at the werewolf’s throat, grip as hard as iron, scent of ash and fire rising in the air.

“Perhaps I should remind Lycaon to come to Seoul anyway, to remind his children of why he should be feared. He fought a god, what would you or your pack do to him? He owes me a blood-debt for supporting him against Zeus, and even if he failed, the debt still holds.”

The werewolf stiffened, “look…”

Seokjin leaned to whisper in his ear. “You will apologize to my mate and you will pay your bill, leaving a tip for the very nice waitress. And then you will leave. But you will know, for the rest of your life, however long or short it is, depends entirely on my will. My breath on the back of your neck, jumping at shadows, that will be your legacy. And one day, when you finally let your guard down to rest, when you let go of your fear, I will be there, and then…We will have fun together, you and I.”

Seokjin stepped back with a smile. The werewolf skin was pale with fear, and he came to his knees, bowing in Jimin’s direction. “I’m most sorry Lord. Please forgive me.”

“Um…Yes you’re forgiven.” Jimin said, blinking at the werewolf, as Seokjin sat back down.

“What did you say to him?” Jimin murmured, as the werewolf bowed apologetically to the waitress in turn, hand reaching for his wallet.

“I just reminded him of his good manners,” Seokjin said, reaching for Jimin’s hand.

“Thank you,” Jimin said, eyes shining. “Everyone always think they’re entitled. I know phoenixes aren’t gone from this plane like dragons, but there’s so few of us. We live so long, such isolated lives. We have no natural defenses. All we can do is bring good luck and be immortal. It’s taken me a long time to learn no one is owed my feathers.”

“You are a magical creature,” Seokjin said softly, “a creature born of eternal fire. Invulnerable and immortal. A harbinger of good luck. Phoenixes have been worshiped as gods and as symbols of destruction. You have nothing to fear, and you should only do as you wish.”

Jimin leaned over the table, pulling Seokjin close with blazingly warm hands, soft lips tender against his.

Seokjin could taste the warmth of fire and myrrh as he softened into the embrace, hands coming to trace Jimin’s soft skin. Seokjin pulled away softly, and Jimin’s grin was positively degenerate.

“More later,” Jimin smirked, “now what appetizers do you recommend?”

The cyclops server, counting out a huge pile of bills with shaking hands, approached. “Of course. We can recommend a really lovely spring salad from Lugh’s garden, sprinkled with peaches of immortality from the Jade Emperor’s own orchard…”

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

Seokjin hadn’t meant to stumble upon Namjoon’s potion room. He’d mistakenly opened a door in the hallway thinking it went to the pantry, and a new room had opened, desirous to be discovered.

Heavy stone walls, a crackling fire in a wooden fireplace and thick wooden beams made the room warm and cozy.

Bottles of potions, green liquid bubbling next to shimmering golden liquid, purple elixirs sizzling as blue crystalline potions froze, stacked high on wooden shelves.

Books of magic stood in tottering piles, while a few heavy manuscripts covered a scarred wooden table as Namjoon peered down, rotating a potion with an easy hand.

“Hi Seokjin,” Namjoon said, sensing Seokjin’s presence.

“I didn’t know this room was here,” Seokjin murmured, “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“It’s here when I need it,” Namjoon said with a small smile, turning to look at him, “or rather when the house thinks I need it. I thought you were with Jungkook?”

“I was,” Seokjin said happily, thinking of the excited younger dragon. “We were practicing turning, he’s much improved. He was able to turn the majority of his claws and his scales looked blue in the light. I think he’s going to be a dragon of knowledge, on the smaller side, but still powerful.”

“Would it matter what type of dragon he was?” Namjoon asked with a frown. “There were always so few of you, why separate yourselves?”

Seokjin bit at his lip. He would love Jungkook whether he was a dragon of knowledge or one more attuned to riches. “It’s just…Our great ancestors, they were dragons of knowledge. We’ve always venerated tricks and riddles. They led our community, our greatest leaders in times of peace. They built libraries that would make the library of Alexandria pale in comparison. It would be nice if he would be like them, to connect us once again to that heritage.”

Seokjin really wouldn’t mind whatever Jungkook was, as long as Jungkook wasn’t like him. Useless, greedy, cruel. Even the other dragons knew what he was, before the end.

“What type are you again? You’ve never mentioned it, or turned in front of us, now that I say it.” Namjoon asked.

Seokjin smiled halfheartedly, approaching the table, hands wrapped around Namjoon’s middle, leaning his head against his shoulder.

“What are you making?” Seokjin asked. Seokjin peered down at the potion, which threw golden sparks into the air.

“It’s a war magic potion,” Namjoon said excitedly, hands waving in the air, forgetting his prior questioning in his excitement, “a potion for incineration burns you from the inside out when just one drop touches your skin.”

“How will that help?” Seokjin wondered.

Namjoon’s hand reached for Seokjin, caressing it softly. “You know Taehyung’s plants are basically alive? His magic is making them have thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few thousand years we have nymphs being born right here on this land.”

“But nymphs are born from deity-magic,” Seokjin questioned, “when a god walks the land and infuses his magic into the earth. Hephaestus created the nereids to care for him after he was thrown from Olympus. Or Ares creating Harmonia in anger. Taehyung doesn’t have that kind of magical power.”

“Not at one time, no,” Namjoon agreed, “but he’s put years into the earth here. He’s strong, he’s a descendant of gods. He’ll put years more of magic into the earth. The land here will just become more powerful.”

“How will your potion help, then?” Seokjin asked.

“I’m going to place the potions between the plants, the plants should know well enough to break them if they are attacked or harmed. A surprise for our enemies.”

“A second line of defense,” Seokjin murmured, fingers still curled around Namjoon.

Namjoon looked wryly up at Seokjin, “if you’re here, if the house let you know where to find me, I suppose you must have something to ask me.”

Seokjin bit at his lip. Something had been bothering him the last couple days, but he did not want to impose.

Namjoon smiled more softly, as if reading Seokjin’s mind. “I won’t be angry, whatever you ask.”

Seokjin sighed, “it is not to attack you, this question. It is just…You know that witches and warlocks have always been the most intertwined with the Council, the most engaged with it’s policies. Even that witch who came to our home, with his claims of pack purity, many magic practitioners would follow and believe his word.”

Namjoon nodded, “yes, that is true. Witches and warlocks are not born of magic. We tap into the magic that exists on this plane and use tools, whether wands, staffs, potions or crystals, to access that magic. It is a constant exercise of knowledge seeking, of perfecting one’s craft. It is not an easy path to walk. Many of us turn to the Council, to blood and bone magic, as an easy solution.”

Seokjin nodded agreeably, “you are not born of magic, Namjoon, that is true. But I could taste your strength in the air since the first day I met you. You have as much power as Morgan Le Fay, Marie Laveau or Circe. I know what true power looks like, Namjoon, I have seen witches and warlocks call storms down to crash warships and pull fire from thin air to burn villages to the ground. You have that level of power, the power of witches turned to gods, who children are fearful to whisper to in the dark, while their parents build temples in their names.”

“And if I do?” Namjoon asked with a grin, not disagreeing.

Seokjin bit at his lip, “most of the magic community is dispersed, difficult to find. Not witches and warlocks, they are all at the academies of magic, they meet and dance, marry each other and engage in bloody politics, gossiping and murdering in equal measure. I do not know why you would not go to them and assert yourself over them. Stop the corruption, stop the harm they have caused to other members of the magical community. Bring them to our side, even if you need to do it by force.”

Namjoon sighed, his face pale in the dim light, his voice hard. “The Kim family is a long one in Seoul, we are descendants of Yeongdeung, who blew to earth upon a great wind and blessed our family with her blood and her family line. But now, I am the only one left of my family. There is no great tragedy, just a cold, long, last winter of our family tree.

There is very little money, no family home, no great grimoires of magic. I was raised pushed between houses of distant relatives. No one wanted me until I gained my powers. I went to the academy in Seoul and I wasn’t stronger than anyone, or better, no greater natural talent. But I wanted to learn, as a child deprived of everything but the bare necessities. I wanted to gain all the knowledge of the world, and it was all there, at my fingertips.

I learned how to brew revenge and bottle thunder. I learned to call the four winds to be my steeds. I learned how to forge swords of delight and delirium. When I showed talent and promise at the academy, then everyone wanted me in their packs, wanted to introduce me to their daughters and sons, offered to mentor me. That is the reality of the witches and warlocks of Seoul. We are wanting, constantly, for more power, more authority, more magic. I offered that to them.”

“Yes,” Seokjin said intently, leaning forward, “then why don’t you take it?”

Namjoon huffed, “I tried Seokjin, for years. I betrayed and manipulated, I grasped at powers beyond imagining, chaining gods to my will and harnessing the earth for my power. But I never enjoyed it, never wanted it. I’m not you, Seokjin, or Hoseok, or even Yoongi. You all enjoy it, the power plays, the manipulations, the backstabbing.”

“I…” Seokjin murmured. Namjoon reached for Seokjin’s cheek, caressing it softly, his touch warm.

“I’m not criticizing you, Seokjin. Our pack needs you, Hoseok and Yoongi to do what you need to do. But we also need balance. If it was just you, Hoseok and Yoongi, you’d rule the world, and then you’d tear each other apart. I left the magical community because I rejected what it stood for, conquest and power.”

Seokjin swallowed harshly, but he couldn’t disagree. He’d always been attracted to the flash and glitz of power, to golden crowns and bloody swords.

Namjoon smiled softly, “what I bring, what Jungkook, Jimin and Taehyung bring, isn’t that. I left the witch and warlock community because I didn’t like who I saw in the mirror anymore, I didn’t like that my magic had become dark and twisted. I’d kill anyone for my pack,” his hand pointed at the potion.

“But I can’t rule, Seokjin, I don’t want to. I spent years trying, and all it ended up with was me depressed and angry. I want to learn, I want to bring knowledge to the world. I love to be pack leader because I want to help everyone, not because I want to dominate. I’m a child of Hecate, of Perchta, of Brigit, of Cernunnos, of Oya. I craft the magic of this plane, into art and weapons when need be. But I don’t want to rule.”

“You might have to,” Seokjin murmured softly, “if this coming war with the Council goes the way we plan. We can’t just leave a vacuum, Namjoon, for another monster to step in to fill the void left behind.”

Namjoon leaned in for a kiss, lips warm against Seokjin, breath soft, and he smelled of chrysanthemum and lady’s mantle. He pulled away, hand still caressing Seokjin’s cheek, and Seokjin could feel the loving warmth of his gaze.

“I know Seokjin. If someone harms me or mine, then they will suffer the consequences. I won’t hesitate to destroy our enemies, to turn their dreams to ash. The Council needs to lose, but I don’t want to lose myself in the process. Not again.”

Seokjin thought back on those endless warms the dragons had fought. At what he had done in the end, what he’d had to do to win. Even the other dragons had quailed at what he’d wrought.

He wouldn’t have wished it on his worst enemy. But he’d been so angry, so bitter, all that had mattered was revenge. Seokjin desperately wanted Namjoon not to make the same mistakes, and he would protect him with everything he had.

“I understand Namjoon,” Seokjin agreed with a smile, “you point us in the right direction and we’ll swing the sword.”

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

The party invitation had been brought by bright-eyed crows who tapped on the window with dark beaks. The invitations were cream colored, with golden script, and scented with saffron and sandalwood.

The Kim Pack is most cordially invited to The Veil.

Tonight, at midnight.

Be welcome to the place between worlds.

The invitation will pull you to your destination.

Submit to your wildest fantasies and celebrate your most glamorous ecstasies.

The pack had accepted the invitation for a party, a night of celebration and fun, desperate to escape the stress of their fight with Council.

They’d followed the pull of the invitation through sleepy suburbs and skyscrapers still glowing with late night workers, past exhausted business people stumbling out of their offices, desperately searching for a martini.

The pack walked through an area with fancy designer stores and tired shopkeepers pulling jewels out of velvet cases to hide them in the back, past quietly gleaming apartment buildings with heavy security systems.

They wandered down a side alleyway, clean and well maintained, down a set of basem*nt steps that smelled faintly of jasmine, until the steps stopped at a thick stone wall.

The pack stopped, uncertain, but Namjoon, still holding on to the invitation with one hand, stretched out his fingertips, his other hand passing through the wall, as if a ripple on a clear lake.

Tentatively, they stepped through one by one, walking down a darkened corridor until they arrived at a small stone courtyard, and a door, brightly painted red.

A jinn, legs disappearing into swirling sand and a spriggan, who drew a whirlwind with light fingers, both dressed in black suits, ticked names off a list, opening the door to let the creatures of Seoul’s magical underworld through.

“The Kim pack,” Namjoon said, reaching out the invitation with a kind smile. The jinn eyed them, once, then twice, and Seokjin knew he saw their power.

The maknaes had wanted to dress up, and who could refuse them? Seokjin had dug into one of his smaller hoards to decorate his packmates.

Namjoon wore a black silk shirt and tight leather trousers, silver rings studded with gleaming sapphires, tattoos blooming in the night air, hands still holding on to the invitation.

Yoongi wore a dark emerald shirt made of very thin lace, embroidered by the nimble hands of pixies, and black dress pants, diamond bracelets and rings decorating his skin. A hair clip in the shape of a foxglove, made of a gleaming diamond and emerald petals, nestled between the strands of his black hair.

Hoseok wore tight black pants and a billowing see through shirt, muscles taunt under the moonlight. He wore gold rings and chokers that were loops of gleaming rubies, and a golden sword in a burgundy leather sheath against his waist.

Taehyung wore a light green dress shirt, buttons open, and leather pants, accentuated by shining peridot earrings, jade rings that sparkled, and an emerald necklace that hang low against his hips. A crown of flowers, daisies, tulips, daffodils and iris’s bloomed in his hair.

Jimin wore a golden outfit, a sparkling golden shirt and a set of loose pants, embroidered with cutouts, pale skin and tattoos peeking out. He accentuated with sparkling gold eyeshadow and a golden crown shaped like the rays of sun, which Seokjin had taken from a very annoying boy pharaoh.

Jungkook wore a loose black t-shirt, cut short to accentuate his abs and tight dark pants. Aquamarine rings shone, and he had tucked a large sparkling red diamond shaped like a dragon spewing fire, into his hair, where it blazed like a crown.

Seokjin himself had opted for a tight black turtleneck and leather pants, but he accentuated with jewelry of every type, thick cut garnet rings next to dazzling amethyst necklaces, fire opal earrings sparkling, while red diamond bracelets gleamed.

The spriggan peered at the invitation before bowing low, opening the door with a heavy hand.

The room was huge, gleaming white marble bars at all four corners and sparkling golden chandeliers held up by golden chains. The chains seemed to stretch up, not into the ceiling, but into the dark night sky, where thousands of stars, of shape and form unseen on this plane, twinkled under the light of three crescent moons. The Veil wasn't in Seoul, but instead stood like an open doorway in a place between worlds, a natural nexus for magical power.

The Veil was a heaving mass of the Seoul supernatural community

A young female alkonost flapped gleaming rainbow wings at a female adarna, who swept her brilliant plumage wide in response, while a sparkling alicanto, golden feathers flying, danced sensually in between them.

A kuntilanak, wearing a long bloody white dress, and floating several inches above the floor, giggled as a redcap, mouth still blood-red, leaned in to whisper in her ear.

A cipactli raised a drink in toast, mouths opening wide, as an adlet wagged their tail in celebration, and a teju jagua, raised their glass to cheer, seven dog heads howling out their joy.

Shrines in the sides of the room, to Maximon, to Bast, to Ninkasi, to Dionysus, heaved with strange treasure, bubbling co*cktails as offerings next to gambling cards, tiny gems and piles of loose change of every shape and denomination.

Brownies in earth-spun clothes, trasgu in red cloaks, and zashiki-warashi with plump cheeks wove through the crowd, carrying silver platters pilled high with smoking, foaming and frothing co*cktails that sparkled like gemstones.

“I want a drink,” Taehyung said happily, reaching for Seokjin’s hand. The pack pushed through the mad, exhilarated crowd, putting in an order with a smiling brownie.

“Our specialty,” the brownie asserted blithely, “ambrosia mixed with the mead of poetry and topped with some fog from Olympus’s mountaintops.”

“Thank you,” Namjoon proclaimed brightly, “let us pay…”

“Oh no,” the brownie disagreed with a frown. “The Veil doesn’t let you pay. The owners get enough in veneration.”

“In veneration?” Yoongi asked tentatively, before turning to look back at the shrines, which shone as an orgy started against the base of Dionysus’ shrine. “Ah, I see.”

“Yes, lord,” the brownie murmured, bowing deeply, before turning away at the call of a mermaid, tail flapping in the saltwater tank perched next to her.

“Word is getting out about who we are?” Hoseok asked with a small grin. Yoongi tilted his head with a small smile, “I think our time of being anonymous is over, my sweethearts.”

Jungkook blushed, peering at the orgy in the corner, “I was wondering if…”

A harsh laugh cut off Jungkook’s question, and the pack turned simultaneously, ready to defend their fledgling.

In front of them stood, arms crossed, the witch who had so rudely barged into their home, what seemed like so long ago. Bone rings stained his fingers and necklaces of bone sat dully around his neck. His coven, a collection of five haughty witches and warlocks, stinking of blood magic, death and decay, who wore the bones of the magical community, stood around him, as if an honor guard to his depravity.

“I’m surprised you received an invitation,” the witch snarled. “This party is only for the greatest packs of Seoul.”

A circle had started to gather around them, Seokjin realized, tensing, readying for a fight.

Vampires, skin pale and lips bloody, stared at Hoseok, as gentry faeries whispered behind their hands, peering at Yoongi with sharp-eyes, while a few nymphs waived happily at Taehyung, flower crowns askew, cheeks pink with joy. Taehyung waived back joyously.

“Yes,” Jimin snidely uttered, “we’re all very surprised the other received an invitation. Doesn’t this go against all your prejudices, to consort with those you consider lesser beings. Why are you here, besides to ruin the atmosphere with your stench? Eying your next kill?”

The witch raised an eyebrow incredulous, “you would allow your packmate to speak to me with such disdain?”

“We’re just getting started,” Namjoon threatened with a bright grin, “if you disliked what Jimin said, you aren’t going to at all enjoy what happens when I get my hands on you.”

The whispers restarted in earnest, the circle filling out with more of the supernatural community, come to peer at the fight. The sense of ecstasy, of sensuality in the crowd deepened with the desire for blood.

The witch spluttered, “how dare…” Another witch of his coven put a hand to his chest, voice haughty, “Ji-ho, you could not expect someone of such low class, a blood traitor to his own, to understand how to speak with his betters.”

Namjoon’s smile deepened, “I certainly remember you, Seo-ah, I beat you every year at the academy. Did you every figure out how to make a potion before blowing it up?”

Taehyung laughed into Hoseok’s shoulder at Namjoon’s comment.

The male witch, Ji-ho’s voice rose. “You allow a nymph, a lesser creature, to laugh at me? You go against your own, against your birthright, consorting with faerie traitors and blood-drenched vampires, and think you have the right to judge my coven? We have been Council members for centuries, we have ruled Seoul since it was nothing but a small village on the side of the Han river.”

Taehyung’s smile slipped from his face, and he leaned forward. “I am the blood of gods and of mother earth. I have nothing to fear from a fool who can only draw magic through tools made from death and suffering.”

“I am bloodthirsty,” Hoseok said with a shrug, “I enjoyed the battle of Cannae, and I will most certainly enjoy when my sword can be at your throat, you pathetic child.”

“And I was pardoned,” Yoongi proclaimed with a small smirk, “is that not right, Lord of the Thorn and the Primroses?”

One of the faery gentry broke up from whispering intently to his partner, straightening, face pale. “Most certainly, Lord of Misrule and Treachery, you are of the court of our great King Oberon, whose rule reigns from the darkest shadows to the gleaming moonlight.” He bowed for good measure, and Yoongi nodded appreciatively.

Another of the witches in the coven straightened, voice hissing. “If you had any sense at all, you would force those two,” he pointed at Seokjin and Jungkook, “to give us what we want, before anyone gets hurt. Their magic could strengthen us all hundredfold, one eye could allow us to see into the future, an arm bone could allow us to travel anywhere on this plane, their heart would grant us eternal strength. And you let it rot, too scared to reach out and take it.”

Seokjin opened his mouth to respond, but Jungkook stepped forward, placing himself between the pack and the coven.

“You’re weak. Too fearful to work for the knowledge and power on your own. Too weak-willed to attempt to master the wild magic that surrounds us. So instead you cut open the bodies of our community, grinding their organs into powder to drink and wearing their bones like gems. You have nothing to be proud of. All of us,” Jungkook waived his hand at the crowd around him, “we who are of the true magic, the magic of the grounded earth, of the playful winds, of the burning fire, of the crashing waves of water, we are not scared of you. We laugh at you, for you are less than nothing, children playing at kings, with crowns of paper and fear tinging your lips.” The crowd whispered more loudly, tension rising like madness in the night air.

Seo-ah’s grin was merciless as her voice rang out, “if that is how you speak to your betters, then it is a good thing there are no more dragons in this world. I’m glad we put them to the sword, that we ate their hearts and made their bones into our crowns. I’m glad we’ve crushed them under our heel, the eternal dominion of the Council secured and the skulls of dragons decorating our homes.”

Before the pack could attack, before the crowd could react, before Seokjin could swallow the lump in his throat, the feeling of loss, of humiliation, of desecration he experienced at those words.

Before anyone could respond with crueler words or angry fists…

Jungkook, in his youthful fury, turned.

Turning was instantaneous, it was simply assuming the shape that Jungkook had always meant to be.

For a moment, there was a young man, anger shining in his expression as a cruel Council member yelled at him. The next, there was a dragon.

Jungkook was huge for a fledgling, far too large to be a dragon of knowledge or of riches.

Jungkook had deep obsidian black of scales, gleaming golden-red eyes, and heavy horns. Sharp-pointed spikes dotted every groove of his scales. A heavy tail, with the same wickedly sharp spikes ended in a gleaming red poisonous tip, which dripped poison onto the floor. The floor burned away beneath the poison, revealing the heavy stone underneath.

No…Seokjin thought with a distant, despairing coldness. No…He couldn’t be…Jungkook was the future of their race, a dragon of kindness, who petted bunnies in the gardens and laughed as butterflies landed on his arm. There was no cruelty in him, no ruin…Jungkook couldn’t be the type of dragon Seokjin was…He just…It wasn’t possible.

Jungkook roared, a sound of fury, a war-cry that sang like a hundred thousand bugles called to arms in unison. The crowd scattered in fear, witches calling upon portals, faeries chanting for planes to open, and the unlucky unable to leave crouching on the floor, peering up at what had just been myth and legend just a moment ago.

A dragon, once again, in Seoul, a creature of myth wandering in a land of modernity.

Blue fire gleamed in Jungkook’s mouth as he roared once again, even louder. Seokjin pressed forward, still feeling frozen with disbelief. Jungkook couldn’t…He couldn’t….But he would kill them all if Seokjin did not act.

The Council members crouched on the floor, bleeding, as they’d been blown back in the transformation, desperately pulling on the magic in their bones for protection, hands huddled over their heads.

Seokjin hissed at Jungkook, the sound one that could not be made by any man, a threat and a promise all rolled into one. The dragon within him roared.

Jungkook was young, and fast, but Seokjin was older and stronger. Jungkook was his fledgling, and he would obey.

Jungkook roared again, but less loudly, tail ducked in apology, his ears flattening to his head. His tail still dripped drops of poison as long and as large as an adult man onto the floor, which burned beneath it. Seokjin turned back to the Council members.

“This insult will not be forgotten by me and mine,” Seokjin hissed, “death and destruction is coming for you and yours. Now begone before Jungkook burns you all to ash, along with those bones you so venerate.”

The Council members looked up with shocked, disbelieving eyes, but they pulled on their magic, at the momentaneous escape Seokjin offered them, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Seokjin turned back, seeing that Jungkook was slowly shrinking back into a human. The pack smiling and cheering as he returned to human form.

“You’ve done so well, Jungkook!”

“You’re so big sweetheart!”

“Look at those scales, Jungkook. You did such a nice job!”

“Look at that tail, and the spikes, wow love!”

Seokjin took a step back, disbelieving. Jungkook was the same type of dragon as Seokjin.

The future of their kind was like Seokjin, dragons of despair and ruins. There would be no peace for their kind, no end in sight.

Jungkook would be a creature of war, and dragon-kind would once again be defined by bloody battle, not by peace, not by knowledge.

Seokjin’s legacy would be that of dragon-kind, and Seokjin wouldn’t…Couldn’t wait around to see that.

Seokjin turned, reached into the veil of this plane, and cut open a path, planeswalking away from the pack.

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

Seokjin closed his eyes, as he curled up on top of his hoard. Weeks had passed since the party, and he was still human, refusing to turn.

But his mind, the thing that walked on two legs and assumed the name Kim Seokjin to walk through the darkness Seoul, was subsumed by what was dragon. He didn’t want to turn. Didn’t want to admit what he was, how he had failed. The memories swallowed him whole, every time he closed his eyes.

When he had been a fledgling, Seokjin had been too big, for a dragon. That seemed like a ridiculous proposition, for magical creatures who slept on mountaintops and whose steps left craters in the earth. There had been larger dragons before of course, the dragons of old, the dragons of their old plane.

But as the years passed, as the dragon community settled into this plane, they got smaller, more adapted to the wild magic. They did not want to make the same mistakes as their ancestors.

They focused on knowledge, on treasure-seeking, on curiosity. Dragons favored those with wit and punished the dull. They were creatures of myth, of legend, but they were creatures of this plane.

They were no longer the dragons of old, who fought gods and were venerated in turn. They were smaller, more mortal, no longer invulnerable.

But Seokjin, Seokjin never stopped growing, long after his fellow fledglings had stopped.

He was young still, barely little more than a fledgling, a few centuries old, when he started to realize something was wrong.

That the other dragons he had flown with on the currents no longer wished to fly with him, fearful of the strength of his wings, his ferocious speed. His parents spoke to him less, smiled less. They traveled to see other dragons, whispering quietly in the dark.

One day, when it was dark and cold, thunder brimming on the horizon, his parents woke him early. They were fearful, trembling, but they took him nonetheless, flying to a mountain covered in mist, forest covering the mountain like emerald jewels.

A small, older woman stood, waiting for them, on the mountaintop, in a pure white hanbok. She had strength in every step, and she did not need to wear jewels for Seokjin or his parents to feel her power.

Seokjin’s parents knelt before her, before the first dragon-kin of their line, Lady Aryeong, who had come from their original plane and built empires in this one.

The rumors were, according to the other fledglings who had whispered about her like the monster hiding the dark, if she was unhappy with the request of the claimant, she would eat the unhappy supplicant. Her lips were bloody red as she looked over Seokjin for the first time.

Seokjin’s parents begged with trembling voices for her to tell them what was wrong with their fledgling, the child they had tried so long for.

At her request, Seokjin turned once more, flying on the winds for what felt like hours, even if it could have only been minutes, showing his strength and speed. Once he landed, face looking for approval from his parents, who ignored his gaze, Lady Aryeong called them inside of her home, built into the side of the mountain.

Her home was no grand palace, but rather stark rock and simple wooden furniture, a succession of empty rooms tunneled into the mountainside, no great symbols of her power or legacy. There was only the starkness of the nature that desperately attempted to grow in such heights, and the coldness of the stone.

Her voice was soft when she spoke to his parents, dragon-kin who were terrified for what their son was growing into.

“Nothing is wrong with him,” Lady Aryeong murmured, her ancient eyes impenetrable. “He is of our line. He is our kin. Since we came to this plane, younger dragons have adapted. We have become smaller, more flexible to this world. We fight men, not gods, not each other. Seokjin, he is simply the type of dragon we once were, of the old world. A dragon of war, with the size and strength to kill any another dragon.”

His father, who, only a few decades before roared fire to make Seokjin giggle, had turned pale. “He will get larger still? He is bigger than us already, stronger too. His beating wings create winds that tear down forests. His steps crack the mountain beneath us. His spikes are as sharp as a sword. His tail spews poison like acid.”

Lady Aryeong had turned to Seokjin, peering down at him, all-knowing and all-encompassing. It felt like she flayed him from the inside out at that look, carving out his entrails for her inspection.

“He is very young. As he ages, he will grow, and get stronger. He is the strongest I have ever seen on this plane certainly, and when he is full grown he will have the strength to challenge the dragons of old.”

His mother’s hands shook, but she did not reach for Seokjin. “He will be stronger than you, Lady?”

Lady Aryeong nodded, “most certainly, much stronger than me. He will be like the dragons that we used to worship in the old plane, who seemed like gods to me and who we feared absolutely.”

Seokjin could not imagine this dragon, who radiated power, who his parents whispered about in hushed tones and bowed to with utmost reverence, being fearful of him.

“Then what shall we do? We mated in order to have a strong fledgling, to continue our line and bring you honor Lady. But… If even you, great Lady, will not be able to control him?” Seokjin’s father cried out.

“He shall stay here with me,” Lady Aryeong said coldly. “He must learn to be what he was always meant to be, a dragon-king of old. A conqueror. I am a poor substitute, but I am all we have left. I am one of the last of the old world, and it is my duty to protect my line. Seokjin will either bring us to greatness or destroy us all, but the duty remains.”

Seokjin had sobbed as his parents had turned their backs and walked away. He had gone on bended knee to be allowed to leave, to return to his family.

“They are terrified of you fledgling,” Lady Aryeong had said to him, “that is the curse of our kind. We always are greedy for more, but scared of what it means when we have it. Your parents mated for powerful fledglings, and look at what they have wrought. They must live with the consequences, and so must you.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Seokjin had cried out, tears staining the dirt, “I haven’t done anything wrong, I won’t hurt them.”

Lady Aryeong’s face shone as calm as moonlight sparkling on midnight waves, “it does not matter if you are innocent now fledgling, it matters if you will be innocent in the future. All things truly wicked start from innocence.”

He had lived and trained under Lady Aryeong for centuries. She was a punishing dragon, prone to quiet cruelties, but Seokjin still worshiped ever word of praise or small smile at his success.

She trained him with the sword, with the bow, with the dagger. She taught him how to fly on the winds, how to call upon his fire. She taught him how to have a silver tongue, how to unlock riddles and charm the unwary. His parents did not come to visit or ask how he was, but Lady Aryeong was unrelenting.

Seokjin could see the fear in her eyes when she looked at him, but she still trained him to the best of his abilities, to be a weapon beyond comprehension.

When he was older, and stronger, when he had learned all that he could from Lady Aryeong, she had looked at them with those same eyes, deadened by age, no compassion in her gaze. “It is time that you learn from the world now, for I have taught you all that I know.”

Seokjin agreed, happy to leave the coldness of her home and desperate to escape his unending loneliness. Seokjin stepped out into the world, to take all that the world would offer him.

Seokjin had venerated at Ishtar’s temple in Mesopotamia, body and soul given over to the ecstasy of the goddess.

Seokjin rode the waves of a turquoise sea on a ship with a heavy mast, filled with spices and wine, bound for lands unknown, excitement making his blood sing.

Seokjin had swung his sword at Troy, body heaving beneath the crush of bodies and the stench of death, fighting about a woman he had never even seen.

He had always hoped that he would see his parents one day, and that they would see the glory he had achieved, the treasures he had collected, the stories the bards sung of him, and love him once more. To say that they missed him, that they loved him, even if just for the memory of what they had abandoned.

One day, a time both far away and instantaneous in Seokjin’s mind eye, the dragons called him home. But not because of love, but because war. A use, finally, for what had been a useless dragon.

Death and destruction shall be your steeds, and fear and agony will be your servants, the seers had cried out. And Seokjin had proven them all right, by the end. All their fears realized.

“Seokjin,” a voice called out. Seokjin’s eyes fluttered open. The dragon that he was thought about the voice. It was a voice he knew, and soft. A kind voice. Not a threat. Seokjin should go take the voice and bring it inside, into his hoard, where it could be safe, next to his other treasures.

“Seokjin!”

“Seokjin!”

“Seokjin!”

More than one voices, that he wanted, that were his. Someone would try to steal them if he didn’t bring them inside. He scrambled away from his hoard, towards the entrance, ducking to pass through the tunnel that connected his hoard to the outside world. His rational mind only caught up as he shielded his eyes from the blue sky. A beautiful, sunny, and cloudless day. Why were there voices? How could they be here?

“Seokjin!”

Seokjin blinked again, shock forcing him to pause. The pack stood in front of him. They had ditched the party clothes they had worn on that awful night out at The Veil, in favor of hiking clothes and thick backpacks. There were leaves in their hair, and specks of dirt against their skin.

The pack was here, in front of his hoard.

“Why…How are you here?” Seokjin asked.

“You couldn’t choose a more difficult place?” Jimin yelled incredulously, cheeks red. “Mount Hallassan? We spent a week thinking you’d been kidnapped, before every single person at that party told us you made a portal and disappeared. Then we spent another week thinking about where a dragon goes when he wants to run away from his pack. A hoard, obviously, but you never told us where you kept your main hoard!

So then we spent two weeks wandering around Mount Jiri and Seoraksan before we realized you literally could only be on top of the tallest mountain in the country. We had to take two trains and a boat. Then buy hiking gear, which we totally got ripped off on, because Namjoon can’t haggle and none of us hike except Taehyung! And Taehyung had to have a conversation with every single tree on the way up here.”

“They’re mother trees,” Taehyung said with a smile, eyes gleaming, “it would be impolite not too.”

Jimin continued, voice rising, “I have six bites that won’t stop itching, a poison ivy rash, and my knee’s bleeding from the trail.”

“I’m…I’m sorry?” Seokjin’s voice rang out.

“You should be!” Hoseok said, “we were sick with worry!”

“We thought the Council had done something,” Namjoon added, voice soft. “If you’d been hurt and we couldn’t have protected you, we never would have forgiven ourselves.”

“We’re glad you’re okay,” Yoongi murmured.

Jungkook just stared at Seokjin, eyes impenetrable to Seokjin’s gaze.

“Why are you here?” Seokjin asked.

Jungkook’s eyes narrowed. “Why are we here? I turned and then you ran away.”

“Yes,” Seokjin agreed, “you turned. Our agreement is over, we can be done with this farce of a pack.”

Seokjin’s heart hurt at the words, and he felt dread pool in his stomach. He didn’t want them to leave. He wanted them to stay, to keep them close, and lay gold at their feet. But he also desperately wished to push them away. Twin desire warring in his thoughts.

The pack looked incredulous, but Jungkook just looked upset. No. Furious.

Jungkook took a step forward. “I know that the older members of this pack have a problem communicating. You all seem to think that swinging a sword will fix your problems, instead of talking about anything that is going on. But I know you want us Seokjin. I know you want to be part of the pack. Part of our lives. You running away is a reaction to whatever the hell I turned into.”

“You turned into a dragon,” Seokjin pointed out, hands trembling.

Jungkook shook his head. “Not the dragon you thought I would turn into. I’m not a dragon of wisdom or a dragon of riches. I’m a dragon of war, right?”

“Yes,” Seokjin agreed, voice quivering beneath the heaviness of the words Jungkook articulated like they weighed nothing.

“Like you?” Jungkook asked.

Seokjin nodded, throat dry. He couldn’t even find the words to respond.

Taehyung smiled wider, “but that’s good Seokjin! You can both be scary, giant dragons together. It’s better than being alone, right?”

“No,” Seokjin cried out, tears rising to his eyes. “No. It’s not better to be what we are. We are death-walkers, terror-bringers, who burn the world to ash and dance among the wreckage. We were the ones to destroy our plane with our rage, our fury. And now, on this plane, I have wrought such revenge and vengeance that it has been wiped from the pages of history, my name buried, my temples torn down.”

“That’s how you ended the war,” Namjoon murmured, “the last Council War. How you ruined the Council so thoroughly that it took millennia for them to regroup into an actual threat.”

“Whatever you did,” Hoseok murmured, “it was bad, wasn’t it.”

Seokjin laughed, a sound of grief and ectasy intertwined. “Bad does not begin to cover it.”

Jungkook took another step forward, face drawn, his voice low. “So what? You killed them? You destroyed them, because of what you are, what we are. Maybe it’s our nature, an appetite for destruction. So what? We will kill them again. We will incinerate them and immolate their remains. But it doesn’t mean you get to run away from us, Seokjin.”

“No?” Seokjin asked. “Have I not given enough Jungkook? I have given everything of myself. More than you could ever comprehend. And we still lost. There is nothing I can help you with, nothing that will be of help.”

“I don’t care what you bring, what value you add.” Jungkook snarled, blue fire exhaling from his mouth. “You love us. You give everything of yourself to us, but we aren’t allowed to love you back. You aren’t worthy of it. You aren’t deserving.”

Seokjin took a step back, as if a physical blow had landed. His voice came out a snarl, “watch your tone fledgling.”

“Or what?” Jungkook cried out, eyes locked on Seokjin. Namjoon opened his mouth, trying to find the words to pacify the situation, but Jungkook raised a hand, stopping Namjoon.

“It seems like you take every punch aimed at us and more besides, but we can’t do the same for you. What you’ve never understood, Seokjin, is that you’re mine. Just like the pack is mine, the first day I laid my eyes on them. They were mine and you’re mine too. Mine.”

Seokjin snarled, a sound that could not be made by human voices. A sound of frustration, of anger, of disbelief. Jungkook snarled back. You’re mine. Seokjin’s mind raced, but the dragon in him could only feel flattered. A dragon’s declaration of love, selfish and all-consuming.

“You’re mine, fledgling. All of you are mine to protect and to cherish,” Seokjin growled back, power radiating from him. “Mine, fledgling.”

“And you’re mine,” Jungkook’s voice rose, unrelenting, “you’re all mine. You can’t protect us by running away, but by letting us in.”

Seokjin swallowed, but he couldn’t…Be greedy, his mind whispered. Let you be his. Take what is yours. Be everything they thought of you, covetous, mercenary, grasping. Show them your hoard and don’t let them go.

Mine, the dragon inside Seokjin roared.

“Alright,” Seokjin whispered. “Come inside to see my hoard.”

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

The pack could not hide their shocked gasps as they entered his hoard.

This was not his secondary hoards, where he piled the endless curiosities he’d acquired over the millennia. This was his primary hoard, where he kept his most cherished treasures.

My mates should be kept here, Seokjin’s dragon mind purred, kept safe and protected. Seokjin wondered if he had ever had the option of letting his packmates go, but it was far too late now to consider another path.

His mates were in his hoard, and that was all that mattered.

His hoard was an enormous cave, roughhewn stone, which stretched so high there was only darkness when eyes looked upward.

However, there was light streaming from the entrance, which reflected, sparkling, on the piles of gold Seokjin had collected over the years.

Golden swords taken from fallen kings, golden crowns conquered through battle, golden jewelry made of the finest craftmanship, piled so high they were as tall as mountains.

Hills of jewels, diamond tiaras, ruby rings, emerald necklaces, sapphire bracelets, worn by the kings and queens of history were stacked to glittering heights, competing against the gold, blazing in their beauty and splendor.

Fabrics, shimmering silk, shaded blues and greens as rich as peaco*ck feathers, a pink as tender as the first bud of a rose, a purple as light as the first bloom of lavender in the spring, stacked ten men high.

Art created by the greatest artists of each age, from the smallest drawing to the largest painting, fight for a monarch’s palace, depicted scenes of brutality, scenes of love, of lust, of hatred, in a thousand blazing colors, the ecstasy of mortality captured.

His hoard encircled the reason he’d chosen this location in the first place. A large hole in the ceiling of the cave allowed for light to stream down, over a giant hot spring which dominated the cave, the size of a large lake.

Seokjin had long ago had traded with a goblin to have him come fill the hot spring with the purest of white marble, decorated with sparkling diamonds.

Seokjin had bargained with Aphrodite for an eternal rose bush from her garden, which grew on the side of the cave, up towards the light. One branch leaned over the water, eternally letting perfectly bloomed red roses fall into the water, where they floated across the hot spring.

Steam rose off the water, and it smelled pleasantly of wisteria and daffodils.

“Oh my god,” Jimin whispered.

“Oh my god,” Hoseok repeated.

The pack stood still, eyes widened at the sheer size and magnificence of Seokjin’s hoard. Seokjin could only feel flattered. Sharing your hoard was an intensely private act, usually reserved for mates, and it would be profoundly humiliating to have his hoard found undeserving.

Seokjin pulled his shirt over his head, bare-chested in the afternoon light. His hands reached for his pants.

“Um, Seokjin…Not that I'm complaining,” Taehyung asked, “but what are you doing?”

“You wished to speak, to share,” Seokjin responded flatly. “If I will tell you all my deepest, darkest secrets, I will tell you while I am comfortable. The center of my hoard, the hot spring is the place where I am calmest. You are welcome to join me.”

The pack scrambled after him into the water, shedding clothes, and Seokjin finally relaxed for the first time in weeks as he sunk into the hot spring. His pack was here, with him, he could keep them safe.

Hoseok’s voice was soft, “you’re like the richest supernatural alive, aren’t you?” He turned to look at Seokjin’s hoard, “there’s enough here to make King Midas’ treasures look like a child’s collection.”

“Out of everyone alive, I would assume so,” Seokjin said, “although the point is not to spend it.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Jungkook said, his voice harsh, his muscles gleaming in the light as he leaned back in the water. “When I was a fledgling, I would never want to share my collection with anyone. And then the pack came, and because they were as much mine as my hoard was, it was not difficult to spend or share it with them.”

Seokjin thought about it for a long moment. Would he truly mind if Hoseok used a sword taken from Richard the Lionheart, or if Namjoon wore fabrics he’d collected from the Forbidden City?

His mates would wear his treasures, showing all the world how powerful their dragon mate was, and Seokjin could find no fault in that.

“I wouldn’t mind, with any of you,” Seokjin admitted. Jungkook smiled, but it dropped as Seokjin continued. “However, you are still a fledgling, Jungkook.”

“I turned!” Jungkook argued, “that makes me a dragon!”

“A fledgling is a dragon, just not yet fully grown. You won’t be a proper dragon for at least a millennium.”

“A millennium?” Jungkook cried out.

Hoseok patted his hair, “don’t worry too much about it. My sire wouldn’t let me start torturing people alone until I was five hundred years old. You just need to accept the process as a learning one.”

Jungkook pouted, sinking deeper into the water.

Yoongi cupped a rose in one hand, tracing the petals, his eyes glinting like shards of diamond. “You want to tell us what happened?”

Seokjin sighed, “it’s like Jungkook said. I ran because I’m a war dragon. I thought Jungkook wouldn’t be. In dragon culture, war dragons are seen as the worst of the worst. We’re power hungry, cruel, capricious. We led to the end of our original plane.

I was the only war dragon ever born on this plane until Jungkook. I reacted poorly because I expected him to be a dragon of knowledge. I am sorry for my actions, for leaving as I did.”

Namjoon’s voice was soft, “you speak like Jungkook is the exception?”

Seokjin’s cheeks tinged red, “Jungkook is kind, compassionate. He helps others and cares for them. He is profoundly empathetic and makes the world around him. He is an exceptional fledgling, and will be an extraordinary dragon, no matter whether he is a war dragon.”

Jimin’s voice rang out, “you speak like that doesn’t apply to you?”

Seokjin spoke harshly, “There is no goodness in me, Jimin, there hasn’t been for a long time.”

Taehyung’s voice was tender, and a rose already decorated his hair. “You helped Jungkook patiently when he needed to practice to turn. You helped Yoongi go to fairyland without any questions. You protected Jimin from that werewolf. You brought Hoseok comfort when he spoke about his sire. You helped Namjoon with his potions. You defended me from the Council.

You’re utterly courageous, Seokjin, fearless. The fact that you keep on trying to do good, to be good, in the face of all that you have suffered... You are goodness incarnate, Seokjin.”

Seokjin shook his head, biting at his lip. “You are kind, Taehyung, but that is certainly not true.”

Jungkook shook his head, “whatever happened during the wars, it made you think you were bad, it warped you. Help us understand why you see your own soul like that of a fractured mirror.”

Seokjin twisted his fingers together, stress returning to his body. “If you want the story, I’ll tell you. You won’t like it. If you want to leave at the end of it, I won’t stop you.”

The pack nodded, eyes wide, and Seokjin swallowed, words coming out like a waterfall.

“So you went back…after everything that happened with Lady Aryeong? To help your parents?” Jungkook asked.

“I wanted to impress them, to prove them wrong,” Seokjin murmured. “But even with all my strength, all my power, the Council was still winning. In those days so much of the supernatural community supported the Council. Everyone wanted dragon bones, the power it granted. We were losing the war, and badly. Our elders were struck down, our fledglings stolen. All that terrifying power I had, none of that was enough.”

“But the Council retreated?” Hoseok asked, “eventually they did, everyone knows that. I mean the Council exists, they still dominate, but they aren’t out there massacring every supernatural they meet.”

“Just the ones they think they can kill easily, they still hunt down,” Seokjin asserted, “but yes, you’re right. In those days the Council members had unimaginable power at their fingertips. They wore necklaces made from the horns of unicorns, and bracelets made of demi-god bones. But the most valuable of all were dragons.

Every Council members wanted our bones, our sinews, our eyes, all for themselves, so that they could kill the other Council members, so they could dominate not just the supernatural world, but the world of men as well.

That much power, it wasn’t meant for anyone to have in one body and stay sane. They went mad, because of ambition, greed, lust.”

“What did you do to them?” Yoongi asked, leaning forward in the water.

“I got captured,” Seokjin murmured. “It was a trap. Enchanted chains to hold me down, spells to enchant me, god-killing swords to force me to comply. They held me in dungeons of another plane, the plane where the Council’s seats were held, where it schemed and fought from, for centuries.”

“They held you, while they killed everyone else?” Taehyung murmured, “why keep you alive?”

Seokjin’s voice shook, “Our kind, war dragons we are invulnerable, immortal. But we can still be injured, still be cut up. They cut delicately, but they cut me open nonetheless.

My eyes, my bones, my liver, my kidneys, my scales, my heart. Carefully enough that I regrew, an endless source of power.

The dragons were already losing. With the artifacts they made from my body, all was lost. The other dragons understood what had happened, the atrocity that was occurring, and they all knew it would be better to die than stay alive to fight another day and bear the risk of being captured like I was, an eternal source of power. Our kind died like a flower cut in the dead-cold of winter.”

The pack looked shocked, grief and pain staining their expressions.

“But how…For centuries, tortured…” Namjoon murmured, “how did you escape?”

Seokjin sighed. “There was a girl, a young witch. Aera. The daughter of the head of the Council. Sheltered and foolish. She used her naivete to hide her cowardice, her acceptance of the cruelty her family inflicted, in return for pretty things and power. But to her, her life was a story with a happy ending.

She needed a prince to rescue her from the tower. She thought herself in love with me. She thought herself in a romance novel, we would run away and we would be happy together. She cleaned my injuries between…Sessions. She kissed my deadened body. She took what little dignity I had left.”

“She raped you,” Jungkook snarled, “she raped you for years.”

“Yes,” Seokjin agreed softly, “and I was pitifully grateful for every morsel of food she gave me, every time she soothed my pain. I was past madness at that point, past caring. And then one day…Aera. She came to me with a plan.

There was to be a big celebration, all the Council members together, to celebrate the death of the last dragons, hunted down. Now…Obviously we know that’s not true,” Seokjin said to Jungkook, “but I believed it then.”

“You think my parents are alive then, that they escaped the Council,” Jungkook questioned.

Seokjin bit at his lip. “I don’t know Jungkook. I would like to hope so, that they just thought it would be better to place you in the world of men and hide from the Council once they realized they were having a fledgling. But we all had so little power back then.

It’s possible they put the last of themselves into hatching you, hiding from the Council in those last days, the magic growing you until you were ready to be born, and nothing was left for them.”

Jungkook nodded at Seokjin’s words, his face unreadable.

“Keep going,” Jimin stated. “You want to share.”

Seokjin agreed gracefully, shifting in the warm water. “I thought all dragons dead. I had this monster…Aera, wearing a false mask of beauty, chatter on about how we were going to be happy, about how we were going to have children, like she hadn’t taken enough from me, for centuries.

We were going to sneak out while the Council party was ongoing. And then…Right before, her father, the monster who had started the wars, who glowed with stolen power as if a god, he came down to see me. He wore the bones of Lady Aryeong like a crown, laughing at my pain.”

The pack gasped, recoiling at the horror of the scene.

Seokjin laughed bitterly, “if I wasn’t mad before, I became insane in that moment. The desecration of a mother of our kind…Of the only person who had ever cared for me, even in her strange, alien way, it felt like a sword to the gut. I became a creature of instinct, of guile.

I played along with Aera’s stupid words, of how she was so kind to accept me for the monster I was, of how we would play at a happy family. I let her touch me, to believe her fantasy was coming true…”

Seokjin exhaled harshly, before continuing, “Aera stole the keys, she thought to sneak me out the servant’s entrance. The riskiest part of the escape was the hallway that connected the front door to the ballroom where every Council member, and every supporter stood, cheering and celebrating the death of my kind.

When we got to that hallway, when she reached for my hand, I turned away. I walked to the ballroom, Aera yelling at me to stop all the while. That I had no need for revenge, that we could be happy together. She didn’t understand that I was past revenge, I wished only to die along with them.”

“You killed them?” Hoseok questioned.

Seokjin shook his head. “I wouldn’t call what I did death. I hadn’t turned in over two centuries, but every time they cut, every time they carved out another piece of me, that piece grew back stronger. They had done it so many times, especially by the end. Every day, then twice a day, three times, as my bones, my skin, my organs grew back faster.

They never questioned it, so sure of their magic, of the rightness of their supremacy. But I was stronger than any dragon on that plane, perhaps any dragon ever, after centuries of agony.

No dragons would have suffered what I did willingly for the power I now held. So I walked into that ballroom, those golden chandeliers, those smug faces, all decorated in the bones of dragons. I was bleeding and naked, but I could still turn. What I turned into…”

“You were like what Lady Aryeong worried about, a dragon of old,” Namjoon stated.

Seokjin dipped his chin. “I have never seen one, but I can assume so. The size of me, the strength…Our old plane died because war dragons of old fought each other for domination. It must have felt like the end of the world everytime they fought, and then one day, they were so powerful that it did cost the end of our world.

What they fought with…What they called upon is the eternal fire that we are born from that core of pure magic that makes dragons. The eternal fire. To call upon that fire, for any dragon, it means death for you, and destruction for your enemies. I called upon the fire. I burned them all.”

“Everyone in the ballroom?” Yoongi questioned.

“Everyone in that plane. They called it Atlantis,” Seokjin murmured, “they all died. The temples ruined, the cities scorched to rubble. A city of silver and marble built on the bones of my ancestors, all dead. Millions dead.

The whole world shattered under the weight of my fire, drowned in water. I destroyed a world.

Us dragons we don’t have names, but titles. Taniwha the sharp toothed. Fafnir the embracer. Gaasyendietha, conqueror of meteors. Shenlong the storm gather. Bakunawa the earth-shatterer, the moon-eater. Lotan the seven-headed. Tarasque the devourer. Me? I had a particularly egregious title. World-killer.”

“But you lived,” Jungkook declared.

“Oh yes,” Seokjin laughed harshly, “that’s the problem. When dragons become as invulnerable as I am, nothing can kill me. I threw myself into that fire, which can only be defined as the heart of a dying star, and it didn’t kill me. I lived, I ran from a world destroyed, millions calling for salvation. I abandoned them.”

Yoongi’s voice was unwielding. “So you ran because you think Jungkook will end up like that?”

“I ran because after what I’d done, the supernatural community fled from my presence. I was a monster, a creature of nightmares reborn. Jungkook was supposed to be the future of our kind. Generous, kind, curious.”

“Is that fair to me?” Jungkook asked. “I’m still so young, you said it yourself. Maybe I will want to conquer the world. Maybe I will want to hoard books and teach others. I don’t know what I want Seokjin. I literally have eternity to figure it out. But it isn’t fair for you to impose what you think I should be on to me.”

Seokjin swallowed harshly, “that’s…You’re right Jungkook, I shouldn’t have. I am sorry for that.”

Jungkook nodded, smile breaking out. “You’re forgiven.”

Seokjin blinked, shocked at the words. “You aren’t going to leave?”

“None of us are going anywhere,” Jimin said shortly, “why would we leave you?”

“I destroyed a world,” Seokjin said, “I killed millions. I’m a monster.”

Namjoon shrugged, “you were held in unbearable circ*mstances by monsters. If Aera were still alive I would kill her myself. You made the best decision you could under the circ*mstances.”

“I destroyed a world,” Seokjin’s voice repeated, rising with incredulity.

Yoongi shrugged, “we don’t care about any worlds except our own. We care about each other Seokjin. That includes you. You won’t judge any of us for our past, so why would we judge you?”

Jungkook’s hand reached out for Seokjin. “We love you, Seokjin. We want to be yours. We want to destroy the Council together and live happily ever after. Revenge and joy. We will have both, no matter who stands in our way.”

Seokjin reached out for Jungkook’s hand, tracing the soft skin. He could have this. He could really have them.

“I look forward to all of it, together.”

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Jimin died on a beautiful summer day, bright golden rays against a sapphire blue sky.

Jimin always died on the summer solstice, for it was the way of phoenixes to be reborn in the summer, to mark the seasons, the passage of time, the budding of new life.

Seokjin was nervous, because death seemed very permanent, even though Jimin seemed quietly happy, eyes pensive and voice calm, as they built the pyre where he was to burn.

Jungkook was bumbling around in his dragon form, still learning how to walk while balancing his wings. Long-distance flight was still a way off for a dragon as young as Jungkook, no matter how dangerous he was on the ground.

However, Jungkook took to every moment of being a dragon with joyous excitement, tripping over his feet in the green grass, flowers swaying in the wind, tail wagging, poison splattering, mouth revealing teeth as sharp and tall as any adult.

Conversely, Seokjin was still unwilling to turn in front of the pack, even though he had shared who he was with them.

Strangely, Seokjin still felt uncomfortable, as if the beautiful love and acceptance he received would shatter at a moment’s notice, the minute they saw the core of who he was.

The pack didn’t push, just giving him lots of hugs and compliments, voices soft as they cared for him, as they gave him the words to understand his own pain. Seokjin couldn’t help but feel quietly content.

Yes, the Council was still coming, desirous of vengeance, but Seokjin would kill them all. It was a very simple scenario with only one acceptable outcome. Utter destruction, he would burn the Council to ash and raze their beliefs to the ground.

Seokjin smiled as Jimin, standing still in the grass, reached for his clothes, and stepped out of his shirt and pants, skin glowing gold under the summer light.

Jimin’s eyes were no longer brown but now completely gold, the pupils disappearing.

“Is that big enough?” Hoseok pointed at the large pile of wood, which the pack had spent the morning building. The wood was piled high, shaped almost as if a wooden throne, pine, cherry, rowan, hazel, all set to burn.

Jimin nodded, walking towards the pyre, still not saying a word.

The pack crowded around Seokjin, already sat on the ground. Meanwhile, Jungkook sat in dragon form nearby, wings spread to catch the morning rays, tail still thumping against the ground,

Taehyung reached for Seokjin’s hand. “It won’t bother the plants,” Seokjin wondered, “with the fire?”

Taehyung shook his head, a crown of carnations and orchids decorating his hair, his eyes glowing a kaleidoscope of colors, as if this summer day made Taehyung more real, more vibrant. His eyes were the emerald green of creeping moss in wooded groves, of the light green of new buds, of the dark brown of healthy soil, and the hazel of newborn seeds fallen to the earth.

“They understand a fire destroys to create something stronger. Jimin being stronger for what is to come is a good thing. The plants won’t be upset.”

“It will hurt,” Seokjin stated, biting at his lip. Sweet, kind Jimin, in pain, it was unfathomable. He could take him to his hoard, keep him safe, give him a crown of rubies and diamonds to decorate his hair.

Yoongi shook his head, from Seokjin’s other side. The magic in the air, in the morning sunlight, seemed to have drawn the glamor away from Yoongi.

Yoongi's ears were more pointed, his eyes silver-slate in the sunlight, even his clothes seemed lighter, more elegant, as if spider-spun silk had replaced rough cotton. “Death is a rebirth, not just an ending.”

“I’ve only known death to be the end of suffering,” Seokjin responded.

The magic around them was wild, uncompromising. Seokjin could feel the magic, but it wasn’t dragon-kind magic, all blistering heat and endless, all-consuming desire.

The magic was of this plane, of earth. It wasn't the whisper thin yet razor-sharp magic of the faes, or the icy cold perfection of witchcraft, the blood-soaked death-magic of vampires, or the deep-rooted, achingly vast yet slumbering power of the nymphs. This magic was the tinge of danger bubbling in the stomach at the sight of a roaring fire, the strong, welcoming power of a crackling hearth.

“It’ll be beautiful, you’ll see,” Namjoon said, smiling, tattoos moving endlessly on his skin, hands absentmindedly rubbing old scars along his forearm, “it’s a great wonder.”

Seokjin nodded. Jimin was beautiful in his nakedness, shimmering golden youth in the summer air, the cicadas chirping.

Jimin walked up the fire, the haphazard stacking of wood, and leaned his head back, as if resting against his throne, and called the fire to him.

The magic roared in Seokjin’s ears, as if magic was burning in the air, as fire crept up around Jimin, called from thin air.

Jimin’s death started as a light burn, the fire like a shimmering golden mist against his skin.

The fire started to deepen in color, ochre, bronze, burgundy flames wrapping around him like a cloak.

Jimin screamed, as if his heart was breaking in two, his skin peeling away from his bones.

The fire grew further, but there was no scent of sizzling flesh, no scent of pain that Seokjin knew to associate with his own fire, when he destroyed his enemies.

Jimin’s fire was utterly different. The fire wrapped all the way up to Jimin’s face, shaping around his hair like a crown.

His eyes, the only thing not burning yet, were no longer golden, but instead the color of the heart of a flame.

Seokjin knew he was no longer looking at what walked and talked in the shape of Jimin, but instead the core of him.

The eternal burning fire, immortal, invulnerable, endless, a shining glowing beacon of power.

Seokjin suddenly understood why supernaturals and people had tried to tame the phoenix for thousands of years.

To dominate, to own that endless power that was the phoenix, it would be to conquer the core of what made man leave the caves and walk into the sunlight, to build the first temples and thank the gods for fire.

It was not Prometheus, or Maui, or Raven, who'd been the fire-bringer. It was the phoenix, who had received nothing in return but desecration and destruction, but still brought good luck to the world.

The action of eternal sacrifice, eternal rebirth.

As Seokjin gasped, the fire covered Jimin, swallowing him whole. Jimin screamed once more, but not a scream of pain.

A scream of ectasy, of pure pleasure, of joy. The sound of dancing naked under a full moon, of drinking from golden cups to excess, of the reunion of naked bodies in response to desperate, aching need.

Seokjin could now only see the fire, and the arching of enormous golden-red wings of fire, blazing, overwhelming in their magnificence, and spread wide, displayed for the world to see.

Jimin fell silent then, his body disappeared from view, the wings folding and then dissipating as the fire started to waft away as golden mist, disappearing into the pure sky.

The wood holding the fire crumbled away, and there was only that golden mist for one long moment.

And then...

Jimin…

Curled up and naked, skin smooth and unmarked, eyes opening, utterly normal once more.

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

The letter from the council came in a silk envelope, gold-leaf against soft vellum.

The Kim Pack is ordered to appear in front of the Council tomorrow, in order to face charges of assault against a council member in the course of their official duties.

Any attempt to avoid appearing in front of the Council will result in the pack being forbidden from any magical spaces, and being submitted to bounty hunters for collection.

Be assured that the Council, in its immortal wisdom, will come to the right, just, and equitable decision for all parties involved.

The Magical Council

“Tomorrow?” Jungkook snarled, “that gives us very little time.”

Now that Jungkook had turned, he’d shown more draconic tendencies than ever. He hoarded items from the pack with an almost feverish desire, and seemed more and more furiously upset at the Council.

Seokjin could only find it adorable. Jungkook was showing tendencies for fire and fang, testing his strength and power. Jungkook had mistakenly burnt two carpets and half a wall, which he’d very apologetically promised to fix, fire still bubbling at his mouth.

Namjoon sighed heavily, “I’ve talked to all the witches. Many will watch. They’ll all back me if I win, but besides good luck charms, we’re on our own.”

Jimin sat perfectly still, as if he hadn’t yet fully awoken from the fire that had consumed him. “Speaking of good luck charms, I’ve been preparing my feathers. I’ll sow them into your clothes before tomorrow.”

Jimin's feathers were the most beautiful gift Seokjin had ever received.

The feathers were as long as is forearm, golden in color, but malleable and soft to the touch, with streaks of red and orange that blazed brightly and sparkled liked rubies.

The feathers were of stunning, agonizing beauty, more alluring than any of Midas’s palace, more magnificent than the Aztec gold, more enrapturing than the hidden treasure of Lima.

Yoongi shrugged his shoulders, “I spoke to Oberon’s envoys. They’ll be glad to watch, to laugh, to take bets on who wins. Helping however, is likely out of the question.”

Hoseok nodded, his hands tapping away at his phone. “The vampires will be there as well. Vampires are by definition survivors, they will back whoever wins, they won't take a side. However…I have reached out to my sire.”

“Your sire?” Jimin leaned forward, “I thought he was…sleeping? Is that the right term?”

Hoseok looked up, his eyes dark, “he did retreat from the world to dream a dreamless sleep until he feels ready to awaken. Bored of every pleasure known to man, of the feeling of flesh against his skin, of the cold bite of pain. But he did do his duty to me as my sire for many centuries, and I was able to reach out to him, to wake him enough to tell him what is to come. He might join, he might not. He might avenge us all, were we to fall. But he is my sire, and it is my duty to tell him, no matter the consequences to the world for awakening him.”

Seokjin bit at his lip, but he could not disagree with Hoseok. Speaking to his sire was a choice only Hoseok could make, and Seokjin would do what he needed to protect them all in the meantime.

Taehyung’s fingers twisted together, but his voice was calm as it rose, “I reached out to…To my family.”

Namjoon nodded, “the grove you were born in, your mother’s family. They will be able to do little, as rooted and elder as they are, but they still have great power. We would be a fool to disregard their help.”

Taehyung shook his head, “I mean yes…I did speak to my mother. But I spoke to my…My father…Sperm donor…Whatever you wish to call it. His family.”

Yoongi leaned forward, eyes widening, “you spoke to the gods?”

“Gods?” Seokjin asked, tilting his head towards Taehyung. Taehyung always had a glow under his skin, his eyes always more ancient than the body he wore. But Seokjin had attributed that to the power of the earth and the grove that had born him, the deep, dark roots, and endlessly stretching green trees.

Not the power of gods, of golden thrones and bloody violence, of rotting corpses and endless festivities.

Taehyung’s mouth twisted, “the stories of gods and nymphs never remember us. They erase us from between the lines of their myths, they build no statues in our honors. But…”

Taehyung looked up, and Seokjin could see the deep emerald green of his pupils, the unforgiving power held within his gaze, not the power of the earth, but the endless power of blue skies, crackling thunder and snow-caped peaks. Seokjin’s inner dragon roared at the sight of a worthy opponent.

Taehyung’s grin was a smile of simmering beauty, of golden sunrises and green mountains touching white clouds.

“I have their blood. The same as Hercules, as Helen, as Perseus, as Aeacus. The same wild magic runs through my veins as theirs. I am entitled to kin-rights from my family, and I will claim it to protect those I love.”

“You may do as you wish,” Seokjin said, grasping for Taehyung's hand, “but I will not have them harm you, or claim they are owed something in return.”

Taehyung nodded, the power dissolving from his skin as if a wafting mist. “I can handle them.”

Seokjin kissed Taehyung’s palm, smiling against his skin, “I have no doubts, sweetheart.”

Jungkook huffed, smoke curling from his nostrils as he leaned forward, but his voice was soft, tentative. “I’m still...I'm still worried.”

“Worried?” Seokjin asked, turning to face his fledgling.

“That we will lose, that something will go wrong, that the Council will find a way to trick us.”

Seokjin’s eyes were calm, and his voice rang out steady, “we cannot control everything fledgling. They draw us into the open, they wish to have the upper hand. But we have done all we can, and I know our strength. They have underestimated us for far too long.”

Seokjin peered at his mates, at the last glimpse of the golden-red rays of the setting sun against their skin. He loved them, Seokjin thought desperately. He loved them with everything he had, every last bit of wealth, every passionate inch of his soul. He loved them.

Jungkook smiled wryly at Seokjin’s glance, and Seokjin knew Jungkook understood what he was feeling. The selfish, ambitious, mercenary, grasping core of his soul. The pack was his, and so the Council must die.

“War and death,” Jungkook murmured with steely promise.

“War and death,” Seokjin repeated like a vow.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

The pack arrived gaily, in black silks and sparkling diamonds, to the funeral of their enemies.

The court, for that is what it what, dark red velvet curtains, high ceilings, and heavy wood, was presided over by a raised dais, where three Council members, wearing the golden braids and pins of their office, glared at the pack as their allies, murmured around them.

Ji-ho looked as proud and haughty as when he first came to their home and demanded Jungkook’s bone.

Seo-ah looked as fiercely angry as at the nightclub when she’d sneered at Namjoon.

Ji-ho and Seo-ah and the rest of their coven stood clustered near the base of the dais, as if hiding something, or someone, from the rest of the room.

All the Council members wore wretched bones around their necks, glinting on their fingers, and even cursed bones woven into their hair like a crown.

The court was packed, overflowing with the supernatural community.

Women with the bodies of spiders peered out from dark corners with too many eyes, sitting next to creatures which appeared like men at first glance, wearing dark sunglasses, but who spit and hissing black tar-like poison, their green scales glinting even in the darkness, their hair hissing and moving with the sound of a hundred snakes.

Hulking, giants shied in the darkened corners, their teeth like razors bared, their body parts exposed to the sunlight, made of stone that cracked and groaned whenever they moved.

Vampires moved carefully among the shadows with glinting red eyes, the taint of blood wafting behind them.

In the opposite corner, closest to the windows, stood young men and women who shone and sparkled under the light, blinding in their beauty, golden horns protruding from their foreheads.

Men and women with golden robes and miles of silken skin, nine pure white fox tails raised high, laughed like the first cry of a baby as they observed the proceedings.

Phoenixes, golden and ruby feathers woven into their hair and sown into their clothing, observed from a corner, their eyes darting for the nearest exit.

In the lowest tier of the room sat water tanks large enough to hold a mass of sparkling scales, razor-thin fins, darting tails, and dark eyes peeking out from the water.

The courts of faerie held court as close to the dais as possible. Unseelie and Seelie mixed freely.

Women with dresses made of dandelions and tulips laughed like the shattering of crystal as men with blood-soaked hair and tunics made of moss poured them drinks the color of ripe plums in the summertime, which smelled like the first taste of spring.

Brownies, hobgoblin, kobolds, and leprechauns ran around their feet, chasing and hunting each other, and the cloud of sprites and pixies above them.

As Seokjin watched, a kobold snatched a fluttering pixie from the air and swallowed in one gulp, blood dripping from his mouth as he smiled like an innocent child. Yoongi nodded carefully at them.

Witches were sitting in the middle of the room, quiet and serious, the quiet murmur of protection spells, and the glint of wands and staff carved with runic inscriptions of protection and harm tucked close to their chests.

In the opposite corner, nymphs, fauns, maenads, and dryads caroused gleefully, singing and stringing at instruments. They wore white silks as light as the wind, and the sun seemed to shine on them, their voices ringing out with grace and beauty. Their joyous movements obscured someone sitting in the middle of their group, head bowed.

Seokjin cleared his throat and spoke quietly to the room, “you have called for us, so we have come.”

The sounds of hissing, of snarling insults, of flattery, of gnashing teeth and whispered words quieted instantly.

The Council member, leering, fingers twisting through the gold braid of his suit, finger rubbing a white bone ring, stood, his voice ringing out.

“You have come here before us, accused of a most egregious crime, for which-“

Namjoon’s voice was low, “we do not recognize the authority of the Council to judge us.”

The two other Council members on the dais gasped, and one leaned forward, “you dare question our authority?”

Jungkook’s voice was light, “you have no authority. You are charlatans. Frauds. The only power you gain is from the desecration of those within our community. You have gained no power from your own will, but only by usurping that of others.”

The third Council member hissed, “we are the greatest of the community, we have won our seats-“

“Through desolation and terror,” Taehyung snarled, voice snapping, “we are a society where the strongest will rule. But you are not the strongest.”

The first Council member’s voice rang out, dripping with disdain, “then there is nothing more to be done. You willfully disobey the laws of the Council, accordingly, you will be found guilty-“

“Excuse me!” A voice cried out from the shadows.

The Council member turned towards the noise, and Hoseok sighed deeply, as if profoundly annoyed.

A vampire stood. He was not particularly imposing, or particularly tall, or particularly handsome, but undoubtedly plain.

He wore unremarkable clothes, and a goblet of blood was held haphazardly between his fingers. But all the other creatures of the shadows, the creatures of nightmares, of terrors murmured only during daylight, cringed and bowed in front of him. “It is permitted to speak on behalf of accused individuals.”

The standing Council member hissed between clenched teeth, but the other Council members nodded agreeably.

“We will keep to tradition!” one Council member cried out.

The vampire nodded, and his voice was calm, plain-spoken,

“I am Dangun, sire to Kim Hoseok, who stands before you accused. I have raised him. I killed him in the battlefields of a kingdom long since lost, and he drank my blood in return.

I taught him how to kill, how to feed, how to f*ck. He has fought beside me through the rise and fall of many an empire since turned to dust, including my own.

I have slept, bored of this world, of its human foibles, its petty idiocies. But then…Then he woke me, to tell me of a delightful story.

That the Council will be ruined and I will have a front row seat.”

Dangun smiled, his fangs like sharp daggers, “how could I miss such a feast?”

“You will not help Lord Sire?” Hoseok asked. The creatures of darkness and shadows turned to Dangun, and Seokjin suddenly knew that if Dangun said yes, they would descend upon everyone and attempt to swallow them whole, to tear them to shreds and relish the marrow.

Dangun shook his head, “you invited me Hoseok. This is your fight. I will feast from the remnants of the Council and hunt down the stragglers. But the conqueror? The conqueror must be you.”

Hoseok nodded aggreably, “yes Lord Sire.”

Dangun tilted his head, “your packmates are very pretty.”

Hoseok’s head tilted upwards, and red-eyed fury shone in his gaze, “you may not have them Lord Sire. I will share with you kill and crown, as is your due, but they are entirely mine.”

Dangun’s eyes narrowed, and Seokjin wondered if Hoseok would go for his throat. However, Dangun only nodded sharply, stepping back into the shadows.

Then, as if Dangun’s voice had broken a spell, a phoenix, gold and ruby feathers glinting, stood up, quietly, voice like clear bells. “You commit a grave injustice here. We are not creatures of violence. But good luck can just as easily turn to ash in your mouth. Harm will be repaid tenfold.” She sat back down quietly, smoothing out her skirt.

Jimin smiled at her, and his eyes were clear. Seokjin reached for his hand, his thumb smoothing over Jimin’s skin. Seokjin knew how much of a risk the phoenixes had taken to come today, and Seokjin would not forget their kindness.

A younger witch stood up next. Silver rings, imbued with spells of fire and violence were worn on each finger, and a crescent moon imbued with the symbols of Hecate was worn in her hair. Next to her, her familiar, a large, black, three-headed dog, barked loudly, his tail wagging.

Her voice was quiet, “Namjoon is one of us. This war is his, but his claims are true. The gods and goddesses of witches have spoken to us. They anger of the unnecessary sacrifices, of the uneven balance. Harm must be repaid. Violence must have vengeance. The even scales are the only truth.”

The Council members swallowed awkwardly as she sat back down. There was no promise to help from the witches and warlocks, Seokjin thought, but there was still anger, still a desire for revenge, that could make the Council think twice.

A fae lord stood up next, his hair was the color of pure silver, his eyes the yellow shade of a lightning strike. He wore a shirt made of nightshade, and icicles like a crown, and he leaned onto a golden cane, capped with the figure of a mortal man, mouth open to scream in agony.

As Seokjin watched, the mortal man’s head moved, his mouth pleading soundlessly for someone to free him from his eternal prison.

“I am the lord of delight and sorrow. I speak for the Unseelie King Oberon, and for the Seelie Queen Titania, who have come together on the matter.”

There was a rustle of shocked gasps throughout the audience. Oberon and Titania were known to throw mountains at each other whenever they met, not agree.

The lord continued, his voice like silk, “they will not interfere in the matters of the Council. But the Lord Yoongi is the Lord of Misrule and Treachery. His ancestor, the great Lord Puck has long served the King and Queen faithfully when they were still building fairyland out of the ether of the earth. Puck wandered the world with the King and Queen, spreading deceit and confusion wherever he went. Lord Yoongi has reflected that same loyalty faithfully, tied with blood and bone by oaths and promises to fairyland. If harm were to come to Lord Yoongi, and by extension those that are his, and therefore by that binding, belong to the King and Queen, there would be…Retribution.”

The lord smiled wickedly, as if tasting the trembling fear of the Council on his tongue.

A nymph raised her hand. She floated several feet of the ground, her dress swaying in an invisible breeze. “I am an aurai, the fleet-winged daughter of Boreas, the North Wind. I asked for quiet, so my lord, who has descended from Olympus, may speak.”

There was an overwhelming silence at her words, as the group of nymphs spread to let the young man in the middle rise to be seen by all. He was undoubtedly a god. His skin shone with the glint of immortality, his body shaped to the best of human perfection, his power all-encompassing. But he was very young in appearance, and his voice was soft and sweet.

“I am Ganymede, cupbearer to the god Zeus, leader and ruler of men, of the flashing bolt, of the clear sky, the thunderer, the giver of favourable winds, the supreme and most high. I speak for him. Although he will not interfere with the power of the Council, his son, Taehyung is among the accused. Zeus cares much for the wellbeing of his child, and any harm to his child must be met with his might.”

Seokjin peaked at Taehyung, wondering. Was he upset at Zeus interfering? But Taehyung just carried sadness in his eyes, his eyes focused on Ganymede and nodding at him as Ganymede retook his seat.

The Council looked around nervously, whispering behind their hands. This was better than Seokjin had expected. No promises of help, but promises of retribution were always useful.

The supernatural community was on the edges of their seats, leaning forward, salivating at the promise of a bloodbath to come.

The Council member who had spoken first, who had stood up, raised his voice once more, his hands covered in bone jewelry waiving in the air.

“We think it would be best to pause the trial until we may consider all the evidence, to ensure due process.”

Ji-ho’s voice rang out, furious, incredulous, “you must find them guilty!”

The Council members laughed nervously, “Ji-ho, you are a welcome member of the Council. But you are young, you must remember we must take our positions seriously and ensure the fairest outcome.”

The coven members of Ji-ho and Seo-ah were still grouped together. Seokjin’s eyes narrowed, trying to peer at what they were hiding, shifting on his feet.

Seo-ah’s voice rose even louder, “we have brought this insidious, destabilizing pack to your attention. They ferment revolution. They cast aspersions on us, who have been brought by our will and our power to greater station. They must die!”

The Council members leaned forward, trying to whisper intently, but Ji-ho spoke first. “You are unworthy of your Council seats if you will not take action. Our Coven Leader has done all she can to make you understand. The bones and blood of the dragons will make us gods once more. We will no longer be reduced to cutting up unicorns and phoenixes.”

There was a shocked gasp in the back of the room. Supernaturals sniffed at the air, smelling the rising tension and anger between the Council members. A chink in the armor.

The main Council member hissed loudly, “you overstep. We are grateful for the long service of your coven leader to the Council. But we are in charge now. The new generation. We will not bend to your old ways. We will not bend to destruction and death.”

Seo-ah’s laugh was maddened at the edges, dipped in insanity, “you are fearful of power. You are scared to reach out and grab what you are entitled to. You are all useful fools. You should beg on your knees for our Coven Leader’s favor. Her will is yours.”

The Council members stood up, their hands reaching out, the power swelling around them like a beating heart. Their voices spit like fire.

“We are done with this…Discussion. We will not move forward with a trial at this time. Coven Leader, we have enjoyed a long and fruitful union, but what you teach your coven is blasphemy. The Council is everything it is all. Bend to its will or be subsumed.”

The coven members twisted and turned to look towards the center of their little a circle, as a voice laughed. Their laugh was that of a young girl, of dancing through daisy filled meadows on a bright summer day, but her voice rasped out like swords clashing together, painful and harsh in the quiet, listening, room.

“I am the Council. I have sold my soul thrice-over for the Council that I rebuilt, that I shaped from ash to own the world. I will not bow before you, you grasping, lazy, idiot men. My coven will do my will. The Council will do my will. I will continue my father’s work…”

Father’s work, Seokjin wondered, a sudden silence in his head, suddenly gasping for air. What…What did that mean?

The voice continued, endlessly cruel, “The Council is mine. The dragons are mine to cut up and display at my leisure.”

“You have lost your mind,” one of the Council members shouted, “you have no-“

He screamed, as blood stared to pour from his eyes. He tore at his skin, as his body crumbled like paper, as a spell, for that could only be what it was, ate him from the inside out. He collapsed, mouth open in a rictus of a scream.

The supernatural community laughed and clapped at the bloody scene.

Seokjin eyed the pack, but his mind, his body remained troubled. This wasn’t just dissent between Council members, something was off, something Seokjin was missing.

The other two Council members whispered words of protection, but they were far too slow. Seo-ah, still laughing, whispered a spell for destruction as another screamed, as he crumbled to ash.

Ji-ho laughed even louder as the last Council member turned to the supernatural community. “Please…Please...Please help me…”

“Run,” Ji-ho purred.

The Council member took one step back, two…Hope rose in his face.

Ji-ho murmured a spell of breaking. The Council members bones shattered one by one, his screams rising to the rafter as he crumbled to the ground. A snap of his neck silenced him.

The coven, who had just become traitors to their own, stood proudly, enjoying the terror they had created.

Namjoon’s voice rang out, “the other council members will not stand for this.”

The woman who had spoken, who claimed the Council was hers, laughed joyously once more at Namjoon’s words.

She hissed in pain as she rose and the coven let her through to face the pack. “I will enjoy killing you in front of the pack, watching the hope drain from their eyes,” her voice rasped.

The Coven Leader was covered head to toe, dark shapeless garments covering her body. Her hands, which peaked out, were covered in awful, weeping, red burns. Her wounds seemed open and swollen, as if she had just walked from a fire, and the flames were still swallowing her whole, the pain still settled under his skin.

An endless burning. Her face was covered by a dark lace veil.

“Do not threaten my pack,” Seokjin snarled, “for it will only make your death more painful.”

The Coven Leader chuckled sweetly, and her hand, burned, scared, reached for her veil, “is that any way to speak to your first love?”

Seokjin felt lightheaded, dizzy, his voice like ash in his mouth.

Nonowhyhowneverdeadshouldbedead

Painagonyeveryoneisdeadishoulddieiwanttodiepleaseletmedie

Killedherkilledeveryoneendlessburning…

“Aera?”

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

“Aera?” Seokjin whispered.

Aera. His torturer. His eternal torment. The one who had kept him alive when all he had wanted was to die. Who had touched him when he was unwilling and unable to fight back.

Aera who had burned in the endless inferno Seokjin had created out of his agony and pain.

Aera attempted to smile. There were glamor charms woven through her hair, worn on her clothes, pulsing bone and blood magic trying to keep the semblance of skin, of life, on her body. But underneath it, Seokjin could see the raw, burned, pulsing flesh, endlessly burning, distorting her features into a mockery.

“That must hurt,” Jimin murmured quietly, viciously, as his eyes traced over her form.

“You must be in constant pain,” Yoongi murmured tenderly, the words gentle against his tongue, as if treasuring the eternal agony inflicted on Aera.

Aera’s laugh was soft and sweet, the joyous laughter of a young woman. “I had heard that the world-killer had joined a pack. That the world-killer had subsumed his power, his will, to gain access to another dragon.” She gestured at Jungkook with a gloved hand, “even a dragon as weak as that one. You couldn’t get more use out of him than for spare parts.”

Seokjin tilted his head, inhaling the pain Aera radiated, the agony of each of her waking moments. “I love them,” Seokjin spoke quietly.

Aera’s eyes widened, as if surprised by his response. “You...You? Dragon who goes by the name Seokjin, who has tricked gods and loved kings, who has led armies and revolutions. You love them? Misfits, exiles, weaklings of the highest order? You have the strength of the gods, you have destroyed a world out of nothing but pure envy and vanity, and you would lower yourself to...To this sorry excuse for a pack.”

Seokjin’s words came out low and vicious. “I am going to kill you, Aera. But I was going to kill you quickly, because I thought you’d suffered enough. But now...Now you insulted my pack. You've insulted those I love. So Aera, mercy will not befall you. Your death will be eternally slow and painful. Worse agony than anything you have witnessed, any past pain a balm compared to what awaits.”

Aera’s grin was that of a mad woman, who had fallen of the precipice of sanity long ago and now danced among the Maenads and was crowned with belladona by Lyssa. “Ah, so now we get to the truth. You know now who is your true enemy. Me. I survived the fall of Atlantis. I spent centuries healing enough to be able to move, speak, walk. I built the Council back into a place of greatness. I built the strongest coven in the world. It took me years to find you world-killer, and now I will have my revenge.”

Jungkook snarled viciously, “revenge? You should be begging Seokjin on bended knee that he was offering a quick death. I’m going to enjoy tearing you apart.”

Aera’s eyes narrowed, “I’m going to wear your skull like a crown, you insolent fledgling.”

“How did you survive?” Seokjin asked, eyes raking over her form. “No one should have survived my fire. You were not particularly strong. There is no reason for you to live when those around you died by my hand and by my will.”

Aera laughed again, louder. The crowd shifted on their feet, as her gloved hand reached to pull out a necklace hidden under her dress. It was a gold necklace, shaped like heart, dotted with diamonds, and inside…

“You used my heart to stay alive?” Seokjin hissed. The organ was shriveled, small, and used, but it still radiated power. A dragon's heartstring could cure death and rain down destruction, and Aera had been using it to regain her power and rebuild the Council of old.

Aera shrugged her shoulders, “my father gave it to me as a gift to wear to that faithful party on that night he died. I wore it to show you that I loved you when I came to help you escape. I wore it to show you that you had given me all of yourself, that I had accepted all your flaws, all your failures. That I loved you despite all of the limitations of your kind. And what did you do? You betrayed me, world-killer.”

Namjoon’s voice rose above the hum of the crowd, “Seokjin betrayed you? You raped him for years. You tortured him. You cut him up and sold him for parts, like a toy you could throw away when you got bored. You never loved him.

I love him. I love his anger and his fury, his tenderness and his compassion. You loved the power he gave you. You loved the idea of being in love. But wearing his heart like a prize shows exactly who you are. Greedy, selfish and underserving.”

Aera’s voice rose to a yell, a croaked out cry of jealousy, “I loved him. Me. Despite his nature. Despite the flaws of his kind. I loved him. We loved each other.”

“I never loved you,” Seokjin hissed, “every moment I touched you was worse than any torture. I’m glad I killed you and your kin. You are all parasites. You destroy everything you touch, endlessly greedy and hungry. There is no capacity for love in you. It does not matter if your father is to blame for what he shaped you into. You are responsible for the pain you caused me. The nightmares and the fear I carry with me is your fault, Aera.”

Aera shook her head, “you lie now to your pack. You distort the truth to make you sound better. I’m the hero of this story. I am the princess deserving of revenge, who will kill the monster who destroyed my family, who destroyed my world. I rebuilt my life. I hunted down any dragon that remained.” Her eyes darted back to Jungkook, her voice a hiss, “even your parents, although I could never find that blasted fledgling they hid so well. You should know I wear your parents skin like a cloak, and their skulls decorate my mantle.”

Jungkook took a step back, eyes unbelieving. Seokjin could see the hope Jungkook had carried with him for year be crushed at Aera’s words, at the joy with which she spread her hate.

Seokjin stepped forward on light feet, until he was face to face with Aera, could reach out and touch her face with tender-light skin, his voice soft. Aera’s eyes were wide, trembling, as she gazed on her lost love, her eternal enemy.

“Perhaps I’m the monster that shaped your nightmares,” Seokjin murmured, “but you were certainly the monster that haunted me for millenia. I will not let you harm me and mine. You think you’ve experienced pain, desecration, desolation?”

Seokjin leaned forward to whisper against her lips, the image of a tender lover, “you have not felt my true wrath, Aera dragon-killer. I will burn this world to ash for those I love.”

Seokjin took a step back, then another, until he stood in the center of the room, the supernatural community of Seoul gazing down on him, bloodthirsty for the war that awaited.

“Run,” Seokjin cried out to the pack, as he reached inside of himself.

Reached for the furious, burning, greedy, selfish core of his being and finally turned.

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

Seokjin walked and talked upon the earth in the form of a man, cloaked under human skin and friendly smiles. Only the truly powerful could see his magic, the dragon that lived at his core.

The desires of the dragon, the nature of the dragon, covetous, grasping, selfish, utterly alien to the care and desires of mortals, was tempered.

Tempered by practices and cultures, the day-to-day activities that restricted and restrained everyone, that made community and connection possible.

However, Seokjin’s dragon soul never dissipated under the yoke of civilization.

And when the dragon that was Seokjin turned, for the first time in decades, furious and vengeful, the dragon emerged.

The roof cracked and broke under the weight of him, the walls crumbling to dust as splinters rained down upon the crowd of supernaturals.

The supernatural of Seoul, predator and prey, creatures of daydreams and nightmares, green-skinned, horned or sharp-teethed, all ran for cover, from a monster made flesh.

Seokjin called upon his magic, a burning fire of endless power, to build a magical barrier around the crowd, keeping everyone trapped.

He pulled back his head, his eyes flicking with supernaturally sharp eyesight as he roared, a sound of bugles calling to war, of terror.

Supernaturals shrieked out in fear and pain, desperately throwing themselves against a magical barrier that would never shatter.

Seokjin flicked his wings, a movement that created a gust of wind that threw dozens against the wall, his tail flicking, dripping poison.

A greedy witch, who’d reached for a shining scale with a vicious spell had a drop of poison hit her skin, and she started to shriek, shrilly, awfully, as her skin started to peel away from her bones, desperately pleading for help as she was left to die, her eyes bleeding as she slumped to the ground, her bones protruding.

Seokjin really only understood one thing to be true, under all the veneer of vanity that his human form preached.

The world could be divided into two categories.

What belonged to him and to his hoard, and what he did not yet possess.

The pack was his, Seokjin knew, every inch of their magic, of their skin, of their desire.

Seokjin roared again, louder, with the responding cry of a thousand magical beings shrieking in fear in response.

His pack, for they belonged to him until the stars fell from the sky and the sun burned to ash, should not be on the field of battle. They should be kept safe within his hoard, draped in glimmering diamonds.

The roar of a fledgling answered Seokjin's call.

Seokjin looked down. There he was…His fledgling. The fledgling roared again, spreading his wings, glistening scales and poisonous spikes.

Seokjin spread his wings as wide as he could, so wide that a shadow was cast over the remnants of the room. He tilted his head back and roared even louder, so that the earth started to shake.

Fledgling…Dragon Seokjin thought.

Umm…Seokjin? You can hear me? The fledgling responded. It’s Jungkook! Are…Are you in there Seokjin?

Seokjin could understand the tremor of fear hidden under the fledgling’s thoughts. The fledgling should be scared.

Seokjin loomed over them all, a hulking mass of black scales, blocking out the sun. Scars were etched all over his flesh, endless torture scarring his skin.

The scales had healed poorly, disjointedly, in the face of the agony he had suffered, but they had healed nonetheless, huge expanses of magically protected scales, which gleamed with power. His tail dripped green poison, and his eyes were the color of pulsing fire, red hot and glowing, like the center of a dying star.

Seokjin beat his wings again, stretching out his muscles. Supernaturals scattered to crouch in the corners of the barrier as Seokjin's wings spread wide.

Fledgling…Seokjin thought, once more. I am here.

Seokjin? Are you in there? The fledgling repeated.

The core of Seokjin is here, the dragon-kin. The part that walks upon two legs in the human world is simply subsumed at this moment, sleeping peacefully.

Okay, the fledgling thought tentatively. Are you okay? After turning? There’s a magical barrier up now, we think Aera put it up, but Namjoon can’t get it down. We’re all trapped here. Also, the fledgling's mind was tinged with excitement, I didn’t know we could talk like this in dragon form!

The act of mind-sharing is common among dragons. You are my fledgling, it is only natural, Seokjin thought. As for the barrier, I put it up.I would not want our enemies to run away. They should die here. Then I will bring you and the rest of the pack back to my hoard, and gift you emeralds to decorate your hair and gold to embellish your bodies.

The fledgling twitched, his tail thumping. Okay…I totally appreciate you want to kill everyone.

I want to eat them, Seokjin thought, to crush their bones to dust and scatter their ashes to the far corners of the world. To bring the world to fire and ruin so anyone they have ever met, has ever spoken to, knows only misery and pain.

Totally understand! The fledgling responded, his mind tinged with a hint of desperation. Definitely we should destroy our enemies. But also we kind of like earth? The pack? We like our cottage, and trees, and humanity. We wouldn’t love it if the whole world was destroyed.

Seokjin hissed, a sound like a thousand fires burning in unison. You are mine. What do you need of the world?

The fledgling’s wings stretched wider, fire curling at his mouth. We are yours, but surely because we’re yours we should have everything. And that includes the world. Actually, it would be great if you wouldn’t destroy the world and also wouldn’t destroy every supernatural in Seoul. I think you’ve accidentally killed like a hundred just by moving around.

I am a dragon, Seokjin thought. I am a worldkiller. My fate is death and destruction. I care not for those that are not mine. But if you want the earth to live then I will not burn it all to ash.

The fledgling relaxed his wings, and the supernaturals?

If they are in my way, Seokjin thought, they will die. But my desire is to kill the Council. The rest are simply collateral damage.

Well… The fledgling thought tentatively after a moment, as if offering a bargain. Can you focus on killing Aera? We can get the rest of the Council. And then you can give us as many emeralds to wear as you’d like.

And sapphires, Seokjin thought kindly, flattered at the little fledgling showing such dragon qualities as to bargain, his mind purring.

Whatever you want, the fledging responded.

Everything, Seokjin thought, I will have everything.

Seokjin cut the connection, his wings flapping as he rose into the air. A wind rose around him, created by the beat of his wings, pushing and pulling down trees, the earth trembling beneath him as he rose into the sky.

Seokjin peered down. He could see the pack.

The fledgling had breathed dragon fire upon the council members, his roars rising in the air.

The phoenix had called the dragon fire to him, his body wreathed in flames. The phoenix carried a bow and arrow of burning fire, which he shot at his enemies with deadly precision.

The warlock had called upon all his magic, and silver arcs of spellcraft shone in the air as he cut apart the Council members, who fell to the ground.

The vampire was already dripping with blood as he tore apart a witch’s chest with ease, smiling as he bit into the still beating heart.

The fae had called a silver sword, which gleamed with moonlight as he cut his opponents in half.

The nymph had called upon the earth, trees and grass growing to strangle their enemies and swallow them in the ground, laughing with joy as belladonna and foxglove grew under his feet.

Seokjin called his fire, ice-blue and burning hot, blowing fire down upon the supernaturals who fought his pack.

His pack was strong and powerful and merciless, Seokjin wondered with growing joy.

Now, he would need to lay the body of their enemy at their feet, to show his worth and strength as their mate.

Seokjin peered down once more, until he laid his eyes upon Aera. She was in the center of a group the pack had charged towards.

Protected by bone magic, her hair flew back in the wind, her burning skin calling upon the darkest of magic to protect her.

Her coven whispered words of a spell, and Seokjin could feel the power of it.

The power was endless, all encompassing, a bomb of magical energy that would burn them all to ash.

My death is not enough, Seokjin thought, but you wish us all to die. You wish for my pack to die?

Unacceptable.

Seokjin dove towards the coven.

The coven looked up, white-cold fear on their faces, as they dove for cover, running away from the predator in their midst.

Seokjin angled further downward, pushing with all his might, his scales scrapping the floor as he flew back up, towards the setting sun and twinkling scars, his prey caught in the grasp of his claws.

Aera shrieked incoherently, hissing words of magic against his scales, which absorbed them with ease.

You have made me this, Seokjin thought, now you must learn the consequences.

Aera shrieked once more as Seokjin beat his wings, flying away from the magical barrier, and towards the river, following the curve to the coast.

The night was balmy, the weather mild, the sun setting casting a golden-hue on the city of Seoul.

Men and women walked back home, children chattering about their day, couples enjoying the quiet sunset of a summer night, all ignorant of the dragon of myth and legend that flew above them, with a victim caught in his claws.

Aera yelled out, over the sound of the rushing wind, “Seokjin! If you kill me our spell will be completed, and your pack will die. A final sacrifice will be given by my blood and bone. Every supernatural in Seoul will burn!”

Seokjin huffed, fire brimming at his mouth.

The two-legged Seokjin might have wavered, might have wondered at the risk, but dragon Seokjin was clear.

His pack was strong enough to defeat the coven. If he could see the spell they were casting, then so could the pack. He would have to trust them to succeed.

His responsibility was revenge upon Aera, and he had no desire to free her.

Her screams rose again as she twisted in his grasp and Seokjin flew higher into the air, until the last few houses were only tiny dots upon the horizon, and the ocean swallowed his sight.

“Seokjin! I was your one true love and you betrayed me! I am owed my revenge. I am owed retribution and I will have my vengeance. For my family! For my father! For my pain!”

For Lady Aryeong, Seokjin thought, fire building in his throat. For his parents. For Jungkook’s parents. For every dragon who died in agony and fear. For the remnants of their culture, lost once to anarchy, and lost once more to endless greed and cruelty.

And for himself most of all, for what she’d taken from him, his dignity, which she would never understand had hurt far more to be stripped of than any pound of flesh his enemies had carved out with knives.

His wings beat as he stayed still, the ocean an unending expanse underneath them, as Aera twisted in his grip.

“Seokjin! I am entitled. I will have what was promised to me!”

Seokjin let go.

Aera fell soundlessly, black clothes flapping in the wind, silver-toned magic swirling around her.

She hit the water.

Seokjin could see the blood on her, the unnatural angle of her limbs.

The ocean water moved suddenly, as a creature stirred from its slumber.

Waves rose as high as skyscrapers, as one tentacle, larger and greater in length than Seokjin in dragon form, reached up from within the watery depths, a million suckers twitching in the air as it moved towards its prey.

Seokjin could see one eye under the ocean water, gleaming sickly yellow, as it peered up at him, fixated on the dragon. The eye was as old as time itself, since the first ocean had flooded the planet, and creatures stranger still than man lived in the waves.

Great one, Seokjin thought respectfully.

The eye twitched away from the dragon, and back towards it prey. The tentacle wrapping around the broken figure of Aera, who shrieked in its grasp, her arms flailing.

Still alive then, Seokjin thought gleefully, as her screams rose to the heavens, begging and pleading.

Aera rose in the air, trapped by the tentacle, appearing like a maiden sacrifice of old to a terrorizing monster.

The tentacle pulled her under the surface.

All that remained of her was the stillness of the dark-blue water, and the reflected silver-white crescent of the moon.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

Seokjin landed back into the middle of the room, the earth shuddering under the weight of him as his form turned back to human.

Seokjin’s eyes remained burning fire, his power diffusing around him. Seokjin’s magic was of a burning fire, the painful ache of blistering burns, the shuddering coldness of endless power.

The supernaturals of Seoul crouched low in front of him, bowing in front of the greater threat.

Creatures of nightmares with the head of beautiful women and the bodies of poisonous scorpions, sunlight glowing from their endlessly-seeing eyes, men with bat wings and bloody mouths, women with eyes of fire and sharp-fanged teeth and iron claws.

Creatures of dreams, blue-eyed men and women with hooved feet and dripping wet hair, beautiful horned men and women with crackling thunder in their eyes, and men with red caps, smoke drifting from their mouth, and whirlwinds swirling around their feet.

Seokjin’s pack were covered in blood, dripping from their hair and coating their bodies. Around them, dozens of bodies of pro-Council members littered the floor, some killed with fangs or claws, others burned beyond repair, some choked by vines, flourishing dandelions sprouting from their skulls, while the rest were simply cleaved in half by a broadsword.

“It’s not our blood,” Hoseok cried out cheerfully, pink-flushed cheeks signaling that he’d fed.

Seokjin nodded as he approached, hand reaching out to trace the blood on Hoseok’s cheek. Hoseok’s eyes darkened with all consuming hunger and bloodlust.

I get to have them. I get to have this, Seokjin thought with a delirious, all-consuming joy. He pulled away, still savouring the feeling of possession, as he turned back to the remnants of his enemies.

The pack had tied up the rest of Aera’s coven in the center of the room, while the Council members screamed and thrashed against their bonds.

Ji-ho and Seo-ah were twisting furiously, blood splattered everywhere, hands scraping desperately against the ground. There was no sound to be heard from their lips, for a magical barrier surrounded them, an intricate and detailed shield of magic holding them captured, a thousand different facets linked together.

“Dragon-magic?” Seokjin called out. Jungkook’s voice called out shyly, “not too bad for my first try, right?”

Seokjin reached for Jungkook, hands now coated in blood, as he reached in for a kiss, “wondrous, sweetheart.”

The rest of the supernatural community pressed as far back against the magical barrier as they could, eyes shying away from their pack, bodies curled low, as to avoid a blow.

Seokjin turned back towards the crowd, still savoring the soft taste of Jungkook's lips, before his voice rang out, calm and sure.

“I am Seokjin, World-Killer, the Many-Faced, the Twisting Serpent, Killer of Ascalion, Ruin of Atlantis. I am a dragon, son and heir of Lady Aryeong, the queen of dragons who founded Silla, and cleaved from earth and dust the bones of the city on which we stand.”

The silence in the room was deafening, an overwhelming quiet, as if nature itself was holding its breath.

“The Council is dead,” Seokjin snarled, anger erupting from his chest. “I have killed the last of the Council. Anyone who claims allegiance to their desecration and their desolation will face my fire and my wrath.”

The older fae, who had spoken before in favor of Yoongi, the Lord of Primroses and Thorns, rose to his feet, a grin throwing his unnatural beauty into stark relief.

Faes, endless and immortal as they were, fled boredom like mortals fled death. The destruction of the Council was a profoundly exciting event, and thrill brightened his eyes.

“Lord Kim,” the fae murmured, his voice like silk against stone, “we are the supernaturals of the world. We have clawed our way out from fairybooks and stories told around campfires. We are descended from the golden blood of gods. We have walked this earth since man hid in their caves. We have survived the birth of faith and the creation of science. We are survivors. But we are also made of our nature, unable to change in the way that mortals are. We cannot have anarchy, for the blood of immortals would drown the streets.”

Seokjin nodded, and he felt only certainty in his heart as he spoke next. “You are right, Lord of sweetness and pain. We will rule. My pack. The Kim Pack. We represent the diversity of our community. We will offer justice and order. We will not engage in ruin and destruction. But…”

A shudder ran through the room, a live wire of fear, “if anyone were to put our community at risk, they would face my fire and my power. There would be no mercy.”

The fae nodded, and the supernatural community of Seoul stiffened warily, but there was no undercurrent of revolution. Power needed to be held, and Seokjin had shown today that he was the biggest, strongest threat in the room.

Namjoon’s voice rose above the sudden hubbub, blood staining his teeth red, “there will be no more of this dark magic, no more sale of organ and bone. Death is a part of our community. We are not creatures of kindness, of forgiveness. The will of the strongest has always ruled us. But there will be order, there will be justice. That is what we offer.”

There was another rise in sound, a thousand conversations erupting at once, and then a sudden quiet once more, as if everyone had pushed the limits of their bonds and found them sufficient in their give.

“And what happens to them?” a unicorn cried out, his voice ringing like the sound of clashing bells, his golden horn flashing, pointing at the Council members. “If you claim justice will be meted out, then we ask for our pound of flesh.”

Jungkook’s voice was sharp as knives raised on the ides of march, his hands twisting in the air as the barrier came down. The room suddenly rang out with the cries of the Council members, the desperate twisting against their bonds, the screams of impending doom shaking the rafters.

“Take them,” Jungkook snarled, “and let us burn their plans to dush, to scorch the earth and let their ashes scatter to the winds.”

Hope suddenly rose in the room. It was a twisted kind of hope, one built from years of agony, of pain and loss, cracked and bleeding. But the hope still rose, until it shattered.

The phoenixes, hunted and deprived, rose as one and rushed towards the pack with fire in their blood.

As if a deluge had broken, the supernaturals of Seoul rushed towards the remaining Council members. The witches hissed spells of mending and life, to keep the Council members alive for as long as was needed to satisfy the endless desire for revenge

A phoenix loomed over the Council members, who trashed like doomed fish, gasping for air on a beach, sensing impending doom. The phoenix’s mouth shaped in a rictus of a smile, “you wear my mother’s eye as a pendant, Ji-ho. An eye for an eye, as the mortals say.”

The screams of the Council members rose then, endless and agonizing, pleading, for forgiveness, for mercy, words that they themselves had never offered.

Seokjin’s eyes twitched away from the scene, blood starting to drip onto the floor, as Hoseok’s sire, Dangun, approached the pack, arms open wide.

“Hoseok,” his sire cried out, “you have made me most proud today. Your teeth are stained with blood, the corpses of your enemies littered at your feet.”

“Thank you, Lord Sire,” Hoseok said, bowing, “your training and education have allowed me my bloodlust.”

Hoseok’s sire shook his head, his hand patting Hoseok’s shoulder, “no, that was all you, Hoseok. Even as a human. Your vampirism simply unlocked what was already innate. Endless desire, endless ambition.”

“Thank you Lord Sire,” Hoseok murmured. “Will you stay in Seoul?”

Dangun shook his head once more, and his smile was wry, “no. You are king here now. It would be unpleasant for us in the long run. I would want to rule you, your mates would not stand for it. I would not like war between us!

And in any case, the world has changed so much since I last slept. Electricity and technology, democracy and weapons of destruction, why an orc even told me humans have landed on the moon! So much to see. So much to wonder at. And…” Dangun leaned in to whisper.

“They have all forgotten me. My deeds. My bloodshed. I will have to rectify that. To remind the world why altars were raised in my name.”

Hoseok smiled slightly, bowing once more, “I am the most glad of it. May your glory shine eternal. May your enemies shudder at the thought of you, and your sword be wet with blood once more.”

“But you will visit?” Taehyung cut in with a frown, “Hoseok misses you, and he does love you.”

Dangun’s mouth opened and closed, and Seokjin could see the stain of a blush against his cheeks. Hoseok was bright red, in response to Taehyung’s words, but his smile was genuine, “I did miss you Lord Sire. I know you cannot settle in one place for long, and the world is vast. But I would like you to visit. And I did…I do miss you. I do love you.”

Dangun nodded, his eyes shifting with emotion, and he nodded awkwardly. “I do as well, child. Even if…Well if I do not always show it. I do…I do love you Hoseok. And I’m glad you have your pack to call home.”

Hoseok smiled wider, “I’m well Lord Sire. I’m truly happy.”

Dangun nodded once more, his eyes drifting to the pack, and sharpening, “just to mention, if you do hurt Hoseok I will hunt you down and string you up by your entrails before making you eat your own livers.” His look was suddenly that of a cold death on an endless night, freezing and alone.

Dangun’s hand patted Hoseok’s shoulder once more, and Seokjin could see the child he must have been once, whose mother had kissed his cheek and who had cried, before centuries had reshaped him through blood and fang. Dangun smiled fondly at his child, before disappearing in a flash of vampiric speed.

Seokjin turned back towards the Council members. The supernaturals had turned ravenous now, tearing with claw and fang, blood running like a torrent on the floor. A witch murmured prayers of endless healing as the screams of death and mercy muttered by Seo-ah cut off into choked sobbing.

Seokjin’s attention diverted once again, as Ganymede, golden haired and shyly smiling, approached.

“Hello,” he murmured bowing slightly. Taehyung’s bloody hands twisted around each other as he bowed back, his eyes troubled.

Ganymede was so very young up close, eternally caught in the first transition to manhood, a youthful beauty frozen in time.

Ganymede’s voice was soft, “I’m glad to see you are well, Lord Kim. I will tell your Lord Father that you have succeeded, and are now kings of Seoul. He will be most glad to see his glory reflected on earth.”

Taehyung nodded, “I…Ganymede. You don’t have to call me Lord Kim…Thank you for speaking up for me, with…with Lord Zeus. And I was wondering if…”

“If?” Ganymede asked.

“If you, or anyone else in the family need a place to get away from…From him …Even if just for a day, Seoul will always be a safe haven.”

Ganymede shifted on his feet, but his eyes were kind, “thank you, Taehyung. Perhaps I will.”

Taehyung’s smile was sweet as Ganymede disappeared in a flash of golden light.

“A kind thought,” Yoongi murmured.

Taehyung shrugged without commenting, but he reached for Yoongi’s hand, and his gaze encompassed the life of flourishing branches reaching towards an endless sky.

“What are you thinking about?” Jungkook asked Jimin, who carried a quiet determination on his face, blood still dripping from his hair.

“The phoenixes will have to learn how to defend themselves,” Jimin murmured, as he stared at a phoenix who has begun to cut into the screaming Council members with clawed hands, “we’ve been victims far too long. It’s time to become more than a good luck charm to be strung around someone’s neck. Instead of someone’s dream, we need to become someone’s nightmare.”

The pack was silent for a moment at Jimin’s words, and then Taehyung growled lowly, “that’s so hot,” Taehyung murmured, “talk more about how to you want revenge.”

Jimin giggled, his hands covering his face, blushing red.

Ji-ho behind him had made a run for the doors, crashing to the floor with a scream of pain, as a gryphon, wings spread wide, tore into his liver.

“What about you, Namjoon?” Seokjin wondered. Namjoon’s hand came to push back his hair, blood still dripping onto the floor, but he carried a broad smile.

“Magical education needs to be more accessible to every witch, wizard and warlock with the gift. The schools will have to be reformed. Policies will have to be implemented. Courts will have to designated,” Namjoon’s face radiated excitement, “I can finally bring about the change that always been needed.”

“I’m glad,” Jungkook murmured, “you always deserved better than your childhood. I’m glad you can help the next generation.”

“And you, Yoongi?” Jimin asked, “will Lord Oberon ask you back at court?”

Yoongi’s eyes were reflective, glassy, like a still lake, as a giant, mouth open wide, tore off Ji-ho’s arm with a snap, blood dripping onto his face. A spell for healing began to regrow the bone instantly as Ji-ho screamed for death to save her.

“There are many faes who want to live in this plane. Faes who used to hide in the secret corners of the world, in deep woods and grassy knolls, under ancient oaks and rabbit warrens. Those faes live in the shadows of skyscrapers now, in the darkened corners of alleyways, in the underground tunnels beneath a city. The same tricks, the same glee, just expressed in new ways. Lord Oberon needs someone to be his envoy on earth. I will offer that to him. To rule in his name.”

“And if he says no?” Namjoon asked quietly.

Yoongi’s smile was wry, “I have two dragons in my corner and the most fearsome pack in the world. I doubt Lord Oberon will say no.”

“Or I’ll eat him!” Jungkook cried out.

“Fledgling, you don’t want to eat faes,” Seokjin huffed, “they taste terrible.”

“Really?” Jungkook’s face was bright with excitement. “Okay, I’ll listen to you as my dragon-elder.”

“Dragon-elder?” Seokjin questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“If you fly with me,” Jungkook pushed, “now that you’ve turned, I’ll listen to you.”

Seokjin nodded agreeably. He did enjoy Jungkook’s attempts at bargaining, it was simply adorable. “Yes fledgling, now you learn to be a dragon in earnest.”

“But,” Taehyung asked with a sigh, turning back to the bloody scene, “can we just watch a little longer first?”

Jungkook’s voice was a wicked whisper, “how could we not?”

Ji-ho was being held in the air by two witches, who kept him alive with whispered spells, as a nymph called plants to rise from the earth suffocate him.

Seokjin heard bones crack as Seo-ah cried out, two unicorns tearing her apart with their bare hands.

Faeries laughed gaily at the scene, passing wine made of sunlight around as they traced bloody designs into each other skin.

Seokjin smiled, a grin of a conqueror, with the world at his feet and a bloodied crown on his head.

The supernatural of Seoul were reveling in the blood, sharp-toothed and iron-clawed, glowing-eyed and scaled-skin.

They were creatures of shadows, long since relegated to dust in mortal minds, forgotten by the world.

But they were his, the supernaturals of Seoul, and he grinned at their ectasy, for they were of the dragon’s court.

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

The supernaturals of Seoul were frightened of their new kings. The supernaturals of Seoul left that courtroom a bloody mess, stained blood red from the desecrated bodies of the Council members, torn apart by teeth, fang, and fire.

They retreated to their lairs in the sewers of Seoul, to the darkened corners where they dragged the unwary, to the clubs where life and death danced together, to the tops of skyscrapers trying to conquer the heavens.

They resumed their endless hunting through the hoards of crowds, pushing and crowding as the moon rose to blaze in the night sky.

When humans saw them out of the corner of their eye, their mortal eyes turned away, refusing to believe the golden gleam in their eyes, the shine of their feathers, the whisper of magic at their fingertips, eyes focused instead on the gray of reality.

But those supernaturals, who danced and played and f*cked, carried a morsel of fear in their heart. For they had a new king, a dragon.

They whispered in the night that he heard every secret whispered on the breeze, that he had destroyed a planet and lived to tell the tale, and that his pack, the most vicious, powerful collection of supernaturals in the world, ruled at his side with an iron fist.

That the dragon’s pack could call the deepest of dark magic to their fingertips, carried blades of legends that shone with glory as it cut creatures in half, could call gods to their aid, and could walk the twisted roads between worlds, to the eternal emerald green hills of fairyland and to other worlds besides, where darker creatures slumbered.

Seoul was at peace for the first time in centuries, for the dragon and his pack ruled.

Seokjin’s tail thumped against the grass.

The Council had been destroyed only a few weeks before. The remaining Council members, who'd avoided that bloody day at court had been hunted down over a painstaking few weeks. Dragged from their beds, where they hid in shivering fear, their bodies were left to rot as a symbol of the new power that ruled.

A new court had to be made, a constitution written by a harried Namjoon, and oaths taken from the supernaturals of Seoul.

The dragon's pack now ruled Seoul.

Seokjin knew the calm was not forever. That another supernatural would rise and try to take their thrones. But Seokjin felt no doubt in his heart. His pack was his home, and he would use every bit of his soul and his essence to keep them safe and happy. Any enemies of his pack would feel his wrath and his fire.

This was the first weekend they had all together. Seokjin had awoken to the smell of pancakes and a pink-cheeked Jimin, who had held on to his hand very sweetly, as the sunlight sparkled in the kitchen. “Seokjin, I…This isn’t meant to be rude. I just…We noticed when you turned with the Council, that you had scars, that your scales were overgrown.”

“It’s difficult to do on myself,” Seokjin said dryly, but he felt a little hurt. He knew how hulking and terrifying he was in his dragon form, but he thought the pack would be kind enough to ignore it.

“No,” Taehyung said, “we didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. We just…We went back to the sphinx’s store and…”

“Alone?” Seokjin questioned, voice rising, “she’s incredibly dangerous!”

“It was a surprise,” Hoseok murmured from where he was keeping an eye on Namjoon, who was flipping pancakes with a degree of excitement that was slightly worrying. “We all went.”

“Without me? To tell the sphinx how ugly my scales are?” Seokjin questioned.

“What? No!” Jungkook cried out, reaching for Seokjin’s other hand. “Your scars make you a survivor. They represent your history, your successes, and your triumphs. We just wanted to take care of you.”

“She gave us some ingredients,” Namjoon added, as Yoongi pulled a small silver bottle out of his pocket, “a mix of different ingredients, snapdragons, golden apples from the Hesperides, a branch from the hundred-knot bamboo tree, a bunch of raskovnik and a fern flower, which make a delightful paste that helps heal dragon scales.”

“Oh…” Seokjin blushed a blazing red. “You want to take care of my wings and scales?”

“Why are you blushing so much?” Jungkook asked, leaning forward.

“It’s just…To let another care for your wings and your scales is only done by those closest to you. Your parents when you’re young, or your own mates. It's the most private thing that a dragon can do for another.”

“Oh…” Jungkook’s eyes shone, “so do you want to let us take care of you?”

“I would be honoured,” Seokjin murmured.

A quiet exhale, and Seokjin turned. It felt so right to be in his dragon skin.

The garden had been too small to fit in, but it expanded to magically accommodate him, the flowers fluttering in the breeze as his body grew.

Seokjin could see out of the corner of his eyes, now blazing with dragon fire, to the dark, damp patch of grass where Taehyung had buried the remains of the Council members. Roses of every color, lavender swaying in the summer breeze, and bunches of green rosemary grew, a patch of beauty grown from ugliness.

Seokjin thought the pack would be bored taking care of him. He was so big, it would take hours for the pack to care for every scale.

Jungkook did grow bored after a while, and he himself turned into a dragon, nipping and running around Seokjin’s feet, roaring fire into the air, flapping his wings.

Seokjin was happy to entertain him. The rest of the pack were careful, taking their time, as they scrubbed and polished his scales. Jimin had taken his feathers and made golden thread, which he’d used to sow the holes in Seokjin’s wings with care.

“Better?” Taehyung asked, as he slid down Seokjin’s back, the grass growing to catch him as he landed.

Seokjin huffed agreeably, opening one huge burning eye. He’d never felt better, relaxed, happy and whole.

“You look lovely,” Jimin cried out.

Seokjin pulled his wings wide, and roared to the heavens, a clarion call of power.

“Really good roar,” Namjoon said, “very scary.”

Namjoon joined Taehyung and Jimin crowded together cross-legged on the ground, as Hoseok pulling out his sword and started cleaning it with broad, easy movements. Yoongi joined them, pulling from shifting starlight a silver lute, studded with scenes of fairies who danced on light feet as their hair swayed in the breeze, an explosion of endless joy.

Jungkook rushed up to Seokjin once more, nipping and running around his feet until Seokjin rose to stand.

Jungkook’s wings started to flap in the breeze as he rose a few feet in the air, then a few more.

Seokjin flapped his wings once, the wind rising to greet him. Seokjin’s feet crouched against the earth, his claws digging into the grass of the garden.

Yoongi eyes were gleaming an inhuman silver, his voice like that of a rushing brook, a creature of another world whose smile was a thing of endless beauty.

The pack leaned back against the grass as they listened, flowers coming to create a bed of brilliant flowers for them to lay on, sunrise-tinged roses, dusk-painted lavender, lilies the white of freshly fallen snow, sunflowers the shine of a sunny day, creatures of myth under a noonday sun:

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,

And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again

With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,

For with the first warm kisses of the rain

The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,

And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,

And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs

Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly

Across our path at evening, and the suns

Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see

Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,

(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)

Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose

The little quivering disk of golden fire

Which the bees know so well, for with it come

Pale boy's-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,

While close behind the laughing younker scares

With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,

And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,

And on the grass the creamy blossom falls

In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells' nodding carillons

Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,

That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons

With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine

In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed

And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,

And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,

Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy

Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,

And violets getting overbold withdraw

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!

Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock

And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,

Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock

Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon

Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at

noon.

The dragons flew into the bright blue sky. The skyscrapers of the city rose beneath them like twisting vines, the Han river glistening with shattered rays of sunlight.

Two dragons flew, creatures of myth, of children’s stories and long since crumbled ruins.

Dragons flew once more on the wings of morning.