Mists of Celeste - an Ateez Fanfic

act six ➻ part five

The black water at your feet is deeper than usual tonight. Less of a shallow lake and moreso a wide hole with a gaping maw that threatens to swallow you should you slip any further into its embrace. You keep yourself sequestered on the sand with knees tucked to your chest and chin resting softly between them. It's been a bit lonely as well; Wooyoung hasn't come to join you yet and Daichi has spared you of any further lectures for the time being. Thankfully, the former comes to spare you further solitude before the night begins to drag into something more depressing.

"Did you have a hard time falling asleep?" You blurt the inquiry without looking back over your shoulder, fully confident that the person approaching across the sand is Wooyoung. The hum you receive in response confirms that thought, then his body comes into view in your peripherals moments later. He sinks down to the sand beside you, mimicking your posture almost like a mirror with the way he props his chin on the top of one of his knees.

"A bit," he says through a yawn, "but you made it easier."

A fragment of silence follows, one that you leave to hang for a few seconds.

"Why didn't you say anything sooner? About... our past?"

Wooyoung's initial knee-jerk reaction is to laugh loud and clear to the night sky hanging over your heads. When he pulls his focus back down, he folds his legs down to pull his feet under his knees and sits cross-legged.

"Would you ever have believed me? Someone you barely knew at the time, or at least didn't recall knowing? If I were someone strong and confident... I think I would have told you the moment I found you in the cargo bay. Yeosang wanted to say something sooner but I told him not to. The timing never felt right, then I guess I got carried away with trying to keep you from knowing. It wasn't something I did to spite you, I think part of me just wanted to see how much I could get away with. Which makes me sound like a bit of a dickhead." It's your turn to hum now, lips pursed mostly because you aren't sure how to respond to him. Wooyoung shifts his focus as well and picks at some of the rocks near the waterline. "By now, you surely know that even though you're a Siren, you aren't quite like others. Not like Seonghwa, that is," he says in a faint voice. You don't press him to speak louder but his words are nearly lost of you with the rustling of wind through the trees behind you. "Like me, you have something more unique to your abilities."

"I've gathered as much, yes. That I'm apparently able to put my hand through someone's chest and rip their heart out if I so desire."

"And I'm the Siren Iboun who can kill Sirens in the Dreamscape." Wooyoung barks out a laugh as though he's told the funniest joke imaginable. "Seonghwa doesn't have something like that himself, no special ability."

"Do you know why that's the case?" When you twist to look at Wooyoung, he doesn't look back although you aren't sure you want to be having this conversation face to face in any case. There's a lingering sense of distaste in the back of your mouth that won't go away. Instead, your companion offers a hesitant series of nods.

"The two of us... we grew up on Celeste, unlike Seonghwa. Around the time we were growing up there, it was towards the end of the Siren race's stay there. Many had already left the planet in years past, for centuries even, which allowed for cases like Seonghwa to manifest. Just like any other race, Sirens spread their seed across the universe, much like Berserkers to be honest — they also started out rather sequestered to one planet too, even if that's ancient history now."

"Did being born on Celeste mean that the Sirens there received different abilities?"

Wooyoung shakes his head, but this time it's accompanied by a sharp grimace that is impossible to miss.

"We were part of a group of children used by a defunct sect of the main church... an old, defective sector that had broken off a long time in the past and taken their teachings with them. Every time a Ritual Year would approach, that sect would resurface enough to begin their research and experiments again. And of course, it was easiest to work on children because they weren't matured or aged in the teachings of any of the churches. There were thirty children to start, all chosen from birth and offered by their families for the tests, yet each year, more and more children died. By the time the Ritual Year came along, there were only seven children left, and among them, both of us remained. Those children completed their stages of the experiments, and each one... it isn't something I remember well because I was young at the time too. A lot of this is resurfaced stuff that Daichi explained to me. What I do know is that those experiments are what resulted in the heightened abilities we experience, along with those other five children who succeeded in surviving. It wasn't something given at birth, not a gift from the gods — it was a harsh result of cruel and repeated testing and experimentation that kills dozens of children.