Banchetto: Formaggi e Frutta
Papa Emeritus III x Reader | NSFW
AO3 | Insalata |��Masterpost
Selecting the pairings for cheese can be deceptively complicated. Anyone can put some cheese on a tray and call it done but for it to be truly good some serious thought needs to be done. Texture, flavour, sweet vs savoury, creamy vs crunchy, all build up to a well rounded dish. The first bite of a juicy grape paired with tang of a strong cheddar, or the sweet bitterness of cranberry with the mellow creaminess of a brie. Every element has to work together to create a bigger experience. If you make these choices with care then you will have a show stopping course and all you had to do was some slicing.
• • • • • • • • ✦ • • • • • • • • • •
You had been lingering in his office. He was perched on the edge of his desk with his arms locked around you, preventing you from leaving and ending your time together for the day. The two of you had been in this position for at least half an hour, every time you tried to extricate yourself he would pull you in for one last kiss which became two, then three, then he would remember another important matter you just had to discuss right now. So far you had covered Cabaret the musical, why linen was the superior summer material, his favourite type of pen to do signings and the lies he used to tell people about ghoul mating habits. And now you were discussing your favourite cheeses.
‘I honestly have to say I don’t think I have tried a cheese I didn't like,’ you admit after listening to him explain why Italian cheeses were by far the best in the world. He wrinkles his nose at you, shaking his head in disgust. As inconsequential as these topics were, you enjoyed hearing his typically outlandish opinions and his passionate defence of them. You may have even been guilty of disagreeing with him deliberately from time to time just to enjoy his attempts to convince you of his point of view.
‘Even the stinky ones?’ He looks like even just thinking of them is a displeasure he can’t abide, the charmingly emphasised wrinkles above the bridge of his nose almost distracting you from his argument. ‘The French, thinking they can get away with crimes against dairy just because of a few good ones,’ he grumbles, pulling a laugh from you.
‘I think the English are guilty of that too, I am afraid,’ you remind him. ‘Have you ever tried Stinking Bishop?’
‘Ugh!! Never and I never will,’ he shakes his head again refusing to even entertain the thought. ‘But, cara mia, that is why everything Italian is far superior,’ he says, lifting his eyebrows suggestively and you suspect he isn’t just talking about cheese any more.
‘With what I have learned in the last few months I can’t say I disagree,’ you reply against his lips as he is already reeling you in for another kiss. You don’t let him distract you for too much longer though this time. ‘I don’t think you should judge a cheese until you try it with accompaniments though. The right flavours paired with the right cheese can make all the difference.’
‘I suppose there is some truth to what you say, mia cuocoina,’ he trails off for a moment looking like he is waging a battle internally before he takes a deep breath and continues. ‘Speaking of cheese, did you know there is a farmers market in town this weekend? I have heard they have very many types of cheese on sale there.’
‘I had heard, yes. It happens every month.’ You think back fondly to those trips out of the Abbey with Mona. ‘We used to take it in turns to go and pick up some obscure ingredients as a challenge for the others. I haven’t had a chance to go for a while.’
‘Would you like to go to this one? With me?’ His hesitancy makes your heart melt. How this man could ever think you wouldn’t want to go with him you have no idea? As if you don’t willingly spend almost every moment of your free time with him.
‘Are you asking me on a date, Terzo?’ You tease, hoping to ease his worry a little. The two of you may have done everything backwards but you can’t help the little thrill you get from the idea of him taking you on a proper date. He had been watching you nervously as he waited for your response but at your gentle teasing the corner of his lips pulled up in a smile even as a light blush crawled across his cheeks.
‘Si, I am,’ he says simply, lifting his head and looking you directly in the eyes, hypnotising you for a moment in his gaze.
‘I would love to go with you,’ you reply as soon as you snap out of it, not wanting to leave him hanging any longer. His wide smile always takes your breath away and you stand there for far too long, just grinning at each other before you realise you do really need to leave. You give him one last kiss before making your way back to your room, mind full of your upcoming date.
The morning arrives and you are up early having explained to Terzo that the earlier you get there the better. It would be less busy, you got the best pick of the produce and all the tasters won’t have sat out for so long. Taking your advice he had agreed to leave the Abbey around nine, and also on your advice you both were skipping breakfast, not wanting to fill yourselves up before you get there. But his morning coffee is non-negotiable…
After getting ready you let yourself into his rooms and start the coffee machine. You can hear him moving about already so you don’t worry about getting him up, but instead have time to fuss about… well, everything. You smooth your hands over your outfit as you wait letting your nerves get the better of you for a second. It’s not to say you didn’t usually make an effort with your appearance, you did, but your clothes and hair had to be practical when cooking even if just for him. This was the first time you had had the opportunity to dress up and for some reason it had your stomach in knots.
You wore your hair down today, letting the dark waves cascade down your back where they were usually secured in a bun and your make up was light as you had considered the time of day - just a subtle base and some eyeliner, mascara and lipstick to add a little emphasis to your features. The dress you picked was one you had never worn before. It was black, as was the majority of your wardrobe, but the light cotton fell softly over your figure, the hem ending at your mid-calf. It was buttoned up from your chest to your knees, giving a glimpse of leg and decolletage you hoped would capture his attention without flaunting too much. The puff sleeves and broderie anglaise finish the look and make it, in your opinion, the perfect dress for a date at the farmers market.
Just as you finish the coffee you hear him come to the door. You turn around a cup in each hand to catch him frozen in the doorway. With one hand he is clinging to the door frame and then other is laid dramatically over his heart. He is looking at you as if he has never seen you before. He looks incredible himself, his hair slicked back as you had not seen it for a long time and his face surprisingly clear of his paints, given you were leaving the Abbey. He is wearing an off-white revere collar shirt, habitually unbuttoned half way down his chest over tailored linen trousers in a soft dove grey with black woven loafers. He has a matching linen blazer over his arm, and he looks like he has just stepped out of the pages of a Milanese fashion magazine.
‘Good morning, Terzo,’ you greet as you go to hand him his coffee but he ignores it in favour of pulling you in for a kiss, letting go of the door frame and instead wrapping his arm around your waist and letting his hand glide down your body over the smooth fabric. You hum into his mouth enjoying his attentions but slightly worried about spilling coffee on you both as you hold them over his shoulders. ‘I could get used to this sort of greeting,’ you say when he lets you pull away, still seemingly at a loss for words.
‘Grazie,’ he whispers, finally taking his coffee and savouring the first sip before continuing, letting his eyes roam all over you. ‘You are, well… beautiful doesn’t even cover it, I think. Sei una visione di bellezza, come non ne ho mai viste.’ He does this every now and then, slipping into his native tongue when he can’t seem to find the words to express himself in English. You don’t understand what he is saying but the sentiment is clear, so you let the melodic words wash over you and let your smile widen in response.
‘You are looking very handsome today too.’ You cup his cheek with your now free hand and let him nuzzle into your palm. ‘I have been looking forward to this all week.’
‘Me too, cara mia.’ He places his hand over yours before taking it in his. ‘Are you ready to go?’
‘I’ve got my coffee, I've got you, I don't think I need anything else. And if we leave now everyone will still be at breakfast so we shouldn’t be bothered.’ With a nod and a smile he leads you from the kitchen through his rooms and out to the corridor, pausing only to lock the door behind you. You realise then that this is probably going to be the first time he has left the Abbey since returning from the last tour and what a big step this must be for him, as well as the two of you. You walk through the corridors quickly, leaving a plausible distance between you in case you were seen by anyone but before you reach the main entrance he leads you down an old corridor that, as far as you knew, only led to an older unused wing of the Abbey.
‘Where are we going?’ You ask him as you follow him along the twists and turns of the dusty corridor but he just shushes you and continues as though he is looking for something. To your surprise he ignores the few doors you pass coming to a stop at an old painting covered in dust, which depicts what you can only assume is a life-sized satanic knight posing in his armour in the landscape of hell. Without any further explanation he feels around the edge of the frame until you hear a click and the painting swings forward revealing a secret set of stairs leading down to a door where you can see slivers of daylight seeping in where it has warped in its frame. Taking your hand he helps you down the steps before having to give the door a shove once, then twice before it opens and you find yourselves at the side of the main Abbey just outside the tall garden wall.
‘This is the way we used to go when we didn’t want anyone to see us leaving,’ he says, shooting you a mischievous grin. ‘When we were boys especially and the older sisters wouldn’t give us the time of day we would sneak into town…’ He trails off realising the story he was about to tell you and his expression turns a little sheepish. ‘Well, you know how teenage boys can be.’ You shake your head at him good naturedly but take his offered hand so he can lead you down what is clearly a well trodden path through the public gardens to a side gate that opens on the main road into town.
• • • • • • • • ✦ • • • • • • • • • •
The first and arguably most important consideration when preparing a dish like this is making everything bitesize. Slice things too small and the flavours will not balance well, slice things too big and you will end up with all sorts of mess, but getting it just right? A slice of cheese, a piece of fruit, a spoonful of chutney, a sliver of meat could all fit on a cracker and be eaten in one perfect bite.
• • • • • • • • ✦ • • • • • • • • • •
It is a short pleasant walk especially on a morning like this. The Abbey is about half a mile from the town and despite the occasional comment or funny look, the residents seem to have accepted sharing the area with a satanic church a long time ago. The residents of the Abbey brought a lot of business to the local shops and trades people, doing their best to contribute to the community they were fringe members of which served to strengthen the tolerance of their presence. You yourself had good relationships with the local food stores, avoiding spending your budget at the supermarket as much as you could, so you had never experienced anything but a sideways glance from some of the more conservative members of the community.
After about fifteen minutes you reach the town square which is already bustling with life even at this early hour of the weekend. Rows and rows of stalls fill the usually open space and there are already plenty of shoppers drifting from stall to stall. Having finished your coffees, you take his and put them in the nearest bin before pausing so you can come up with a plan of action.
‘When I come with Mona we try to be strategic,’ you explain as you try and suss out what the closest stalls are selling.
‘Oh, and why is this? To get the best produce? The best deals?’ He asks inquisitively, tilting his head as he thinks. You wish you could say those were the reasons but it was much less professional.
‘Nope. It is so we don’t get too full before we have eaten everything we want.’ He laughs loudly, clearly surprised at your reasoning but you try your best to keep your face straight. ‘It is important you know!’ you insist as his laughter calms.
‘You have been training me up for this moment, no?’ he says, patting his belly and winking at you knowingly.
‘Bigger appetites than yours have been defeated by the farmer’s market tasters, I will have you know,’ you respond, doing your best not to get distracted by his insinuation.
‘Psh, I could eat one of everything and still have room for whatever delicious dish you have planned for tonight.’ He winds his arm around your waist pulling you against his side as you walk together to the first stall. You can’t keep up your serious façade, his confidence and manhandling bringing a flush to your cheeks, at least until you realise what he said.
‘Need I remind you it is Saturday and my day off.’ You prod him in the side in retaliation and he jumps slightly when you catch his ticklish spot. He grabs your finger before you can poke him again, a little tug of war ensuing before he lets you free with a stern look.
‘Well I can cook for you then,’ he says, snapping his fingers as the idea comes to him. You dip your head for a moment, your chest feeling full at his insistence you spend even more of today together. Until the reality of him cooking anything for you sinks in. You had long suspected that he lacked even the most basic cooking skills, which was confirmed the only time you ever let him try to help you.
‘And what exactly are you going to cook for me?’ You ask as you reach the first stall filled with assorted jars of conserves and jams.
‘I will cook…’ He pauses, looking around at the closet stalls. ‘Cheese!’ he exclaims loudly, drawing some looks and a chuckle from the cheesemonger a couple of stalls over. He clears his throat, quieting his voice. ‘Cheese, cara mia, like we talked about the other night. Cheese and crackers and fruit and chutney. Like this!’ He picks up a jar of spiced cranberry chutney from the stall.
‘That will be 55 krona please, sir,’ the lady behind the stall tells him. He hands the jar to you and fishes his wallet out of his pocket, handing her cash and insisting she keep the change.
‘That’s not exactly cooking is it,’ you scoff, putting the jar in one of the many tote bags you had thought to bring along. ‘But that being said, I would be happy to join you this evening.’
‘Maybe not but I can assure you I will put a lot more effort into dessert,’ he replies with a smirk as he pulls you towards the cheesemonger. ‘Now, Signior, I need a selection of your best cheese for mia cuocoina, and a little advice.’
He leads the way around the market, insisting on tasting this and that and asking questions of the vendors about flavour pairings and serving suggestions until your tote bags are beginning to weigh you both down. You find a bench at the edge of the square and flop down onto it taking the weight off your aching shoulders. He follows after you, sliding the bags to one side so he can sit right beside you.
‘Try this, cara mia,’ he holds a small pastry to your lips, one he has already tried if the tell tale crumbs around his lips were anything to go buy. You almost refuse, your tactical plan having flown out the window long ago at his insistence you taste test almost everything. He looks at you beseechingly though and you cave, opening your mouth and allowing him to feed it to you. Before he can pull away though you close your lips around his fingers, getting your own back the only way you can right now. He freezes, his pupils blown wide as he watches you suck the tips of his fingers.
‘Fancy seeing you here.’ A voice you recognise breaks through your lustful haze. You almost choke between the pastry and Terzo whipping his fingers from your mouth as if they were burning. You swallow your mouthful without even registering if it was nice or not as you turn to see Lilly and Rich stood before you. You jump up quickly, offering them each a hug, then trying to stand between them and Terzo, wracking your brain to explain why you were out in public with Papa's fingers in your mouth.
‘Hi guys, what a lovely surprise. You should really try the pastries from over there, they are very good…’ You can feel your face burning completely at a loss on how to explain away what they must have seen.
‘Will Papa hand feed them to us as well?’ Rich asks sardonically, looking at you with your eyebrows raised as if waiting for an answer. At least until Lilly elbows him sharply in the ribs.
‘It’s so nice to see you and to see you too, Papa. Hello!’ She says leaning around you to offer Terzo a wave. He stands dusting crumbs from his face and his shirt and carefully keeping some space between you as he shifts to see them both.
‘Hello, Sister…’ He glances at you and you realise he has never met them before and some introductions are in order.
‘Lilly, Ter… Papa, this is Lilly and Rich. We work together in the kitchens.’ Lilly smiles at him offering another wave which he returns but Rich still doesn’t look impressed, clearly wanting to confront you both on what he saw.
‘Ah, si. Hello, Sister Lilly and Brother Rich. And I can assure you those pastries are delicious whether fed from my own hands or not.’ He switches his Papa persona on, and it’s a little jarring after all this time. ‘Sorella here, I have tired her out having her carry all these bags of things I wanted. I thought I better not tire her arms any further.’
‘Right,’ Rich replies slightly at a loss for words. You don’t think his story has helped the situation at all but though he looks a little awkward and uncomfortable, it doesn’t seem like Terzo really minds the two of you getting caught, so you take a deep breath and relax.
‘All this shopping and eating… I could do with another coffee, I think. Si…’ He nods to himself, already heading towards the coffee stall. ‘Anyone else?’ He asks almost as an afterthought and you all nod. ‘Four coffees then, ok.’ The three of you watch him go but as soon as he is out of earshot, they both turn to you.
‘What the hell was that?’ Rich asks in an angry whisper. ‘I thought you were just doing your job and he was far too stressed about getting fired to try it on? Not that it looked like he had to try that hard…’ He had always been protective of the three of you, but you couldn’t help feeling defensive when he had no idea what had been growing between you.
‘Oh leave her be, they both looked happy while they were doing it. What does it matter?’ You smile at Lilly appreciatively, thankful for her understanding.
‘Guys, please just listen.’ You knew you had to explain something. ‘We, well, look, we just-’ You can’t even find the words to start. It’s not like with Mona where you can tell her everything and she just understands, not that you have time for that anyway. You glance over to the stall and see him standing in line, carefully studying the menu and certainly not looking back over every few seconds. ‘I… I can’t really explain what we are; not at the moment,’ you sigh. ‘But Lilly is right, we are happy, everything is fine.’
‘You do look happy, and he looks better too.’ Lilly says reassuringly and you breathe a sigh of relief.
‘Yeah, no one can accuse you of slacking on feeding him.’ Both you and Lilly turn to glare at him.
‘Don’t be a dick, Rich!’ she admonishes him, treating him to another elbow to the ribs.
‘What?’ He says defensively rubbing his side. ‘He is looking a lot more well-fed than he ever did before.’ It isn’t an apology but it is probably as close as you will get from Rich.
‘Could you guys just keep this between us, please?’ You feel like you are begging, but the last thing you want is people finding out about the two of you through gossip. You hadn’t really thought about it or discussed it but you were sure that Terzo would like to tell his brothers himself when the time was right.
‘Keep what? There’s nothing to tell anyway, right Rich?’ She threatens him with her elbow one last time but relents when he agrees with a flinch.
‘Right, nothing to tell.’ The three of you look at him just as he looks away sharply and he gets handed the tray of coffees. You feel a little relief but the silence is awkward as you wait for him to make his way back over.
‘Caffè for everyone!’ He announces on his return and you each take a cup.
‘Thank you Papa, that was very kind,’ Lilly thanked him genuinely. ‘But we better get going. We have a list. Mona has really taken to bossing us around since you've been gone.’ You know she is joking, but it still sends a pang through you. As happy as you are in your current position, you do miss them. ‘Anyway, it was lovely to see you! Bye!’ She grabs Rich by the elbow and drags him away with only one last glare over his shoulder.
‘Terzo, I’m sorry,’ You say slumping back onto the bench.
‘They didn’t know about us?’ He asks cautiously. He sits beside you but leaves enough space to be considered decent and keeps his hands to himself. You can’t decide if you are disappointed or not.
‘No, they didn’t.’ You shoot him a sideways glance and he is looking down at his coffee, his expression unreadable.
‘So, you haven’t spoken to anyone about…?’ He trails off, neither of you at a point of being able to define what is going on between you. ‘Even before, you didn’t seek out your friends?’
‘Well I did… Mona, but I trust her. She would never say anything.’ He holds up a hand to halt you and you feel a bubble of panic starting to grow in your chest.
‘That’s not what I meant, cara mia.’ He finally looks at you now and the bubble dissolves. His eyes are warm, full of care. ‘I am glad you spoke to your friend about this, just as I am glad of her discretion. I would hate to think about you being so upset and also alone.’
‘You were dealing with it all alone.’ His hand rests on the bench between you and you place yours over the top. It feels wrong not to be touching at all during such a conversation.
‘Ah, I am used to it,’ he says, brushing you off. ‘I am used to it.’ He turns his hand under yours loosely lacing your fingers together. ‘And anyway, I am not alone anymore am I?’ It’s a slow smile that grows across his face, like he is only just realising it now.
‘No you aren’t,’ you confirm, squeezing his hand and returning his smile. If you had your way he would never be alone again.
‘May I ask,’ he pauses like he isn’t sure he wants to ask what he is about to say. ‘Why you didn’t tell your other friends?’ But this is something you can easily offer him an answer to.
‘Well it’s just… Lilly is young, she is only twenty. It feels a little odd talking to her about relationships when she feels like a little sister, and Rich? Well, he is the biggest gossip in the whole kitchen. It’s not that I don’t trust him, but he just gets a little carried away sometimes.’ You can’t help your fond smile. ‘And he is pretty protective of us, even if he can be a little bit of a dick about it.’
‘I see, I see.’ He seems happy enough accepting your reasons. ‘Are you ok?’ He inches a little closer now, already over keeping a sensible distance.
‘Yeah, I am.’ You decide even as you are saying it. The confrontation with your friends could have gone better, but it could have gone a lot worse. And it’s better you get caught by your friends then any other random inhabitant of the Abbey. In fact, you should have foreseen this happening, going out together so close to home. You wonder if he feels the same though. ‘Are you?’
‘Si, I think it is time to go home though,’ he says and you nod in agreement. You think you have both had enough excitement for today. ‘I called for a car while I was waiting for the coffee,’ he admits a little sheepishly.
‘Oh, thank Satan.’ Your relief is palpable, both your full stomach and your sore shoulders thankful. ‘I thought we were going to have to carry all of this back.’
• • • • • • • • ✦ • • • • • • • • • •
Presentation is the second most important consideration and for that you need a suitable foundation. Depending on the number of people you are catering for you need a vessel large enough to hold enough food. The material is less important, dictated by aesthetic preference, whether you prefer wood, glass, slate or porcelain. Consider whether you need vessels for particular ingredients, additional cutlery to serve. By planning for all eventualities you make sure the meal is a success.
• • • • • • • • ✦ • • • • • • • • • •
With a plea from you and an order from Terzo a ghoul assists in carrying the bags back to his rooms, leaving them on the kitchen table before departing to wherever it is ghouls go when off duty. You begin to unpack, starting to sort out the haul to put in the appropriate storage but he comes behind you taking your wrists in his hands and steers you back out of the kitchen.
‘Mia cuocoina please,’ he murmurs against the back of my head. ‘I need peace for the art I am about to create.’ You try to suppress your laugh but it comes out an inelegant snort.
‘I can help,’ you reply, twisting in his arms to look at him. ‘Just tell me what you want me to do.’
‘No,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘It is my turn to make food for you!’ He continues shepherding you backwards towards his office. ‘Go have a nap, visit friends, whatever.’ he drops a kiss on your lips before spinning you back around.
‘You may come back in two hours,’ he swats at your ass as he opens the door and lets you out into the hallway.
You pause for a moment wondering where you even wanted to go. Going back to your rooms wasn’t very appealing, there were no distractions there and you knew the time would crawl by. The kitchens were out of the question right now if you didn't want to be subjected to the interrogation you were spared in town, something you were keen to avoid as long as possible. The gardens were an option except you could still feel the ache in your arms from carrying the bags around the market and you know for certain if Primo catches you in the garden there was no chance you would be leaving unencumbered by whatever vegetables he could give you.
Your wandering takes you past the upper clergy offices, mostly dark and unused of a Saturday afternoon but you spot movement behind one of the doors and you are not surprised when you realise whose it is. There is only one person you know that would willingly work on a Saturday and fortunately that was a person you had been meaning to speak to. Since you and Terzo had joined his brothers for lunch in fact. You had no sweet treats prepared for him today but you were sure he could do with a break. He could always do with a break.
Approaching the closed door you knock softly and wait for him to answer and the slightly frantic scuffling you can hear lets you know you won’t have to wait long. But a few moments pass before he answers the door. His exhaustion is plain on his face, sadly not much different than any of the other times you have seen him lately.
‘Sorella,’ he says with a tired smile when he registers it is you at his door. ‘How can I help you today?’
‘I found myself at a loose end and saw you were working!’ You explain as he holds the door open for you and gestures to the seat before his desk. ‘And why are you working on a Saturday?’
‘There is so much to do and so little time,’ he says, flopping back into his chair with a heavy sigh. ‘I was not busy today anyway so I thought why waste time when there is so much to catch up on.’ The clergy’s decision to remove Terzo from his position has caused more problems than you had first thought. You can’t help thinking how odd it is that no new Papa had been appointed after all these months when there was clearly a need but you set that aside for now.
‘Even you need a break Cardinal.’ You struggle to keep the worry from your voice.
‘Well you are here, let's have a break now.’ His smiles grows more genuine as he speaks. ‘I wished to speak with you anyway.’
‘Yes me too,’ you agree. It makes it easier now that he has brought it up himself. ‘I have been meaning to come and see you since the lunch but well, you know Papa, he was keeping me busy. Even on my day off he had me going into town with him to the farmers market.’ You are starting to worry your blush is becoming permanent and you hope your smile isn’t as sappy as it feels. If you plan to continue keeping your relationship quiet you really need to get better at schooling your reactions.
‘Si, I imagine Papa has lots to keep you busy.’ he agrees laughing but his face turns serious. ‘He is.. Well he is treating you well Sorella?’ He pauses, seeming to choose his words carefully, his fingers coming up to play with his moustache nervously. ‘Like a gentleman? When things are hard I think sometimes he can forget he is a good man.’ You sense that Copia may be talking from personal experience and having seen that side of Terzo yourself you are keen to reassure him.
‘I think I understand what you mean, Cardinal, he …’ You pause thinking over your wording just as carefully. ‘When I first began working for him he was different, while everything was fresh but he, we, found a compromise. He has apologised for some of his more thoughtless actions.’ Copia raises his eyebrows and you panic momentarily. ‘Oh nothing so bad and really, I had a lot of sympathy for his situation. I wasn’t expecting him to be at his best.’
‘It was regrettable what happened.’ He takes off his beretta and runs his hands through his hair. ‘It .. well it was unexpected for all of us, I think but it is good to see him doing better.’ He does look genuinely relieved even though the situation has clearly impacted him. ‘All this food seems to be doing the trick eh?’
‘The food probably has helped, yes,’ you laugh, and the rest you thought, keeping that to yourself. ‘But I think it is really just time, Cardinal.’ He would have improved with or without you over time but you do like to think you have helped him move on a little faster then he may have done otherwise.
‘Now, can we discuss those notes you brought me to translate?’ His direct questions bring you straight back down from your romantic imaginings.
‘I was waiting for you to bring them up.’ You know you owe him something of an explanation but you are not above waiting to see what he has worked out for himself.
‘They, well I suppose I don’t know enough to say really,’ he begins confidently before tailing off. ‘But they didn’t read like professional recipes.’
‘That's because they weren’t but Cardinal, it’s not my place to say more, not that I even really know anymore.’ In this at least you can be honest. You could probably make a good guess as to who wrote out the recipes but you aren’t willing to voice that now. ‘He gave me some recipes and he never said where they came from or why that was all he wanted and I didn’t feel it was my place to ask. There were things said at lunch that might have given me some clues but even so.’
‘Si, before. I noticed that too.’ He takes a deep breath before continuing. ‘It has not been long since I was considered an outsider to them and outsiders really know very little by design. If it hadn’t been announced that I was also Nihils son then that would still be the case. But even though I never grew up the way that they did, well Secondo and Terzo anyway, I was here in the Ministry already and I saw what happened.’
You say nothing, waiting for him to continue sensing his need to unburden himself.
‘I was brought up as an orphan you see and while most children in the church are brought up communally, orphan or otherwise, the Emeritus brothers were always separate.’ He switches into lecture mode but you still hang on his every word. There were very few people you mixed with who had been a member of the church for so long. ‘Primo has always been here, his mother was a Sister of great reputation chosen especially to birth an heir but Terzo and Secondo, their mothers must have met Nihil on his travels because they weren’t brought to the church until the were ten, Secondo only a few months before Terzo.’
‘What happened to their mothers?’ A part of you feels bad even asking but your curiosity wins out. You would not feel comfortable asking Terzo himself this but it feels like the last piece in a puzzle you had been building since you had accepted this position.
‘They just carried on with their lives I suppose. I know Primo fought with Nihil about it, that their mother’s should have been invited to join them or at least to visit but it was decided. No distractions, they had had ten years of normal life and now they were to prepare for their future as men of the Emeritus line.’ His expression turns wry as he continues. ‘It makes me almost glad that he didn’t acknowledge me until recently. I might have liked having brothers growing up though.’ You pat his arm where it rests on the desk offering what little comfort you can.
‘Anyway I know Terzo’s mother tried for a while, sending packages of food and presents for him but I don’t know what happened after that. One day they just stopped coming.’ Your heart clenches, for Terzo, for Copia, for all of them. They may be in some of the most powerful positions in the Clergy but it was clear they had all been forced to sacrifice a lot for the privilege.
‘It sounds like it wasn’t easy for any of you.’ Like any organisation there were machinations going on far above the notice of normal members like yourself, you weren’t naïve enough to think otherwise but you found it jarring learning that somewhere that had felt immediately like home and safety to you had treated these men so poorly.
‘No I suppose not.’ He rubs his hands over his face, the conversation having turned heavier than either of you expected. After a moment he offers you a tired smile. ‘Now tell me more about this farmers market.’ You while away the rest of the time describing in detail the stalls and the tasters and when you eventually leave you hope you both are feeling a little lighter.
• • • • • • • • ✦ • • • • • • • • • •
Once you have your vessel and your ingredients prepared then all that is left is the arrangement. There are endless ways to arrange the food enticingly. If you want your dish to be eye-catching and mouth watering you must consider the balance of colour and texture. You can create contrast with light and dark meats or cheeses. You may introduce pops of colours with fresh fruits and berries and mix textures with a soft cheese, a juicy fruit and a crisp cracker. Complimentary flavours could be grouped, the arrangement of your board encouraging certain combinations both traditional and daring. Your final result will be a visually appealing and delicious dish to present.
• • • • • • • • ✦ • • • • • • • • • •
It’s been a long time since you have had to knock before entering his quarters but it feels appropriate now, giving him a chance to finish the final touches to his creation before you enter. You almost reach the point of knocking again, wondering if he hadn’t heard you when he pulls the door open. He was still wearing his shirt and trousers but he had borrowed your apron.
‘This looks good on you,’ you tease, pulling at the strap around his neck, but he only takes your hand and leads you inside.
‘Now cara mia you are in for a treat if I do say so myself.’ When you reach the dining room he stops you, placing his hands over your eyes as he guides you the final distance. ‘No peaking now,’ He says as he positions you at the end of the table.
‘Ta daaa,’ He uncovers your eyes and as you blink you can’t help but be impressed. The centre of the table is covered in what may be every plate in the kitchen; each one has a different cheese and its suggested accompaniments arranged around it. You had fought valiantly for any cheeses other than Italian but he had refused to budge keen for you to taste all of his favourites. He pours you a glass of wine, a deep red and hands you a glass.
‘This is Barolo, aged in oak caskets it is the most decadent of Italian wines. The King of wines they call it.’ You take a sip and examine the flavours. It is rich, fruity and floral but with an earthiness that should pair well with your meal this evening. You were by no means a wine expert but your palette was well developed over your career and you can tell an expensive wine when you taste one.
‘Terzo this is very extravagant,’ you stop when he raises his hand.
‘You deserve the best, cara mia, as does this cheese!.’ He gestures across the table and you survey all the options before you, savouring another sip of the wine. In the middle he has laid out a selection of crackers, water, butter and grain in a variety of different shapes. There was crumbling gorgonzola drizzled with honey to calm the bite of the blue veins and topped with quartered grapes and shelled pistachios. Slices of nutty pecorino sit between folded slices of ham generously filled with halved figs and walnuts. Cubes of provolone mixed with slices of olive oil, cured sopressata and green olives and taleggio and apple slices wrapped in salty prosciutto. Finally a bowl of whipped mascarpone, dark red cherry and balsamic dressing pooling between the peaks and whole cherries and pecans sinking into the soft cheese.
He pulls out your chair for you, getting you comfortably seated then he goes to take off the apron before joining you at the table waiting as you take in the whole spread. It is strange being on the receiving end of such a gesture. You can’t remember the last time someone had prepared an extravagant meal for you like this, even if he had only sliced and arranged the food, it was clear how much effort he has put in to impress you.
He lets you start helping yourself to the plate closest to you when you struggle to decide where to begin with so many enticing options. The two of you are quiet for a time only pausing to express your pleasure with the flavours to each other. After trying at least two helpings of each cheese you sit back with your wine before your stomach begins protesting after your second round of overindulging for the day.
‘Thank you for doing this Terzo,’ you say as you watch him assemble another mouthful. ‘I’m not sure I remember the last time someone did this for me.’ He pauses before taking a bite, looking at you in surprise.
‘Is that so?’ He looks thoughtful as he finishes off his mouthful, getting every trace from his fingers. ‘You are very welcome, cara mia. In fact I enjoyed doing this more than I thought.’
‘Am I out of a job now?’ You joke just to watch his eyes widen in panic.
‘Hold on no no!’ He shakes his head emphatically. ‘I did not mean that at all. I will always prefer your incredible cooking.’
‘I suppose I will stick around then,’ you reassure him.
‘Thank Satan as much as this was fun. I could not imagine doing it everyday, multiple times.’ He looks exhausted just thinking about it. ‘You are a superwoman, mia cuocoina.’
‘I’m not, I just enjoy it,’ you explain. You always had since you were young and had followed your mother around the kitchen.
‘Why do you think you were so drawn to cooking?’ He asks. It wasn’t something you had thought much about before. It had just been a fact of your life.
‘Well I like food obviously,’ you say with a laugh but you pause as you think of what it is you enjoy most about it. ‘I think it's just such a big part of our lives, we have to eat to survive so why not make that as enjoyable as we can?’ Of course it is your job and has been for the longest time but there is a more personal element to it, especially when it comes to people you care about. ‘And you know if you can cook you can make your friend a delicious soup when they are ill, you can make their favourite pasta dish after they just got dumped or you can bewitch a man by making his stomach fall for you first,’ you finish with a wink.
‘Mmmm I see,’ he says sipping his wine, his eyes going heavy lidded as he regards you. ‘So this was your plan was it?’ His voice goes deep and teasing and you shift in your seat.
‘No, just a happy accident.’ You lean towards him without even noticing, so easily drawn into his orbit. ‘I think my food was just too good for you to resist.’ He nods in agreement, conceding to your point but this conversation is far from its end.
‘And what about you?’ He holds your gaze, keeping you attentive to his every word.
‘What about me?’ You ask, tilting your head not quite understanding his question.
‘What made you unable to resist your Papa?’ You swallow thickly. There are so many reasons you wouldn’t even know where to start.
‘You don’t need me to tell you how irresistible you are.’ you say instead. You aren’t against stroking his ego usually but you know he is well aware of his affect on people and you in particular.
‘I have my own charms. I am in no doubt about that.’ He says confidently and you know it is true. ‘You though? I think it is a little different than any I have seduced before.’
‘Oh?’ You have an inkling where he is going with this. You had your suspicions that there were a lot more feelings involved then either of you were used to in your past relationships but this didn’t feel like the build up to a heartfelt confession. He was looking at you as if he had been leading you to a trap and you had just fallen in.
‘You like feeding me.’ he states, matter of fact, placing his wine glass down on the table.
‘Yes we have discussed that.’ You are sure the two of you had discussed how you enjoyed taking care of him even as early as your first dinner together.
‘No we haven’t. Feed me.’ His voice is hard but not cold as he orders you but you hesitate.
‘What?’ You think back trying to clear your confusion and you remember the lunch or more specifically just before when you had been reassuring him in his bedroom. You had known then that he wouldn’t drop that forever but it still didn’t make you any more prepared.
‘I am not yet satisfied. Feed me.’ You swallow again, unable to control your body's reaction to his strict demands. You want to obey him, to feed him but again you hesitate.
‘Terzo …’ He gives you a stern look cutting you off before you can continue. ‘Papa?’ It comes out as a question but it seems obvious what he wants. He rewards you with a smirk.
‘I want some more gorgonzola, si,’ He encourages as you take a water cracker and begin to load it with cheese. ‘Plenty of honey too per favore then be a brava cuocoina and feed it to me. Then I will explain.’ You offer him the cracker and he tuts at you shaking his head.
‘Uh uh,’ he sighs. ‘Do it properly.’ He pushes the plates to the side and pats the table in front of him. You stand uncertainly but he pats the table again until you sit before him and offer him the cracker a second time. He scoots his chair forward forcing you to spread your legs to accommodate him but now he is in the perfect position for you to place the food in his waiting mouth. He chews slowly, moaning low as the flavours combine and harmonise on his tongue.
‘Mia cuocoina, I think the taleggio now, no?’ You take his suggestion, the rolls of prosciutto and apple are much easier to feed him. He watches you for a moment before continuing. ‘There were clues you see but I did not notice at first. Now though, now your Papa understands.’ You offer him the next bite but his warm hand closes around your wrist holding you in place.
‘You kiss me differently, did you know this? After we have eaten, you like me tasting of food you made me I think.’ You feel like you can’t breathe as he begins listing all the things he has noticed. ‘And my clothes, you look at me differently too, when things get a little tighter, tighter than they used to be. You like seeing how I have changed with every meal you have fed me I think.’ You can’t deny it because what he says is true. A part of you had hoped he might not have noticed everything but with every word that hope gets smaller and smaller.
‘And now here. Your heart is racing and yet all I have done is eat a little from your own hands.’ He pauses to take a bite, his teeth sinking into the soft cheese and crisp apple and just grazing the tip of your fingers. ‘You enjoy feeding me, more than you realise I think.’
‘Papa I …’ You don’t know what to say. He doesn’t look angry or upset but you feel the urge to apologise even as words fail you. He swallows the last bite freeing your wrist.
‘Shhh it is ok mia cuocoina.’ His hands trail down to your ankles tracing miscellaneous shapes into your skin. ‘Cherries now per favore. The balsamic cherries with the mascarpone. His fingers creep up your calves ghosting the shape of you before hooking behind your knees. He pulls you forward until you are sitting at the edge of the table. You lean across him, choosing a butter cracker, the thicker texture better to support the soft cheese.
‘I am craving something sweeter,’ he explains. You bring it to his lips, the cherry juice starting to drip down your fingers and he catches it with his tongue leaving a sticky trail behind it before closing his lips over the mouthful. Your breath catches in your throat and his eyelids droop seductively as he sucks the last traces of juice and cheese from your fingers.
‘That didn’t quite hit the spot,’ he says, hands already sliding your skirt up your thighs until he can clearly see your underwear and the wet patch there is little point trying to hide. ‘Ah so I was right. You do enjoy hand feeding your Papa.’ He spreads your legs even further so he can lean close enough that you feel his steady breathing against you. ‘After all that fuss.’ He grazes his teeth over your clit, the material of your underwear protecting you but the threat still makes your thighs shake. When he does bite down it’s only on the hem of your underwear as he pulls them to the side leaving you bare to him for the first time.
He just looks at first holding you in suspense but in a split second his tongue is all over you yet somehow still not hitting any places you wanted him, needed him. Around and around he swirls his tongue over your folds, then the most gentle suction. Little sounds of enjoyment he seems unaware of that vibrate through you as he tastes you thoroughly. But his teasing as you fed him, his sucking and nipping at your fingers had already got you ready for so much more. Giving in you lace your fingers through his hair to guide him to exactly where you want his attention most but he resists all your attempts, making the frustration inside you build and build. You try another tactic grinding your hips against his face but he pulls away pressing your hips down onto the table and stopping any further movement and forcing a whine from deep in your chest.
‘Cuocoina, please. I am just trying to properly enjoy my meal.’ He pauses to lick a long stripe, tongue flat and broad to give you as much friction as possible. You can’t breathe, not for a moment, the sudden rush of pleasure the only thing your mind can comprehend but almost as soon as it starts it ends the only thing you can feel are the puffs of his warm breath.
‘But perhaps you would prefer to feed me this too?’ He positions himself that he is a hair's breadth away from you before his vice-like grip on your hips loosens. ‘Feed me’ he growls and you have to obey.
You grind your hips against him over and over, his tongue finding your entrance making your thighs shake as you fight to get him even deeper. Your foot loses purchase where it had settled on the arm of his chair and you scream as your clit catches the tip of his nose. One of his hands finds its way to your thigh helping to steady you but the other creeps up your body underneath your dress. He cups your breast over bra, his maddening fingers finding your already hard nipple through the light material pinching and twisting until you can't decide if you want to arch into his teasing hand or push back against his face.
‘Papa! Terzooo,’ you moan his name in frustration, struggling as your pleasure builds to take what you need from him but he finally takes pity on you, hooking both your legs over his shoulders and lifting your hips clean off the table.
‘Fuck mia cuocoina,’ he growls against your core. He sucks your clit long and hard until you scream your toes curling against his back. ‘Sei la cosa migliore che abbia mai assaggiato, cazzo.’ You barely register his switch to Italian, too busy chanting his name in your pleasure fuelled delirium.
You are so close to the edge when his lips close over you sucking and sucking while his tongue swipes over your clit over and over again. You can feel it building, a charge shooting through your nerves from the soles of your feet to the palms of your hand and you continue babbling his name, repeating until it is almost meaningless. He pinches your nipple, hard, and you arch up from the table with a gasp just as he slides a finger inside you curling it perfectly to press against your g spot.
Every bit of air is forced from your lungs as your orgasm overtakes you. Your ears begin to ring as the force of it pulses through your body and what feels like every muscle contracting and releasing as you gasp for air. Your hands are still gripping at his hair keeping him in place not that it is needed as he laps at you greedily, catching every last drop of your orgasm.
‘Making sure you are well fed?’ You giggle deliriously, still feeling somewhat detached from reality. You release your death grip on his hair and he sets your hips back down on the table helping you ease the vice-like grip of your thighs around him. His face is wet with your slick but it only emphasises his flushed cheeks. He grins at you in satisfaction, his eyes sparkling as he takes in the state he has made of you.
He pulls you back upright by your hands after straightening your underwear and your dress but this time no one could mistake the treatment you had just received. Your balance has not yet returned and so helps you into his lap where you can lean against his warm body. As you get settled you can feel his hardness trapped beneath you but as you reach for him cupping him through his trousers, he catches your wrist gently and instead wraps your arms around his neck. He distracts you by stealing kisses and you discover you almost enjoy the taste of you on his lips as much as you enjoy the taste of the food you make him.
He slows your frantic kisses down, only offering you slow pecks to help you actually catch your breath. He rubs your back soothingly over your dress and encourages you to rest against him but you still end up clinging to his shoulders to help keep you upright as the haze of your pleasure recedes leaving you exhausted. He tucks your hair behind your ear, his hand settling at the back of your neck.
‘Mmm, now I am satisfied,’ he whispers against your lips before distracting you again with his captivating kisses.
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To: Someone From a Warm Climate
wc: 23.2k
genre: smut, angst, fantasy violence
pairings: faerie!taehyun x human!reader, faerie!yeonjun x human!reader
synopsis: a life lived as a human among the fae is one hard-earned. the folk are built of indescribable beauty, and of debauchery and mischief. for some, a life lived subservient to the folk is just fine; but to those who dream of something more, they would spend their lives clawing and biting to make it happen.
you, looking for a way to escape a life as a faerie’s human servant, put a new foot forward thinking that any life could be better than that. but, when your first assignment as a king’s spy is alongside a brooding, icy faerie man, you begin to wonder what your place in this foreign world really could be.
a/n: this part, i put my heart and soul into! i rewrote so many parts and agonized over following the path that i most wanted the story to go down—i hope it shows! xoxoxoxo, love ya! again, this is a long one, so pls let me know about spelling mistakes :,)
! warnings: angst, unprotected sex, voyeurism, orgasm denial, jealousy, angst again, dubious intentions of multiple main characters... poor mc has no idea who to believe
playlists: taehyun | yeonjun | series
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You had hoped that learning of Yeonjun’s relationship with the same crowd who have made attempts on your life would be enough to rattle your brittle heart into sense. You really had. As you watch Taehyun, bent over the war strategy table, though, you wish you had more time to sort it out in your head. You hate the thought of settling on half-baked answers and information all for the fact that time is not on your side. When had time ever really been kind to you, though? It had not made exceptions when you were small and innocent in your cradle, had not slowed down to allow you to at least cherish your final moments a normal child with her human parents. You can only fantasize who you would be if you had been given just enough time to know that gentle love. Even now, time makes your choices for you.
Taehyun looks over those metal figurines as if searching for something in them. There are more of them stood and strewn out on the map. It reminds you how you are now faced with a plethora of newer, more powerful players.
You miss when this had been a simple spying mission—when your path forward had been unobscured and clear. You envy that version of yourself: able to believe that bad things presented themselves as such. The world had been clean-cut. Evil had jagged teeth and foul breath, and good had soft edges and sweet smiles. You’re not sure where that distinction lies anymore.
“How’s your shoulder?” you say, making your presence known. You’re sure he had been keen to your presence from the moment you’d entered the estate, though; not only thanks to his better hearing, but also because Taehyun is constantly assessing his surroundings. The smallest insect could hardly sneak up on him. You push off the doorframe and enter the room.
He nods his head once in greeting, but he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the table’s ensemble. “It’s doing fine.”
Sighing, you decide not to push it. The sight of that puncture had been ghastly, and it wreaks havoc in your belly every time you replay it, but the tick in his jaw when you mention it tells you enough of how he feels about disclosing whether or not anything might hurt him. How many times in the past few weeks had you forced him to do just that? It’s no wonder that the two of you butt heads so terribly. Allowing you to stitch him up must’ve been the extent of how far he’d let you see him in need of help.
You gesture toward the table. “Have you decided when we leave?”
Taehyun answers you with a strained sigh out through his nose: a testament to how he’d been mulling it over. He levies those figures a few more moments of his gaze as if they might speak an answer for him. They don’t. He concedes to their lack of direction and turns to you. “Every moment we spend here, we risk our identities further,” he starts, crossing his arms over his chest.
You wince. He still believes that you’d at least contained some of your identity by taking out those three faeries. You know better. Even the bard in that tavern had known what had happened; it’s why Yeonjun ended up finding out in the first place. Even if not all of them had been a part of that rebellion, it’s reckless to assume that there were no more than that.
Continuing, he says, “And judging by what we’ve picked up, we need to get it all back before the solstice.” He doesn’t pace as he thinks. Only the faraway look in his eyes betray the noise in his head.
You hate the way it sounds like he’s going to demand that you leave immediately, and you hate how it sieges your tongue and makes it dance into a pitiful ploy to stay. To give yourself some credit, it’s better that Taehyun knows every bit of information you have. This moment is desperate for informed decisions.
“I saw Yeonjun this morning,” you blurt. The words bubbled and bubbled behind your lips until they’d found the tipping point and spilled out. You’d agonized over what to make of it all for hours: that Yeonjun had been as deceitful with you as you’d been with him, that you are a sorry human girl that had wedged her way into the cross-firings of a war much beyond yourself, that you still have the gall to consider your own feelings despite its grandness... None of that worrying had led you to a conclusion that both your heart and mind would agree on.
Taehyun’s gaze snaps to you, contained and remote aside from the twitching at the corners of his lips. The intensity of it makes you waver, but you have no time for wavering.
“He’s... been made aware of our purpose here. He knows that we’re spies,” you say. As you watch him try to piece that together, you add, “He’s part of their rebellion.”
Now he laughs, barbed and full of mock and disbelief. “The prince is rebelling against his father? He thinks he’ll find the throne like that? What’s his plan for when this falls through? For when his father hears of his mutiny? The prince will lose his head.”
The thought makes you nauseous, despite how Yeonjun’s image has grown to be something murky. You don’t know what Yeonjun’s intentions are in aligning with the rebellion here. You hardly know anything about his relationship with his father and the High Court aside from the fact that he feels suffocated by his life back there. You’d assume that there’s a lot more to his reasoning, but you’ve learned your lesson about assuming that you know who people are. The inability to lie comes with the need for secrets. The thought that perhaps Yeonjun is only making a shady attempt for power crosses your mind, but either your own reasoning or your own stubbornness shoves it down. Nobody in faerie would hand their fealty to a prince who’d taken the throne of a long-standing king by those sorts of means. He’d be a king with no denizens to preside over.
You interject Taehyun’s parade of scoffs. “He told me that war is coming, that it’s been coming.”
His face drops, and he straightens up. “Of course it is. It’ll begin the moment we return with what we’ve found.”
Your lips go a bit numb, and then your fingers follow. You know that this is your duty—it’d been this all along. It should come as no shock to you that he intends to relay this all to The King. But that was before you allowed your heart to make its home here. How simply he demands that you return to those lands with information that would kill Yeonjun... it has acid crawling a path up your throat.
You make your best effort to ensure that your voice doesn’t falter as you speak. “He offered us protection as long as we stay here,” you say. “We don’t have to leave now.” You try to catch his gaze as you add, “We don’t have to leave at all.”
You know that Yeonjun plays a part in the rebellion, but you don’t know how deep his devotion goes, and you also don’t know to what ends you can trust his intentions. How far do his loyalties to the rebellion go? And, where do his loyalties to you stand? The thought that he may have never loved you at all... it’s been a plague to your heart and mind from the very moment he’d revealed the truth to you this morning. Your guilt has chipped away at you without mercy—you’ve spent so many awful nights wishing you could unload your deceptions in front of him. How had it ended up so trivial in the grand scheme of things? How are you the one left feeling betrayed?
You really, really cannot imagine having Yeonjun’s blood on your hands. He is one of them—a creature deception, and yet you still cannot shake those stolen nights from your bones. He had been your first. He’d made this place a home for you, where you had never had a home. It’s pitiful to search so deeply in someone else for your own strengths; even you can see that. Nevertheless, you do it. You suppose that a pair of warm arms and sweet words will do that to someone, no matter if you know that they could rot you like sweets do the tooth. It’s not unlike drunkards who find their day’s comfort in their drinks, even as it rots their body and mind away. Anything for a stretch of belonging and bliss. You're desperate for it.
Taehyun’s sinewy words rattle your wandering mind back to reality. “He tells you that he is a member of the same group of people that have tried multiple times to kill you, and you believe him when he says he’s going to protect you? Still?” he spits, shaking his head. “What makes you so sure that he’s not just keeping us from running? That he isn’t handing us on a platter to his rebel friends? You’re going to get us fucking killed.”
Blood roars like frothy-white rapids in your ears, warring with the echoes of his honey-glazed exclamations of love. To some capacity, he had to have meant those words. Faeries can’t lie, and he had said it so plainly. He loves you.
“We can’t leave yet,” you say, stepping toward him on legs that you fear might collapse beneath you. “You said it yourself; we can’t return without the whole story. If we return now, we could be missing something.” You study the frosty set to his face and suck in a stabilizing breath. “Please, Taehyun. Please trust me on this.”
You sound desperate and pleading, but you don’t reel it in at all. You are desperate and pleading. You have no intent of returning as some successful spy and continuing a life of deception and violence. It’s not who you are; it’ll never be who you are. Maybe this world tries to ask it of you, but you refuse to concede to it.
“Part of our job is staying alive,” he says, his body rigid. He doesn’t like where you’re going with this, you can tell that much.
“Is that what you want? To be a pawn of war? Isn’t that what we are if we bring this information back?” you challenge. “Don’t you think that if the prince of all people has turned against him, then serving at his hand is the wrong choice? I don’t know The King—I’ve never even seen him! Why should I be excited to serve him?”
“The prince has more reason than anybody to want his father off his throne.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” you say, stepping further toward him. Though, it does make you revisit those thoughts. If vying for the crown is really Yeonjun’s intention, you suppose he’d have no problems pleading with you to stay in order to tie off loose ends. You wish you could see it all from somebody else’s untainted eyes. “What I’m saying is, do you want to be a spy? What has The King ever done for you to earn your loyalty?”
Taehyun looks at you with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tilting down. “I don’t care about the damn king,” he snaps, and then gestures down at the table with all those figures. “The Queen operates on necessary evils. Where she can find a string to pull, she will pull it. My father was her general for a reason. Do you think she would keep him unless she approved of his violence? There is no good side to this war—just sides. If you’re suggesting that we stay here and try to forget that we came as spies, then you can forget it.”
You glance over at the war table and wonder how you’ve become a moving piece in ancient faerie politics when all you’d set out for was a purpose. You’d been so warped by your bitterness with your upbringing that you’d failed to see how anything could be worse than that. You’d been so excited that you jumped willingly into dark water without knowing how deep it was, and now your feet can’t touch the ground. Is this the purpose you want?
“Leave, then,” you say, stepping back. “You can leave. Just let me stay here. Please.”
Something in Taehyun’s expression flips, so subtle that you can’t name it. It unsettles you, your hair standing on edge. There is something in his eyes that you do not like.
“So, that’s it?” he says, his voice odd too. “That’s all it took for you to hand your future over on a leash to him?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” you stammer. The only ones with a collar around your neck are the spies. They’re the ones who insisted on that geas—the ones who needed to compel you with their faerie magic.
“It means that you got all the way here, uncovered a whole rebellion, and made a life for yourself, not handed to you by a prince, and you’re going to trade it in. It means that you’ve let him convince you that you are weak and need to be coddled.”
Your fists curl tight and dig your nails into your palms. “I never wanted to be a spy,” you grit out. Yeonjun is not the reason you want to stay here. He may be part of it, but you’ve come to be utterly unwilling to return to that spy den like it’s your home, or something. It’s not. You’d slept there for one night. Beyond just your word and that geas, what reason do you have to return?
“You didn’t? And yet, it’s what we are, isn’t it?” he says. “Do you think that I dreamed of being a spy? That I do it because I love it?”
“Then, what do you do it for, Taehyun?” you say. “When will you begin living your life for you?”
Taehyun seems to consider your words for a few long heartbeats, and then he seems to settle into something in his head. You allow yourself to let go of some of the tension in your shoulders as you watch his expression morph into something much less poisonous.
You hadn’t expected him to react like that.
“Do you have any weapons on you?” he says.
Faltering, you sputter out, “What?” You look over the room. The last time you’d been in here, you’d sparred. Does he intend to properly fight you in here now? Had you pushed him too far? Shaking your head and feeling at all the places you usually tuck your blades away, you say, “No... I don’t.”
“Get some. Where we’re about to go...” he trails off, as if reconsidering, but then he continues, “I’ll get you a hag stone.”
You furrow your brows, not taking off to do so. “A hag stone?” you echo, thankful that he isn’t trying to duel you, but wary at the need for such a faerie ward. Hag stones are of the more serious class of wards used to protect humans from faerie enchantment or glamour. Most often, humans would string theirs up with a bit of thread through the hole of it and wear it around their necks as a pendant. Unlike turning one’s clothes inside out or taking red berries on your person, hag stones protect against the more devastating faerie magic. You shudder simply wondering what you might need a hag stone to protect yourself from.
He nods a bit solemnly. “Kelpie do not let a meal or trick pass them by when they wait so long to have them.”
You look at him with wild eyes, hoping to see him laugh or play his words off as a joke. He does not, but of course he doesn’t. Taehyun doesn’t waste his words on jokes.
“Why... Why would we be going to a kelpie?” you ask him, laughing around the ball of fright in your chest.
He lends you a wretched look. “I have old debts to call on.”
❉
The forest in which Taehyun leads you is untamed. At some point, the sound of nature’s buzzing tapers off, and you know that you’ve entered a deeper forest than you ought to be sticking your nose in. When the forest goes silent, it’s only for one reason.
You’d grown up here. Maybe you’d been born elsewhere, but that does not negate the fact that you had grown up scared every day of the powerful creatures that inhabit this world. Your fear has ruled you for your whole life, and you let it. You’d be a fool not to. It’s how you survive in this world. Your limbs tremble; they plead with you to listen to everything you’ve ever known—do not mess with what is bigger than you.
You step around frost-capped puddles and dance between briars, careful not to snag yourself on their claws. It unsettles you further that this part of the forest is so untrodden and overgrown. With no folk coming through, you fear how the kelpie might behave when you make an audience before it. Will it climb straight from its frosty swamp and drag you back down with it? Is the hag stone you clutch at your chest enough to keep you safe?
“I don’t understand why we’re doing this, Taehyun,” you say, delicately avoiding any tumbles as you speed up to gauge his feelings by his face. You’re not fond of the remote blankness in his eyes, nor the staunch determined set to his jaw. “That thing might kill us, and your shoulder is hurt. You shouldn’t be out here; you should be letting it heal.”
“I know my limits,” he says.
Grimacing, you return his curt tone. “Taehyun.” You grab at the material of his sleeve with urgency. When he stops to look at you, you continue. “I want you to actually listen to me. You’re being unreasonable. Yeonjun said he’d use his pull to protect us. Both of us. We have no reason to be out here, you’re just putting us in danger.”
He lets your words stew in the air for a moment before saying, “I’m the one putting us in danger? Me?” He scoffs. “We are about as safe dealing with a kelpie as we are living off his promises. I’m doing what’s best for us. Trust me.”
You’re winded by his choice of words. You’ve become wary of dealing out your trust so frivolously. Those two words ring alarm bells.
“But where is this coming from? You didn’t want to stay.” Your breath furls out in a plume of white smoke in front of your face as you speak.
He looks as if he doesn’t want to answer that. It only makes you more apprehensive. Your limbs fill with lead, planting you where you stand. “Taehyun, I’m scared,” you say. “Isn’t finding help from a solitary faerie a bit too far? How is trusting Yeonjun any more dangerous than that?”
Taehyun steps toward you. “He is going to kill us. It’s not if, it’s when. That bastard is going to hurt you. This... This is for us. We are self-sufficient; we don’t need his protection shit.” A bitter tang colors his words. “I know that you’re scared. I won’t let it hurt you; I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise that you’ll be okay. You want to stay, don’t you?”
You nod. You would even make deals with a kelpie for it.
“Okay, then, let’s go,” he says, taking off with those words, effectively punctuating the conversation.
You follow him.
You grow more anxious the deeper you trudge into the forest without any consolation as the daylight begins creeping away. Following behind Taehyun, the wind whips at the perfect angle so that his form takes most of its terror, allowing you a respite from at least some of the brutal cold. You don’t feel any remorse using him as a shield against the elements—frost runs through his veins. He doesn’t shiver or wince at it.
Taehyun stops a few feet before a wintry mire framed by crystallized cattails and reeds. Your heart stutters as he looks around to ensure that this is the right spot. The water is dark and deep. You stay a healthy distance away from it. You do not want to find out just how deep it is.
“Where is it?” you say, keeping your voice low as if the beast might lunge from the water and snatch you up if you don’t.
Taehyun surveys the forest surrounding you and then the body of water as he always does, and when he looks to you, you already know he’s calculated and planned. He doesn’t face a situation without thought—that notion soothes you, even if it’s to the slightest degree.
“It won’t come until I call it,” he says, gesturing at those murky and horrible watery depths. Swallowing hard, you consider how close you stand to it. You take a shuffled step back. “When you see it, you need to stay calm. Don’t let it see your fear. It’ll find it amusing and latch onto you. Do you understand?”
A rush of heavy dread spreads from your core and seizes your lungs at his words. You’ve made it this far. You want to stay. You want to stay, bad. If this thing outsmarts you, you will not go down without swinging this time. You have your daggers, and you know how to wield them. Bravery is most of the battle, isn’t it?
You muster a nod, trying to give yourself a brave heart, but Taehyun shakes his head. Your eyes must betray how stricken you are. “Do you understand?” he repeats, his voice sharp and grave.
“I do.”
He accepts your words, pressing on. “It will try to trip you over your words and spin you into a trap with tricky words. Do not entertain it, even as it tries, okay?”
You’ve been terrorized by faerie tricks your whole life. You can handle their schemes just fine. “Okay.”
Taehyun frees a blade from its hiding place and brings it to his palm. He slides it there, slicing it open. Crimson creeps from the slit, running in between his fingers and trickling onto the snow. He’d cut pretty deep.
“Why are you—Taehyun?” you say, stepping toward him as he curls his wounded hand into a fist over the water, shaking it so as to let the droplets down into the black water. You regret those steps you’d made toward him as something comes crashing through the surface.
No, rather than emerging from under the surface, the beast is born from the water, manifesting from it as something gangly and wretched. From its pointed ears to its hooves, it pushes up from nothingness until it is standing there, real and terrible before you. Its skin glistens with a thickness like oil and its hair and tail hang in heavy, seaweed-like tendrils, plastered against its body. The scum floating on top of the water clung to its hair and pelt as it rose, twigs and the like poking from its withered body. A bridle cages its head, leather reins dangling down. Of all its awful things, you believe that its eyes are the worst—bone-white and piercing, they send a terror down your spine that solidifies in your bones. You know you will not soon forget the ancient soullessness that lives there. The folk do sometimes resemble the places in which they hail from; you suppose that the kelpie bares striking resemblance to the swirling water that sits at its feet.
You try not to choke or gasp or react in any way at all, but it isn’t easy. You focus your adrenaline on keeping your breathing as even as you can manage.
“It has been a long time since I’ve found a human at my doorstep,” the creature says, steam blowing from its nostrils as it snorts. How long might a long time mean to a faerie, especially one you know is so ancient? You hope that your presence does not intrigue the beast at all.
Taehyun swoops in before you can speak, and you are boundlessly thankful for it. “I’ve come to call on the debt you owe me,” he says. He doesn’t leave any room for any familiarity or playfulness.
“Is it that time?” the kelpie says, placing one hoof down onto the snow. It had looked so incorporeal and liquid that you half expect it to burst and turn to water as it does, but it climbs out just fine. Very real.
Taehyun eyes the kelpie as it makes land, dribbling with water and its kelp hair swinging. You swallow hard as it disregards his presence to observe you. You’re used to the folk disregarding you, not this. How many years had you yearned for their attention? Right now, you scare under it.
“For what do you need my help, boy?” it says, voice gurgled, “And why do you bring this human along? Is it for her? Or, rather, have you brought her as your peace offering?”
Your legs tremble beneath you.
“I don’t owe you any peace offering, kelpie,” Taehyun says, his head held righteously high. “You’ll offer me what I ask, or you’ll suffer for it.”
Shifting under the tense atmosphere, you still don’t speak. In Faerie, debt is law. The folk live by a law that is, like many other things about them, foreign to you. Whatever natural laws by which they govern themselves are vastly lost on you—but of keeping promises and respecting debts, you are very aware. They hate to be indebted—you’re sure it’s why this kelpie is so peevish. You hope that the folk’s need to balance their debts is enough to keep it hospitable.
The kelpie makes a rumbling and throaty sound that mimics that of a laugh. It rumbles the ground below your feet. “Just as rigid as the last time we met like this,” it says. “I wonder if it's because you’ve inherited your father’s stone heart, or because you fear me?”
The kelpie remains playful with its intonation, but tension lies thick and dangerous beneath both of their words. You know well enough that the beast is not being light-hearted.
Taehyun holds his face firm. He refuses to give an inch. “Do not try that with me. You have your word to upkeep for my help.”
Shimmering under the moon’s light now, the beast treats us with a long moment of hostile silence. You can feel its malintent despite how hollow those eyes remain.
“What do you ask of me?” it finally says, whipping its drooping tail behind it.
“There is a rebellion here,” starts Taehyun, shoulders relaxing to the slightest degree as the kelpie defers, “The north is uneasy. I’m optimistic that you’ll lend us your protection and hand, whenever I call on it. Regardless of it being in my interest, I’m sure that you aim to keep your lands peaceful, no?”
“Rebellion? For what would anything of the courts be in my interest? Of their rebellion or even just their ridiculousness, I do not care. I’ve left your gentry to you, leave me to mine.”
Taehyun’s nostrils flare. “I’m not asking you to care about the courts, I’m asking you to lend me your help when I ask of it,” he grits out, “Or, rather, I’m not asking. I am informing you that I am expecting you to uphold your debt to me, and you’d better be ready to do so. This is just courtesy.”
You feel the kelpie’s offense in the hollow quiet that follows Taehyun’s demands. Among many things, the fae are prideful creatures. Your stomach is in terrible knots. Taehyun is just trying to regain the power in the situation. You know that. It doesn’t make you any less scared for your life. With an ancient creature like a kelpie, it is paramount to earn its respect, or else it will push you around.
Worse than that. It will drag you down into its waters and make your soul into a meal.
“It’s a pity you think that hag stone will save you from me, human.” The kelpie turns its attention back on you. You bade your knees not to crumple. “It takes much more than that to protect you in places like these. Perhaps you’ll be safe from petty enchantment, though.”
Taehyun shoves his words in before you can give the kelpie any sort of reaction. Not even a tremble. “Understood?”
“You’ve made deals with our kind before. The magic reeks on you. It’s lousy enchantment, I could dissolve that geas for you. All you’d have to do is climb up on my back, and I’d grant you your freedom.”
You can’t help but perk up. The prospect of ridding yourself of the geas placed over you is a painfully delicious one.
Bristling, Taehyun steps between you and the kelpie. Whether he does it to fight off the beast should it lunge at you or to prevent you from approaching it, you’re unsure. “Do not,” he says.
“Wasn’t going to.” You say it, and of course it’s true. The kelpie is poking around to see what will most entice you. Regardless, you can’t deny how awfully you wish that geas were gone. It’s the one thing that you fear will tether you to The King’s bidding. No matter how you armor yourselves from the rebellion here in the north, what’s to stop the spies from tugging on the enchanted leash? One command from Cricket, and your body would betray you and walk the whole way there itself.
Though you don’t verbalize your interest, the kelpie no doubt sees the interest alight in your eyes. It pounces accordingly. “Unless you’d prefer that I give you a whole other enchantment. Protection against any of our kind’s glamours? Permanant true sight? A touch to my pelt would be all it would take for you to make yourself free.”
Taehyun clicks just the hilt of his sword free from the sheathe. “Stop with the tricks. You can find your fun elsewhere.”
Like the swampish water behind it, the kelpie stands there totally still, studying Taehyun. You really wish this altercation could wrap up at any pace faster than it currently is. You’re itching to escape those white eyes. They’re much more intimidating as night settles in. What sort of thing had Taehyun even done to indebt a creature like this to him? Once again, you’re left confronting how little you know of him and his past. By the time you’ve come to terms with the last thing, the next arrives to remind you that the folk lead much longer lives than you do.
It finally speaks again. “Why have you brought this human with you, Lord?” Its furls out the term like a weapon. This bitter intonation that you’ve seen be used multiple times to speak of Taehyun’s title sticks with you. The title is a taunt. In this case, the you know it comes from the kelpie’s place of utter indifference and lack of obeisances toward whatever sovereignty the Courts may claim. The kelpie only answers to the land.
“Because I needed you to know that your protection will extend to her. Know her face, learn it so that when I call on you, you’ll play your part correctly.”
“I fail to see why you dote over her safety. Who is the human to you?” The kelpie takes a step forward, its powerful muscles rippling with the moon’s white light on its ink pelt. You mirror it with a step back. Taehyun stays put. “I owe her no help. That’s not how this works. I concede that I am bound to your help, but I do not repay double. You overestimate my generosity.”
You watch as Taehyun takes on a posture that you’ve come to recognize as his offensive posture, potent adrenaline twisting up your stomach and sending your heart into a fit so fierce that you feel it in all your pulse points. You’re sure that swords are a laughable matter to the kelpie. Iron, though, you’re sure would still burn. Turning your hands to fists, you make a conscious effort not to find your iron weapons. If the kelpie were to see that, it may escalate things. You do not want to escalate.
It’s only smart for you to consider your disadvantages: Taehyun is wounded. He had literally been struck by an arrow last night. You’re so far into the woods that running would consist of stumbling over roots and avoiding thorny bushes. Taehyun might know them, but you’re fully unfamiliar with a kelpie’s weaknesses, or if they even have any at all. You’re better off appeasing the beast.
“Taehyun,” you warn.
He pays it no mind. “I said,” he snarls, “stop with the tricks. You owe your very ability to draw breath to me, and beyond that. It was my neck on the line to grant you that. What I did for you was worth many debts. If you want to settle it all to even, you’ll do it. Don’t play this like a fool.” He doesn’t address the kelpie’s first question.
Taehyun creeps toward the kelpie. You’re not sure where he sources all that fearlessness from inside himself. He’s way too close for your comfort. “What are you doing?” you hiss, quiet and meant for just him. There is no way he intends to fight this thing right now. You’d prefer taking the risk of trusting Yeonjun’s word over this any day.
“Even the general”—the kelpie spits that word with a similar distaste as he had Taehyun’s title—“knew when he was in over his head. Ask a more respectable payment of me.”
You suck in a breath. “Let’s just go,” you tell Taehyun. “We don’t need to do this; we didn’t need to in the first place.”
As Taehyun takes one last step toward the kelpie, he reaches a sword’s distance from it.
Really? Is this happening right now?
“I’m giving you grace right now, kelpie,” he says, his voice pure warning, “My father is the one who landed you like that. It’s humorous that you’d even speak of him while we’re sorting out the debts that you incurred because of him. I suggest that you give up the sly act.”
Once again, a charged and meaningful pause rings throughout the forest. The silence speaks volumes of how the kelpie takes his words.
It’s a flash of movement, the two dark figures like blurs as Taehyun’s hand flies out to grab a hold of the reins that hang from its head and the kelpie rears back with a bone-piercing, harrowing whinny. He braces himself on its side and uses its flank to push off of. The creature bucks fast, but Taehyun is faster.
The rage that it bellows with guts you. The forest ground trembles with its frantic clambering, hooves battering the snow.
The kelpie’s frenzy ends as Taehyun takes the reins in both hands. It doesn’t make any more attempts to send him off, nor does it stumble about wildly. It settles. The kelpie bows its head. Your hands cover your mouth. They’re ready to muffle your scream. You wait for Taehyun to become one with the beast’s figure and for it to drag him down to the depths of its water that don’t see the sun’s light. Nothing happens. Instead, he slips off the back of the kelpie without any trouble, landing with a thud back on the ground.
“Fix your appearance,” Taehyun commands.
You allow a sound of surprise to slip as the beast melts down, shedding water to the ground and crumpling over. You watch it shrink all the way down until, where once the gangly beast had stood, the form of a faerie man stands. He unfurls from the forest floor to his full height, taller than Taehyun and reedy in his limbs. His hair cascades down from his head in shaggy, damp brown locks with twigs and leaves tangled in. Sharp faerie ears protrude from it. It confirms to you that this is just another form of the kelpie, not someone else entirely.
“You’re a fool,” the man says, turning on Taehyun with wild eyes.
You join his confrontation on Taehyun. “What the hell is going on?” you say. You’re still jittery with the urge to run.
Taehyun entertains only you, saying, “I hoped that he’d just make things easy in the first place.”
The man, dripping with water from his tattered, sopping rags for clothes, sneers. “I would not serve you if you fucking killed me. Of course you had to take my bridle.”
You give Taehyun an expectant look. You’re in dire need of being filled in.
“His bridle,” he says, grabbing the reins that still hang from the man’s face even in his human form and tugging him into a walk into the forest, “I grabbed it. He serves me, now. He can hate it all he wants, but he’ll do what I ask.”
The thought makes you deeply uncomfortable, but you can’t pin exactly why. It lives somewhere around the place inside you that loathed the way the folk made your kind into their glamoured servants.
“We’re just going to bring him back with us?” You trail them tentatively back through the woods that you had arrived from. “Like a prisoner, or something?”
“Exactly like a prisoner,” the man says, excited to get a hit in on Taehyun. Of course, he’s unhappy.
He stumbles as Taehyun tugs him forward by his bridle. “Shut your mouth,” Taehyun says. It’s more commanding than angry. “What’s your name?” he asks him.
The man looks as though he wants to deny him that knowledge. Names are a powerful thing to a faerie. They spend their lives hiding them away—to give away their real name would make them totally vulnerable to the whims of whoever knows and uses it. However, you assume that whatever hold Taehyun has over him now works in a similar way, and his lips move despite his revolt.
“Beomgyu,” he answers, eyes full of bite.
You climb between a pair of close-resting, gnarled trees. “Does he have to keep that thing on, Taehyun?” you say, struggling with the sight of him being dragged along. It’s unsettling. “Like, does it work without that?”
Stopping, Taehyun reaches up to pull the bridle off and around from Beomgyu’s head. He lets it fall to the snow. “You can use his name if you need to command him and I’m not around. He’ll have to do what you say.” Pushing Beomgyu into a walk, he says, “You’re going to protect us if in any case we need it. That includes her. You’re going to stay within my estate, unless one of us brings you somewhere. You won’t try your hand at any escape, and you won’t make any attempts to harm us either directly or by omitting something you are aware will do so.”
You rub your hands together to generate heat as he lists his commands. Why would he even need those precautions, if Beomgyu is supposed to be his compulsory servant now? Would that not mean that he’d be unable to harm him? Either Taehyun is being extra precautious, or the command he has over him is weaker than you had thought at first. Beomgyu scowls the whole way through. Perhaps if Taehyun had not spoken those exact words, he would have lunged at him.
As the kelpie stalls, Taehyun urges him forward once again with a shove. “Walk,” he snaps. “You did this to yourself. If you’d been a respectable man, I’d have only asked for your help when we needed. Now, you’re following us everywhere.” He allows him to stew on that for a little before saying, “You do your job well and I’ll let you return to your waters. I’ll forget I even made you my servant, and you’ll live knowing you’re no longer in my debt. You’ll not have to worry that someone might tame you again, because I already had, and I won’t even utilize it. We’ll never even make each other’s acquaintance again. You’ll be free to toil in your forest, and I will stay far away. All I need is for you to keep us alive and unharmed.”
At least he doesn’t intend to keep him forever as an eternal servant. Most faeries that fall into debts work their long lives as living servants. Your years as Nut-hatch's worker taught you how that life whittles your soul down. Hundreds of years of just that is unfathomable. Maybe that is the cost of betraying honor here, though.
“So be it,” Beomgyu says, teeth gritted.
You continue to trudge through the forest behind them.
❉
Once you’re within the walls of the estate and Beomgyu is given a place to stay, you turn to Taehyun. “What part of that was safer than trusting Yeonjun?” you say.
His eyes drop closed and he sighs. “It was worlds safer,” he grits out. “I knew what I was doing. You had that hag stone, and I’d have cut him down if he tried anything.”
He stretches out his shoulders, shifting them uncomfortably under the fabric of his tunic. You know that his sewn-up wound bothers him. Could it be getting infected? You hope not—an infection this early on would most definitely mean it would be a nasty one. If only he weren’t insistent on pretending that it’s nothing. “I don’t think you could”—you gesture at your own shoulder—“you’re going to infect your shoulder. I don’t know how to treat an infected wound that big.”
“I wouldn’t have even gone there if I thought I couldn’t handle it. I had a plan. I can protect us just fine.”
Us. You’ve been wondering what your purpose here might become once you abandon returning to your duties. Would you be staying with Yeonjun? If he betrays you, and Taehyun were to push you out now that you’re no longer partners in duty, where would you go? Crawl to the doorstep of some random faerie to place yourself in their services, just to find yourself a warm place to stay? Taehyun now makes it clear that he still sees the two of you as a pair, but why? You still can’t understand why he’d suddenly switched up the moment you said you’d stay here even if he left. Realistically, he should’ve killed you for being a traitor to the king that he serves. You know that his intentions are more complex than that, but you fail to grasp where they lie. His actions and his words clash.
“And when Yeonjun doesn’t betray us? What will all of this be for?”
“This doesn’t stop at the prince,” he says, “there are more players than just him and The Queen. Any one of them could determine that we’re liabilities. Don’t you think that we should prepare for that? We came here as spies infiltrating their court from the very king that they rebel against; of course they’ll have plans for us.
“It’s still best that you stay your distance from the prince from this point on, regardless, unless you bring the kelpie.”
Your mouth drops open, brows pinching. You don’t like the thought of being chaperoned at all. If Yeonjun is to betray you, then it’ll be your own fault. You can take the consequences of your actions just fine. “I think I can make that decision for myself,” you say, voice low. “And I can protect myself, too. Are you saying my skills aren’t up to your standards? Well, I didn’t spend that time working on them for nothing, and I don’t plan on stopping. I know I’m not perfect, but I think I can at least use a dagger adequately, no?”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Taehyun says, eyes flat with frustration. “You can protect yourself well. I know that. What I mean is that you shouldn’t rest your life on his integrity. I have no doubts that you’d be able to protect yourself from him alone. He’s delicate. The King doesn’t pamper his children, but I have no doubt that the prince hasn’t wielded a sword anywhere other than in sparring. But you don’t know if you’ll ever truly be alone, and you don’t know whether or not he’s setting you up. I think you can at least agree that it’s best that you can acknowledge that and behave accordingly, no?”
“I rested my life on your integrity today. Am I supposed to trust you blindly, too? What if you’re just stringing me along until you kill me for my treason to The King? You were his spy, no? How many years did you serve him? Why have you given it up so easily? Why are you staying here? None of it makes sense to me, but I still trusted you. Was I wrong for that? Are you a liar, Taehyun? Does your tongue tell lies?”
His eyes crystallize, a few degrees colder than you’d seen them all day. “I can lie,” he says. “But would I have done what I did today if I intended to kill you? It’s time that you see that actions tell you so much more than words ever will.”
Again, he treads around your questions about his intentions. “Why are you staying here?” you repeat, studying him with your suspicion.
He’s quiet.
“Answer me,” you demand.
“Is this not my home?” he says.
Unsatisfied, you press more. “I thought you hated this place. Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have an awful reputation here?”
His eyebrows shoot up, but his face stays hauntingly blank. You’re used to his blank mask, but this feels different. “If you think that I left here because of my reputation, then you’ve fooled yourself.” He begins making for his quarters. “I have obligations to fulfilling my father’s role as Lord of this estate,” he says before turning and ending the conversation on his terms.
That leaves you just as confused. If he cared about his responsibilities here, he would’ve never left them in the first place to become a spy under The King. It makes no sense. Whether or not it’s true, you’re positive that you aren’t getting the whole story. You sigh and drag your feet bed-bound. You hope to never have another day as unending as today again.
❉
You dodge Beomgyu for the entirety of the day, not sure what to make of a new presence around the estate, even if it’s an indebted servant beast of a presence. You’d half expected Taehyun to rope him up in the horse stalls outside, making that his permanent residence, but he’d given Beomgyu a place somewhere in the servant’s quarters. You’re glad of it—you may be wary of him, but you don’t wish anything like that for him. Now that he has a more human form, you find yourself able to empathize with him more than you were when he was a hulking, killer water horse. He doesn’t necessarily run around much—without a doubt because he’s not the happiest about being forced into Taehyun’s servitude. You don’t blame him.
Despite your efforts, he enters the kitchens while you’re alternating between chomping on a slice of bread and a platter of dates. He eyes you. Though in this form his eyes are not as piercing, they’re still heavy.
You offer him a slice of the bread and push the platter toward him. “Hungry?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t eat the way you do.”
Then why’d he come to the kitchens? Either he’s exploring, or he came looking for you. “Not even like this?” you ask, gesturing down to his form.
“I eat when someone is foolish enough to come to my waters,” he says. “I thought I’d be eating yesterday, but the Lord subverted those plans, didn’t he?”
You laugh a bit, though it’s absurd to laugh about being eaten with the same creature that had intended to do so.
“I sometimes go for more years than the entire span of your human life without eating,” he says, tilting his head to one side. Shaggy locks of hair follow his head with it. It’s unkempt and in dire need of a washing to rid it of dirt.
You gesture at his dirt-smudged cheek. “Do you want to clean up? I’m sure Taehyun has some clothes to spare for you. There are some pretty nice bathing quarters, here, too. The kind that makes you reluctant to get out.”
A wry smile cracks across his face, a bit feral like the rest of him. “I’m not afraid of some dirt. These are my clothes. I’d go naked before dressing myself in his.”
“Okay, then,” you snort, shrugging. “No baths.” You rip a bite out of the wrinkled fruit in your hand. “How did you even end up... in debt to Taehyun?” you ask, eager to fill yourself in. If Taehyun insists on not telling you anything, you’ll find it in other places. You’d picked up that it had something to do with his father, but you need to know more. The more you’re able to piece together, the better you’ll be able to make sense of Taehyun’s behaviors. You hope so, at least. He holds is truths very close to himself, and almost everybody else seems to harbor a poignant distaste for him.
Beomgyu’s face sours up again. “I had a dispute with his father. The General was going to raze my forest and kill each one of us. I’d called on him and asked for his help. I’m not sure what he did, but The General never came. If I knew it’d land me like this, though...” He grimaces. “I’d have just let him make me history.”
Reigning in the laugh that bubbles in your chest at his resentment, because you’re positive that you finding humor in his misfortunes would ruffle him, you nod and pocket that information. “Then, why didn’t you just agree to help when he tried to collect your debt in the first place?”
“I was going to,” he snaps. “He’s just a prideful creature. No patience. If he’d waited a few moments, I’d have agreed.”
Humming, you don’t tell him that he’s definitely the one who wound himself up like this. Taehyun had made it clear multiple times that Beomgyu needed to stop playing around.
Taehyun’s voice comes from the doorway, cutting into the conversation with its matter-of-factness. “Speaking bad on my name while I’m away, kelpie? Should I amend your list of commands to include watch your mouth?” His tone is bare and humorless.
Beomgyu bristles beside you, about to rebut him before you spy the weapon at Taehyun’s hip and interrupt before they can come to verbal blows. “Where are you going?”
Taehyun rips his icy gaze from Beomgyu to you. “To Court,” he answers, plain and as if it were obvious.
Furrowing your brows, you say, “Court? Why didn’t you tell me we’re going? I don’t want to get ready in a rush.” Your mind turns. You weren’t even sure what you’d be doing now that you’re no longer here as spies. There’s no need to infiltrate Court, now. Would you just be attending as revelers? Not to mention that Yeonjun no doubt has no clue that you’re even staying. You hadn’t seen him since you’d ran to him yesterday morning and had your world thrown for a loop as he revealed his truth. How had so much happened in one day?
His mouth hardens. “You’re not attending with me,” he says, knuckles turning white over the pommel of his sword. “You’ll stay here with him today.”
Your heart thrums in your chest; not with fear like it had been doing so much over the span of the last few days, but with anger. “What?” you say, voice strained with shock. “No. I’m getting ready; wait for me, or don’t. I don’t care.” You spin on your heels to do just that, gritting your teeth. He thinks he can tell you what to do? Is that it? You don’t care what he’s done for you, or what power he thinks he has over you because of it. You’d left your life of taking commands behind for a reason. This was supposed to be new beginnings, not just your past life under a new skin.
He catches your upper arm frantically. Whipping your head to him, you rip yourself away from him and back off. “I said, no!” you say, lips twitching into a heavily emotional scowl. It’s not just that he’s telling you to stay back today. You know that what he’s doing is much bigger than that. It sends memories of a life in a seamstress’ cottage flooding back. You struggle to keep your head afloat, to keep yourself from drowning in it, but they’re old and deep wounds.
“Oh, look at that,” Beomgyu croons. “You are just like him. Except, your father was a general, so at least he had some reason to believe that folk would obey him. You? Not so much.”
Taehyun’s head snaps to him. He barks a command. “Leave.”
His eyes flash and he reels against it, but Beomgyu’s body moves against his own will. There’s a spark of ravenous hate smeared across his lips and in the glare he gives Taehyun as he leaves.
“So, you’re just going to hand out commands and expect them to be followed now, huh? Because you’re suddenly just... taking up this role as Lord? Well, you’re not my Lord. You’re not his, either.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “Stop that.”
Laughing a bitter laugh, you spit, “Stop what? Oh, I’m sorry. I should just obey you like a good human does, huh? ‘Cause that’s what we’re for, right? My bad, I’ll get a head start on working around the estate—what would you like for dinner, my lord? Or, do you need me to press your clothes?” Your words are angry, but you choke toward the end around the lump of emotion in the back of your throat.
He takes both your arms into his hands, his brow furrowed hard. “Stop it,” he snarls. “Stop it, damn it. Don’t do that. You’re not a servant here. Don’t you try to cry to me, I expect better than this from you. That’s not it at all.”
You shove back on his chest, putting some distance between you. “I’m not crying,” you say. “And, so what if I was? There’s nothing wrong with it. I think it’d do you a little good to cry some time.”
“It’s weak,” he says. “Pitying yourself just ends up making you a fool. If you just sit around and wallow, you’ll just stay where you are. The only thing you can do is act.”
That sounds about right coming from his lips. “Is that what your father taught you?” you ask. “Well, he was wrong. You can cry and try and take care of things at the same time.”
“I’m just asking you to stay back today,” he says.
“Why?” you say, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “Tell me why? It’s not like we’re spying around or have some sort of mission to keep secret. Why can’t I just go enjoy it like that for once?”
“Can you just do this for me?” Taehyun says, jaw tight. “I just need you to stay.”
You’ve become sick of him not telling you things. Being in the dark never feels good, but it especially feels like shaky ground now. If he thinks you’ll be attacked, so what? You’re the one who wanted to stay here. Let you come. You’re better off being attacked as a group of three than he would be by himself, no?
You decide to lean into his own concerns to appeal. “What if they’re waiting for you? Wouldn’t it be better that Beomgyu and I are there? Isn’t that why you did that whole thing yesterday?”
He shakes his head. “If they are, then it’ll be easier for me to slip out if it’s just me.”
Crossing your arms over your chest, you determine by the solemn lines to his face that he’s not going to give. “Fine,” you say. “I’ll stay here today. If it’s so necessary, I’ll stay here. Do you want me to stay inside the estate, too? Could I go see Yeonjun?”
“I’d prefer that you stay here,” he says, slow and measured and veiling tension.
You shake your head, pairing it with a tired laugh. “Yeah, right, I forgot. He’s a threat too. Well, you have fun then.” Turning and departing from the kitchens, you leave behind your bread and dates. So much for lunch.
❉
Reaffirming Taehyun’s ability to lie, it was not just that one day. The next day, Taehyun slipped out for Court, sword on hip and pleading with you to stay in the estate on the terms that he believes they still might have an attack planned for you. It turned into a week that you were cooped up in the estate, and then two. The same walls you’d once looked at in wonder for their beauty became the ones you stared at mindlessly during the most boring of hours.
You spend most of your time listening to Beomgyu drone on and on about the ways he’d tricked faeries and humans. He’s quite odd, but it’s not like you can blame him for it—most of the folk are odd to you, and he’s an ancient beast among them. You feel like that warrants a spunky personality like his. He’s nice company, anyway. Such a long life lends you an impressive wealth of stories.
You can’t help but think about Yeonjun. He’s got to have seen Taehyun at Court by now. If there haven’t been any incidents at this point, doesn’t that mean that he doesn’t intend to betray you? The images of him thinking that you’re avoiding him makes you want to slip out to see him. You not sure why you don’t. Maybe the lies that sat between you affect you more than you thought they did. You’re quite the hypocrite, though. You’d kept secrets just as much as he had.
You miss those stolen nights you two had shared. A knot, queasy and pessimistic, sits in your belly each time you lay in your bed and remember them and tells you that you’ll never see anything like that again. You’d allowed a girlish part of you to blossom beside him—a part of you that could throw caution to the wind and melt into the fun things in life.
As you rot your days away in that estate that has become more like a dungeon than an estate, you allow yourself to miss him only a little. Once it begins transforming into a certain impending doom about how you’d thought that staying here would be everything you’d ever wanted, you find something else to do. If you aren’t toiling around by yourself or listening to Beomgyu drone, you’re practicing your combat skills. The times that Taehyun stops in to help you, it ends with you insisting that you’re fine to make appearances in Court by now, or at least see Yeonjun with Beomgyu in attendance. He never agrees. Each time, it’s the same awful excuse: Tensions are worse. He doesn’t know if they’re planning something. When you ask why he demands that he can attend, but you and Beomgyu can’t join: He’s a lord. It’s his duty to attend Court.
The solstice is nearing, too. You’d looked forward to it, honestly. Hopefully Taehyun will let you attend by then.
You sit crisscrossed on the hardwood flooring, running your fingers through your hair. Beomgyu is stood a couple feet away, and makes big gestures as he explains the one time he’d been called to attend Court as a solitary faerie. Moments like this have kept you grounded over the weeks.
“And the stupid crone tried to say that I was wrong for catching him,” he exclaims, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head as if the ancient memory were still as fresh as day one.
You laugh. “What did you even do to end up there, anyway?” you ask. You can hardly picture Beomgyu in the setting of Court, even more so meeting with The Queen and her council. Moreover, you’re intrigued to know what he’d said to talk himself out of trouble. You’re amazed that he managed to make a sufficient enough case to save his life.
“They said that I’d been taking too many of their folk—hah! I must eat too, you know? Oh, the pretention! Do they expect me to starve? If a fool lands themselves on my pelt and then in my waters, it’s only natural that they’re eaten. I’m simply freeing them from one more mud-brained fool. The Courts are full of those, too. It’d take me a millennium to eat them all. What are they so worried for, I wonder? They do the very same to their own people.”
“Aren’t they ridiculous?” you say. Like you, he’d been an outsider in Court. Though you’re sure that it’s just as, if not more, intricate to those well-versed in it, to the ones like you two... It’s odd to see. You had grown used to it in the time you spent there, but you still know what the first day had felt like. Anyway, you hadn’t spent as many days there as you feel you had. All that had happened had bloated that time in your memories. “To be quite honest with you, your kind are all so odd to me. I grew up among you, but still... my instincts are always kinda at odds with my surroundings, you know?”
Beomgyu considers that for a moment, as if trying to view the fae from a human’s eyes. “Even when we look so similar?” he asks you, grabbing at a lock of his hair and making a round gesture over himself.
You nod. “Even in this form, you just... I don’t feel like I’m looking into the face of another human. Maybe that’s because I watched you turn to this from a horse, though.”
“A kelpie,” he corrects. “What gives it away?”
“Sorry, a kelpie,” you snicker. You look over his face. It’s so close to right, but somewhere in your mind you can decipher that something is not right. Like all of the fae, though, there’s an unspeakable beauty there, beyond explanation. It demands your human attention. Even the most terrifying are beautiful. “Well, for starters, your ears. They’re pointy. All of you have that, and none of us do. And then... I guess”—you narrow your eyes—“your eyes? They’re just different. And your limbs are pretty lanky, too.”
He frowns as if he’s unable to see it. “You don’t sound so sure,” he says, joining you on the floor. “I’ve had quite some time to look at myself in my life. I don’t think I ever saw any of that when I was in this form...”
“I’m sure you did,” you say, lips turning up in a playful mock. A water creature no doubt has an eternity to stare into the water at themselves in its rippled reflection. “Did you do a lot of that?”
Scowling, he huffs. “No. But I’m sure you would, if you looked like this, huh?”
You roll your eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” His face morphs from dismay to careful concentration. Frowning, you look around and ask, “What?”
“I hear somebody,” he answers, pushing off the floor.
Your spine tingles, but you search for the logical explanation. “Like... Taehyun?”
“No... the walk is definitely different.” He strains to listen. “He’s usually pretty quiet. This one... they don’t conceal their footsteps.”
Neither of you can get to a window to scope anything out before there’s three heavy knocks from the door, the metal knocker ringing. You shoot him a wary look and tilt your head toward the door. You mouth the word, answer?
He considers for a moment and then nods. Well, he’s the one able to hear their approach. You trust they’re at least not imminent danger. You pull the door open. A breeze of frost comes rushing in as you do, blowing your hair and as jarring as a hit to the face might be. You’ve been cooped up in here for so long you’ve forgotten how bitter the cold here is.
Behind the door your eyes lock with a pair of inky ones, settled into a pinched and snooty face. “Letters from the palace I have for you, my lady,” she says, her voice mousy. She holds out a stack full of letters to you, all held together by some twine.
An errand runner. You furrow your brows down at her and accept them. The little hob wrings out her long fingers. “From who?” you ask her.
She bows her head to you hurriedly. “Oh, from the prince, my lady! He sends these for you!”
You look down at the stack in your hands, and your heart begins to run amok in your chest. He’d sent to you? You thank her. She scurries off in the snow and you close the door, sharing a look with Beomgyu.
“The prince?” he says, brows shot up. “Meaning, The King’s son? He’s sent letters for you?”
Nodding, you hold the stack close to you. Your feet ache to find your quarters and to begin tearing into each one; you’re ravenous for any sort of word from him. Does he hate you? Does he miss you? At least he still thinks of you. You’d worried that he might’ve found another lady of the court to dote on in your absence...
“Yeah,” you say over your shoulder, more interested in tearing the letters open than explaining to him why the prince would be sending you letters. Curiosity sits in his furrowed brow. You hadn’t exactly prattled on about Yeonjun to him. Had you even mentioned him at all?
He tags along as you head to your room and plop onto your bed. You don’t tell him to leave you; opening these letters alone... You appreciate his presence in some odd way.
Unstringing the pile, you pull the first one out and run a thumb over the wax seal that identifies it as definitely from the High Prince—a fine silver dusted over white wax and branded with the image of Yeonjun’s insignia, the fox. It’s uneven and dribbled, clearly sealed by Yeonjun himself with the insignia ring he often wears on his finger. You pry it open and then unfurl the parchment inside.
Do you intend to return to Court? Perhaps we keep missing each other. Though, the Lord is always there. I wonder where you are. If my letter reaches you, please write me back. Or better, come see me. My doors are open to you.
They always have been.
Yeonjun
Beomgyu’s gaze burns holes through you as you read this first one. You sigh, pressing your lips into a thin line as you reach for the next one. This one twists a hot knife of guilt into your belly and up into your heart.
Have I done something wrong?
The General’s son continues to attend Court, and though I seek your lovely face beside his, you’re never there. I’m under the impression that he wants you not seeing me. Although, perhaps that’s only because I loathe what your absence might mean otherwise.
Is it because I learned of your identity? Is it that you think I hate you?
Allow me to make it utmost clear: I do not. I doubt I could if I tried. You’re quite the heart stealer.
I know I sound a bit ridiculous telling you I love you when we only knew each other for so long. I understand that. It’s that sort of love that ought to burn bright and short, right? But I won’t let it. Not us.
Some might say that a love found so easily is fickle. That it doesn’t exist. I say it does, because I have felt it.
Do you remember how it felt the first time our eyes met, too? How odd is it to feel something so deep inside you, but also so far beyond your reach that you cannot alter its course?
Please write me, pretty. If I can’t see your face, at least allow me the pleasure of knowing that you’re okay.
Yeonjun
“What do they say?” Beomgyu asks, timbred voice whipping you apart from the words on paper that manage to send your heart hurting.
You’re not entirely sure how to tell him that they’re desperate letters of the High Prince’s love for you, a worthless human girl that had avoided him on purpose. He probably wouldn't believe you, anyway. Leaving behind your old life, you had pleaded with the sky to make your life something worth note. It seems that it had answered. Life works in odd ways.
“A lot,” you say, brushing him off. Your voice cracks with the word, though,
Hearing the veiled emotion, he frowns, inching forward to take a peek. “Why are you upset?” he pries, and then gasps as a thought formulates in his head. “Have they called you to be tried by the council?” He considers his own suggestion for a long moment and then shakes his head. “You hardly have gone anywhere enough to cause that degree of trouble, though.”
You let your face drop into your hands. Is the tremor in your chest from laughter, or from crying? You can’t tell. Maybe it’s both.
The kelpie makes an unsure sound, clearing his throat. “I... uh, I jest...”
Collecting yourself, you say, “No. I’m not being called in for trial.” You reach for the next letter.
The next envelope has dried up rose petals that come falling out when you pull out the letter. The flower of love.
Have you left the north? Could you not have at least lent me one last look at your face before doing so? I don’t mean to be so pathetic, but my heart is lonesome. I thought we’d have more time. Hadn’t you wanted to stay with me?
If you still reside in his estate, I send these letters to you. I’m not sure if they’ll reach you, but I hope that they’ll move you. Don’t you know that I’d give you anything?
Please come see me. I beg. Let’s talk. I just want to know what’s wrong.
Yeonjun
Why hadn’t you at least gone and told him that you’ve stayed? How had you allowed yourself to feel fear when you think of him? You don’t deserve his love.
You don’t even know if you deserve love at all. All it would’ve taken was one night of slipping out. He deserved to know that you’re okay. You don’t remember being this selfish. When had this happened? Maybe this is just what happens when someone spends a lifetime not allowed to think of themselves before serving others. You don’t want to be selfish, though.
The next one you open is more raw. Hurt. The paper, scrawled in writing that becomes less elegant and more frenzied as you read down it, crumples in your hand.
If you think that I’m the sort of man that will easily forget what we’ve shared, I am not. I love you. I love you. I love you. Please return to my arms. They ache for you. They remember your weight, and they won’t soon forget it.
Do I need to say it anymore?
I love you, darling. It’s making me sick.
Yeonjun
You stuff the letters back in their envelopes and shove them into a box in your wardrobe. If you don’t, you’ll read them over until you’re ill. Once over was enough for you.
❉
“The Lord would have my pelt if I let you leave,” Beomgyu, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, says. “Let alone by yourself.” Realizing that his words insinuate that Taehyun holds any true power over him, he backtracks. “If it weren’t for the harness, I’d be unconcerned with his anger, but... Of course, you know, I’m obligated by my imposition to his word, so...”
Tugging your boots on, you say, “So, tell him I commanded you to stay. You’ll be fine.”
You had waited for Taehyun to leave for Court, anyway. You have hours of the night to sly-foot your way around him.
You’d moped around for a few more days, your gut heavy with stones each time you remember Yeonjun’s letters. Stuffing them into a box, no matter how deep into the corner of your wardrobe, still could not wipe those words from your mind. You’d turned them over and over until you couldn’t handle imagining him writing those letters with a hopeful heart any longer.
The solstice is only a few days away now, too. You’d been bound to the estate for weeks. Although you’re unsure what Taehyun’s real intentions are in boarding you in, you can no longer even care if leaving will end up getting you attacked. You’ve become a bird with clipped wings.
Even if your wings are out of order, you’ll walk your way to your freedom. Hell, you’d crawl there. It just so happens that Yeonjun’s doorway feels like freedom in this moment.
Like he’d always said, the doors remain unbarred. You don’t even have to use the metal knocker; you just push through the doors of swirling white engravements. Just as if nothing had changed. He’d been waiting for you.
Instead of Yeonjun in his quarters, you find a brownie diligently working on doing up Yeonjun’s bedding. When she turns to you, her hands continue their efforts.
“The prince is not here right now, dear,” she says, snout twitching. Round eyes recognize you before you can introduce yourself. “He’s only just made for Court, though. You should catch him quite quickly, if you mean to.”
It seems he hasn’t given up searching for you in Court, either. You offer her your gratitude and slip out from his room. Picking up the hems of your dress, you race to catch Yeonjun before he’s arrived at Court. Once he does, things get more sticky—if Taehyun spots you... Pushing down the anxiety that bubbles up at the thought, you cross your fingers. Let luck be on your side.
Your Court dress, though heavy, feels nice on your skin. Although you often look down on court goers for their pompousness, you can’t deny how good it feels to fit in. That’s perhaps the reason you cling to Court the way you do; you’re beyond desperate for belonging.
On the plush, snow-dusted bits of the forest’s floor, you spot a set of footsteps. They’re quickly being filled with the flurries. You clasp your hands in an overwhelming bout of gratitude—luck had listened, this time. Those tracks are as fresh as can be. You double your pace.
Around a bend, you’re overjoyed to see his figure walking there. Finally hearing you coming over the roar of snowfall, he spins. His face pinches and then drops as he recognizes you.
“You... You came?” he says. Disbelief flips his lips into a frown. “You got my letters?”
“I did,” you answer, catching your breath. “I’m so sorry.”
A few feet float between you, the space not yet closed but so magnetic. His cheeks are tinged pink with the cold. Yours must be too.
“I’d thought you left. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Your chest caves in a little at the hurt in his voice and the way it clashes with the longing in his eyes. He wants to be angry; he wants to yell at you. He can’t do either when he’s just thankful to see your face. You had missed his just as much.
“I’m sorry,” you repeat. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
Yeonjun approaches you and takes your face into his hands. His fingers are ice on your skin. He swallows in your face, soft black eyes darting from your eyes to your lips and around the rest of it; just like he’d begged you to let him do in his letters.
“Why?” Yeonjun asks you, brushing your hair back with his fingers like he’s just testing the feel of it.
You don’t know how to answer him. You could tell him a lot of things: Taehyun told me to stay away. He had told me that you’d hurt me. I’d started to believe him. I became scared of you. We had lied to each other. None of them feel adequate in this moment, so you shake your head.
His eyes harden to a degree as you don’t answer. “Why wouldn’t you come talk to me, pretty?” he urges. “If something was wrong, why couldn’t you come to me? We can’t leave things broken. I sent you weeks of letters. Weeks.”
Weeks? You’d only seen four.
“Finally, I got smart enough to send them when he’s at Court. And then you show up here. Tell me, how am I to think that you’re okay? When he won’t even let you speak with me?”
You blink once. Twice. Taehyun had been intercepting letters. A pit of anger flares in your belly. Whatever this protecting thing he’s doing really is, you’re sick of it. Since when had he become your keeper? He’d demanded that Yeonjun was trying to do just that, but here he is, and you have no clue why he’s doing it.
“I didn’t know you’d sent letters until yesterday,” you tell him. “I should’ve come and seen you.”
Running his thumb over your cheek, he murmurs, “You’re not going back there. Please, tell me you’ll stay with me. If you’re to stay here in the north forever, let it be with me. We can’t slip around like this forever.”
Shaking your head in his hands, you pull back. You can’t decipher the dread that washes over you at his suggestion once again. Your heart is wary with the need to do just that—to not return to the estate where you’d become some sort of prisoner. Something washes over you and tells you that it won’t go the way you’d wanted, just as most things in your life hadn’t.
Seeing the way you retract, Yeonjun becomes more desperate. “Please,” he says, hands finding your shoulders to hold you as if you’ll leave him there.
“We’ll figure it out,” you say. “Just give me a few days to think about it, okay?”
His face stays drawn as if he wants to argue it, but he relents. Taking your frozen hands into his own and wrapping them up in attempts to warm them, he says, “Okay. Okay, let’s get away from this blizzard, then. I’ll wait for you, love.”
Your chest sizzles. The cold isn’t so bad, today. In a way, you’d missed it. You nod.
Yeonjun brings you to his chambers and urges you to settle into a plush seat. You run your hands over the embroidered whorls of thread on the cushions as you watch him rummage through a chest. “What are you looking for?” you ask him, drinking in his figure. He’d switched his Court shirts for some more comfortable wear, but even in those he looks princely. He’s so pretty. Your heart flutters as he fishes out what he’d been searching for and turns to you with a smile. He settles beside you carrying a leatherbound book and a miniature wood sculpture of a girl.
“These,” he says, setting them down on the cushion between you.
You pick up the wood thing, looking over its painted pink cheeks and feeling the carvings that make its face. It’s fitted with a dress; one unlike any you’d ever seen. Your brow furrows. “What’s this thing?” you ask.
“It’s called a doll,” he says explains. You feel his eyes on you, watching your reaction, not on the thing in your hands. “Human girls carry them around to play with. They change the dresses and stuff. They even make things for them to hold, but... I couldn’t get ahold of any of those.”
Heart stuttering, you look at the wood-carved thing. “Human girls?” you ask, imagining a life where you too could have worried only about what dress your toy would wear. You revere the resilience your younger self had to have. At least you didn’t know any better; you didn’t know how you could’ve had it. That ignorance saved you. The painted eyes of the doll stare back at you.
“Kinda cute, huh?” he says, smiling and scooting closer to fiddle with the thing’s hair. “They even do their hair up all pretty.” Looking back up to you, he says, “It’s a shame that no human who has ever grown up here knows of things like these. Simple joys.”
You nod, a little choked up. “Yeah. I wish I had. It would have been nice to have something like this as a girl.”
He tucks some hair behind your ear to get a better look at your face from the side. “How did you ever end up being a spy?”
Tearing your gaze from the doll to meet his, you find a sadness there despite you not even having told him yet. It’s as if he knows it’ll hurt him already. You fiddle with the little doll’s dress as you recount. “I was a servant to a seamstress,” you start. “A royal seamstress, too. She was favored well by the gentry. She brought in hordes of clients and made dresses and Court clothes for them—but, really, her work mostly ended at being there to hear what they’d want and inlaying the dresses with her magic when they’d ask for it. The rest was my work. Taking their measurements, making their dresses... I worked her shop as soon as I became able to.” Memories of cruel and wicked faces that snickered at your expense or those who found it entertainment to scare you come back, as fresh as ever. Those memories never leave you; the ones so early on that they’d calcified into permanent parts of your personality. That terrified little girl will always be somewhere in your mind. She surfaces quite a lot, these days.
“There was this one time...” you say, trailing off to trudge up a more awful memory. “A Lady had come in to have a dress made. She brought a guard along with her. He was this massive troll with grey skin like a toad.” You’d recall his details without any trouble for the rest of your life, you think. “I’d ran off to grab some fabric for the Lady, and he followed,” you say, voice wavering just how your little heart had wavered as you had turned around from the bolts of fabric to see the goblin stood there. “He yanked me around by my hair until I sobbed, and then he had me get on the floor and beg him to let me live.” You know now that of course he wasn’t going to kill you—he wouldn’t want problems with Nut-hatch—but you hadn’t known it then. You thought you were dead. “When he had enough of his fun, he let me go. When the other two saw how hysterical I was, all I got was being asked why I’d left them waiting so long.”
Yeonjun asks, voice soft and tender, “The seamstress allowed that?” His eyes are heavy with a mixture of emotions. You see sadness and anger there, but also something a bit more.
“Nut-hatch?” you say. “Of course.” They’d known what he was doing in there, of course. Even a human could have heard it. As long as you served your purpose, the folk could not care less.
He looks taken aback at that, recognition turning his brows up. “Nut-hatch? You worked for Nut-hatch?” he asks.
Nodding, you hum. You had no doubt he’d know her name. Her work was well-renowned in his father’s court and beyond. “I did.”
His eyes rake over you for a long few beats before he turns your face up. “Their names?” he asks.
“Huh?”
“The goblin and the Lady. What are their names?”
You try to tug at the threads of that old memory. “I don’t remember,” you say. Much of it is fresh, but you hadn’t committed their names to memory. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of it. “It’s okay. It’s passed now.”
He doesn’t look very convinced, mind wheeling behind his eyes. You don’t want to stay on this memory for too long. Pushing it back into the dusty corner where it stays, you continue explaining. “I accepted that as my life for a long time, but... At some point, I just wanted more. I imagined all the ways I could find a new life as a human here. There are so many other things I’d preferred, but the only one I could manage was that. Even that, I was wrong about. I’m not really made for that, you know?” You lighten your tone in hopes that it’ll make your chest feel lighter as well.
He listens intently and then leans forward to press a kiss to your forehead. Pulling you into his chest and keeping you notched under his chin, he says, his voice smooth to your ears, “I’m so happy you’re here now, pretty.”
Letting out the weight in your lungs in a long, meaningful sigh, you melt into his touch. It’s difficult not to when his body is so warm against yours. You revel in it for some time, just letting him smooth over your hair and rub your back. You try your best not to let any old, sad emotions pour out through your eyes; this is a happy moment. You’ve made it. Perhaps things had been harder than you imagined they’d be, but you knew it’d be a long journey when you escaped that sewing cottage anyway.
Peppering a few last kisses to the top of your head, he releases you to pick up the book he had also grabbed from that chest. On the front it reads: Pride & Prejudice.
“A book?” you say, looking over the brown leather and gold printing. It’s an unfamiliar name to you, but you never read much anyway.
He nods and pries it open. The spine crackles with age. “It’s also from the human world.” Thumbing through the pages, he adds, “It’s a story. I read it often, it’s quite a nice one. I want to give it to you so that you can read it too; it’s a beautiful love story.”
You lean in to take a look at the words, too perfect to be handwritten. “Where do you get all this stuff?” you say. It reminds you of he’d brought you to that market for human goods. He seems to be interested in things that are human. Perhaps that includes you. Either that or he continues to show you these kinds of things for your sake.
“I lived in their world for some years,” he says, flipping through the pages. “It’s quite different. Though... I found myself not wanting to leave. When the time came, I brought these back with me to remind me of that time.”
Lived? Not just visited, but Yeonjun had lived in the human realm? Your heart flurries with a lifetime of wondering what your true home was like. How ironic is it that he knew more of humans than you? That you’re the one asking him questions about your kind? “How long?” you ask first. “And why were you living there?”
“Just for something my father wanted me to do,” he answers, “Somewhere around a decade, I believe.”
He’d spent ten years there. Multiple things click into place—no wonder he’s so able to understand your human emotions. No wonder it feels as though you’ve been seen to a different degree by him than you’d ever known before. He’d spent years with your kind. “What is it like?” you say, not sure where to begin with your questions.
He smiles fondly. “You wouldn’t even be able to believe me, pretty. You’ll just have to see it.”
See it. “You’d take me there?” you say.
“Of course,” Yeonjun says, frowning. He takes one of your hands into his, pressing a kiss to it. “You deserve to see it.” He presses another kiss to your skin, now at your wrist. The hair on your skin raises at the contact. His eyes find yours as he begins a slow ascent of kisses up your arm. Each is warm and sends your spine blazing. Once he reaches your shoulder, he slows down, leaving a long moment between kisses. He continues this pace—one that both makes you wish he’d slow down and that he’d hurry and quell your want—right up the juncture of your neck and up the column, too. His controlled breaths puff out like fire on your skin where his mouth lingers. You let your head back to help his path up. He places one final kiss at your jawline before his lips land on yours, drunken and in no rush at all.
You can’t help the visceral urge to run your hands over his soft skin, to check if the warmth there was real or if you’d manifested it in your longing. Yeonjun breaks this lethargic kiss just to laugh, but he’s quick to recapture your lips. He meets your hand and brings it under his silken shirt, guiding you up the soft planes of his abdomen.
Pushing you back, he whispers into your mouth, “I missed you so much, pretty.”
You rememorize the gentle muscles of his stomach beneath your palm. “It was only so many days,” you tease, “you’re just horny.”
He lets go of your hand to begin slipping down your dress from the shoulders. “Yeah?” he hums, gobbling up each inch of skin that he reveals. “I suppose I am. It’s a gift to be able to love you in this way.” Once the fabric is clear of your hips and he’s tugging it down your legs, his face turns sly. He studies your wettened core. “I think you missed me too, though, love.”
You drag your bottom lip into your teeth. You had. Your chest thumps rhythmically in your chest, syncing like symphony with the throb between your thighs.
Blood sings in your veins when he places his palm right on the boundary between your lower belly and your cunt. Your stomach soars, too, so excited by his touch so near where your body craves it. He runs it up, feeling the curves of your body, up to your breast. You expect him to stop and pay attention to your chest, but he presses his hand down right over your heart and feels its beating against his palm. His eyes flutter to a shut, and he leaves his hand there for a few moments, relishing in it.
“What other purer form of love can I show you?” he says, tapping on your hip. “On your hands and knees, baby.”
You flip, your limbs a bit clumsy in anticipation. Once you’ve found your way there, he dances his fingertips on the small of your spine.
“Did you think of my touches while we were apart?”
“Mhm,” you hum. Especially on the nights when the estate seemed the emptiest. Some nights, your fingers were just not enough to save you, and you’d contemplate making a big escape to find him.
“Well, I shouldn’t make you wait too much longer then, huh?” he coos, running that hand down to ghost touches over your slit. Though minimal, you jolt. You’d been so ravenous for this. He’d worked his shirt off so that when he leans forward to meld his chest to your back, it’s his skin that touches yours, not fabric. His hand stays ghosting touches that leave you softly gasping.
He teasingly pinches your clit, laughing in your hair at the sharp hiss it draws from you. “So reactive,” Yeonjun muses. His fingers find their way to your hole. He dips the middle two in. “Just like the first time we made love like this. Your lovely face is burned into my mind, pretty. You have such hungry eyes.” As he pushes his fingers in, he uses his free hand to tilt your face against the cushion so that he can better see your eyes.
You sigh, shuddering and breathy, as he begins to curl his fingers. It only takes him a few curls to rediscover that spot that has sparks flying behind your eyes.
“There?” he asks, chin on your shoulder. “That feel good, darling?”
Your muscles tremble at their own accord, rendering your huffs trembled as well. “Yes,” you answer. Each meaningful curl hits its mark, knees unsteady pillars that dig into the cushions. “So—so good. Please don’t stop.”
He maintains a sickening pace—your muscles twitch around his giving fingers, just enough so that your entire body buzzes and your stomach twists, but not enough to send you shaking yet. You collapse down from your elbows, chest in the cushions. He brushes back the hair that obscures your face with the movement, adamant to see your face.
He eggs you on by curling deeper; faster. Your answering groan is shaky and tense—you can’t get enough of the knot he curates in your belly, but at the same time, it’s daunting. He sits back, but his fingers don’t falter. His free hand explores, feeling your body up for all the time he couldn’t.
Stomach taut and brimming on your peak, you suck in a breath. Your orgasm sits so close, running a line of electricity from between your legs up to your spine, raising goosebumps on your skin.
Your eyes fly open, mouth ready to scold, as Yeonjun pulls his fingers from you. Your chest bubbles up with frustration, your orgasm drifting off to somewhere else. “Why?” you ask, cheeks burning. It slips and slips away from you, hole twitching around nothing as if seeking out just enough stimulus to bring it crashing back. “I was so close.”
His hand soothes the loss ever so slightly by circling your cunt, but he does not make the mistake of offering you any touch where you most need it. It only prolongs the float down, keeping you suspended. You abhor it.
“Please,” you whine.
He doesn’t entertain your whines. He only continues to deliver just enough to torment you until he’s sure that you’re not so wound up that you’ll cum the moment he touches you, and then he slides his fingers back in and begins building up a more tense knot with pointed curls. Your insides delight in the return of attention, falling almost instantly back into a brutal climb. Yeonjun doesn’t bother with languid, teasing strokes now. He aims for your ruining.
You writhe against the cushions. Your heart is a fluttering bird in your chest, trilling at the prospect of your release. It’s so close—so close that you might be able to just touch it. It tastes like honey on your tongue, painting your words sweet. “Love you,” you tell him. “Love you so much.”
Yeonjun rewards your sweetness with his free hand on your throbbing clit, sending your hands gripping at the cushions. You wiggle your hips helplessly in search of just the right amount of friction that it’ll finally give you want you’ve been wanting. “Yes,” you mewl. “Yes, so close—”
“Wait, baby,” he commands from behind you. “It’ll feel so much better. I promise. Hold it back.”
He reins in his touches once again, not stopping like last time. It’s not enough to put a stop to the orgasm rippling right under your skin, right at the edge of ripping through you. You can’t hold it back; it’s right there.
“No,” he says, once again ripping his touch from you. It doesn’t stop anything—you go rigid just before it crashes over you, and then you’re shaking without his hands even on you. You cum with a vengeance—body reclaiming twofold what he had denied you.
“Holy shit.” Yeonjun groans watching you come unraveled without his help. “So riled up that you’re cumming by yourself, pretty,” he says, running a hand around to feel your belly muscles twitching and the way they roll along with the twitches of your hips. He eggs on your orgasm with gentle touches at your clit, sending you jolting, until you’re a panting mess and he can tell that you’ve had enough.
You attempt to push yourself off your chest, but he gently guides you back down with a palm against your back. “Stay there, pretty. You can handle a little more, right? You did so well, I know you can. Let me make love to you, darling.”
The cushions are awfully warm against your skin and you’re still dealing with the waves of pleasure that drift up from your cunt, but you nod your head for him. “’Kay,” you say.
The rustling behind you tells of how he’s slipping out of the rest of his attire. You lay boneless as he does, focusing on the waves running down your thighs. It’s ecstasy in its purest form. It floats through your veins, addling any consciousness and breaking you down into what you are at your core.
The familiar prod at your entrance jolts you back to life. As he presses in, he presses a hand to your flushed cheek. It’s a welcome temperature difference—you feel set ablaze in some sort of languid flame, one that takes its time to consume you. He laughs softly. “You’re burning up,” he says as he bottoms out, as if the feeling of him filling you up isn’t rendering you jittery in anticipation. “Ready for me, pretty?” he teases, taking your hips into his hands. “I need you to make those pretty sounds for me. I want to know that they’re just as sweet as I remember them.” He punctuates his sentence with deep rolls of his hips, aiming where he knows will have you singing.
You’re helpless to the chorus of ‘Oh's and ‘Yes’s that he draws from you, the smacking of his hips and your sweet moans much too loud for you. You dread the thought of his servants hearing you and push your face into the cushions, muffling the array of sounds that bubble over. It’s all you can do—you could hardly contain your sounds.
Your scalp strains as he tugs your head back, tugging your face from the cushion. “None of that, love. I waited too long for that. Don’t hide your pretty voice.”
You shake your head. “Too loud,” you pant. “They’re gonna hear.”
“I don’t care who hears you. Let me hear how good I’m making you feel, or I’m going to stop. Do you want me to stop?” His fingers cling to your soft hips, betraying how much this is affecting him. You know that he hardly wants to stop.
You’re turned to mush, though. In this moment, being heard feels nowhere near as awful as Yeonjun ceasing those dizzying thrusts. You shake your head, scalp aching against the movement. “No,” you say, breathless.
“That’s what I thought,” Yeonjun taunts, letting your cheek drop back into the fabric. “Let them hear our love. Let them hear how real it is, darling. Louder.”
You tentatively let your sounds out into the thick air, but he decides that it’s not enough for him. Taking his hand off your hip to brace himself on the seat’s plush armrest, he doubles down his thrusts, feverish and desperate to guide you both to a beautifully explosive end. Your mouth drops open, unfiltered words and sounds spilling out from your chest as you grab at the cushions for help. With the hand that he doesn’t use to deliver those wild thrusts, he encases your hand in his own, threading his fingers between yours.
For a few more incandescent moments, Yeonjun’s room only consists of your unabashed cries, his alternating grunts and whines, the rhythmic and hollow smacks of his hips to your skin, and the musk of your passion. Frantic bodies dance against each other, skin against skin in the purest way. Your thighs tremble pathetically, his cock brushing against your sweet spot until you squeeze your eyes shut and ride out the quivering of your cunt around him. You squeeze his hand as you shake.
“Yes,” his pretty voice whines, “Just like that.”
Picking up his pace, he chases to join you in your orgasm. He pants behind you, desperately fucking into you until his hips stutter and he stills, falling into your shoulder to deliver needy rolls and shooting warm spurts of his release into you.
You two stay like this for some unhurried moments. You focus on his heartbeat; feeling it thudding against your back reminds you that he is real, and he is love. You hold his hand in yours a little tighter.
❉
“I doubt that this will go exactly as you believe it will,” Beomgyu says, watching you do your hair up. Your eyes meet his in the vanity’s mirror.
Arms burning as your hold them over your head, your words come out clipped with the ache. “It worked yesterday, didn’t it?” you say. You push a filigree comb into your hair to secure it up. “I got back hours before he did.”
“I’m not saying that Taehyun is right,” he says, “but I think that it would do us both a favor if you practice a bit more precaution.”
“What, are you afraid of Taehyun?” you ask, raising your brows at him in the reflection.
Your taunt hits its mark, Beomgyu shifting in your bed and scowling. “Of Taehyun, never,” he parries, “of the fact that he could ask me to do anything and I’d do it, yes.” He shakes out his lightly matted tresses, a habit you’ve noticed over the passing weeks. “I played a little too closely to the fire with him once, and it landed me like this: no longer the owner of my being. I’d sooner chew off my own fingers than become his obedient dog, but I believe you also know that it’s best to soar low with this, no? Are we not together in this?”
You press your lips into a thin line. In a way, you’d come to an alliance of sorts with Beomgyu. Despite his being a kelpie, the two of you are not so different now. Both confined to these walls, listening to Taehyun when he commands it. You don’t want any of your actions to snap back on Beomgyu, though. With you attending Court today, it’s almost definite that Taehyun will see you. You turn to face him. “Why don’t you join us, then?” you offer. “I’ll tell him myself that I commanded you to come with me. I’m sure he’ll be less upset if I have you there with me.”
He gives it a thought, his eyes looking as tired and sunken as they always do. “I’m not one for Court,” he says.
“But I’ll be there,” you plead, unable to help the twitching of smirk on your lips. “If we do it together, it can’t be so bad.”
He frowns, but you can see that you’ve won. “I grieve for how the forest left me to my own,” Beomgyu grumbles.
You surge up from your seat, eyes bright. “You’ll go?” you say, giddy to return to the thrill of faerie revelry and also to see the strange kelpie in the center of it.
Grimacing, he answers, “I will join you.”
You take his hands into yours and press a cheeky kiss to his forehead. “You’re not so scary as you try to paint yourself,” you tell him, watching as he catches bait. You laugh as he glowers.
“Don’t push it.” He climbs off your bed. “I’m scarier than you should imagine, girl. I do this for my own reasons.”
You pull a patronizing frown and nod. “Of course, I know.”
You don’t have to wait for him to get ready to any capacity; he tells you that he has no intentions of making any impressions, and you’ve seen faeries in far more drastic states of disarray. Many show up for their reveling in just their skin.
Beomgyu drones on about how he detests the audaciousness of the gentry folk while you make for the hall. The forest around you is as quiet as you remember it being when you’d first met him. It reminds you that, no matter how used you become to him, he is a creature to be feared. The little folk are right to hide away. For you, though, his might is a relief: should Taehyun be right, you’ll be safe. He moves at your beck and call. Though, the thought of forcing the kelpie to carry out your will is an uneasy one that you do not strive to fulfill.
Once the buzzing of Court comes into earshot, wonderful faerie music along with it, you breathe it in. “First time in... how long since you’ve shown your face here?”
“Perhaps four-hundred-something years,” he answers, looking over the scene with as much distaste in his face as his voice. “We solitary folk don’t make ourselves known here unless to bow to a crown. I do not bow to any crown.”
Itching to find your prince, you gesture toward it. He should be fine—Court is supposed to be an insouciant place. “Don’t they host anybody who decides to come? Faerie hospitality, and all that? You’ll be fine.”
“It’s all hospitality until you step foot from those trees,” he says. “And even hospitality is sometimes betrayed. You know how capricious we can be, I’m sure.”
You approach the warm lights, but his words remain with you. It beckons you to remember that their minds are fickle and fundamentally different from yours. However you think they may act, they might act in the complete opposite way. You should at least let that guide how you conduct your actions a little bit.
As you breach the pillars of trees and are finally surrounded once again by their pinched faces and gangly limbs, you search for both Taehyun and Yeonjun. You see neither, and so you make your way to the tables to seek snacks. You scour them for something sweet to chew over as you wait for him to appear. He’d said he’d be coming around this time, right? You surely hadn’t mistaken the time he’d told you?
Beomgyu speaks from beside you, observing a hag that loiters nearby. “Is he not here?” he asks.
Shrugging, you say, “He’ll be here soon.”
You watch the hag inching closer, bent over with age; though, you assume that’s she’s been old for the entirety of her life. Her pointed ears droop from her thin tresses of silver, cuffed with gold.
Turning from her, you gesture over the cavorting crowds, more frantically chasing their merriments than ever before. The solstice arrives tomorrow; they welcome its presence with their excitement. “This is all for the solstice?”
He offers you an affirmative nod. “Just some excuse to entertain themselves like this,” he explains, “the solstice will arrive whether they encourage its coming or not. I believe that they just enjoy this debauchery too much.” His hollow eyes rake over the throngs. “Anyway, many of them are just here because it’s the only time that they’ll see Court. Otherwise, only the gentry gather here.”
“What makes you any different than them?” you ask. “What makes you so averse to offering your allegiance to the High Courts? Would it not be nice to have their protection, and to keep them off your back?” You seek Yeonjun once more in the crowds, but still, he doesn’t appear. “You know, so they don’t call you in for things like eating too much?”
“I do not surrender my sovereignty to any. Come they to my doorstep and demand that I do, I could not care. I’m content with the way I make my life.”
His refusal to do just that must be why Taehyun’s father had come to claim his life. You’re sure that it’s also why the coming of the General’s son to steal his autonomy must’ve made him so angry. You don’t blame him.
Why would The Queen demand fealty from the solitary folk? You’d thought that, like the High King, she’d leave them to their forests. If they’re all as adamant as Beomgyu, it seems like a lost cause.
“Well,” you say, “I’m glad that—”
A gnarled hand, fingers knobbed against your skin and skin about as soft as tree bark, tugs your arm. You spin to find who owns it.
The hag’s eyes remind you of Beomgyu’s, piercing and dull with the weight of a long life. Though, hers are much more unsightly than his mud-brown ones, saggy eyelids drooping over a pair of eyes with ink-black where the whites of her eyes should be. She pulls you toward her by your skirts.
You tug yourself back, pinching your brows. “Who are you?”
She points her clawed, grey hand out at you, bangles of gold and chunky beads jingling as she does. “You, girl,” the hag says, urgent. Her voice is harsh and it crackles as she speaks. She reaches inside of her furry robes and produces a wood trinket from it. In her palm that she shoves at you lays a bit of wood carved into the shape of a wolf, painted in black. Its shaggy black fur reminds you of the kind Taehyun would sometimes wear over his shoulder.
“I don’t need that,” you say, rejecting her hand. Nothing in faerie comes for free—the hag just sees a human girl that she can offer free things to in hopes that you’ll know no better and take. Then, you’d be in her debt, and she’d demand something from you. You do know better, though.
“Oh,” she says, shaking her head as she draws out the word. “You do, girl. Take it, take it. You need it, I know it. Take it, I won’t hold it to you, girl, just have it.” Razor teeth appear behind her curled lips. “It is dormant with me. But, in your hands... Take it.” She shakes her jousted hand out at you each time she demands that you take it. “It offers you protection. It would do no good in my possession. It beckons me to give it to you, its pleas are so loud—loud, loud, loud! Take it off my hand, won’t you?”
Her urging unsettles you, but so do her words. You assume that it’s inlaid with some sort of protective enchantment. Why would you need protection? Although, she could also just be fooling you. She could be holding a perfectly plain hunk of carved wood in her palm for all you know. You shoot a look at Beomgyu. If she were any trouble, he’d tell you.
He looks about as lost as you do, shrugging.
“Oh, sakes!” the hag grumbles, clutching her robes to her body. She takes Beomgyu’s hands and places the thing there. “There. I have no reasons to be here fooling humans. Useless debts, what could you give me? Nothing I need.” She points a sturdy, twiggy finger at you. “Keep it on you, girl, else it won’t do its work.”
With those final ill-boding words, the hag hobbles off, her curved back disappearing between the gaps in the crowd.
“Here,” Beomgyu says, regarding the trinket with his observation. “That hag really wanted this to be yours, so I think it ought to be in your hands.” He tries pushing it off to you.
Laughing, you don’t reach out to take it, darting his hand with your whole body. You hang your hands in the air. “I’m not taking that thing,” you say. “She handed it to you, so I really think it ought to be in your hands.”
He deadpans. “I’ve just been collecting myself a heap of debts, haven’t I?” He closes it into his fist for his lack of pockets. “What’s this one to add?”
“Does it... feel like it has anything bad on it?” you ask, remembering how he’d identified your geas. “Like a curse, or a bad enchantment, or something?”
Shaking his head, he says, “No. I feel it does have a protective purpose, but the magic there is... odd. Hard for me to decipher. Probably that hag’s.”
You purse your lips, nodding. Regardless, whatever protection that thing might have offered you, you’ll be fine without it.
Shaking off the odd interaction, you resume perusing the snack platters in your wait. You skip over glazed pinecones. Those would be terrible on your human stomach and teeth. You can only imagine how they’d jab at your gums. You opt for a helping of braised fiddlehead ferns. Chewing on the furled thing, you entertain yourself with the revelers. Littler folk dart in and out of legs. Long-limbed gentryfolk with flowers in their hair spin with interlocked hands at the center of the clamor. Sharp-eyed faeries with even sharper mouths speak in clusters, no doubt scheming. In all its oddness, you’d missed it.
A silk-smooth voice steals your attention. “A kelpie?” Yeonjun says, regarding Beomgyu beside you. “Now, how did you manage to befriend a kelpie? Even better, how did you drag it here?”
Your chest lights up. “Long story,” you say, brushing his curiosity off. “What took you so long?”
He’s dressed in his Courtly best—cuffs made of ruffle and an array of rings decorating his fingers. They catch light as he brings his hand up to run a hand along the expanse of your collarbone. He hesitates to answer for a split second. “I ran into Kai on my way,” he explains. “He’s performing here today and for tomorrow's solstice.”
Accepting his answer, you go to tell Beomgyu that you’re going off, but he’s not even there as you turn. He must’ve wandered off as Yeonjun had arrived.
“Want to join them?” he asks, tilting his head toward the dancing bodies. Soft black strands drift over his eyes.
Shaking your head, you offer him some of the sweets you’d been eyeing, knowing that he’s got a knack for sweets. “Not today. I think I want to remember all of tonight, and, well...” Memories of the way you’d danced uncontrollably until it’d fade to black lick at your mind. You want to revel in your return to normalcy fully, not with a buzzing mind. You can’t deny the allure of that tingling in your bones as you hear the faerie music, though. It curls a wild finger at you, beckoning.
An uncomfortable look passes through his eyes, gone as fast as it had come. “All right, darling,” he hums, accepting the sweets. “Does the Lord know you’re here?”
Lips tugging into a faint frown, you say, “Not yet, I think.” The quick expression doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Unlike the ice the Taehyun offers you, Yeonjun wears his feelings all over himself. It’s just one way that they are fundamentally different. “Is something wrong?”
Yeonjun looks taken aback at your asking. “I’m doing just fine,” he says. “Why do you ask?”
He does not say nothing wrong. You know it is because he cannot lie. You look him over. What had happened? And, why is he averse to telling you the truth? “Just thought you looked a bit upset.” You shrug. “Did you want to dance?”
His nose crinkles with a laugh. “No, pretty. I’d be in your presence doing nothing and still be content.” He takes your hands into his, the metal on his fingers biting cold against your skin. “How about we go listen to Kai play?”
He leads you to where the musicians work at concocting their works, claiming a chalice of some drink from a table on the way. Kai, of course, stands away from the rest, back to a tree while his fingers dance on the strings. You look around for Taehyun from here, but still, you don’t see his face.
Yeonjun holds the chalice’s neck between his middle two fingers, sipping from it. “It’s nice to know that even as this season ends, I won’t be forced to go back there.”
His pretty lips wrap over the edge of the chalice as he drinks from it. “Won’t your father know something is up when you return?”
Nodding slowly, he grimaces. “I suppose that time has finally come.”
You squeeze his hand in yours. “We both sacrificed things to be here, huh?” you say. You don’t know a lot of what Yeonjun’s life back in his home court was like, but you know that it would be hard to revolt against your own family for anybody. Even for the prince of Faerie.
He captures your eyes, his soft brown ones making crescents with his gentle smile. “We did,” he muses.
“Remember our first night in Court?” you say. You’d been so uneasy, searching for a place to fit in. Then, from the crowds of overwhelming faces, he’d appeared, all charm and welcoming smiles. How couldn’t you have let your heart fall?
Another flash of disconcertment flashes, his smile faltering. He hides it behind another sip of his drink. Swallowing, he nods, laughing off-kilter. “I do. I think watching you dance that time was the best thing I’ve ever seen.”
Odd, but you don’t push the issue. If he says that he’s fine, it must just be something to little effect. “What made you come up to me that night?” you say, remembering how confused you’d been when such a pretty gentry boy had taken interest in you. You’d agonized over why he’d done so for long, and sometimes you still, but you’ve made some peace with it by now.
His lips are tight. “I... It’s hard to explain.”
You accept that answer at face-value and let your head fall into his shoulder while you watch Kai dutifully work at his songmaking. Among those making the music for Court, his contributions stand out as the most enthralling. Faerie music is too elusive for you to decipher why, but perhaps it’s just his lazed passion. “I understand,” you say. His shoulder is tight and less cushy than you expect it to be. Looking up to him, you frown to see how he’s looking down at you, eyes stormy. He looks like he’s sick to his stomach. You go to ask if he’s going to be okay, but he speaks before you can.
“Pretty, I... I have to tell you something.” He pulls you off of him to look into your eyes. He’s always been so steadfast and sure, but now his gaze wavers. “I’m so sorry.”
Your stomach drops. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you. “What?” you say, a tingle in your spine telling you that something isn’t right; that you’re not going to like what he’s going to say. “Yeonjun, you’re making me nervous. Is something wrong?”
You know it’s awful and you’re not sure why you do it, but for a split second, you inspect the hall for possible attackers. A terrible bout of potent adrenaline makes you want to run or cry. Beomgyu is here, right?
He swallows hard, face a ghostly pallor. “I can’t keep doing this,” he says, voice trembling. “I need to tell you the truth, it’s... it’s been eating me alive. I can’t look into your sweet face and know...”
Acid climbs up your throat. Your heart joins it, thick in your throat and choking you. “What? Know what Yeonjun?” you ask, lips trembling. Your skin prickles, hair raising. You may throw up. He looks stricken in place, not answering you. “What?” you demand.
“I didn’t come up to you for no reason that day.”
Your heart, still caught in your throat, bursts. It’s a horrifying, bloody affair. “No,” you say, shaking your head. You feel so removed from your body that you can almost envision how your blood-drained face might match his.
“I knew that you were the spies the moment I saw you. It was....” He sucks in a breath. Your world spins around you as you wait. “I was supposed to determine who the spies were. I was supposed to have them killed, but pretty, I knew I couldn’t do that the moment I saw you. I thought it was just going to be some... some random faerie that I’d...”
If your world was spinning before, it’s now flipped upside down and inverted. “No,” you repeat, a guttural plea that you know won’t change anything. It’s the only word that your mouth will make for right now, though.
You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re angry. You’re frozen.
Yeonjun grabs for your hands, but you rip yourself away from him, your glaring eyes so at odds with your wobbling lips. “It doesn’t change anything,” he says. “It doesn’t change how I love you now. You know I love you. You know I love you, right? I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you. I did my best to protect you. Please, I never wanted to hurt you,” he rambles, frantically grabbing for your arms as he falls down to his knees before you.
A few faeries around you gasp, and a blur of their commotion forms around you. The crowned prince of Faerie just went to his knees. Your eyes dart wildly around their guffawing faces, and between a space you spot a familiar face: cold eyes and a cracked mask of indifference. He looks right at you.
What on earth is going on? How is this life right now? You snap back to Yeonjun in front of you.
“Please, don’t look at me like that, pretty,” he pleads. “Please.” His voice cracks, eyes frantic. “Slap me. Tell me you hate me for it. But please, don’t look at me like you’re scared of me.”
Tears scald your cheeks.
“I know that it’s selfish of me to ask you that; I know, I know it—but please, I can’t handle it, love. I was never going to let anything happen to you, I knew it the moment I saw you. I felt it right here”—he gestures to his beating heart, the one your hand had felt and cherished so only last night—“I knew that no matter how big my ambitions were, they would never be bigger than that.”
You can’t listen to any more. His words pour out onto your skin, but they all slip off like rain upon a beast’s winter pelt. None can penetrate the ringing in your ears.
Yeonjun sees how retracted you’ve become. “Pretty, please,” he says, slower and more dire now. “Say something."
You don’t know what to do. Your feet are rooted fast to the ground, but you know that you have to leave, or else you’ll start creating excuses for him. You know yourself too well to let that happen.
Picking up your skirts, you manage only a few words to part him with. “Though your kind can’t lie,” you say, “you have been the biggest liar I have ever known. You said you loved me.”
“I do,” he says, shaking his head, eyes twinkling. “I do.”
Maybe love is a different thing to a faerie.
You take off. He calls for you, but it’s muffled by the restlessness of the folk around you and the still-playing music. You dart between openings and bounce off bodies, lights and angry faces a blur in your frenzy. Most folk don’t spare you even a glance; nothing could pull them from their merriment. But others gawk at you like you put on a performance, greedy eyes drinking in any amount of fanfare. Their eyes itch under your skin. Crossing the expanse of the hall has never felt so arduous.
You’ve become their spectacle.
Breaking into the cold night air, you don’t run home or collapse to your knees in a sob. You hold your dress hard in your hands, the one he’d gifted you among so many others, its fabric bunching in your fists, and stand there as if frozen staring into the tree line ahead. You don’t move and you don’t think; both would remind you that this is real and that you are a fool. You just allow the bitter air to swaddle your skin.
You don’t even know if you doubt that he loves you. You don’t even know if he actually never intended to hurt you. Had there been times where all you’d done was look at him with starry eyes, and he’d look at you deciding whether or not to have you killed?
Why are you even here? There is nothing left for you. Whatever simple joys you thought you’d found, they’re gone. You’re so far away from home, and you’ve nobody to call home. You’d left behind your beginnings of a purpose, and now the only purpose you serve is to rot away in Taehyun’s estate because you demanded that you stay here.
All that time you’d spent worrying, and still, you walked yourself into this. You’re a joke.
White breaths unfurl into the night air before you, floating off to join the snowflakes and heavy fog. You just watch those fluffy flakes fall for a while.
Snow creaks under a few footsteps behind you, someone letting you know that they’re there. “You’ve gotten awfully good at sneaking around,” Taehyun says.
You let your head fall back, sighing slowly out through your nose. Turning to him, you spit, “I understand. You were right. I got it, okay? I don’t need you to come here and rub it in.”
Beomgyu approaches from behind Taehyun.
Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a bit, ice-hard eyes darting all over your face. “Take her back to the estate,” he tells Beomgyu.
Glad to escape him, you begin your way on your own. You know that he’s only looking at your break down as pathetic. Perhaps it is, but recognizing that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Wind lapping at your wet cheeks have them stinging as you walk.
Beomgyu awkwardly trails behind you as you follow the path that had become trodden in the time that you and Taehyun have been here, foliage and shrubbery broken down to make somewhat of a path.
He doesn’t speak; you don’t expect him to. Instead, you break the quiet yourself, unable to stand only the sound of wind twirling between trees. “I should’ve taken that ridiculous charm thing,” you say, laughing through your tears. That hag had absolutely been able to feel what was coming with you with whatever intuition that the magic in her bones lends her.
“But then,” Beomgyu says, “you wouldn’t know the truth.”
That’s true. Not knowing the truth doesn’t make it untrue, but at least it spares your fragile heart. “I don’t know if I’d mind that,” you tell him. “I think I’d prefer it.”
Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes.
❉
You don’t remember falling asleep. You remember climbing into your bed, dreading that you’ll be in your head all night, but to some mercy, you’d found sleep not long after that.
You’d pulled yourself from bed, no matter how it had grown a gravitational pull and insisted that it’d hold you warm while you weep. If you hadn’t, you might not have gotten up at all. As a girl, you’d force yourself into the day’s routine when you had your worst days. It’s the only way that you live through it. You’d also made an effort to walk past your wardrobe. It carries so much of him: the lovely things he’d gifted you, his letters, and that book he’d lent you. It’s not that you don’t want any of these things; to wither away in your bed, to go through his things and wonder how someone who’d showered you so had meant to be your killer, to drag your feet... It’s that you can’t.
You poke your needle through the fabric. On the cut of white fabric stretched inside the embroidery hoop, you’ve embroidered a dozen woven wheel stitch flowers of different colors and types. Your bottom aches against the hardwood flooring and your lower spine strains, but you don’t pay any mind to their complaining. You just continue to embroider the little flowers. Some are poppy, some rose, and some you’d made up just to have more to stitch.
A knock resounds through the war room from the doorway. You look to see Taehyun there. He’s dressed in his Court attire.
“You should get dressed,” he says. “It’s almost midnight. If you want to make it in time, you’ve got to get ready now.”
Since when had he decided that you’re okay to go? It’s as if this elusive threat that’d he’d been so careful has up and disappeared. “You can go. It’ll take me too long to get ready.”
Truth be told, you’d go sick seeing Yeonjun’s face, and you know without a doubt that you would.
“It’s the solstice,” Taehyun says, stepping into the room. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t.
Despite how much you had wanted to see it, your heart is too apathetic for it to be worth anything now. Returning to the same faces that had seen your demonstration and no doubt now talk of it... You’d rather finish your fifth rose. “I know.”
He hesitates, studying you while gears turn in his head. “Hadn’t you thought that something would happen on the solstice?” he says. “Come on. It’s worth seeing how this unfolds.”
“Why? We aren’t spies anymore. I don’t care what happens in their conflict. It’s well beyond my control as a human here.”
He grimaces, but you don’t recognize the look there to be anger, more a rigidness. He rests his hand on his sword as he always does. “Then we’ll stay here.”
You furrow your brows. “Huh?”
“We can celebrate the solstice here,” he elaborates. “We don’t need to do it there. Plenty of folk celebrate on their own.”
It dawns upon you that this is his stilted attempt at comforting you. It’s the only way he knows how. You push off the ground. You couldn’t ignore this sliver, however little, of tenderness. You’re not sure if you’d ever see it again if you did. You’ll take anything to distract your mind, as well. You can’t escape the image of Yeonjun’s eyes as he’d pleaded with you from the ground. “I’m not sure Beomgyu will join us, though. He doesn’t believe in the need to celebrate the solstices.”
“He will if I command it,” he says.
“What, you’re going to command the poor kelpie to sit and watch a bonfire with us?” you say, imagining how he’d brood.
The north is wickedly cold at all times, but it’s especially so after night falls. You shuffle closer to the bonfire that Taehyun had built. It’s multitudes smaller than the bonfire you’d sat around with Yeonjun, but it’s warm enough for just the two of you. You quickly shove down those tainted memories before they sting. A lump of emotion forms in your throat before you can, though. You clear it. “Is there anything special that you’re supposed to do?”
Feeding one last log into the flame, he watches it catch. “We started this really early,” he says. “The fire is supposed to keep you warm and represent the sun’s warmth until sunrise...” He trails off, sliding the cuffs of his shirt that he’d slid up to his elbows to tend to the fire down and sucking in an awkward breath. He looks between the fire and you as though he’d not fully thought out his offer when he’d made it.
You face your palms to the orange flame, letting the roiling waves of heat warm them. “It’s nice like this.”
The flame sizzles and pops, spewing sparks and eating up the wood, for a few long moments. You’re not in a talky mood, and Taehyun doesn’t seem to know where to begin on conversation with you that isn't functional. No snow falls around you, and any wind is cut by the estate. This—a place to lose yourself to your mind—is both the thing you need and what you most should not have.
Taehyun stands watching the fire twirling, his arms over his chest.
“Is your shoulder healing fine?” you ask, once the air starts feeling a bit heavy with the weight of the prolonged quiet. “Are my stitches holding up fine? No infection, or anything?”
His gaze flicks up to you. “You stitched it up pretty well,” he answers. “I saw the flowers you were making. You’ve got a good hand.”
Frowning, you say, “You didn’t say it’s not infected...”
“It’s not infected,” he says.
That could be a lie or the truth, you know. But... this sort of deception, you’re more comfortable with. Your human mind can pick up on these subtleties, can catch the careful intonation of somebody trying to hide something behind a lie. “Could I see it?” you ask him.
He hesitates, expression flat as his eyes convey the extent of his consideration. “You can.” He grabs at his tunic, the fabric the only thing his frost blood even needs to wear out in the cold, and pulls it over his head.
You swallow hard and fight the flush to your cheeks at the sight of his scar-flecked flesh, his muscled abdomen disappearing as he turns around to show you his back. When you’d last seen his bare skin, you’d been so high on your fear and adrenaline that you’d barely flinched.
Blinking, you focus on the arrow puncture at his shoulder blade. It’s done some healing, but tinged by an angry red and visibly swollen around the stitches. You curse.
Of course, he’d rather let his shoulder rot away than admit that he needs any more of your help than he’d been forced to allow. That would require admitting that he’s not just an impenetrable wall of ice. “That is definitely infected,” you say. “Were you just going to let that kill you? Infections like that are beyond help once they get in your bloodstream.”
“I’ve had infected wounds before,” he says, preparing to put his shirt back on. “This one is nothing. It’ll take a bit longer, but... It’ll heal up fine.”
You grab his arm. “Just let me clean it a bit,” you insist. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’re not scared that it’s gonna hurt, are you?”
Sighing, Taehyun says, “I thought you wanted to enjoy the solstice.”
The hopeful girl you’d been had wanted that, but now it’s just a reminder of everything you don’t want to remember. You wave your hair in the air dismissively. “We did. Come on.”
You find a bucket to fill with water and cloth along with some stash of ancient spirits in the kitchens, their containers lined with a layer of dust so thick that you know they’re left over from Taehyun’s father. He watches you gather it all.
You beckon him to turn and show you his shoulder again. He does, bracing his arms on a counter and letting his head hang. You spill out some of that strong liquor into the wound. You’re not really sure if it’ll work as a disinfectant, but as a girl you’d seen an older woman pour it over her wound once, and it’s all you know.
Gently dabbing at his shoulder now with the water-soaked rag, swollen except for where the stitches sinch it, you say, “You should’ve been going gentle on this thing.”
Taehyun doesn’t make any fuss as you prod at the wound. “I had more important things to concern myself with,” he says plainly. You press the wet rag to the wound and hold it there, and he begins to try and redirect the conversation to anything other than about himself. “What did the prince say to you at Court?”
Your stomach drops. “It was nothing.”
“I know that’s not the truth,” he says, picking up his head to try and look over his shoulder at you. “Tell me the truth.”
You take the long, torn strips of cloth and begin wrapping it around the expanse of his broad shoulders in a sloppy and amateurish wrap. As long as it shields the wound, it’ll work. “That’s rich coming from you,” you say. “There’s plenty that you lie to me about. You even lied about this.” You tap his shoulder.
Turning now that you’re done, Taehyun eyes you. You don’t know if he’d been able to hear anything over the sounds of Court or if he’d heard it all with his better hearing ears. You can’t tell which it is.
“I’ll hear it from some Court gossiper anyway. I think you’d prefer to tell me it yourself.”
The thought of that scene being a topic of Court gossip makes you ill, but you know that it’s true. The folk love the show, especially one that includes a prince of Faerie on his knees in front of a human. Red-hot embarrassment takes a leisurely stroll up your spine. Your biggest fear has taken flesh in the cruelest way possible.
Well, if he’s going to end up knowing anyway... You’d prefer it’s from your mouth. You don’t know what sort of conflated half-truths the folk might come up with, since they have no more idea what happened than what they saw. “He was supposed to kill us,” you say, chest too tight to explain it in any depth. “Or, at least, find out who we are, so that we could be killed.”
Taehyun doesn’t look shocked. He nods. “So, they anticipated our arrival, then. The odds had been stacked against us from the beginning.”
You nod. Would you have been able to escape? If things had never become entangled between you and Yeonjun, would you and Taehyun lived beyond the first day? Taehyun is strong and you know that he’s no doubt survived plenty in his life, but you’d have been caught completely unaware. “Yeah.”
“I told you that he’d show you his colors eventually.”
You want to fight him on that, but you can’t. You have nothing to say. He’d been right.
What’s left for you now that he has?
END PART 4
a/n: RAHHH! like i said, this part gave me a bit of grief because part 3 was left so open ended—i had so many options and paths i could follow, but ultimately, i chose this one! how do we feel?
taglist: @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @sanshiningstarhwa , @hyucktapes ,
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