The Secrets We Keep From Friends (Irene x Male Reader Fanfic)

Short Story 13

Sanctuary, Civil Adminstration Office, Ministry of Home Affairs
Joohyun sat in the waiting area as she revised her notes in preparation for the citizenship preparatory test she would be taking today. Over the last three months, she had been attending lessons in Sanctuary teaching her basic general information and history of Sanctuary.

While it was not mandatory, she was encouraged to take it by Yu Mi on the basis that she would have less problems adjusting to life in Sanctuary. It was extremely rare for humans to take such courses and exams to settle in Sanctuary as most were part of the small human minority that lived here. They were a controversial lot, for they did not have the magical powers to take on most jobs in Sanctuary and kept to and bred amongst themselves. Crime amongst humans was high given their relative poverty in cities. As such, they represented the lower rungs of Sanctuary society and many looked upon them with disdain. Those who stayed in rural areas generally had better lives, working on agricultural fields, as breeders, so on and so forth.

Sanctuary’s history was far more interesting than she realized and had given her a greater understanding of why Sanctuary turned out the way it did. Like what Y/n had revealed in the Wizengamot, the original Werewolves here were created by a primordial being by granting the gift of lycanthropy to unknown humans. The original Werewolves lived in seclusion at first, until their discovery by humans, with whom they lived in harmony with for a time. But then with the fall of wandless magic users in the human population and the rise of conflict between muggles, Werewolves and magic users, one Werewolf only known by his nickname Big Brother rallied the original Werewolves and set off on an exodus to flee the then known wizarding world. Eventually they had settled in Sanctuary, reuniting with long lost neighbours that were their other fellow ancient species such as the Werebears. For many centuries, they had remained hidden until recently, but little had changed, for they were still secretive regarding their affairs.

Joohyun looked once more at the map of Sanctuary, running through the borders once more, the Werebears to the north, the Werecats to the east, the Werebats to the west, the known Wizarding world to the south and finally, the Badlands to the south-east. Her gaze lingered on the Badlands for a moment as she recalled what she had learnt. The course did not go into much detail about the other areas, but the Badlands were emphasized as dangerous and forbidden for travel.

Infested by dark magic, it was a riot of forests, dead lands and deserts home to dark creatures such as Wendigos and Skin Walkers. It was said that this was where the modern contemporary Werewolves came from although the Sanctuary Werewolves themselves were unsure if this was true. However, the horrific stories barely living and mortally wounded scouts had brought with them were enough for exploration into the Badlands to be banned.

The large forested buffer areas, which served as barriers on the border between Sanctuary Werewolf territory and other races were known to be the home to dark wizards, Death Eaters and other creatures native there or who had migrated from the Badlands. Wendigos, Skin Walkers and the creations of the latter were some examples and were considered to be very dangerous for even Original Werewolves, for they were resistant to magic and the only real viable way to kill them was by physical weapons. Sanctuary had once let them be, avoiding their lairs in the buffer zones but this had proved to be a bloody, costly mistake which led to an age known as the Wild Wars.

The Wild Wars started after increased attacks from dark creatures coming in from the Badlands and infesting the border areas. At first, there were some minor suppression campaigns by the Werewolves and Werebears but eventually, they discovered that through the use of dark magic, dark wizards and witches had somehow caused these creatures to migrate en masse towards Sanctuary, sweeping the border areas. The war had cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of lives from all the allied races before it was crushed. Since then, the Sanctuary Werewolves and the Werebears (the two races sharing borders with the Badlands) patrolled their areas far more vigorously than the others, eliminating any dark creatures and dark magic users they could find to keep their numbers as low as possible.