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When Hak is summoned to the throne room, he knows that nothing good can come of this.
Of course, Hak has never trusted nobility, but with a Fire Tribe king on the throne he has grown to like it even less. He would have left Hiryuu castle a long time ago if it hadn’t been for Yona. He’d sworn to protect her, and he would never go back on his word. Even if it meant dealing with distasteful things, such as bowing to Tae Jun.
Both he and Yona are in the throne room, dressed in their finest. Yona’s face is placid as a smooth lake, the way it always is when she’s beside her husband in her finest robe. When Hak looks at her like this there are times when he’s sure that he doesn’t truly to know her. But he loves her anyway. He knows that he will always love Yona, no matter what form she might take.
“We have something to ask of you,” Tae Jun says after Hak has bowed to him and to Yona in turn. The way he says ask makes it seem more like command.
All of the other servants and guards have left the room as well, and Hak is instantly on his guard. This does not bode well for him. The Fire Tribe has been trying to get rid of him for years, to get an Air Tribe general that is more malleable to do their bidding. But Hak made a vow to King Il, and then to Yona, and Yona will never send him away.
“As you know, Kouka needs an heir,” Tae Jun continues, puffed up with his own importance. It’s all Hak can do to remain respectful and not roll his eyes. “My physicians have recently told me that it is unlikely that I will ever be able to have a child.” It is here that Tae Jun’s face goes red, but he continues on. He enjoys the sound of his own voice, whether it’s giving a lackluster speech or barking orders, more than anything. “This is where we need you. Kouka needs an heir, and it needs to be a child of Yona’s and mine. Or at least, of the Sky Tribe, which is to say, Yona’s.”
Tae Jun does not seem pleased by what he is saying, but he continues to talk, a puppet getting its strings yanked. “We need your...help. This is for Kouka.” He says it like a mantra, like he is holding onto it because he has nothing else.
Hak does not see what he can do for a childless marriage, and opens his mouth to say so. Then it hits him, the words finding their mark with more accuracy than any arrow. “No,” Hak says flatly. He turns to leave when Yona gets up from her throne with all of the grace of her birth. She appears to be floating towards him, the flames embroidered on her robes flashing in the light, making her shine.
But Hak knows better, knows that she probably tripped at least once to reach him. Yona is Yona, even when she’s asking him for impossible things.
“Please,” Yona says, her voice pleading. She reaches out to grab one of his hands in both of hers. “Please, Hak. I need you.”
When Yona sounds like that, Hak has never been able to tell her no. He knew that nothing good would come of this.
Yona gets “ill” a month before the court goes on its progression to the Fire Tribe. Every summer the court goes to Saika to celebrate the warm months. Hak is sure that it is mostly so that Tae Jun can still be under his father’s thumb when his father cannot be at Hiryuu Castle, but this is something that he keeps to himself.
Being “ill” requires Yona to be stuck in her room, without even the work of ruling the country to busy her. She forces Hak to teach her games that the Wind Tribe plays with its children, and reads books, but he knows that she’s restless with nothing to do.
Normally she sees to the castle and entertains visitors, all the while having loyal servants reporting to her what the king and his father are planning. If it is a particularly bad idea--which they often are--she does subtle things to counteract them, or pleading to councilors when she cannot.
When the month is over Tae Jun announces that Yona will be going to the mountains of the Fire Tribe to regain her strength from this illness, and will not be joining them at Saika. He takes most of the court with him, leaving only a few servants with Hak and Yona.
“We’ll have the whole summer to ourselves,” Yona says, getting onto her horse. She hasn’t ridden since she got married and is clumsy for it, but sees to remember the rhythm well enough as they keep going.
The entire summer for us to do our duty, Hak thinks, but doesn’t say. He knows that this is a difficult thing for Yona to ask of him, even if it was her idea.
The journey takes most of the day, but eventually they come across a large cottage, almost a small castle. Even though it is supposed to be “simple” and a way for Fire Tribe royalty to “get away” from their people it is still as ostentatious as anything else the Fire Tribe does.
Yona, however, looks pleased. “It’s lovely,” she says, taking a deep breath. “It’s nice to get away from court, don’t you think?”
“Most things are better than that place,” Hak tells her. Yona only laughs.
The next morning Hak wakes with the sun, as usual. He considers falling back asleep, relishing the fact that he’s able to do this, but he gets up and does his usual exercies. The trees end up losing more than a few branches, but Hak picks them all up and puts them by the side of the cottage for kindling in case they need more.
When he returns to the front of the yard Yona is waiting there for him. “Breakfast is ready,” she tells him, and smiles. Her hair is down, tied back with only a single ribbon. It surprises him. He hasn’t seen her with her hair loose since before she was crowned queen. “I helped make the breakfast this morning,” she says, when he doesn’t reply.
“Is it safe to eat then?” Hak wonders out loud, and he has to bite back a smile when he cheeks puff out.
“How dare you! I’ll have you know it’s very good, thank you very much. I had some before I came and fetched you.”
“I guess I’ll stick out my neck for this meal,” Hak drawls, and allows himself to smile when Yona turns away from him with a disdainful “hmmph.”
Breakfast is good, though he doubts that has much to do with Yona in the kitchen as it does with the servant that helped her. She looks proud of herself when Hak scoops more rice into his bowl.
After breakfast they sit and stare at each other. Hak knows what they should be doing, but finds that he isn’t fond of the idea. Not like this, not when they have just gotten here. Not ever, if Yona feels like she can’t go through with it.
Would he be able to go through with it, he asks himself, before smothering the thought.
“I’m going to go hunt for dinner,” Hak tells her. Yona nods, and stands up when he goes out the door. She should be safe enough here, surrounded by nothing but trees and rock.
Things go on like this for a week. Yona receives cooking lessons, and learns how to boil tea without burning the water. Hak hunts. Neither of them speak about the reason that they’re here, or goes to each other at night.
Hak would be content with the whole summer going like this, but eventually Yona gets bored of cooking, and wants to go hunting with him. “What good would you do hunting?” Hak asks her. “You’re too loud and you can’t handle a weapon.”
“Then teach me!” Yona tells him. Hak considers telling her no, knowing that King Il was always against weapons of any sort. But it’s a new world now that King Il isn’t here, and it might do Yona some good. Besides, what else do they have to do here?
“I’ll teach you how to shoot a bow and arrow. But you have to do what I say and practice every day. One hundred arrows a day, or else you won’t get any good,” he warns her, thinking it might make Yona change her mind.
Yona surprises him. “Fine,” she says. “I’m ready.”
Hak gets his bow and arrow from his room in the cottage, and brings it out to her. He attempts to show her how to hold the bow and arrow do nothing. “You’re a terrible teacher, Hak!” Yona says, stamping her foot when she doesn’t do it correctly for the tenth time.
“No, look,” Hak says. He gets behind her and forcibly fixes her arms and her stance. He tries not to focus on how warm her skin is underneath her clothes, or the way her breath hitches. He hasn’t allowed himself to think about why they’re here, but now that he touches Yona like this it’s like he can’t forget.
He had wanted Yona like this, once, but he’d always killed those feelings before they could get to him. Before he could really think about them, because it would be too painful. First there was Soo Won and then there was her marriage to Tae Jun. He’s never had the chance to allow himself to feel desire the way he’s feeling it right now, hot in his blood.
He takes a step back from Yona. “There,” he tells her. “Like that.”
Yona looks a bit dazed before she shakes her head and shoots. This time, the arrow makes its way to the tree. She laughs in delight. “Thank you, Hak,” Yona tells him, smile wide across her face.
“Good. Ninety-nine more of those and you’ll be done for the day,” he says, and walks away before he can think or do anything else stupid. Yona only watches him go in response.
That night Yona comes to him. There was a part of him that was waiting for this, but a bigger part that was afraid that this wasn’t going to happen. It seems like touching Yona has burst open a dam in Hak that can’t be closed again.
The knock on his door is light, and Hak opens it without bothering to make himself presentable. And there Yona is, hair wild and falling down around her shoulders. She’s wearing only a plain night dress, and for some reason that makes Hak want her more.
“Hak,” she breathes, and that’s all Hak needs before he’s pulling her into his arms. Yona makes a noise of surprise, but reaches her arms around his neck when he kisses her. She kisses him back, just as intently. He can’t find it within himself to be very surprised.
“Are you sure?” Hak asks when he pulls away. They’re at the edge of his futon, about to fall into its depths. If Hak had his way, they would never get out.
“Yes,” Yona says, breathing heavily. Hak closes his eyes, and allows himself to pretend that this is more than duty.
They stay in bed for days after that first time, coming out only for meals, and even that is rare. More often than not they pull on their outer robes and sneak into the kitchen like thieves, eating food straight from the containers that they are packed in.
Yona’s kisses on those nights are sticky and strong with the taste of cherry preserves, and he places her on the table to kiss her better.
The next day they take more preserves and food to go to visit the stream that Hak found on his first day. The water runs softly beside them as the sun shines down between the gaps in the trees.
“If Soo Won was here, it would be just like when we were children in the garden,” Yona notes absently, running her fingers in the water.
“There was no stream in the garden,” Hak reminds her, throwing his arm over his eyes to cut down on the brightness of the sun. He lets the quiet settle between them before asking his next question. “Do you still love Soo Won?”
Soo Won hasn’t been to Hiryuu Castle since the death of King Il. He writes occasionally, but resides in peace at the ancestral home of the Sky Tribe. Hak and Yona haven’t seen him in years.
Hak is of the opinion that Tae Jun’s father had something to do with that, but he’ll never know the truth. Soo Won won’t tell him anything.
Yona sits up at his question. “I think I will always love him. He was the first person I ever loved, and my dearest friend. But he’s my love from my childhood, and I put away all my childish things when I became queen.”
Having seen this happen in person, Hak knows that this was true. After King Il died, Yona made great strides to become more knowledgeable, more gracious, if only because duty demanded it.
Duty. Just like she was performing here.
Well. Hak hoped that he at least made in an enjoyable experience for her. Hak reaches over and grabs Yona’s wrist, feeling the pulse of it for just a moment before pulling her on top of him. “Hak,” she laughed, and cupped his face before kissing him.
He kissed her back and let himself enjoy this as well.
The rest of the summer goes by like this. Peaceful and happy, Hak and Yona kissing whenever they get the chance. It’s easy to forget that there is a deadline.
Hak allows himself to close his eyes and pretend, sometimes, that this is their life. That they are simple people. Hak hunts for his wife and they go about making a child because they want each other, and because they can. They would be so much happier then.
On the eve of their departure, Hak doesn’t sleep. He lets himself relish in this feeling of contentment, because he knows that he will never be able to live this way again. He has to stay awake, because when he sleeps it will be over.
When dawn begins to leak into the windows, Hak shakes Yona awake.
“We need to leave,” he tells her when she rubs her eyes sleepily.
Yona becomes stiff at that, and sits up. “Of course,” she says, and at once she becomes less the girl that Hak knew and more the queen that she became.
When they leave, Yona’s hair twisted into a court style and wearing her fine robes, she allows herself one tear and then wipes it away.
Life at court is as it always is. Hak doesn’t know why he expected anything to be different, because it’s not. The whole court flatters Yona, telling her that the mountain air did her so well, that she is so beautiful, and leave it at that.
Tae Jun doesn’t look at Hak, and Hak’s glad of it. He can’t look at Tae Jun without wanting to tear off his head.
He learns of Yona’s pregnancy only a day before it is announced to the court. Yona sends him red camellia bloom and a note that simply says, Thank you.
Towards the end of her pregnancy, Yona begins to call for him more than she did when she wasn’t pregnant. She looks up from her documents when she sees him, and takes her time getting out of her chair. It’s difficult for her to move on her own because she’s gotten so large, but she refuses any help, hotly stating that she’s not an invalid to anyone who dares to offer assistance.
The only bit of support that she takes is Hak’s arms, and they shuffle around the garden at a snail’s pace, because Yona cannot be made to walk any faster.
“The midwife says that walking is good for the baby, because it relaxes them and makes them more tired. But I really think that it has the opposite effect on this one. They always begin to kick whenever they sense that we are about to go out into the garden.”
“Sounds troublesome, like its mother,” Hak says.
“More like their father, I think.” Yona grins wickedly. Hak’s heart squeezes. He is not as good as Yona at the gentle lies of court, and he wishes that she didn’t force him to tell them.
“Oh? The king got himself in all sorts of trouble, then? I can’t imagine him running into the city all alone, just to prove a point...”
Yona hums and looks away. When they are underneath the tree in the far corner, one that hides them from all watchful eyes they found out as they spent their childhood in this very garden, Yona grabs his hand.
“You should be able to feel the kicks now,” she whispers, and places her hand on his stomach. Hak waits, not sure of what she’s trying to get him to feel, before he finally understands. The kicks are nothing but the slightest fluttering--if Hak hadn’t been paying such close attention he would have missed them completely--but he still feels them. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Hak says, feeling a little awed despite himself. He knew the baby was coming but he hadn’t realized how real this all is. How soon there would be a real baby, an heir to the throne, in the world soon.
One that could never know that Hak was their father, one that Hak could never claim for his own. He would never be able to be this child’s father--that honor, much like the honor of being Yona’s husband--would go to Tae Jun.
Hak hadn’t allowed himself to consider how difficult this would be for him. He hadn’t allowed himself to face the reality of it, because doing otherwise would cause him to have to say no to Yona. But now, feeling their baby being so alive, he realizes just how much it is going cost him to give them both up.
All of the walking evidently serves Yona well, because she goes into labor only a few weeks later.
Hak hears the midwife fussing “this is at least a month too early!” as he makes his way to Yona’s chambers, and is grateful for it. This means that everything is going according to plan, and that no one suspects anything.
He stations himself outside of Yona’s birthing chambers. Things are easy at first, but after a few hours still nothing has happened, and the room is quiet. Even Hak knows that this is a bad sign, and he grabs one of Tae Jun’s personal servants as he comes barrelling past.
“Where is the king?” Hak demands of him. He feels every inch the Thunder Beast as he asks, his knuckles white around his weapon.
“O-out hunting and celebrating the birth of his ch-child,” the servant stutters. Hak only grips his staff tighter, his fingers screaming at him to relax his grip. He can’t.
“That bastard,” he hisses under his breath. The servant scampers away and Hak lets him go without passing along a message. He knows that it will make no difference to Tae Jun anyway.
When Yona makes another muffled scream of pain, Hak can’t take it anymore. He throws open the doors and walks straight into the birthing chamber. The midwife is a small slip of a woman, but she draws herself up when she sees Hak striding inside the room with intent. She looks as though she would like to throw him out, but she pauses when she sees his face when he notices her arms.
The tips of her fingers to her elbows are smeared red with blood. Yona’s blood. “Go sit by the queen and do not move,” she tells him, pointing to Yona.
Yona tries to smile at him, only another wave of pain hits her and her face twists into a grimace instead.
“Don’t,” he tells her, and grips her hand. Yona grips his hand back, so tight that it’s actually painful. Her grip does not let up even once. Hak would take all of the pain that she is going through and then some, if it meant that she was no longer hurting. If it meant that Yona would get out of this alive.
He can’t see what the midwife and her attendants are doing at the end of the bed. It’s probably best that he doesn’t know. He only holds Yona’s hand and prays to gods that he never gave a damn about before this moment.
“Scream if you need to,” the midwife tells Yona, when Yona bites her lips so hard that they start to bleed. Finally, she does.
The screams seem to be what the baby is waiting for, and it is only another hour and the baby is born, even though it feels like days and night. The baby screams as it makes its way out of Yona, angry about being forced out of the safety of its mother.
Yona struggles to sit up even as she still bleeds to see the baby. The midwife wipes the baby off and swaddles it before placing it into Yona’s arms. “A girl,” she tells Yona, who smiles through her exhaustion and sweat. Hak is sure that he has never before seen Yona that happy, and he isn’t sure that he will ever see her that happy again.
Yona cradles the baby, who is a bit quieter now that she is clean and warm again. “A girl,” she breathes. “A daughter, Hak,” she says. “My daughter.”
Their daughter, Yona is saying. But of course, that can’t be said out loud. Hak can’t bring himself to look at the tiny baby in Yona’s arms, not as she is, so small and at peace. Perhaps it’s best that way.
“I should leave now,” Hak says, standing abruptly. Yona stares at him for the length of a heartbeat, the slightest look of hurt in her eyes, before nodding.
“Thank you for being with me through this ordeal,” Yona says, a queen creeping back into her voice. “It helped me more than you know.”
Hak nods and begins to walk away.
“What will you name her?” the midwife asks.
There is only a slight pause before Yona’s answer. “Huan,” Yona says slowly, as if testing out the name.
Huan, Hak thinks. For happiness.
One day Yona goes to visit the nursery, and asks Hak to accompany her. He has not once been inside the nursery in the entire time that Huan has been born. He would like to resist this time as well, to stand outside the door as he has done so many times before, but Yona tugs at his clothes to make sure he comes inside. She makes a beeline to the cradle and glances into it, a smile on her face, before she turns back to the nurses to discuss something or another.
Hak has not seen Huan since her birth, her face screwed up as she screamed about coming into the world. He couldn’t bear it. But now he goes into the nursery and allows himself a glimpse of his daughter.
He does not have very much experience with babies or small children. The kids that he saw at Fuuga were usually ones that were ready to pick up a weapon, not ones that wanted to be babied. They were never like this, swaddled in green wool and content, their small baby faces at peace. Hak finds himself smiling fondly at Huan, even though his heart aches. Looking at her is like looking at a physical manifestation of dreams that could never be fulfilled, of memories that shouldn’t be relived.
“You should hold her,” Yona tells him, picking their daughter up out of her cradle.
“My lady, I don’t think-” one of the nurses says, but Yona quickly quells her with a sharp look.
“Son Hak,” Yona begins, using his full title to convey her seriousness, voice lofty, “was present at the princess’s birth, and has been my companion ever since I was small. One day his sons may protect Huan like he has protected me. I think he has earned the right to hold my daughter.” The nurse says nothing after that.
Yona smiles up at him, joy bright in her face. “Here,” she says, moitioning for him to sit. She positions his arms properly before softly putting Huan into them. Huan opens her eyes when she feels herself being transferred into Hak’s arms. Her sparse hair is soft and dark, nothing like Yona’s red curls, but her eyes are all Yona’s. A light purple, like the color of dawn. Hak is afraid that Huan is going to cry, but instead she just yawns before settling back to sleep.
Hak can only marvel at the feeling of Huan in his arms. She is so light--practically nothing at all. He’s almost frightened that he might hurt her, but he also trusts that he would never do that. He would do anything to protect Huan, just like he would do anything to protect Yona. They are both his, even if that can never be publically known. He loves them both unconditionally, but especially his daughter, who is a part of him.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Yona’s voice is full of pride as she reaches over Hak’s shoulder to press her fingertips against Huan’s cheek.
Huan has not grown into her features yet. They are still a bit smudged at best, the way he imagines most babies are when they are first born, but she’s beautiful if only from the knowledge that she is his.
“Yes,” he agrees. “The prettiest princess that I have ever seen.”
Yona only laughs in response and leans closer to admire Huan, her whole weight against Hak’s back. If Hak closes his eyes, he can pretend that this moment belongs to the three of them. Just him and Yona and Huan, in that cottage on the top of a Fire Tribe mountain.
Hak keeps his eyes open.