Ella wasn’t sure what made her volunteer to help investigate a strange sound from inside one of the Labyrinths many tunnels. It was probably a mix of needing to help, to do something and plain boredom. She was still after all, a trainee nurse and the higher ups were cautious to give her any job harder then cleaning bed pans or making cups of tea. And after dealing with a daughter of Aphrodite with a bad case of chicken poxs who demanded all mirrors in her vicinity to be covered up, Ella thought a stray monster might be more fun, though she had her doubts there was even a monster at all. With everyone so on edge some people would probably jump at their own shadows.
She was waiting by the entrance, absently checking the markings and wards put up to help keep the Labyrinth stable by some of her siblings; it was good work, keeping something as vast and unruly as this wasn’t easy. Her own skills with this sort of magic wasn’t that great, she had always focused so much more on healing potions and spells that sometimes she forget a protection spell could do the job just as easily. But so, she thought, could a good fire ball to someones face, helping someone could be done extremely well if the hurter was dead. The daughter of Hecate sighed as she leant against part of the inside wall allowing her to watch for her partner for this mission to arrive. Ella knew she was early but she could feel herself getting anxious to start as she clicked her fingers together, watching the a small orb of orange-yellow light hover above her fingers before she clicked them again and it vanished.
At first she didn’t register the sounds coming from behind her, like a horses hooves on stone and what sounded like someone whispering her name. She turned a little more towards the entrance with a frown on her face. There was definately something down there alright.
Y'know that dog in Over The Hedge that’s real hyper and wants to play? That’s basically me. Anyway, headin’ to bed ‘cuz I’m actually more like the bear from the same movie right now.
by now, he’s transcended mere drunkenness and entered the realm of completely, utterly shitfaced–and for someone like hansol, a generally frugal consumer of alcohol, the sensation feels as foreign to his now loose, wobbly body as much as it is unpleasant. he focuses solely on keeping the red solo cup upright– since, by now, processing one action at a time is about all he can mentally handle without instantly forgetting something –and holds the drink closely and protectively against his chest. even with his blond head cast downward so his feet may follow the lines cutting across the concrete sidewalk to the best of their ability, his body still sways and dips precariously on its slow, stumbling journey out of the ballroom and into the labrynthine gardens. the boy nearly trips and falls over nothing but air and shoelaces; he catches himself and miraculously maintains the integrity of the punch, although the ridiculousness of the action fails to coax another slew of drunken giggles from him.
hansol’s first school dance has been simply alright. not terrible! really, he has no right to complain about… well, pretty much anything. he danced with so many people tonight– friends and strangers alike –so the lack of a real date isn’t behind the bizarre sense of disappointment that continues to balloon larger and larger within his heart. at least, he thinks he’s not disappointed about having no date? (maybe he’s more disappointed in himself for not summoning up the courage to ask anymore? but… that doesn’t feel completely accurate, either).
having downed one drink past the “one drink too many” level hours ago, hansol finds that there’s a tiny seed of sadness burrowed into the center of his bubbly, alcohol-fueled frivolity, and it’s growing steadily, spreading roots of numbness through the loam of his joy–an unpleasant quickening that appeared around the time he simultaneously met kyungri and was gutted by her, sliced apart by her words like a fish flayed and fileted upon a chef’s cutting board. since that terribly unfortunate encounter, hansol hasn’t felt quite the same. emptiness has taken refuge in his core; white noise softens the fun right out of the music blasting from the speakers, and just ten minutes ago he vomited up the entirety of the contents within his stomach into a sink in the men’s room. he hadn’t even made it to the toilets in time. and seungwoo… he lost seungwoo in the crowd after he ran away to hurl. the loss of his familiar, after spending so much effort to find the boy and having a genuinely wonderful time dancing with him, had stricken hansol with sadness of a surprising intensity.
but then again, perhaps hansol’s uncharacteristic sadness had all been caused by that one word–father. father, father. hansol doesn’t want to think about it. he doesn’t want to think at all–
there’s one person who he knows, without a shred of doubt, who was having a particularly glum time at tonight’s ball–or at least she looked miserable the last time hansol spotted her before the whirl and flash of the dance whisked her out of his range of vision. hansol is done drinking; his stomach, still churning with nausea, tells him that loud and clear. the drink he carries is for her–for sohee, who had seemed like she needed a drink more than anyone else in attendance.
…and maybe he seeks her companionship– the warmth of her smile and the familiarity of her perfume –because he’s starting to feel himself succumbing to sickness and sadness. maybe that’s a little true, too–that he currently seeks sohee because there’s always comfort to be found in dear friends, even if one merely stays in their proximity for a while.
“soheeee!” hansol slurs, pasting a huge, toothy grin onto his pallid and sweat-dampened face. he stumble-jogs the rest of the way to her, the palm of his hand pressed flat over the mouth of the solo cup to keep punch from sloshing out. he hugs the girl to him, giving her a tight squeeze, before clumsily finding her fingers with his own. he transfers the cup into her hands. “yah, where’ve you beeen? i’ve been trying to find sohee allllll niiiiiiight! look, look–punch! super yummy! also, hella spiked… not by me, though. ‘course not! but i brought ya some ‘cause ya looked like you needed a drink. seriously needed. who do i need ta,” he wobbles, unconsciously leaning against sohee for support. “…who do i need ta hex? i can hex his fuckin’ face off for my sohee.”
his easy stretch of a grin and glassy eyes suggest that it’s the booze that’s talking all those uncharacteristically violent words–but the edge hiding out in his slurring voice, as well as the slight crease of concern that furrows hansol’s brows, suggests that he’s not beyond raising some hell tonight if it meant sohee got to feel better.
hansol wouldn’t recognize a set-up if one came and punched him right in the face.
so, since fate is just plain mean sometimes, a set-up had to appear out of nowhere, of course, and give him a literal punch in the face.
admittedly, he doesn’t know the guy well. in fact… he doesn’t know him more than the familiarity of his visage – a stern, athletic face passed daily in the hallways and dining hall. huh. now that he’s considering the subject, can he… can he even recall the dude’s name? `aaaand… nope. that’s a whole lotta nothing going on in the “remembering names” department of my brain.` not a good sign, when he’s thinking about this so-called “study session” retrospectively, but… still. hansol simply wasn’t raised to expect everyone to have their default settings cranked all the way up to “jerk” all the time. rather, even if “total asshat” is their go-to mode of operation, hansol believes in the fundamental principle of giving people a chance. oh, don’t misunderstand him—there’s definitely people out there whose souls are colored black with irredeemable wickedness, the walls of their hearts marred by malice and the desire to cause harm—but hansol usually has a decent radar sense for those kinds of people, and avoids them like the plague. nevertheless, trust is a fragile concept. trust is delicate. intricate. trust reminds hansol of snowflakes, a little bit; trust is beautiful, and simple sometimes but wondrous the next, and each variant of trust looks different than the last. and, just like winter’s tiny shreddings of crystalline ice, trust can melt in an instant.
truthfully, his apprehension for this rapidly deteriorating situation has begun to transmute into a sticky, throat-closing sensation of alarm. the other man whom he agreed to meet here–”here” being a secluded, shaded corner of the school gardens—looks a little bit older than hansol. either that, or he’s just so darn huge. the guy’s a likely candidate for sports, hansol thinks—especially physical sports, the ones that involve tossing people around like sliver-thin toothpicks. distraction snags at the threads of his racing thoughts, and hansol finds himself staring at the guy’s thick, sinewy biceps far longer than he should have. `american football. this guy absolutely plays american football. that’s the one where giant men tackle each other for “fun”, right? ah, jeeze… i’m gonna die. he actually thinks he’s going to bully me into giving him what he wants, though? wowser. oh. oh, gods. i bet he’s a… a… oh, what’s the word again? a linebacker. ah jeeze jeeze jeeze–` he swallows around a tight little knot of nervousness and forces the corners of his heart-shaped mouth up into a smile. even hansol can feel how unconvincing the grin sits upon his lips, about as genuine as cheap plastic.
the guy came up to him and asked if he might possibly have been interested in tutoring him for some extra cash. that’s the reason why hansol finds himself here, perched on the edge of the wrought-iron garden bench in a way similar to how a canary rests upon the swing within its cage, careful and watchful and poised to take flight the moment an opportunity for escape arises– because he’s never really been the tutor before, always the student; and he’s totally gullible, yeah; and maybe he was a tad bit too sympathetic for this stranger who claimed to suffer from magical difficulties, too.
“i’m… i’m sorry. but i just can’t do that. i m-mean! i’d absolutely love to keep on helping you look through your textbooks like this. we can read the information together, and maybe that’s exactly what you need to pass your classes! but, i… i can’t take your exams for you. i don’t even look like you! a-and, um, besides… that’s cheating. the really serious kind of cheating. we could both be expelled.” hansol clamps the velvet inside of his inner cheek between his molars, hoping that a smidgen of pain will wake him up and help him puzzle out a solution to what feels more and more like a looming altercation. the man’s meaty, square-shaped face reddens with displeasure once the meaning of his words have fully sunken in. hansol lifts his chin defiantly… and simultaneously squeezes his hands together to quell their trembling. “look, even if i wanted to cheat for you… i’m a witch, not a familiar. i can’t turn into a dog the way you can, okay? so i don’t really see how i could take your test–”
one moment, hansol sits tensely upon the edge of the bench. the next, a firework goes off in his head, and he sprawls across the ground in a stunned, numb mess. the metallic taste of iron coats his mouth; shocked, his brain refusing to formulate thoughts properly, hansol reaches up to probe at his smarting mouth and finds hot, dark blood coating his fingertips when he pulls them away again. “stop, i’m sorry, s-stop--” he croaks, bringing up a crimson hand to shield his face. he’s not even sure what’s bleeding. `please, stop, it hurts--` brutal hands take up fistfuls of his blond hair and hansol is hauled back to his feet with a tug that burns his scalp, forced to follow the commands of the man who leads him by his hair and an arm twisted back—too far back—behind him.
“i’ve got more of ‘the stuff’ you wanted,” hansol whispers—well, it’s an attempt at whispering—into seolhyun’s ear, barely managing to choke down another round of drunken giggles that threaten to spill forth from his throat. he stands there beside his friend, excitedly rocking back and forth upon the balls of his feet as he beams with a sort of cheeky, childish delight. he’s doing something delinquent. daringly delinquent, as far as his inebriated mind is concerned. an act of deviance he’s never commited before—never even fathomed committing before—and will absolutely vow to never do again the moment he’s sobered up and can torment himself with self-inflicted guilt. yup, that’s right – hansol fibbed. he told a little white lie to a waiter, pouted his lips, and as a result, he’s managed to procure another batch of the items seolhyun had requested of him.
“seolhyun, seolhyun! did you see me? did you, did you? we’re tooootally like… hm. i can’t remem--… oh, secret agents!” without further ado, hansol reveals the lumpy, napkin-wrapped bundle he held concealed beneath the black fabric of his suit jacket. extending the ‘package’ out to seolhyun, hansol pulls back one edge of the napkin to show her a load of fresh, dangerously addictive…
breadsticks. at least a dozen or so of garlicky, buttery breadsticks. they’re still warm and airy-soft, freshly pulled from one of the academy’s massive ovens. “hurry – stuff ‘em in your purse before anyone sees!” grinning mischievously, with an abundance of coy, alcohol-fueled joy powerful enough to rival that of a fox traipsing about in a coop full of fat, sleeping hens, he snags one of the breadsticks for himself before seolhyun can jam them all away into the mouth of her awaiting purse. stollen breadstick in hand, he turns to the end of the food spread with the intention of retrieving the cup of punch he set down… only there’s a lot more red solo cups standing sad and neglected in one big, plastic cluster at the end of the table than hansol remembers. he attempts to recall where exactly he left his cup of punch, and how much of the sugary drink had remained within it at the time; the seconds slide by, and his brow furrows in frustration, but his memory is just so…nope. maybe that’s the one? hansol gives a little shrugs and scoops the dubious cup up into his free hand. an easygoing grin returns almost instantaneously to his cheery, glassy-eyed visage.
and the thought to just pour a new cup of punch? that goes right over his fog-filled head.
“i told the waiter that i have a rare ‘bread deficiency’ and took all the rolls on the tray before he could stop me. i, i… i just can’t believe i got away with that! wowsers. by the way, seolhyunnie… do you think you’re gonna be able to cram all those breadsticks in there?” hansol tears away a bite of breadstick with his teeth and chews around an amused smile, one he shields his hand – to be mannerly, of course. he quirks an eyebrow at her, glancing between the second round of breadsticks and the purse. “…an’ i know i might’ve asked you before, but i’m hammered. an' 'cause i'm hammered, i can forget some--" he's interrupted by a hiccup. "... stuff. yup, yup. anyway. what do you need all those breadsticks for…?”
rain. important things happen in the rain. like kisses, for example. or funerals. rain is a cleansing force of nature. rain baptizes. there’s a rebirth to be found after each rain. rebirth and renewal – or you slip and fall on rain-soaked cobblestones, and are muddied up to your knees. either way, something important happens in the rain. important things also happen in threes. that’s just the way life is; life likes patterns, numbers. so does the universe. for good or ill, something will be important, and it will come, without a doubt, in threes.
hansol sprints across the courtyard, a blur of black fabric and silvered hair, pumping his legs as fast as they’ll go. his arms are raised above him—his hands hold a raincoat, stretched taut like a tarp—and his neck bends slightly to hide beneath the makeshift protection. the rain finds a path in anyway, as rain often does, and wets his blond head and alabaster face. he laughs like a madman and spurs himself to go faster, splashing straight through a puddle on his bee-line path to the safety of the main hall. it’s a warm rain, a late summer rain, so he’s not worried about wet feet and their potential ramifications. he practically grew up outdoors; a refreshing rain won’t sicken him with sniffles or the chills. and his shoes? ha, who cares! the times when childhood spirit shows its familiar, nostalgic face again happen far too rarely for hansol to waste one fretting over soggy shoes. the sneakers shall just have to take the sacrifice.
he pushes onward, through the pelting spray of a fierce, humid downpour, at precisely three thirty-three in the afternoon.
the young witch has almost reached the entrance to the main hall. his eyes are dark today, uncovered by blue lenses and, for once, showing as their natural color—toffee-brown, so rich they look nearly black unless caught in full sunlight—and they are wide, with pupils blown as big as two full moons. adrenaline sings its way through his veins. almost there, almost there! he slows a bit, lowering his jacket until it plops, waterlogged and droopy, atop his equally soaked head–
and he swerves at the very last moment to miss the little dog that stands in his path.
gods, he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t seen it at all—maybe because of the thick, sideways-falling rain and its blurring effect upon human vision, or the distraction his own childish delight had provided, but either way he hadn’t seen it—and, with all of the strength in his corporeal and incorporeal selves, hansol turns his telekinetic energy against his own body. blood vessels burst in his nose and the bruises on his lower back reopen beneath the skin; then, as if hit by an unseen object, a crush of invisible force slams into hansol’s side and sends him careening to the ground… just out of reach of the dog.
he doesn’t move for a second, curling fetal-shape around himself. shock helps to numb most of the immediate pain. what ... had just happened, exactly? okay, so he’s got blood in his mouth… that’s a start, even if it’s a gross one. speaking honestly, he’s pretty unsurprised by the headache, bruising, and bloody nose. physical injuries are the norm whenever he actually manages to perform witchcraft; some sort of cosmic-level payback, he supposes. but that… that thing he just did to himself…well, he’s kinda never really executed such a feat of telekinesis before. son of a griffin, it sure does hurt, but it remains an unbelievably wonderful success in his, erm, rather dazed eyes.
oh, crap! the dog! the dog, the dog, the dog!
he finds the strength to push himself up immediately, biting back a hiss when the pain finally catches up to a body operating primarily on adrenaline and concern. aw, mega crap… he appears to have skinned both knees raw upon impact. (‘ha–what are the chances i’d skin my knees the day i wore ripped jeans?’)
then he looks at the dog. and hansol smiles, a half-giggle, half-sob escaping him when he sees the little dog unharmed. “sorry for all of that. did i scare you? don’t be scared, okay? i’m a pro at only hurting myself. heh. i wish i could say that i’m usually not such a walking disaster, but then i’d be lying to you. and i don’t like lies. they make my heart heavy.” he smiles wider. it’s a gentle smile. the rain cleanses all of the blood from hansol’s face in no time at all.
“i’m just glad that you’re alright, cute puppy! may i…may i pet you a little? would that be alright? it should be safe; no promises or anything, but gravity can’t make me fall over or off something if my butt is already on the ground.” chuckling at his own humor, hansol tentatively stretches out his hand. he waits. he watches the little dog’s eyes for any signs of displeasure, fear, or persistent resentment at nearly being tripped over. (`i don’t blame you if you wanna bite my hand, little one—...`) then, slowly, he touches the crown of the creature's head with careful, smoothing fingertips. he trails them along the length of one of the dog’s floppy ears. it’s as soft as velvet, and elicits another smile from the boy.
“thank you for forgiving my clumsiness. is it okay if i pet under your chin– oh. oh, wait.”
hansol’s expression of pure, contented joy splits into one of horrified realization within mere seconds. his hand freezes atop the dog’s back, soft fur still running between his fingers. the rain continues to fall from the heavens; upon hansol’s face, it now trickles over cheeks flushing pink with embarrassment. “gods, i can’t believe i forgot to ask this again before petting another animal here!” a thin, sheepish grin quivers onto his still blushing visage. “a-are you a familiar, by any chance? u-um…bark once for yes, and twice for no! and…a-and, uh…could i keep on petting you? only if you don’t mind, of course…”
“this is it, sohee. this is what kills me.” hansol mumbles, moaning miserably. he looses an even lower, more protracted groan from his throat when he finds the cupid’s bow of his lip stuck to the dusty, musty parchment that he’s currently nestled face-down in. gross. mega gross. this ancient thing smells like feet. moth-eaten, water damaged feet. moth-eaten, water damaged feet that are also covered in mysterious stains. mysterious stains that might’ve been rust-colored blood once, long since faded to sallow brown, or perhaps blobs of spilled viscera– the origins unknowable. and it’s pasted to his mouth. super, duper gross. nonetheless, hansol fails to lift his head. there’s nothing left – the energy reserves within the usually hyperactive boy are bone-dry, depleted… meaning that sohee has done the impossible and somehow managed to completely wipe him out. exhaustion wins out over revulsion; hansol’s head remains flopped forward, nose nestled into the center seam of the open pages. the archaic tome quivers with each of his muffled breaths, stiff pages crinkling and crackling.
“seriously. if i read another sentence in latin, i’m gonna start speaking it. and that'll suck a whole lot. because it’s a dead language. and not enough people understand me even when i’m speaking korean.” he continues his lament, finally lifting his groggy head so he might suck in a few much needed gulps of clean, non-icky air. hilariously, a wayward sticky note has come unglued … and now hangs precariously from the tip of his nose. pinching the yellow note between thumb and forefinger, hansol proceeds to laugh so hard he can barely see through the forming tears. “oh my gods! ahhh, soheeee…i’m so delirious… we’re so delirious. we’ve gotta take a break.” the giggles persisting, hansol flicks the sticky note across the table and gives his pale blue eyes a fierce rubbing with the heels of his hands. no matter how hard he grinds in and blinks, they still feel strained and gluey. with a loopey, amused smile on his face that grows larger by the second, hansol pinches the bridge of the nose to wake himself up further when he finally dares a sneaky peak at the clock. four hours. they’ve been studying for four hours.
correction: they’ve been pouring over cryptic tomes in ancient latin for four hours. no wonder he’s so famished—and fatigued as heck—and his brain feels like that fruit-filled gelatin his aunt dropped on the floor at his tenth birthday party.
“hey, sohee. are we losers? we’re total losers. our definition of a good time is reading books we snuck out from the restricted section because wowsers, we’re total badasses.” the usual chime in his voice, as well as the inexhaustible flame of joy that burns, as always, from deep within his cyan irises, both reaffirm that he’s just poking fun at his study buddy. hansol lolls his head back—all the way back, platinum bangs flopping aside to reveal the pallid forehead beneath—and spins a few times in his chair, watching the chandeliers far above become fireworks of glass and muted light as he whirls round and round. “i mean, they’re fascinating. even if translating the latin makes me wanna stab my eyes out. and reading the latin makes me wanna swallow rocks because that’s exactly what i sound like trying to pronounce ancient latin– like i’m choking on a rock. but we’ll come out ahead, you know. because we read the things everyone else has forgotten about. not that life’s a game to be won, but… you know what i mean. we’re only getting better when we study this stuff. and speaking of studying stuff… thanks again, sohee. for taking the time to be a total loser with me.” flipping his head back up the right way—his eyes wide, and kind, and at their most bizarre, with a dreamy look crossing his face as the blood rushes back up to his brain and equilibrium restores itself to the fluid in his inner ears—hansol leans over and gently, playfully, bops his knuckles into sohee’s arm.
“ha! you know what we should do? we should totally have some fun – like, the type of fun other people our age consider fun. the crazy, “we’re young and stupid and can make mistakes” kind of fun. i’ve never even gotten detention before, sohee. not even once. granted, i’ve only attended the academy for a few weeks… and the academy’s the only school i’ve attended in all my life… but that’s neither here nor there. my point is… i have a squeaky clean record that could use a few red marks. i don’t curse and stuff, yeah, but i’m not dead. my eyes are hurting me from staring at all these latin spells for hours on end and we’ve finished all our homework… for, what, the next two days? let’s work hard… and play hard.”
“i think we should try some of these bad boys out, yeah? how about, hmm … this one?” grinning fox-like, hansol rolls his chair to the end of the table and snatches a thin, sticky note covered tome into his hands. he flips to one of the random bookmarks and gives the page a once over.
within seconds, hansol blanches and snaps the book closed, dropping it back onto the table as if he’d been scalded by its fluttering pages. “oh, gods… u-um, so, tooootally not this spell… i’m not in the mood for stitching body parts together to bring the deceased back to life, no thank you. i… i think that one’s in restricted for a reason.”
“okay okay, so let’s not re-member dismembered corpses … but how about we raise some hell?” the witch sorts through various spellbooks and tomes until he finds the one he’s apparently searching for, opening it to a marked page. smirking triumphantly, he holds the incantation up for sohee to see. “literally. did ya … did ya get it? haha, i made a pun! ‘raise hell’! …it’s not actually for raising hell, so don’t give me that look. it’s just for speaking with hellhounds – emphasis on the speaking part. well, you’ll probably do the speaking. the hellhound will be talking through me… and i dunno if i’ll remember the conversation afterwards, so you’ll have to fill me in on what i miss! if it works. which i hope it does. i mean, woooooah! haven’t you ever wanted to talk to a hellhound before? they must have so much to say!”
hansol closes the book and holds it close to his chest, watching sohee carefully for her reaction. “let’s snag something to eat first. i’m buying! it’s the least i can do after you hung out with me all day. consider it payment for the tutoring! and, and… as for the ritual… the only one who could potentially get hurt is me, so don’t worry about it. i’m an awful medium and i still haven’t gotten my unskilled butt killed yet. i think that deserves some credit. plus… hellhounds, sohee! hellhhhooounnnds…!”
