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“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Geun-Tae sat at the desk scowling as he watched Chul-Rang pull scattered papers out of various nooks and crannies around the room, piling them carefully on one side of the desk.
“Because the King is coming soon and you need this office to look presentable.”
“It looks fine to me.”
Chul-Rang paused and glanced back with a tired sigh, before gesturing to the many scattered papers all over the space. “Sir if you combined the messes of every other room here in Chi’Shin with those of the royal palace itself, I still don’t think it could compete with the state of this office.” Geun-Tae snorted as the younger man returned to his work.
“Alright, but why am I doing this? Couldn’t you just do it for me or something?”
“I could-“ Down went another stack on the desk with a breathless huff, “-except that I don’t have any idea what half this is and therefore don’t know where to put it. Also, they’ll be here within the next few hours and even I don’t work that fast.”
“So throw it all in storage and we’ll sort through it later if you’re so worried about the clutter.”
“And when his Highness wants any sort of records or reports from the last year?”
“I’ve got them all stashed over in that-“ Geun-Tae turned to gesture towards one of the bookshelves but trailed off as he noticed the sudden cleanliness of that particular corner of the room. Looking back he watched as Chul-Rang grabbed the first sheet off one of the stacks and presented it, his deadpan expression speaking for itself.
“Alright fine, how are we doing this?”
“Everything from the last year in one stack to keep in here, divided into categories for military and trade reports by city, and the rest of it can go over here and go to storage as you requested.” The young advisor sighed, “For now at least.”
“Ok so trade, military, city.” Nodding Geun-Tae grabbed a handful of papers but paused as he saw the concern on his aid’s face. “What?”
“I was just thinking that we don’t have enough desk space at the moment, so maybe we shouldn’t sort by city for now. We can always break it down later if we need to.”
“So how are we sorting then?” Chul-Rang opened his mouth to answer when Geun-Tae abruptly stood up from the desk. “Never mind, you sort I’ll pull papers.”
“But-!”
Moving towards the nearest shelf, he aggressively stabbed his figure towards the desk. “Sort!”
“Yes sir!”
He could hear the constant crinkling of pages as Chul-Rang worked, his own hands grabbed every loose page he could see on the shelves. This wasn’t that bad. It’d be worse plenty of times. Sure the papers probably covered every surface of the room. But it wasn’t like he’d lost anything yet. Except that report last week that it’d taken him hours to find. And that other thing he’d had to sign that temporarily vanished off his desk the other day. Grabbing for another loose page he grunted. Alright, maybe it was due time for some cleaning. But only until it was manageable again.
Tugging absently at a sheet, he paused when it didn’t immediately slide out like the others. Adjusting his grip, he pulled harder but instead of just a page, an entire folder slipped off the shelf and clattered to the floor, several pages fluttering across the surface.
“Sir?” Geun-Tae waved him off, setting his partial stack on the desk before going after the folder and stray pages. Maybe it was just the lighting of the room, but they almost looked a different color than the others, and the folder wasn’t one he recognized either. Reaching for a stray sheet he noticed the difference in texture immediately, it had more of a brittle feeling. The writing was faded too; not enough that he couldn’t read it but-
Well, actually no, he couldn’t read it. Because that wasn’t handwriting. That was just scribbles. And all the other pages looked the same, or were at least covered in similar looking scribbles. Standing up he crossed the distance back over to the desk, dropping the folder dead in the middle of Chul-Rang’s workspace and scaring the young man half to death with the thump. “What’s this?”
Recovering from the sheer terror surprisingly quickly the young man glanced first at the folder, then back up at him, “I-I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve seen this one before. Where’d you find it?”
“It was over with some of the others on that shelf.” Geun-Tae waved absently in the direction before crossing his arms over his chest. “See if you can make sense of those scribbles would you? It’s gotta be another language cause it makes no sense to me.”
“Another language?” Chul-Rang turned back to the desk. “Let me see.” Geun-Tae watched him examine the first page for a few minutes before he looked up. “Well, it’s not foreign, old maybe, but still legible.”
“You can read it?” Geun-Tae leaned closer, treading the page over his shoulder but still seeing only scribbles. “How?”
“Sir I have to translate your reports, I can read most anything by now.”
“Even my handwriting isn’t as bad as that.”
Chul-Rang didn’t respond and instead turned back towards the desk, “As near as I can tell it seems to be some sort of report and pretty old judging from the paper.”
He straightened and folded his arms over his chest, “What’s it say?”
“Do you want me to translate word for word or-?”
“Just read it.”
Nodding he picked up the page, “Very well.”
Day 3
We’ve been away from the castle for three days now, the mornings are early, we’re all a tired, and I still can’t shake the feeling that something’s off.
Geun-Tae frowned, “What’s off?”
“I don’t know, it just says something.”
“Keeping going then.”
We’re nearing our first stop, and everyone seems to be happy with the idea of actually settling in one place for a few days. Though, maybe that’s part of it. This part of the land looks so much like where I grew up and it feels like I’m headed home. Its funny, going back so soon. Doesn’t really feel like I’ve done enough to come back and yet here we are. Kind of reminds me of the days when-
“Does he do this for a while?”
Chul-Rang looked up, “Do what?”
“The whole rambly” He waved his free hand around, “personal reflection stuff.”
He glanced back down at the page, “There are a few more paragraphs on his page I guess, but it looks like there’s some-“
“Skip it.”
“Pardon?”
“I said skip it.” He moved in front of the desk, restlessly pacing, “Find something more exciting, you’re putting me to sleep.”
“Of course, but-“ Chul-Rang glanced around the room. “Shouldn’t we get back to cleaning?”
“We’ve got time to kill, unless of course all of that is this dull.”
“No, there should be something here.” He ruffled through a few more pages, skimming them before selecting another one. “Well, this one mentions a battle.”
That caught his attention. “A battle? Give me details.”
“Um let me see, its starts around here I think. Uh-”
-battle outside the southwest wall an hour prior to are arrival, the local forces cleaned it up without any trouble and extra guards have been added as precautions. I’ll have to get the full details from them later so I can alert the others-
“That page probably isn’t in there huh.”
“The details?” He flipped through a few more papers, “Not that I’m seeing sir.”
“Just my luck.” Groaning he grabbed a handful of papers off one of the stacks, “Alright, he’s not interesting. Might as well get back to the other boring thing.”
Chul-Rang carefully returned to the pages to the folder before placing it aside with a shrug. “It could be he was just with a more pacifistic king, not everyone likes war.”
“Still makes the reports dull as-“ He spun around, “He was traveling with a king?”
“Of course he was, he mentions it back on the first page.”
“Why didn’t you say something then? That’s the kind of stuff that’s interesting.”
“I tried to but you told me to skip it.”
“Nevermind that just-“
He was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and they both turned round as a guardsman stuck his head through the crack. “General? King Suwon has arrived, and he’s asking for you.”
“Already!?” Geun-Tae felt his eyes bug out of his head, “But they weren’t supposed to be in until later this afternoon, we couldn’t have spent that long-” Glancing back at the desk he looked first at the folder then back towards the stack of papers before finally meeting eyes with a rather frazzled Chul-Rang. “Papers. Storage. Now.”
“A-already on it sir.” The younger man quickly scooped an armful and darted out of the room, the man in the door way watched bewildered.
“Get Yun-ho to distract him for a bit or something; I need to get ready.” He moved past the bowing man and Geun-Tae started down the hall, “Also help Chul-Rang move those papers.”
“But sir you just said-“
Ignoring the objections Geun-Tae continued down the hall, calling back over his shoulder, “And tell Chul-Rang to get me a translated version of that folder!”
“Lady Lili, what are you doing?”
Lili looked up from where she stood behind the desk at the sound of Tetora’s voice, frozen like a guilty child caught red-handed. “Looking for something.”
Leaning against one side of the door frame Ayura raised an eyebrow. “What could possibly be of interest to you in your father’s office?”
“I can imagine a lot of things.”
Ayura elbowed Tetora lightly as Lili huffed, straightening to her full height. “I don’t have to tell the two of you anything.”
“You don’t. But we won’t know how to cover for you when the General notices something’s missing.”
The three of them stood in a silent stand-off for several minutes before Lili finally caved, but maintained her posture and dignity, hands firmly on her hips. “My father’s been exchanging letters with King Suwon. I want to figure out what they’re planning.”
“So you’re snooping in his letters rather than confronting him about it directly.” She and Tetora traded glances. “Sounds fair.”
Lili watched them warily, “You’re not going to try and stop me?”
“If we did you’d just sneak back out on your own later.” Tetora glided towards the desk. “So we’ll help you instead so you’ll cause less trouble.”
“I’m not causing trouble!”
“Not yet.” Ayura finally pushed off the doorframe and headed towards one of the shelves. “Let’s get this done quickly.”
“Hmm.” Tetora did a small spin around the room. “If I were letters where would I hide?” Lili made a face but continued scouring the desk as Ayura bent down to examine one of the shelves. Most of them had a layer of dust covering them, indicating that no one had disturbed any of these books anytime recently. Moving up a shelf, she found the same, but on the third, well there was a part of the shelf that was dusty, but on the far end it had been rubbed away. Perhaps it was one of these-
Outside the room something clattered and immediately she jerked her hand back, silently sliding one of the folders out and quickly hiding it behind her back. She turned just in time to see Tetora lean back into the room and she mouth three words before vanish back into the hall.
‘I’ll distract them.’ That told her more than enough. Crossing the room without a word she quickly grabbed hold of Lili’s arm and pulled her towards the door, ignoring the girl’s attempts to break away and return to the desk.
“I’m not-“
“We’re going.” Her voice was quiet but firm as she shoved the folder into Lili’s arms, earning a soft ‘oh’ from the younger girl.
She could hear voices farther down the hall but Tetora seemed to have stopped them somewhere around the corner. Pulling Lili in the opposite direction they vanished out of sight just in time to see Tetora emerge into view talking cheerfully with one of the General’s aids. Breathing a sigh of relief, she pulled back to see Lili watching her warily. Nodding she watched the girl visibly relax as they started down the hall, the borrowed folder held tightly against Lili’s chest until they reached the safety of her room.
While Lili vanished inside and out of sight Ayura waited in the hall, eyes fixed attentively until she finally saw Tetora pleasantly stroll around the corner, smiling like a ray of sunshine. “How was your conversation?”
“Oh, it was alright I suppose.”
As she stopped next to her outside the doorway Ayura leaned closer, “Did he suspect anything?”
“Not in the slightest.” Smiling Tetora nodded toward the door, “Shall we?”
They entered to see Lili sitting in the middle of the floor, frowning at papers in front of her. She looked up at the sound of the door closing behind them before gesturing in front of her. “What’s all this supposed to be?”
Ayura stared at the yellowed sheets of paper between them and shrugged, “I thought they might be your letters.”
“These aren’t the right ones. I mean listen to this.” She picked up one of the sheets and started reading aloud.
Day 15
We arrived several days behind schedule thanks to a certain someone’s interference. We would have been even later still if it hadn’t been for my own intervention and ability to look ahead to steer us past even more potential issues. We knew there might be conflicts and protests of course, that’s why we can along, but the amount of conflict here is drastically higher than it was further north.
“It reads like a poorly written report or something.” Her frown deepened into a scowl as she handed the page to Tetora, who had moved to lean over her shoulder. “I mean what am I supposed to do with these? They aren’t helpful.”
“I didn’t get the chance to look at them before we had to leave, but I figured you’d have preferred something over nothing.”
“They might as well be nothing.” She sank into a nearby chair still sulking, “What good are old military reports going to do me?”
“It’s more like a journal.” At the sound of her voice they both turned to look at Tetora, who had taken up Lili’s spot sitting on the floor amongst the papers. “The first part might sound like a report, but then it follows with this.”
We’re all a bit on edge because of it. Well, all except for our idiot king, he’s as naïve and happy as ever it seems, and unfortunately I think some of the idiocy has spread to Zeno as well.
“Zeno?” Lili frowned, “Wasn’t that the name of one Yona’s companions?”
“I imagine it’s just a coincidence.” Leaning against the wall she stared at the papers on the floor, “The paper is old and the ink looks faded, whatever they are, they weren’t written anytime recently.”
Guen keeps telling me to let them have their fun and to relax a bit. Ironic, as the words of the man who is, even as I write this, is standing at the window across the room watching for trouble. Though again I can’t say I’m surprised. We may be here for diplomatic reasons but it’s no secret that there are those in this kingdom who would be happy to see his head removed from his shoulders.
Tetora read off the next passage before looking up. “I know some kings aren’t received as well as others, but I almost feel bad for this one.”
“Assuming they’re writing from Suiko I can’t remember the last time the water tribe was that hostile.” Ayura crossed her arms over her chest, “I have to wonder how old that letter is.”
“They don’t seem to be dated.” Tetora glanced at several more pages before selecting another one. “Perhaps this one will help.”
Our king had his first audience with the local leaders today, it went about as well as expected I suppose. Needless to say we have quite a lot of work ahead of us in terms of soothing grudges, as a good portion of the populace still seems uncertain about his rule. We didn’t really make much ground today but he seemed rather pleased with the beginning results for some reason. I personally can’t see where he’s pulling this optimism from but I suppose we’ll just have to see how it all plays out.
Lili huffed from where she still sat across the room. “They’re being awfully vague on who their king is. Don’t people normally make a big deal out of that?”
“They’re probably doing it intentionally. Writing something like this was probably risky enough, too many identifying details could have caused them real problems.”
“Then why write them at all?”
“Who knows, why do we write anything for any reason?”
Lili didn’t reply as Tetora’s bright voice echoed up from the floor. “Oh this one sounds interesting.”
Shuten pestered me into giving him and Zeno a tour of the city today while Guen accompanied our king to another audience. He insisted that as a onetime local I had to know the best spots for and I quote “drinking and picking up chicks”. Lovely. Though I imagine he was slightly displeased as my knowledge pertained a bit more to the historical parts of the city, though if he was he didn’t show it. Instead, he wore this smug grin, as though he was a small child that had succeeded in getting away with something. And I suppose he thought he was. However it was all worth it at the end when I instructed him to turn over the payment for my services. His face was completely priceless, and I’m pleased to say I had the pleasure of taking in each and every detail. It’s completely his fault of course; he should have known better than to think I’d give up so easily without there being some sort of catch. I suppose my punishment came in the form of having to listen to him complain about it all afternoon, but with some extra gold in my pocket I suppose I can’t complain too much.
Zeno seemed to genuinely enjoy himself however, asking more questions than I would have expected from him. Some even surprisingly deep. Perhaps I’ll consider showing him other parts of my homelands as well if we get the chance, it could be quite enjoyable to discuss them with someone else who’s interested. Provided I’m not required to drag Shuten along of course.
Her voice trailed off and both of them looked over to see Lili staring intently at the paper in Tetora’s hand.
“Lady Lili?”
“He gave his friend a tour only to charge him for it afterwards because he was being a jerk about it.”
“That is indeed what it seems happened.”
“I think I like him.”
“Lady Lili no.”
“What’cha doing?” Tae-Woo opened his eyes to see Han-Dae standing above him, his face mostly obscured in shadow thanks to the bright sunlight behind him.
Blinking and shielding his eyes he sat up slowly, stretching his arms above his head with a groan. “Nothing really. Why?”
“Mundok wants us to move some boxes for him.”
Groaning Tae-Woo flopped back on the ground rolling over on his side, one arm over his eyes. “No thanks.”
“Come on.” Han-Dae tried to pull his arm away, but he fought to keep it in place. “Ayame and Saki already agreed to help too.”
“Then you’ve already got people. I’m comfortable here.”
He felt Han-Dae start to pull again, “We can spar after.”
“Don’t want to. Too tired.”
“I’ll let you catch me this time.”
“Mmm.”
He heard a sigh as the blond plopped to the ground beside him. “I’ll tell Mundok your being lazy.”
Half-heartedly he uncovered his eyes, “You’re really not going to let this go are you?”
“Not until you help me.”
“Alright fine.” Groaning he rolled onto his back before he finally managed to sit up again, accepting Han-Dae’s hand which pulled him to his feet. “Where are these stupid boxes?”
“Right up he- ah!” They were both distracted as something fluttered past them on the breeze.
Footsteps echoed from above and Ayame emerged into view at the top of the hill. “Someone catch that!”
“I got it!” Han-Dae was after it in an instant and watching over his shoulder Tae-Woo joined Ayame at the top of the hill.
“What’s that all about?”
The two of them watched the blond chase the page all the way down the hill and halfway to the gate before he finally managed to catch it, waving excitedly as he started back towards them.
“Han-Dae told you about the boxes right?” He nodded, “Well Saki and I decided to go ahead and start moving some of them, but we didn’t realize some of them papers were loose and-“
“The wind took it from you when you weren’t looking.” He turned and looked back towards where Saki was waiting near a stack of crates, “What’s in these things anyways?”
“No idea, we were just told to put them in storage.”
“I see.” He waited until Han-Dae had joined them at the top of the hill before snagging the page out of his partner’s outstretched hand.
“Hey!”
“Tae-Woo.” Ayame placed her hands on her hips and glared at him, “We’re supposed to be moving these boxes, not reading old reports.”
She tried to take it back from him but he just waved her off, “Calm down, I just want to see it for a minute.”
“I doubt it’s too interesting.” Saki moved away the boxes to drape his arm around Ayame’s shoulders, “Otherwise they probably wouldn’t have it packed it away in the-“ He stopped at the sound of Han-Dae’s snicker, the blond standing on his toes to read over Tae-Woo’s shoulder.
“You guys have got to read this.”
Ayame snatched the paper offered paper out of his hand and started skimming it intently, Saki leaning closer to read as well.
For historical record I’m only writing this stupid thing because White and Blue said I had to. They also said we had to only use first names and no titles so it was more discrete and all, but yeah no, I’m doing this my way. Though honestly I’m not sure why I’m bothering at all. The whole point of all of this is to “leave a record for history” or something like that but White’s is practically impossible to read in the first place, and Blue won’t even let us see what he wrote during his turn because it’s “too private” or something, so it’s not like anyone’s ever gonna see his. You know, I bet I could stop writing right now and no one would even care.
Ayame looked up from the letter. “Why am I reading this?”
Tae-Woo snickered, and Han-Dae waved frantically at the paper. “Just keep going.”
“Alright fine, calm down.”
Though there is one funny thing I wouldn’t mind remembering when all this is over with I guess. Alright so last night-
After another minute of silent reading, she looked up, eyes wide. “He didn’t!”
Han-Dae was giggling like a maniac and Saki had leaned closer and already started reading further down. “He did. He did! Keep reading.”
-just spinning around the room with the dorkiest grin on his face. White tried to stand up and stop him but ended up falling smack on his face after the first couple steps he was so drunk. So then-
Saki looked up from the page again, “I wonder if we could pull off something like.”
“Maybe not on Mundok, but we could probably get one of the others with it.”
“The ultimate prank.” Han-Dae danced with glee as Tae-Woo just shook his head.
“I doubt it; we don’t even know what he used.”
“We do too, he says it right here.”
By now the paper had long since been cast aside as the four of them hovered over a particularly dusty part of the path, Ayame murmuring allowed and she drew pictures on the ground with a stick and the other three watching closely. “Alright so if we do it like this-“
“I can get that stuff.” Han-Dae pointed towards one of the pictures and the girl nodded, smudging them out.
“Are we really doing this then?” Tae-Woo stood up, folding his arms over his chest.
The other three looked up at him and Han-Dae frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet on us.”
He shrugged, “I wasn’t planning on it, but we really should probably move these boxes before someone notices.”
The four of them slowly turned to look towards the stack of boxes still sitting by the side of the path, and almost universally they sighed.
“I suppose it would be best.”
“But we’re pick up where we left off after, right?”
“I mean, I don’t know about right after. I wouldn’t mind finishing my nap first.”
“No naps! We have plans to make.”
“Then make them while I nap.”
-and eventually it all just went black. Abi probably got me or something, because there was no way I was that drunk. But even so, that was fun.