Chapter Text
“I discovered in nature the non-utilitarian delights that I sought in art.
Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception.”
- Vladimir Nabokov
There was once a very little northward village, so far north that it knew no kingdom other than what could be seen from the vast valley around it. This very little village, unbeknownst to its very little population, kept itself and its people alive because of its bond with the Magic of the vast valley.
Magic was older than time itself, and took many forms, good and bad and inbetween. Magic was the sturdiness of a thatched house roof and the everlasting lack of warmth in the air; generous showers of rain and soiled firewood; dewy evergreen grass and the quick curdling of milk; perfumed summers and thick-misted winters. All around the very little village, Magic meddled, muddled, and mingled.
Though Magic’s meddling fingers kept the soil fertile, it could not touch the village’s mortal occupants. So it was by no force of Magic, neither good nor evil, that the young couple in the very littlest house in the village were struggling to conceive their first child. Both husband and wife were perfect in health and pure of heart, but year upon year they remained barren. Still, they remained deeply in love, determined to create life with it.
It was on the last day of one of the thick-misted winters that Miyoung made a usual round of the village delivering milk to each of the few families. Her cow Boli had provided a plentiful amount of the liquid that week and so Miyoung hurried to sell as much as she could before it spoiled. She had sold all but one tin and was contemplating making butter with it as she walked home, when she spotted something unusual.
A figure sat on the dirt path, propped against the pillar of a cattle pen, head hung forward and covered by a hood. Approaching slowly, Miyoung’s concern grew as she failed to recognise the person as any of her neighbours.
“Are you alright?” asked Miyoung, kneeling beside the figure, a warm hand placed gently on their forearm. “Are you awake?”
The hood lifted, unhurried, and Miyoung was met with the face of a woman she did not recognise. She looked equal in age to Miyoung’s own mother, equally as tired by time.
“Yes, child,” replied the woman. “I am resting.”
“In this very spot? Can you not walk?” The younger woman’s voice was worried, and the elder smiled.
“Walking is all I can do,” assured the other, “I am tired and needed to relieve my feet.”
With an expression of sympathy, Miyoung offered to find the woman’s family to let them know where she was, and even to carry her there.
“You are kind, but I can carry myself, dear child. I am not of this place, nor are my family.” The woman began to get to her feet. “I have rested enough already, and I have far more walking to do.”
“To where?” asked Miyoung, a frown beginning to create lines in the softness of her face. “There is no other village for miles in all directions, madam.”
“I’m not walking to a village,” said the other, “I’m simply wandering.” She began to walk.
Miyoung followed the woman, walking beside her as their footsteps led them to where she and her husband lived. Stopping before her door, she turned to the elder for what felt oddly like the last time.
“If you are simply wandering, then you will need something to eat and drink. My husband and I can give you a meal before you go.”
“You are kind,” said the woman, repeating her words from before. “I am not hungry, and I shall be fine.”
“At least take this,” replied Miyoung, taking the woman’s hand and placing the remaining tin of milk into it, curling the elder’s fingers around it in place of her own. “We have no use for it. It is fresh and it will replenish you, I can promise.”
“You are kind,” repeated the other, smiling once more. Tucking the tin under her arm, she slipped a hand into the opposite sleeve, pulling out something small, enclosed in her fist. “Hold your hand out for me so I may return the kindness, child.”
Miyoung smiled gratefully, but shook her head. “I seek no return, madam. I am not of want for money, I have made enough sales today.”
The woman laughed, not at Miyoung, but rather in good spirit. She took the younger’s hand and placed her closed fist downwards over the opened palm. Slowly, uncurling her fingers, she watched the young girl catch the object and close her own fist so as not to drop it.
“A seed?” asked the younger, holding it close to her chest. “Shall I plant it?”
“It is a barleycorn,” replied the elder, nodding, “Plant it, and give it as much care as you have given me.”
Miyoung promised the woman as much, bowing in thanks and bidding her safely on her journey with a gentle squeeze of their unoccupied hands.
“You will be a fine mother, I think,” praised the woman, nodding at her own words before turning and walking out of the village, away from the path and towards the forest. She headed into the mist, which seemed to thin around and away from her, and she was gone. Perhaps that is where she had come from, thought Miyoung, her heart feeling heavy with both hope and sorrow at the woman’s parting words. Nevertheless, she entered her home where her husband was waiting, and he embraced her with a smile and a curious glance at her fist.
“What is it?” asked her other half, his lips soft against her hair.
“Oh, Seokjin! It is a strange little thing, and I am going to plant it.”
Laughing, her husband pressed his lips to her temple once more. Loosening his arms from around her, he pulled away so she could show him. He was slightly baffled by the sight of the unfamiliar seed, but pleased nonetheless.
They both made their way to their small plot of land, and carefully dug a hole in a spot closest to their home, taking care to water it and pat the soil down so the seed was snug.
“With your love, it will be sure to flourish come dawn tomorrow.”
On the last day of the winter, the young couple in the very littlest house of the very little village settled down to eat and get their rest to welcome the first day of the spring.
It was on this very last day of the winter, that Magic took a new form.
Spring woke to take its first breath, slowly exhaling life and blowing the mist southward, nudging saplings and seedlings above ground to greet the morning. A barely-feathered hatchling gulped at the air for the first time, its melody of hunger shortly received by a fat worm. Out of the very littlest house, Seokjin rose first, stepping clumsily with sleep into the garden, greeting the young season with a gasp.
“How strange and wonderful,” sighed the man, kneeling beside a full, crimson bud that looked on the verge of blossoming. “Perhaps love has made it grow so quick.”
Unhurried, he woke his wife with a hand on her shoulder, an excited whisper into her skin of a small bloom waiting on her arrival. In an echo of her husband’s actions, Miyoung made her way to the garden and knelt before the new bud.
“What is your hurry, dear thing?” asked the young woman. “Are you so eager to be the first flower of the season?” Her fingers came up to stroke the plump swell of the burgeoning bloom.
“It is eager to see who treated it with such care,” came the voice of her husband, hushed, as though the bud could hear. “It feels the way I do every morning when I wake up with you.”
Seokjin knelt behind his wife, reaching his hand out to cup Miyoung’s, the both of them admiring the only new life in their small field. A breath caught in Miyoung’s throat, suddenly feeling the floret twitch against her palm.
“It is ready,” breathed she, leaning forward to kiss the blossom. “It is waking up.”
The two of them sat, enraptured as the bud trembled for a moment then began to open, petals stretching out, revealing the oddest and perhaps most breathtaking centre.
There, nestled in the heart of the flower, was a tiny sleeping child.
No larger than a thimble, the babe was bare but for the hair on its head, a rosy colour, gentler in comparison to the petals that surrounded it. It heaved a sigh in its slumber, tiny as itself, audible as neither one of the couple witnessing it could speak or breathe in their shock.
Tears began to fill Seokjin and Miyoung’s eyes as the child began to stir, jostling the stamens around it slightly as it sat up and rubbed its sleepy eyes open. It woke to the sight of the two, much larger beings with a relieved smile.
“Good morning mother, good morning father,” greeted the child, the littlest of boys. He leaned forward, reaching one hand out, and then the other, to crawl off of the petals and into the palm below his blossom.
Reverently, Miyoung brought her hand back towards her, Seokjin’s following underneath to keep the child in their hands secure. It was fortunate they were already sat down, for the scene surely would have moved them to their knees.
“Mother,” echoed the young woman, remembering curious parting words of the elderly stranger the day previous.
“And Father,” affirmed the very small boy, grinning at the young man, whose tongue remained numb in his awe.
“And you, child,” murmured Miyoung, unable to take her eyes away from his tiny, beautiful face, “what is your name?”
“Whatever you wish it to be,” replied the boy, still smiling at the two of them. “My parents should choose.”
“Your parents,” whispered Seokjin, elation trickling slowly into his body and leaking out his eyes.
“My parents,” agreed the child, lifting both arms to gesture at the two of them. The couple took a look at the twinkle in the flowerling’s eyes, his beaming mouth, the gloss of his dewy skin, and knew.
“Your name will be Yoongi.”