Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

On the eve of Jungkook’s twentieth birthday, it storms.

Jungkook blinks awake in the dark morning to the enthusiastic cursing of his mother, the cold drip-drip of water falling onto his cheek, and thunder crashing overhead. 

“Blasted storm!” his mother cries from another room. “You’ll stay out of my home, you demon!”

Bleary-eyed, Jungkook sits up and wipes his face. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, feels for his house shoes, and trudges out the door to meet his mother. 

She looks like she’s holding the house together with the sheer force of her own will. As he walks towards her, a full bucket of water rushes past his face on its way to be dumped out the window. Moonlight pools into the room with the rainwater, which Jungkook now sees has torn a hole in the ceiling. His mother stands almost directly beneath it, hair half-soaked around her moonlit face. Lightning flashes and soon after, thunder follows. 

“What is going on?” he asks, still muddled with sleep. He isn’t sure if he can really be heard over the pounding of rain against their house but his mother fixes him with a wild look--too wild for this time of the morning, with Jungkook’s sleepy state of mind, but her manic energy is something he’s become long used to. Both as her son, and as her apprentice. 

“I need to patch this hole,” she tells him, quickly transferring the weight of her magic onto him. He takes on the spells that are keeping the buckets moving and feels the rune tattoos on his arm writhe with energy. His mother wrings her hands out, tense with another brewing enchantment. “You need to keep that moving and fix the rest of the damage.”

“Yes’m,” he mumbles, struggling to keep down a yawn. At least with magic like this, it’s methodical. He doesn’t have to think much, just make sure that the path it courses through his body remains clear and undisturbed and his intentions stay firm. He does this and watches as his mother mutters something in a dead language, and brings her hands up swiftly towards the ceiling. The storm is giving her a fight, it seems. Normally something like this would be an easy fix and she wouldn’t require Jungkook’s assistance. But the whims of nature are rarely law-abiding, and he knows its chaotic moods are hard to match on one’s own. 

His mother chants something quick and foreign, and he feels a surge of energy shoot upwards. Jungkook isn’t sure what it is she cast, but it feels unyielding and hard, like some kind of defensive spell. Not one he’s familiar with, he’s surprised that she would be using strong magic on something like this.

Whatever she does works, to some extent, and quiets the pounding of rain on their roof. Jungkook keeps the spell going for the two buckets, as she instructed. Push and pull, push and pull. There’s still more water on the ground and dripping from above.

“How did a storm do all this?” Jungkook says through a yawn. “What time is it?”

His mother looks at him, muttering another spell under her breath. He feels it wash over him, and recognizes the slightly suffocating feeling around his neck as the protective wards she puts over him take hold in his necklaces. He wears several, made of various magical and natural materials, that hold and retain her magic around him. She’s done it since he was a child, to keep him safe. He has nineteen charms now, and figures that he will receive another one on his birthday tomorrow, as he does every year.

“It’s a few hours before sunrise,” she says. She stops one of the buckets in mid-air, cutting off the spell. A smile stretches across her face, tired. “Baby, why don’t you go back to bed?”

Jungkook isn’t about to argue with her, especially if she’s not going to make him do any more chores. But his curiosity isn’t quite satisfied. Their home is small, sure, but also resilient. He has never seen a storm do something like this before. He wonders what could have happened to make nature throw such a tantrum. A celestial imbalance? Some kind of manmade defilement in the forest?

It’s dark outside his bedroom window. Blue moonlight coats the ground just barely, almost completely consumed by the shadowed forest that lies not far outside their land. Thunder rolls in the distance, softer and more subdued. The trees sway with strong winds. He stares for what feels like a long time, until his eyes unfocus just slightly. Without hyper focus, it feels almost as if the shadows themselves are moving, circling around the property like a living thing. 

But when he focuses his eyes again, the shapes he thought he saw are gone. 

He burrows back into his covers, tries to sleep, but like most nights--he can’t rest soundly. Confusing dreams meld with reality as he drifts in and out of consciousness until the first rays of the dawn shine through his window. And today, he rises to the smell of his mother cooking something savory.

His body gets out of bed like it's out of his control, summoned by the promise of good food. His mother stands in the kitchen, clad in her usual knick-knacky assortment of charms and jewelry over a dark dress. She peers over her shoulder when Jungkook shuffles in, and smiles.

“Good morning,” she says sweetly. 

“It’s not my birthday…?” Jungkook says, unsure what day it actually is. Did he count wrong in his head?

His mother laughs. “No, that’s still tomorrow. I just thought I would do something extra special for you, since this year is auspicious. My sweet little Jungkook is becoming a man.”

Jungkook makes a face, but follows her motion to sit down. She swiftly puts a plate in front of him, almost overwhelmingly covered in different kinds of savory foods. Sausage, toasted bread, two jams, seasoned rice and a steaming cup of green tea.

“Mom,” Jungkook blinks disbelievingly. His stomach rumbles, and his mother smiles. She pats his head, and the bangles on her wrist make a pleasant sound. 

“There will be more tomorrow,” she promises. “Eat up! Don’t look so surprised!”

Jungkook gives her a thankful look before digging in. 

“We’ll be going into town today,” she continues, turning back to clean one of her kitchen knives. “I urgently need some special ingredients, and I thought we deserved a nice outing together.”

Jungkook makes a surprised sound as he stuffs a sausage link into his mouth. He hasn’t been to town in months. He used to go to school there pretty regularly, but once he completed secondary school, his mother pulled him out so he could focus on learning their family’s trade. He hasn’t seen his friends there in quite a few seasons.

Breakfast is delicious, but Jungkook is up as soon as it's over to help his mother with cleaning, and then rushing to his room to get dressed for town. It’s surprisingly chilly for this time of year, apparently summer didn’t want to stick around for very long. He fits a jacket over his shoulders, tugs his boots on, and even stops at their mirror to try and fix his hair into something other than a mop. 

It's gotten pretty long since he stopped going to school. His mother doesn’t really believe in haircuts--her hair reaches her waist, if she doesn’t have it braided or in some other kind of do-up. Jungkook’s isn’t that long, he still keeps it above his shoulders, but over the summer it grew the longest he’s probably ever worn it. He could braid it, if he wanted, but for the sake of time he decides to just pull it back with a ribbon tie. After all, it’s just a market visit. He doesn’t need to look his best for that.

“You look handsome,” his mother says, when he meets her outside. When Jungkook was younger, they used to have a horse. It was large and black and Jungkook loved to feed him apples. He doesn’t remember when his mother sold it--it was some time after he was old enough to make the walk to town at his mother’s brisk pace, and when she trusted him to be able to defend himself. They don’t have a horse now and they’ve never had a carriage, so they make do with their own feet and a few wicker baskets.

“So what are we looking for?” Jungkook asks. The walk to town is long. Jungkook thinks that they could probably cut through the forest, but they’ve always gone around it. It takes longer than an hour, so his mother tries not to go unless she absolutely has to. And normally, Jungkook has to watch the house while she’s away, so he hasn’t been able to go in even longer. 

His mother brandishes a list in response to his inquiry, and gives it to him to look over. “See if you can guess what they’re for,” she says. 

Hm, he thinks. Most of it is pretty standard, just minerals and other things that they use often but can’t grow themselves. But there are a few ingredients that stand out, like the iron chain, the wolf teeth, sapphire and somnus mushrooms. He knows what they do individually. The iron chains are used for protection against magic, specifically fae or undead. The wolf teeth increase strength or awareness, if correctly enchanted. Sapphires enhance magic during the duration of this particular month. This specific genus of mushroom is said to induce a deep sleep. Jungkook has looked into them before to help with his insomnia, but they’re rare to find in marketplaces. His mother forbids him to try and forage for them in the forest.

And for good reason, as far as he knows. The woods go deeper than they appear to, and inside hides a host of lawless, magical entities that won’t hesitate to manipulate or hurt humans. Witches, like his mother, are the only lawful practitioners of magic that exist. Nothing else magical is to be trusted.

They make it to town in the early afternoon. 

It’s clear that they weren’t the only ones affected by the storms, but unfortunately most of the townspeople don’t have magic to help aid with repairs. He sees many men and women balanced on rooftops, patching and repairing the damage, as they traipse into the village. Many pause their work to stare at them, but nobody greets them with any familiarity until they reach the town market.

“Miss!” A vendor calls from their stand. “We have fresh bread, just baked!”

“Oils!” another pipes up.

“Rugs, for a bargain!”

His mother turns to him and Jungkook gives her one of the empty baskets he’d been carrying for her, so they have an equal number. She brings out a pouch that jingles heavily with coins and tosses it to him. As they exchange things, a stout man in dark robes comes up and clears his throat. Clearly, he has business with the town witch.

“Yeongja,” he rumbles. “I must speak with you.”

“Buy yourself something,” she tells Jungkook, before acknowledging the man. “I will meet back with you in a few hours.”

Jungkook eyes the man, who is old and carries an air of authority as strong as his dark beard. When his mother turns to greet him as well, he’s surprised by their familiarity. She turns her head back to him only after saying hello, and shoos Jungkook away. Her eyes are not anything but kind, but there is a hard  stubbornness in the lines of her face that he knows mean she won’t be argued with. He turns away to leave them to whatever business they have together and explore the market.

There are a lot of things he’s interested in, like the vibrant paints for sale or the instrument being strummed experimentally by an interested buyer nearby, but he limits himself to the list of ingredients first. He will buy what his mother needs, and then see what’s leftover in the pouch that she gave him. 

He had only just spotted a stall selling animal goods before a somewhat-familiar voice calls out his name.

“Hey, Jungkook!” He turns and sees a small group of friends rushing towards him. And it takes him a moment, but he recognizes the smile of the man in front, though he’s grown much taller. And the woman next to him used to wear her hair differently—framed across her face now, it looks more mature. “Is that you?”

“Ah,” Jungkook says, startled by how quickly he’s surrounded by his old school friends. “Ah—hello!”

“It is you,” Yugyeom says, with humor in his gaze. “Wah, you got so much thicker than the last time I saw you. I almost didn’t recognize you, but your face hasn’t changed at all. You’re still so cute!”

Jungkook’s face grows warm. “Thank you?”

Yugyeom claps him on the back, like the last time that they saw each other was yesterday, not  several seasons ago. “We’re all hanging out a little ways from the market. Do you remember where the tavern is? You should come see everyone else!”

A girl grabs onto his arm and pulls him away with them before he has the time to agree or disagree. 

The tavern is full of people who have trickled over from the market. Yugyeom wedges them both into a too-small bench already full of people around a few tables. Half of his weight ends up on top of an old schoolmate of his--Jaehyun, that’s his name, and on the other side, Yugyeom squeezes in. There’s some game going on amidst the goblets of drink. Something that Jungkook’s never heard of with cards and a few dice scattered around. On his side of the table, it appears that Jaehyun is losing. On the other side, the winner is smiling at his hand. Jungkook doesn’t recognize him, but accidentally catches his eye as he stares. 

The man’s hair is wavy and dark, and like Jungkook he wears it like a small tail behind his head. But there’s also a sharpness to his eyes that Jungkook doesn’t have. He’s got a cool confidence about him that is impressive, and he’s also very handsome. His clothes are slightly out-of-date, but unlike Jungkook’s they’re delicate and expensive looking. Eye-catching, for sure. Jungkook feels a jolt when their eyes meet, and the stranger’s victorious smile slips into something else. Interest? He slowly puts his hand face up on the table, and Jaehyun groans next to him at the sight of them. The crowd starts playfully jeering. 

“Damn!” Jaehyun says, and tosses his cards on the table. He takes a gulp of his drink. “You have to be cheating!”

“No cheating,” the winner says with a shrug. Jungkook notices that unlike everyone else, this man doesn’t appear to have any alcohol. “Just good strategy.”

“You’re the best player I’ve ever seen, Taehyung. I mean that.” Yugyeom leans over to slap the man on the back and grin. “Have you met my old friend here, Jungkook? Maybe he could challenge you, hm? He doesn’t come to town that often. This is a rare occasion.”

Jungkook is once again met with the full attention of Taehyung’s gaze, uncomfortably aware of how he’s being added up. He sits still and wide-eyed, not sure if his discomfort comes from being so closely scrutinized by someone so attractive, his own social awkwardness, or something else. Taehyung’s eyes are piercing.

“No,” he says. The pitch of his voice is deep and demanding of attention. If he wasn’t speaking so softly, everyone would stop talking just to listen. Jungkook himself feels compelled, it’s the kind of voice that you don't have to listen to, but you want to. “I don’t think that we’ve met. If you don’t mind, what was your full name?”

A reflexive warning flashes in Jungkook’s mind, in the sound of his mother’s voice. Names are powerful things, not to be given away. Never give it to strangers.

“Just Jungkook is fine,” he forces out after a second. He feels weird, like everyone around them is too aware that he hadn’t answered the full question, especially Taehyung. But he had said, if Jungkook didn’t mind. And he did mind, actually. So he hadn’t done anything wrong. 

“Oh, don’t worry about him. He asks everyone that,” Yugyeom says to Jungkook, nudging his shoulder against his. He must be reading Jungkook’s hesitance as something different, because he says, “It’s okay. Taehyung’s super weird too, he won’t care that your mom’s the town witch.”

Jungkook shoots him a look but Yugyeom just smiles back at him, completely clueless. Taehyung blinks, and leans back in his chair with a strange look on his face. Did that fact change something? Leaving the bar is starting to sound like a good idea. He’s starting to feel uncomfortable and he’s sure his mother wouldn’t be happy to see him here. Yugyeom keeps talking, as Jungkook fiddles with his necklaces and tries to figure out the most polite way to exit this scenario. Taehyung’s eyes are back on him, like a hawk’s.

“How long have you been in town, Taehyung?” Yugyeom asks, “Only for the past few weeks, right?”

“Since the beginning of the season, on and off,” Taehyung answers, only looking away from Jungkook for a second. But in that second, Jungkook already feels lighter--this time he notices how he can feel Taehyung’s attention when it’s redirected onto him, like a heavy blanket that settles around his shoulders. Maybe it would have felt warm, but the charms around his neck are ice-cold against his skin, battling it off. “Looking for something.”

“He’s been looking for someone to beat him at cards,” Yugyeom laughs, rolling his eyes. “I told him two weeks ago that there was nobody else around his age that was any good. Unless you two want to play.”

“How old are you?” Taehyung asks him. It’s an easy question, and the answer comes tumbling just as easily past Jungkook’s lips.

“Nineteen years.” Taehyung tilts his head at that, and Jungkook feels a sudden pull in his stomach, and the words bubble up on his tongue involuntarily. “Almost twenty. My twentieth birthday is tomorrow.”

“And the son of a witch.” Taehyung says to himself. Jungkook feels pinned down. He still wants to leave, but he doesn’t know how to without being awkward. And this is the first time he’s seen his old school friends in seasons--he doesn’t want to look bad. Or like he’s still a child, worrying about what his mother would think about him (a grown man, as of tomorrow!) being in a bar. But still, there’s something weird about this guy. He wishes that there was more to see in his expression, but beyond the obvious beauty, his face is unreadably neutral.

“If you would want to play a game with me,” Taehyung grabs the cards in his hands and starts to reshuffle them. Jungkook hadn’t noticed before, but they have incredibly complex designs on the backs of them, that resemble (but aren’t the same) as the lines inked onto his own skin. “I would be delighted.”

Jungkook blinks slowly as his eyes are drawn to watch Taehyung shuffle the cards. He can’t keep track of how he’s doing it, his fingers are too quick. There are rings on his long fingers that glisten invitingly with every movement, catching the light. Each card that Jungkook’s eyes latch onto is gone in a moment, lost in the deck again. It’s easier to lose focus entirely. 

“I don’t even know what game we’re playing,” he murmurs, slipping further back into his seat.

“You’ll pick it up quick,” Taehyung says soothingly, though Jungkook doesn’t share his confidence. Taehyung finishes shuffling with a flourish and fans the cards out in his hand. Still trained on them, he feels a little disoriented now that they’re still again. The patterns on the back are so complex that they almost look like they’re still moving, pulsing and throbbing with a rhythm that isn’t there anymore. Taehyung holds the deck out to him. “Pick one.”

His hand reaches out of its own accord and gravitates to the one in the exact center. He pulls it out of the deck and sets it, still face down, on the table in front of him. He barely pulls his hand away before Taehyung’s own fingers are on it, flipping it over. 

And that doesn’t seem right, because Jungkook could have sworn that it was a normal deck of cards, but instead of numbers there’s an image on the other side. An ornate print of six beautiful people, pressed intimately against each other in a forest-like backdrop. They look too perfect to be human. It faces him upside-down, but he can still read the text that labels the card as The Lovers . Jungkook brings his eyes up to see Taehyung frowning at the card. One of the figures in the illustration has similar hair to him. Jungkook wonders if he made the cards himself. His hands are moving the deck again, in the same shuffling motion that makes it difficult for Jungkook to look away. This doesn’t feel like the game that he and Jaehyun had been playing earlier. He’s not sure what game they’re playing, or how he wins. 

“Pick two this time,” Taehyung tells him. His hand is up again, and Jungkook feels unease trickle coldly down his spine as he picks again. He doesn’t feel fully in control. The backs of the cards stop moving, except for two. It seems obvious that they want to be picked. He lays them down on each side of the first card he picked, corresponding with the side of the deck that he’d plucked them from. He does this without really thinking, and isn’t sure why he does it, but Taehyung seems to find the layout completely normal.

He turns over the card on the right first. It’s another illustration, but this one makes the cold spread from Jungkook’s spine out to the rest of him, all the way to the ends of his fingertips. Because, underneath the script that uprightly reads The Fool, is an image of a man who looks an awful lot like him. The same hair, the same big eyes and big nose that he’s privately self-conscious about. It depicts him with a satchel on his back, walking along a path that leads through a dark forest. Though the woods look shadowy, he wears a smile on his face and a skip in his step. Unlike the first card, it isn’t reversed.

Taehyung pauses to look at it as well, before slowly moving to the last card that remains unturned. But as soon as his fingers brush it, the door to the tavern slams open. 

“ Jungkook.”  

Jungkook flinches, and awareness comes rushing back to him all at once at the sound of his mother’s voice. Abruptly, he realizes that Yugyeom has left his side. Jaehyun is gone too, and nobody is focused on them anymore. They might as well be invisible, or the only people in the room. Taehyung’s eyes narrow, and he looks beyond Jungkook’s shoulder before he has the chance to reorient himself. An involuntary shiver shudders through his body. His charms bite with cold around his neck. The cards on the table have numbers on them again. The third one still remains unturned, and the other two have both turned into sevens.

A hand grabs his shirt and pulls him roughly out of his seat. He barely has time to grab his still-empty basket before he’s hauled away. His mother, he already knows. An apology is already on his tongue, but she doesn’t look to him for an explanation. She’s focused entirely on Taehyung, ushering Jungkook behind her with an iron grip. She is silent as she pushes Jungkook out of the tavern, keeping her eyes on him until the door is shut. When it is, she lets out a big breath and finally looks at her son. Her hands release his arms to fly up to his face, turning his head this way and that like she’s examining him.

“Did he touch you?” she asks. “Did he give you anything?”

Jungkook thinks back, and shakes his head. He doesn’t think that picking the cards counted--he didn’t take them with him. But why is she asking him that? 

“Did you give him your full name?” she asks him next. When Jungkook shakes his head again, she sighs in relief and pats his cheek softly. “Good. Good, Jungkook. You did so well.”

“Who was that?” he asks. “He was...strange.”

“You shouldn’t have spoken to him,” his mother says. They’re still walking, and Jungkook realizes they are along the path that leads out of town. “That wasn’t a human, Jungkook. You would have been in serious danger, if I hadn’t come to find you!”

A lump forms in his throat. Not human? Maybe that was why he felt so...odd. Yes, it did make sense. He must have been using some kind of magic on him, making him see things that weren’t there, like those weird cards. Or say things he didn’t mean to at first, like his birthday. But even through all that, although he was uncomfortable , he never felt in danger. He’s not sure why his mother is freaking out so much. He hadn’t even been touched.

“Did you get everything on your list?” Jungkook asks her, interrupting her scolding. “What did that man want from you?”

His mother adjusts her cuffs and shows Jungkook the contents of her basket, which is completely full. “I did the shopping while you were off fooling around. And nothing. He wanted to talk to me about the storm that hit last night. But don’t try to change the subject, young man. You are in trouble. ”

Jungkook huffs, dragging his feet on the dirt path as his mother launches into another lecture about the dangers of magic, and about how they take advantage of naive, immature people like him.

“Creatures like him thrive on deceit,” she says. “They’re con artists. They want to seduce you into a deal, to steal something from you. It could cost you your life, or worse, Jungkook. Never accept anything from them. You’re not ready to talk to strangers like that, understand? That was foolish.”

Her strict tone wavers a bit as she looks at him, her eyes softening as she looks at his face. She brings a hand to card through his hair as they walk. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you, baby. Monsters like that will jump at the chance to ruin anyone as kind and good as you. You can’t trust the people in the village. Especially strangers.”

Even though he knows she doesn’t mean it that way, her voice comes off as a little condescending. Jungkook can protect himself just fine, can’t he? Yugyeom and the others had been impressed by how fit he seems, and he knows a lot of defensive spells that could be used in a pinch. His mother didn’t see what other people saw in him. She saw her only son, her baby. But Jungkook was turning twenty years old in a day, and he was a man now. He could take care of himself.

He doesn’t voice his opinion aloud. His mother continues to lecture him until they reach home again. They take an extra long route that circles even further around the forest than normal, and by the time that their cottage is in view again, the sun is getting ready to dip below the horizon. 

He is handed the basket and told to organize and put away what they’ve bought while his mother goes to feed the chickens and recheck the defensive barrier spells around their property.

He heads inside, and only when he sets both baskets on his mother’s worktable does he realize that his basket is not as empty as he thought it was. He pales, panic shooting quickly down to the soles of his feet. Stuck in the bottom of his wicker basket is a card. Somehow he knows it’s the final card, the one that he had never seen. It still sits face down in his basket, seemingly undisturbed.  

The pattern on the back of the card is the exact same. He studies it closer, and sees leaves, flowers, vines, all twisting around each other. And amidst them, large beasts that fade in and out of the natural detail. Tigers and wolves and bears, and other creatures that he doesn’t know the names of. And beyond those-- cleverly disguised, he admits, are runes. His inked arm is not the same, it doesn’t have the same amount of detail, but he recognizes magic when he sees it. This is just a different kind. But whoever enchanted these cards is clearly extremely skilled. He’s only heard of witches being capable of making such objects. Where could a magical creature obtain something like this? Theft? Murder? Some kind of fucked up deal, like his mother had mentioned? 

He should tell his mom about this. He knows that’s the right course of action. But something in him won’t budge. Maybe if he takes care of this himself, his mother will realize that he’s capable of more than she thinks. Maybe she’ll let him in on the discussions she has with the strange man in the village. Maybe she’ll realize that he doesn’t have to be so sheltered all the time. Besides, what if she gets mad at him when she realizes he was given something? What if she thinks that he lied to her?

He’ll investigate the card and what it means on his own terms. His mother doesn’t have to know quite yet.

Before he can turn it over, his mother comes back into the house. Quickly, he slips the card into his pocket and starts unloading the ingredients from her basket. It looked like she had gotten most of what she needed, except for the mushrooms she had wanted. She had probably realized that Jungkook was in trouble by then. He can’t help but feel a little guilty. There won’t be another market until next week, and who knows if they’ll even have this ingredient in stock then?

“Can I borrow some of your books tonight?” he calls out. 

“Why?”

“Just for studying,” Jungkook says back loudly. Not really a lie. “I want to look into who I met today.”

Footsteps quickly grow louder as she approaches. She sticks her head around the corner to look at him, hair flying around her head. 

“I can tell you exactly what you met,” she tells him. “You met a fae, one of the most dangerous and intelligent beasts that this region knows. Could you not feel that? It reeked of forest.”

Jungkook answers honestly. “No.”

His answer only pulls a frown further out of his mother. She sighs, rubbing her hands on her skirt. “Your senses aren’t as heightened as mine. That’s okay--you’ll just have to be more careful. You can take the book for reading tonight. I want you to be able to recognize when you’re in danger. Humans are easy prey, but witches are much tastier. Especially young, innocent ones. You can’t give them any windows of opportunity or they’ll drag you off to the woods and feast on your magic.”

A flick of her wrist brings a book flying towards Jungkook’s hands, where it lands safely. The cover is made of thick, faded leather and the title is in a language long-dead. Its pages are old and yellowed, to be treated with much care. Jungkook tucks it close to his chest and heads to his bedroom when his mother dismisses him until dinner.

He learns a lot about fae from the book. They’re beautiful, and normally look like they could be human. But like most creatures of nature (and this is a scientific fact) the brightest, most beautiful creatures are often the most dangerous. But unlike in nature, their beauty doesn’t warn humans away. It lures them in. 

Like humans, they operate with a set of rules. Their own code that sets the precedent for their behavior. Unlike humans, they have no morals. They believe in balance above anything else. This is why deals are so important to them. An eye for an eye. Magic can’t be given for nothing in return. They need it to survive. 

But that didn’t really explain what Taehyung was doing. He wanted to play a game, not make a deal. Jungkook hadn’t given him anything, had he? Taehyung hadn’t asked for anything besides the answers to his questions. He turns the page.

Fae have a wide variety of powers. They have influence over natural elements, extended lifespans, and can in some cases manipulate reality and the wills of less powerful beings around them. They can imbue magic into objects. 

A chill races up his spine. Is that what happened to him? When he and Taehyung had talked it did feel...weird. A little bit like he wasn’t in full control. But they’d just been talking, surely if Taehyung had really wanted something from him, he could have forced Jungkook to give it to him. 

To make their magic stronger, they might also form bonds with others of their kind. Similar to a wolf hunting with a pack. Prey is more easily caught. Though, this is not common. Fae, in their savagery, are too competitive with each other. A joint effort to capture prey quickly turns into a personal matter for them. It often ends in spilled fae blood, and always ends with the human dead.

Humans are the most lucrative prey. The hardest but most rewarding catch. A human heart is one of the most precious magic things that a fae can harvest. One with enough purity could sustain the lifeforce for several fae for years. But our own advancements in magic have made us significantly harder to catch, and so the risk of being hunted is significantly lower. The balance has shifted. Fae are now not so bold, and only cross humans who are stupid enough to enter their domain or make a deal.

Jungkook gulps. There is a very helpful illustration after this section, of a human lying facedown, blood seeping into the snow. A beautiful woman is weeping angrily above the corpse, blood crusted around her mouth as she glares at another fae woman, whose hands are stained in the human’s blood. 

He understands why his mother would be scared, after reading all of this. He doesn’t know why she didn’t show him this. Did she think it was too frightening? Too much for him to handle? A familiar vein of frustration pulses at his temple. He’s not stupid, or weak! And he still doesn’t think he was really in that much danger. Taehyung had been in town for weeks, and could have taken anyone in that tavern. Jungkook wasn’t the first person to sit across from him and play a card game.

The frustration with his mother doesn’t leave his mind, even when she makes him his favorite soup for dinner. He tries to brush it aside, but he can’t. With his birthday looming over the horizon, he would have thought that this would have been the start of more freedom. The start of being treated like an adult, someone his mother can trust. But after today, it feels like they’ve been set back years.  

“I was thinking,” his mother says over dinner, “That we could spend tomorrow together. As a family. Just inside the house, a nice day in. We could do some cooking together, I have enough flour that I think I could make a nice dessert for you. And you could do some painting. We should also probably refresh on your self-defense skills. It will be nice, just you and me.”

“What about those ingredients you didn’t get today? The mushrooms,” he asks, swallowing a spoonful of soup. “You said they were urgent.”

“Not more important than my son’s birthday,” she waves it away with a dismissive scoff. But Jungkook doesn’t believe her. He can taste her anxiety in the soup’s aftertaste. 

After he helps her clean, he dismisses himself to go take a bath. He brings the book with him.

Their tub is enchanted to heat water to the perfect temperature. He sprinkles some of their bath-scent into the water before stepping in and sighing. His body is instantly warm--except it’s not. He frowns. Every part of him is warm, but the necklaces around his neck are still uncomfortably cold. He’d forgotten about those. 

They’re all mostly made of iron, but there are other, different components on each one that make them unique. They used to seem long, hard to hide underneath shirts, but as he’s grown they’ve become smaller. Under his mother’s instruction, he has never taken them off of his neck. He knows that they’re charmed with protective spells. Normally, it would make him feel reassured. But right now, it’s suffocating. His mother is suffocating. Does she really need to do all this? In his near twenty years of life, he’s never even encountered anything dangerous apart from today. The most danger he’s ever been in has been from their own magical experimentation in his mother’s work area.

The necklaces are cold and the water makes them feel heavier. It’s uncomfortable.

With a sharp breath, he starts lifting the necklaces over his head one by one. He’ll put them back on after the bath, it’s not a big deal. He takes off the one that his mother gifted him last year first, and works his way back. They go on the stool by the bath, on top of the book. The older the necklace is, the more delicate that he has to be with them. She started outfitting them with more and more iron as the years went on, to make them more durable. 

He feels lighter, with every charm he takes off. Until there’s only one left, the very first necklace she made him as a baby. It’s the most delicate, and the strongest one he wears. Still so potent, even after two decades. Sustained by a new mother’s love and protective urge. The chain is thin, and the charm on the end is a roughly cut jade rabbit. For luck, among other things. He rubs it with his thumb for a moment, before deciding that it too must come off.

When he lifts it over his head, he’s hit with a euphoric rush. The feeling is freeing. His chest suddenly feels so light, without the nineteen charm necklaces weighing him down. Maybe it’s the bath water, but he feels like he’s floating a bit. Physically, but maybe mentally too. Bliss rushes through him. 

The magic that must have been dampened or absorbed by the charms hits him on all sides, and there’s so much of it. He can sense it beyond his own body. He can feel the charms and their heaviness. He can feel the wildness of his mother’s magic in the next room. He can feel beyond that, outside of their house, where the incredible magic infinity of nature exists. This is a world he has never felt before. Is this just because he’s never taken the necklaces off, that it feels so vast and vibrant? Will this feeling fade, or is it always like this? It feels amazing. He smiles in disbelief.

A warm tear slides just past his lashes, down the plane of his face and into the bath water.

Then, something tugs on him. Just slightly. He looks around the bath, but there’s nothing. He blinks his teary eyes away, and feels it again. A tug that’s a little more insistent. Instinctively, he closes his eyes. 

In his mind’s eye, he finds an invisible string. It’s tied to him. His right pinkie. He isn’t sure what he’s doing, or how he’s doing it, but he experimentally tugs back. Then there’s another tug. With his eyes still closed, Jungkook spots another invisible string. Tied right next to the first, on his ring finger. 

Another tug. This time, from his earlobe. Strung through one of his piercings.

Another. He finds the fourth one looped around his bicep, where his tattoos start.

Another, this one tied around his waist. 

The sixth is the hardest tug. Jungkook’s hands fly up to his chest. The feeling is jolting. There’s a flash of panic, because that’s his heart. There’s something tied around his heart. In a single second, the euphoria of magic slips away, replaced quickly with a yawning, overwhelming power. 

A strange sensation comes over him, like he is suddenly floating through the air, no ground in sight. He feels magic everywhere, and things that don’t belong to him. Emotions, thoughts, all jumbled together in a confusing mass that grabs at him with visceral need. It simultaneously feels like being punched in the gut, and the most refreshing drink of water he’s ever had. All six strings are pulled taut and he follows them down.

He slams hard into something soft. Not the bathtub, he’s somewhere else. He can’t see where, but it smells…earthy. And there are whispered voices. One melodious, the other deep and raspy.

“I want to go with him to town tomorrow. That witch, she worries me.”

“Taehyungie saw him. It won’t be long….”

“I know, but still. Who is to say he’ll come to us? Terms of the deal have already been broken.”

“Ah, hyung--do you feel that? The balance has shifted. Just now.”

The string on Jungkook’s pinkie pulls playfully. Jungkook feels pointed at, as the higher-pitched voice changes to become excited, almost smug. Whoever is at the end of this string knows he’s there. Jungkook can feel their magic coiling around him, like a cool breeze. It tickles against his skin, feeling odd and ticklish. They sigh, maybe in satisfaction, and murmur, “ Hello, witchling.”

He shudders, and feels the familiar magical ferocity of his mother before Jungkook is wrenched backwards by his neck. He chokes, scrabbling and suffocating. Another punch to the gut, but this one has more effort behind it, and no air makes it past his throat. For a moment he can’t breathe. Jungkook thrashes, and opens his eyes.

But then it’s gone. Water splashes loudly as he comes back to himself, thrashing. The scent of the bath water comes back. His heart beats with wild abandon. He fights to keep his eyes shut, even though he desperately wants to open them, and frantically searches for more strings. His throat burns. He can’t see it, but he feels it. Something there, too. Tight. No string attached, not like the others. There aren’t any more tugs. But now, in his mind’s eye, he can’t unsee them. Six threads tied to him, invisible but all with distinctly different feelings. His pinkie, his ring finger, his bicep, his waist, his ear, his heart. They all lead off into an infinite darkness. They lead off into the same direction. And whatever is around his neck is there too.

Had he really just gone somewhere else, in the span of a single heartbeat? Did he imagine that? Did he--did he do that? Or did someone else? Did they know he was there?

Jungkook takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. He’s alone. His mother isn’t here. His eyes find the tome, sitting on top of the stool with all nineteen necklaces laying uselessly on top of it. He searches for any cold feeling, anything that feels wrong. But he finds nothing. His body is still warm from the bath water, and there are no more tugs after the one on his heart. He can’t shake how frightening that’d felt. Surely it was real. What was that?

Despite the scare, he feels more refreshed than he’s felt in a long time. Exhilarated, even. It almost pains him to put the necklaces back on after he’s done bathing. One by one, he slides them over his head again. With the nineteenth charm, he’s back to the duller, dampened world that he’s used to. On his way to his bedroom, he finds the card Taehyung had given him in the pocket of his trousers. One of those voices had said something about a gift, right? They might have meant the cards. He closes the door, sits on his bed, and takes a deep breath. He flips the card over.

He’s expecting something like the other two cards, an ornate and puzzling illustration to complete whatever game Taehyung had started. But that’s not what he finds. Instead of a picture, there’s plain, messy handwriting on a blank white card. 

Time’s almost up.

Jungkook is almost disappointed by how mundane it feels. What does that mean? Was it some part of the game they were playing? He flips the card over, and then again, but nothing about it changes. The writing stays the same, and when he sniffs it, he smells ink. Not a whiff of enchantment. And as much as he wants to, he does know better than to take his necklaces off and try again. Confused, he tucks the card into the inside of his shirt, sitting it lightly against his skin.

Hello, witchling. That voice…they had been talking to him, hadn’t they? They had known he was there, even though Jungkook wasn’t sure how he had gotten there in the first place. Could he be involved in whatever was going on somehow? A part of him is thrilled by that, despite the danger. It could be a chance to prove what he can do.

He brings his mother’s book onto his lap, and spends the night reading. He looks for anything that can explain what he’d felt in the bathroom, or what the card means (if it means anything at all). He isn’t very successful.

The next morning starts just like the last. Jungkook wakes up to the smell of delicious food, and finds his mother busy in the kitchen with a meal already almost prepared. The only difference is now, he’s twenty years old. He’s officially an adult now. For some reason, he thought something would change. He thought he would feel different somehow. But this morning feels just the same.

A large omelet sits ready on a plate on the table, next to another plate with sausage, and a mug of hot chocolate. The sun streams through every open window, and somewhere a soft breeze whistles through the air. The weather is perfect. Maybe, he thinks jokingly, whoever controls the weather knows it’s his birthday. Maybe it’s a gift. While he digs in, his mother disappears for a moment.

When she comes back, she’s holding a necklace. 

Jungkook tries to ignore the vague feeling of disappointment. He’s never minded the repetitive gifts before, it started to feel more like a tradition than anything else. But after last night…he still hasn’t forgotten the feeling. That thrill of euphoric wonder. The sheer amount of magic. And he doesn’t look forward to seeing what a twentieth charm layered on top will do to that feeling.

Although, he has to admit that this one is beautiful, it’s clear that the ingredients she needed in the market yesterday were for its creation. The chain is made of the same shiny iron, studded with shining blue sapphires and sharp wolf teeth. She gestures for him to turn around, so she can put it on him. Guilt shadows his weighed-down smile, when he remembers that he was the reason she hadn’t been able to get the last of those mushrooms while in town. Who knows what she would have used those for?

He lifts up the back ends of his hair so she has a clear view of his neck, and closes his eyes. She whispers an enchantment, and Jungkook feels the familiar weight of protective wards settle around his neck. She clasps it and the magic settles in his bones. 

“It looks beautiful on you,” his mother says quietly. “Happy birthday, baby.”

He turns to look at her. Her hair is twisted up into something quick, and there are more lines underneath her eyes than usual. He knows that making these necklaces takes a lot of time, concentration, and arcane energy. And if she got these components only yesterday….he feels awful, now, for feeling remotely ungrateful for the gift.

“Were the somnus mushrooms for you?” He tries to joke. “Surely you didn’t sleep last night.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “Don’t worry about me. It was worth it.” 

He wraps his arms around her and squeezes, and she tenderly returns the gesture.

“Thank you Mom,” he says, though it’s muffled by her skirt.

The tender moment between them is interrupted as a hard knock echoes through their small cottage, along with a gruff male voice. His mother frowns, and so does Jungkook. It’s not unusual for people to come knocking, they get quite a few customers from the town. But it is unusual for them to be here so early. Normally townsfolk don’t set out early enough to get to their house before noon. Jungkook rises, but his mother sends his butt back into his chair with a single stern look. She gets up to go to the door herself.

“Yeongja!” The man outside yells. He sounds urgent, but Jungkook can’t tell if it’s out of anger, excitement or fear. While his mother fumbles with their several door locks, Jungkook creeps to a window, where he can see their visitor through the thick slats that cover the glass. To his surprise, it’s the man from the village that had approached his mother earlier. He watches as his mother opens the door a crack, registers who it is, then steps out of their house altogether and shuts the door behind her. She speaks too quietly for him to hear, but luckily the older man is stuck at his louder volume. She crosses her arms and asks a question.

“You know why I’m here!” The man exclaims. “They’ve made their demands clear, Yeongja. Abundantly clear! There will be worse things than that storm if you don’t comply!”

Jungkook frowns. What’s going on?

His mother says something else, much more calmly. Her face is set in stone.

“You saw they came into the village,” The man points his finger into his mother’s chest. “They’re becoming bold. Maybe even desperate. If they don’t get what they want, who knows what they’ll do to restore what they’ve lost? Who they’ll take! There’s nothing we can do about them. They almost got your boy, didn’t they?” 

Jungkook’s breath catches. Is this man talking about him?

His mother stands firm. The man takes a large breath. He says something at a much lower volume, his shoulders slumping. Many people come to their cottage when they’ve exhausted all other solutions to their problems. Jungkook knows desperation when he sees it. His mother does as well. They speak for a few more moments, quietly, before a resolution seems to be reached. He scrambles up from the window when his mother comes back into the cottage. The man does not follow her.

“Mom,” Jungkook says. She’s already putting on boots, and a scarf, and she’s reaching for her knapsack. “Where are we going? What’s going on?”

She pauses in what she’s doing, and slowly looks up. Jungkook doesn’t like the way that she’s looking at him. Too much intention behind those sharp eyes.

“I am going to take care of something in town,” she tells him. “Alone.” Her tone is final and sparks annoyance in Jungkook’s chest, because no, it’s not final. He’s an adult now, he should be able to come with her. 

“Why can’t I come?” Jungkook asks her. He moves to her other side, so he’s in between her and the front door. “I can help you.”

“You can’t,” his mother answers, displeased with being argued with. “You’re going to stay here, Jungkook. You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

“So tell me!” he exclaims. She tries to maneuver around him, but he’s insistent. “Isn’t that the entire point of teaching me? So that I can help you? What am I supposed to do when I’m on my own?”

His mother’s nostrils flare like a bull’s. “I would allow you to come if I could trust you not to be so foolish, ” she says. “Or has what happened yesterday already slipped through your mind?”

“I wasn’t--”

“You are to stay in this house, ” his mother interrupts, deadly serious. She has not raised her voice at all yet, but Jungkook can tell she’s angry. “And you are not going to leave. For your own safety! Is that understood?”

She waits for Jungkook’s reply, and when she doesn’t get one, she grabs his chin and pushes it up to look her in the eye. Magic power swirls in her irises, effortlessly controlled but there, as a reminder. She raises a single eyebrow at her son. Jungkook doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction of answering, but the truth is that he has never been able to stand up against her for very long. 

“Yes,” he says, through his teeth. 

She lets go of his chin to finish buttoning up her cloak. “I will be back in a few hours,” she says. He must look pitiful, because when she glances back up at his face, her demeanor softens. “If it wasn’t so urgent, I wouldn’t leave. I know you don’t want to spend your birthday alone. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook frowns harder. Had she listened to him at all? He’s not mad because she’s missing his birthday. That’s childish. He’s mad because he wants to go out and help her! He wants to know what’s going on! Does she not see that? And maybe it’s a little upsetting that after making a fuss last night about staying at home for his birthday, his mother gets to go out while he’s being forced to stay home. It’s perfectly reasonable to be upset.

He sits back down to finish his breakfast while she gets ready to leave. He watches her out of the corner of his eye. All sorts of materials find their way into her pouch--more wolf’s teeth, sapphires, bigger chains, a jade stylus, and a few pendants and ready-to-go potions. Before she leaves the house, she comes back to where he is sitting with his arms crossed.

“We’ll continue this discussion when I get back,” she promises. Her hands flutter in her skirt, smoothing the fabric down. “I love you, baby. You know that. Don’t be angry with me.”

“Yeah.” Even if he is mad at her, he can’t not say it back. “I love you too.”

She smooths his hair with her hand and leaves him one more meaningful look before she turns and walks out of the door. Jungkook gets up only to watch her and the man from town leave together. They walk fast to where the man has a horse tied to a tree at the boundary of their small plot of land. He helps his mother on, sits behind her with the reins, and they start towards the direction of town at a fast pace.

Jungkook lets the blinds close, and wanders back to his room. The book that his mother had given him lays face down by his pillow. He remembers he’s still wearing the shirt he slept in--and reaches down, to where the card still sits warm against his chest. It’s still the same.

Time’s almost up.  

Maybe it doesn’t apply to the card game they’d been playing, after all? The village man had to be referring to Taehyung, right? Who was the them that the man was referring to? Were there more? The book implied that fae were solitary creatures. Is this a warning of some kind for his mother? If it’s for her, that’d make sense. She’s the only powerful magic wielder for quite a ways. And Taehyung had seemed interested that he was the son of a witch. The voices had called him a witchling. Maybe they just wanted to get his mother’s attention, through him.

His annoyance easily rises to the surface again at the thought. That is probably exactly what happened! He didn’t catch Taehyung’s eye. Not until he told him who he was related to. Jungkook doesn’t matter in this equation at all.

He huffs, and slams the card down on the table, next to the book. He doesn’t have to stay here and be treated like a child. He’s smart, and he won’t make the same mistake that he made with Taehyung in the pub. He won’t be caught unaware again. 

He cleans the kitchen and racks his brain for ideas of what to do. He can’t just go off after his mother and the man from the village, that would be a recipe for an ass kicking. And his mother didn’t tell him anything about what he’d be walking into if he did. It could be legitimately dangerous, and he needs to be prepared.

He ends up looking through his mother’s work area. There could be clues as to what she wouldn’t tell him, or maybe something else useful. The room is cluttered, as it always is. It’s circular, with a fire pit dug in the center and surrounded with bricks for her potion brewing. Bookshelves cover one side of the room, and her desk and plant collection take up the other side. Gentle light comes from the enchanted lanterns that float overhead. 

Her metal-working tools are out on her desk, most likely from working on Jungkook’s birthday gift. Jungkook finds his new necklace among the collection on his neck and rubs it absently. There are small iron chain links and leftover wolf teeth in a pile pushed to the side in order to make room for other things--a book, and what looks like a potion in process.

He comes over to the other side of the desk to get a better look at what she was working on. She has a page of the book clearly marked. He opens it to the place that’s indicated.

Her own handwriting covers the margins of the pages, blending in with the printed text instructions. It’s a mess, but Jungkook has spent years learning how to navigate these mazes of words, reading aloud the next steps in the recipe for his mother while she worked. He knows right away that this is a curse of some sort. Which isn’t unusual, his mother makes curses for customers all the time. Mostly against intruders or people who commit crimes. But those are weak curses, not meant to be permanently effective or harmful.

This is not the same. This is a very potent curse. From what he gathers off the page, it sends the recipient into a deep, unwakeable slumber. It would need very specific conditions in order to be reversed. He runs his finger down the ingredient list. Goji berries, sea beet, bone marrow, somnus mushrooms….

His finger stops. Is this what she needed them for? A curse? His frown only deepens when he sees the ingredient underneath, not printed but written in his own mother’s hand.

For potency -  six strands of Jungkook’s hair will do.

“What the…?” His mother has never mentioned using his hair--or anything of his--in curses before. The only thing he’s ever had to contribute to were potions that he drank himself, for health or something minor. And he hadn’t ever heard of hair making a curse more potent. Maybe blood, but that only worked if it belonged to the one being cursed, or from someone with a specific connection to the person being cursed. Would hair be a significant replacement for that? Maybe less invasive. Easier to obtain.

He runs his fingers through the hair on his neck. How would his hair affect anyone, anyway? It’s not like he has strong connections to anybody but his mother. She made sure of that.

He looks more closely at his mother’s scribbled notes for any hint of a potential target. Powerful curses are always made with one in mind. She needed a large quantity of ingredients for multiple batches, which tells him that there must have been multiple targets. If one hair went into every dosage, that would mean six targets. It looked like she was using the wolf teeth for the bone component, which would make it especially vicious. And stirred with an iron spoon implies that the targets would be magic. 

His mind immediately jumps to Taehyung, to the voices he heard last night. 

Could they be the targets? Since Jungkook had made contact with Taehyung, it would make sense for her to use his hair as a way to make it more strongly connected to their spirit. It wasn’t a perfect theory. He doesn’t know how his mother would have known to buy these ingredients before Jungkook had run into them. Maybe they had been a threat in the village before this, and his hair was just an added component?

Whatever the case, he knows now how he can be helpful. He knows how he can prove to his mother that he isn’t a fool. He’ll brew the curse for her, and it will be done by the time she comes back. He will be ready to help her end whatever threat is out there, and then she’ll have to tell him what’s going on if she wants to use the curses as she intended! 

It’s a solid plan. His mother can’t even be mad at him, because he wouldn’t be putting himself in direct danger. All he has to do is find some mushrooms, pluck a few hairs out, and then put it all together. Done before his mother can return from the village. 

And she’ll come back, and she’ll see that he’s not useless. Or stupid.

He closes her book and leaves her work area with a renewed sense of determination. It’s all making sense now. He’ll venture into the forest--it won’t be that dangerous in the middle of the day. He’ll stay on the path. The mushrooms can’t be that far in, if the regular townsfolk go and forage for them. 

He tugs his boots on, the extra durable black ones he usually saves for winter with thick soles. Then he attaches a satchel to his back and ties his hair up and out of his face. 

When he’s ready to leave, he stands at the doorway and hesitates. A part of him still isn’t sure about this. There’s a voice in his head that sounds like his mother, all of the doubt that she’s instilled in him of his own ability. What if he messes this up? What if this is a stupid decision? What if his mother finds out about this? What will he do if this goes wrong?

The sun is already sinking into the afternoon. At this rate, he doesn’t think his mother will be back until evening. He will most likely have to eat dinner alone, without her. 

He huffs. Fine, whatever. If he’s alone that’s fine. But he’s not going to spend his twentieth birthday cooped up inside, doing busy work and waiting for her to come back. He opens the door and steps outside before he can second-guess himself again.

He sets off towards the forest. It’s not a long walk to get to the edge, where tall trees shoot upwards quite suddenly. There is a path he’s always noticed that leads inside. He follows it now, but has never used it before and has never seen anyone else use it either. It is old, uneven and slightly overgrown with plants. When he reaches the very edge of the forest, he stops to look up in the name of caution. He observes nothing in the branches besides a chirping robin that quickly takes flight. No glowing eyes peek out at him, no strange creature growls, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.

Jungkook closes his eyes, but nothing changes. He can’t sense anything coming from the forest, no magical presence. Nothing like what he felt all the way back in his bathtub, without his necklaces.

Should he take them off again? How strong would the forest feel, right in front of him? What if…no, they’re meant to protect him. He’d be more in danger if he took them off. Jungkook sighs, fidgeting with them as he debates. He wants to experiment with what it’s like to have them off. Surely he doesn’t need them. He can defend himself! But he also wants to be cautious, in case there’s a chance that he finds himself in a tough situation. His mother might never forgive him if she found out he took them off.

As much as he hates it, that’s what makes his decision. With twenty necklaces weighing down his neck, he steps over the invisible barrier that seems to separate the forest from the surrounding human realm.

Under the tree cover, the forest is dark even during the day time. The trees are so thick and tall that they block out the sun above. Jungkook does have an odd feeling once he enters it completely, following the path that is barely visible underneath curious plant growth. It’s not a bad feeling that he feels, per say, but it’s certainly something he’s never felt before. There’s a subtle sensation, like something is gently prodding his heart, and buzzing just slightly underneath his tattoos. Natural magic has always been the strongest and most chaotic. He didn’t know that it could be physically felt , even with the charms around his neck, but when it surrounds him on all sides….it would be impossible for a witch not to feel it. 

That could be very dangerous. Jungkook resolves to make this errand as quick as possible--his mother will be angry enough, anyway. If she comes back and he’s not there when she gets back, he doesn’t want to know what will be waiting for him. He speeds up a little, murmuring apologies to the grass he trods on underfoot. If he remembers right--the kind of mushroom he’s searching for will grow on the foot of trees. It’s got a dark cap, sometimes speckled, and is fairly small. But it’s the stalk that’s the important part, that’s what he’ll boil and use in the concoction. He’s never been foraging before. What’s the best way to pluck out a mushroom? 

A sudden breeze buffets Jungkook’s back. He sways a little with its surprising force, stepping just off of the ancient path that he’d been trying to follow. His gaze swings up through the trees as the wind continues, twirling his hair away from his face. The way it sighs through the tree branches almost sounds like foreign words, like something he could understand if he knew the language. 

Are there aurae in these woods? Possibly, though he bets that the presence of any fae nearby would have scared them away. The largest solitary predator tends to do that, even in magic ecosystems.

The wind tickles under his ear, and whispers something he doesn’t comprehend. But it sounds sweet, almost friendly. The way that the sun occasionally jets through the canopy above in a ray of gold is beautiful. It’s so peaceful here. He has already gotten used to the alive, slightly wild feeling that buzzes underneath his skin. This forest, it’s really gorgeous. He doesn’t understand why he’d never snuck in here before.

He ventures deeper into the wooded splendor, happily noticing every small flower that crosses his path, or any funnily-shaped leaves. If he could, he’d love to come back here just to catalogue the immense amount of flora. There are some he recognizes on sight, but quite a few that he does not. Who knows what kind of magical or medicinal properties they could hold? It takes a great deal of restraint not to pluck a few of the flowers that catch his eye. He has to remember that this is not his domain. It would be a disaster if he accidentally removed something important from this place. 

He spots a patch of mushrooms under a large willow tree, with branches that hang down like drapery. Excitedly, he brushes the curtain of leaves away to lean down. The tops are dark, but upon closer inspection they’re not somnus mushrooms. The size and shape of the cap isn’t quite right. He starts to get up, but as his eyes sweep up--he freezes.

Looking directly at him, frozen, is a deer. A young male, by the looks of those small, soft antlers. Jungkook fights the urge to let out an incredulous laugh. It’s so close! He holds his breath as it watches him with its dark, round eyes. The woods are quiet, like the entire forest is holding its breath. The deer seems to contemplate him for a moment, tilting his head in a way that seems…uncannily intelligent. When it finally blinks, Jungkook takes the chance to slowly rise to his feet, keeping eye contact and his hands out where it can see them.

“Hi,” he coos. “Nice deer.”

It snorts at him, as if in reply. When Jungkook takes a tentative step forward, it doesn’t run away. In fact, its neck stretches farther towards him. Jungkook takes another step forward, and makes a small clicking noise with his mouth. He’s never dealt with deer before, especially not deer in a magical forest, but he was good with the horse that they used to have. Surely they’re not that different? 

Tentatively, he holds his hand out. The deer eyes it with immediate suspicion, with an expression that looks so shockingly human that Jungkook can’t help but burst out laughing.

“It’s okay,” he says soothingly. “I won’t hurt you. Not a cute little guy like you.”

The deer shakes its head and makes a soft bleating noise. It inches closer to Jungkook’s open palm. He’s glad that there’s nobody around, because his smile probably makes him look like a basketcase. But he can’t help it, the deer is so cute. He wiggles his fingers.

“Oh, yes. You’re a very handsome boy. Very regal. The antlers are very fashionable!”

Clearly, the deer enjoys his compliments. It steps closer as if in agreement, and Jungkook feels ready to burst as it lays its soft, warm snout in his open palm--but only for a moment. Before Jungkook has a chance to breathe, the deer spooks and jolts away from him. 

“Wait!” Jungkook exclaims. He sees the white flash of its short tail--then nothing at all. The deer melts easily into the forest like it had never been there to begin with. 

Jungkook sighs, unable to hold back his disappointment. What did he do wrong?

The breeze whistles past him, like a wordless response.

He really shouldn’t feel so sad that it ran away. But rejection from an animal is a surprisingly disheartening experience. Jungkook starts to walk again, busy thinking. He has always been good with animals. Was it because he’s human? Or maybe because he doesn’t live here? Maybe it's too used to magical creatures, and doesn’t like his energy. Or maybe the deer itself is magical, and it was repulsed by the chains around his neck. It looked smart. Realizing Jungkook had wolf teeth on one of the charms would be alarming for any deer!

Jungkook looks down at the necklaces and frowns. “You guys aren’t being very nice.”

The wind blows again, rustling an answer through the trees. No, they’re not.  

“They’re annoying and heavy,” Jungkook says. “And cold.”

Yes.

He imagines that if the necklaces could talk back, they’d sound just like his mother. Who, he remembers suddenly, is the reason he’s here. He blinks hard, and brings his hands down from where they’d drifted by his neck--what was he even about to do? He can’t be wasting time like this.

“Shit,” he whispers, hitting the side of his head. How could he let himself get distracted like that? “Stupid!”

With renewed purpose, he looks around for the path--only to realize, with a sinking feeling, that he has no idea where it is anymore. Stupidly, he had wandered without thinking from the willow tree. Which he can’t see anymore. He doesn’t even know what direction he came from. The trees cover the sky too much, he can’t use the position of the sun to pinpoint anything. The cold from his necklaces bites him, and spreads the chill from his neck all the way down his spine. Oh no. No, no, no.

“It’s fine,” he breathes, clenching his fists. His first goal is to find the mushrooms. Then he can worry about finding his way out. He hasn’t been in here that long, it won’t be that hard to retrace his steps as long as he pays better attention now. He hasn’t gotten himself into trouble yet, this is a fixable problem. 

Jungkook takes a moment to take a deep breath, and feels a little better after laying out a tentative plan. He can do this. This is part of having responsibility.

He trudges onward, taking a few more deep breaths as he searches the ground. The air is good. The smell of the forest is calming, clean and nice. The wind comes again, carrying a new sweetness to it that feels somewhat familiar. He sniffs again. He’s always been weirdly good at identifying scents, he knows this one. It’s sweet, but not floral. Close to herbal, but not as sharp. As he follows the smell, he remembers--the potions his mother made to help with insomnia, they smelled like this. The somnus mushrooms must be close!

Excitedly, he speeds up his pace. The wind picks up too, pushes him forward like an eager friend as the smell only gets stronger. He brings his satchel to the front of his torso as he rounds a large tree trunk, then another. It’s getting quite dark, the further he traverses into the forest, but little spots of sunlight guide his way safely through the dimness. He’s close, the smell is only growing more and more intense. More and more, he’s starting to see tiny spores floating in the air. There must be a whole field of them out here. Plenty for him to gather.

The breeze seems to know where it’s going, teasingly blowing spores at him and pushing him along. Jungkook doesn’t really want to fight, so he lets it guide him to where he needs to go. He ends up at the edge of a clearing, spores thick in the air. There are mushrooms everywhere.

Jungkook makes a soft noise of relief at the sight. Finally, he thinks, and bends down at the base of the nearest tree. Yes, these are the right type! The caps are the right color and size, and they’re exactly where they were described to be, growing on the bark. He stifles a yawn as he starts to pick them. He’s been walking for quite a while, but he hadn’t realized just how tired his legs were until he stopped moving. With a groan of relief, Jungkook shifts his weight off of his feet and sits in the grass, continuing to forage underneath the shade of the tree. He can’t afford to rest for very long. The clearing he sits on the edge of allows him a rare glance into the sky, and the sun’s position tells him that it’s already late afternoon. He only has a few more hours.

He blinks drowsily. The little clearing looks so comfy, it would be nice if he could take a nap in the sun. It’s too bad that he can’t. How many mushrooms does he need again?

He stares at the fungus in his hand, malfunctioning for a second as he tries to remember. A large spore lands on his hand. He needed a lot, didn’t he? How many batches were there again? Is this enough?

“I hope it is,” Jungkook mumbles to himself. It takes him significant effort to get up from where he’s reclined. His legs really don’t want to work, and his foot has fallen asleep. He groans in self-pity and drags himself up, anyway. His satchel is almost completely full of mushrooms. His mother will be so pleased with him.

The wind blows particularly strong, and almost knocks him back over. Stay, it says, in a sweet voice.

“Whoa,” Jungkook breathes, steadying himself against the trunk of the tree. He blinks again, and shakes his heavy head. Now he knows he’s hearing things. Wind can’t talk. He’s grateful for the chains around his neck, because their iciness fights with the drowsy warmth of the sun overhead.

He shakes his foot, displeased that the other one is starting to tingle too. 

Stay, the wind says again, gentler this time with how it pushes against him. But the spores of the somnus mushrooms are only stirred further by its antics. Jungkook covers his nose with his hand. The smell is too intense, sickening-sweet. He backs up a step, farther from the trees where they grow and just into the clearing. The sun hits him, warming his entire body and casting everything in a soft yellow glow. Yet still, he shivers.

With a moment of relief from the stench, Jungkook takes a cautious breath and tries to think. He feels weird. Heavy. Warm. He doesn’t feel bad, per say, but he doesn’t think that it would be very smart of him to do what his body is begging him to. 

The mushrooms taper out a little farther from where he stands, leaving a clear circle of soft, green grass in the center. It looks like the perfect place to lie down. But he’s not going to. Jungkook’s mind whirls. He’s not going to, because he has to find a way out of here. He’s lost. He feels like that should fill him with more urgency than it does. Instead, he only feels a shallow sense of unease.

There’s a rustling on the other side of the clearing, and Jungkook’s eyes widen at the glimpse of soft, felty antlers. The deer emerges from the treeline, walking into the center of the circle. The same one from earlier. With dismay, Jungkook realizes that the poor creature is in pain, small pitiful noises escaping its mouth every few seconds. It carefully comes into the sunlight, where it lowers itself to lay in the grass. Jungkook doesn’t know what’s wrong, but that doesn’t matter.

Jungkook is so tired, that when the deer looks at him with its big, glassy eyes, his own eyes well up with tears. It makes another pitiful sound, and Jungkook feels it physically do something to his gut. He sniffs, and shuffles forward inside the ring of mushrooms. If the deer tries to run now, it might break him. 

Because the terrible truth is, Jungkook is tired. He is overwhelmed. He is lost. He did a horrible job of his horrible plan for his horrible mother, and this has been a horrible birthday. And he would really, really like to lay down and go to sleep right now but he can’t, because there are twenty horrible chains around his neck that tell him to do anything but that. It’s his fault that he’s in this situation, and it’s probably his fault that this deer got hurt, too.

“Nice deer,” Jungkook mumbles. It lets him get close again, flicking its ears and keeping an eye on him the entire time. “I’m sorry you’re hurt. I’m sorry.”

The deer bows its head. Is the deer forgiving him? Does it understand his apology? What a smart deer.

It’s okay, the wind breezes by again, the same melodious voice. Jungkook had already forgotten about them. 

“No it’s not,” Jungkook says petulantly, only a little shakily. He’s too tired to pretend like he’s not hearing a voice. “Everything is ruined.”

You’re not, the wind says. So everything is perfect.  

Jungkook stifles a yawn, as he sits down next to the deer. He wants to get a closer look, make sure that there isn’t an obvious injury that he can’t see. He reaches out, but the deer eyes his hand and stretches its face further away, just barely. This grass is some of the softest grass he has ever felt. No wonder the deer came here, if he were hurt he’d want to lay here too. He does want to lay here….

He pries his eyes open. He doesn’t remember having them closed. The deer is next to him, curled up as close as it can be without touching. Its fur looks so soft and warm, Jungkook longs to run his hands along its reddish pelt.

“Can I touch you?” he asks slowly, the words heavy in his mouth. It’s a really smart deer, maybe it will understand the question. Air caresses his cheek, cool against his skin.

The chains, the wind reminds him. They’re too cold.  

The deer blinks its large eyes at him and gently pokes one of its antlers in the air, just above where the necklaces lie, and makes a sad little sound. The wind whistles around them soothingly. 

So easy, it says. To take them off.  

Jungkook nods, eyes half-closed already. He can take them off for just a second, so he can pet the nice deer. Then he can sleep, and it will all be okay. He knows with absolute certainty that nothing will happen to him. If he takes off the necklaces, he’ll still be protected and safe. His fingers fumble with all the chains, but he manages to grab all twenty at once and lift them over his head in one movement.

Immediately, he feels magic with an intensity that kicks him in the chest. He folds over his crossed legs, eyes squeezed shut and groaning as his head is filled with the sheer force of magic in the forest, and all of the conflicting energies that make a home in his head. He feels the wind and its ever changing shape, he feels the warm core of the deer beside him, and more than that, there’s fire beyond the forest and something dying and the terrifying force of his mother, somewhere, doing something--

“Shh,” a voice that is much more solid than it was before whispers in his ear. Something that feels like fingers, but could be wind, brushes through his hair. It’s surprisingly pacifying, and makes all the noise a little bit dimmer. “Deep breaths, it’s okay. You’re very determined, hm?”

He tries to steady his breathing. The wind becomes sweet again, a spore catches on the leg of Jungkook’s pants. This time it feels much more overpowering, and Jungkook feels exhaustion hit him like it hadn’t before. He feels like crying again, but can barely manage to open his eyes. Something warm nudges his arm, and Jungkook is just conscious enough to recognize the shining eyes of his friend, the deer. Instead of waiting for Jungkook to touch it, it pushes itself more into Jungkook’s space, pushing him down on his back and into the grass until the solid, comforting weight of its head and neck completely covers his waist and torso. Jungkook’s arms are too heavy to move, but it’s like the deer can read his mind. It butts its head underneath Jungkook’s arm, so that his palm rests on the soft fur in between both of its antlers. It snorts in happiness when Jungkook scratches weakly. So soft, just like he thought. 

It would be so easy to close his eyes. Just for a moment. He’s already lying down, and it would take so much effort to move the deer, surely a small nap wouldn’t hurt anyone. Like the wind had said, it would be so easy.

A strange shadow crosses his vision, something that looks like a man materializing out of nothing. Jungkook has never seen him before, but the glimpse he gets is stunningly beautiful. The way they smile at him, Jungkook knows that nothing could possibly be wrong. Delicately, a cool hand comes down to trace along Jungkook’s brow, down his cheek and his jaw.

“Sleep, witchling,” they whisper, and it is all the permission Jungkook needs to push himself over the edge.

He lets himself fall into a warm, fuzzy black.