#mean taehyun | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hyukascampfire · 1 year ago

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TO: SOMEONE FROM A WARM CLIMATE ... ❨ O1 ❩ ⸺ 𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘴

𝓘N WHICH 𝗁𝗎𝗋𝗍 𝖿𝗂𝗓𝗓𝗅𝖾𝗌 𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖾𝗒𝖾𝗌 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾𝗌 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖿𝖺𝖼𝖾. "𝗂𝗍 𝗌𝖾𝖾𝗆𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎'𝗏𝖾 𝖺𝗅𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝗒 𝖽𝖾𝖼𝗂𝖽𝖾𝖽 𝗐𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗂 𝖺𝗆 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗆𝖾, 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾𝗇'𝗍 𝗒𝗈𝗎?" 𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝗎𝗆𝖻𝗅𝖾𝗌 𝗎𝗉 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗌𝖾𝖺𝗍, 𝗍𝗈𝗐𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖺 𝖼𝗎𝗋𝗅𝖾𝖽 𝗅𝗂𝗉. "𝗌𝖺𝗒 𝗂𝗍," 𝗁𝖾 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗅𝗅𝖾𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗌. "say what i am."

faerie!𝗍𝖺𝖾𝗁𝗒𝗎𝗇 · ƒ ! r 7.5k 𝖿𝖺𝗇𝗍𝖺𝗌𝗒 ⸺ violence, blood is drawn, some heated kissing and groping, a magic spell is placed over a human character, fem reader, mentions of violence, animal death ｡ ( playlist )

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🪶 ⦂ i am so obsessed with a icy and mean taehyun. like genuinely it is rotting my brain. lmaooo

The stale reek of the ancient, crumbling palace walls seem as though they are closing in on you. You trail only a foot behind the odd goblin spy. He’s silent as he goes, relatively short in stature and quite grubby, worrying his hands in a habitual manner. You have plenty of reasons to be scared of him; a royal spy, no doubt lethal in skill, who could probably spin around and end your life the second he decided he didn’t like you.

But you aren’t scared of him—no, you’ve lived your whole life in this world. You’re more worried about whether or not the rest of them will find you up to their standards when he finally presents you to them. You, a potential spy.

You? You, who was taken here as a child? A changeling is what they call you: a human child stolen away by faeries, and in your stead is left a faerie child. Growing up among the folk was all you ever knew, but it prepared you plenty for moments like this. They were different by nature. They did not understand the rules of the human world, and never understood your resentment for being spirited away the way you were. Some would rather believe that it was a blessing, that you would one day grovel at the feet of the faerie that had stolen you here all those years ago. Resentment bloomed corrosively in your heart each time Nut-hatch had you sewing the gowns she couldn’t manage until your fingers were bleeding and sore. Because, who wouldn’t adore a life spent at the beck and call of the faerie that snatched you right from your cradle? From the world and life you were meant to inhabit.

You trip over a loose, fractured stone, catching yourself on a wall. Palm stinging, you hiss. You spin the hand over to inspect the burning scrapes. Blood wells around shallow white trails where stone had bitten skin, but you kick your legs back into motion. The goblin does not bother to wait for you. You expect that he’d just continue walking if you don’t.

“And you expect to be a spy,” the goblin laughs, a throaty and irritating sound. “Over a scuff…” He does not even turn around to address you, but you can’t say you expected him to. You had done nothing to earn his respect, and too much already to lose it. You are going to change that.

Instead of defending yourself or making yourself sound pathetic, you just stop nursing the scrape and let the sound of footfalls fill the air. The walk is long, and you find your mind wandering off to agonize over the different ways that this could play out. Many of them do not end well. You squeeze your eyes shut, gulping down a swallow despite the tightness in your throat. When you feel your foot catching on flat ground again, nearly toppling forward, your eyes lurch open. Don’t close your eyes walking down the halls of decrepit old castles, genius. Tripping twice would just be too much, no matter how nervous you are.

He makes a stop a few feet ahead of you, just before a towering, ornate, and no doubt heavy door. The metal handles are scuffed with well use to the point that they are utterly dull and reflect little light. Ancient castle indeed…

“So, this is the entrance?” you ask, catching up to him. You gesture at the door ahead.

He levels you a stare, a crooked grin tugging at his mouth. A yellowed canine, so sharp it would pierce your jugular like a knife through sweet cream, peeks out. You squirm under his glare, those saucer eyes scrutinizing you for a moment.

“More like this,” he says simply, looking pointedly to a slate tile at his feet.

You sigh. You suppose you should’ve inferred that the entrance of a royal spy den is not just a door with no locks or veils or something. You watch as he dislodges the loose tile from the ground with practiced ease, a heavy hunk of stone that reveals beneath it a set of stairs leading down into the ground. The palace they had decided to conceal the den within is no doubt timeworn, but the staircase you look at now seems much newer. The stone is significantly less worn and eroded, save for the dirt that cakes the tops of each step. Wafts of earth and root greet your nose.

You frown at the prospect of heading down without even so much as a torch on the wall. It’s hollow and black down there, leaving you to only imagine where a root or pebble might steal your balance and send you down who even knows how far. “How deep is that staircase?” you ask. The furry, grotesque goblin had already begun descending, pausing at the third step with discernible impatience.

“Oh, just get down here, won’t you?” he grumbles. “This damned stone is heavy.” You observe the utter pitch black of the stairwell for a moment before relenting and descending along with him. You’ve made it this far already, anyway. What’s a staircase if you’re to become a spy? Stone grinding and light weaning to nothingness tickle nerves up your spine as he slides the coverstone back over the entrance.

“I can’t see,” you say, words falling out into the thick, muddy air. Perhaps obvious, but how are you supposed to walk? He curses you out under his breath before he grabs you by the meat of your arm with gnarled, calloused fingers, tugging you forward and down. You protest as you almost slip off the ledge of a step, stumbling down each descending one for a few moments until you come to another stop. The floor here is softer beneath your feet, no longer stone. You do not question him again as you wait for whatever he does in the blackness that you cannot see. It’d do you good to not come off as any more incapable than you already had made yourself look, considering your goals.

Your stomach is tied in such tangled up knots that you don’t know how to act right; how to act like the capable spy that you had painted yourself to be in order to even end up with him leading you down here. You wonder if he is second guessing his decision in even bringing you here. Holding up your head a little higher, you square your shoulders. If you act sure of yourself, you’ll appear that way. That’s all you have.

A resounding pattern of knocks bounces off the dirt walls surrounding you two, and the sound of muffled words spoken follow. A soft yellow light luminates your surroundings as a peephole slides open. You blink your eyes to readjust, taking in your surroundings for the first time since that stone snuffed the light out. A rickety, rotting wood door stands before you, oddly shaped to fit the round, burrowed out dirt hollow. The light filtering in from behind the door disappears when somebody peeks through it. No words are even exchanged before a metal sliding bolt cues the unlocking of the round door, and it swings open. You squint your eyes in the light.

“This is her?” A reedy faerie stands holding the door open, her skin a pale green and with an iridescent sheen to it. The hood from the cloak around her shoulders is tugged over her head, but you can see the way she takes you in even through the shadow it casts.

“Something wrong?” the goblin asks, shoving his way past the long-limbed sprite. You stay put, not sure whether or not they’d like you just barreling your way in behind him.

She scrutinizes you for a moment longer, shrugging. “No,” she answers, lips pursed, “just a bit…” The sprite hesitates on the wording before finishing,“Underwhelming?” She leaves the door to follow him in. You gnaw at your cheeks. You are used to being lackluster—in a world of creatures that are beauty incarnate. Humans could be beautiful… Sure. But it was not the beauty of starless nights for eyes, nor of flower-petal skin, and never hair of twinkling, gold-spun strands. Human beauty could only ever exist in the four-walled prison of facial symmetry and physical attraction. Even the most gritty of the folk had a certain air of ethereal about them, worted and twisted as they may be. You resent them for it; resent the way your skin and hair become dull beside them.

Their little hideout is humble. It smells of old wood, and furniture is minimal. The two of them sit down at a square table to the center of the room, leaving three other seats empty. You mull over whether or not simply taking a seat next to them would be offensive before just shoving your nerves down with a foot long stick and sitting. To convince them that you’re a needed part of their team, you’ve got to act the part. An indelible spy does not wonder whether or not a seat is for them, they know it is theirs. However you may try to play an act, though, you’re sure that they can see how the scars that decorate your fingertips are more from pricks of a sewing needle than they are of blades and combat. The sprite girl tugs her hood off her head, revealing a head of tousled hair. She doesn’t look far off from the insect that she shares her name with, spindly and grass-green. Regarding you, she sits nonchalant and kicked back in the chair, worn boots up and criss-crossed on the table.

“This is the place where you’ll meet us,” she says, addressing you finally. She wiggles a foot as if this conversation is the last she’d like to be having.

You pause inwardly—you had thought this would be some sort of rugged test of skills, not an initiation.

She continues. “You’ll meet the others whenever they—”

You cut her off. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my qualifications?”

She quirks a delicate brow, speaking for her just as well as words might.

“Or, like, test me? Or something?” you continue. The two of them share a look, before breaking out into snorts and giggles. You shift in your seat, frowning. There was nothing funny about your questions.

“We would have never even brought you down here if we didn’t already decide on you,” the sprite girl says, and then gestures at the goblin, “We heard plenty of you from that one.”

The goblin sputters to explain himself, embarrassed how the sprite had made it seem like he was raving.“We needed a human counterpart,” he says, pointing a clawed finger at the sprite girl. “Nobody else was doing the heavy lifting in recruiting. You try and see how it is, then,” he huffs, voice gravelly. “We needed one, and I brought you one.”

“Yeah,” she says, voice softening to a tone reminiscent of soothing a tantruming toddler. “You sure did.” She flexes her booted foot to point in your direction, “But did you bring us a competent one?”

You cross your arms across your chest, narrowing your eyes. “I’m plenty competent,” you say. Sure, you are the servant girl of a busy seamstress faerie, but you need to make something more of yourself in one way or another. You could learn anything, if it meant that. “You don’t have to worry about me running off and telling anybody anything.”

She barks a laugh, as if the notion was ridiculous. “Well, I should know that, because I assume you value your life well enough.” She lets her feet drop off the table, prowling toward you on legs a bit too long for her body, before sliding an ornate dagger from its sheath at her hip and brandishing it to you. “But could you hold your own if someone engages you out in the field?” She then drives the blunt, thick pommel end of it into your chin. Your head snaps back with the force of the strike, and you can feel by the warm trickle of blood that it had busted your chin open.

You look at her, wild-eyed and accusatory. Your jaw aches as you open your mouth to ask, “What was that for?” A trail of thick blood runs down your neck, and she just scoffs.

“Figures.” The sprite sheaths the dagger, dropping back into her seat unceremoniously as if she did not just bash you in the chin.

“I don’t know how to fight yet,” you say, wiping at your neck. You bring your hand up to check the damage, hissing through your teeth as you prod around the gash. You shake your shoulders as if it would shake off the searing pain running up and down your jaw before adding, “But I can learn. I will learn.” The stubby goblin tosses you a rag he had retrieved silently from a drawer, his mouth pulled taut into a line. You wipe up the remnants of the blood, the metallic tang of it finally reaching your nose. You shudder as you press the rag to the wound and hold it there.

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” the goblin cracks, his grin toothy. “We weren’t going to find humans who could already fight,” he says, a fur-tipped ear twitching, “but one willing to learn…” He looks at you, and then returns his gaze to the sprite. “We can work with that, Cricket.” When her face stays drawn, he repeats, “We can work with it.” His yellow saucer eyes are serious.

Cricket doesn’t say anything; her grassy eyes simply go distant with thought for a moment. It was true: humans are not brought to the world of Faerie to learn to fight. Or to be anything more than servants, at that. The luckiest ones, like you, are at the very least schooled on reading and faerie histories. Lucky would be an overstatement, though. Nobody stolen from their homes and then forced to accept a reality in a foreign world is genuinely lucky. Despite it, you no longer dream of the life you could’ve had in the human world. It is not your life. It will never be your life. And, considering the look that Cricket and the goblin share, your life is now to be the human counterpart of a royal band of spies.

“Do you know how an oath works?” Cricket asks, pulling out that same embellished dagger and spinning it between two fingers. You hesitate before nodding. You don’t, and she seems to read right through you. She narrows her eyes at you.

“First of all, don’t lie. Never lie. We have to be able to trust each other.” She says, still spinning that glittering dagger utterly nonchalant. “You’ll want our trust when you’re on the field and need your back covered. Not knowing how to officiate an oath is one thing,” she stops spinning the blade to point it at you, “lying to me is another.”

You shake off the embarrassment that crawls up your throat. “I’m sorry. I want you guys to trust me.”

“Trust is especially important with you,” she says. It’s true. Humans can lie blatantly with their mouths. The folk could twist truths to deceive, and bend over backwards to make one thing sound like another, but they could not just lie. In your schooling years, you were taught that a lie is simply against faerie nature. You had laughed at that—if anything seemed to be in faerie nature, it was lying.

“We can start our trust”—she gestures with one finger between you and herself—“off on the right foot with a geas.” Taking your arm that does not hold the rag, she tugs it toward her.

You struggle with the word geas. A geas is a faerie ensorcellment the folk dearly love subjecting humans, who did not know any better, to. They sweet-talk them into it, and when the human was fully ensorcelled, the human becomes a living plaything to make dance unabashedly and kiss the dirt off their boots. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

“An oath and a geas are not interchangeable,” you say, wary and preparing to take your arm back. “Which is it?”

“An oath means nothing to a human.” She looks to the goblin for support, “Right or wrong?”

“Leave me out of it.”

Cricket rolls her eyes. “We just have to get some type of way to ensure that I won’t have to tie up loose ends.”

A knock rings through the room, the same rhythmic knock that the goblin had performed on the door. He clambers over to the door and slides the peephole open.

“Decided to show up to do your work today?” he says through the peephole, before sliding the hatch open. You look away from the door before seeing who enters as Cricket grows impatient, spinning your arm so that your palm is facing the roof. She takes her dagger and slides it across the delicate skin. You try to reclaim your hand, but she holds it steady and slides a slit across her own palm.

“Are you guys trying to bleed me for every drop I have?” you protest. You could probably count the amount of wounds you’ve been inflicted with since stepping into the palace on two hands. She clasps your hands, mushing together the wounds still seeping blood.

You had forgotten about the knock at the door until a new voice with a deep and silvery quality to it asks, “Trying to do it before I could get here?” The voice travels from behind you to in front of you, and the man who owns it comes into view. He is relatively tall, towering over the goblin and quite a bit taller than the sprite. His hair is dark, hanging over a pair of sharp eyes that glare daggers at the sprite. You thank all things good that he is not leveling you with that icy smolder. You notice quickly that his ears are the distinct rounded form of a human’s ear.

“This is Taehyun.” She gestures with an exasperated arm. If the roundness of his ears is not already telling, the name is. He’s human. You frown, retracting your hand.

“I thought you guys were looking for a human? That you had none?”

The quickness that they are trying to get a geas over you is already unnerving, but now they are lying about the circumstances of your recruitment?

She gives Taehyun a look that could match the heat of a thousand suns. His face is stony in response to it, utterly unmoved. The stubby goblin does not make so much as a peep.

“Taehyun,” she says while she takes your wounded hand into her own again, “is faerie.”

“What about his ears, then?” You make a gesture around your own ear, one that drags along the round curve of it. Faeries were not born with rounded ears, not the goblins, nor the hobs, nor brownies, not even ones that are the most humanlike in nature. You have seen folk with knives for teeth, skin of boulders, hair from ear to clawed foot, but never rounded ears. It was another intrinsic piece of their nature; what set you apart from them. He was absolutely a human, and they were absolutely not telling you the truth. They had to have spoken their words in a way that made one thing seem like another, spun truths into lies. It was the faerie way. You would not be magically compelled by liars.

Taehyun’s face flashes with the first emotion you had seen since he arrived, but it is muddled and hard to read.

The girl scowls deeper, telling you, “He is not a human.”

Taehyun gets in closer, his eyes venomous. “You know how I feel about that shit.”

You try to decipher whether he meant being human, or the geas, but his next words solve it for you. “And you were going to try and do it before I could say anything.” When she opens her mouth to say something, he cuts her off, “Don’t you say that’s not true.”

She turns to you, decidedly not responding to Taehyun. “I want the geas, because it will make us feel safer. I swear on the King’s life that I will not use it to control you in any way, other than to keep your mouth shut about our operations. You will not hear another thing of it from this day forward, anyway.” Her words are proof enough of her honesty, plain and so obvious in their wording that she could not be twisting her truths around a lie. She means what she says, or else she would not be able to say it. “Would it make you feel better if you were the one to make it, Taehyun? Would you just seal your lips and let us move on from this?” She asks. The other faerie spy, the stubby one, feels the tension as bad as you do, so thick in the air you could choke on it, making himself busy sliding a blade down a sharpening stone.

Taehyun does not respond, his black eyes conveying exactly how he feels about that. You attempt to ease the atmosphere while also catering to your own curiosities. “How is he a faerie, with rounded ears? That doesn’t… exist.”

Taehyun’s eyes flicker at the topic of his ears again. “Well, it seems you don’t know all that you think you do about Faerie then, huh?” he spits before spinning and disappearing down a hall that leads further into the spy den, long legs clad in black striding near silently beneath him. The words crawl under your skin successfully. You could spend your whole life here, and still the folk would see you as foreign. It makes you want to make that geas, to make something of yourself. To be a spy, and make them see that you are so much more than what Nut-hatch told you that you are destined to be; A servant to the superior beings. To make him chew his words, because you know plenty about this foul world, and how to live in it. If anything was true, it was true that you know more about it than him.

You turn back to her, more determination in you now than you even had when you pledged your case to the goblin. “I’ll take the geas. I’ll do whatever it takes to become a competent piece of your team, I swear it. I know my words don’t carry much weight to you, but please, let me show you that I mean them.” Cricket grins, tightening her hand to yours, tilting her head to one side and batting her spiky lashes at you.

“I knew you were a smart girl.” She taps you on the nose, before her expression drops to a more solemn one. The headiness of faerie enchantment tugs at the sides of your vision, turning it wavy and magnified about the edges. You feel it thread through the air, and then spread from your palm to your arm, and then all over, under your skin, like an itch, and in your head, like potent faerie wine. It lasts for a moment’s width longer, before you blink it away. She drops her hand from yours.

“You will not speak of this team, nor its dealings, to anybody I do not authorize, and are, from this exact moment forward, unable to reveal the location of this den.” You shudder under the gravity of knowing that your autonomy is vulnerable and in her hands. Was it ever truly yours to have, though? Faerie glamour and enchantments on humans are unpunishable, and often seen as entertainments. Is a geas permanent? You shove back that worry; it’s too late now.

Gristle whistles a descending tone, finally making himself known again. “We call this Homebase,” he gestures around, and you take in the shoddy ceiling, the make-shift kitchen, and the weapons strewn about every surface. Definitely a spy hideout. “There are a few others for you to meet. They come and go; but you’ll be staying here?”

You nod. He knew about your situation with Nut-hatch already.

“Okay, then. Let’s get you a room.” He hobbles to that hallway Taehyun had stormed down, his gold-embroidered cloak dragging on the floor behind him. You follow, scoping out the scenery.

“Do the others not stay here?” you ask. You two continue down that same hall, the smell of underground musk still heavy. That would take you some getting used to.

He grunts in affirmation. “Whoever you met today, stay here. The others dwell elsewhere, for some reason or another.” He stops at a room, and opens the door. The room is ornate in contrast with the other rooms of this place, the bedding plush and made of fine threads. It was not anything overly extravagant, but perfectly fit for a spy of The King. It is better than sleeping in the sweltering-hot attic of Nut-hatch’s cottage, you decide, appreciating the cool and damp air. And here, they decide that you are worthy enough of your own room. That is more than enough for you.

“But, you’ll meet them tomorrow, no doubt. Make this room your own, I’ll fetch some more fitting garments for you,” he gestures down to the simple linen frock you adorn. You feel the odd tickle of embarrassment at the back of your mind. The irony of your attire, while living under the roof of an esteemed seamstress, is hard to ignore. Nut-hatch had always liked to scold you up and down that there is no need to look frilly working a gown shop, while simultaneously being dressed in ribbons and lace. You take a deep breath of linen-scented air, and then release it. And then, you get to making the room your own.

❆

You do your best to plant your booted foot to the ground, to save yourself from anxiously toeing dirt or stone. The clothes they had brought for you were odd and foreign as someone who only wore the most efficient of dresses and leather slippers for the entirety of her life leading up to this moment. The hooded cloak bunches around your neck and shoulders, stifling. The boots at your feet are so heavy and chunky that they chastely kiss the ground when you step. The sensation of pant legs securing your thighs and shins is the most suffocating, and the weight of the weapons secured by straps are heavier than you’d ever expected them to be. And, to top it all off beautifully, your first assignment is with Taehyun. You’re supposed to be heading north, to the land of the Queen, where the folk are Unseelie and said to be the most vicious. You’d already let that thought sink in, though. Now, all you can mull over is spending the trip with Taehyun; the contempt he had regarded you with before he left last night is still fresh in your mind.

Lightweight footsteps approach behind you, and you know it’s Taehyun. He plops a full pack on the ground wordlessly before tugging the hood of his mantle up and over his head. He is, like yesterday, fashioned in a black tunic and a matching doublet, embroidered with silver threads at the lapel and cuffs, a heavy bow strapped to his back. Maybe a bit flashy for days of traveling by foot, but maybe you also have no idea what flashy actually means.

You cross your arms over your chest, before gesturing to the bag you had already packed for yourself. “I packed.”

He sends you a vacant look. “Put that one back,” he tells you. The air is so tense that you consider just doing it, but his tone ruffles your feathers.

“I have stuff that I want to bring in mine.”

He doesn’t respond, his face locked and static.

“Look,” you huff, “I know you don’t respect me yet, but I’m trying my best to become competent, you know?”

“I respect you.” He picks up the pack he brought for you and dusts the bottom off. “You would freeze to the core in the north without the stuff packed in here. Competence is nothing to a corpse.”

You blink at the bluntness of his words and press your mouth into a thin line, before dropping your original bag on the table and slinging the other over your shoulder. You gesture for him to lead the way with a restrained sigh, and he does so without falter.

The beginning of your mission starts off on a lovely foot.

❆

There is plenty of time to mull over what you would be doing in the north as Taehyun leads you through the lushness of the forest. The hum of insects and nearby streams and the cloying scent of summer-warmed bush berries reign supreme. When your stomach begins to rumble for not having eaten all day, you stop by a bush with exceptionally heavy branches and begin picking. The juice of the berries is thick and golden like honey when they mush between your fingers, and it glitters in the odd way that all Faerie fruit does.

“What are you doing?” Taehyun’s voice, thick with contempt, makes you jump and lose a few from your handful of berries. “That is a Goldhip bush,” he says, his brows pinched, “you would die without a sign; just drop dead to the grass.”

Blinking, you drop the rest to the floor, wiping the glazed juices off on your pant leg.

He scoffs, spinning and heading the same way he had been going before you decided to grab fistfuls of, apparently, intensely poisonous berries. You follow him, shaken.

“I had no idea,” you say, mostly to yourself, but he stops, turning on you.

“You can’t afford having no idea out here. Either you step up to your role, or you die.” He gives you a long look before turning back around and stepping over a felled log.

You step over the log as well. “I didn’t really have any reasons to know your poisons in my old life,” you say. Nut-hatch had at least fed you well, and you were never set out scavenging off berries with an empty belly. You set your pace so that you are parallel to him instead of trailing him. “What are the ones I should know?”

He doesn’t even pause to think for a moment. He knows them like the back of his own hand. “Those berries are turned into a liquid extract and dropped into drinks. It doesn’t have a smell, but it tastes sweet. It doesn’t matter by the time you taste it, though; you’re dead.” A chill burrows its way under your skin. You had been so close to death; had you just popped a berry into your mouth, you would be dead right now. You wipe your palms over your thighs to scrub the phantom lingerings of any poisonous berry.

“How would you even avoid being poisoned by that, then?”

“You don’t,” he deadpans. “It’s why you have to watch your surroundings. Always.”

You nod.

“Silver and salt are poison to the folk. It’s good for you; a poison harmless to you but deadly to another, is an asset.” You clasp your hands and thank the sky inwardly at that. It feels like an ah-hah moment to have something over the folk. Small mercies.

“Human poisons don’t work on the folk at all. So, whatever you remember from your old life won’t serve you here.”

Old life? You have no old life. “I was raised here,” you say, keeping the hurt that tugs at your features on a tight leash. “I was in Faerie before I could even walk.”

You watch as his face falters, sunlight filtering through tree leaves dappling his features and highlighting his nose. He is beautiful, like all fae are. He only nods in acknowledgement, but you can tell he tucks the information away.

He presses forward. “Hunter’s Bane is a milled-up tree leaf that makes you useless and fizzes up the drink it’s sprinkled into. It’s not deadly, but the state it leaves you in is. Lachrymose is faerie fruit. It makes a human agreeable. It’s as good as poison.”

The name of the fruit brings back the memory of a boy, a bit older than you, who at a particularly wild revelry was fed faerie fruit, and buttered up by folk who thought it would be exceptionally humorous for the boy to make an audience with the King. Of course, the boy did, spewing nonsense at the foot of the dais, before going to wrap the King in a hug. A guard shot an arrow through his heart. He could not have been older than sixteen. Nut-hatch barred you from any form of revelry after that; she couldn’t spare her hard-raised shop worker over some faerie fruit. You fold the memory up neatly, compacting it so that you can keep it vibrant and alive in your mind. You solidify, in that memory, that Taehyun and every other wretched creature of his kind, would hardly blink twice to see you die such a death.

❆

Taehyun kindles a small but mighty fire with dry twigs and pine needles; they catch quickly and roar into blazing life. You settle onto the ground, propping your back against a gnarled trunk and try to breathe out the ache in your back. You miss the way the mattress back at home base had cradled your body into sleep, and abhor the dirt and foliage that sticks to your pants and palms where they meld with the ground.

Taehyun’s voice, returning from his last round of searching for pine needles, startles you. “Get up.”

You shoot him a look that, hopefully, channels all your exhaustion. “I just sat down,” you tell him, exasperated.

“If you’re hungry, get up,” he says, narrowing his eyes at you. He has ditched his mantle cloak and his doublet, and now is only in his simple black tunic, its sleeves rolled to his elbows. He’s serious, then.

You huff and complain, but stand up and dust off your palms and pants from the needles that stick to them. The especially deep indents itch a bit, and you soothe them as you follow him promptly into the thicker part of the woods.

“Lighten your feet,” Taehyun commands, his voice low, as a third twig snaps under your foot. You wince and try to replicate the lightness of his walk, but it makes no difference. If anything, your gait is more off than before now that you overthink it. Taehyun stops walking, pointing to his feet, before slowly demonstrating his footfalls. “Tense your legs, and keep your weight on your back foot until the other is fully on the ground.”

You oblige, and can’t help the smile that tugs at your lips as it works. Your steps come lighter, and dodging crunching foliage easier. It reminds you of how a stalking beast might make itself light and airy while it watches and hunts.

The two of you continue through the shrubbery and low-hanging branches until Taehyun pauses, placing a finger over his lips. You see it now, too; a plump pheasant that pecks at the foliage, none-the-wiser. Taehyun reaches for his bow, and notches an arrow. He pulls the bowstring taut, centering his shot, and the arrow sings as he lets it fly.

The thud of the arrow piercing the pheasant makes your stomach flip. The pheasant cries, the arrow having pinned its wing and pierced through its stomach, but not killed it instantly. You avert your eyes as the scene burrows under your skin. Your heart sinks heavy like stone in water. Taehyun bounds over to the still squawking bird with hurried steps, and the sound of metal unsheathing is followed by a loud final cry and then silence. You go rigid, nails biting your palm. You do not open your eyes, even as Taehyun announces in a whisper that he spots a second bird. The pheasant’s final cries bounce off the walls of your mind, reverberating and driving a stake into your hurting heart more with each echo.

❆

Taehyun ended up catching two other pheasants on the way back to the temporary campsite. You watch as they roast over the fire, yellow flames licking at their lightly charring bodies. Taehyun takes one off, passing it to you on a stick whittled sharp at the end. You shake your head, queasy at the thought of eating it.

He delivers you nothing but a cold resolve. “Respect its life.” He holds the stick there for you to take once more.

“I’ll throw it up,” you say, shaking your head again and wrapping your arms around your stomach.

He barks a laugh. “This is ridiculous.” He lets the stick drop back over the fire, and you flinch as embers flurry up into the air and narrowly miss you. Attitude flares up in your chest and you go to say something smart-mouthed, but before you can, he continues, “Go back, if you’re just going to become a waste of my time. You think you’re a spy under The King? You’re a spoiled brat who believes life should be handed to her. If you wanted that, this was not the life to choose.”

You reel at the bite in his voice. His words cut right where it hurts. “You think so?” you say, willing back the hot tears that prickle your eyes. They would only prove his case. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I know that you don’t know what you’re doing,” he says, standing up. “I know that you’re weak and for some reason think you’re ready for a world that is going to kill you, and that you should probably be on your way back to tell them you were never cut out for this. Save us both the time and effort.”

You’re up to your feet in an eye’s blink, closing the space between you two. “Humans don’t have the privilege of being spoiled brats in your world,” you hiss. The warm sensation of a tear rolling down your cheek has you hoping that he doesn’t notice, and you reach up to wipe it away quickly. You curse being an angry crier. “I’m doing what I can with what I have. Just teach me what I need to learn, and I’ll learn it.”

“Eat the damn pheasant, then.” he urges. Something like a wild, roaring beast in a delicate bauble shop.

You laugh an exhausted laugh. “I’ve never killed something and then eaten it. Just give me some time, yeah?” Your mind urges you to scream that the standards he is holding you to are unfair, that the two of you lived very different lives, and that you are going on this mission regardless of his haughty attitude, but you tidy those emotion-fueled words into something that he might like more.

He goes quiet. You sit for a moment, too, stewing in all your rehashed hurt. It isn’t just that he’s treating you like a burden, or the low-blows he seems to keep opting for. He’s unknowingly cutting down to your deepest worries, rubbing salt in the wound, that maybe you are never going to amount to anything more than a servant girl.

He unsheathes the longsword at his back, getting into a solid stance. “Show me you can be strong, then.” You hesitate. You’ve never so much as swung a sword, and the weight of it is heavier than you’d expect as you unsheathe it. The metal hisses, and the handle of it is solid and plainly decorated in your palm. You replicate his stance, and shift the weight of the sword awkwardly in your hand, trying to find your grip

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” you say, palms a bit sweaty against the cold metal, rocking in your stance. He swings hard, and the force of it colliding with your sword jolts you. It flies from your hands. You panic, frozen to the ground as he swings again. Your heart lurches as you realize he isn’t going to pull his swing.

Wind whooshes as his sword stops just by your face. He leaves it there, pointed right at your nose. “Pick it up,” he cocks his head toward your sword. You stare at him, wide-eyed, as you oblige. You both reset your stance, him barking commands every time he finds your stance or swing to be flawed. You accept his criticism with open arms—it is better than disdain painting his features.

You grit your teeth. You’re sheened in sweat, tugging for deep breaths, and your limbs are slow to recover from each blow he sends you. You’re twisting, dodging, and parrying how he tells you, but it's sloppy, and you have to summon your energy from already low reserves for each. His skin is irritatingly free of sweat and of a cold and pristine quality. It only comes to your attention now with your new proximity how much looks like frost twinkles just under his skin.

Your back collides with a tree you had not noticed Taehyun was backing you into, air escaping your lungs in a big whoosh. He gains on you, pressing the long edge of his sword so that it sits mind-numbingly close to your neck. You pulse rushes frantically, heart beating from your chest in a nearly audible thudding. You continue to try and catch your breath. He swoops in so close that his breaths fan over your face. An emotion that you have a hard time reading flickers in his eyes, and then he’s slamming his mouth to yours.

It’s a desperate clashing of teeth and lips. He lets his sword drop from your neck and to the ground, and he takes your face in his callous-roughened hands. Your own find purchase at his shoulders, tugging him closer as if he could be any more so. The sound that escapes you as his hand tangles into the hair at the back of your head and tightens, tugging your head back and pressing in with more fervor, is like none you’ve ever made before.

When he pulls back for air, your vision swims around the edges, and is dappled with stars. He studies your face, and you’re suddenly more conscious than ever of how your cheeks burn and your lips are smeared with his kiss. He takes in your debased state. His eyes have more fire in them than you ever thought you’d see—swirling and ravenous, an innate need clawing to reach the surface . It’s a dizzying mixture of pure headiness and I shouldn’t be doing this. He dives back in, and each nip and lick at your neck is blazing. They electrify your veins and send shockwaves buzzing from the column of your throat and through your chest, zipping up and down every one of your limbs. You’re not even sure that, if Taehyun were to stop holding you fast to the tree, you would be able to stand on your wobbly and unreliable legs.

“Taehyun,” you gasp, your voice sounding not entirely your own. “Taehyun.”

“You piss me off so fucking bad.” He keeps one hand fisted at the back of your head, exposing your neck to him, but the other travels down your body experimentally. “And I have no idea why.”

Your mind wants to reel and dwell on that, but he doesn’t let you. He wanders a hand about the hem of your shirt, and then he dares to go underneath it, and then he trails that cold hand up the plane of your abdomen. Your stomach flips. “Have,”—you gasp—“have you considered that maybe you’re just an asshole?”

He draws back from ravishing your neck to give you a look, his eyes wild and untrained. It feels, for some odd reason, good to break down his impenetrable exterior—to puncture it down to where he is in his basest desires. Maybe it’s because you just need him to see you as something other than useless; to need you so badly that he forgets his contempt for you. He maintains eye contact as his thumb traces the swell of your breast, watches you gasp as he finds your nipple and rolls it under his thumb. His eyes set you ablaze, and he delights in the way you burn.

“What, you’ve got nothing to say to that?” you say, meeting all the intensity of his gaze the best you can. You try to goad him into something; even if anger, so that he’ll soothe the pounding between your thighs. He does not entertain you, just regarding you with that same blistering intensity. Your scalp begins to ache with the relentless tug of his fist, and you whimper, your hands leaving their place in his tunic to grab at his hand.

“You’re every bit the whiny brat I’ve known you to be,” he says. His voice is gravelly, as if even those few words were hard for him to formulate. Just as your chest had adjusted to the chill of his palm, he drags his fingertips back down your abdomen. The pads of his fingers rake over you, your skin prickling and alight.

“And you’ve got every bit of faerie entitlement in you,” you hiss. His hand pauses just above the waistline of your bottoms, and every bit of untamed need carved into his features is dust in the wind within a heartbeat. You reel at the loss of warmth as he pulls away. You try to reach out for him, to tug him back and wipe that awful indifferent look off his face again. But he’s already kicking out the fire and propping himself up against a thick pine tree. Your stomach churns wildly as you set up your own sleeping situation. The silence is worse than any you’ve sat through—it’s charged with words better left unspoken, and heavy with the weight of your hands all over each other seconds ago.

Sleep does not come easy to you, but when it does, you sleep dreamless and weary.

🪶 ⦂ how was thatttt? my first fanfic!! i've been looking forward to doing a high fantasy/faerie fanfic for sooo long. i'm sorry to leave you off like that but.. know that I am plotting, and planning. i'm already working on part 2, so stay tuned!!

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