#╰ —— ❛ visage › you with the watercolour eyes.

[sunomaly]

the finest souls are those who gulped pain and avoided making others taste it

edit made by aspen, mutuals only can interact ( made for @mastermicd )

[defectiveprts]

tag drop pt one.

╰   ——   ❛   out of character   ›   once was poison ivy.

╰   ——   ❛   promo   ›   pathological people pleaser.

╰   ——   ❛   self promo   ›   out there helping people is where i belong.

╰   ——   ❛   aesthetic   ›   who put the world on my back and not in my hands.

╰   ——   ❛   headcanon   ›   it’s hard to laugh when it’s hard to breathe.

╰   ——   ❛   visage   ›   you with the watercolour eyes.

[ricardian-werewolf]

2. If I didn't care, would I feel this way?

Summary: Alina settles in at the Great Palace, and comes to learn that sometimes the friends one makes come from the most unlikely of places. With her powers beginning to show at last, Genya and Nikolai reconnect and take Alina under their wings. Nikolai recollects on his childhood and begins to come to terms with being home.

Notes; none

Word count: 4.2k

Chapter below the cut.

The Great Palace, Os Alta.

Alina’s legs ached as she let Nikolai guide her to her new chambers. 

Up they went a series of dizzyingly tight stairs, through endless marble and gold-gilded hallways, until they reached a set of white double doors with gold handles carved in the shapes of stag-antlers.

“Your rooms. Genya Safin should be along in a moment or two.” Nikolai pushed the doors open and stepped into a wide receiving room of rich velvet settees, sofas, plush, cloud-like carpets and heavy drapes. All of the room was upholstered in the royal colour of emerald green, with gold edging. 

“Wait. This isn’t the little Palace.” Alina murmured, pulling off her boots, as mud and dirt soaked they were, she wasn’t about to make some poor servant clear up her messes. Nikolai had already changed into a pair of deep green slippers monogrammed with his symbol - a fox running under a crescent moon.

“No, it’s not.” Nikolai threw the drapes wide, and pushed up the sash. The windows, arranged in a bay formation, gave a visage of Os Alta sprawled out before them. “As a member of my household, you’ll be taking your residence in the Great Palace.”

“Why?” Alina examined the solid gold samovar and clicked her tongue at the lack of tea. The spout was in the shape of a stag-head. Padding across the room, she glared up at the massive landscape watercolour of the woods where Morozovas stag was said to roam with its herd.

“Tradition, according to my father at least.” Nikolai rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. “You’re not a prisoner. You’ll have a room in the Little Palace as well, once your training starts. The Fabrikators are working on it as we speak, though it’ll be a different kind of grandness to this. For now…” 

He paused, looking both bashful, and sheepish. Alina glanced over her shoulder at him, her brow raised in curiosity. 

“I don’t want you to think that I’m…” He paused again. “Using you. That you’ll just be some sort of trophy.” 

That was exactly what I was thinking. Alina thought, looking genuinely surprised and pleased at the opposite occurring. Nikolai went back to scratching the back of his neck, then looked up as a ginger-haired woman dressed in the white kefta of the palace servants stepped into the room.

“Ah, Genya!” Nikolai murmured, coming over to the woman. She hugged him tightly and kissed one another’s cheeks in rapid succession. “Nikolasha, I’d no idea you’d be home!” She smiled, and looked past him.

Alina couldn’t help herself. She scowled darkly at this woman, and Genya sighed. “Ah. It seems like your Sun Summoner is possessive.” raising a brow, Genya stepped over to Alina and began examining her.

“She’s half-Shu.”

“Genya.” Nikolai lit a cigarette. “It’s not kind to speak about Alina like she isn’t here.”

“Ah.” Genya blinked. “My apologies.” Her expression softened, and she bowed her head. 

“I’m Genya Safin, and the Queen has assigned me as your personal Tailor.”

“So you mend my clothes?” Alina blinked. Weren’t there servants to do that? What did she need this devilishly pretty ginger woman for, then?

“Not exactly. Let’s see.” Genya stepped over to a brown box with gold edging that looked to Alina's eyes like needles and spools of thread. Lifting the lid, Genya’s fingers dipped into the different little inner boxes, pulling out a string of black beads, a vial of gold dust, and a small bulb of some dried flower.

Nikolai examined some part of her room as Genya sat Alina down at her dressing table and handed her a small hand mirror made of gold embellished with sapphires. The sheer opulence of everything was almost overwhelming. 

“I’m seriously going to be part of Prince Nikolai’s household?” Alina breathed as Genya ran her fingers over her hair. The limp curls sprang into neat coils and her hair became an inky black, weeks of grease and oils simply vanishing in an instant. Alina almost dropped the mirror.

“Saints!”

“She’s pretty damn awesome, no?” Nikolai breathed from where he stood by the fireplace, examining the wall of her room that led to her bathing chamber for some reason. Shadows curled about his shoulders like a stole, and he seemed almost… Ill at ease.

“Yes.” Alina ducked her head. “Though I thought it rude to swear.”

“He’s the second son of the Tsar. He can do what he pleases.” Genya sniffed, gently pinching the bulb’s tip in her fingers. Those fingers brought out Alina’s blush and lightened her skin, assisting in the healing process her light explosion had kickstarted.

“The testers found me when I was 5, and I was brought to the Little Palace then. As a gift for our wonderful Tsarina Tatiana. Technically, I’m not supposed to be Tailoring you, but..” Genya’s gaze turned to Nikolai, who gave her a crooked grin. “Prince Nikolai owes me a few favours. Plus, I like his section of the palace far better than anywhere else.”

“His section-” Alina glanced over at Nikolai.

“The entire western wing of the palace is mine. Though it’s mostly shut up for the year. I only like to be back when everyone else is on a hunt. It seems, however…” Nikolai crossed over to a dark oak side table and lifted a silver serving dish to reveal a plate of crisp and fluffy blini. Stabbing a few with a fork, he picked up a plate and crossed to Alina.

“I suspect you last had a meal… last night?”

“Has it only been a day?” Alina scoffed, taking the fork and plated stack of blini from Nikolai. She set to shoving the delicious cakes into her mouth as Genya continued tailoring her and Nikolai went about embroidering the compass rose onto a discarded First Army uniform.

“You embroider?” She asked, sipping a glass of sugared tea. He nodded without looking at her, reaching over in his seat to turn down the gramophone playing Beethoven with a swift wrist-flick. 

“Helps calm my mind. That, or I love to tinker.” He unfurled a whole roll of gold thread and set back to embroidering in her ranking icon as a private on the lower part of the sleeve. The pluck of the needle, along with the crackling and pop of the spring hickory logs made the whole space feel largely intimate. Safe.

Soon enough, however, the uniform was being tugged over Alina’s head by Genya, and with Nikolai’s help, Alina was veiled, her shoes slipped on and guided through the Great Palace to the throne room. As they walked, Alina gripped Nikolai’s arm in her right hand and Genya’s hand in her left.

“You’re doing wonderfully. Just walk straight, and don’t lift the veil. My father likes the idea of a fragile First Army girl who’s not seen combat.” Nikolai murmured in her ear. Alina nodded.

“How’s Dominik?” Genya asked, cocking her head. Nikolai looked over Alina’s head, and mouthed: Banned from the Great Palace still. But he’s at the Little Palace. Probably hiding out with David.

Genya nodded silently, and sighed. The Grisha were going to shun her the moment Alina showed off her powers. Nikolai hadn’t dressed in his deep green kefta. The Darkling would tear him a new one for that. If he had his way, Nikolai would probably come dressed in his work clothes. The Volkvolny was docked in Os Kervo, after all. Plus, his sailing boats were already in the water after the Spring thaw broke the 4-inch thick ice-sheet on the Great Lake blocking off the Little and Great Palaces from one another.

“Are you planning to go sailing once this is over?” Genya queried.

“You sail?” Alina breathed, almost lifting her veil. Nikolai coughed, gently adjusted the gold spanish lace and Shu silk blend, and nodded. “Yes. I do. It’s a pastime.” He explained quickly as they descended the long, wide and expansive marble stairs to the Palace’s entrance hall. 

A whole motley of servants of the palace, armed guards of the Darkling and Tsar, and rogue Grisha flanked the double-golden doors leading into the throne Room with its double golden domes, and Nikolai paused.

“Moi Soverenyi.” He bowed to the Darkling, who sneered at Nikolai in his court dress, and took Alina’s hand.

“You tailored her?” Kirigan asked Genya, who nodded. Tugging on the collar of her white kefta, Genya disappeared after Nikolai through a set of double doors in the same white as Alina’s room. 

“She’ll be fine.” Nikolai lit another cigarette and passed it to Genya, who took two puffs and coughed. “Saints. How can you take these?”

“It’s for my nerves.” Nikolai dropped the cigarette to the carpet and swiftly ground it under his heel. He hated being amongst his parents as much as Genya did, and he wasn’t blind to the sins of his father against her. “Dominik’s been working on another round of poisons for you. These should be more potent.” He murmured, reaching for her hand. “I’ll try and fix something, this time, I promise.”

Those words had been the last words Nikolai had said to Genya at their first meeting when she was 5 and he 6. Now, they were 20 and 19, and the sins had only doubled amongst them both. Genya deserved better, and Ravka deserved a better Tsar than Nikolai’s father. His mother was just as bad, and he hated her just as much. Anyone with two brain cells would realise that Nikolai and Aleksander III looked nothing alike. Where Nikolai’s jaw was thin and arrow-sharp, his nose straight and eyes a bright hazel, Aleksander’s chin was ruddy, fattened with years of poor diet and health. His eyes were a watery blue, his hair the colour of winter-wheat.

Nikolai and Genya’s secretive location in a lesser servant’s hallway in the double-layered walls of the throne room wouldn’t stay secret for long. With a glance behind them, Nikolai grabbed Genya’s hand and the two ghost-children-turned-adults slipped into the marble and gold throne room. 

Taking their places on the dias, Nikolai stood behind his mother, who gave him a glance of pure, child-like adoration. Genya took her place at her other side, and tried to stay as far as she could from the Tsar as possible. On the Tsar’s other side, Vasily leaned forward on his elbows against his father’s throne’s back. He glared through a monocle at the sight of Alina coming up to the dias. Her booted feet made not even a whisper of noise in the baby-blue carpeting that stretched from the golden double doors to the marble dias, and the Darkling beside her radiated possessive delight. Despite the beard and dark eyes, Nikolai remembered with a shudder just how old the man was, and settled his face into an expression of nonchalance. The instances of these court demonstrations were few and far between, but he for one wanted to see Alina’s powers on display.

“Lift the veil, child.” The Tsar rumbled, and Nikolai smirked to himself. Let his parents express their horror over another Sobachka gracing their halls. Between Genya, Dominik, and now Alina, Nikolai had a habit of collecting the mutts that no one else cared for. He put his palm under his chin and winked at his father as Aleksander’s gaze turned to him full of angry ire.

“Is this her?” Tatiana leaned forward, fingering the diamond choker adorning her wrinkled throat. Time had not been kind to either of his parents, something Nikolai delighted in. For while he maintained a youthful glow for much longer than anyone expected, his parents had fallen deep into the sins of their own makings, and it suited them. He winked at Alina, who blushed and dipped her head.

“Oh, I don’t know, tell her Good morning in Shu?” Tatiana murmured weakly.

“She speaks Ravkan, Madraya.” Nikolai murmured in reply, softly enough to not cause Alina any public embarrassment. Her eyes were wide enough already. Cocking his head to Genya, he signed: 

She looks ready to bolt. Can you arrange for her to take dinner in her room and keep the Grisha off her back till mid-week?

Genya nodded, signing back swiftly: Of course. Will you be dining with her?

No such chance. The bear and the lapdog will want me to dine with them. Perhaps I can figure out why I’ve been recalled back-

Nikolai stopped signing as the Darkling spread his hands and shadows filled the room. He’d been saying something about liberation, or words to that effect, and Nikolai hadn’t been paying attention. His mind was too distracted trying to figure out the schematics of Alina’s kefta. Emerald green with gold embroidery and sunburst buttons. Matching boots. Fox-fur edging. Red fur.

In the darkness, Nikolai watched the Darkling’s hand reach Alina’s wrist. A part of him felt sick, as he remembered the feeling of the Darkling’s hand on his own wrist in that cold, freezing winter of his 14th half-year name-day celebration. It’d been so dark, so… snowy, when the Darkling had taken his born gifts and warped them beyond belief. The darkness had just been one facet.

He hoped that Alina would thrive under his protection. She would not be like him. Broken, abused and hidden behind a mask of lies. Nikolai straightened as light filled the room, blasting back the darkness. He could see the wonder on his parents’s faces, on Alina’s, and he sighed. The warmth of her light felt cleansing and holy, quite unlike his darkness.

When the light settled and the lamps flared anew, claps and cheers rang out. Nikolai stepped around his mother’s throne at his father’s behest and settled his feet easily on the second step down the dias. 

“My son, Grand Duke Nikolai, has become the Sun Summoner’s liege-lord, protector, and confidante. She will become part of his household, as tradition demands, and take rooms in both the Little and Great Palaces. As his vassal, Miss…” Aleksander paused.

“Starkov. Assistant Junior cartographer, formerly.” Nikolai provided, catching his father’s dirty glare at Alina. He sniffed, settled his weight more evenly in his feet and let his father continue.

“Will be provided with an annual annum of 400 gold vlacki per seasonal period, and may wish to have that money sent as compensation to any family member she desires. Along with that, she will train with General Kirigan and his…” Aleksander paused again to cough into a provided handkerchief. Blood spotted the edge. Nikolai grinned to himself. It seemed Genya’s poison was working.

“Grisha. Now, please, disperse. I trust the Sun summoner has many great things to accomplish, and I do not wish to delay her.” Aleksander looked up at Vasily, whose monocle hung from its chest pin. His face was still contorted in dumb shock.

Nikolai stepped down the dias, hands in his pockets and whistling a jaunty tune as the Grisha filed out according to their order, and the Darkling went with them, sending a dark scowl at Nikolai as he departed. However, it was the Apparat’s rat-like nostril-twitch that sent Nikolai’s pulse spiking.

“All well, Moi Tsarevich?” Alina murmured, looping her hand through his arm. Nikolai blinked, smiled. “Oh. Yes.” He grinned, and waved a swift goodbye to his parents. Genya drifted easily after them, a secretive grin shared between the three of them. 

***

That evening, as a rainstorm of epic proportions roared outside, Alina lay splayed out on her plush velvet sofa. By her head, her phonograph played a rotating assortment of different classical pieces, though the 1812 Overture was currently blasting at full volume. Nikolai was humming along, his feet tucked under him as he sat with a tea-tray on his lap and was dabbing at a canvas print with a watercolour brush. By his feet, maps of the True sea lay spread across the chaise longue’s surface.

“Word is, from the Little Palace, that a certain Sun Summoner shunning her first dinner for the comfort of her chambers is something rather unladylike.” Genya announced as she kicked the door shut with the heel of her foot. Balanced on a silver serving tray were three bowls of borscht, with smaller china bowls of sour cream. Piled high on a plate were slices of rye bread.

“I thought the Grisha ate like peasants. And weren’t you supposed to be at dinner?” Alina asked Nikolai, who snorted.

“It’s better to be full when dining with my parents. Dinner lasts for so long that by the time the courses show, it’s gone the midnight bell. All they do is argue, or round-about discuss Vasily’s achievements and my failures. Plus, I always have to curry favour with them, deflect questions from Vasily on which girl I tumbled this time-” He looked up from his painting of a golden sunne in splendour and sighed. “- I don’t tumble girls often, and besides, it’s almost expected when you’re of my social standing. My celibacy is something my mother finds more scandalous than the multiple bastards Vasily sires in a given harvest season.” 

“Plus, the Grisha do eat like peasants. Kirigan says its to keep us humble. Whatever that means.” Genya placed the platter down on the low-set tea-table in the centre of Alina’s private sitting room. She carefully laid out soup, spoons, the sour cream, rye bread, and glasses of tea and kvas. Nikolai however took a glass of brandy, something Alina didn’t know he imbibed in.

“Be warned. Most Grisha breakfasts are of poached fish and rye bread.” 

Alina sniffed in distaste. “Anything you can do to alleviate that?” She looked at Nikolai, who nodded and went back to painting. “Technically since I’m your liege-lord, you’re under my command, not the Darkling. The whole matter of all this will no doubt drive him insane, but not even he can go against a crown-ordained law. Unless he wants to find the First Army’s bayonets in his throat whenever he sleeps.”

“As for food.” He dipped his brush in water and set the whole platter aside. “I control what you eat, how much, and so on. Which, since I’m not the kind of man to be that controlling, you’re free to have the whole of the Great Palace’s kitchen to yourself.”

“Saints.” Alina looked at him in amazement. “Doesn’t this whole power dynamic strike you as strange? One moment we’re meeting in a crowded mess tent, and the next you suddenly are in command of my every movement.”

“I’m planning to be as lax as possible. Plus, you’re what? 18?”

Alina nodded. 

“Right. And I’m 20. Not at all strange. Anyways, you’re an adult. You can do whatever you bloody well wish, as far as I’m concerned.” Nikolai sipped at his soup, then as the need for food consumed him, he turned to inhaling the portion.

“Nikolai has a small issue of forgetting when he needs to eat.” Genya explained as she lightly buttered her slice of rye bread and added a portion of goose liver pate to it. “He’s a poor dining companion in the eyes of his parents, but we’ve eaten together since we were children, and once Dominik joined us, the idea of Nikolai sitting down for dinner was finally not a foreign concept.” 

“I was a very active child.” Nikolai replied swiftly, shooting Genya a glance. She shrugged, chewed her slice of bread. Alina dipped her spoon in the borscht, noting the lack of beetroot. “Is the royal version of this made without beets?”

“Oh, it is. But the cook didn’t want this portion looking too red. Otherwise Prince Vasily gets testy.”

“He doesn’t like blood or things that look like it. Which is strange, since he never saw a day of active combat.” Nikolai grumbled as he wiped at his chin with his napkin and set to scooping up the drippings with a piece of bread. “I’ve killed and I’m fine with it.” His grumblings turned softer as he chewed on the bread and slugged back his glass of brandy.

“I miss my old cook.” He pressed his chin against his palm. “Wonderful man. Doused things in too much butter.”

“You have a fondness for butter. And salt.” Genya rolled her eyes. “I had to lock the salt away after a while. He would easily put it on everything.”

“Within moderation!” Nikolai protested. He sat back, kicked his feet up on the tea table, and rubbed a hand over his face. “Please tell me I don’t have to go to this dinner with my parents, Gen…” He groaned.

“You do, Nikolasha.” She sighed, patting his hand. “I’ll walk you over, since your mother will no doubt want me to tailor you. But then-” She turned her gaze back to Alina. “I’ll be right back to help you get ready for bed. Or we can stay up, pop popcorn over the fireplace and gossip. These kinds of rainy evenings are the best for books and quiet conversation, in my opinion.” Genya squeezed Alina’s hand.

She smiled. “I’ve never really had any friends besides Mal, and what with Zoya’s cruel remark… I have a feeling it’ll be like how it was back there.” She murmured, rubbing at her nose with her finger.

“Nonsense. You have us! And Dominik, once I figure out how to sneak him in.” Nikolai grinned.

“Are you two…” Alina looked between Nikolai and Genya. “Together?”

A beat of silence passed, and then Genya burst out laughing. Nikolai snorted, and suppressed his laughter behind his napkin, his feet kicking out as he snickered into the linen.

“No.” He squeaked. “We’ve been friends since we were children. But no, Genya had her head turned by a certain fabrikator with glasses.”

“His name is David.” Genya hit Nikolai with her dinner napkin, and wiped her streaming eyes with a tissue stuck up her sleeve. “And yes, Nikolai is correct. We grew up together in the Great Palace.” She explained. “But I can see why you’d assume that.” As Genya patted Alina’s hand, the sun summoner’s face turned red.

“Bloody hell.” She groaned. “My apologies.” 

“None needed. We get it. I mean, I half wanted to ask if that boy… Mal, had tumbled you. The look on his face when he saw you in the Darkling’s carriage made me think so.”

“No!” Alina breathed. “No, we’ve been friends since our orphanage days. Like…” She looked between Genya and Nikolai. “You both, it seems.”

“Ah.” Genya nodded at Nikolai. “Told you so.”

“Oh, of course you’d know.” Nikolai snipped, turning to his watercolours. He grumbled as he squinted at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. “Saints, is it nine bells already? I should get going.”

“When’re you supposed to be there?” Alina asked as she sipped her glass of kvas.

“By ten bells, but I want to be early so I get off on the right foot. It’s been… how long?” Nikolai asked Genya as she straightened his mussed tie, combed his hair and spritzed him with eau de cologne. Along with that, she tailored his hair to give it a dimmer streak, and wiped away a scar he’d gotten from fighting Drüskelle. 

“Anything else?” Genya asked as she turned back to her box. 

Nikolai bit his lip. 

“Nah. I’ll be fine. If I come back busted up, you’ll know.” He cut a glance to the door, and straightened his evening kefta’s lapels. The cummerbund at his waist was bottle-green, his heraldic colour. The fox fur of his kefta shimmered in the gas-lamps' light that were scattered throughout the room. 

Genya sighed, but nodded. Gathering up the dishes, she carried the tray to the door and Nikolai pulled the bell-cord for her. A serving maid materialised in the doorway as if by magic, and took the tray, as well as Genya’s box of tools. 

“Alright.” Nikolai spun on his heel and came back to Alina. He kissed the knuckles of her offered hand, which made the girl blush, and cast his gaze to Genya. “Take care of her, will you?”

“Obviously.” Genya smirked, smacking the prince’s behind. “Off you get, you scourge. If I wasn’t here, I’m sure you’d ravish her.” She hissed in Nikolai’s ear.

He squawked in indignation, threw Alina a kiss over his shoulder. Genya pulled the double doors shut, and the two of them raced through the halls, chasing and teasing one another. Soon enough, they reached the royal couple’s chamber doors, and stopped dead. 

Genya pulled on his bow-tie, while Nikolai helped Genya pin her hair up and straighten her cuffs. They did this all without a word between them, and grinned at one another.

“Ready?” Nikolai murmured, reaching for Genya’s hand.

“Are we ever?” She replied, squeezing his hand.

“No.” He added, settling his shoulders. He always felt so young coming back here. Partly why he avoided it. He pushed the double doors open, and let Genya step first into the Lion’s maw. Following her, Nikolai paused in the doorway.

He wanted Alina here with them. But not yet. 

Ravka needed her. Nikolai needed her. So did Genya. But Alina needed to find herself first. 

Nikolai closed his eyes, and stepped from the world he controlled to the world that was out of his control. He would go quietly, not screaming or kicking. 

For he controlled what he could, and the rest was up to the Saints.

End of chapter 2. 

[dcwnthercbbithcle]

𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀 / 𝟖𝟕𝟏𝟑 𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐁𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝟏𝟗 𝐈𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃, not in the sense that a ghost will come out of the wall and shank you or chase you down the halls like a bat out of hell.

No... No. Ophelia has long outgrown the notion of spooks and spectres in such a simple manner.

She doesn't fear the dark or her own shadow. The dead to her are just that, dead. The bumps in the night all have a reasonable cause, at least in her mind, and though she is admittedly a realist regarding ghosts and haunts.

Still, she must admit, something about having so many anomalous objects in such small proximity seems to have, in her words, opened the door to another realm and invited all manner of strangeness.

It is difficult for her to describe, at least in any manner where she will seem rational. Reality in Site 19 seems to bleed into itself, like the edges of a still-wet watercolour.

You will hear NTF marching beside you in quiet hallways, only to see nothing, yet the sound remains persistent. Sometimes the keycard readers will open to no person and no card and close again like nothing had happened. Sometimes staff will need to double-take at the sight of you, the faces of strangers and friends, dead and alive blending and bending and distorting the visage at the corners of their eyes— like the stains of a double exposure on our reality.

Many such sightings have been detailed in her journal, but the recursive hallway is one of MANY, and the Site itself; it challenges her rationality at times.

Needless to say, it's just one reason why she is thankful for the Foundation's policy to give her chaperones to walk her to and from containment.

[readerinsertfanfiction]

Pastel and Bold

Fandom: Ikemen Vampire

Character: Vincent van Gogh

Prompt: The third victim in this Secret Santa countdown is @mezzy303. You were still fairly new in the server when the Secret Santa event was announced and the sign ups were opened, but I hope you will join us the next time! 

Pastel and bold colours, when Vincent heard about that combination alongside of her love for water there was a picture painted within his mind’s eye. One that was waiting to come alive on the canvas, one that was itching at him to be painted. It was the artist within him that sensed the challenge of making the colours work together. His love for the woman who managed to be both pastel and bold added into his determination to work on this piece into which he was to pour out all of his feelings.

“You’re so precious to me,” Vincent had smiled shyly as he asked her to sit in front of him. “I’m almost afraid I won’t capture every detail of yours,” he continued, using his brush as a measure to see how he was to translate his beloved’s features onto the canvas. Bold and pastels, he had to be careful to make sure that the colours didn’t drown each other out, that it wasn’t too overwhelming, but that it stayed true to her.

Somewhere he had considered incorporating several mediums at once. She had told him how this was popular in the modern era and Vincent liked the thought of it. For she wasn’t just watercolours to him, she was so much more than just another subject to paint, and the man agreed with the assessment that there wasn’t one technique he knew that could capture her loveliness.

And so he had it all laid out, not sure if he was to use everything, not even sure how to combine it yet. After all, Vincent had never tried it before and he had no clue if it was to work, but he was willing to experiment, to let his instincts take over where his experience left him.

And so Vincent gave her curls all of the bold and pastel colours he could find and mix, while her smile flowed like the riverbanks that he loved to walk past with her hand in hand, as her eyes shimmered like the brightest stars of the night. It captured her visage in all of the bold and pastel colours she was described to be, both calm and nurturing, but forward and passionate. It was the rising sun and the sunflower turning its crown towards the warmth all at the same time.

Vincent found that he did not have to worry about his inability to capture all what he loved best about her. For it was in everything that she was, and in everything she did and said.

[leviathan-dee]

The Duel

(Just a lil’ self indulgent oneshot duel between Vergil x Reader. I’m a hoe for tense sword fights). TW mentions of blood and violence.

Word Count: 1,472

Two tempests of flashing steel fought mercilessly, your unbridled desire for victory feeding the devil's wanton curiosity.

Read on AO3

A reverberation of clashing steel and pained grunts enveloped the tension thick air. You danced a lethal tango with your foe, his molten silver eyes following each of your steps like a hungry wolf. The arctic haired man seemed to mirror your every move. Your every slash. Your every passionate gaze. You both toyed with one another, testing the waters of your limits, gliding in harmony like reflections in the glass.

Outstretching your arm, you parried the devil’s lacerating slash with your blade, only to be knocked back with the hilt of his odachi. You flew all the way to the opposite side of the battlefield before catching a glimpse of diabolical mischievousness from your peer. To your surprise, as you landed, the chiseled features on the man’s visage softened, making him part his lips and huff a sigh of something that mirrored relief. You did the same, catching your breath and taking in the display of unbridled power and skill radiating from the figure before you. Undoubtedly, you were impressed with his abilities.

After moments of strained silence, the towering man stepped towards you, pointing his sheathed blade in your direction, smirking in a teasing manner. Phosphorous coils of azure energy lapped at the sword in his hand.

“Please, don’t be shy. Do try to hit me.” A husky voice, with a touch of adenoidal undertones, filled the air, his malicious snark adding salt to the wound. You scoffed in turn, your eyebrows furrowing to reflect your bitterness. This seemed to only fuel the inferno within your chest. Pointing your blade, the light refracting off of the metal in an almost angelic manner, you assumed a battle ready pose. Your eyes focused on the imposing silhouette on the horizon.

Pushing off of the ground, you launched at the towering figure. With an almost immediate reaction, the silver hair once again dodged your blade. His movements portrayed water, waves of trailing glittering energy licking at the surface of the field. The devil’s dodging was completely effortless. Time seemed to slow to a complete stop, letting you catch a glimpse of a dimpled, pleased smile on his face as you missed another blow. You returned his pleasure with a venomous grin, as you finally landed a slash against his lower lip, barely grazing at the skin.

However small the victory, it was enough to draw blood.

His trail of energy left mirrored images of his past self, like memories left behind, as he glided back into a defensive position. With the devil’s eyes darkening, a shiver of electric tension travelled down your spine. The slice at his flesh brought something carnal onto the surface. A lethal dance of blades against something so supple and fragile was bound to get a rise out of you.

Danger.

Domination.

Victory.

“Impressive.” The man grimaced, straightening his briar embellished coat and running his fingers through the arctic locks. Admittedly, you were awestruck at the successful blow, feeling swelling pride warming your chest at the sight of crimson trickling down the devil’s chin. A mere sliver of pause, the both of you gazed at one another, lusting for the others’ submission to defeat.

Tensing your shoulders, you deeply inhaled, shaking your blade off of any remaining droplets of sanguine. The man simply scanned your actions with eager eyes. Before resuming the duel, you cleared your parched throat, jumping head first into the tempestuous dance of blades. 

“Would you tell me your name?” Hesitant at first, the question sounded small, the embodiment of curiosity taking over your voice. The both of you clashed against one another, his odachi causing sparks to emerge from the friction against your sword. This was the closest you’ve been to your dueling peer, the proximity almost suffocating, as the scent of sweet spice enrobed your senses. The devil’s eyes continued scanning your struggle against his sheer force. With his blooming fervour for victory, a malicious ghost of a smile graced his lips.

“So you could beg me for mercy? Plead for benevolence with my name upon your tongue?” The sovereignty within his voice shook your very core. It was his wrathful defiance, the exchange of two unstoppable forces that released your infatuation for lethal duets. It was the rise of an unknown result of who will kneel before who, moments before they take their last shuddering breath.

Thus the duel continued. Neither of you wavered from your goal; To see the other fall to their knees.

“Is this all you’ve got?” You urged the silver eyed devil, teasing him as you parried and dodged his gashes, unknowingly ignoring the blows he landed. Your limbs ached, the sickeningly sweet burn of muscles pushing past their limits.

You were exhausted.

“Foolish girl.” Eyes never faltering in their pinning gaze, he slashed at your leg, the cloth slipping down to reveal the supple flesh of your thigh. The both of you seemed to pause, a trailing seductive smile tugging at his lips. You simply stared, knowing full well what was happening.

He was toying with you.

Playing dirty.

Raising your brow questioningly, you retorted with a huff, only to have it returned with a pleased hum from the devil, his gaze lingering on the exposed flesh of your loin. Continuing with the duel, you attempted to catch him off guard, slashing at his legs instead of the broad torso. Inevitably, he avoided this attack as well.

You were angry, enraged and feral. Haphazardly striking at the mischievous devil, your fury swelled at the fact that your skills only allowed one strike at the man.

Slippery bastard.

Time stretched, the arctic silver haired man finally decided it was enough of these pointless games. As he struck your abdomen with the hilt of his sword, you landed with a sickening crash against the floor. Your vision went blurry, and the taste of iron slipped past your lips. Just like that, he willed the duel to an end.

Pathetically resting on your knees, the world before you engorged as you shrunk to the cold surface of the battlefield. His dominant stance, and the glint of pleased victory in his dilated pupils, made the blood rush in your head that much more potent. Such dangerous beauty did he radiate. Such… grandiose elegance. His form was unlike you’ve ever witnessed.

A razor sharp blade caressed at the underside of your chin, lifting your head to meet the stoic gaze of your conqueror. You could feel the cold metal almost hiss against your hot, sweat slicked skin. The smirk on the victorious devil never faltered. You would’ve melted at his pinning gaze, lost in the ocean of his silver irises, if not for these dangerous circumstances.

“Mercy is the golden chain by which society is bound together,” a minuscule pause stretched into a tense silence, the icy surface of the man’s odachi pressing teasingly on your neck, “you, my dear, may address me as… Vergil Sparda.” His honeyed voice lingered in your mind, the name resounding like a familiar melody.

Vergil… Sparda...

“And you may call me Y/N.” You exhaled a shuddering breath, anticipating the closing of your life’s chapter. However, it never came. This Vergil simply pressed on the tender skin of your neck, drawing a sliver of crimson from your flesh, to then sheath the odachi achingly slowly. 

This was a warning.

Stroking at his cut lip, he brushed the wound clean with his thumb, observing the scarlet that you drew moments ago. Whether he was impressed or annoyed? You could not tell.

Before you knew it, Vergil’s ghostly complexion reddened at the sight beneath him. Gentle in his actions, he closed the gap between you, grasping your chin with calloused fingers.

“You have lavished me with an impressive duel, my dear. Perhaps we shall continue this fight another time. Farewell, Y/N.” Your name seemed to roll off his tongue effortlessly, his thumb slowly grazing at your bottom lip, smearing his own blood on your swollen skin.

His icy glare shifted across your form, taking in the artwork of violet watercolour spreading beneath your skin, and your fragile flesh tearing from his blade. You could gather that he was proud of his accomplishments, to see such a powerful foe brought to their knees before him. With a softened visage, his brows furrowed, and a smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, pulling the cut on his skin open anew. You returned the smirk. Humming to yourself, you knew full well that this was the start of an unlikely alliance.

Vergil Sparda gave a knowing nod, before turning on his heel in the opposite direction. As the swaying silhouette slowly drifted past the horizon, one thought bounced mercilessly in your already addled mind.

You’re damn right we’ll continue this fight, Vergil. And I don’t plan on losing next time.

[jimlingss]

A Kiss of Poison

➜ Words: 29.2k

➜ Genres: Angst, A Pinch of Fluff, But Still Mostly Angst

➜ Summary: You are the princess of the kingdom, ready to marry the prince/your childhood friend, Jeon Jungkook. But when you visit the forest one last time, an unsightly witch curses you. Now you wait for your prince’s rescue—but someone else might just beat him to the punch instead.

Or alternatively....

In fairytales, the prince saves the princess from the evil witch. No one ever expects the princess and the witch to be the same person.

➜ Warnings: gruesome and horrifying details, curses, lots of sad times, details of deformations, blood.

➜ Notes: this blog has gotten too soft lately. time to bring back the angst...Enjoy!

The mirror shimmers and a smile pulls onto your cheeks as you gaze at your own reflection.   “Why are you so happy, princess?”   “How could I not be?” You turn around from the plush seat at your vanity. With no one else present, you allow your hand to sneak to the back of his neck, tugging him closer. You’re unable to resist and you peck his soft lips with yours, all too quickly and sweetly, making an infectious smile spread across his visage. “Are you even allowed to be in here, Jungkook?”   “I might have slipped a coin into the maid’s pocket.” His grin turns all too cheeky, eyes crinkled in mirth, dark hair swept over to reveal his brow. Yet as cute he is, he still holds onto a princely aura that only acts to compliment his handsome appearance. “I just wanted a moment with you. You’re too busy these days. I missed you.”   You smile at him, all too endeared. “You’ve been busy too.”   “I know.” He sighs. “I can’t wait for this all to be over so I can finally have you for myself.”   You sympathize, petting his head in gentle touches as you whisper, “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for this?”   “It doesn’t matter anyways.” Jungkook is mischievous, making you laugh at how he hasn't changed at all. He’s still the boy you grew up with. “We’re getting married in a week.”   “I still don’t think my parents would be too happy if they knew you were in my chambers. What happens if rumours spread?”   Suddenly, Jungkook leans down and wraps his arms around your waist and the back of your knees. A squeal spills from your lips when he picks you up effortlessly, carrying you in his arms, grinning as you giggle. “It’s mid-day. What could possibly happen, princess? And don’t they want an heir anyways?”   “Jungkook!” you chide him and he laughs boyishly, staring into your eyes, his irises twinkling against the sunlight. He moves near the glass windows, bathing you both in the warmth of the sun rays and you snuggle into his arms, melting in his touch. “I want a chance to rule properly before we have any children. I can’t split my focus like that.”   “You’d make a fine queen even if we had kids running around the place,” he reassures with a soft smile. “If anything it would keep the maids busy and we’d get more time to ourselves.”   It’s peaceful and quiet. The serenity surrounds you both, allowing you a taste of what’s to come. Sometimes it baffles you how fortunate you are — to be so deeply in love with the one you are betrothed to, to have a future that is limitless, for your abilities to stretch so far that your imagination can’t conjure what possibilities can come. You have all you could ever wish for.   But unfortunately, the intimate moment with Jungkook is interrupted by a knock on the door.   “Your Highness? It’s time for you to bathe!”   The prince sighs, exchanging a look with you briefly before setting you back down on your feet. “See what I mean?”   You laugh, a hand placed on his firm chest as you plant a chaste kiss on his plush lips. “We’ll have our time together soon enough. Don’t worry.”   “I’ll look forward to that then.” He reluctantly pulls away, bowing and then taking the back of your hand to press a kiss on it. With one lingering gaze, he moves to open the door.   The maid downcasts her head in respect, stepping aside. Jungkook steals one last glance at you, flashing a smile before he drags his legs off.   You’re so incredibly happy — there isn’t a reason where you shouldn’t be. You’re a blushing bride about to marry your best friend, the love of your life. He’s going to become your partner and companion, and you’ll rule the kingdom together, allowing your tired parents to rest. The kingdom is at peace and prosperous. Your home is warm. Your heart has never been fuller.   This is your happily ever after.

“Your Highness!” There’s a shrill cry that befalls from her lips, eyes big as they watch you scatter around the room, hastily stuffing your belongings into a satchel.   “I will be fine,” you reassure her. “Everyone thinks I’m studying right now. And if they come, just tell them that I’m taking another bath or something and that I’ll be right back.”   “And what time will you come back?” The maid watches as you pluck your cloak from the hanger, draping your body with the thick black fabric and hiding the features of your face from the light.   “Definitely before sundown.” You grin, grabbing her arms, appeasing the worried younger girl. “I’m going to get married in seven days. Then I’ll have my coronation to become queen and I won’t be able to leave the castle freely after that. I just want to go out one last time. It’s not too much to ask, right?”   “Shouldn’t the prince come with you at least?” Her eyes are full of plea, asking you not to go, but you push the stone wall next to the bookcase, revealing the hidden exit. You’re too stubborn for your own good, mind already made up.   “Jungkook is busy and I don’t want to bother him.” You smile at her, casting a final glimpse. “I’ll be fine, trust me.”   The inner passageway leads you to the stables. There, you slip by the boy working, approaching a familiar horse. He resists against your hold until you reveal your face to the light. Immediately he calms down when he recognizes you, nuzzles into your hand that brushes against its muzzle. Before anyone realizes, you’ve burst through the back gates.   Hooves marking in the dirt, galloping away from luxuries handed on silver platters, you ride into the forest hollering at the top of your lungs. It’s not very sophisticated or demure behaviour, but no one here is watching. Not your parents, royal subjects, no dukes or duchesses. You are truly away from prying eyes, sharp judgments, snide comments.   The wind whips through your hair. The gentle breeze caresses against your cheeks, cooling the heat that have risen within them. The entire world is ahead of you. It’s the ultimate freedom.   The canopy of trees above your head is rustling, singing to you. The sunlight filters through the green leaves, warm luminescence painting the land vibrant. The birds swoop over the horizon, chickadees chirping their songs, wildlife peeking out from their homes. You follow the familiar dirt path, eyes sweeping against the flourishing, grassy landscapes. It’s nature in its greatest form. And it welcomes you.   More than the plain stones walls of the castle, the forest feels alive.   You pull the reins of the horse once you’ve made it to your destination. The lake shimmers with the beams of sunlight filtering through the tree leaves. It sparkles like the night sky or jewels spilt on marble flooring, and you hop down, lush grass beneath your feet softening your landing. Your horse rests and you inhale the fresh air, filling your lungs, still exhilarated from the ride here.   Without much thought, your feet approaches the glistening waters and as you lean over, you see your own clear reflection smiling down at you. Your gown drapes along the ground, surely to get in trouble with the other maids when they find grass stains in the expensive material, but you pay little mind to it.   As much as you love your life, sometimes you itch to get away and remember the world outside of the walls.   Baby breaths grow in a heap next to the lake and you reach down, plucking a stem from the ground, twirling the lovely flower between your fingertips. The birds sing together, chirping and tweeting as they—   “Exc...u..se...me...I-I...I need….he..l.p…” A croaking voice interrupts your thoughts. It sends chills to your spine, a hoarse timbre that sounds all too inhumane and you spin around.   An old woman is crouched over. Her spine is bent in half and she staggers, using a stick to walk. She emerges out of nowhere, seemingly past the thickened trees, wearing a black cloak much like yours, but with her hood shields away her face. More importantly, your attention is taken by an arrow pierced straight through her abdomen. Red stains her brown rags, seeping through her clothing, spreading like watercolour on a canvas.   You gasp. She wheezes.   Instantly, you come to stand, about to go over and tend to her wound. But then...a strong gust of wind sweeps through the land, whistling through the trees. It blows back her hood, letting the scrap of fabric flutter away.   Her horrid face is revealed.   Her flesh is thin, skeleton bones exposed, cheekbones and jaw shaven. Her skull is practically visible, every part of it hollow, left eye melted shut, right eye sunken in. The woman’s mouth is lopsided, bleeding gums revealed inside, jagged teeth barely hanging on to their root. Her features appear like they’re melting off of her. Hair stark white, falling out in clumps, her skin is burnt bright red as if she was caught in a fire and the flames imprinted their colour on her flesh.   You scream. Eyes wide, you scramble back on instinct, not realizing what’s behind you.   And you plunge into the lake.   The old woman shrieks in sheer horror. She throws her stick aside and stumbles towards the river, throwing herself near the edge with an arm outstretched. “Gra..b...my...han..d!”   “N-No!” you shout at her in the midst of panic and shock, choking on a mouthful of the water, air sucked out of your lungs. The heavy fabric of your gown drags you down and your arms flail uselessly, gasping above the surface. Still, your eyes remain above the water, pinned onto the monster, scared and frightened. “Do..n’t...t-touch me!”   The darkness begins to close around you. The water suffocates you. But with the fortune of the heavens on your side, your hands grab onto the edge, taking fistfuls of the soil. You push and pull yourself up, clawing your way out of the lake desperately until your fingernails are blackened with dirt.   You choke. Cough. Wheeze. Hyperventilate.   And the monster is collapsed a few feet away, heaving like you are. It petrifies you to look at her and when you’ve regained your sanity, you scramble back on alert, hair and clothes still dripping, bones shivering from the temperature difference. But your mind races, ready to jump onto your horse. Yet, your body remains frozen in spot, legs dead weight.   “Y-You….” She swallows hard, a pained voice croaking out, “...would rather...die...than let me help you?”   “What do you want from me?!” you scream, terrified at the stranger whose face has been mauled into bits now flaking off.   “Am I that monstrous to you?” The woman asks for an answer in a murmur and you realize she’s crying. From her sunken right eye, a tear drops down to her hollow cheek, through the twisting cracks of her peeling skin. “It’s people like you...people like you that my….my enti-..re..life I had to su-...ffer.”   The beast’s syllables are heavy while the red on its clothes begin to spread, staining the grass beneath it, dying in front of you.   “Go away!” you yell at the top of your lungs as if you could scare it away. You don’t know what it wants from you nor do you understand what it’s saying with that growling voice. “Go away! Leave me alone, monster!”   Her lopsided mouth tries to upturn, sad smile forming on her broken visage. “C-child, no one has shown me kindness….not you, not anyone. But...but I want someone to understand my pain...I want someone to empathize…”   Your eyes are shut tight, hands clasped over your ears, not listening, not looking.   “Take away this burden from me,” the woman murmurs on her dying breath, slumped to the ground on her knees, her eye piercing through yours. She sobs with the last of her diminishing energy and the wildlife comes forth from their hiding spots, coming to watch, coming to grieve for her. “You who has had all...bear this cruelty...”   It is chaos. The wind howls and shrieks. You scream, frightened.   “...understand the suffering you have caused me today….n-not even in my last moments...will someone show me pity or compassion…”   The leaves rustle to the hurricane, whispering their woes and eulogies of sympathy. Flowers rip from the ground, caught in the tornado, bouquets that act as tribute to honour her memory. The universe bears witness, pandemonium acting as a prayer, freeing her soul from the confines of her mangled skin.   “......take this curse…” Dark clouds roll over the horizon, shielding away sunlight. The woods become engulfed by a thickened blackness, bleeding through tree trunks and branches, filling the spaces between blades of grass. The shadows reach out, wrapping its fingers around throats to anchor itself down, more suffocating than to drown at the bottom of the lake. “...only then will you learn that beauty is meaningless.”   The forest is alive and it mourns.   The witch collapses, falling over to her side. All at once, your body glows and burns.   Your flesh feels like it’s aflame, sores beginning to split open all over your face, blisters oozing of golden pus. There’s a blood-curdling shriek that echoes throughout the woods, falling on deaf ears, and you realize it’s coming from you. The ear-splitting and discordant scream is tearing from your throat, filled with terror and hatred, agonizing as your bones snap one by one.   Something smells like it’s burning beneath your nose, ashes or embers caught in your lungs — it’s your flesh rotting on your body. Your fingernails claw up your throat, raking against your torso as you heave, face pressed into the dirt. Blood drips from the violent scratches, skin peeling off of you like a snake shedding. Your veins pump, heart erratic with this transformation….   This metamorphosis.   The air vibrates. The earth shakes beneath you. Your frame trembles, crying out. And the baby breaths wither in response.   //   A royal decree is declared across the land. While the family had tried to keep it discreet for fear of rousing concern from the citizens and allowing neighbouring countries to be aware of this vulnerability, far too much time has passed. A sun fall, sunrise, and yet another sun fall has caused news to break out. The princess has gone missing.   The horse had returned but without the girl in sight. Knights, troops, and the prince himself has ridden off as far as the border, searching through homes and meadows, fields and the forest — their efforts proven futile. You are nowhere to be found. You are gone. Disappeared out of thin air.   But no, you haven’t vanished.   You are here, walking, dragging your feet. After so much time, you lugged what remained of your body upwards, yanking yourself out of the forest and into the light, cloak acting as bandages to hide the wounds that have spread across your flesh. When hope is lost, when your pain flares, home is what makes you move forward. Home is where your mom and your dad is. Home is where Jungkook is. Home is where you will figure out how to return to yourself again.   “H...help me…” You tug on a guard’s arm outside the wall, head kept downcast, a croaking voice emanating from your mouth that you cannot discern as your own.   “Who are you?” He is on alert, pushing you back. From the sheer force, you fall down, shocked. No one ever dares to lay a hand on you and to be shoved in such a way, you are about to berate the guard for his audacity.   But what you fail to notice is that your hood has fallen. And the two guards at the front gate are equally disgusted and appalled. “Ugh!”   “How dare you?” you cry, fixing your hood and struggling to get to your feet. “I am the princess!”   Barks of laughter come from both men. “Then I am the king! Scram, monster.”   “No! I’m Y/N, the princess!” You lunge forward, shouting in outright desperation, waiting for your prince to come to your rescue, “Jungkook! Jeon Jungkook! It’s me!”   And you’re shoved back a second time. A sharp spear is pointed at your eyes, the soldier’s face twisting in fury. “How dare you call his majesty without any proper titles?! Who do you think you are?!”   “How dare you point a weapon at me.” Your voice is loud, commanding and your pupils narrow into his. “You will pay dearly for your mistakes.”   He snarls, unafraid of your threats and turns away to the other guards. “Lock this monster up! It dares to be disrespectful to the royal family and steal the identity of the missing princess.”   Two younger men gather, petrified of your outer appearance, but obeying their commands to drag you. Their hands wrap beneath your arms, lugging your legs against the ground. “How dare you?! Jungkook—! Let go of me this instant! Jungkook! Mom! I said let go! Dad! It’s me!”   …   The stone prison is cold, three walls looming over you, spiderwebs gathered in corners and rats scurrying away. You flinch when something scrapes your feet, so you gather your knees, rocking back and forth, surrounded in the darkness.   You won’t be so easily deterred. They’ll see you for who you really are. They’ll recognize your eyes. They’ll know what happened to you and they’ll fix it. Those guards will pay once the curse is removed. You’ll return back to normal, wed to Jungkook, and this event in the future will be seen as a mere mishap. Everything will be okay again. You believe it. You believe it. You believe it.   You know it.   Your thoughts are interrupted by scattering steps. There are faint echoes of voices too familiar from birth until now. You scramble forward, bony knees scraping along the stone flooring, grasping onto the steel bars that cage you inside, ignoring the cysts all along your hands. Your ankle is shackled to the wall, metal links clanging with every movement of yours, but it allows you to stretch yourself out to get closer to the voices.   “She says she is the princess.”   The King and Queen exchange a hopeful look with each other. Jungkook’s eyes widen. The Queen, your mother, smiles. “Take me to her.”   “I must warn you, Your Majesty,….to not get your hopes up.”   “Take me to her,” she repeats firmly and swiftly.   Rapid footsteps ricochet off the cold walls. They run, sprint into the darkness with open arms.   “Be careful,” the guard warns. “It is violent.”   Their shadows are casted on the floor as they approach and you could cry from sheer relief just from seeing their silhouettes. “Mom? Dad?”   “Y/N?” Your mother furrows her brows, unable to recognize the voice she hears.   “Step aside,” your dad commands the guard and after he obeys, the older man brings the light of the torch down towards the cell. The flames of the fire dance, flickering back and forth, warming you as it comes closer. It casts its luminescence down and a sliver of your face is revealed in the darkness.   Immediately, your dad shouts and staggers backwards. Your mother gasps in horror.   “It’s….me…”   Your crying does nothing for them. All they see is the way your eyes are bulging out of your sockets. Your nose is crooked. Your skin looks like it’s melting off of your face. Your scalp is reddened with disease, hair falling out from your scalp, fragile teeth blackened. There are open sores all over your raw flesh, as if maggots are chewing away at the dead parts.   You are monstrous. You are heinous. You no longer look human.   Your mother sobs and your father turns away from you. You gaze at his backside before looking at Jungkook beside them. He is even more horrified. “It’s me….I was cursed...I...I-”   “How does it have her clothes?” your mother begs your father for an answer, unable to rip her stare away.   He grabs onto her arm, harshly whispering, “Don’t look at it.”   “No….mom...dad…!”   Jungkook takes one step forward. “Why did you kill her?”   “What do you mean?” you keen, voice broken and croaking, unrecognizable no matter what you try to do. “I’m right here.”   Jungkook’s fist slams against the wall. You flinch. Your mother shouts in startlement. His arm drops to his side. His hand bleeds, bruises already beginning to form. “How could you?!” He gasps, intense eyes full of hatred. His jaw clenches, muscle in his cheek jumping as if he is ready to tear off your head. You’re scared. Before, he has only looked at you with loving eyes.   “Did you think you could kill her, take her clothes, and pretend to be her?! Did you think you could waltz into this castle so easily and be the princess, you evil monster?!”   Your mother cries and runs off with a hand over her mouth. You are left to defend yourself against these accusations. But they’ve all already made up their minds. “N-..no..no! I was cursed...I was cursed, Jungkook…”   You beg him to look at you — to really look at you.   He doesn’t.   “You’re scum,” Jungkook spits out in rage.   You weep, grasping onto the bars, holding them tightly even when the chain around your ankle threatens to pull you back into the darkness. You scour your mind for ways to get them to believe you and a thought ignites in your mind. The solution is presented on a silver platter, so easy, so simple—   “Kiss me, Jungkook,” you beg, “T-true love’s kiss breaks any curse.”   But the only thing he gives you is scorn. “To kiss you would be a kiss of poison.”   Your best friend, your fiancé, abandons you. He leaves, cape slicing through the air, never to turn around again. The guard doesn’t cast a glance down at you either. “What should we do, Your Highness?”   The King’s shadow hovers over you. You whimper, calling out to him, your father who held you as an infant, who you grew up to look up to, who adored every little thing you did. His eyes no longer hold endearment or mirth — they are blank.   “Execute the witch by morning.”   “Dad! No, wait! Please!” You scream after him until your croaking voice becomes hoarse, until the syllables that spill off your cracked lips are soundless. “I’m your daughter! Please! It’s me! I was cursed! It’s me!”   “Shut up!” The guard yells and turns around, kicking your hands off from gripping the bars. The bottom of his shoe slams on your fingers and a sore bursts. Pus splatters and you cry out in agony, gripping your hand and retreating into the darkness. At the back of the prison cell, you drown in tears.   //   The world that you have known is becoming undone. The happiness you held was so entirely fragile that your tight grip had shattered it completely. No one hears your crying, or notices the way tears have trailed down what is left of your cheeks. Even if they heard or saw, they see nothing but the monstrosity that has come to cover you from head to toe.   Morning comes and your throat cracks from the inside, lips begging for a sip of water that they never give to you. Your wrists are stacked together by metal cuffs. The sunlight burns into the back of your eyeballs. It hurts. You are dizzy. Your vision is blurry. And before you can realize your surroundings, you find yourself center stage.   It’s not a coronation to become queen. It is a march to your death.   There are people in front of you murmuring. You’re a freak to them, a beast they warn their children about. You recognize a few, royal subjects and workers, your maid who is aghast as she is devastated that her princess is gone. They will all cheer when you die.   “Mom...mom…” you call out to her while they shove you past, but instead of sobbing, her gaze is cold. She has no grief in her anymore, only loathing. Your father sits beside her on his throne and he signals with his hand. They both look down at you like you’re a murderer, someone who brutally killed their own daughter.   “Jungkook.”   The prince ignores you. He is your last hope, the one you have not given up on. You are grasping onto everything that you have left, even as it is slipping from your fingertips. But you are too desperate to give up. You love him. He loves you. And he will see past this.   You are pushed onto your knees, head shoved down on a blood-stained wooden table by a guard. The executioner approaches with an axe. It is all too demeaning, to be kneeling in this position in front of the entire world, in front of your family, in front of the citizens you are supposed to rule over.   It soils your status. You are ashamed.   “For the murder of the dearest princess, for stealing her clothes and memories with dark magic—”   But your pride, the words of the man reading out your crimes, don’t matter to you. You twist yourself to look at him and you beg for him to see beneath your horrid skin. “Jungkook.”   “—acting as an impostor and attempting to bewitch the royal family into believing your evil schemes to take over this kingdom—”   “Jungkook.”   “....your crimes are worthy of death itself.”   “Jungkook.” You’ve been taught to hold your head up high, to stand tall, to smile. But here, you are choking on your own tears, gagging over air too thick to swallow. No one offers you pity or compassion. “You s-...said...you would l-love me...y-you promised to marry me...remember?”   He looks at you. The executioner waits for a signal. Jungkook steps forward. The king makes no movements.   A smile tugs on your maimed face, past the cracked, raw flesh. “Y-you’re my best friend...you said it doesn’t matter if we have a daughter or a son...as long as they’re like me…”   “Tell me…” Jungkook speaks to you. He swallows hard. He looks you in the eyes. “...what was her last words?”   “What do you mean?!” you scream and your head is forcibly shoved down again. You struggle against their hold and against your chains, the rush of tears clouding your vision. The blisters on your face begin to pop and bleed, filing between the deep twisting cracks of your face. “It’s me! I’m Y/N. I’m the princess. I’m supposed to marry you! Look at me, Jungkook! LOOK AT ME!”   “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”   He steps back, shaking his head, looking away.   “I love you.”   Your father grits his teeth together, unable to keep watching. His eyes are stern, voice demanding. “Kill the monster!”   “I love you,” you repeat. “I love you.”   You are no longer the princess of the kingdom. You have lost everything — your family, the love of your life, your status, your dignity, your own name. You have been betrayed. Home has been ripped away from you. You have become the enemy.   Your breath staggers. Inhale. Exhale. The sound of the blade whistles in the wind.   It is chaos. The wind howls and shrieks. You shut your eyes tight. It is despicable. It is cruel. You are going to die by the hands of the people you love most, all because they do not believe who you are beneath this skin-deep layer. All because of how you appear, no one will look.   No one will listen.   Don’t look at it — You’re scum — Leave me alone, monster!   You scream, deep within your chest to the pits of your stomach. It is made of hatred. Sorrow has morphed into animosity. The metal chains break from your fury and there are shouts from the crowd, people gasping and running back. The executioner is forcibly thrown away from you by an unseeable force. Your father stands, shouting for the guards. Your mom cries out. Jungkook staggers back.   Sobs tear through your throat, scratching its way out. Your body is aflame. There is a burst of light and each person shields their eyes away too pained to look at it. And when it is gone, they turn to find nothing left but ash.   You have truly vanished into thin air.

The cold nips with the force of a starved animal sinking its teeth into their dead prey. The blackened sky weeps, grieving for your death, having to bear witness to the travesty of your name being laid to rest. The rain is thickened, heavy like curtains of the sky, unable to be seen through.   And you slip.   Your eyes squint. Your feet are slick in the mud. When you collide against the ground, you pick yourself back up, grabbing the dirt, pulling your body upwards. As you shake and tremble in the frigid temperature, your skin splits into deeper grooves, lips cracked, hands chipping away. You follow the only light you’ve seen for miles — the house on the hilltop.   The uphill trek is difficult on your aching legs. But you make it after an hour and you knock on the grandiose front door.   “O-oh. Hello?” After several seconds, a servant is peeking her eye through the gap, parting the door ever so slightly and scanning your shivering frame. “How may I help you?”   “It’s s-so….cold. I’ve been walking for d-days.” What’s left of your teeth is chattering. You can’t control the shivers that have taken over your bent spine, causing the rest of your form to quiver. You’re drenched from head to toe, making a mess on the doorstep, but you keep your head down, pleading with the woman, “can I please stay here? Just for one night.”   “Umm...I can’t let you in without the master’s permission.” She dips her head in apology. “Let me go ask him.”   You nod and the door shuts again. From the glass windows, you can see the fireplace crackling inside, the candlelight flickering. Music seeps out through the bottom crack of the door, laughter from the other side drowning out the sound of the rain pummelling on the planet. The warmth that you so desperately seek is merely past this wall. It’s so close, but out of reach.   You wait. Wait. And wait.   As the outside becomes colder, your breaths become shallow, a cloud seen with every exhale. Something catches in the corner of your eyes and when you turn, you notice underneath the window pane is a rose bush. The red petals spill from the center, flourishing and drinking up the water that falls from the sky, round droplets hugging on the leaves. You stare at it….until the door opens again.   “What is it?”   A man looms over you, standing tall, looking down at your hunched form.   “My name is...I’m—….I’ve been walking for days. It’s so cold outside….can I please stay for one night? I promise I’ll be gone by morning.”   “My home is not an inn where you can come and go as you please,” he hisses in a curt manner, ready to slam the door.   “Wait!” You throw your hand on the edge of the door frame, stopping him. From the small inch that you’ve gotten closer inside, you can begin to feel the warmth melt the numbness from your fingers away.   But you make the mistake of lifting your head.   The baron draws a sharp breath, wavering back, eyes wide. He is repelled by the sight of you. The top layer of your skin is ripping off like a snake halfway through its shedding process. Red sores and blisters throbbing with pus grow all over your raw flesh, scalp stained green, eyeballs bulging from their sockets. It is sickening to even take one glance at you.   “You’re disgusting!” The baron shoos you away like you’re a diseased stray dog. “Get away, get away!”   “Wait, please!” You grab the door and he has no regard, slamming it shut, right on top of your fingers. You cry out, trying to rip your arm back, but it’s stuck. The horrified man opens it again thirty seconds too late when your fingers are now bruised purple and blue, crooked and broken.   “Shoo!” He chases you out with a golden candelabra, waving it around as if he is threatening to hit you with it. “Be gone, creature!”   You’re pushed backwards into the rain, back into the mud. It splatters, staining your cloak brown, your scraped knees stinging in the grime. Your hood falls and the downpour washes down your face acting as the tears you can no longer shed.   “Master!” A plump servant and a thinner one come racing out to bring the baron back inside into warmth. But he stays at the doorstep, shouting at you to scram from his home.   “You vile, disgusting creature! Be gone!”   Again — the stare of hatred. The expression of loathing. Except, this time you don’t beg to be understood, you don’t try to explain yourself, you do not wallow in sadness. You match it.   The wind whistles around you. You stagger back to your feet. The storm becomes heavier, dragging you down, keeping you rooted.   “You should not be deceived by appearances. Beauty is only skin deep. And you…” Your crooked finger swollen and blue points at his face. The hand you lift quivers as you warn him. “...you are uglier than I am.”   “Spoiled.” The syllables shake, vibrating the air surrounding you. It is spoken with the same vigor as swearing an oath. The rain has become silenced in your wrath. “Selfish.” It booms across the land. The croaking voice emanating from your throat hisses. “Unkind.”   But the man doesn’t listen. “Be gone!”   An angered cry tears through your throat. “You are more vile than I am. You are the disgusting creature who will show no mercy to the wretched and poor. All I asked was for warmth and you have turned me away. People like you…..people like you is why I have been abandoned.”   In the midst of the roaring rain, a tear drops from your eyes but is lost in the flood. Your arm extends to him again, but this time the man is taken back. His servants shriek in fear and they all stumble. There is a burst of light that comes from you, one you are only beginning to learn how to control.   You curse him in a single murmur, “let what is unseen by the eyes show.”   There’s a blood-curdling shriek, louder than the thunder rumbling in the horizon. The man crashes to his knees. He grips his burning face, succumbing to his inner self. His servants scream in chaos, shielding away their eyes as he transforms into a hideous beast.   A rose falls from the bush, plunging and rolling right in front of him. The thorns are sharp all around the stem, warning not to be touched. But the flower is overflowing and abundant in red petals, the colour of blood spilled; it acts as a reminder of the beauty that was taken from him.   With your injured hand clutched to your chest, you walk away. The man’s screams still ring into the air, haunting your shadow. You are reminded that you will never find a home if there is someone else there to see you.

When there’s no place left to go, when there is no one to turn to, you still manage to scrape by. The will to live has always been strong within you and maybe it’s from some false sense of hope. Maybe it is from a belief that someday you will find a cure for yourself, that someday there will be a knock at the door and Jungkook will appear. Someday, you will return back home again and they will accept you with open arms.

  It is this very someday, this dream, this vision that drives you forward. You cannot, will not, give up when you see this image when you shut your eyes. And the more you think about it...the more real it becomes.   “I’m sorry.” — Jungkook would whisper while holding onto you, enveloping your frame despite your hideous appearance. You would feel the warmth of his body, the gentle touch of his hand stroking your back to comfort you. You would dig your nose into his shoulder, take in the scent of the sea. Then like always, he would say — “I love you.”   And when you return home, the servants and citizens would clap, your mother would hug you, your father would apologize a thousand times. They wouldn’t care what you looked like. They wouldn’t care about what you’ve become. They would still love you.   It feels so real. Maybe because you’ve dreamt of it so much.   But until that day comes, you will survive.   You find yourself a place, a temporary home. It’s a cottage that’s been abandoned, one that you bought with whatever jewelry and gold bound on your wrists, hidden deep within your pockets. It’s on the outskirts of a far-away village, isolated from others, where you can hide yourself and not cause anyone to become scared. As a cautionary measure, you only emerge at night if need be, making sure to cover your face with your cloak. Often times people’s reaction to your exterior frightens you more than their own terror.   But what you fail to notice is how quickly rumours begin to spread in the village.   “Who is she?” — “I heard that woman is a murderer.” — “Be careful of the outcast.” — “Don’t look her in the eyes or you will turn into stone, alright?”   Even if you have caught wind of the things murmured, you pay no mind. It is harmless and you’ve quickly gotten used to humiliation and slander. They don’t know who you are, they don’t know what your story is. The whispers are meaningless.   But one thing that you do become known for is your garden.   If you’re no longer beautiful, then you can still surround yourself in beauty.   You preoccupy yourself behind the cottage, working throughout the night, using the dim moonlight to tend to it. Never in the palace would you have been able to do such a thing, to put your hands in the soil, to kneel in the dirt. But it makes you feel alive.   The flowers speak to you. Every day, you can see progress, you watch it grow, from the tiny sprout into buds. Your hard work is worth the effort, ripping out weeds by the fistful, watering them. It’s fulfilling to know your time isn’t spent so meaninglessly, even if the labour makes sweat pour from your head.   Tulips. Daffodils. Carnations. Sunflowers. Lilies. Baby’s Breath. Anything that you can get your hands on, you sow into the ground, watching to see what you reap, what blooms. And it’s a peaceful life. You’re content by yourself, simply waiting for the day that Jungkook will arrive.   But as you isolate yourself, your neighbors grow increasingly and increasingly curious. Even when they’re acres away, taking the path towards the forest each morning, they watch the garden flourish. And they come to ask questions as to why the owner of the house never makes an appearance during the daytime.   “Honey.” One night, a woman shakes her husband awake. “Honey…”   “What’s wrong?”   “I can’t sleep.”   “Are you hungry again?”   “No, that’s not it.”   He reaches over to light a candle at the bedside and he helps her sit up, leaning against the headboard of their meager bed. She turns to him, stroking her swollen stomach. Heavily pregnant, the couple have been long awaiting for their child to arrive. “What is it then?”   “Those flowers….from the neighbor’s,” the woman murmurs as if the shadows are listening, “how are they so beautiful?”   “I don’t know.” The man scratches his head in bewilderment, wondering why his wife is bringing this up in the middle of the night.   “They smell so good...I just….want one.”   “What? I’ll just buy you flowers from the florist tomorrow morning.”   “No, it’s not the same.” There’s a crazed look in her eyes, intensified through the light of the flickering candlelight, half her face covered in the darkness. “It’s almost like her’s is…..magic…”   “Don’t say that.” He sighs in exhaustion, unable to understand this nonsense. “Honey, just go back to bed. You’re not making any sense right now. We’ll talk about it later, alright?”   “I can’t stop thinking about it.” She lays down again, staring at the ceiling blankly. “Is it so bad to just take one?”   “Yes. That’s stealing and haven’t you heard all the rumours?”   She rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you actually believe those ridiculous things.”   “I just don’t want to upset anyone.” He moves to lay beside her again.   “I want our child to be as beautiful as those flowers,” she wistfully sighs. “I feel like getting one could help us with that, like a blessing.”   “You’re dreaming again,” he chides. “Sleep.”   But the woman was obsessed with it. She cannot stop her fixation of the flowers. The infatuation of them drives her mad and she refuses to eat, to drink, mind absorbed in one thing only. In three days time, the woman becomes sick and bedridden, endangering her child and the man is left helpless, having no other choice.   In the middle of the day, knowing that you won’t come out, he walks across acres and reaches over the white fence, plucking a tulip from the ground, snapping the stem in half. He runs.   It is mystical, the way his wife returns to her full health, the way she is normal and overjoyed again. But in five days, the purple floral withers.   “What’s wrong with you?”   “I need another flower.”   “What?” The man is in distress, following his pregnant wife around as she paces, one hand against her back and the other on her belly. He shakes his head, at wits end. “No, I can’t.”   “I NEED it!” She screams, losing her mind, trembling. “Those flowers, they’re magic. I can feel it.” The woman stops, grabbing her husband and holding onto his arms. She crazily searches his expression. “It makes me sad, but when I touch them, when I smell them, they give me a sense of….hope.”   “What are you talking about?”   “You don’t understand. I need it,” she pleads and begs like there is a scratch beneath her skin she cannot get to. It is as if she has become enchanted and bewitched by the flowers. The woman forces his hand over her swollen stomach. “If not for me, then for our baby. I could feel our baby move every time I was near that flower, but ever since it died...I can’t feel our child stir anymore.”   “...What?”   The woman sobs. “Please….please…”   The man becomes frantic. He steals another, and another. They die quicker than the last, petals and leaves withering away into grey hues. But the man begins to comprehend his wife’s obsession. They are indeed lovely florals, the biggest he’s ever seen, abundant in petals, rich in colour. His heart hurts when he nears the garden, but when he touches a flower, there is a burst of happiness...a burst of faith.   At first, you pay no mind. One or two flowers missing, it could be the wind or an animal or maybe a child wandering into your garden and not knowing better. It angers you, but you push it away. Until —   One night you open the door, watering pot in hand, but nothing remains. Gone. All of your beautiful flowers have been plucked, trampled, encroached. What remains is dirt, weeds, and stems snapped halfway. Everything that you had worked so hard for is stomped on and torn.   Flowers plucked, ripped away, yanked, the garden is pillaged and ransacked like a wild animal had been starved for decades. The most precious part of your horrid life has been stolen. You collapse in what remains. Lost.   But there are petals littering the ground, tiny ones of flowers that haven’t bloomed, of buds that have yet to open. And you follow that way lit by the moonlight, bumbling and stumbling, every step becoming heavier and heavier. Jungkook will never find you. You walk the flowered path, legs quivering in the breeze. Your face will never return to how it was. The grass prickles your bare feet. Your mother loathes you. It smells of soft fragrances that clung onto your bed sheets back home. Your father hates you. The world is silent. Everything is lost.   The door bursts open. The husband and wife scream.   In their home, their tables, chairs, the floor and their laps are filled of your flowers plucked. It coats every object inside of the cottage. The things that you were keeping alive — dead.   They cry and cower in the corner. The man shields his wife away, crouching back at the disgusting sight of you; your burnt flesh tinged in the colour of red roses, melted skin blooming of blisters and bruises, disfigured features arranged like they are falling off.   “You...you stole my flowers?” You drop to the ground, sobbing from your bulging eyes to your hollowed out cheeks. Your croaking voice screeches and bleeds their ears. “You ripped them away! You killed them!”   They were the only things giving you hope. And they’re...gone.   “W-...W-We’re s-...s...s-sorry!” The husband covers his wife with his body. “My-my...my wife is pregnant! P-please don’t harm her...i-if you want...t-take me instead!”   “No!” She wails out, hugging her husband’s backside as if she could anchor him down. “NO!”   “P-please don’t hurt her!” The cowardice man is rubbing his hands together, begging for mercy as he curls up in the corner beside his wife. “S-s-she’s pregnant!”   Your neck cranes. Your eyes narrow. Your arm lifts and you jut out your finger. “I’ve always wanted a little girl,” you tell them with a croaking voice and a soft smile appears on your lopsided mouth.   You always imagined a child, a baby cooing in your arms, bundled up in blankets, sleeping peacefully. He would come behind you, prop his chin on your shoulder, wrap his arms around your body like he so often does and together, you would gaze down at your child. But now you realize it isn’t a dream or a vision of the future that you see. It’s purely imagination.   Delusion.   “Jungkook….he wanted one too…”   “No...no...please.” The father-to-be begs, shaking as he tries to protect his family. “S-spare my child…”   You swallow hard, tearing your eyes away from them and down to the floor. Your fists are full of pink — yellow — blue — indigo petals. Each of them are soft to the touch, silk to your fingertips, pastel colours bleeding from a strong hue to a fainter shade in their teardrop shape.   “Your daughter will be beautiful, but it’s a shame her parents are greedy thieves,” you whisper, looking back at them, cursing the couple in both sadness and wrath. “On her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger and fall into an endless sleep.”   “NO!” The woman shrieks, crying out loud.   There’s a burst of light. The curse sets into stone. When the light diminishes, you are able to watch sunspots and sparks dance around the room, flickering like fire, moving like fireflies. They weave through the grieving pair, the gaps of your fingers, your little strands of grey hair remaining. The petals are still soft in your hands, but you let them go, staggering up.   They cry and you stop for a moment, gripping the door frame. But you never look behind you, lugging your body back to where it belongs.   //   It’s not long before chaos unravels again. The man becomes furious after he realizes what you’ve done, how you’ve cursed his future child and made his wife fear for her life. He gathers the villagers, revealing what had occurred on that very night, of course leaving out the part that he had stolen from you. He paints you as evil, merciless...and maybe you are.   But the villagers are all appalled, gasping, mothers worried about their own children, fathers stepping up to protect their families. They gather pitchforks and torches, stomping on the land.   “Kill the witch!”   They march together. “Kill the witch!”   “Kill the witch!” They hunt to burn you at the stake.   They holler, parading to the outskirts. “Kill the witch!”   “Kill the witch!” They trample on the dirt of your garden, kicking the loose stems and leaves.   The people surround your house, holding pitchforks high in the air, any knives and kitchen tools that they could defend themselves with. “Kill the witch!”   A brave soul steps forth, knocking down the front of your cottage door. There is silence. No one is there. “The witch isn’t here...?”   That’s right. You aren’t there. Your belongings are in your arms as you’re running, right leg limping behind with the sores that have grown all over your swollen ankles. Your clothes are packed with you, bread that you had left over. “Kill the witch!”   Their voices become closer, echoing through the forest and when you twist around to see them, you trip on a branch. Your broken face meets the dirt, colliding hard enough to dive a few inches away. But you don’t dwell on the pain that shoots up your muscles, ignoring the shock that your body feels. You pick up your bread soiled in the grime, collecting your things again, running, chased...yet again.   “Kill the witch!” — “Kill the witch!” — “Kill the witch!”   Jungkook will never find you. Yes. As long as you look like this. As long as you’re in this state, you are a witch. Y/N has died. Jungkook will never come for you. Your mom and dad will look at you in fear and hatred. Not even will flowers, inanimate objects, be capable of loving you.   “Kill the witch!”   You will always be seen as a monster.

“Hello, excuse me?”   “How may I help you?”   There’s a young man with plump cheeks, a gentle smile. His dark hair shags on his forehead, almost pricking into his cute eyes. His cotton clothes are muted in colour, showing that he is not overabundant in fortune. “Do you know where the inn is?”   “It should be down this market street, towards your left side.”   “Thank you.”   “You’re welcome. Any time.” The older woman behind her booth smiles in return, appreciating the polite young man. She watches as he walks away and then a frown mars her face, lips falling into a neutral position. He drags his foot as he walks, a limp in his left leg and a slight hunch of his back. She sighs in disappointment, turning away. What a shame….   But it wasn’t only those things. If the woman knew, she’d be aware that the boy has a burn mark that stretches from the top of his ribs to the right side of his neck. Like rose veins growing up his body, stretching across his skin in twisting marks, his skin slightly splitted with pink flesh underneath. But his scar is hidden beneath his clothing while his bad leg is on display, letting others stare occasionally — though he still does not mind much.   He walks down the path, looking ahead in the direction that the woman provided. The young man does not notice the other figure on the busy street. He pays no mind. And his shoulder collides with someone else’s, causing them to stumble back a step.   “I’m so sorr—”   “Minah?”   Your eyes are wide, bated breath held in your throat. Jimin’s eyes are big as well, pupils growing, mouth drawing open. He hasn’t heard that name for over a decade. “Y/N?”   You snap out of it, flinching back when you hear your name. “N-no...you’re mistaken.”   Your body turns around and takes flight before your mind can catch up. The young man is frozen, at a standstill. But then he runs. He runs after you - limping - leaping - struggling. Jimin drags his bad leg behind himself, accelerating forward as he shouts your name aloud for all to hear. He makes an absolute ruckus, drawing attention, making strangers turn to watch.   There is no way. No one else calls by that name. He’s sure of it. He knows that it’s you.   Even if you’re oddly shorter. Even if your voice doesn’t sound the same.   Jimin doesn’t need to see you to know it’s you.   “Y/N!” He grabs your arm, pulling you back.   “No!” you cry out, hidden behind your hood, downcasting your head. “Don’t look at me, Jimin. Don’t look at me.” Your hands are quivering, lifting to cover your face with your palms. He notices the red boils all over the back of your hand and he complies, releasing you and stepping back. “DON’T LOOK AT ME!”   //   It is silent. The bustling town becoming subdued into background noise. He approaches a man at a market stand, skimming through the objects laid out on the table brought from foreign countries, fancy souvenirs and little knick-knacks of all sorts of things. Luckily, he finds what he’s searching for and points to it.   “Hi, can I purchase this?”   He pulls out the right amount of coins and what’s left, he uses to buy some food.   Jimin approaches in slow steps. He gazes at your backside draped in the black cloak, oblivious to his arrival, simply staring out at the azure horizon beneath a tree. You’ve calmed down, no longer hysterical and he keeps his promise of not looking at your face. “Here.”   You peek up at him. Jimin is gawking at the clouds, refusing to look down. You take the mask from his hands. It’s painted in a plain seashell white, two holes for the eyes, a place for the nose and the mouth to breathe and speak. You put it on. And Jimin plops down beside you on the grass, finally looking at you.   “You must be hungry.” He hands you the bread with a soft smile.   “Thanks…” You take it, ripping a corner and it melts on your tongue. There’s no need to spit out tiny rocks or cough on dirt and debris. You can’t remember the last time you ate properly and your stomach growls, starved for days. Like an animal, you grip onto the warm bread with dirtied hands, chomping furiously, inhaling it whole.   Between the pair of you, it’s quiet for a long time, perhaps an hour or more. You’re simply accompanied by each other, getting used to the other’s presence first. There are so many questions to be asked, answers to receive, but nothing is spoken. It’s peaceful, serene — something you don’t experience quite often anymore.   “Where’s your father?” you ask.   The young man looks into his lap with a sad smile pulling into his cheeks. “He died.”   “I’m….I’m sorry.”   “It’s alright. He was old anyways.” Jimin takes a large inhale, enough to fill his lungs and brace himself for his first confession. “I fought in the war.”   “The war?”   “Up north. Four years ago. That’s why my leg and back is like this,” he explains and then tugs on his collar slightly, revealing part of the scar and his patchy skin. “That’s where this is from.”   “I…” You don’t know what to say. It’s been so long that the two of you are less like acquaintances and more like strangers with no connection. You don’t know the person he’s become and he most certainly does not know what you have become. “Why didn’t you ever come back?”   The corners of his mouth tugs upwards and he leans back, looking out at the horizon again. “There were so many places to go, so many places to do. I didn’t think you would remember a peasant boy like me. I...didn’t want you to be ashamed of me either.”   “You’re an idiot,” you spit out and he giggles, a squeaky noise that still shows his youth. For the first time in months, you smile as well, laughing with him even if it’s foreign, awkward, and sounds more like cackling. It’s the first time you’re feeling more like yourself.   “We’re friends, Jimin,” you correct him, though you aren’t so sure of if he still is a friend now. He may have been born of a lower class, but you, Jungkook, and Jimin were all childhood friends. You played together until he left with his dad before you turned ten. “I would’ve never been ashamed of you…”   “I’m sorry I didn’t keep in contact.”   “No, it’s okay,” you exhale. If you were frank, you didn’t know what to say or do. You were overwhelmed, sitting here with someone who used to know you, someone who knows your name, believes you beneath this ugly skin; the only person who sees you for who you are.   With his confession, you prepare for your own. “Jungkook and I…...we’re not getting married.”   He turns to you, quiet. Jimin doesn’t prod or dig deeper. He lets you tell him whatever you want, but his shock and confusion isn’t easy to hide. He never expected to run into you here. Even less, he never expected that you would be in such a state. You — the beautiful princess betrothed to the prince, ready to rule the entire kingdom together.   “I was….I was…” A thick lump forms in your throat. You detest the sound of your grating voice, a voice that is not yours. The desire to rip off your entire face is too much. As hideous as you appear, you feel ugly too. Your skin is itchy and cracking, always uncomfortable. There are boils that ooze of pus if you press too hard, raw flesh that makes it impossible to scratch. But some part of you feels better now that you’re fully covered with a mask. “I...was cursed by a witch.”   “And Jungkook?” Jimin seeks an answer, wanting to know.   “He doesn’t believe me. He thinks...he thinks I’m the witch who killed me.”   “That’s ridiculous.” Jimin takes your hand and when you flinch back, he never wavers, preparing to get up, curling his fingers around your wrist despite the rough skin there. It reminds you too much of when you were still children and he dragged you to places. But you’ve grown up long ago. “We need to go to the castle. I’ll help you explain. I’ll tell them who you are.”   “NO!” you shout, withdrawing your hand to your chest. “You don’t understand. They almost killed me!”   “What?!”   “They called for my execution,” you sob out, heart wrenching, full of the agony sewn deep into your chest. “My own parents threw me out! Look at me, Jimin. LOOK at me! Would they ever believe that this is their daughter?! Would Jungkook ever believe it’s me?!”   “But...but—”   “But nothing!” You’re exhausted and you’ve given up. The bottom of your mask drips of your teardrops. “They think I’m the witch who killed the princess, who stole her clothes, her memory, who’s trying to manipulate the kingdom…..and they’re going to believe whatever they want to believe. Just….look at me.”   He says nothing.   You swallow hard, sharing your grief, your anguish, your loss. You don’t even know if Jimin will believe you. He might just turn around, gather people, burn you at the stake. At this point, you wouldn’t run anymore. Your feet are bleeding, calluses forming all over the soles. You won’t make it far even if you tried. Maybe you should just give u—   “Where are you going now?”   “I don’t know.”   “Then let me come with you.”   You’re a burden. Why would he ever want to come with you, you’re unable to understand. “You don’t want that. I—”   “But I do.” He smiles. “I have nowhere else to go either.”   “Jimin…”   “So let me come with you.” He extends his arm, patting the top of your head over the hood once, gently, making you duck down and he retracts it with a small laugh. “Like the old days. We can have those adventures you always talked about.”   “It’s different now.” You’re speechless. “People, they don’t….they…”   “Can I come with you?” Jimin asks you sincerely and he is patient when waiting for your answer.   You’re not sure if he is just the same genuinely kind boy from years ago or maybe it’s just that he has sympathy and pity for you right now. The one thing you’re certain of is that if it is the former reason then he’s an idiot as always. If it’s the latter reason, there will come a day when his pity will run out and you will be abandoned again.   Nevertheless, you gaze at him and he gazes back at you.   You wonder how he can bear smiling at you like that.

There are days when it feels as if you were cursed eons ago. There are days when you forget you didn’t always look like this. There are days when you believe that this has been your entire life.   Those days are the easiest — you don’t remember what you lost.   When you encountered that witch all that time ago, you weren’t just cursed. It was less of a jinx and more of an inheritance. You not only received her legacy of a misfortunate face, but also the witch’s magic.   At first you were only able to channel it through anger and grief, cursing others as she had once done to you. Though as your life began to calm itself and your mind became clear, you began to tap into what was wrongfully bestowed upon you.   “A eucalyptus stem, a dash of peppermint oil,” you mutter, throwing the objects inside the pot, brewing it over the fire. The colour ripples and morphs from an apricot shade into deep plum. It oozes, boiling with thickened bubbles that pop at the surface. You look back to the old pages of the black book falling apart, words faint, drawings faded away in the ancient parchment.   Once it’s completed, you scoop the liquid with a ladle, pouring it into a bowl. It is a bitter scent that overwhelms your senses. But you repress the urge to gag and you brace yourself, taking a drink.   A second passes. You move towards the mirror on the wall. And you wait.   You wait for your skin to bubble, for your features to shift, for your face to return to the way it was. But it remains the same. The frame of your skull is seen, burnt skin thin, flesh raw and reddened. Your cheeks are hollow, eyes bulging out of their sockets, cysts and ulcers protruding in between your cracking skin. Nothing changes.   The mirror shimmers and you shriek.   The image that you see is horrific and your fingernails scratch against your dead flesh, leaving a trail of marks. You launch the bowl towards the clear surface. It smashes on impact. The mirror shatters — grooves separated the sharp pieces — jagged lines twisting into a spider web pattern. The liquid splatters, turning into a silver hue as it’s whipped in the air, the shade of moonlight. It drips down the wallpaper, weeping down into a sad puddle and expanding.   It shimmers with a touch of magic, liquid turning into its own mirror, reflecting the ceiling, mocking you. The one still on the wall is undisturbed, now reflecting your face at different angles, your eyes appearing tens of times, reminiscent to that of a spider. You hyperventilate, inhales and exhales staggering out of your lungs and then you march away, slamming the door open to the next room.   Three strides and you rip down the dusty fabric covering the full-length mirror in the corner. The clean surface is revealed and you grab the clock on the nearby table, hurling it at the glass and it bursts. The shards rush down in a shower, crystals and tiny fragments sparkling like jewels in the sunlight. You rush to the next room, tearing down yet another sheet covering the mirror and the oil lamp you throw crashes into it.   It splinters, cracks, ruined. You destroy every mirror that’s in your reach. Your reflection becomes fractured, splitting like your skin, and you scream.   “Y/N, Y/N!” There’s a call of your name, someone shaking your frame. “Y/N!”   You realize you’ve sunk into the ground, bleeding hands trembling and covering your face. “Don’t look at me, Jimin. Don’t look at me!”   “I won’t,” he promises and repeats, calming your hysteria. “I won’t.”   This is your home now — an abandoned castle found deep within the forest, lost in a siege and to history from decades ago. The stone walls are barely held together, floors damp and molded, the cold wind whistling through the grey bricks, but while the repairs are slow, they are surely being done. Jimin is working hard to make it more comfortable. And it’s your home now — you have to constantly keep reminding yourself.   There is no way you will return to where you grew up. There is no way you can go back to your palace where warmth was so easily found, where walls were white and paintings were hung, where a flicker of your hand could have servants running. There is no possible way you can be a part of that life anymore.   “There’s nothing…..nothing I can do.” You sit on a stool, bandaged hands in your lap, white mask on your face hiding your features. The black hood hides your head and you feel safe again, albeit ashamed. You watch as Jimin crouches down and cleans up your mess.   “I’ve tried everything. Everything that I could get my hands on, all the spells, the potions….but nothing works.”   “It’s okay.” A smile pulls on his features and he glances at you. “You’ll get it next time.”   It’s silent for a moment. Jimin is busy scrubbing the mess on the wall, picking up the glass shards. You feel like you’re a child grounded, all too guilty and every time you want to get up from the stool to help, he sharply inhales and glares. “I’m sorry.”   “It’s okay,” he says. “I’d rather you do this than keep all your feelings pent-up. It’s not healthy when you do that, you know.” Jimin’s lips pull up again, all too kind, and he taps his left temple. “I don’t like it when I can’t tell what you’re thinking up there.”   “....and what about you?” you ask him as he continues to rub the ugly wallpaper. “Aren’t you mad for cleaning up all my messes?”   “No.”   “You don’t ever get mad?” Your brow cocks and you tip your head to the side. “You don’t ever want to throw a tantrum too and then abandon me here?”   “I said no,” Jimin chides with a grin. “I won’t leave you so easily. I have nowhere else to go. And I know you need me too. I’m your henchman, witch.”   You scoff at his pout. “Yeah right.”   The hunched over man hums a low note, returning back to his job at hand. “If anything, I’m worried. You and I don’t know magic. What if it’s dangerous?”   “It would be a good thing if I blew up this place one day and died.” God knows you’ve escaped death enough times.   “It wouldn’t be good to me.” He becomes more serious, tone almost scolding. “I told you not to say things like that.”   “I’m sorry.”   “Then act like it, brat.”   A tiny smile graces your lips, even if he can’t see it behind your mask. You don’t deserve him — he’s the only one who has shown you compassion, and it’s not from pity either. It’s just who Jimin is. “Jimin…”   “Hmm?”   You want to do something for him in return and there’s only one thing you can offer him. “I can fix your leg for you…”   Immediately, his hands halt. His eyes stay in one spot. You continue, “I found a recipe for a curing potion. I made it too. It didn’t do anything for me, but maybe it can help yo—”   “I don’t want that.” The young man looks down, scrubbing the floor from the liquid that you threw earlier. His dark hair covers over his eyes, nearly poking at them. “My injuries….the scar...I don’t want them to disappear.”   “Why not?”   “I got them from the war. They’re my battle scars,” he murmurs. “I wouldn’t want them to disappear like that. They’re a part of me now.” Jimin finally looks up at you, meeting your eyes. “Shows what I’ve been through.”   “Are you sure?”   “I’m sure. So, don’t ask me again,” he murmurs with a soft smile.   “Okay, I won’t.”   Jimin moves on with a sharp inhale, hands working harder, almost furiously. “What did you make this time? It solidified on the ground.”   “It...did?”   He sits back on your ankles, taking a moment’s rest. “Your experiments are getting crazier, aren’t they?”   “I’m actually getting better at the whole magic thing, believe it or not,” you mumble, getting up from the stool and walking closer. You lean over to see what he means and when your eyes lay on the object, you gasp, stumbling back with a hand over your mouth.   “What?” Jimin is alarmed. “What is it?”   “I….I see me…”   The potion didn’t alter your outer appearance, it didn’t cure you. Instead, it stiffened into a silver mirror and inside, you see your old self, your true self. A joyous smile appears on your face and you pry off the magic mirror off the floor.   This is how you lead your life for the following years. You never give up on finding a way to reverse the curse, though slowly but surely, you become less obsessed with it. Magic becomes your new preoccupation. It isn’t frightening when you learn how to control it, when you begin to test your capabilities. And the abandoned castle becomes your new home. It’s nothing luxurious like the palace that you grew up in, but it’s comfortable and livable.   Through all of this, Jimin is the companion by your side. When he’s not accompanying you, he’s chopping wood or making repairs, growing plants outside and making sure there’s food on the table.   It’s a peaceful life, even if you’re hidden behind a mask.   “Hey!”   There’s a shout that has you stopping in your tracks. A rounded, golden ball bumps against your feet and you look down at it. The colour is a bright yellow, reminding you of the sun itself. The smooth surface sparkles in the light, glitter embedded into the toy.   “What are you looking at?!” The girl is in a pink ball gown, tiara on her head, on top of the mess of curls. She grips her dress with white gloves, wrinkling the expensive fabric, cheeks puffing out. “Pass me the ball or are you blind?!”   You went out to pick more plants — there’s a basket on your back, herbs and shrubs to make potions filled to the brim. You’re strolling through the forest without your mask, letting yourself breathe properly. But here you are, stopped by a child screaming at you.   “Am I talking to a wall? Do you know who I am?! How dare you ignore me! No one’s allowed to ignore me! Especially not a peasant like you!” The spoiled girl shrieks at you with her high-pitched voice, the shrill noise ringing your ears. She pouts, unruly as she is unbearable. Her arms cross and her eyes narrow.   “Are you dumb? Do you not understand what I’m saying?! Are you deaf?”   “I hear perfectly well,” your voice croaks. You look down at the ball and your legs move back, building momentum. Except, you kick it deep into the forest, as hard as you can, watching it swoop over the horizon and take a dive above the trees.   “HEY!!! What’s wrong with you?!” The brat marches up, ready to throw a tantrum and beat you with her fists. But as she approaches and your face becomes more visible, she slows down and her face twists in disgust. “Ughhhhh!”   She throws herself back dramatically, repulsed by you. “You’re disgusting! Are you an ogre?!”   Your eye twitches. You hand lifts. Your fingers snap.   There’s a poof of air, a cloud that floats away and when you look down, the luxurious gown flutters to the ground. In the middle of the discarded fabric, a frog hops out. It ribbits and you smirk. You hover over it for a moment before marching away. “Who’s the disgusting one now?”   People will always be fearful and repelled by your appearance. But instead of wasting anger and sadness on these measly fools, you’ve learnt to have fun. Though….   Jimin is less than approving of the way you embrace your newfound powers.   “I found it, Hansel!”   They sprint hand-in-hand over the meadow, giggling in excitement, rushing over. “The candy house!”   Soon, their laughter is replaced by crying and cackling that echoes throughout all the woods.   “No, please don’t put my brother in the oven!” The little girl is sobbing, holding onto the hem of your black cloak with her tiny fists. “Eat me instead!”   “Really? How noble of you.” You throw the boy away, lowering yourself down to her. You watch the way tears roll down her chubby cheeks and she sniffles, eyes swollen and red. A sigh is held in your throat. “Don’t you know that the people you care about so easily turn away when you need them most?”   The door bursts open. Sunlight pierces through your eyes. He limps inside. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Jimin looks around, connecting the dots of the open hot oven, the candy house, the crying children with chocolate stains all over their mouths. You slip your mask on before he can see. “Oh my god.”   “I found the ones who were stealing from us,” you gloat. “Did I do a good job?”   Jimin is silent. He is appalled.   “I’m kidding around, Minah.” You stamp your foot, offended he would really think you’d go this far. But your childish antics have no effect, even if you’re pouting behind the mask and trying to appeal to him. “I’m not really going to eat them. It’s only a scare tactic. Don’t be mad.”   He picks you up by the back of your hood, hauling you out. The children run free after grabbing armfuls of candy. You scream at them to never come back, but you know the greedy will never have enough.   There’s nothing to do, but cause trouble. You become better and better at magic. It comes from your fingertips, from mutters and murmurs, distracting you from everything else. And you become quite good at it.   You make a name for yourself. Becoming infamous throughout the land. People whisper about you, rumours spreading far and wide. People put you in stories to warn their children — fairy tales. Except in these fantastical tales, if your story was ever told, it would end with your appearance returning and Jungkook would rescue you from your misery.   And the two of you would live happily ever after together.   But you don’t know if you can bear putting your blind hope into that.   “What in the world are you doing?   The brewing room is small, but a sufficient space to work in. Jimin finally makes you restrain all your magical practices into one part of the castle. It makes less of a mess for him to clean up when it’s contained into a specific place. Though at the moment, he’s not quite sure if it makes any difference.   There are spell books and scrolls of witchcraft opened and stacked on top of each other. You traded and collected them, anything that you could get your hands on. On the shelves are bubbling potions and steaming concoctions, all labeled in a way where only you understand. None of them are the cure you’re searching for, but they do all sorts of things.   Across from the black cauldron is the magic mirror hanging on the wall.   “I just finished making something.” You hold up the palm-sized bottle. The tangerine shade seems to glow and it sloshes against the glass walls. “It can turn you into a fearsome dragon, Minah. You can really defend me now. Think about it — a dragon wrapped around this castle. Makes for a scary affect, huh? We’re really going to become famous. Want to try?”   “No.” He shuts you down and points to the brewing green liquid, as well as your other hand where you’re holding a stick with the other end pierced with a red apple, ready to dip it in. “I’m asking what you’re doing right now.”   “Oh, I’m making poisonous apples.”   “Why the hell would you need that?!”   “Well, I keep seeing this girl in the mirror. She’s asking for my help to escape her evil stepmother or something.” You shrug. “Anyways, she’s pretty happy-go-lucky and quite frankly very annoying with her whining and crying.”   “You’re going to….poison her?”   “You make it sound so much crueler than it needs to be.” You shake your head, keeping your tone light and airy. “I’m simply….teaching her that she shouldn’t keep bothering me.”   The apples immediately become confiscated and he scolds you, “I didn’t put in hard work to grow our fruit for you to use it this way.”   The title of evil witch — you don’t mind it as much as before. It’s sort of a fun pass time to terrorize idiots and the shallow. They deserve it anyways. You would’ve never been allowed to do anything in this manner back in the palace. You’re finally letting loose after an entire lifetime of regal dinners, proper posture, etiquette lessons.   And people can hate you all they want. You aren’t affected anymore. They don’t know you. They don’t know what you’ve been through. Their insults are meaningless.   You stare out at the dusk horizon, the gentle wind grazing against your fingertips. The birds are swooping over the sky, singing their songs and flying freely. The weather is becoming warmer.   If there was one thing you could appreciate the most in your circumstances, it was that you were living in the middle of nature. Every time you peek out the windows, there are trees and fields and meadows at a distance. It’s not dead stone walls — it’s alive. The forest is serene and you find yourself smiling while gazing out, even with your lopsided mouth, even if your skin still itches unbearably beneath the mask.   “Y/N?” Jimin approaches carefully from behind. “I need to talk to you.”   “I didn’t poison anyone,” you sing-song.   “It’s not that.” He comes down to sit beside you, staring out at the view. “I went to town the other day, remember? It was a three-day trip.”   “And?”   “Jungkook is getting married.”   The hunched over boy delivers the news sharp and swiftly. He doesn’t linger, ripping off your bandages instead of prolonging the pain. He turns his neck to stare at your covered up profile. It is silent. You watch a bird flying over top, weaving between the cotton clouds. “When?”   “Soon. Two weeks.”   “I see.”   “Y/N.”   You shift towards him with a smile. Even if he can’t see it, he can hear it in your croaking voice. “What’s for dinner, Minah? I’m starving.”   He nods and as you set the table, he gets the food ready.   The both of you don’t talk about it again.   But when night sets, you slip out of the castle, black cloak slicing the air. A three-day journey on foot takes less than a second for you when you use a teleportation spell. With the town sleeping, you steal a hose in the stables outside the inn. You tame it quickly and while you appear monstrous, it senses your sincerity.   You ride it towards the castle. It’s a full two hours through the forest and dirt roads at top speed, never once stopping or resting. You eventually make it with sweat dripping down your body, hiding yourself in the shadows. You’re invisible to the guards when you murmur jinxes beneath your breath, sneaking past them all too easily. Though while it is simple, every step of yours is pained.   You’re entering your home again as an intruder. While you had wished and imagined to return with a celebration, you’re slinking into the darkness instead, through all the secret passages known throughout your life. You avoid the servants and people inside, avoiding when you hear your parent’s voices, unable to bear looking or thinking about them.   Your steps are quiet, strides calculated, aches forming in your throat. It hurts. You turn down the hallway, eyes trained forward, and you enter the familiar room, standing in the shadows, bated breath held inside your throat. You don’t forget it once — someone else is here in place of you.   But it’s hard to remember when you find him staring out at the balcony. He sighs softly. You gaze. The strands of his brown hair blowing in the breeze, the slope of his nose, dip of his cupid’s bow, brown doe eyes too gentle. You had almost forgotten what he looked like.   “I just wanted a moment with you.” — Cheeky smile — Scent of the sea — Touch of warmth — “I missed you.”   You tremble. “J—”   “Jungkook.” A girl, younger than you are, enters from the other room and stands by his side. Long luscious hair draping her backside, flowing like her white night slip. She is soft-spoken, voice gentle and shy. You don’t know her name, but you know she is beautiful. “What are you thinking about?”   “Nothing,” he murmurs.   You missed the sound of his voice.   “Really? You looked like you were deep in thought.”   Your fists ball up, teeth gritting. You shake, overwhelmed in too many emotions, anger, sadness, hatred, sorrow. The urge to shut your eyes, put your hands over your ears and scream is too much. But you can’t move even if you wanted to. You’re frozen in your spot, soaking up every second, refusing to blink, gaze boring into Jungkook. You memorize his features, the way he smiles, he speaks.   But you shouldn’t.   He abandoned you. He had forsaken you. He left you to die.   “Why did you kill her?” — Eyes of intense with hatred — void of all feelings — a despising and loathing stare — “You’re scum.”   You can imagine it. All it would take is for you to shout and make yourself known. They’d spin around in horror and you wouldn’t waste one second to point and curse the both of them. You can do so much. You can curse their love, ruin their kingdom, destroy their reign. You can turn her into a monster right in front of his eyes and make him realize that it is possible for a princess to become this ugly, this evil.   But—   You can’t.   You love him.   “Trust me, I’m not thinking about anything.” Jungkook pulls her in for a side embrace, arms wrapped around her frame. Her hands wrap around his waist, nuzzling into his chest.   It’s quiet. They hold each other. It’s a perfect sight to behold.   “I wish I could have met her,” the beautiful girl murmurs.   “Why?”   “Just because.” She leans further into his chest, lips graced with a demure smile. “She must’ve been great and beautiful if you loved her so much.”   “You are too.” Jungkook tickles her sides. She giggles, squirming away, but he doesn’t let her out of his grasps, holding her close. After a moment, he presses a kiss to her forehead.   “Do you miss her?”   Jungkook pauses, sighing again. “She would’ve wanted me to move on.”   They talk about you like you’ve died.   Your throat aches to scream his name, to tell him that you’re standing right here, alive, that he never looked for you or at you. But no. To Jeon Jungkook, you are long in the grave, a ghost, a dead girl walking, an old lover that was part of his history. And the more you look at them both, the more you glance at them, it becomes unbearable. Suffocating. Intolerable. The gentle exchange, soft touches, smiles. It makes you feel sick to your stomach.   You fade back into the darkness without a single word spoken. You shouldn’t have come back.   Jungkook doesn’t love you anymore — you can see it as clear as day.   They love each other.   //   “Where are you going?”   Jimin asks, turning around from his seat at the table. You know that he knows. The boy with the hunched back and bad leg is perfectly aware that you left that night. You’re thankful that he doesn’t ask, despite having an inkling of where you went. Though his gaze still lingers with a trace of suspicion, not made from malice, but concern.   “Someone’s begging for my help,” you tell him in a snotty tone, lifting your chin high in the air. “Looks like I should open up a business for everyone’s magical needs.”   He laughs, eased at how you’re not brooding or dejected. But he still shoots you an unsure and doubtful expression. “And you’re going to help them? No tricks, no curses, no poison apples?”   “No poison apples,” you promise. “She’s a mermaid, you know. I thought I should at least meet her. I’ve never seen a mermaid before.”   “Do you want me to come with you?”   “You’d just drag me down.” Your hands are placed on your hips and you quirk your head to one side. “Let me do my own bidding...unless…”   “Unless?”   “You really want to become my henchman? Every witch should have a servant anyways.”   Jimin scoffs. “Come back before dinner.”   Yes,” you drag out the last sound, bidding him farewell.   You transport yourself, partly by magic and the other part by horse. Soon enough, you’re staring out at the blue horizon, the azure shade matching the sea. The water sparkles, glimmering against the sunlight. Your arm lifts and you remove your white mask. As the waves crash against the shore, the mist kisses against your face. The salt water stings against the sores and blisters on your flesh, but you welcome it. Your crooked nose inhales the scent of the sea.   It reminds you of someone that makes your heart ache.   But your thoughts are taken by storm when there’s an unusual splash in the midst of the waves. You turn your head, finding something in the water, and you stand taller.   There’s a gasp. You look down to find a young creature, a girl with big eyes and hair the colour of sweet strawberries. She’s obviously scared of you, mouth drawn open, brows knitted together. But she quickly composes herself, though nervousness still attached to her expression.   You catch her tail flickering out into the air behind her. Frankly, it’s fascinating, and you stare with your head lolled to one side. If you never knew magic or curses like you do now, you would’ve never believed in the existence of mermaids.   “A-a-a….a-are you the witch?”   “I’m a witch.”   In all honesty, you don’t know why you’re here. You don’t know why you’re openly offering yourself to help her. It’s not like you’re necessarily sympathetic to her situation. Maybe you’re doing this to prove to yourself that you can help someone, that you’re not a monster, that your humanity is still here. Perhaps seeing Jungkook has opened you up and made you softer, more vulnerable than you should be….especially in your current skin.   Whatever the case may be, what matters is that you’re standing here, where the sea meets the shore.   “What do you need from me?”   “I…” The mermaid is hesitant. Though as the seconds pass, she becomes more self-assured. Her gentle eyes turn stern and her fear is hidden away, admirable determination coming forth instead. “...want to trade my tail for legs.”   “Because you met someone,” you cut to the chase, unfazed by her surprised expression. You already saw it in the mirror. There’s nothing to hide. “A prince.”   The young girl smiles sheepishly and she is breathless. “I’m in love with him.”   You exhale in exhaustion, rolling your eyes. Now you remember why you didn’t like helping others — their kinds of love were all too shallow for your liking. Still, you lower yourself down to meet her eyes. She wades an inch back, alarmed by your disfigurement, but not letting it get in the way of her goal.   “And does he love you?”   “That-….it doesn’t matter.” She swallows hard. “I just want to see him again. I’m tired of being stuck in the ocean. I want to become human.”   “Becoming human is not all that great, trust me,” you tell her as honestly as you can, “and love…..love isn’t how you imagine it to be. Just because you have legs and you can talk to him doesn’t mean he’ll love you back.”   “I know that.”   “And you’re still willing to trade in who you are for him?”   “Yes.” She nods, all too earnest in her request. “I want...something different from this. I want to experience more. I want to know the world out there.”   She is terribly, terribly foolish. Naive. Innocent. You can’t stop her even if you tried. When it comes to these things, once someone has made their mind, they’re too stubborn to hear. “Well, I can help you, but there are limits to everything. If there wasn’t, I would’ve fixed this.” You point directly to your face and you continue, “If I give you legs, it won’t last forever. You’ll have a time limit.”   “H-how long?”   “I don’t know.” You shrug. “Believe it or not, this is kind of my first time giving a mermaid legs.”   The corners of her mouth upturn. “I’ll take the risk then….as long as I get to see him again.”   “I’ll also need something from you as payment.”   The mermaid is at least wise enough to become wary again. The trust she had amounted in the conversation disperses all at once and she stares as if you are an enemy ready to trick her, rather than help her. “What do you want from me?”   That’s a good question. There’s a lot you want, but nothing she can give to you.   You think hard before coming up with an adequate answer. “Your voice.”   “My voice?”   “Trade in your voice and tail for human legs.” You’re forced to hear your voice all the time, every instance in which you speak or whisper and you hate it. It’s not the same as it was before. It croaks, like you’ve been alive for three centuries, never melodic, never smooth. Your laughter is cackling, timbre squaking, tone husky and rumbling.   You’ve forgotten the sound of your own voice.   She frowns. “How will I talk to him?”   “That’s your problem, not mine.” You shrug again. “What do you think? Still up for this deal? You can take some time if you need to think about it.”   The mermaid contemplates for a minute, licking the seam of her lips, tail flicking the waves behind her. She gazes into your eyes before smiling and shaking her head. “No. I definitely want to do it.”   “Are you sure?” you warn her yet another time. “What happens if he doesn’t love you back?”   “Then at least I got the chance to love him.”   “How noble,” you muse.   Eventually, you’re led into a cave. It’s secluded from any prying eyes or ears. Every step you take echos against the cold walls, peaceful and quiet. The waters glow a sapphire shade, sparkling and enchanting. The mermaid reveals more of herself, propping her upper half onto a rock and you begin the ceremony, starting with an incantation. When you signal towards her, she sings.   It’s a soothing melody, echoing all around you, warm like an embrace. You’re surrounded in her voice, bewitched as if she were a siren. It’s lovely and you shut your eyes, feeling all too nostalgic. You used to sing too.   “You have a beautiful voice,” you whisper as her timbre reverberates around the cave walls.   She is both shy and caught off guard from your compliment. “Thank you.”   It takes a lot out of you to cast the spell. Although you’ve made a name for yourself, you are still no expert in magic or witchcraft. But it works and when she faints, tail morphing into legs, you drape her naked body with your black cloak, collecting her voice in a glass jar.   You cast one more look at the girl before you leave. It’s been a while since you’ve been able to sense such earnestness and you genuinely hope it works out in her favour.   When you return back home, you display the jar on your potion shelf. Jimin asks you what’s inside and after you tell him it’s the mermaid’s voice, he is horrified, but you brush it off with a smile.   From time to time, when things become hard, you crack the lid of the jar slightly. And her beautiful voice always filters into the room, all too sweet and soft. During those moments, you look into the mirror to see yourself smiling — your old self, the skin that you were born with, that your mother and father gave to you. Your hands always lift to touch your skin as if wishing that one of these days, your face would match the reflection, but you’re always left feeling the rough texture of your raw flesh.   Nevertheless, it’s nice to act like you’re listening to your own voice, looking at yourself in the mirror. Like nothing has changed from back then. There’s nothing wrong with playing pretend sometimes.   //   Two months later, Jimin notices the jar is gone from your shelf.   “Oh, I released it.”   “You….released it?” The cowering man frowns, not understanding, especially with your nonchalant expression. In curiosity, he asks, “do you know what ended up happening to that mermaid?”   You make a noncommittal sound in the back of your throat, continuing to stir the pot of soup over the fire. Tonight was your turn to cook. “The prince she loved ended up getting married to another princess. She was going to kill him, but couldn’t do it and threw herself into the sea. She turned into sea bubbles….and he never even found out that she was the one who saved him from drowning.”   “That’s….awful.”   “That’s love for you.”   You say it with so much certainty, like you had expected that outcome, as if there was no other ending to the story. But Jimin knew you well enough to detect your sadness and disappointment.   The magic mirror not only shows your old self or the people who ask for your help, but you also see Jungkook in it. One of the things Jimin doesn’t know is how you check in on Jungkook sporadically, stealing glimpses of his life, even though you know you shouldn’t. You still give in each and every time, too curious, aching to know, always hoping he’s doing well.   If you can’t be by his side, at least you can become a guardian watching over him.   But you know how pathetic it is.   Perhaps you’re as idiotic and naive as that mermaid. You should loathe Jungkook as much as he loathed you after you became this way. But if you force yourself to hate him, you’d be lying to yourself.   So you watch him. You allow yourself to indulge in one thing in your miserable existence and you watch how he lives his life. Occasionally there are special events like his wedding or the coronation. Other times, it’s something mundane like him eating, walking around the garden, or dealing with his royal duties.   And you still love him.   You don’t think they’ll ever come a time when you don’t. You grew up with Jungkook. Most of your loved memories have him in them. He was the person you chose to spend the rest of your life with after all.   But one day, when you call upon his name to the silver surface of the mirror, you don’t see him.   You see something else entirely, something else that is not Jungkook, but still him at the same time.   “A…..baby?”   Tears fill your eyes. An instinctual smile appears on your lopsided mouth. It’s a girl.   No one knows yet, not even his wife who’s carrying the child, but the mirror shows you and it never lies. You see the bouncing child, rosy cheeks, button nose, gooey smile and cooing laugh.   Your heart melts. Your eyes search every inch of the mirror, taking in Jungkook’s child that looks too much like him. And you’re happy. You want to congratulate him, even though it’s not possible and what fills you for once is not jealousy, resentment, or regret — it is the emotion of watching someone you love become happy, you are happy for him.   But your smile falls. The next thing the mirror morphs to makes you stumble back. Horrified.   The door slams open. Jimin’s eyes are wide. You shriek at him, helpless. “She’s going to die!”   “Who’s going to die?”   You’re hysterical, pacing in front of him, not knowing what to do. “I saw it. I saw it, Jimin. I saw it in the mirror!”   He limps after you. “What?”   “S-she’s destined to die at a young age. What should we do? What should we do?!”   Jimin finally catches up and grabs onto your shoulders, hands securing around them, forcing you to a stop. “Who?”   You cry, “Jungkook’s baby!”

In nine months, you work hard to search for an answer. All you know are curses and jinxes, but you begin to teach yourself blessings and charms, anything that will grant her favour for a long, fruitful life. But you don’t know what will work, what won’t, and you don’t want to risk harming the baby or casting a spell for it to backfire.   The blissful couple have no idea. They celebrate the pregnancy. Their joy and ignorance acts as salt on wounds. The rest of the kingdom also commemorates the queen’s upcoming child, completely oblivious that the child will die a young age, that tragedy will strike. You can’t bear the thought of it.   “How can you be so sure?” Jimin asks, concerned with your distress.   “The mirror doesn’t lie, Jimin. I saw it.” You swallow hard. “She’s going to die before she reaches the age of five. It...it was from a sickness and she was laying in bed and I saw her bones and she was coughing blood and it...it was horrible.”   When you shut your eyes, you can still hear the pained screams of the toddler.   “I can warn Jungkook.” The hunched boy meets your eyes. “I can tell him.”   “And do you think he’ll believe you?” You know Jungkook — he was your fiancé. “He doesn’t believe in magic or prophecies or any of that. No one in the castle does.”   “Then what do you want to do? What are you thinking?”   “I….I don’t know.” You’re at wit’s end. “But we have to do something.”   “Y/N.”   “I can’t let her die like that. It’s unfair. It’s...despicable.”   Jimin calls your name again, eyes following your form. “Y/N.”   You whip yourself around. “What?”   His gaze meets yours. His brown irises meet your eyes, locking his stare, the only feature he sees of yours behind the white mask. His mouth is downturned, brows knitted together, a knot made between them. It is silent. Then he murmurs, “Why does it matter so much to you?”   You’re left sputtering. “What?”   “She’s not your daughter.”   “I know that,” you spit out, wondering where this audacity is coming from. Your blood begins to boil beneath your skin and you halt in your spot, staring him down.   “Then why are you so worried? You haven’t been eating or sleeping.”   “We can’t let a child die like this—”   “If it’s her fate...then so be it.”   “Then so be it?!” Your voice booms, rumbling the air as if you were cursing all of humanity. Your fists ball up, bones rattling in your rage. “Then you’re saying I should just accept my own fate? Let my face be this monstrous?! Because it was my fate to be cursed?! To be thrown away?!”   “No—”   “You’ll let a baby die because it’s in her fate?!”   “You’ve let other people die all the time!” Jimin is loud, raising his voice over yours. He is unyielding, steadfast in the face of your anger. He knows there is something deeper to your distraught. “Suddenly, you’re so worried about Jungkook’s baby? Why?”   “Jungkook is your best friend,” you say as if it is enough cause for him to be worried as well. A sharp inhale is stolen through the seams of your lips. “And I…..I love him—”   “She’s not yours,” Jimin repeats.   He is worried about you, having no intentions to bring injury to your wounds. “I know that.” You turn away from the man, crying out your words, whispering the antagonizing syllables, “But I want Jungkook to be happy. Is that so wrong? I want his children to live.”   “I want Jungkook to be happy too.” He takes a step forward, reaching down to take your hand and comforting you in his soothing voice. “He’s my best friend even after all these years, so I know. I know it’s horrible that his daughter will die. I don’t want that either. But there’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing we can do, Y/N, and that’s...okay. It’s okay to let go.”   //   Except, there’s a lot that you can do.   You refuse to stand by, to be a witness, a bystander. You can’t. Knowing what you do, you cannot bring yourself to pretend you are ignorant to the tragedy coming. You refuse to turn a blind eye, to give into helplessness. Not when you can save the baby. If not for Jungkook, then for the innocent child.   She is born on the calends of May. Spring has begun to break through winter, warming the land, melting snow banks and rivers streams. Through word of mouth, you learn it is indeed a baby girl, healthy as a horse, the beautiful princess that one day shall become queen — just as you were.   The king and queen are blissful, rejoicing together without knowing what was coming.   Three days after the birth, an unknown darkness spreads across the kingdom. The door creaks open and a shadow enters. The balcony doors are left slightly ajar, curtains blowing in the breeze. Footsteps approach the cot. A scream ricochets through the room.   The child is gone.   “NO!” Sobs tear from her chest and rip out her throat. She collides onto the ground, on her knees, hair brushed back by the wind, white dress on her body making her ghostly. “Please! Don’t take her away from me.”   “I’m sorry.” Half of your horrific face is illuminated by the milky moonlight, eyes bulging out of their sockets, skin melted and shedding like a snake, mouth lopsided and nose crooked, flesh dead and hair stark white. You hold the sleeping baby close to your chest and after one last glance at the mother, you jump from the balcony.   Your black cloak slices through the air.   A blood-curdling scream wakes the entire palace.   The girl throws herself to the railing, looking over. You’re nowhere to be seen. Gone.   //   When you return, sleep has tinged your vision, making your lids and lashes heavier than before. The cold has made your flesh even redder, the colour of blood beading beneath your thin skin in dotting patterns like you’ve gotten chicken pox. You look down to gain encouragement, taking in the way the living being in your arms is breathing softly, rosy cheeks, long lashes, a tuft of hair at the top, all bundled up.   The warmth is inviting, the fire crackling. You enter with a sigh of relief, room blanked in a comfortable darkness. Jimin turns with a smile, about to ask where you’ve been, but the words die in his throat. His gaze befalls onto what’s in your arms. His expression falls. Despair is in his eyes.   “Y/N.” He speaks softly, disbelief bleeding through his whispers, attempting not to disturb the peace between you both. “What are you holding?”   “Jimin.”   “Y/N…” The man with the hunched back and burn scar limps two strides before stopping completely. “Is that…?”   “Jimin, please,” you plead desperately with a broken timbre, holding the child close to your chest, embracing her, surrounding her in the little warmth your body gives off.   “No, no…” He shakes his head, dead eyes becoming angered by the second. “You can’t do this.”   “Minah…”   “Give her back, Y/N.” Jimin’s jaw clenches. “You can’t take her.”   “I have no choice.”   “You can’t have her!” He screams and you physically flinch back. The baby is startled awake and begins to shriek and cry. You attempt to sooth her, patting her back while attempting to get him to understand why you’re doing this.   “Jimin, please.” You shield her away, stepping back.   “She’s not yours!”   “I know!” you shout back, breathless. The baby cries louder, making your ears want to bleed with the high-pitched wail. “I know that!”   “You think I don’t? She’s not my daughter. I keep telling myself that and I know I’m not qualified to be a mother either. Because of this,” you spit out while pointing at your face, “I can never have the life I always wanted. I will never have a family or children of my own — that’s all been ripped away from me. But….but I still want to save her.”   “How?!”   “I don’t know,” you shriek, sobbing, tears streaming down to the bottom of your white mask. “But I can’t let her die. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her. I can save her. I know it. I can change the course of her fate if I take it into my own hands.”   He is made speechless.   Jimin runs a hand through his hair. “Y/N…”   “Please, Jimin...please..” You’re sobbing, holding the baby close and never letting go. “I can’t let her die. I can protect her.”

You’re not fit to be a mother. You don’t know how to take care of a baby. You’re ill-equipped to keep the squirming, living bundle alive in your arms. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re scared. But you can’t let it be. There’s no other choice.   “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you murmur to the crying child, lifting her up in your arms and feeding her with the bottle of milk Jimin prepared. She latches on with closed eyes, becoming silenced and you take a sigh of relief, melting back into the chair.   You watch her, rosy cheeks, long lashes, doe eyes. You’re enamoured.   The chubby child coos, arm lifting tiredly, soft hand opening and it wraps around your finger. Your bated breath holds in your throat, a sharp exhale leaving through the seams of your lips, and you choke out a gentle laugh, brought to tears. Your heart is lighter. The corners of your mouth uplifts.   “I’ll protect you. Don’t worry,” you murmur. “Just grow up healthy, okay?”   The child gives a gooey smile after finishing the bottle and it makes you smile harder.   //   Jimin takes off his cloak, throwing it on the rack. He sets the basket of food down and begins to put it away in the cupboards. “They’re looking for her.” You look up, still holding her. “There was a royal decree and all the guards have been dispatched.”   “It’s okay. I set up protection shields around the perimeter. They won’t find us.”   He puts his things down and without saying much of a word, he walks over and opens his arms. “Here, let me take her.” When you hesitate, he eases you with a smile. “You’ve been holding her all night, let me have a chance too.”   You transfer her to Jimin’s arms. He grins, looking down, cheeks swelling, staring at her face and she giggles with a gummy smile. You smile. “She’s cute, right?”   “Adorable.” He pats her back firmly, smiling at you. “You should go rest. You were up all night taking care of her. From now on, we’ll switch back and forth.”   You blink the sleep away, a burst of happiness erupting in your chest. While Jimin still seems upset with your choices and angered at how you didn’t once ask for his opinion, setting off to do whatever you already set your mind on, he seems to have accepted the circumstances.   “I’m not happy with what you’ve done, Y/N.” He sighs, staring at the baby with a soft smile, head quirking to one side. “But it happened — there’s no point in arguing about it anymore. Let’s try our best to protect her and raise her well so that one day she can return to her rightful parents.”   “Okay.”   “Go sleep.” As he passes, Jimin pats your shoulder. “I’ll take it from here.”   When you worry whether you are inadequate, Jimin’s always here to reassure you. He helps you in more ways than one. But that still doesn’t stop the nightmares — people who you’ve cursed coming back for vengeance, harming the child as you have harmed them. Though when you awaken and rush to the crib, nothing has happened and you breathe sighs of relief.   More and more time goes by without you realizing. The guards come scouring a few miles away, but still nowhere near the abandoned castle where you are. You make sure the protection spells are always casted around the area, concealing the child from harm’s way.   Jimin’s farm flourishes and his trips to town lessen for his own safety. The two of you become increasingly self-sufficient and you also spend less time staring at your former self in the mirror. There are times you forget about the room tucked away in the back, about bubbling cauldrons and bewitching jinxes, the reflection which shows your old self underneath this hideous skin.   When you do use magic, it’s for her. Whether it’s coming up with medicine to cure a common cold or learning about charms to keep her warm, it seems like the days of curses and making poisonous apples have all but disappeared.   Time passes by quicker when she is in your life.   “Look, it’s a teddy bear.” Jimin shakes the stuffed animal in front of her, smiling with crinkled eyes when she grabs hold of the cotton toy. He lowers his voice, pretending to be the bear. “Hello there, little girl. I love you! Your hugs are so warm.”   You stifle back a laugh, watching his childish antics. “Little girl? You sound like a creep or wolf in the woods or something.”   He pouts. “Well, we should probably give her a proper name already instead of calling her the baby.”   You smile, glancing down at the child who looks like a dumpling all wrapped up, rounded cheeks pink and nearly bursting. “They named her Nari.”   “Nari?”   “It means lily.”   “Nari.” He calls her gently, corners of his mouth uplifted. His eyes flicker up to yours. He takes the last syllable of her name and attaches a suffix of ‘ah’ to it. “I guess we can call her Riah since you call me Minah.”   A soft laugh streams out of your mouth. “Okay.”   She grows steadily and gradually. There are countless nights where you are scared to death, when she has a cold or doesn’t feel well, sneezing and coughing. But those nights always pass and during the day, she begins to giggle, opening her eyes more often, making eye contact with you.   Throwing up on Jimin is probably one of the favourite things she does. It never fails to make you laugh.   “Jimin! Jimin!”   “What is it?”   “She’s rolling!” You gasp in amazement and the chubby baby with stuffed cheeks nearly exploding builds momentum in her tiny body and rolls herself to her belly. You know she’s becoming conscious of the world, especially when she stares around with her big eyes, and your heart always swells watching her.   The child sits up by herself. Then you switch to solid foods that she constantly throws across the room. She becomes fussy when teething. Makes trouble when she begins to crawl and mess with the old furniture. She understands the word ‘no’ and pouts when you say it. She points to things, babbling incessantly, tens of sounds leaving her lips like she is stumbling on her own tongue, and you pretend to understand even when you don’t.   Jimin has fun playing with her. Sometimes he throws her a bit too high for your liking, other times putting her on his shoulders and further hurting his back, making you distressed. He also tends to hold her like she’s bread that just came out of the oven, running around and pretending she can fly, making her giggle hard enough to throw up. But he is always gentle, cooing at her, making sure she is safe and happy.   “Say ah!”   She turns the other way, huffing and sulking. “Come on, Riah. Take one more bite for me! It’s good for you! It’s carrots! It’ll make you grow big and strong. Jimin won’t be happy if you don’t eat it. It took a lot of work for him to grow it.”   The toddler finally looks at you. She blinks. Her short arm extends. Her chubby cheeks puff out. Her lashes bat. She points at your face and you’re taken back, startled. “Mama!”   You almost drop your spoon.   You’re sputtering as if she could understand the conflicting emotions brewing in the pits of your stomach, making you all too uncomfortable. “N-No...I’m—….I’m ..not your mom.”   But the child is adamant. “Mama!”   Tears flood your vision, happiness prevailing over sorrow and guilt, and you nod. “Okay, okay. Take one more bite for me.”   You feed her a spoonful while crying. She is confused, staring at you, but you wipe your face with the back of her hand. The child is never once scared of your disfigurement, not in the least bit.   She grows up too fast. There are instances when you turn around and swear she’s gotten taller, she’s caught onto things, learnt a bit more, become smarter, wiser. While she is healthy, the lingering fear only intensifies. You question if you’re doing the right thing, if taking her away from her real parents will do her more harm, but when you gaze upon her, you know there’s no other way.   You will risk everything if it means she’ll be alive in the end.   “Come here!” He encourages her softly. “Come here!”   Slowly, she lifts her arms off the chair and stumbles like a drunkard towards Jimin’s open arms. She staggers, one leg in front of the other, babbling happily as she does so and your mouth draws open in shock. Jimin triumphantly grins, the both of you witnessing her first steps.   “Yay!” He lifts her high in the air when she makes it, making giggles bubble out of her small body. “You did it!”   You never thought the pair of you, ostracized in your own way, would be able to find so much happiness.   “Minah.” Your feet pad after him.   “No.”   “It’ll be safer.”   “Absolutely not.” He twists on his heel, harshly whispering underneath his breath. He didn’t want to wake the toddler who was down for the night after much effort. “We are not going to lock her up in a cold tower. Are you crazy?!”   “We’re not locking her! And it’s for her own protection,” you reason, frustrated to no end while he’s annoyed. You take a deep breath, explaining to him what you’re worried about. “We have to protect her.”   “And we can do it here.” His arms open wide. This time, he doesn’t give in to your pleas. “Where she can roam free.”   “But I can’t watch her all the time.” You shake, swallowing the thick lump in your throat down. “Yesterday, I turned around and she was gone. Gone. Do you know how scared I was? One of these days…...I-.....there’s only so much I can do.”   Jimin approaches calmly and strangely comfortingly. “That’s not true — You have me.”   If you were alone, if it weren’t for Jimin, you don’t know what you would do. For one, you probably would’ve driven yourself insane, paranoid enough to keep the child locked up like some prisoner. He brings you back to reason, calming your overwhelming emotions. It makes you feel better to know there is someone here to lean against, to rely on. You can breathe easier.   “Look at what you did. Your hair’s all tangled!”   “Sorry,” she mumbles, sitting on the small wooden stool as you run a comb through her dark locks, brushing them until they’re silky smooth. “I didn’t mean to.”   You exhale, becoming gentler. “Just be careful next time, okay?”   “Okay.” The four-year old turns around with a big smile, making you sheepish and melt in your spot. It’s dark outside, forest mysterious and the winds knocking against the windows. But here inside, it’s warm — the fire is flickering in the brick hearth, burning the wood that Jimin had cut. He’s gone to bed early, letting the both of you have your own time. You’ve removed your mask.   Yet, as the young girl gazes upon you, there is no fear, hatred or loathing in her eyes. You are not worried that she is ashamed of your appearance, that her tolerance and patience will run thin and someday she will abandon you. Her stare is ever so loving — you’re not used to it.   “Mama…”   “Hmm?”   Her head tilts, having no restraint when her mouth tumbles out the innocent question. “Why is your face different from mine?”   “I didn’t always look like this,” you whisper like you’re revealing a deep secret. No one knows an ugly witch like you would be able to shed such sorrowful tears. “Aren’t you scared?”   Her soft, chubby hands hold your cheeks. Her smooth fingertips brush against the scales, the blisters and ulcers that ooze of pus, burnt flesh rough to the touch, crooked nose and melted features. Her doe eyes glimmer in fascination. “No. I’m not.”   She doesn’t care.   The child is curious if anything. Wonderment has filled her rounded irises, transfixed at how different you are, how unique it is. It’s here that the promise you’ve made in your mind has metamorphosed into an oath — you will protect her with your life. You will protect your daughter.   “Why would I be scared of my mama?”   “That’s right.” Your arms wrap around her, squeezing her into a warm hug. She giggles against your shoulder, sounds playful and muffled. You thank the heavens that she’s here with you.   //   Of course, the day does arrive as the prophecy foresees it.   Right before turning five, the girl is sick and bedridden, coughing blood out and unable to eat or drink. It’s your worst fear come alive, all the nightmares and worries you’ve had to this point flaring to life in one chaotic mess. It’s Jimin who calms you down and gets to work. He assigns himself to food duty, making sure the child has full meals even if she doesn’t want any, keeping her warm in blankets and giving her medication, seeking out the best in the town at any cost.   You focus on the magic aspect, spells and incantations, giving any blessings that it is possible in this universe, utilizing protection charms while murmuring her name. The vision you saw in the mirror all those years ago were of the child in the palace. All you hope for is that this drastic change you’ve taken has altered the course of her life as well.   For seven nights, you hold her through the worst coughing fits, through thundering storms, all while horrifyingly feeling the life drain away from her small frame. It’s miracle after miracle when you make it out after each night; the dawn symbolizing a new day. And it’s a miracle when she shows signs of recovery, albeit body weakened.   She is alive. Even after all the crying and cuddling, she’s alive and that’s all that matters.   You cry tears of joy and you and Jimin embrace each other, overwhelmed in relief.

The girl passes her sixth birthday healthy as a horse, happy as a clam, and that’s when Jimin brings something up, something that you had been avoiding and pushing away for so long.   “Y/N….”   “Hmm?”   “It’s been six years.” He meets your eyes, careful and while you have an inkling of what he’s going to say, you refuse to acknowledge it. “The prophecy said she would meet tragedy before five, right?”   “And?” You look away, continuing to fold her clothes that have been out in the sun all day.   “She…” Jimin blinks away the tears, tilting his head up to the ceiling. He inhales a breath. “She should go home.”   “This is her home.”   “Y/N.”   Your hands stop and you look down to the floor. The shadows seem to expand with the flames dancing back and forth in the fireplace. “You want to send her away? She’s our daughter.”   “She isn’t—”   “We raised her!” your shout echoes throughout the room and it’s only luck that she doesn’t come bumbling out from her bedroom, rubbing her eyes and whining at the noise. Your chest is rising and falling, hyperventilating and you tear your eyes away from his. “We held her when she was sick, we were here throughout all those nights, we fed her, we watched her grow up and now...now you want to send her away?”   As much as it hurts him, he still gently persuades you. “Jungkook is still looking for his daughter. Even after all these years.”   “It’s not right!” you cry out, despite knowing there’s no argument you can make, nothing you can say that would make what you’re doing right. “We can’t!”   “Jungkook and his wife miss her. We took her away from them. It’s not fair to them.”   “But...but...what are we supposed to do without her?”   He swallows the thick lump in his throat and walks, dragging his bad leg over towards you. “We’ll figure something out. It’s not like we won’t see her again.”   “We won’t.” The hunched man hugs you, your croaking voice muffled into his shoulder. “How will we see her again when I look like this?!”   “We’ll watch from afar,” he whispers, “And...we can visit sometimes in secret.”   “Jimin…” You weep, unable to bear the thought of giving your child away. It feels like you’re abandoning her.   “I know.” His back is hunched, but he still pats the top of your head gently, bringing your masked face to his chest, comforting you in spite of his own heartache. “I know it’s hard.”   You didn’t know this day would come so soon.   She is still much too young to send away, to send back, but you know she’s older than you think she is. Your hands can’t help the tremble as you button her up in the nicest jacket, combing her long hair to rest behind her shoulder, making her look as pretty as can be. She’s taller now, doe eyes that remind you too much of Jungkook sometimes, like a deer in headlights that make you laugh.   Except now, you’re crying.   “Mama, what’s wrong?”   “Nothing.” You wipe your face with the back of your hand. As much as Jimin tried to remain strong in his own convictions, he couldn’t do it. You know he’s suffering as much as you are. He simply kissed the top of her forehead, told her to be good and that they’ll see each other soon.   But the brave face he displayed has crumbled. The hunched man is locked in his room, refusing to leave. You’ve taken the liberty to bring her there, spare him of having to watch her walk away.   “Where are we going?”   She lifts her arms, stroking your tears away and you smile. “Somewhere.” The answer you give is vague, though she seems to not prod anymore and you take her small hand that barely wraps around yours. You can still remember when her hand used to wrap entirely around your finger and the memory doesn’t help when you’re trying not to break down into more sobs.   It’s the first time you truly bring her outside. In the past few years, Jimin has taken her to the garden out back, but she’s never been allowed to go beyond the forest line, where the trees begin to thicken. So when you guide her towards them, allowing her to go forth, she is fascinated.   The young girl laughs, giggles, all too giddy. Though when she looks up at you, she is made confused and scared at how quiet you are, simply giving her an endeared smile. You mask your emotions, holding her hand, taking her for a stroll around the forest, your home.   When you’ve collected yourself to say goodbye, you tell her to shut her eyes, murmuring your spell. She grins, loving your magic, and within three heartbeats, you’ve materialized in front of Jungkook’s castle. Even at a distance, standing on a grassy hill with no one watching, the scene in front of you sends pains towards your chest, constricting your breathing and making it hard to think.   The stone walls stand high, towers majestic. Your home….your old home...is still tall in the sky.   “Where are we, mama?”   You lower yourself down onto your knees. You hold her hands again. Your eyes lock into her’s. “Nari, listen to me, okay? That’s going to be your home from now on.” You point towards the castle and her eyes follow, bewildered.   “What about our home?”   “It’ll still be there, but you’re going to stay here from now on,” you calmly explain.   “And what about you?” The young girl searches your expression. “Are you coming with me?”   “No.” You force yourself to speak past the painful lump in your throat, keeping your gaze stern and unyielding. “No, I’m not.”   “You’re….leaving?” Her voice increases in pitch, expression rippling and all at once, her mouth downturns, vision flooded with saltwater, sniffling with her shoulders, legs trembling.   “You’re a good girl, Riah.” You sniffle, bulging eyes burning when you force the tears back. The words spew off your tongue, trying to say everything you want to before it’s too late. “Jimin and I, we love you very much, okay? You were the best thing that happened to the both of us. We’ll visit you again, don’t worry. I...I love you.”   You embrace her, arms wrapped around her small frame, pushing her to your chest. A few years ago, she was only a bundle of blankets. But now she’s a safe little girl with a long life ahead of her, the rightful princess of the kingdom. Her parents have been waiting for over half a decade and while she might forget about you someday, this is all for the best.   “No! D-Don’t...lea..ve...m..e…” Riah cries, wailing as teardrops spill down her cheeks like rain. She hiccups and begs, “Please! I-...I promise I’ll be g-g….ood from now on! So...don’t go! S-stay with me!”   She hangs onto you with all her might. You pry her grip off of you, standing. Your feet move on their own accord, away from her despite your steps being heavy. Eyes shut. Resisting the urge to cover your ears. Heartbeat thundering against your rib cage.   “Mom!” your daughter yells. “Don’t go!”   — “Don’t leave me!” —“Stay!”   //   Jimin sits in his silence. Defeated. He is at the table when the front door creaks open. His eyes are swollen red and he can’t feel his face, numb from the salt that poured down his cheeks.   “Y/N?” His voice is unrecognizable, hoarse from crying, form still shaking.   You enter inside, mask hiding your features, black cloak draping your body and hiding your head. You stand motionlessly in front of him. He asks you with a heavy heart, “y...you...did it?”   Before you can answer, there are padding footsteps behind you. Someone runs, a girl who’s still crying and she has no reservations, launching into his arms. Jimin barely manages to catch her, surprised and standing back with his limp leg. His crouched back aches, but he is wholeheartedly confused. The man looks at you before down at the girl.   She embraces him with an iron grip, scared to be taken again. “Dad!”   “I…” You lower your head, dejected, ashamed. “I couldn’t do it.”   You are weaker than you thought. You couldn’t bear letting her go.   Maybe you’re really evil and selfish after all.   Jimin sighs, not knowing what to do or say. He simply hugs the child back and after a long moment of cooing her, stopping her sobs, he ends up saying, “maybe...maybe next year.”   Next year never comes.   One by one her baby teeth fall out, replaced by an adult tooth, and you tell tales of a tooth witch that gives chocolate in exchange for the fallen tooth. In the morning, she’s bouncing around, showing off her sweet treat to you and Jimin that you had snuck in during the night.   She’s taught reading and writing by you while Jimin takes over lessons in math after he painstakingly watched you struggle to explain how to multiply. He also teaches her plants and natural sciences while you are assigned to history and magic on top of the others.   The child becomes taller, smarter, more independent. She is insisting on doing things on her own, like brushing her hair, and while it makes you sad that she’s growing up so quickly, you begin to let go. She becomes increasingly curious about the outside world as well, asking questions about the universe beyond the stone walls. While sometimes Jimin brings her to town with him, she is usually outside in his small garden or inside her room.   Despite isolating her from the rest of the world, you know it’s for her own protection.   But she’s not the only one who becomes older. Jimin becomes slower in movements, back more hunched, still refusing for you to use magic on him. So you help him using other remedies.   As for you, Riah’s independence allows you to tap back into magic, helping people fulfill their wishes. You watch as their greed destroys themselves — a servant girl who transforms herself for one night, ball gown and glass slippers, fooling a prince into infatuation, only to be left by him when he finds out her true identity. A miller’s daughter willing to sacrifice her newborn to spin straw into gold to get a king’s attention. A woman helped into marrying a bluebeareded man she does not love for his fortune, only to beg for your help again when she wants to be freed and take his riches.   Humans are disgusting. Ugly. You see it clearly now.   “I’m back!”   “Welcome home.” Jimin is at the table as usual and you shut the door, setting down your satchel and hanging up your black cloak.   “Where is she?”   “Oh, you know...around.” He smiles, continuing to chop the carrots, the even rhythm soothing to listen to.   “Everything was okay?’   “Yeah, same old.”   Right as you’re catching up with him, there are quick footsteps and the young woman you were speaking about comes waltzing in with a grin. “Good morning! I missed you!” She rushes over, giving you a quick squeeze with her arms. She pulls away, stealing a carrot slice from Jimin with a giggle and then grabbing an apple from the bowl before skipping back into her room.   It’s so quick. You blink and she’s gone.   “What was that?”   The hunched man laughs. “You tell me.”   Now that you think about it, she’s been so happy lately like she’s walking on clouds. “Did something happen?”   “No.” Jimin tips his head to the side, frowning and trying to think. He can’t come up with anything and shrugs. “It’s at least better than when she used to slam doors and stomp around.”   You laugh in agreeance, brushing past him. But Jimin’s eyes stray off and he immediately brings up his arm, knife dropping on the cutting board, hands curling around your wrist, stopping you. He flips your palm away from him, staring at how a leaf is stuck to your skin. “What happened?”   “Oh, it’s nothing.” You slip out of his grip. “It was from a wolf I encountered on the way back….”   “A wolf?!” His eyes are doubled in worry. “What in the world…”   “I grinded up some herbs that I had so, I’m fine.”   “Sit down,” he orders with a glare. “Right now.”   His command has you complaining, dropping down to the seat across the table. He takes out a small box from the upper shelf, full of bandages and gauzes. Jimin wipes off your makeshift dressing, his brows furrowed slightly, eyes lidded in concentration not to hurt you further.   He is much older now. You notice the longer you stare. His dark hair is marred by grey strands, wrinkles creasing his skin around his eyes and mouth where he usually smiles and laughs. But while he was becoming sluggish and easily tired, he is a calmer force than before.   “I know you think magic’s a good solution for everything, but sometimes all you need is some traditional medicine and a few bandages.” He pours a clear liquid over your split wound, the sting causing you to wince. He hums, acknowledging your reaction and becoming even gentler than he was before. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t scar.”   “It doesn’t matter if it does or not.” You have blisters and boils all over your hands anyways. “Do you think it’ll really make a difference?”   Jimin looks up at you, even if you’re still hidden behind the white mask. “So because you think it doesn’t make a difference, you’re willing to take stab wounds and stand in fire?” He scoffs at your ridiculousness, scolding, “I won’t let you get hurt.”   “Minah…”   “What?”   You gaze at him, eyes softening. “Do you ever want to leave?”   “What?” His hands stop.   “Aren’t you tired of me sometimes?” you murmur, “I mean, I’m tired of me. I want to leave me behind all the time. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go somewhere else. You’ve already stuck by me for so long.”   “Are you trying to kick me out or something? Is that what you’re trying to say?” The corner of his mouth lifts and he looks down again, bandaging up your wound properly and neatly, skilled hands working.   “When you came with me, you wanted to live out adventures, but we don’t have any adventures anymore.”   “Raising Riah was the best adventure and every day with you is already an adventure. He smiles again, pupils flickering up to lock into yours, still holding your hand. “Pirates, wolves, goblins...there’s always exciting things in our lives.”   “Sorry—”   “I’m not going to leave, Y/N. I don’t want to leave. This is my home. Riah is part of my family. You are part of my family.” Jimin sighs. “I don’t know why even after all these years, you still think I’m going to get tired one day and up and leave you here.”   “It would be understandable if you did.”   “But that’s not what I want, lady!” He laughs, feeling like he’s talking in a circle. “Get it through your thick skull!”   Aren’t you tired of seeing my face? Aren’t you tired of being around something so ugly and unsightly? — You can’t bring yourself to ask the questions on the tip of your tongue.   Even with Jimin’s reassurance sometimes you feel scared. What you have is so fragile. It would take less of a curse, a spell, to have the people you love the most abandon you again.   “I’ll be back in six days.” As usual, now that you were back on your journey, it was time for him to go on his. Jimin is heading to town to stock up on a few necessities. It had been a while since he ventured into the outside world.   “Can you get me those charcoal pencils?” Riah asks with bright eyes.   “Course, I will, sweetheart.” He presses a light kiss to her forehead, smiling, before looking off at you. His eyes melt into a gentler gaze of unspoken affection. You return his smile. “I’ll be back soon.”   “Have a safe trip.”   “Bye!” The young girl waves at the doorway, sunlight hitting her skin, shadow painted across the floor. “Don’t forget!”   It’s underneath your skin — a feeling that it’s not right, that he shouldn’t go. Your heart is heavy, intuition screaming. But you push it back and away, turning around, letting him go anyhow.   “Have you eaten yet?”   “I already did!” Your daughter is chipper, ginormous smile nearly breaking her face. “You should eat if you haven’t. I think I’m going to go back to my room early. I’m in the middle of this book and it’s getting really exciting.”   “Is it now?” You smile. “Did something happen, Riah?”   “Something…?” Her head quirks, another smile, shyer, appearing on her features. Her cheeks deepen in hue and she shakes her head. “Not really.”   “Alright, go on then. But did you finish that homework book I assigned you to read?”   “I did,” she chimes and runs off.   It’s quieter without Jimin around. You eat and wind down by yourself, but you’re unable to shake the unsettled feeling. No matter how much time passes, you’re unable to whisk the emotion away.   In the middle of the night, you throw the covers off of yourself, slam the door to the tucked away room open and you look into the mirror. A reflection of smooth skin and shining eyes greets you. It’s the you before the curse, who smiled at the smallest thing, who was bursting with youth and happiness.   You dispel away the picture with the mutter of Jimin’s name. It shows you the image of him rested in the forest near a riverbank, safe and sound. Yet, the discomfort lingers and you call upon Jungkook’s name, finding him sleeping in his castle. Breaths stagger through your parted lips and you stalk the next thing you think of.   Footsteps pad against the cold floors. You shove open your daughter’s door.   The bed is empty. The window is wide open.   She is gone.   //   You wait patiently. There is nothing you can do but wait and hope for the best. In the back of your mind, you know you’re too scared of going to the mirror, of saying her name and witnessing a horrific image of where she might possibly be. So you wait.   It is the middle of twilight, hours later, that there is the sound of ruffling. There are soft giggles, a rope of yellow hairs thrown up to the open window, latching onto the window hook. She grips it and her hands clutch onto the window pane, pulling her body up. The girl notices the shadow in the corner. Her laughter dies in her throat.   She gasps. “Mom?!”   “Where did you go?” You emerge from the darkness, face twisted with anger. “Who was with you?!”   Your shout booms, causing her to flinch. But you are undeterred, pacing towards the window to get a look, only for her to block you with her body, arms open wide to prevent you. “Mom!”   You catch a silhouette running towards the thick tree lines and your eyes dart back towards her. “Who was that?! Where have you been going?!”   “I...I met someone, okay?”   “Who?”   “He says he’s a prince from the neighboring kingdom.”   “A prince?”   “Yes.” She smiles, breathless, looking up at you. The young girl holds your hand in her’s, and she searches your expression, speaking earnestly, “he’s great, mom. He’s the sweetest and kindest boy I’ve ever met.”   “Where did you even meet him?”   “I met him in town once when I was with dad and then I ran into him in the forest again.”   “You’ve been in the forest without my permission?!”   “Mom…”   “And you think it’s okay to go running back into the forest in the middle of the night like this?! Do you know what’s out there?! There are wolves and humans and horrible—”   “It’s okay.” She exhales, grin swelling into her rosy cheeks. “He said he’s going to protect me.”   “Don’t be so stupid!” You throw her grip off of you and she stumbles back in surprise. “You think he would save you if push comes to shove?! He wouldn’t. How long have you been seeing him?”   “I-I don’t know….for a while now.”   You’re speechless. You don’t know what to do. You don’t know what to say. You’re in need of someone calmer, who can re-direct you in the midst of your overwhelming emotions and fears — you need Jimin. But he isn’t here.   So, you take a deep breath, finger coming to point towards her.   “You are not to see him again.”   You shove past the girl, closing the windows and locking the latch, drawing the curtains in a rough motion.   “Mom!”   “I don’t know why you ever thought it was a good idea hiding this from us for so long, but we never talk to strangers. What have I taught you? We never believe what someone tells us. We never leave in the middle of the night and go into the forest if we want to stay alive.”   “He’s not a stranger!” The girl pants, chasing after you. “He’s nice and kind and—”   Your heel twists around, eyeing her. “And you believe that?!”   “Yes, I do!” She is too certain in her convictions. “I love him.”   You are shocked, taken back, and you shake your head with a scoff. “Love?”   “I love him.”   “And does he love you?!” You’re shrieking at her in a high-pitched voice worth ringing ears, ready to pull out the remains of your hair, like a true witch driven to madness and wickedness.   “He said he’s going to marry me,” she argues back at you, saddened by your reaction, hurt by your tone.   “He’s a liar.”   “You haven’t even met him yet,” she disputes. “If you just met him, I know you would love him—”   “What did I tell you? We don’t believe in that kind of love,” you plead with the girl, softening your voice to get her to understand. “You don’t put your trust into princes or knights or men for that matter. No one will save you or protect you. They will betray you—”   “I’m not a child anymore!”   “I know that.”   “You’re treating me like I am one.”   “Because you are acting like one.” You’re frustrated and angered beyond belief. No matter what you say, she doesn't listen. You feel like you’ve failed as a parent. “You don’t know anything about the world. You are terribly naive and hopeful and the world out there,” you spit the syllables out, finger coming to point out the window, “it will crush you.”   “M-mom…” She cries, face rippling into tears, mouth downturning, brows knitted together, choking out sobs.   “I don’t know who planted these ideas into your head, these ideas about love…” You whip yourself around, not sparing her another glance. “You are not to see him again, do you understand me? Now get to bed this instant.”   The door slams.   You’re hyperventilating on the other side, back pressed against the wall. You can hear her the sounds of her crying, leaking from the crack of the door. Your tough and stern façade crumbles. It morphs into anguish, anxiousness, doubt, fear. You don’t know what to do.   I love him.   Your worst nightmare has come alive.   //   It is silent between the two of you for the next few days that pass.   You refuse to talk any further on the subject. Riah gives you the cold shoulder. You put her on house arrest, supervising her closely and keeping an eye on the girl without allowing her to take one step outside. It’s drastic measures you’ve taken, but it’s for her own good.   She just doesn’t know it yet. But one day, she’ll thank you.   It’s your job as a mother to protect your child. You’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.   Though the anxiousness you have never dissipates even when you’ve gone this far. Your hair is standing on its end. A sea of goosebumps have never left your flesh. Your intuition still pricks the back of your mind. You spend more time in front of the mirror than you have in the past eighteen years, but it’s to make sure Jimin is safe and sound.   You never monitor him so intently before, though it makes you feel a bit better to see that he’s gotten to town without being harmed. You even catch him splurging on charcoal pencils, making you smile and prepare a lecture. But contrary to your instincts, nothing seems amiss.   You look to see if there’s a new prophecy. After all, you’ve single-handedly changed fate, freeing a child from the grips of death. Altering destiny can create calamity, but when you murmur a spell in front of the shimmering reflection, there is nothing. There are no prophecies. Only conjured images of a cozy cottage that’s been abandoned in the middle of a meadow.   A garden of flowers — Tulips. Daffodils. Carnations. Sunflowers. Lilies. Baby’s Breath.   It serves to confuse you more.   You haven’t grown flowers in decades.   “Riah.” You knock on her door, having given her more space to make her less upset. “Are you going to come for dinner or not? The food’s getting cold.”   There are thirty heartbeats of silence. You knock again.   “Nari, answer me right this instant.”   Nothing. You throw the door open. The windows are left slightly ajar, curtains blowing in the breeze. The ties you made around them are torn to the ground. But instead of the bed being empty like a few nights ago, she is here, sitting on the edge of it, back turned towards you.   “You left again?!” You go berserk, blowing a gasket in your brain, feeling blind sighted.   Yet, she ignores your rage, whispering, “When I was six...where did you bring me?”   “What?” You frown, wondering why she’s suddenly bringing this up. “What’s the matter?”   “Where did you bring me?” she repeats and turns away to face you, tears flooding her vision, hatred burning in her eyes.   “I—...don’t remember what you’re talking about.”   “You were going to leave me!” Her voice increases in volume into a yell and she gets onto her feet, unleashing her rage. “Why didn’t you?!”   You’re confused, in disbelief, mind turning numb. “You asked to stay.”   “Because I didn’t know any better!”   Her screams reverberate, hitting against your ear drums. There’s a moment of quiet.   “Where is this coming from, Riah?” you murmur, “Where did you go?”   “You lied to me,” she spits much to your horror, enunciating every syllable pointedly with a burden attached to them. “You really thought I wouldn't have found out? You really thought you could’ve hid it from me? I’m the lost princess. You...you were the witch that stole me away.”   Silence.   “It’s true, isn’t it?” The girl with the dark hair and doe eyes shakes her head, crying, but less in sorrow and more in angry betrayal. She asks as if you would tell her she’s mistaken. But you don’t say anything. The words have caught in your windpipe. He had told her — the prince or whomever she is meeting with must’ve spoken about this old tale haunting the kingdom. She must remember — you bringing her in front of the castle at six-years old, ready to let go, recalling your conversation with Jimin that she had eavesdropped in without knowing what was going on.   Whatever the case may be, she has grown old enough, smart enough to fit the puzzle pieces together. And you cannot deny the picture she has painted for you — lost princess stolen away by the evil witch.   “It’s true, isn’t it?!”   “Yes.”   Her sobs deepen, heart wrenching, agonizing, and she shakes her head, not wanting to believe it. “When….w-when were you planning to tell me?”   “I don’t know.”   “Were you planning on keeping it a secret forever?!”   “I….don’t know.” You take a step and she backs up into the corner. “Riah…”   “Don’t touch me!” Her eyes narrow, tone sharp, glaring at your monstrous appearance. “You’re disgusting.”   You’re at a loss, calling her name in vain.   “You kept me trapped here. You didn’t let me go outside farther than the forest. You stole me away from my parents!”   “I did it for your own protection—”   “From what?!” She shouts in hysterics, teeth gritted, jaw clenching. “I’m not your prisoner! You can’t manipulate me and lie to me! My entire life….my entire life is a lie!”   “I can explain.” You follow after her when she begins to walk away, putting a distance away from you when your presence is unbearable to her. “I did it to save your life. I had no other choice. You were going to die if it weren’t for me—”   She stops, twisting herself around. “Then you should’ve just let me die!”   “H-how could you say that?!”   “Did you really think you did this all for me? No. It was for you and your selfish wants.”   “Where are you going?” you beg her when she begins to pack her clothes, throwing open her wardrobe and grabbing her satchel in the corner, a birthday gift from Jimin from many years ago.   “Away from you!”   “I never trapped you,” you attempt to reason, feeling too helpless, doing anything you can to get her to stay. “I let you go free. I let you—”   Your daughter shoves you away, out of her proximity. When she faces you, there is only loathing and spite in her expression. “You stole me away from my mother.”   “You think that woman is your mother?” Against your will, tears begin to trickle down your hollowed cheekbones, through the twisting cracks of your reddened flesh. “I was the one who took care of you. I fed you. I clothed you. I bathed you. That woman is only your mother in name, only because she birthed you out. But it was me who did everything else. I was the one who raised you.”   “You stole me away from her!” She shrieks. “She never had a chance to raise me!”   “You are my daughter. And I love you. No one in this world can change that, not even you!”   “I am not your daughter! I don’t have a mother like you! You are nothing more than a witch.” The girl is bitter, stepping back, weeping into her palms, hair shielding away her face when she downcasts her head, refusing to look at you. “You took me away from what was supposed to be mine. The life I was supposed to have. You lied to me! You betrayed me.”   The silence is painful. When she brushes past you, your hand reaches out, grabbing hold of her hand. “You can’t leave. No, Riah, please!”   “Let go of me!”   “If you go with him, do you really think he’ll love you? He won’t.” You’ve seen what happens when people put too much hope in love. You don’t want her to turn into the mermaid who threw herself into the sea after being heartbroken. You don’t want her to become abandoned like you were.   So as she struggles against your hold, you plead with her to stay with you. You drop down to your knees, an iron grip holding her hand, begging her to stay, or at least until Jimin returns and he can get to her, more than you could ever be able to. “Riah...I love you.”   “You don’t!”   “I do. No one….no one can love you more than I do.” This child that you’ve raised for the past eighteen years, that you love so dearly, is a part of your family. You held her when she was an infant, held her when she became sick, brushed her hair, fed her, watched her take her first steps towards you. You will always love and protect this child of yours. “Please...don’t go.”   But she pries your dirty fingers off of you with disdain. “Watch me.”   The door slams shut as she takes another step — your magic lingering in the air.   You can’t let her go.   “I won’t let you leave. I...can’t.”   The door knob does not move. The satchel slides off her shoulder, thumping on the ground. She is trapped with four walls around her, bird in a cage, mouse underneath a box. Her hands lift into her hair, the dark strands filling the gaps between her fingers. She tugs on them and screams at the top of her lungs in suffocation. The girl cowers over, shrieking, blood-curdling at the back of her throat. The cries are more horrific than when you stole her away as a baby.   //   There is incessant banging on the surface of the door.   There are calls out to you, begging to be released. You pace, fragile teeth biting against your molded fingernails, not knowing what to do. If you open the door, she’ll leave, so you can’t. You don’t want to lose her. What you need is Jimin — he’ll know how to talk to her, how to get her to calm down, how to get her to understand.   You wait for him, but the stranger from nights ago comes wandering back, ignorant in his confident strides. Your daughter shouts for him, fists hitting against the window until her skin bruises blue. “I’m here! I’m up here!”   He doesn’t hear her.   Instead, the stranger stumbles back when you step into the sunlight. Your features appear like they’re melting off of your peeling face, eyes bulging out of their socket, mouth lopsided, nose hooked and crooked. Maggots are eating away at your decaying flesh, flaps of it hitting against your muscle tissue, like a snake halfway through shedding. The blisters and open sores are oozing of yellow pus, hair stark white and part of your scalp burnt, turned into shades of purple.   You’re disfigured and he is horrified with your face, sickened to his stomach when he looks at you. Scared. Hateful. Loathing. Nauseated. It’s now that you remember why you’ve isolated yourself, why people are never to be trusted, why your life has so much misfortune.   It’s people like him who made you suffer like this. People who don’t know you. People who don’t spare compassion or pity, even in the moments that you need it the most.   The young prince draws his silver sword. “Stand back, witch!”   “Leave!” Your hands fly into the air, bursts of light coming from your fingertips. You hiss at the man, chasing him away, “Leave! Don’t come back!”   “No!” Your daughter screams from her locked room. “NO!”   But you never curse him. You never use any spells or jinxes.   You simply scare him away, allowing him to stagger back into the forest like a coward. And when you return back, crying fills the abandoned castle that’s been your home for decades.   This is it.   You’re about to lose everything, everything you have created after being abandoned and left.   The home you’ve built and protected is now exposed to outsiders. The daughter you raised and love looks at you with eyes of loathing and hatred. It is silent — and you find yourself alone.   //   The news spreads like wildfire, out of your control. The man you chased away who is indeed a prince, gathers troops and guards to save Riah. Within a day, the rumours have spread that the girl is the lost princess, the lost daughter of the king and queen. It sparks enough hope after so many years of silence that Jungkook gathers his own army and sets out on this promising news. He leaves his wife behind, going to see for himself if the rumours are true or not.   They carry with them torches and swords, bows and arrows, riding on horses, marching through the forest. There are only so many protection spells and barriers you can put up. If your home is revealed and they know the path, they can walk straight through the shields, waltz into your home and spear you with their weapons once and for all.   Jimin catches wind of the town’s murmurs, of the awful witch who had cursed many, who cause people’s eyes to bleed when they look upon her, who ruthlessly kidnapped the child of the kingdom. And he comes running back. You’re sure he’s not going to make it on time, but as you watch him through the reflection of the mirror, you’re glad he’s out of the way.   At least you get to spare him from the tragedy that was to come.   You sit alone in the castle, putting on your mask to keep the last shreds of your dignity. Waiting as the troops advance forward. Waiting for the night to come.   You’ve accepted it. You’ve evaded death enough times and you’re glad that you fought for so long. If you hadn’t, you would’ve never had the opportunity to raise a child, to find so much happiness in someone who accepts you. It’s going to be perfect too. The lost princess will be saved by the prince who’s infatuated by her beauty. The evil witch who took her away will suffer the consequences and be killed.   It’ll be a happily ever after….   The door slams open as your eyes shut. “They’re here! They’re a few miles away!”   “Jimin?” You frown and he throws his body forward, grabbing your hand, forcing you to stand up on your feet again. “What are you doing here? I….I thought you were still far away.”   He looks around in panic. “Where’s Riah?”   “Jimin.”   “Where is she?” When you don’t say anything, he shakes you, hands gripping your shoulders. “Y/N! We need to go, right now!”   You hug him. You lean your weight forward, falling into his arms. Jimin staggers back onto his bad leg, instinctively coming to wrap his arms around you, cradling your frame. You hold him close to you, head on his shoulder, taking in his scent that reminds you of home.   “Riah wants to leave….I...I locked her in her room. They’re coming to save her.”   “What happened?” He catches his breath, heartbeat slowing.   “I don’t know, but you should go.” You swallow hard and release him from your grips, pushing him towards the door. “Thank you for staying with me for so long.”   “I’m not going anywhere.”   “Leave me here.” You turn away from him. “Go before they come.”   “Y/N. I’m not going.”   “LEAVE!”   The roar that escapes the pit of your stomach has the window trembling in their panes. The walls vibrate. The air shifts. But Jimin stands his ground, despite your wrathful command.   “I’m not going anywhere! Let….let me protect you.”   You break down into sobs. Jimin takes three wide strides and holds you again. He wraps himself securely around you, murmuring, “let me protect you this time.”   The two of you wait for them to arrive.   You stop running, reaping what you have sowed, taking the consequences of the crimes that you had committed, while Jimin remains by your side. Soon enough, the eerie silence is replaced by shouts and horses calling from the back. They’re confused by the empty clearing, but as they continue forward, they are stopped by an invisible barrier.   They notice the ripples of the shield, the way the air seems to billow and someone commands them to fight, to break it through sheer force.   Jimin turns and holds you by your shoulders, locking his eyes into yours. “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t do anything and just stay here.”   You nod and he runs into another room. But with a deep breath, you go against his will. You have to protect her. With a wave of your hand, you allow the prince through. He stumbles past the barrier and despite his soldiers shouting at him not to go forth, he draws his sword and runs.   The prince bursts through the doors with ease and he stares at you, put on guard. “Stand back before I kill you!” You stare at the tip of his weapon, wondering what it’ll feel like to be impaled by it. “Where is she?!”   The barrier outside finally shatters. There are screams of the troops. You point to the room where the girl is still banging on the locked door. “There.”   He rushes over and kicks it down.   “Come on, let’s go!” He shouts at her, dragging her away with little regard for you.   “W-wait!” Riah cranes her head over, looking at you in distress, stare on yours.   But her prince tugs on her arm. “There’s no time!”   “I’m sorry for lying to you.” You watch as she gets pulled away and you gaze at her one last time. You remember — the rosy cheeks, button nose, gooey smile, cooing laugh. The bundle that you held in your arms, the infant that would always cry when you set her down.   The way she rolled over for the first time. The babbling. The crawling.   “Come on, Riah. Take one more bite for me! It’s good for you! It’s carrots! It’ll make you grow big and strong. Jimin won’t be happy if you don’t eat it. It took a lot of work for him to grow it.”   The toddler finally looks at you and points at your face. “Mama!”   The way he encouraged her softly and she lifted her arms off the chair, stumbling like a drunkard towards Jimin’s open arms, one leg in front of the other. “Yay! You did it!”   “Why is your face different from mine?” — “I didn’t always look like this. Aren’t you scared?” — “No. I’m not. Why would I be scared of my mama?”   “Where are we going?” — “Mom! Don’t go!” You remember how Riah cried, wailing as teardrops spilled down her cheeks like rain. She hiccuped and begged. She hanged onto you with all her might. Your daughter yelled out to you. “Don’t leave me!” — “Stay!”   And here you are. Finally. You are letting her go.   But she will always be your daughter that you love, that you will protect. “I love you.”   She is pulled away, out the door without a single word spoken to you. Gone.   Your hand lifts and the doors automatically lock. A few heartbeats later, soldiers are storming the castle, beating down the surface, causing the ceiling to crumble, the walls to shake. The horrible sounds of their destruction ricochet. You shut your eyes and ears until—   “It’s a dragon!”   There are ear-splitting screams. Through the window, you see the magnificent beast. Tangerine scales shimmer all over its body, breathing fire towards the troops, but never harming them, only scaring them away. The rumble of the ancient castle walls cause the mirror in your tucked away room to fall to the ground, shattering into pieces. The rest of your potions spill, glass rolling off the shelves and cracking into fragments.   The empty bottle that Jimin had drunk from bursts into sparkling particles, jewels he could never gift to you.   He fights, not backing down, and with an inhale, you gain his courage, calling upon a storm. Your feet are rooted into the floor, using any spells and jinxes to ward off the men. The windows break with the force of the whistling wind. The debris comes sweeping into your surroundings, a tornado that whips through the remains of your hair and clothing. The furniture of your home is flipped and damaged. The screams sing above the symphony of the pandemonium.   The castle is decaying. Your home is falling apart. You want it to stop.   The doors burst open and the soldiers scour every inch, searching to kill this evil witch and return their world back to peace.   “Enough!” you yell at the top of your lungs, above the winds, voice echoing through the hallways. “Jimin! That’s enough!”   You rip the mask off your face. The old white plastic falls to your feet. You gaze upon the destruction you’ve created, the sins you have committed in this lifetime.   “Stop. this.”   “Kill the witch!” — the soldiers shout at each other — “Kill the witch!” — they stalk the noise of your croaking cries — “Kill the witch!”   One of them finds you first. The victor of the witch hunt sees you, smiling triumphantly as they point their weapon at your defenseless body. And they shoot. The nose is deafening in your ears. The arrow fires, warbling the wind, twirling in the air. It punctures straight through your abdomen.   You gasp for air, stumbling back. Your head downcasts, looking down at the wound. Red stains your brown rags, seeping through your clothing, spreading like watercolour on a canvas. You wheeze.   “Y/N!” Jimin screams, coming through the window and morphing back into human form, feet touching the ground first, transformation reverting, billowing through his body. He limps towards you, catching your body in his arms as it falls.   He has become burnt all along his left side, leg dragged behind him, injured. The colour of carmine drips from his head, staining his skin and the ground beneath you. His head aches, vision fading, but he keeps his grip firm and secure.   “Stop!”   There is a familiar, smooth voice. A hand held in the air prevents the guards around from further attacking. Your neck cranes with the last of your energy and the corners of your mouth lift. He looks older than you remember, though some things never change. Even if the ashes from the battle have pressed into his skin, his dark hair, his brown doe eyes are the same. You missed him.   You missed his warm touch, the scent of the sea, the life you could’ve shared with him.   You missed it.   “It’s you again….”   His arm drops. He remembers.   It is difficult to speak when only shallow breaths can be taken. “J-Jungkook….”   Your home is falling apart. The castle is giving out, the last of its strength being tested. The fires on the roof and all around you is spreading. The warmth of those flames and their smoke are beginning to envelop you. The soldiers stay behind him, having stopped on his command.   Jungkook looks you in your eyes.   Your dying breaths dwindle. Jimin holds you close to him, tired of fighting.   You smile at Jungkook one last time. The corners of your mouth lifting with love and compassion. His sword drops in a clang. And his own lips fall, horrified. This time, it’s not because of your face, but finally, in your last moments, Jungkook finally realizes that it’s you.   You tilt your head up towards Jimin who’s still holding you, embracing your body.   “D...on’t….look...at...m..e...I’m...s-s….o…..ugly….”   “No, you aren’t.” He laughs softly and breathlessly, gazing at you with endearment, stroking your cheek with his hand. “You’re beautiful.”   You smile even wider than before. His hair shags down over his forehead, cheeks swelling with a gentle smile, eyes crinkled into half moons, cute giggles leaving through his throat even in such a situation. You are monstrous. In your life, people have made you suffer when all you wanted was someone to show you kindness, to understand your pain, to empathize.   And Jimin was that person for you.   He’s not the love of your life. Your soulmate. Your one true love.   But that doesn’t change the fact that you love him. You love him not because of any rush of infatuation or any monarch butterflies that have taken refuge in your stomach, not because of any spark that had ignited when you set your sights on him. You love him because he is here by your side, because he has always been here to help you, to support you, for you to lean on.   He had always chosen to stay with you. And you have always chosen to love him.   Your hand trembles as it lifts to hold his cheek and he reaches down, kissing you. It’s a soft brush of the lips, gentle and plush. He chokes out a soft laugh pulling away. It isn’t true love’s kiss. The spell is never broken. You’re still disfigured, but he doesn’t care. He sees far beneath it.   It is difficult to murmur on your dying breath. You are slumped to the ground, eyes piercing into his. You sob with the last of your diminishing energy, the scarlet hues spreading through your clothes and drenching them.   The winds howl and shriek. The leaves outside rustle to the hurricane, whispering their woes and eulogies of sympathy. Flowers rip from the ground, caught in the tornado, bouquets that act as a tribute to honour your memory. The universe bears witness, pandemonium acting as a prayer...   You whisper lowly, making your final curse out of sadness and happiness.   “F-for showing...a witch...so much...undeserving kindness….I curse you...Jimin...to be with me...forever….in an endless sleep….and in..dreams...live...the life...we’ve always wished for…”   He smiles. “It would be my greatest honour.”   There is a burst of light. The soldiers and Jungkook shields their eyes away, too pained to look at it. When the light diminishes, and they look back, sunspots and sparks dance around the room, flickering like fire, moving like fireflies. They weave through you and Jimin, eyes closed, both fallen asleep….   Finally at peace.

… ..   It’s a cozy cottage in the middle of the meadow.   Puffs leave the chimney, a fire crackling inside and keeping the modest and comfortable space toasty. On the outside, there are tulips, daffodils, carnations, lilies, baby’s breath. Seeds are sowed into the ground, waiting to see what is reaped, what blooms.   The lovely florals already rooted deep into the dirt are abundant in petals, rich in colour — pink, yellow, blue, indigo. They are pastels that are strong in hues before fading into a fainter shade in their teardrop shape. The soft fragrances cling onto clothing and bed sheets left hung on the clothesline.   The sunshine is beaming, weather warm and sky azure with the gentlest of breezes kissing against cheeks. It is peaceful, a feeling of contentment bursting through the dreamy atmosphere.   The door opens from the outside.   You’re returned to your old self again, eyes and ears as they should be, hair and skin no longer falling off your body. Even your voice is normal again, not the croaking sound that you weren’t familiar with. But you walk right past the shimmering mirror, not paying it any time of day.   “Jimin! You’re taking up too much space in the garden again!”   Your hands are on your hips, foot tapping in impatience. He’s halfway through eating his soup, sitting at the small round table by the glass windows halfway between the living room and the kitchen. He puts down his spoon. “What is it now, lady?”   “Your carrots are in the way of my tulips!”   “Why do you even plant tulips? We can’t eat them!”   “Flowers are prettier than your radishes,” you argue in a calmer voice, but your tolerance is running thin. “If your garden was just full of your plants, it would just look like shrubs.”   But of course the boy has to sass you back, “if our garden was full of your flowers, we would have nothing to eat.”   “Hey!”   He stands up from his seat with a grin all too amused with the banter and he approached slyly to wrap his arms around your waist. He is not injured, no bad leg or hunched back, no scar twisting up the side of his body. Jimin is healthy as can be and looks less like a henchman and more like your aggravating, stupid husband.   “Fine, fine. I’m sorry, alright?” Jimin plants a kiss on the tip of your nose, his softened gaze dripping of endearment. “Next time, I won’t plant so many carrots. But lower your voice, okay? Or else you’re going to wake up our baby and I just put him down for a nap.”   You pout, giving in. “Fine.”   “That’s my good girl.”   “Psh.” Your hand reaches down, taking his hand and he wears an idiotic grin, happily lacing his fingers through yours. There’s not a single regret he has on being here, being with you like this. And you don’t have a worry that he wants to be somewhere else, that he will leave. “I love you.”   “About time,” he teases. “I know I’m charming, but you were really starting to worry me there with how long it was taking for that confession.”   You scoff, moving to elbow his stomach, but he avoids it swiftly with a laugh. “You’re unbelievable.”   Jimin hums, quirking his head to the side. “I love you too.”   “You better. We have a kid together.”   He giggles and when your banters subside, your head is rested on his shoulder, his arms around your torso. You both stare out the window to the flourishing garden. It’s beautiful and a serene sight and you could relish in this moment endlessly.   It doesn’t matter what you look like. Jimin will be by your side, a comforting presence, someone to lean on, even if he annoys you like crazy sometimes. And it doesn’t matter what he looks like to you, bad leg or no bad leg. As long as you’re together, this place is your heaven.   “Jimin…”   “Hmm?”   “Did you fix that hole in the roof yet? The one that’s been leaking water into the bathroom.”   “......oops.”   “Jimin!” You laugh and he giggles sheepishly.   This is what it should have been. No magic. No curses. It’s plain and mundane, but this is all you could have wished for.   This is your fairy tale ending.

[allyvampirelass29]

Blood Moon: Scene 1

A Vampire Diaries Special Edition Fanfiction By: Allyssa J. Watkins 

Niklaus Mikaelson neared the shadows edge in the wood, wearing the misty eve as he would a heavy cloak around his broad shoulders, stepping so that only a part of his determined face, and one gleaming blue eye caught in the cast moonlight.

"You're late," He whispered to the swirling fog as it swept out over the clearing, his voice not altogether pleased, and yet not entirely angry either. "Of course you're late......." He whispered much more fond, a smirk curling in the corner of his amused lips. He straightened his black silk tie, the pinstripes on it leaving the slightest trace of red, and smoothed his black tuxedo jacket as well, his revealed eye fixated on the clearing, and the way the ruins of a stately mansion created phantom shapes in the night.

"You're angry with me........ I can feel it......... he breathed each word, his lips parted. "I feel........ The Fire. The fire that I love, the fire that you tempt me with, tease me with. That same transfixing flame you burn me with, even as I beckon it. That fire is yours yes, but unbeknownst to you, Love, it's also mine. I've coaxed it, controlled it, and it licks at my hand, and you think it's at your behest, but it's not. It comes because I've called it....... and so will you. You'll come, oh yes, you'll frustrate me with the waiting, being the flippant, smouldering thing you are. You'll curse me, you'll screw up that pretty face, set ablaze those lovely, lethal eyes, and you'll hate it, you'll deny it, fight it, but you will come, My Flame, because you can't resist the one who lit the spark of a dying blaze.

The sheen of red satin like a dancing flame emerged from the ruins, the ruffles trailing down her leg, catching the evening breeze as she ran, and the cool night air toyed with the ruffles across her bare back in an enticing and truly envious display. She wasn't using her vampire speed, and his thanks was resounding, for without it, she seemed to be running slowly, her human stride, making it far more able for him to admire her figure in motion. To blur such a watercolour vision through hasty acceleration, would be nothing short of sacrilege.

"Resplendent," Klaus managed breathily, drinking her in as hungrily as he did human blood, letting her drip down his throat and from his lips, warm and smooth, tasting the sweet with just the right hint of sting, all of it, primal in its pleasure. He watched the pale moonlight cling to her loose raven waves as they spilled down her bare shoulders like black ink, illuminated in a ghostly glow, light entwining with dark, a couplet of shine and shadow.

"Soft now...… For all my artistic prowess, every stroke of trying to capture you, commit your visage to my canvas, was utterly in vain...…. A shade, a shell, of the fiercely alive, force of a woman that torments me even now. Oh My Muse...… how I have failed you....…

"KLAUS!!!! KLAUS I KNOW YOU'RE HERE!!!! DAMN IT, KLAUS!!!"

Ah, and there it is...… the sting. Natalia, still running, screamed out his name in the dark, in full throated vexation, and he watched her open mouth wrap around the sound, as she cursed him openly. The silence had shattered with her fury, screaming across the foggy moor, but the fixating image of her crimson figure was made all the lovelier for it, her anger most becoming, and her eyes burned like stoked embers, searching for him in frenzy.

"KLAUS!!!"

"That's it, scream it, Tal, until your whole body trembles with the intensity of your breathless rage, until my name's affect consumes you. Burn me alive, suffocate me with the smoke in your eyes, set fire to the night, that we may succumb to it, and each other...…..

"KLAUS!!!! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?!?"

"I'm everywhere," He whispered with an especially teasing smirk. "Come find me, My Flame. Your sire demands it."

"KLAUSSSSSSSS!!!!"

His eyes snapped shut, and he breathed in the prolonged piercing cry like a draught of elixir, his mouth falling slightly open, as he luxuriated in its sensual song. Brava, Natalia. Brava.

She hurtled more furiously towards him, daring the dark to reveal him, and he opened his eyes again, to see her scrunch her silken obsidian curls in cascading frustration, her cheeks red with both the exertion and aggravation. He waited for it, for his moment, and at last she stopped, just short of the edge of the clearing, out of breath, fuming. Her eyes were murderous, as he stepped out from the shadows into the waiting pool of moonlight with a whistled tune, the darkness falling away from his imperious face, his blue eyes positively striking.

"With lips devil red, and skin the colour of mocha," He taunted, circling her, and his burning lips smiled, though his eyes did not. "You're late." He hissed in accusation, the playful manner falling away.

Natalia's fine, dark eyes snapped back, though she seemed for a moment, distracted by his choice of dashing formal wear. Yes, I do look scrumptious, don't I, he thought, careful not to let his expression waver.

"Late? Are you kidding me!? You're LUCKY I came at all!!!! What the HELL, KLAUS? You're CRAZY, if you think you can summon me in the middle of the freaking night, tell me what to wear, where to meet, all because you decided on a whim I had to play whatever screwed up game this is!!! I have a LIFE, okay, outside of your spoiled, rich boy, over-indulgent theatrics!!! Her threatening eyes lingered for a moment on his silk tie, taking notice that the red pinstripes on it matched her dress to perfection. "Okay...... really, what is this......? Are we going to the Prom?"

Klaus moved closer, and his smile was more scornful than genuine. "Amusing, that you think I have any regard at all for your so called home life with those insufferable band gnats. Worried about missing morning practice, are we?" He chuckled, his haughty blue eyes becoming ice cold. "Too bad. I am your Sire, Tal, and you might recall this pesky little thing that has bound together our blood called The Sire Bond. Rage all you want, My Feisty Songstress, but you will wear what I tell you to wear, and you will appear when you are summoned. I might remind you that this Spoiled, Over-Indulgent Rich Boy, is the only reason you have this life you're so proud of. He closed the space between them swiftly with a slight blur, and he was impressed when she did not so much as flinch with the intrusion. "You're welcome." He whispered in a rasp, smoothing a rebellious curl off her forehead.

They stared at each other for a moment, and he could feel it, her anger softening, the raging fire beneath quelled, and she hated that Klaus' touch had that betraying effect, when any other man would have inspired the absolute opposite.

"As for the Prom...… I have never shared Rebekah's vehement desire for such raucous frivolity. Are you, by chance, having a particularly odd late night craving for finely dressed, probably drunk, pubescent teenagers?"

Klaus watched her fight her smile, knowing she would lose, and he smirked too, part of him hoping she'd even laugh, the other, far smarter, more realistic part of him, knowing she'd never give him the pleasure.

"Ughhh no, definitely not. I'm not that kind of girl."

Klaus grazed his fingers lightly down her shoulder, across the satin ruffle hanging pleasingly from it, and continued the length of her delicate arm, watching the bumps appear on the flawless latte skin, looking deep into her softened eyes as he spoke. "What kind of girl, are you, Natalia? Tell me. Whose Natalia are you?

Tal stared back, her eyes steady, her body betraying her attraction to his commanding presence, his masculine scruff, and even that damned suit. I'm not going to say it, you can't make me say it. Her eyes flickered with something dangerous just for a moment, something that gave Klaus hope, his eyes intensifying. No, she pleaded in her mind, sensing him searching the silence. Don't look at me like that.......

"You want me to say, yours, don't you?"

"Aren't you?"

He watched her struggle, felt the shift as she looked away from him, overcome with the fear of what he'd do with her hesitation.

"I-"

"Shhhhhhh," Klaus soothed, pressing his thumb to her lips to quiet her, bringing her gaze back to his. "I know, you can't answer, and I know why...…. It's because of him...….."

"Klaus....."

"The Irreverent Romeo, The Cavalier Casanova, the utterly more vexing of the two Salvatores," Klaus snickered cruelly.

"They're both pretty vexing...…." Tal answered, as Klaus withdrew his thumb from her lip, taking notice of an anxiety that hadn't been there before.

"Yes, I do agree with you, Darling. That's why my request should come as no surprise. I'm going to ask you to do something for me, that you're not going to want to do, but it is, shall we say, rather critical to our relationship. I need you to break up with the Salvatores. No, Sorry, let me be rudely transparent, and just bloody say it. I need you to break up with Damon Salvatore."

Natalia drew back sharply as if she had been struck, the softness that had overcome her with Klaus' cast spell, dissolved, and she glared hatefully at him, making his own features harden with the stunned slight.

"Are you kidding me!? What the HELL are you talking about!? I HATE Damon Salvatore, Klaus!!! You KNOW what he did to me, I can't STAND him, He- He RUINED me!!!! Is this a joke!? You can't be serious!!! You're JEALOUS, so you make light of my darkest moment, my deepest pain!? Unbelievable. So happy I got all dressed up for THIS!!!!"

Furious, Natalia whirled around to leave, and Klaus caught her arm, his fingers curling around it tightly, possessively, growling, feeling his own ire rising in his chest.

"Yes, how stupid of me, your precious Damon is in the past, how can I forget!? He LEFT you, caused you irreparable damage, hurt you most profound!!! You'd never betray me, your saviour, your sire, your damned saving grace with the likes of him, now would you!? You'd never have SEX with him in the street, but oh WAIT, that's right, you DID!!!!"

Natalia's lip furled, too enraged to even speak, recoiling at every sardonic word spat from Klaus' lips, and she yanked herself free, something inside of her breaking, cursing herself as the anguished tears rolled hot down her cheek her pained whisper, more cry than actual threat.

"Go to hell, Klaus."

Klaus' brow pulled back, knowing he'd taken it too far, knowing he was about to show undermining weakness in her eyes, but he didn't care, and his voice cracked on the words as they burst from his lips.

"I AM in HELL!!!" He cried out, his words and strange, manic manner such a shock to Tal, that she stopped dead, looking at him incredulous, and he took her arm again, this time with a rare tenderness that made a remnant part of her heart ache. "Don't you see? Natalia, I am in HELL, every time that man touches you, every time he says your name, every time he dares enter a room where you are...….."

Natalia's eyes looked frightened as the single tear escaped down his cheek. In all the years she'd known this dangerous, this notorious, this unrelenting, ruthless man, it was the only time she'd ever been this scared of him.

"The way he looks at you...…" Klaus uttered, his voice still broken, his teeth clenched as he stared at her through his released tears. "There is no greater weapon he possesses against me, even the white oak stake offers a fate preferable to that eternal torment. I can't survive it, Natalia...….."

Natalia couldn't help herself, she slowly turned around, her body moving of its own volition, defying her natural instinct, and reached for his face. With a shuddering breath, he closed his eyes, as she pressed her palm into his cheek. Now it was he who felt scared. It wasn't supposed to go like this. She- She wasn't supposed to see him this vulnerable, this fragile, this- this wasn't him! Oh what have you DONE to me, Tal? What is this- this affliction that makes me a fool?

"Klaus-"

"No," He managed unsteadily, fighting for his composure. "You will LISTEN to me!! I've let this go on too long, now, this disastrous folly!!!" He yelled, knocking her hand away, when everything in him screamed at being woefully denied her touch. "Enough!!! I've allowed you to keep him too close, I've endured your clandestine dalliances, because I know....….. I know what a comfort that can be had in faces that remind us of much happier times, memories of love, of bliss, of a transcendent togetherness. But he is poisoning us, Natalia. He uses you, he dares TRIFLE with you, he's confusing you, and I won't have it!"

"Are you...… forbidding me from seeing him?"

"I would prefer it be your choice," Klaus countered, an edge in his voice. "But, yes, I suppose I am. Cut him out of your life, Tal, remove this sword from your side!"

Natalia shook her raven tresses in disbelief. "No!! You can't do this, Klaus, you CAN'T tell me who, or who not to associate with!!! You don't get to decide who trifles with me. Those memories you speak of, the bliss, and transcendent togetherness? Ha! They're toxic, okay, tainted with his scathing betrayal. What once tasted so sweet has turned to ash in my mouth!!! I taste it every time I see him, Klaus, that vile rancor that chokes me, and GOD I want to stake him, myself!!!!!"

"If you think that's best, Love." Klaus simpered.

"No!! I mean, yeah, don't tempt me...… But whether I like it or not, as badly as I have suffered loving and losing him, we're always going to have a history. I hate it, but I can't undo the past, and since we're both going to live forever...…… I'm stuck with him."

Klaus scowled, shaking his light auburn curls, his lip protruding with his defiance. "NO. I do not accept that. I will not let that womanizing, leather clad, Lothario, use your history as an excuse to stay, and further injure you. Stop picking up the broken glass, Tal, and drop your Bad Salvatore Habit!!!"

"Klaus, I can't-" She insisted, watching him bristle at her resistance, his eyes narrowing, his sweet fragility from moments before, fallen away.

"You can...… and you WILL." He insisted through gritted teeth, his tone forceful. "As your Sire, I demand it."

"What happened? Did he say something to you? Why now? What could have possibly brought all of this on? Klaus, I don't understand-"

"Say it. Promise me, that you'll stay away from him." Klaus commanded, unflinchingly, his eyes hard.

Natalia felt the fire within her start to catch, not caring for the liberties Klaus was taking with her so carelessly. She leaned forward, her eyes smouldering, her red lips full of spite.

"No."

Klaus smiled, but it was an angry smile, his eyes still icy, and he raked his fingers through his hair, before resting them, tremulous against her temple, his voice soft, and somehow the most threatening she'd ever heard it.

"You know...…… I can make you...…."

Natalia breathed heavily, her obsidian eyes flashing, and she was sure she'd never despised Klaus more than in this moment.

"You promised...…… You PROMISED you'd never do that to me."

"You are not giving me a choice," he rasped back. The Sire Bond should be persuasion enough, but still you resist, still you refuse, because in some perversion of thought, you want him...…. You want him more than you want me, the man who has given you everything."

Klaus whispered that last word especially harsh as his lips brushed against her ear, his fingers holding steady, and he knew he could do it, compel her before her next breath, and by sheer force of will, make it so that Damon Salvatore never saw this exquisite face, never beheld the fire in her eyes, never lusted for her womanly, caramel figure ever again.

"I'd never forgive you...…." She hissed back, both of them poised, daring the other to move first, his fingers still fixed. Oh yes...….. There was that."

"Tal...…." He whispered delicately, feeling the ache ravage his heart, and her own expression gentled, as his two fingers caressed the side of her face, much like he'd done with the painting on the canvas. "My Spanish Rose, My Spirited Siren...…." He inhaled deeply as he buried his face into the dark, silken curls veiling her cheek. "Let me help you...…. Let me save you from his heartless treachery. I can make you forget him, free you from the pain of every memory. It would be a kindness....... I can make it so the two of you never met in Italy, never reconciled that night in Barcelona a hundred years hence, never kissed in the gondola in Venice, never splashed each other in the Trevi Fountain. Oh my Love, I know it hurts, but it doesn't have to. How much more lovely things await you, than those you leave behind. Let me do this, for you....…."

Natalia trembled violently, as he brought his full lips to her cheek, and her mettle-tested hard exterior that she had so tirelessly forged, broke with his kiss, as the much softer, more deep feeling and vulnerable Natalia from two hundred years ago emerged, silently crying. He pulled away, tasting the salt of her tears, moving to perform his compulsion, when she suddenly grasped both of his fingers on the side of her face, just as he leant down to lock his eyes with hers.

"Klaus, please...…"

Klaus hesitated, having never seen that look in her eyes, having never beheld this facet of hers, this beautiful fragility, this sweet, desperation.

"I don't want to forget...… not any of it. I was..... I was so happy, I was infinite, and unbroken, and I-I want to remember how it felt, even if it hurts now, knowing I'll never be that girl again. Never love that fearlessly. Klaus, I beg you...…. don't do this. Don't take it from me."

Klaus brought her to his chest, and she collapsed against him sobbing, as he enveloped her in his strong arms, resting his cheek atop her curly head, both palms pressed to the bare skin on her back, and he fought his own tears, so affected.

"I won't. I promise you...…. I could never do it, not now. Oh Natalia, My Darling Girl, forgive me, I-I am a selfish, cruel, jealous, insensitive menace, and I do not deserve such a fiery fairness to call mine."

Tal lifted her head to look at him, her eyes still glimmering, burning like candlelight with what he'd only caught a flicker of before. "You may be all of those things, Niklaus...…. but you are beautiful too. My Soulful Artist, My Sexy Sire."

Klaus shuddered, his lip curling around his next shallow breath, hurting as he drew it in, and he was sure he'd heard her wrong, though the euphoria coursing through his hybrid form heralded he had not.

"You...… think I'm sexy, do you?"

Natalia bit her lip, and while she should have been horrified with herself, cursing her weakness, she let that heaviness fall from her shoulders, casting off her armour, grinning like her former self, only this time her smile was indestructible.

"Sexy as HELL, Klaus! Please, like you didn't know!" Her dark eyelashes fluttered coquettishly, before she pointed her finger at him, fighting the smile that wouldn't die. You tell anybody though, that I said that, and I'll kill you."

"Fair enough," He chuckled, disarmed by her smile, his exhale sharp, breath drowning out useless speech, his cheeks hot, suddenly not trusting that this was in fact, reality. Sure he'd been praised before, mostly by insufficiently clad girls too drunk to know better, or otherwise flattered by feminine scheme in some nefarious attempt to abuse his family's power, but not by her...…. Never by her. In a thousand years, no words had ever affected him the way hers had. No woman had ever transfixed him like her, and nothing, not anything had ever terrified him more than siring this perfect creature, and craving her affection even more than her blood.

"You're ravishing to the point of madness," He rasped hungrily grabbing at her skirts to pull her up against him.

"Shut up, and kiss me already," She sassed, running her fingers through his curls, something she'd never done before, but hey, she would be lying if she said she never thought about it...…. among other things.

"As you wish...….." Klaus' smile was impish, the red satin positively sinful as it slipped through his fingers, his hands bunching it at her shapely hips, pulling her into the fevered kiss, pressing into her lips with a growl. But as he tasted the fire, as it burned on her lips, as it tempted him to devour her, the wolf inside fell silent. Instead of letting the heat rise, and work him up into an animalistic frenzy, instead of craving to control that beautiful blaze, stoke it relentless, he felt himself melt in it, the kiss softening, his lips succumbing to hers, as he sipped the exquisite wine instead of swallowing it whole, wanting to savour it more leisurely. His lips were delicate, as they moved over hers, lingering, breathing her in, overwhelmed with this strangely gentle sensation, something happening, something transcendent from the past stealing through him.

Natalia's lips trembled in the kiss, stunned as he painted his soulful passion in long, slow, careful strokes, ever the artist, their lips brushing against each other's over and over, uncommonly sweet, losing themselves to it, tasting the tenderness that they were both so afraid to feel. It had always been there...…. either masked in violent passions, or furiously fended off, but this time they were powerless. It flooded through the kiss, unyielding, and broke over Klaus like a wave smashing against a stubborn rock.

A thousand years of hardened anguish, of inescapable torment, and pent-up rage, fell away in one strike of an achingly soft kiss, as the Klaus hunted, the Klaus hated, the Klaus reviled, and corrupted by blood, dissolved, and transformed into the Klaus he never thought he'd be again. The noble, pure-hearted eleventh century boy stood in the ruthless Hybrid King's stead, and all he wanted in the world was to stay here, to keep kissing this mysterious raven-haired maiden with his shy, eager lips. This beauty out of time, the angel banishing his hell. His hold on her hips became more soothe than seize, clinging to her, needing her, delighting in her lips, kissing her seemingly for the first time.

Ridiculous. He'd kissed her before...… Fangs dripping with lust, ripping his shirt off, shoving her up against the wall, to have what was his, to take what the Sire Bond could not deny him. They'd kissed after killing, after feeding, blood smeared on both of their lips, sharing it between them, the victorious predators reveling, and GOD knows he'd kissed her just to shut her up when she was being impossible, difficult, captivating...… But this..... What the hell was this?

The boy felt the tears sting his crystal blue eyes, and while the Hybrid King would have railed against them, the human Niklaus let them fall, let them mingle with the sweetness of their dancing lips. The King marveled at the boy's answer to his wild-eyed quandary, his mouth falling open, paralyzed. No. No, it was........ impossible. But as Natalia's slender fingers brushed against his tidy, red blonde stubble, and disappeared into his crown of light curls, her lip lowering to retake his, he felt it truly, deeply, echoing like a forgotten song, reverberating through him, the sound frightfully pure. Innocence. This was the long absent taste of innocence, of a paradise lost, found.

They stayed that way for a heartbeat, perfectly still, lips still touching, but not moving, mouths slightly open, neither one of them wanting to be the first to break the kiss, but both knowing that they must. She pulled away, and he let her go, his trembling hands finding refuge in his tuxedo jacket pockets, her own lovely, lovely fingers flying to her lusciously red lips, and even as he watched them touch where he had kissed, he could still feel them on his face, in his hair, and she looked at him like the danger, the terror, the dire threat he truly was.

"Thank you," He rasped, still chasing his breath, and his chest broke inward as he saw the crystal trails glittering on her own bewildered face. She'd been crying too...….. Natalia almost never let him see her cry, and these weren't the tears he'd on occasion caught a glimpse of. You're crying...…. because you're happy...….. I made you happy. He brushed his lips against her wet cheek in one last ache of a final kiss, his palm cradling the back of her wildly curly head, and he felt a rush of fresh tears stream down his face, and though the king fought to keep his secret, the boy knew he was in love.

"Thank- Thank you," The words strangled in Natalia's throat, and she bit back her own tears, the shock, the anger, the enchantment, the emotional vulnerability all too much. What the hell was that? What- What did he think he was doing, kissing her like that, manipulating her, prying into the depths of her soul, all for what!? This is sick, this can't just be about Damon..... What was he playing at? But as she stared at him, the damning evidence of his own undoing painted in his broken expression, she wondered with a tenderly taken breath, if it all could be real. Do you- do you- love me, Klaus? God, could you love me?

"Thank you...… for tonight," She whispered in a different, much softer voice, crossing her arms over her chest, feeling naked, watching the warmth flood his eyes. "Thank you, Klaus, for letting me keep my memories, I know how hard it was for you, and you don't know what it means to me.

"I only let you keep them so I could outdo them, intending to create a new one with more drawing light, than that which has tarnished." Klaus' smile was playful, his voice still slightly breathless, cracking with his unleashed emotion, and he hastily rubbed his finger over the crest of his lip, to stop the tear that was resting precariously there. Get it together you blubbering fool, he cursed himself, but as he looked at her, at his Tal, his iron maiden, and saw her become as soft as water, his own eyes became sapphire pools, concealing no underlying menace, only drawing serenity, and his countenance became wholly innocent.

"Of course, always and forever, The Showman, Niklaus, but my, that you have done so, most dazzling." Natalia's smile was incredibly sweet, and so unlike her, her eyes dancing with an even more dangerous fire, that glowing candlelight that sought to warm instead of burn.

It sashayed over him in its beckoning shine, and he'd never felt less deadly, less immortal in his entire eternity, a dandelion blown to scatter, breathing in the sound of his full name, romanced by the scandalous way it rollicked, and rolled from her tongue, catching in her slight Spanish accent. She always said it the same way, spoke it aloud like a mantra. He'd told her his name when he first found her, amidst the remnants of the ruined house, trembling under a splintered table, her white dress covered in blood, taking her into his arms, and she'd said it then as if it named some mythic figure, some divine saviour. He'd never heard anyone speak it that way, and even after near two hundred years together, he still felt like that grand, miraculous rescuer, every time she said it.

"You are yourself, Dazzling, Natalia. I needed only provide the proper accoutrements." Klaus smirked, feeling himself returning, needing to take the power back, needing to be her Sire right now, and not...…. He sighed with the thought, though whether it was one of frustration or longing, he had yet to reconcile. Not........ Her peasant boy. As lovely as it had been to break with her, to be weak with her, to lose control..... He was still the king.....

"Klaus, this dress, it's-" Natalia laughed very girlishly, and he allowed himself one more moment of weakness, drawing back her ebony tresses to better see her face, knowing precisely what she wanted to say, and knowing full well why she couldn't say it...….

"Custom," He interjected for her with a handsome wink, and she smiled at him graciously. "I was painting one night, brushing the red against the white of the canvas, and let's just say I was...… inspired."

Natalia smiled again, and then gave him a teasing, knowing look, "So you're saying I'm in God-knows-where at midnight, as your Red Cinderella, because you had some artistic revelation?"

Klaus' grin widened, his eyes deviously sly. "Something like that, yes. However, our midnight won't break the spell, but rather cast a new one."

"Meaning?"

"The mystery awaits, and you're much smarter than Cinderella, so why don't you stick around and find out."

"You do realize, you're frustrating me by being cryptic, as we stand on the edge of a cliff, right? Hell yeah, I'm smarter than Cinderella, and much more dangerous in heels too." Natalia's laugh was full of mirth, even as she taunted him in that irresistible way of hers, and he smirked too, the sound surrounding him in its fleeting music. I'm much smarter than any clueless prince, My Fire. If he'd had any sense at all he never would have let you out of his sight...…."

"Well before you throw me over, and dash me on the rocks, why don't you wait until after our interlude. Come........"

He extended his arm to her, looking over his shoulder, with an arched eyebrow, and an insistent smirk.

Any other time she would have demanded an explanation, before she took one more step. He could be so infuriating with his flowery speeches, and his showy stunts, but God that kiss...… it was like a spell in itself, she couldn't shake it, and even more worrying, she wasn't sure if she wanted to...…. Damn you, Klaus Mikaelson.

She walked calmly up to him, and he smirked again, satisfied as she took his arm.

"This better be good."

"Oh My Darling...…. You'll never forget it...….. Not even if you are compelled to."

They glided through the ruins like elegant ghosts, transfixing, in their prim promenade, Natalia's crimson dress trailing behind her, passing the burned and worn down remains of what was once beautiful architecture.

"What is this place...…?" She wondered out loud, her voice hushed, the curiosity getting the better of her. Klaus smiled to himself as he looked out over the moor, the fog curling around the cliff's edge, and the bits and pieces of a fantastic colonial estate came together in his mind, flooding it with rich, oil painted memories.

"This used to be my favourite place in all of Mystic Falls. In fact...… it still is...... In the 1760's, in a glorious time before the stench of the Salvatores' arrival from Italia, isn't that a pretty thought?" He smiled mischievously, arching his eyebrow again. "This was the crown jewel of vampire society in the Americas. The lavish, extravagant parties, the reckless frolicking, all housing the collection of the most powerful creatures in existence, and we lived like kings. Mystic Falls was a cursed kingdom, a beautiful and terrible place under our spell, and it belonged to the vampires."

"What was it called?" Natalia asked stunned, this mysterious place holding such a draw for Klaus, as he stared mesmerized, his mind somewhere else, that far off look in his eye, centuries falling away, and she found it all so intriguing.

"Noirbloom Manor." The smile in Klaus' voice was pure, wicked pleasure, as the name formed on his lips, and lilted from his tongue. Even the very name...… the way it tastes on the tongue with such delicious menace...…. Such mysticism and infamy even still."

"I've heard of this place...…" Natalia said in a breathless gasp. I always thought it was a legend, a dark fairytale.

"It was a fairytale...…." Klaus' voice rasped with such profound awe, and Natalia watched him lean down in the grass, to brush his fingers against a beautiful, yet strange black flower, its center glowing the darkest of violet. "And yet fairytales almost never have happy endings."

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 

[grievuos]

         𝐓𝐇𝐄   𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇     .               grievous   drabble   one     .

The   Elder’s   finger   drew   slowly   down   the   warrior’s   mask.      The   Wise   One’s   pointed   finger   bore   two,    blood - red   streaks     —     made   of   residue   from   a   pestle,    and   a   mortar   filled   with   crushed   herbs   and   minerals     —     down   the   warrior’s   face,    bisecting   each   of   his   wetted,    yellow   eyes.     The   streaks   passed   over   the   bandage - like   wrappings   wound   about   his   head,    then   down   upon   the   plate     —     carved   of   mumuu   bone     —     protecting   his   face.      ‘  Our   appeals   have   been   ignored,  ’     the   Wise   One   crooned.     ‘  The   Republic   and   their   monks   favour   our   enemy.  ’     He   rose   from   the   bowed   warrior,    and   closed   up   his   scaled   hand   around   his   carved   staff.     ‘  Our   last   hopes   rest   heavily   upon   your   shoulders,    Khagan.      ‘  May   the   spirits   of   our   ancestors   watch   over   you,    and   your   Izvoshra.  ’      Qymaen,    knelt   atop   the   summit   of   Shrupak,    placed   his   hand   upon   the   mossy   stone   ground,    as   if   to   draw   the   last   of   the   Temple’s   spirit   into   himself;     to   set   a   great   zeal   coursing   though   his   hot,    swelling   veins.      ‘  By   your   grace,    Holy   One,  ’     he   spoke,    his   coarse   voice   muffled   by   the   carved   tusks   upon   his   mask.      The   Khagan   rose,    taking   his   rifle   by   its   grip,    and   moved   with   the   elite   Izvoshra   in   tow.      He   ascended   into   their   vessel     —     a   clunky,    labouring   thing     —     and   once   the   Eight   joined   him,    sealed   them   on   their   course   for   Oben.      The   vessel’s   engines   spat   and   crackled   with   disuse,   coughing   hot   air   over   the   sacred   grounds.      The   ship   ascended,    whirring   off   into   the   bloody   Kalee   horizon,    over   the   Ausez   Steppes,    and   across   the   expanding   sea.

They   had   travelled   a   great   distance,    passing   beyond   the   threshold   of   monitored   Kalee   airspace.      It   was   then   that   the   vessel   began   to   heave,    staggering   with   a   sourceless   current.      The   monitor   grew   blurred,    fizzed   in   and   out   of   definition,    before   a   great   surge   of   crackling   electricity   enveloped   the   vessel,    sapping   its   life.      Qymaen   became   frantic     —     prying   aggressively   at   anything,    and   everything   that   he   could   use   to   save   the   ship   from   its   ruin.      Sheelal,    in   what   he   believed   to   be   his   final   moments,    closed   his   eyes,    and   dreamed   of   the   abstract   past:     of   his   Izvoshra,    and   their   unerring   fidelity.     Of   the   mumuu   hunt,    and   of   Ronderu,    that   had   completed   his   soul.     He   longed   to   return   there,    if   only   for   a   moment,    and   would   covet   such   a   wish   as   he   passed   into   the   beyond.      The   vessel   began   to   burn.      Its   smouldering   components   snapped   from   its   hull,    and   it   descended   indefinitely   towards   the   water.      His   eyes   fell   into   slits,    and   he   breathed   a   final   breath.      And   then,    abruptly,    the   fires     —     that   had   already   taken   to   the   blistering   of   his   body     —     dissipated,    and   a   great   wind   passed   over   him.      He   had   thought   it   to   be   the   heralding   of   his   Pilgrimage,    but   when   his   scolded   eyes   opened,    he   felt   it   to   be   the   wind   of   the   sea,    as   he   fell,    plummeting   from   the   sky.

Wetted,    burned   flesh   marred   the   air   with   its   scent.      It   was   dark,    and   the   Moon   cast   its   reflection   in   the   billowing   sea.      He   was   hoisted   from   the   water,    blinded   by   spotlights,    and   laid   limply   upon   a   durasteel   platform.      He   tried   to   move     —     his   arms,    his   legs     —     but   the   effort   wrought   nothing.     His   eyes   twitched,    spasming   in   effort,    but   the   images   were   watercolours,    and   few   and   far   between.      breathing,    but   unconscious     —      The   words   were   but   a   messy,    bloated,    electronic   sound.      A   silhouette   split   the   Moon   above   him     —     hooded   and   unkind     —     a   visage   of   Death.      Death   held   out   its   hand,    and   a   great   bolt   of   spitting,    red   electricity   struck   him.      Sheelal   laid   in   rigor   mortis,    as   Death   reached   down   to   strip   him   of   his   face.     He   could   feel   the   cold     —     his   mask   unbearably   absent,    though   he   could   do   naught   of   it.      He   was   taken   by   what   remained   of   his   upper   arms,    held   by   cold,    and   metal   things     —     things   that   glared   a   terrible   red.      His   organs   convulsed   and   sputtered,    and   with   the   last   of   his   consciousness,    he   looked   on   as   he   ascended   a   metal   ramp,    into   the   blinding   and   frightening   unknown.

[oosteven-universe]

Ascender #1

Ascender #1 Image Comics 2019 Written by Jeff Lemire Illustrated by Dustin Nguyen Lettered & Designed by Steve Wands     “THE HAUNTED GALAXY,” Part One     Set ten years after the conclusion of DESCENDER’s storyline, magic has taken the place of machinery and the rules are very different indeed… Mila, the daughter of Andy and Effie from DESCENDER, spends her days exploring the lonely wilds of the planet Sampson and trying to stay out of the clutches of the evil disciples of the all-powerful vampire witch known only as Mother. But, like her parents, Mila doesn’t like to play by the rules, and when a certain robot pal of her dad’s shows up, nothing will ever be the same!     First off let me just say this, if you haven’t read Descender but are interested in this, pick it up you don’t have to read the prior to enjoy this. I guarantee that once you read this you’ll want to read Descender however. For those who couldn’t get enough of Descender well here we are with the next phase in the history of this universe. On a side note maybe it’s just me but Dustin’s work has become something so much more than when he started the franchise. It’s as if doing this as often as he has just improved his skill and that’s saying something people!     Jeff is such a master of his craft and the way that he structures this have a seemingly effortless ebb & flow to it. We start with the opening which is gorgeous the then and now of the smallest core planet of the United Galactic Council. There is this beautiful sense of awe and wonder that comes with it and what we see. Which transitions into this cold harsh reality of what occurs here and it’s this that grabs the attention as much as anything else could. At this stage these two know how to work together and sync up what the other means to the point rarely achieved in the industry.     I am very much enjoying the characterisation here as well. They really well developed including those we’ve seen or met before. From Mother to a salesman in a market stall we get to see these people as people regardless of their station in life and what they can do. From Slaves to indentured to the very few whom are free the range of characters in this issue surprised me, in a good way, and the complexity of their living arrangements intrigues me.   The interiors here are really rather exquisite. I am blown away by the linework itself which has this immediate effect that the hand is either that strong or is uncontrollable or both and to be honest I think it borders on brilliance. Mother’s visage which is more like Granny Goodness as Darkseid is crazy good and even when she’s got resting (bitch) face she still looks hella threatening. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show off this stupendous eye for storytelling. The colour work here is amazing and the watercolour wash that we see which makes some nice gradation effects is beautiful. PS that tortoise yeah I want that it has to go on my wall, I mean OH sweet child of mine.     God the story is so good. The plot and story development with it’s pacing and the characterisation of these characters and to see these worlds is such a beautiful thing. I loved seeing the encounter with Trilly, the so-called slaves and the two cavemen-esque who “command” them. The whole father/daughter business, everything that we see here advances the story as it expands our knowledge of the worlds, the way of things and the characters themselves. We really couldn’t ask for something this good that fits into that world of galactic science fiction like the last piece of a puzzle.

[qanvast]

Inside Blogger Liang May’s Botanical Home

Stepping indoors, it isn’t hard to see the appeal of mommy blogger Liang May’s condominium apartment – with its soaring 4.2m ceiling, pleasing palette and thought-out spaces, it certainly is an ideal family home.

“The number one feature of the house is its tall ceiling,” says the mother of two. “It’s what convinced my husband and me to choose this ground unit. The rest of the apartments on the upper floors all have a regular height, which sort of makes this a ‘penthouse’ unit.”

The entire look of the house was conceived by May herself, who despite her self-confessed lack of design experience, succeeded in creating a beautiful abode for her husband, son and daughter.

“My husband is in sales. And I don’t have any background in architecture and design either,” says May. “It just helped that we are, perhaps, a bit more creative and adventurous?”

With a personal vision born out of ideas from Instagram and Pinterest, May tackled her apartment’s renovation room by room, tweaking and making changes to each space based on its dimensions and intended use.

“For the current dining area, I had a discussion with my husband and we decided to have it where the living room was supposed to be,” says May. “We wanted to maximise the amount of space in the original living area. It’s the largest zone in the house and would comfortably fit our extendable dining table, which the children use to do their homework as well.”

Other notable decorative features that May chose for the communal areas include waist-high decorative wainscoting (“They help to emphasise the ceiling’s height.”) and a soft-blue wallpaper with a fern motif that helps “brings an air of natural beauty to the surroundings”.

May also sourced for a variety of faux plants from a local online home goods store, 3LittlePicks. “Initially, I tried caring for real plants, but it turns out that I don’t have a green thumb. [laughs],” she says. “Instead, I got these (faux plants), which look a lot like the real thing.”

May took great care to tailor each boudoir to its occupants’ taste and preferences:

For her son’s bedroom, she decided to surprise him with a Batman-themed look from framed wall art to decals featuring the Dark Knight’s visage. “We mostly kept to a monochrome scheme because my son has plenty of belongings and having too many colours would just make the space look too messy,” explains May.

May’s daughter’s bedroom featured a bespoke loft bed to make full use of the bedroom’s height. Instead of a sleeping area, a mini play area – complete with dreamy watercolour accents and make-believe kitchen – occupies the top bunk. 

“My husband and I did consider having a loft bed in the master bedroom initially,” shares May. “We ended up changing our minds because it would make swapping the bedsheets troublesome.”

“Right from the beginning, we had plans to expand the master bedroom by merging it with the room next door,” says May. The result? A more spacious sleeping zone that now comes with its own en-suite living area.

In the master bedroom’s makeover, the original wardrobe was torn down to make way for a home theatre system. “I know it’s odd that our living area doesn’t have a TV like most homes, but we really felt that it should be a space that’s purely for interaction, rather than one where everyone’s eye is glued to the screen. It’s why we have the TV here,” explains May.

When asked about what she would have done differently, May says: “Perhaps, I should have taken the chance to revamp the kitchen. I have always liked open-concept kitchens. However, my husband felt that we would exceed our budget if we went ahead, and so we left it as it is.” But missed opportunity or not, one thing is for certain – this mommy blogger’s foray into design did pay off, beautifully.

Create a space you love

Embarking on a renovation journey? Request for a quote here, and we can match you up with 5 interior firms - based on your budget and style - to get quotes.

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[sunomaly]

we need ten right now. it's what she deserves. it's what the world deserves.

[rapusodosu]

   HOLY HOST OF A MILLION SINS; you knew this is how it would end. His BLOOD is not red. His BONES not black-briar or bramble, but bleached ivory by fountains of LIFE; his voice of many voices gathering into one.

   AVATAR.

   " I ... I always said I would come back. "

   She weeps like a harp of broken star-strings, plucked too much of their festal crowns, crackling through a sea of thundering lamentations that, in his grief, sympathetically ease away from their damnable centres. They curve around the lifeless form of her joviality, embracing what had not been enshrined for millennia, e'er-prevailing but e'er-lost; shapes of delight, of mystery and fear. They wheel downward to the ankles of her sorrow, apprising her remorse, the unilluminated road, and where his eyes saw only BLEAKNESS and BISTERED SANDS, they return to him with a painting-- the fair visage of she whom he once knew; joyless and jagged in their counsel. They fare well, bereaving watercolours and muted acrylics, and memories that he had not entertained in his centuries of loneliness, whose course had been diverted in wicked willow billows, salute in ordered rows. Her tears fade way, limpid droplets chiming into fonder days, and where her hair curled wet and ragged, he beheld only her finer wreathes: ornate violets and gilt-edged rosemary, her infinite smile, braided with sunlight growing too wild with vigour. Aye, it is an ONSLAUGHT. Where hundreds hurry from his forgotten jubilance, from a sleep-like sky towed to void, the toiling noonday humming of the water parting into a piercing surf, and chapters upon chapters of her alone emerge in magnificent frenzy. Assuaging the brutal pains of his life, the callous truths of actuality, and the implacable materiality of everything that thought itself FLAWLESS. His SINNER'S HEART had been singed and seduced by her. By fancies and falsies that she tender-teased on VIPEROUS TONGUE, her sensual existence a STORM-SURGE of luxurious lilts and sea-lavendar roses, beckoning and bereaving in tragic romances that, while his revulsion of her e'er remained, his jealous love for her, his dear Kohana, could never scorn her. They both paraded their power together. Launching attacks, deserting the fields, sharing inattention charred heartlands and the woe of soul. Their agonies imparted from bitter afflictions. FIRE-HEART and STAR-CLOVEN; their heroic desolation a muse for the POETS.

   Then, before he could sacrifice all to remain love-locked in this reverie, where he could contemplate without revulsion, where neither SAINT nor DEVIL could heave him from the paradise of her imposing effect, he crumbles.

   The pain flutters up his titanic throat. The aches of waiting weeks, yearning for years, pooling in plumb chasms where once there was a PHILANDERER'S SONG. The reality that even with all his musing, the unfathomable reach of his unvarying imagination stretching o'er prismatic realms, nothing could convey to him the most precious of his memories: the thought of her caressing him; cherishing him. Her hand trembles against him, so small it is like a child touching an OAK for the first time, feeling not flesh but the hardened steel-like texture of a GREATER BEING; grievously cold and deplorably inhuman. He will never remember how her fingers felt through his hair. His hair, long ago, of almond blossoms and rich cinnamon, NOW LOST TO CHANGE, pristine digits alike sea-nymphs dancing in sunset lagoons, chasing spirals of vermilion and shoals of cerulean until, when she had reached his greatest depths, she fell into the softness of FALL-- into a new tome of bending lines 'pon nimble tread. He will never remember how she felt on his skin. Gliding effortlessly, pure and erotic, sun-kissed and moon-struck, where a pleasure different from every other had within him created a need of her that only her star-devouring presence could assuage. Something she stole.

  I know.

  He means to say, but does not have the means to do it. Reverend sire bound to SILENCE and SOUL; her invulnerability a speck of dust in a clamouring of hewing tempests. He is colossal. Towering above diamond pinnacles and the crests of black-thorn wealds, but here he kneels for her; you surface seldom, TITAN of mountain knuckles and KEEPER of wing.

  I knew you would come back, my dear.          You have not changed.

  Laid in large-- his affections. His inner voice of rimless floods, unfettered leewardings and the drums of SHEETED WARS reverberating against the thousands of others that made their home in his BOUNDLESS CORE. Fire-conduits sizzling, the rich palm of sword-hand and his forgivable gaze-- they channel the wrapt inflections of his love; the spindrift luminscence of a GUARDIAN'S SADNESS.

   I'm sorry.        He bends.        I left myself behind.

[shade-without-color]

Usurper Chapter 2: The Heart Part 1 (Order 3066)

Note: So another snazzy chapter of Usurper,I hope I did not take long to update the chapter as I have been doing a lot of God of War (aka Dad of Boy) fanfics (In fact I am working one, which is unexpected as we speak..),so we slowly bulking up Issac’s character which, by far, the most challenging and quite satisfying. I just adore writing Archer’s interaction with Isaac. And yes you will see the Elric Brothers which is nice as they are my favourites!

Somehow Issac drifts himself into glimpsing at the visages of the train, he somehow thought of home for that mere moment. True he ventured out to earn his place as the State Alchemist fighting an honourable war, a war to liberate the unclean. He watched a field of flowers and quickly sketched the patch of field, with such tenderness and calm. Issac secretly wished he had brought his watercolours along, to capture the vividness of the flowers in the field.

A voice echoed in the distance, just Archer smirking smugly "Sanctifying yourself for that one moment Isaac…" Issac turned to Archer quietly, which he placed a cigarette in between his mouth. "I know it sounds pretty pretentious but…" as he flipped through his dog-eared sketchbook, all animated with vignettes of life, from the food he ate on his journey to the train, the faces of a child playing with her mother's hair with her luminous eyes and even the bridge that snaked across the pretty lake. They were filled with joy and respite, unknowingly forgotten in the future. "You have talent, I suppose if you do not become a State Alchemist, people will buy your shit.." Archer laughed again as he flipped his sketchbook. Archer muttered under his breath while bitting his cigarette between his teeth "My my my…", admiring the details of his work. "To be honest, I cannot draw to save my life..but you…"

"You have bloody talent..." Issac heaved again as he ran over to the next corner to draw another transmutation circle. Maybe he should have fled to a different path, but he can never take back. His heart raced amidst the screams of the soldiers. He can never forget the sunken eyes of the corpses of the Ishvlans, as he waved his arms to form frightful icicles, blocking the views of the soldiers and slowly unleashed steaming tides, blinding them from Issac's quick steps. Another corner ran off with soldiers aiming at Issac's forehead which he quickly grasped it. Soon steam covered the secluded corner.

"Freezing and boiling. The elements of water." Isaac spoke frankly, the deconstruction and reconstruction are the factors where alchemy is birthed. That makes killing the soldiers easier, as he closed his heart to those frightened by his radicalism.

Perhaps it was not that time...

"If we are not stuck in that shitty war…you could be a bloody artist.." Isaac reluctantly closed his sketchbook, shutting down Archer's showering comments. A change of scene churred Isaac's stomach. A broken bridge protrudes outside the fog, and instead of a clear stream. The water is streaked by the blood of men and women lying on the floor. Isaac closed his eyes off the horror, the horror only echoed at the paintings of an obscure museum, hellish forces swallowing the fertile land. He will never forget that hellish image. "And I swear I thought that hell did not exist…until now…" A wasteland enraptured by honour and glory. Kimblee chuckled slightly "You may be right Archer…" as he heaved in the aroma of the burning battlefield "The carnage…like spring.." Archer grew sick to the stomach on Kimblee's glee "War…what a time of reckoning and change, and we.." Isaac shuddered slightly on Kimblee's erotic grin as they passed away from the horrid landscape unto the blistering desert. "Are simply the harbingers of this land." At that moment the train whistled to their destination. Isaac swallowed slightly, as he kept the sketchbook inside his coat. And soon he followed the row of state alchemists whose gazes will swallow the calm land. Archer simpered darkly to Isaac who shivered slightly. "And so it begins…" and somehow he let the cigarette off from his mouth and blew a cloud of smoke. "Order 3066." Isaac watched the carnage of a rather peaceful town, with citizens screaming and blood trailing at every crevice of the land. That hellish image that is reckoned to an another, as the body become shrivelled. He glanced at the dashing dots, and suddenly the spear landed on the pathway. He observed quietly, it was not crafted by men, but a force that circled around by nature.

"Alchemy…" Somehow he heard a cocky voice of a young boy "Man that is horrible…" observing the carnage Isaac caused. "Sacrifices are inherent when attempting something great.." Isaac gave a cold grin "That is Equivalent Exchange." And indeed a horrid one to be exact, and soon they came to a battlefield. The hearts soon stripped off the battlefield. The young man came out the shadows, with striking golden eyes "This and that is not a thing…",as he clapped his hands furiously transmuting a spear into a bat with a comical face.

He seems to have a life that is not a battlefield. That should be fun.

Isaac swung his body against the young alchemist's swings. He heard the clanking at the distance. An armoured man clinging onto his body with steel arms. He is at the losing end, at most, he heard about the rumours of the youngest State Alchemist, a shining star in the military's dull crown. Of course, the boy's temper was hard to oppose, compared to the innocent Ishvalns who trembled at Issac's quick lunges at the battlefield.

Issac quietly surrendered himself to the forces, whilst praise was bathed to the glories of the Elric brothers. As he walked quietly to a secluded corner, he glanced at the puddles on the pavements. Maybe he cannot do it alone. He thought of the next person alive who lived those horrors. Kimblee. He heard rumours about his horrid killings of those involved in the military, and currently held in Central prison for his acts. Again a coup from King Bradley, to brainwash the military personnel.

That morning, Issac awoke wearily from the tent, when he glanced at Archer smirking at him wearily "Well wake up Issac of the Ice…" He watched Archer repressed his tremors in his hands. "We are making haste to the East of the State" Isaac missed the light-hearted banter between Archer and himself, it mostly eased the loneliness which they faced. "Apparently you know the shitty Flame Alchemist, and his dog Hughes who sat alongside with us." Slowly Issac lifted himself up from his bed and paced slowly. He recognized the duo, they seem to create a bond, and Roy's eyes holding to Hughes. "They are closer than ever, heard he wanted to be the Fuhrer, taking over King Bradley... A ballsy task I must say.."

"And you…" Isaac mummer wearily "What did you think of Roy.." Archer replied darkly "Aside from that he is ambitious, I admire his guts, but it wears him down someday. In fact, that bloody war shows the worse in humans, given that Kimblee seems to enjoy killing every Ishvlan in cold blood. Bloody hell his laughter grates me…"

Isaac fought the churring of his stomach of Kimblee's light-hearted nature to war. Maybe he will follow Issac's cry. He too must feel the heat of war. Issac smiled coldly as he clapped his transmutation circles and slowly fell down. Like a fog, he disappeared into the darkness, devising his next move to take down the king that oppose his people.

[sunomaly]

aly babysitting her favourite nephew in the whole world

look at her she's so excited and happy, jj please let aly babysit all the time

[sunomaly]

your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. - fyodor dostoyevsky

edit by iris, mutuals can interact!