The Fallen Ones

A Price to Pay

[AN]

Hello! Sorry for the long wait between chapters! Someday I will actually achieve a good balance between school, life, and writing, I promise, I just haven't quite cracked the code yet!

Just a few reminders for everyone! The Viniculum is Latin for "the link" and is the process where the children of the Avium receive their dose of the essence of Theia.

In the first few chapters, both Felix and Jisung are 5 years old (or Felix is 5 and Jisung will be turning 5 soon after)

I don't wanna say much more because I don't want to spoil anything but there's a lot of important information in this chapter so~ I hope you enjoy!!

~・✧・~

The old man's face was grim and ashy.

He sat coiled tightly in a withered rocking chair beside a roaring hearth fire. The flames cast dancing shadows across his sunken face, and in his lap, he fiddled idly with a match, his deft fingers scarred and wrinkled.

The twins were huddled at his feet, joined together so tightly that it was hard to tell where one toddler began and the other ended. Their father was perched on a rickety step stool not far behind them.

The old man, Hyejin, lived in a one room apartment above an abandoned storefront. Many years ago, it had been an apothecary. Shelves full of overflowing molded jars and dusty bottles lined the walls, and an even odder assortment of more ancient medicinal properties lay strewn around the small space. A strange bubbly purple liquid in a triangular jar was propped atop an antique lamp and a rather daunting jar of eyeballs stared down at the old man's visitors from the mantle.

However, despite its strange appearance, Hyejin's home was warm and cozy, its dark corners lit by a buttery glow from the fireplace. Pillows of varying shapes and sizes covered the floor, and a large assortment of house plants could be found in all the remaining nooks and crannies. The elder had decorated his home in an obvious attempt to make it less gloomy and lonesome.

Hyejin signed into the silence, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

"I don't understand" The twins' father said anxiously, "How will that prevent the completion of the Viniculum?"

Jisung was picking loosely at the damp carpet, feigning disinterest, but his eyes were wide and alert as they followed every creak in the moldy ceilings and flutter of soft feathers.

"The experiments" Hyejin drew slowly, "Have always been destined to fail."

He sighed again, looking into the fire as if its flames could depict the past. "For many centuries, the council has refused to listen to reason. They preached that this was the future of our species, that the world below was catching up, and the only way to stay ahead was to evolve. In time, only our wings will be unique, and they fear this change, this loss of perfection. So, they devised the experiments:

At the given time that a woman bore two Avium children of identical feathers, it was decreed that one child was to receive double the normal amount of Theia's elixir and the other was to receive a vial of elixir and a vial containing the essence of Nyx."

"Nyx?" Felix asked, raising his head from where it was perched on Jisung's shoulder. "You mean the goddess of night? But that's impossible, even Lord Zeus is scared of Nyx. Why would she let us have a vial of her essence?"

The old man chuckled. "Nyx is the goddess of night and she is feared by even the almighty Zeus, but she is also a gentle-hearted spirit and a sorceress. She is an ancient being, the personification of the very darkness that surrounds us now. I cannot answer why she bestowed us with a vial of her essence, young Felix."