Archive of Our Own

“We’re having a what? ”

One had to be careful, when they decided what sort of people made up their home.

A fairy was a generally reasonable housemate. Although a usual menace to society– unscrewing lanterns, nibbling fresh produce, misplacing objects that people “swore I left on the counter last time! I swear I did…”

“No, go back, stop that, tell me again–”

–Yeji was of the belief that they could be made friends with.

The general population was split on whether a fairy was a pest or prize. Yeji herself had been altogether rather neutral on the idea before– at the academy she’d boarded with a selkie that had made herself acquainted with a whole horde that had crowned her their Queen. Meanwhile her brother had been plagued in all his quests with a fairy hell-bent on expending all his magical reserves until graduation, at which time he played the greatest prank of them all and turned Hyunjin’s hair green for his walk across stage to be knighted. 

A fairy was a menace or a mercy out on its own. But once a fairy committed to a house and the people within, they were a generally playful and altogether helpful bunch.

…Generally.

“I don’t know about we, ” Yeji giggled to herself, “But I am having a baby.”

Of course, one would find it hard to believe the way Ryujin kicked up the sugar and spontaneously threw salt at Yeji’s feet at such a revelation. 

“ Well, what I’m hearing is there’ll be another screaming, crying, whining mouth around here that’ll leave a mess wherever it wanders, and I’m not about to just lie down quietly while our home becomes a certified troll hoard. ”

Which is why any change to who the “people within” happened to be, could often be a rather tumultuous experience.

“Don’t make it sound like I’ve brought a wild animal in,” Yeji rolled her eyes, cleaning the dishes, “Honestly, Ryujin, you can be unreasonably dramatic.”

Ryujin pouted, questioning all her life choices up to this moment, that led her to have to confront her housemate on such an unfathomable decision. 

It was times like these that she remembered she had been decidedly against the whole “committing to a house” endeavor– her love of messing up wagon wheels for farmer’s traveling to market was an immense joy she had thought she would never be able to exchange for domestic simplicity. But then Yeji had moved in to the dusty little treehouse three floors up the Fourth Great Oak To The Right, silver-blue sword brandished under the belt of new knighthood, brimming with fresh energy from the academy, and as Ryujin watched, proceeded to burn her meals four times in a row within the first two days of moving in.

 Out of sheer frustration of having to watch the human live off apples and peanut butter, decided that if she didn’t commit to the care of Yeji, the human would probably die.

A fact which Ryujin didn’t hesitate to remind Yeji every now and again.

As Yeji organized her weapons to be stored off the ground and out of reach, Ryujin flitted in front of her face, arms crossed, magic sparking. 

“What part of yourself thought, ‘Wow! Doing great at this living alone stuff! Good time to bring someone I’ll have to take care of into the world!’” Ryujin huffed, annoyance rising as Yeji brushed past her to bring in the rugs she’d left out to dry, “Or better yet, what made you think ‘Ah yes! Companionship! Let’s skip the cute little pets and the things that can survive well enough on their own, and go right to the energy-parasites that will chain me down from adventuring till they’re old enough to stick their hands into messes and pay for damages!’ Tch, honestly knight-friend, I think someone’s replaced your brain with a watermelon.”

Yeji giggled to herself, laying the rug down and pulling the little ornate table she’d gotten from a High Lady who needed sprites bargained off her front porch in the domain over. It had been quite a hefty thing to lug over herself– she could still see the places where Ryujin had kicked the little metal carvings along the edges out of anger, when all their combined magic had only been able to slowly move it up the path while the sun set at an unfair pace behind them.

Ryujin’s wings kicked an angry buzzing sound as she stared at Yeji, full pout and furrowed eyebrows at the obvious injustice of it all. Just to spite her, Yeji took an extra moment adjusting the vase of FireDew she’d picked this morning, turning it a smidge one way only to adjust it three ticks the other way, before finally settling into the settee.

She only felt a little bad when Ryujin’s face looked as red as the FireDews, at having held her breath in a pout for so long.

“Oh, you stubborn little thing!” she said sweetly, holding out her hand until Ryujin flopped into it, legs hanging over the edge of her palm, swinging one leg over her knee and looking anywhere but at Yeji’s apologetic expression, “Come now, it won’t be such a heavy burden for two adventurers like us, hm?”

“Easy for you to say, you dimwitted dull-dillpickle…” Ryujin mumbled.

Despite her prickly reaction to the news, Yeji knew that Ryujin would come around. After all, if a fairy could put up with the wild whims of an adventurer, called at a moment’s notice to defend the land or save a damsel without a second thought, she could surely put up with something as humanly ordinary as the arrival of a new life into the world.

Sure enough, as Yeji took her morning stroll through the market in an attempt to slowly gather more child-appropriate furnishing, Ryujin was a spark right by her side, flying and looking about thoughtfully, rejecting chairs with pointed corners and turning her away from looking at any new knives for her collection. 

Yeji wasn’t used to doting, but she couldn’t deny that it was sweet when Ryujin pulled her by the wrist to sit down for once, rather than go clean up a mess she’d made, paying the stall at the corner for a cream bar for them both to share.

She caught on to Ryujin intentions only after the fairy had also gotten her a basket of berries and a bushel of root vegetables, half a thought away from considering whether they could bring a roast duck home. 

“Fairy,” she smirked, “Are you trying to stuff me like a christmas pig?”

Hovering cross-legged in the air, Ryujin sputtered, throwing an indignant and insulted look over her shoulder, “Me? Stuff you? What do you think I am, a butcher? No, of course not, just trying to get your strength built up is all–”

She then flew up to Yeji, patting her stomach, before curiously lifting her tunic and poking at her abdomen with a probing finger, “How does this work, anyway? When will you pop like a potato?”

It was a shame that Ryujin had gotten Yeji such a lovely cream bar. Or perhaps it was more of a shame that Yeji hadn’t ever been a fast eater and still had enough of it dripping down her arm when Ryujin had made her comment– a comment that sent her into such a whirlwind of laughter it ended up a sad looking puddle on the ground for Ryujin to sadly bemoan and, yet again, scold Yeji for.

“Quite a wasteful creature,” she mumbled indignantly, before watching Yeji laugh so hard she was bent in half clutching her stomach, “Well, stop that, you’ll laugh the poor little thing inside you into oblivion with all the shaking. Like a lightning bug you swing around too fast, she’ll just spritz out of existence– oi , stop that! What’s so funny?! ”

It took an embarrassing amount of time for Yeji to compose herself and keep from joy from hiccuping out, but when she finally did, Ryujin’s annoyance had only increased, and she’d found the time to grab an ice cube, and in a vain attempt to punish the knight for making her feel like she was missing out on a rather important detail that all this laughing was only further detaining, strategically placed said ice cube on the very top of Yeji’s head. It was only once Yeji had stopped laughing so violently that she felt it run like little rivers down the side of her face, an altogether confusing feeling, until the brain-chilling freeze followed and she screamed and shook it from her hair in mild pain. 

“Serves you right,” Ryujin picked at her nails, seemingly looking away like she didn’t care about Yeji’s discomfort, “Now, will you answer me like a normal person? Or are you insistent on sounding like a hyena?”

“Oh fairy,” Yeji tapped her head, sparkling dust scattering from her wings with each pat, “That’s not how all babies are made,” she brushed her dress off, sparing the melted cream one final forlorn look before walking slowly away from the market to where the slow creaking of iron gates marked the opening of the temple, “Surely you of all creatures would know that, hm?”

“Well,” Ryujin huffed, shaking her bangs out of her eyes before taking off till she was flying just a pace in front of Yeji, to turn and talk to her, “A fairy is born from the laughter of a newborn baby animal, and unless you tricked some sob creature into amusement and then politely asked them to mail order the golden sprout that erupted from the ground, I highly doubt you plan on mothering a baby fairy.”

Yeji found herself surprised that she felt a small part of herself taking offense at this, “Why? I’m not amusing enough for young animals?”

“Neither amusing nor competent,” Ryujin settled firmly, falling down on top of Yeji’s head and buckling herself in with stray strands of hair, “So tell me, great adventurer, how did you accidentally acquire a baby?”

“It wasn’t an accident– ”

“Oh really? Sounds doubtful.”

Yeji narrowed her eyes as she passed through the temple gates, poking Ryujin, “You menace .”

“It was either an accidentally stumbled-on-a-baby-in-the-woods or a lie, I won’t accept any other explanation,” Ryujin said firmly, before hesitating, “So you’re not… physically growing the baby? In you anyway?”

“No, I am not.”

“And… we won’t have to deal with the whole taking-care-of-baby thing until baby actually comes, then?”

“That would be right.”

Something relaxed immediately in Ryujin, like an infinite burden she’d taken upon herself had fallen off, and she fell boneless, sliding off Yeji’s head, and letting her wings catch her before she hit the marble floors. 

…a moment before the floors began glowing and scared her straight back up into the air and into Yeji’s hair again. 

“Stupid temple magic–”

The temple floors glowed all sorts of colors as people stumbled in. It was rumored that it was their Soul Color, but Ryujin didn’t believe such a thing, because Yeji’s soul was definitely not the bright and sunny yellow beneath her feet.

It was probably black. Like most of the tunics in her closet.

Most people came to the temple before their quests, for their adventuring to be blessed properly, and to acquire any additional magic to fortify their weapons and skills. Yeji had often come to acquire a Will o’ the Wisp to guide her. She had a fantastic talent of getting lost without one.

But that was not quite what Yeji was here for– a lesser used part of the temple was to inform of how quests had gone or requesting aid in finishing a mission. And there was often just too much pride within any questing knight to ever ask anyone for help, much less the people who had sent them off.

Yeji did not possess such pride. She barely had the awareness to be embarrassed over the fact that she’d acquired a fairy over her sheer inability to cook, no matter how much her brother visited her and sneered over the fact.

So although the hall she passed into was quiet and dusty, not acquainted with visitors, the faces within barely betrayed any surprise, but instead greeted her politely and let her be about her business.

Yeji’s business was with the selkie lazing in the fountain at the far end, absconding all duties of studies or readiness for engaging with questers. Yeji had a hunch that Jisu craved this hall for its solitude from adventurers anyway.

“Knight Yeji, of the Fifth Adventuring Rank, reporting on my quest into the East Mountain Troubler.”

It wasn’t altogether easy to tell that the seal laying on its back in the fountain was a selkie. After all, such animals in a temple wouldn’t have been unusual– far odder had been found bathing in the everlasting waters. But this seal winked open an eye and let out a long-suffering sigh.

“And you brought the little twig with you.”

“Twig?!” Ryujin shot off Yeji’s head, with full intentions to show this seal what a twig could very well do when insulted, when Yeji caught her by the wings and landed her promptly back on top of her hair.

“Yes, that twig would be my companion, and I’m rather fond of her, thank you Jisu.”

The seal seemed to roll her eyes, turning in the water as her skin shifted and left behind a woman in a grey dress with two long braids down her back. The woman stretched lazily, before swinging her legs over the side of the fountain, sending several other temple guards and keepers scowling as they protected their scrolls and shuffled past. Yeji smiled as she realized Jisu had never changed. Just as she was at the academy, so she was here.

“Well, on with it then,” she waved her hand, looking rather tired and disinterested to an untrained eye who didn’t catch the way she pulled a smooth stone tablet from the water and tapped several runes on it for it to rearrange itself and bring her a briefing on what exactly Yeji had gone and hoped to accomplish in her adventure. 

Ryujin still thought it was rather lazy. She wasn’t a temple keeper, but she could recall every little detail of Yeji’s quest in her sleep if it was asked of her. But no one ever asked a fairy to keep a temple anyway, so perhaps she’d come and burn the edges of their scrolls tonight. Just like that. Just for fun.

“Well, I arrived last night, but I turned over my spoils early this morning,” Yeji crossed her legs beneath her and fell to sit on the ground, looking up out a window opening as she tried to recall everything, “It was a rather straightforward quest, I think. I had suspected a dragon of some sort and prepared for such, but it was only a juvenile dragon that had fallen out of its nest and been blown from its course over the blizzard month. I brought it back to the base of the mountain where its mother laid, waited until I saw her fly out with her whole litter, and when I came back to the town, they paid me with gold coins and a breastplate made from the scales the little thing had shed. I kept it and traded back my old armor to that young knight– Jeongin, was it? Rank One?-- and then left the rest of the gold with the Guild to divide as they pleased. Very straightforward.”

Jisu nodded, checking it against the stone, and adjusting the details as Yeji spoke them, “You followed The Code with the spoils?”

“Yes, yes, I refused three times and paid back the town for the damages they’d endured, but they managed to bewitch half of the treasure to follow me home anyway.”

“They really did,” Ryujin spoke up firmly, “Floating parcels followed her home all the way, I got bonked on the head with their entrance.”

“Very good, very good,” Jisu muttered to herself, tacking on: “Especially the head bonking, quite excellent.”

“Hey!”

“Well,” Jisu tossed the tablet over her shoulder, letting the water reach for it and swallow it back up, “If everything’s in order, there’s really no need for you to come here, you know. It’s an archaic formality that–”

“--Interrupts your sleep?” Yeji sneered, ducking to evade Jisu’s flicking fingers before lowering her voice, “No, I wouldn’t waste your time. It’s more of… what happened on my way home.”

Jisu frowned, but nodded for Yeji to continue.

“I traveled slow with the enchanted spoils trailing me, but I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone, so I trekked straight through the nights and avoided all villages as I could. I came across slime grounds, simple water elementals, and didn’t think twice about it as I slayed them. But slime is messy, so–” she rolled her eyes, slowly reclining back and becoming far too comfortable on the marble floors, “--then I had to detour to the river to wash my broadsword and boots, and next to every river there’s always at least one village every couple of paces. I really tried to pick a place between the settlements where no one would be, I truly did, but–”

Ryujin yawned and settled herself into the center of Yeji’s ponytail as she laid down, knowing that Yeji’s inability to tell a story any other way except long-windedly would mean their visit to the temple would probably last much longer than anticipated. And Ryujin had already heard this part anyway, it had sprouted out of Yeji’s mouth as soon as she’d come home, as though she couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. 

If Yeji knew her fairy-friend was sleeping, she didn’t let on, continuing on with her story and properly boring Jisu senseless.

“--Stop. Did anything unusual happen at the river?”

“Well, not really? I mean, kind of– ”

“Related to why you needed to speak with me?”

Yeji puckered her lips in concentration, staring up at the temple ceiling, “...Mmm… well, I suppose not.”

Jisu rolled her eyes, “Fascinating. Let’s get on with it then, hm?”

The story went from the river to a village bard, to one of his three songs that scared the children to their homes for the night, and to the detail in specific about a shadowed man who stole children from their beds at night to eat their eyes from their faces, and–

“Did you take a sidequest?” Jisu interrupted again, “It isn’t a problem if you did, you’d just need to tell the guild.”

“I didn’t, it wasn’t, it was more of… a personal curiosity?”

Jisu leveled her with a dead stare, “You went searching for the bogeyman?”

“Yes, yes I did!”

“Because you were curious? ”

Yeji looked a lot like a puppy the way she smiled up at Jisu and nodded, and were this anyone except her dearest friend, Jisu would have hauled the knight up and shoved her out with a wise proverb about curiosity and cats and dealing with the consequences of your actions. But this was the Yeji who would eat every prank sweet left on her bed, who’d go out of her way to follow the sounds of a bird who was singing slightly off key, and who didn’t know where her own heart stopped and another’s began. 

So Jisu sighed, knowing how this would end, “And what did you find?”

“Well, nothing at first. It was curious, I had never walked through a forest so devoid of sound . But then I entered a place where the shadows were darker, and the wind was whistling horribly.”

“Did you get hurt?”

“No, not at all, what makes you say that?”

“I–” Jisu shook her head, “Sorry, continue.”

“Well, the wind first made a whistling sound, the sort that sounds like a whole army whispering, you know? And I wasn’t scared, it takes more to scare me now, but I thought that it was such a shame that I had all the spoils hovering behind me and that I could lose something because–”

“--It wasn’t a necromancer was it?”

Yeji’s eyes went wide and she hauled herself up on her elbows, “How did you know?!”

It took all of Jisu’s strength to not raise her eyebrow and tell her friend that this story had gone from boring to very alarming real quickly, “What deal did you strike with the necromancer, Yeji? I’ll tell the wizards of the temple, we’ll deal with it quickly.”

“Oh I didn’t strike a deal with him, I’m not that dull,” Yeji frowned at her lap, “I think it was a him anyway. You know, I couldn’t really tell, the voice was rather muffled, like he found it hard to breathe. Do necromancer’s ever come to you for help? Do they reQuest for adventurers to aid them?”

This was about the part in the story where Ryujin always lost Yeji’s plot, and could never get around to whatever happened next. Rather impatient with this second retelling, she tugged at the roots of Yeji’s hair and hauled herself to dangle over the knight’s forehead.

“Is that how you got a baby?”

“ You got a WHAT?”

Jisu nearly flew out of the fountain, sputtering.

“You said he didn’t hurt you!”

“He didn’t! It’s not like that!”

“Sweet Honey Nectar, Yeji,” Jisu hissed, taking Yeji’s wrist and suddenly looking her over, “Are you in pain? Did you take care of him? Oh, tell me you didn’t so I can go myself–”

“Whatever do you mean–? Oh stop that,” she swatted at a stray hand that found its way to check her abdomen, “There’s nothing in there, I’m not sensible enough to grow anything, you know that.”

Ryujin rolled her eyes, face in her hand as she leaned over, “And yet, here we are…”

“I don’t really know what happened, but I sent the necromancer away with a blessing–”

“--you blessed it?!”

A shrill silence hovered oved the hall, and anyone who hadn't been listening certainly turned to them now in clear disapproval that left Jisu apologetically cowering as she listened to her friend continue on.

“Has no one ever tried that?” Yeji shrugged, “I had brought a blessing I hadn’t used on my Quest anyway, so I tried it, and the shadows were all swallowed up. But then I got up to leave and as the forest parted to breathe in clean air, I saw a stork in the distance. Haloed in sunlight,” Yeji’s eyes blurred for a moment, as though she saw it, as clear as day before her, “raising its head towards me, before flying up, through a window in the leaves, up towards the skies.”

A solemn silence settled over them, like there was no one else in the temple hall. There wasn’t, not immediately, they’d all rushed out from all the commotion, and those who remained were too deep in reading to pay mind to the golden circle that had formed on the ground around the selkie and the knight.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, my feet walked to where the stork had been and there it was.”

Jisu waited, straining forward waiting for her next words, and when they didn’t come– “Where… where what was?”

Yeji slowly reached into her tunic pocket, pulling out a handkerchief rolled around something small. Ryujin and Jisu both leaned over, holding their breaths as Yeji gingerly peeled back the corners to reveal, there, in the center of her palm–

–a small brown acorn.

For a second, they just stared at it, like the thing would sprout wings or suddenly begin gurgling and screaming for milk, but the acorn just remained there.

Then Ryujin smacked her hand down on Yeji’s head.

“ Hey , what?!”

“I was just checking. I’m right, you know,” she flew off and knocked at Yeji’s temple like it was a door, “Completely hollow in there. A full dimwit.”

“Yeah? How about I flick you and we see how hollow you are.”

Jisu groaned and slapped a hand against her face, “I hate to agree with the fairy–”

“--you can admit that now, can you?” Ryujin quipped cheekily.

“--but Yeji, this is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever made me listen–”

And then Yeji shoved the acorn into her mouth.

Jisu didn’t know what happened, but she was suddenly assaulted with bright flashes, visions of a thousand memories she couldn’t place, except for the wide eyes of a child that fit into a figure that grew into a woman, folded into the arms of a Yeji with grey striped through her hair. The memories folded and whirled until they sent her back, back to a child’s whining, and a toddler’s crying, and a baby’s gurgling, and Jisu was thrown back into the present where she spat out the acorn.

It bounced on the marble floors, a silver glow beneath it, until Yeji gingerly picked it up and folded it back into the handkerchief.

“What… I’ve never…” Jisu stared up Yeji, “ What in all the stars was that? ”

Yeji shrugged, fighting off a suddenly insistent fairy that was sticking her tongue out and trying to get a lick at the acorn.

“It’s just a feeling. No, not just a feeling, I know it. I know it in my heart, it’s true, it’s going to happen, I know it.”

“You–” Jisu pointed at the acorn, stammering and wordless for several moments, “You just… stuck that in your mouth… and–”

“I might’ve accidentally fallen on it face first and– you know what, ” she waved her hand dismissively, “that isn’t as important.”

Jisu stared at her, wide-eyed and thoroughly shocked into silence.

A firm resolve burned in Yeji’s eyes, “I’m going to have a baby. It’s going to come to me.”

“But you’re not… pregnant.”

“No.”

“And you don’t… plan to be.”

“Not at all.”

Jisu made a pained and confused sound, her mind sent in a proper whirlwind, “ What in the seven winds– ”

Now, Ryujin was many things, but a pushover was not one of them. Once she’d set her mind on something, she almost always followed through with it. 

“ Hey-!?”

She was a fairy after all. 

But seeing her lick the acorn, and in turn for her entire body to light up as she hovered and shook, as though shocked from lightning and petrified to death-likeness, was not a thing Yeji had ever expected to see in her lifetime, and once she’d properly grasped the fairy by her wings and held her up to make sure that she was alright– fairies were resilient, and aside from obvious shock that sent her head spinning, Ryujin had survived the ordeal of the visions fairly well– Yeji burst in the same sort of gleeful amusement that Jisu remembered hearing when they hid under the covers past curfew during their days at academy, reading storybooks and trying not to get caught by the hall monitors. 

“You alright fairy?” Yeji asked through a giggle, Ryujin lifting her hand to give a shaky, and perhaps embarrassed, thumbs up.

Although the comfort of Yeji’s ease seeped to Jisu, the concern remained at the back of her mind as she walked Yeji back home. 

“You’re… sure that necromancer didn’t do anything to you?”

“Very,” Yeji nodded, cupping her hands around her fairy as the little sprite dozed off, thoroughly exhausted from the ordeal the acorn had put her through, “But I don’t have much more than this talisman or the steady feeling next to my heart that I’m going to have a baby. I don’t know when, I don’t how, I don’t even know what this baby will be, but the baby is coming and I haven’t got anything more than my determination to raise her.”

It should have been a terrifying thing for her to admit, but Yeji’s face was resolutely hopeful– almost aglow at this chapter of her life preluding to something new.

Jisu hummed. 

The evening glow was starting to set in, the floating lanterns set alight by skipping imps, while fireflies rose from the grass. Despite the fact that nothing had really changed with Yeji, the arm Yeji held out for Jisu to take so she wouldn’t trip over her own feet, now became the arm that Jisu held up with equal strength. Perhaps she was hovering, perhaps she was prepared to shield Yeji like she needed to be swaddled in feathers and locked in the safest place imaginable. 

Maybe Yeji noticed when her friend didn’t complain about aching feet but instead walked her very purposely to the door of her home, to the Fourth Great Oak To The Right where most were either out for the evening or already settled into their beds for the night, waiting until she heard the soft whirring of several protective spells locking into place at the door before she left, head full of thoughts of all the letters she needed to write, to people much wiser than she.

Yeji looked over her balcony until she was sure Jisu’s grey coat had disappeared from sight, before stepping up onto a balcony chair, lifting up the small thatched roof on one of the pots that had slowly renovated into a miniature cottage over the years, sliding aside the little knit blanket over the matchbook to tuck Ryujin in, the little fairy stretching her arms, the squeaking pops of her bones settling as she rolled over and let Yeji settle the blanket over her before settling the roof back into place.

When she’d finally found herself in her own bed, moon high and strumming a soft tune to the twinkling of the stars, Yeji pulled the blankets over her head, curling around herself as she took the acorn from her pocket. It had a soft golden glow– perhaps not truly letting off light, but truly casting a warmth that burned through Yeji’s hands and wrapped around her heart.

As she closed her eyes, fist tight around the little thing, she saw the wide eyes of a little girl looking up at her, and smiled as she slept.

~⚔️~

Some strict part of Yeji thought it was right that she told people. That everyone who cared about her needed to be as prepared as she was trying to be over the next couple of months. 

But that conflicted with another part of her mind that knew that this was completely irrational .

Nothing of what was about to happen was going to make sense. 

So what was there to tell people?

"Cu-ckoo? You home, Yeji-deli?"

The neighbors came in as they did and followed their curiosities. It was impossible to hide, particularly when she and Ryujin pushed up a polished maple  crib to their apartment, the door of every house they passed flying open to catch what all the hullabaloo was about.

The eyes as wide as saucers told Yeji that the cat was out of the bag anyway, so she opened her door to each knock and tried to answer the questions the best she could.

“Oh a little one, you don’t say?” 

“Our Yeji can truly do anything, can’t she!”

“…All on your own?”

The last question would usually usher a flutter of sparkling dust that would dart around the corner as Ryujin would make herself known, with a proper pout and all. Yeji could never figure out whether it was because of personal offense or to defend Yeji’s honor and capabilities, and part of her didn’t want to ask and find out for sure. Besides, either way, Yeji was grateful. 

Most people’s opinions on the matter didn’t matter anyway— what business did the lady from the corner stall who sold them fish have with Yeji’s baby anyway? 

“Ms Jamie, I know it seems outlandish—“

Snorting, she tied the bag of fish tight, swinging it up onto the counter and holding her hand out for coin, harshly reminding Yeji that well, look there. She doesn’t even care. What do you know, spare yourself the words and everything.

“Ah, right,” she counted out her copper and bowed politely as she took the bag, “Much thanks.”

“Mm,” Ms Jamie thumbed the coins and waved Yeji off.

It wasn’t just that others had no business in it, but more so that their opinion truly held no weight to Yeji. She’d gone through most of her life weighing every action whether it was the right thing to do, never really caring about the public perception of what she did. And no matter, or perhaps especially since, her having a baby was the biggest adventure she’d embark on, was going to change that.

Of course, those were strong words to say when she paced the hall between the kitchen and her patio window, fish sizzling in the pan as Ryujin threw in spices and hummed over the stove.

Because even if the little acorn thrummed warmly over her heart in the Right-ness of her actions, there were some perceptions even she could not pretend to feign nonchalance over.

“Quit burning a hole into our flooring, human.” Ryujin scolded with a well-placed whack when Yeji came close enough to her reach from the eye line of the stove, “Your brother isn’t a monster to conquer, he’s just your brother. If he doesn’t understand, then who will, hm?”

“That… isn’t terribly reassuring, Ryujnnie.”

“That isn’t my fault.”

Ryujin amused her with putting out the fine silver plates they normally saved for Christmas, and letting Yeji fuss over where the forks and knives should be placed, even though they all knew Hyunjin wasn’t any more of a stickler for decorum than Yeji was, and would eat fish straight from the lake and be unable to tell the difference from the preparation tonight.

But that didn’t calm any of the butterflies wreaking havoc in Yeji’s stomach when the sun dipped down towards the horizon and her palms began to sweat.

Ryujin snorted, sitting on the edge of the wine glass, “Maybe you have morning sickness. You know, even if–”

“Shut it.”

Her voice was stretched thin, tight, and Ryujin didn’t take it to heart, pursing her lips for a second before flying up to the top of Yeji’s head, walking around the crown of it a couple times before falling criss-cross and settling herself in. 

They didn’t know if it was the fairy dust or the gentle weight, but it never failed to settle Yeji nerves down from a roar into a gentle hum. 

Gentle enough to hear Hyunjin’s footsteps as he climbed up the winding stairs of the Fourth Great Oak To The Right before he reached their door.

She was at the door before his knuckles hit the wood.

"Hi. In. Come."

He blinked twice, and hauled his lanky body through her threshold. His shield was clunky and awkward leaned up against his boots, and his twin longswords hit the walls jarringly as he kept them at arm’s reach, but politely off his body.

Dinner was awkward. Quiet. 

Hyunjin had probably been in the middle of a quest, if the mud caked on his shoes and stray leaves woven into his hair was anything to go by. Ryujin scrunched her nose as she flew by, dropping the garnishing onto his plate faster than she’d dropped her commitment to solitary living, the smell of an unbathed adventurer sending her straight back to her flowerpot.

But more than that, to Yeji, it was the blatant hesitation in everything he did, the stuttered movements as a thought crossed his mind whenever his eyes swept and met hers, remembering why he’d come in the first place. Hyunjin had always been rather collected, an adventurer with years of political experience to let nothing slip passed his stony resolve. His weariness took the edge off his skills. All the questions just behind his tongue were shadowed behind his eyes.

… Or perhaps the anticipation of it made it as clear as day to Yeji.

“Just say it.”

Hyunjin’s hair flew up first, followed quickly by his eyes, “Hm?”

“Just–” she shook her hands at the wrists, “Everything you want to say. Get it out.”

There was so much more tact to be had, but it was nowhere to be found between them. Hyunjin took in a huge inflating breath, and let it out slowly. 

Yeji almost wanted to beat him to all his thoughts, “You see it happened when–”

“I don’t need to know the how,” his voice was low, as he took a glass of wine to down the meal before he settled back into his chair and folded his hands, “You need to tell me the why .”

Several things reared their ugly heads in Yeji’s heart– on how big brother comes out of nowhere and just thinks he knows best doesn’t he and I don’t owe him anything, I don’t owe him an answer to that, I don’t need to tell him anything and how dare he, couldn’t he support me like a normal person for once in his life?!

But each thought hit a memory, as strong and unwavering as Hyunjin himself– Hyunjin leaving his classes when they were at the academy together to be by her side whenever she went through her monthly pains; Hyunjin defending her and her honor in front of a court appeals that questioned her Questing integrity; Hyunjin splinting her arm and keeping it from infection that one time she’d tried to fly off the edge of the cliff next to their house, thinking she’d catch an upward draft but only ending up with a shattered arm. 

Hyunjin’s unwavering support of her when she moved far away from home to adventure and build up her rank, and his undying love for her as a fellow knight, as a friend, and as a brother.

Love was also correction, and guidance, and protecting what you knew what would break, and Yeji had to bite her tongue to tell herself and be comforted in how much her decisions filled his thoughts, to the point of interrupting his business to check on hers.

So she didn’t goad up against those words like every instinct in her body wanted to, because those words came from a place of intense care, at the end of a long history of him always looking out for her, and as much as it tried to grate upon her soul in that moment, she couldn’t let it knowing they had come from her brother’s lips and no one else’s. 

All of their lives and all the history up till this moment stood in defense against the anger that flared in her heart.

“O-okay…” she swallowed harshly, “But why is very much entangled with how… so if you wouldn’t mind hearing me out…”

Something softened in his expression and he sat back, a short nod that assured that he was settled for as long as she needed. 

And he was.

The sun slowly dipped down.

Ryujin peeked out cautiously from her flowerpot when the golden evening light told her of the hours that had gone by, Yeji’s voice still shaking and trekking through her story as determined as ever. The fairy had known this would be a long evening, and she’d prepared herself to be occupied away from her housemate during that time– Hyunjin’s trauma with fairies had been very well known to Ryujin when he’d first pulled his sword out against her. She waited for nothing short of yelling and screaming and full blown disaster during his visit, and thought it best to make herself scarce until it was over.

To be very honest, however, the quiet mellow sounds of conversation, Hyunjin lighting the candle between them as light grew dim, a concentrated expression as he listened to his sister, was quite the shocking image. The mirror fantasy of what she’d expected. 

It was intriguing. Curious. 

Curious enough that she flew back to the table when the sun was properly gone, and set herself on the top of the cabinet nearby, wings alight with fairy dust to provide some additional light. Hyunjin tensed as she whizzed by, but paid her no more attention than a slight tilt of the head to acknowledge her presence.

The retelling was as long and convoluted as ever, if not more so with Yeji’s heart spurring up a defense for her actions all the more in front of her brother.

Silver moonlight was the only thing  left, the acorn rolling in Hyunjin’s palm as the silence ebbed and flowed in careful consideration, his fingers turning it over each edge.

“...You have to put it in your mouth, dumb-dumb.”

With a small scoff, Hyunjin side-eyed Ryujin and her equally unimpressed expression. 

“So I heard,” a hint of amusement pulled at the ends of his syllables, and Yeji watched as he soundlessly pulled out a piece of twine, the sort one would pick up on adventures to exotic ports, twisting it between his fingers into seamless knots as he strung it around the cap and down the sides of the acorn, “Visions of a chi–... of Yeji’s child. Quite… amazing.”

Something in her heart broke in surprise and melted a little when she realized he had no intention to confirm her delusions by licking it himself. He just, believed her like that.

“It isn’t wise, raising a child on your own,” he said quietly, “Mom would always say so, even as she raised the both of us alone. It isn’t a decision one goes into easily, how much less so willingly. But–”

He stood up slowly, two hands holding out the twine and the acorn hung in an intricate net between the two ends, walking over to Yeji’s chair and draping it along her neck.

“You haven’t done anything rashly. You’ve done whatever the right thing was in front of you,” Hyunjin’s knot was firm on her nape, his breath heavy as his hand rested a moment on the back of the chair, “And I listened carefully for it too, for anything you’ve done wrong or any wrong done to you. There isn’t anything.”

Something amused tugged at the edge of Yeji’s lips as she turned and raised an eyebrow at him, “You were expecting otherwise.”

“Obviously,” he smirked back, before his face fell a little more gravely, “No one just has a baby without planning for it wisely unless something’s gone horribly wrong somewhere. And I know you. You wouldn’t do such a thing. To yourself, to anyone else, and to mom and I… She worries, you know.”

“I know,” Yeji whispered, apologetic, “I tried to explain it the best I could in my letter to her but…”

“I’ll relay it the best I can to her, it shouldn’t be too hard for her to understand,” his face scrunched into a silly amused look, “After all, she did bring dad from the Shadow Domain in the far reaches of the kingdom outlands.”

Yeji giggled, and Ryujin relaxed as she walked him to the door, the two of them far more relaxed than they had been before. At the door, she hauled the shield back onto his back, strapped his scabbards back into place, and even tugged stray leaves from his hair. 

He still hesitated when he was ready to go.

“Yeji…”

“I know,” she swallowed harshly, “It’s an ignorant and proud thing to even suggest, much less assume that I can do what was meant for two people. If… if this had been done any other way…” she took a deep breath, gathering the firm resolve that had come to her as tangible as the little acorn now strung over her heart, “But it was me in those visions. It was me the blessing came to. I’ve searched and I cannot find a thing I’ve done wrong, someone else’s Quest I’ve stumbled into and sabotaged, and unless I’ve been blinded in my own selfishness that I’ve tried to keep locked away… I don’t see any other way. But…”

Her eyes were surprisingly blurred, voice wobbling a little on the edges as she realized time and distance were no marker against the respect and humility that had been sewn into her, “Tell me I’ve done something wrong, tell me it isn’t right , and I’ll think it all again, from the roots and everything.”

A small squeaking sound of Hyunjin’s heart stopping and rethinking itself escaped his lips, and he frowned, quickly shaking his head and turning to face her again. 

“Not at all, I– never,” he placed a hand on her head– always a head taller than her, and it always being a point of annoyance in their youth that had broken into something safe for moments like these, “I just…” he bowed his head and took and deep breath, steadying himself and speaking softly, in less passed-down wisdom and more selfish concern, “Taking care of a child is to love in more sacrifice than you’ve ever known and I’m… scared for you,” he winced, looking away, “Selfishly, foolishly, but… all the same. You’re important to more people than just you, and– you can’t just survive enough for yourself anymore, do you understand?”

Something hard and worried, silver steel in his eyes flashed for a moment, and then disappeared under the wave of protective obscurity, the love of holding worries like burdens high above someone’s head like a suitcase too big for little legs to hold themselves. Ryujin saw it. She wasn’t sure Yeji did.

“I know,” she flashed a smile, the sort that swallowed up her eyes in all their brightness, and demanded a reflection of her joy, if only a little, “You’ve just found a new way to tell me to be careful, haven’t you?”

“I have to, the way you keep trying to prove you’re able to challenge the stars in pinning the sky up,” his voice was light, but as Yeji laughed with her head down, he hovered above her with his brows slowly sewing up into a deep emotion that he had to hide in her hair– hands cupping her face to pull the crown of her head to his lips.

Ryujin hid behind the corner, floating a pan off the drying rack and back to its place in the cabinet, pretending not to see as his fears flew out, thoughts written on his face as clear as day, even as his sister melted into the protective hold of it, like the kiss of her brother’s blessing wasn’t burned with something more raw, more scared and bleeding and trying to hold itself together. 

Try as she might, Ryujin couldn’t erase the raw fear in his eyes, even when he pulled it behind the strong brother Yeji could rely on to scold her halfway to Tuesday, tugging on a little braid from her ponytail with a wink as he swung a leg out the threshold, slow steps winding down the trunk of the Fourth Great Oak to the Right. Ryujin actually strained to listen, to try and find if his steps ever faltered or wavered, and even followed Yeji out to the porch to watch his figure follow the firefly lit road out into the wilderness where his Quest called him back. Yeji remained on the porch until the shadow of his figure was indiscernible from any other. 

Then she tapped Ryujin’s head cutely and slipped into bed.

Several hours later, when her breathing evened, Ryujin hovered just around her door frame, biting her lip, carrying a worry she didn’t know she could have, burrowed somewhere deep inside her chest.

Stupid knight-humans and their stupid-emotions, she huffed to herself after several long moments, when she snapped back to herself and found herself with the unfamiliar emotions, flying at breakneck speed back to her flowerpot and kicking off the little blanket on the matchbook with a determined vigor, Whatever do I need to worry about, with a silly knight like Yeji doing silly things and finding silly ways to get herself out of the troubles she’s spun herself into, silly silly silly!

All the same, her eyes were wide, red-rimmed with sleeplessness through the night.

And she couldn’t convince herself it was anyone but Hyunjin’s fault, somehow.

“I hate your brother.”

Yeji sneered, “Sure, little pixie.”

“I mean it this time,” Ryujin plopped herself down onto the railing of the porch, staring fire off the horizon he disappeared into, a silent part of her wishing he’d come back and stay.

For Yeji.

To take care of her when she wouldn’t take care of herself.

Yeji needed him.

Maybe.

Or maybe just so that Ryujin could make his life miserable for making her lose her sleep.

~⚔️~

Although Yeji didn’t want to admit it, Hyunjin’s concern for her nestled somewhere between her eyes, in the corners of her own mind she couldn’t control if she tried. 

She only realized this after stepping into the temple for a Quest Summons. The floor glowed under her planted feet, throngs of people coming and going around her, and sudden second thoughts sent her into a whirlwind of indecribable anxiety, of wanting nothing more than to turn around and nestle into her place at the Fourth Great Oak To The Right. 

“Hey. Over here. What’re you— Yeji! ”

She was tugged to the side just as a cart rolled in, drawn by two blinded steeds and towing far more loot than Guild standards, and probably violating some Code as it nearly took down several dozens of people as it clambered on.

Jisu clicked her tongue, flicking Yeji properly in the arm, “Proper squirrel in the road you are, trying to get run over like that.”

Before Yeji could even try to defend her limping honor, Jisu waved over a young knight— her Quest.

“Yeji, meet Chaeryeong. First Rank, fresh out of the academy.”

It surprised Yeji more than a little— Chaeryeong carried herself with experience, betraying nothing, arms crossed in front of her like Yeji was being evaluated for her competancy for this Quest. Her armor was well-used, but better kept, shoes and buckles polished till they shined. This was a knight who put excellence forward. Yeji wondered if she was valedictorian of her year.

“Chaeryeong, this is Yeji. Fifth Rank,” Jisu pulled out a map from her pocket, “Your Quest is the Stranded Mountain Ghosts: the Guild was given reports of odd little fires along the Midazan mountainside that would indicate camps. This follows after several seasons of storms that make it impossible for the local people to travel up there and see who it is. Given the Quest you’ve chosen is so far above your adventuring rank, we picked an knight with experience in mountain journeying to guide you.”

At her cue, Yeji smiled down at Chaeryeong, who respectfully, but rather coldly and stiffly, smiled back. 

“Right then,” Jisu rolled the map and held it out for them, Yeji hesitating just long enough for Chaeryeong to snatch it before she could get the chance, “Despite its difficulty level, it is a rather straightforward quest. Nonetheless, should you need them, there are two nearby reincarnation shrines for you both. Yeji, the Will O’ the Wisp is already on her merry way for you, and Chaeryeong… ah, your bow should be fully enchanted per your needs and instructions. And… yeah,” she snapped her fingers awkwardly, before shuffling backwards into the temple and giving them a shaky thumbs up, “Off you go then. Have fun, be safe, and all that jazz.”

And just like that, Yeji was out in the wilderness, shivering her butt off as they hiked up a mountainside on a Quest of few clues. 

For a knight of Yeji’s experience, it wasn’t altogether unusual to be sent with little to go on— much of the adventure was in discovering clues anyway— but usually it came with at least a little more warning and far more of a specific timeline to expect the Quest to be finished within.

Yeji also had little experience in mentoring. She wasn’t terribly good at it. She wasn’t sure what to say and what to hold her tongue on, but she figured saying less was probably better when she’d suggested to Chaeryeong that they camp to evaluate a coming storm and the younger knight’s face had contorted into a firm expression of displeasure at the idea. 

She was an entirely self-sufficient knight. Yeji had no idea why they were paired together, especially after watching her draw her blade faster than Yeji even noticed a stray slime creep down from the trees above them.

“You’re quite quick,” she’d complimented quietly, helping her jar and bag as much of the slime to burn as they could scrape out from the moss.

The young knight had only quirked one side of her lips, as though she knew that fact well enough about herself, before handing one of the five jars to Yeji and leading them onward.

Yeji was sure she hadn’t earned it. Perhaps it was just a token of inching closer to Chaeryeong’s good graces.

Chaeryeong’s footsteps were deep ravines in the dirt, stepping stones that Yeji blindly followed, until they led her to large stones leading up the mountainside.

“W-wait.”

Only after Chaeryeong stopped and turned, several paces ahead and above, did Yeji realize the root of her hesitation. She never really feared danger before, nothing threw her enough off-kilter to think twice about what she was doing. 

It was a scary thing, to feel herself change so fundamentally.

She wasn’t sure if she liked it.

“Yes?” Chaeryeong finally asked, when Yeji had stared at the rocks with her newfound discovery in absolute horror for several minutes, “Something wrong?”

In her mind, Yeji snapped back, Yes, everything’s wrong. I’m having a baby. What in the world am I doing here?!

But out of her mouth tumbled a rather apologetic, “No, nothing, sorry. Just got a bit turned around for a moment.”

Chaeryeong raised an eyebrow, but then soundlessly continued ahead, not once looking back to see Yeji struggle after, bracing her hands on root and dirt to keep herself grounded.

It was personally humiliating, to be as muddy and disheveled as she was by the time they set up camp at the edge of a cliff side, overlooking the valley below and giving them clearance to watch the rest of the mountain before them. But Yeji pushed that down the best she could.

“Do you have any theories?” Yeji asked quietly as they turned a squirrel over a low flame.

Chaeryeong shook her head, pouring over the map, “But that’s the fun of it, not having any idea.”

Yeji barked out a laugh before she could stop herself, “Well, there’s something we both have in common.”

For the first time in their companionship, Chaeryeong met Yeji’s eyes. They were careful, thoughtful almost.

“Does it excite you then?”

“What? The quest?”

“No— well, yes. Perhaps. Is it the same?”

Yeji frowned, “Is what the same?”

“Having a baby.”

The thought pulled out an equation in Yeji’s head that was too complicated to decipher. On the one hand, it was nowhere near the same— this was the lifetime of another whole person, entrusted into her hands to tend for from the first days to guide the last, a quest with an altogether simultaneously simpler and much more complicated directive.

But in its simplest form, perhaps it was the same. Perhaps the essence of it, with its uncertainties and mysteries, were what sparked that incomprehensible excitement that made Yeji look like a mad woman. 

“Um, in a way, I suppose. Maybe…. Why?”

Chaeryeong stared at her for a moment, like a snake considering it’s next attack, before she shrugged and returned to turning their supper.

It was unnerving.

“…you enjoy the mystery of this?”

Chaeryeong gave a quick nod, pulling her squirrel from the skewer. Yeji waited for her to offer an explanation before prodding—

“Do you quest with people of higher rank often?”

Again, a short nod. Yeji tested her luck again—

“I haven’t seen you around, I don’t think… did you journey out to our temple for any particular reason?”

A disinterested shake this time, followed by short work of their supper.

Yeji wasn’t very good at this game.

She didn’t try again in the morning, when Chaeryeong had supposedly made up her mind about the most direct way to scale the mountain, and had them starting early in the morning, when all the world was slick with morning dew. There were stray bandits in the tree awaiting them, having spied on them since their campfires, but Chaeryeong’s bow sang before Yeji could even discern their faces. To her surprise, Chaeryeong even had the discernment to let several go, to warn any others of their ill luck in trying to rob the two knights, and likely keep them from the trouble of having to defend themselves from an ambush the rest of their adventure.

“…are you sure you’re only a rank one?”

The sound Chaeryeong let out was closer to a sarcastic laugh than the full breath that blew her hair from her face as she tucked her bow away and continued on dutifully ahead, and from it Yeji felt ages of bitterness that made her cringe and wonder whether it was her place to inquire or not.

A thunderclap and downpour decided for her, it would seem, when suddenly her own well-being was blatantly staring her down in the flickering lightning against the stubbornly steadfast Will o’ the Wisps, waiting at the top of a precarious stone staircase up a steeper hill to a cliff landing, to where they’d last seen the mysterious light of the supposed Stranded Mountain Ghosts.

“The light is in the same relative space whenever we see it,” Chaeryeong huffed at the bottom of the staircase, bending down to tighten the laces of her boots before stretching to crack her neck, “This should be pretty straightforward. Up and then evaluate a plan of attack.”

It took a couple seconds for Yeji to come out of her reverie of wondering why the slick staircase—an Academy obstacle she had mastered early on— was suddenly such a daunting task, and realize Chaeryeong was looking to her for some sort of permissive concurrence to her plan. She barely gave a grimacing smile and a shaky thumbs up before Chaeryeong began bounding up the staircase.

Thunder clapped and laughed down at her as the rain came down quickly enough to muffle her hearing and send little waterfalls dowb the stones. If she wasn’t quick, they would be swimming upriver soon. 

Focus, Yeji.

Teeth grit, muscles tensed to knots of her fists, Yeji adjusted her center of gravity, grounding herself in the stone and forcing one foot in front of the other. Her eyes couldn’t even find the Wisps to keep her focused, instead staring and squinting for solid footing on the next step in front of her, the urgency to get up the staircase fighting with the carefulness suddenly terrorizing her every move.

For some reason, she remembered one story she’d read, a harrowing fable of sorts, where the queen of a distant kingdom hadn’t been careful of watching her husband’s mistresses, and been the center of a full vengeanceful scheme while her stomach was swollen with the heir to the throne, and landed her at the end of a long fall down the palace steps.

The image stopped before she hit the pavement, rewinded, and replayed over and again, pulling tight a horrid thread straight to a net around her heart, as heavy as the weight of Acorn strung around her neck and resting at the hollow of her throat.

The trip, the sudden loss of weight in gravity, the fall, the horrid whirling of head over heels, the bashing, the throwing against the harsh ground again and again, and finally, the terrible landing.

The fall was never as terrible as the landing.

The fall could be flying, an untethering of reality’s weight to the flight of freedom, but it was inevitably followed by a wretched and heavy landing. 

The thought of the blood, the harrowed lines as the queen lost her son and the hidden meaning that escaped her at this moment in light of a little grave and small shroud of a life who’d never properly held his mother’s hands, and a mother who hadn’t even recovered enough to be conscious for her early delivery—

Yeji stopped to wretch at the side of the path, bending over and throwing off her balance enough to slip for a moment and—

NO—!

Yeji didn’t even scream. She was wound too tightly.

But she didn’t reach out to save herself either, didn’t remember how to balance herself again, didn’t regain her footing as fast as her muscle memory had taught.

She was frozen in the fall. 

Her hands flew to her neck and her little acorn, and overwhelming grief she couldn’t name paralyzed her.

It wasn’t until she was sat firmly on the ground and Chaeryeong was snapping her fingers in front of her face that Yeji realized two things: one, the younger knight had undoubtedly saved her in the time Yeji’s mind completely blanked in terror, and two—

She couldn’t breathe.

Her hand slammed over her mouth when she realized, and she scrunched her eyes shut and yelled at her mind—

ShutupshutupshutupSHUTUP. 

Yeji said it loud, louder than the cackling rain striking the forest and the stones and the tangled ground.

SHUT.

UP.

Till even the sound of rain faded to the back of her mind.

Slowly opening her eyes, she saw Chaeryeong properly sitting on the steps, unbothered as she looked up at the sky, still in a torrential downpour. When she noticed Yeji had calmed down, she offered the warmest smile Yeji had ever seen from her, and shook her thumb, in an unspoken question. 

Yeji took in a slow breath.

And gave her thumbs up back.

Chaeryeong nodded and stood up, testing her own feet, before offering a hand to Yeji. 

Yeji stared at her hand, wrapped in leather, and strong as it was outstretched. Surprised by the kindness, she did a double take before taking it firmly, her other hand still wrapped around Acorn and the tight knots Hyunjin had tied around it for her.

Chaeryeong didn’t ask. Didn’t hesitate. And she didn’t let go of Yeji’s hand as they slowly continued upwards, the Wisp flickering steady where it always had been, and Yeji’s thoughts scrambling over each other.

Like she suddenly fully understood.

What would baby do without her?

Baby needed her for everything.

To survive, to grow, to learn how to be…

If Yeji slipped up even a little, if she was sick, if she had a temper one day, if she forgot, if she messed up, even if she didn’t realize it—

At the top of the stairs, Yeji gripped Chaeryeong’s hand a little tighter as a bitter pool sank beneath her heart as she finally understood.

She was doing this alone.

“…Ms Yeji, you alright?”

…star above and fires below—

“Yeji?”

—she was doing this alone.

“S… sorry,” Yeji’s voice cracked and she tilted her head back stubbornly and quietly cleared her throat, “Just… thought of something.”

Chaeryeong waited a few moments before broaching a hesitant question, “Something back home?”

Hand sweaty around her little Acorn, all she could do was hum.

“Yeah… something back home.”

Before she had to confront the full truth of her fears, they walked into an unexpected clearing in the trees, and rounding the turn in the path, suddenly came to an overlook to the valley. Stopping a moment, they waited till the wind brought an eventual break in the clouds, like the edge of a veil pulling through and letting them see their place from the perspective of the heavens. 

“Oh. Wait, we’re here,” Chaeryeong frowned, “Those lights down there are the village, and… that’s right, we’re right about as high up the mountain as the lights would have been from their perspective.”

Yeji whirled around with Chaeryeong, the two of them looking around wildly, until their gaze landed behind them, up a sheer cliff. The blue light of the Will o’ the Wisp seemed to laugh at the top of it, a golden light of fire— the very same to the description of their Stranded Mountain Ghosts.

“We’ll have to scale it,” Yeji said, an edge of horror lining her voice.

It was only after Chaeryeong had pulled out spikes to drive into the sheer stone wall and help them scale it, did she seem to pick up on it, freezing and looking between Yeji’s face and the cliff face.

“Well… it does seem that way. Is, uh… is that a problem?”

Any semblance of trying to be the mature mentor crumbled with the intense and raw need to survive Yeji had recently developed. 

She didn’t want to die. 

She’d never doubted her skills to such an extent before, but the weight of what she had to lose was too skyscraping in comparison to everything she thought she knew about herself.

“It’s alright, it is a bit terrifying so slick in the rain,” Chaeryeong admitted, pulling out a rope, “Here. We’ll go up together, don’t worry. I, um…” she hesitated with her words slightly, as though she’d never had to reassure someone before, thinking them over carefully as she tied one end securely around her own waist before measuring out the other end to tie around Yeji, “I’ve done this bit before. I mean, not the whole mountain-in-the-rain adventuring thing, that’s a new sort of dangerous, but uh… tandem-climbing a cliff. It’s fun once you put your feet up, I promise,” she offered a small smile as she tied off the rope around Yeji’s waist, holding up the cliff spikes to drive into the stone and help them up, “My sister used to do it all the time when I was little and we would slip a lot. I got better, I became the best in my class at scaling things, but it didn’t come easy. Anyways, that means you won’t have to worry,” she smiled broader than she probably felt in her chest as she tugged the rope between them, “I’ve got you.”

It was an interesting thing scaling the cliff. Yeji knew how to tie the spikes to the edge of her boots, so she’d swing her toes into the mountain and give herself a foothold. She paced herself out to swing up the spikes above her head as well, to pull herself up. 

But the entire way was fighting the rain and her own dread of slipping to her demise.

And it was undeniable, the way she shook. The harness Chaeryeong had tied was undeniably strong, and settling in it whenever she felt her breath escape her, a steadiness returned to her chest.

As they neared the top of the cliff, the soft blue light of the Wisp cast over their heads, she looked up in absolute awe at this little knight who seemed able to do everything. That same little knight who betrayed a moment’s hesitation for her at the top of the cliff, when the Wisp flew off to the next point, from where the haunting light of the flame flickered bright, even through the greyscale of the rain. Chaeryeong looked down at Yeji, as what they needed to do next was suddenly right in front of them.

Yeji swallowed harsh, before unclipping a smokescreen bomb from her side, and giving her a strong nod of A Plan.

The valley below saw a moment’s relief of their Stranded Mountain Ghosts.

A dark and light-snatching cloud swallowed up the cliff and all the golden light.

Yeji had her sword drawn, Chaeryeong a step behind her with her bow nocked, at the ready to fly arrows over Yeji’s shoulder in quick defense.

But the mountain was quiet when the smoke cleared.

Worse than quiet, the rain was outright howling in laughter at how foolish they looked, braced for the fight of their life when all that met them—

—was the warm pleasant glow of a hearth.

It was an elegant looking cottage, golden light spilling out from within, along with the shadowed portraits of its residents within throwing back their heads in merry laughter, lifting up glasses to toast amongst themselves, properly unaware it seemed. 

To make it abundantly clear to the two knights, the Will o’ the Wisp settled properly above the doorpost, almost illuminating the doorknob in a taunting invitation.

Chaeryeong lowered her bow, “A… diplomatic mission?” In a quiet, confused voice she added, “Haven’t really been good at those. Never liked them. I could have sworn this was…”

“Bloody brilliant. You’ve got to be joking.”

Yeji’s sword hit the ground, her whole stance slumping in angry disbelief.

Perhaps it was the reserve energy she now had to marvel at all her life stretched out and tied before her, or the sheer procession of one boiling over emotion to another, but Yeji had just about had it to her head in this day.

And when the thunder snapped it’s fingers for them to hurry along, all of Yeji’s emotions boiled over and—

“Oh, damn it all!”

She stormed the door, giving the inhabitants two courtesy knocks before throwing it open, Chaeryeong pale but following behind and learning everything one didn’t do on a diplomatic mission.

Yeji scowled at the three surprised men inside, who sat around a lovely rolling fire, drinking till they were a dazed rosy color. They were merchants of some sort… perhaps… except they had perfectly functional swords leaned up against the walls that only made Yeji scowl deeper.

“Oh you’ve finally come!” One of the rosier ones exclaimed, throwing his arms out and consequently sending beer from his cup splashing onto one of his companions, who threw his fist up and dared him to do it again, causing the third to goad them on in a fight.

“We haven’t had a fight in weeks, haha! Yes, throw a hook Jisung! Catch him in the chin Seungmin! Yes, get him, get him!”

“Oh, mercy ,” Chaeryeong stared with wide eyes, slumped over in disbelief, “What in all the seas have we walked into…”

“You know what? I don’t care,” Yeji pointed to the one who wasn’t fighting, “Hey! You!”

“Me? Felix!”

“I don’t care!” She held her fingers up, “Do you have food and a safe, functional bed that’ll let me sleep? Isn’t cursed or any of that nonsense?”

“Yeah, plenty of both!” Felix replied cheerfully, “All prepped for the hero who helps us with our little probl—“

“Nu-uh, not another word,” Yeji shushed him, “Point me to the bed, we’ll talk when I wake.”

Chaeryeong frowned as Jisung and the two squabbling with each other pointed to the far door, “Um… as knights, shouldn’t we, uh…. Help them first….?”

“A knight is useless run thin, Chaeryeong,” Yeji waved off, “Or at least I am. You won’t like me like this, I promise.”

Even as she closed her eyes, Yeji could swear she heard Chaeryeong giggle, and quietly add, “I like you well enough, Ms Yeji.”

But her mind was unreliable like this, and she dreamed of many terrifying things to herself, of recklessly losing her life too soon to ever meet her darling; of Hyunjin warning her of her step missing right before it did; of Ryujin placing prickle-pears at the bottom of her fall with her voice ringing a terrible little “I told you so!”

And right before she woke, breaking through in absolute clarity, washing over like a cool tide, her mother whispering straight into her heart, You’re doing just fine, my dear.

She opened her eyes to golden light and her hand woven through her necklace loosely— not like she was clinging onto something that would be wrenched from her grasp. She couldn’t even be sure she had searched for it at all, only that it woven itself through her fingers and was meant to be in her grasp. And that was a lovely thought in itself.

As her eyes adjusted, she noticed the bed across from her completely made, and Chaeryeong sitting in the middle of the floor, criss-cross and completely armed, waiting for Yeji. She double-blinked when Yeji smiled at her.

“You… up?”

“Mm. Was a good sleep. Sorry about last night.”

“Oh, uh, no, no worries. I'm sorry as well, I thought you would want your space but I… we'll help each other now,” Chaeryeong glanced around anxiously, “Are you, um… ready now?”

Yeji sat up and stretched, waiting a moment before slipping onto the floor, criss-cross next to Chaeryeong.

“Have you ever done a Quest with another knight before, Chaeryeong?”

“Um, well… not officially, ” she twirled her braids, tugging them nervously, “I grew up adventuring with all the knights in my neighborhood. They’d bring me along on whatever they did— I’d hatched a dragon egg on my own before I could write my own name. And then my sister was at the Academy, and she taught me whatever she was learning, and I went on whatever she was asked. I’ve seen it all. But I’ve, uh,” she turned an embarrassed shade as she mumbled, “Never done it myself. For myself. For my rank, I mean.”

Yeji frowned, “It didn’t count? If a knight is a much higher rank it might not work but… did your sister not want to share experience points?”

“The Guild wouldn’t let her,” Chaeryeong shrugged, “It’s alright. I just… know all the technical things without the building blocks, if that makes sense. And I suck at diplomacy.”

Yeji snorted, helping her to her feet, “Who cares? You can take out a wave attack in under ten seconds with your eyes closed, who cares if you can’t sweet talk a Prince into giving you his purse yet? You could probably swindle it better than a Rank Ten anyway!”

The glow in Chaeryeong’s cheeks reassured Yeji that maybe she wasn’t too awful at this mentorship thing after all.

“Are you both— ah, you’re up!” One of their hosts pushed open the door rudely, hands full with a plate of steaming eggs and sausage, tapping his feet nervously, “Not to uh, rush you or anything, or seem ungrateful for your showing up in this miserable weather, but… well, if you’re quite rested, er… we’d be most grateful if… well, if… over breakfast, of course, we’ll feed you all you need, and perhaps, um… if you’d be willing…”

Yeji interrupted before Chaeryeong could curl any further into herself over the sheer awkwardness of it, “We’ll be out in a few moments to hear what you’re having trouble with, and would be more than happy to help. And breakfast would be lovely, thank you.”

Deflating in relief, he replied a sincere “thank you ,” before closing the door again.

“…I think it’s a storm mage.”

Yeji’s eyebrows flew up as she hurried her tunic on, “Do you now?”

Chaeryeong shrugged, pulling herself off the floor, “Seems pretty obvious to me. The signs were on the perimeter when we entered, with the shift in storm pressure and all. The grass changed color and the rocks were smoothed oddly the closer we got. Makes perfect sense.”

“Of course it does,” Yeji smirked, “Let’s get this over with then.”

The story of their hosts was, all seriousness aside, about as ridiculous as a story could get. Seungmin, the more serious of the three, explained how they’d put aside their knighthood quests for the personal adventure of exploration. Of course, they’d long since run into people and places that they were ill-equipped to deal with because of their choices, but they hardly seemed to care. When met with a problem they couldn’t deal with, they simply turned and headed in another direction, running as fast as they could from anything that seemed too overwhelming to handle, and properly ping-ponged around a majority of the kingdom, stacking up their list of enemies and unfinished side-quests, until they were finally kicked out of the village on the other side of the mountain and decided to see how high they could scale the mountain before their boots wore out.

“Now this is the fun part,” the most charming of the three, Felix, interrupted, “We happened upon this foreign merchant that had been moving his residence suddenly. He packed everything into three caravans, and was trying to sell the settlement to the people who passed on the main road up for a ridiculously low price. Eager to get it off his hands, we negotiated the price down to dirt-cheap and found he’d even left food and supplies in his place. Wasn’t bad for the first month.”

“And then, we ran into two problems.” Jisung wiggled two fingers, “One, our friend undersold his house. In price and in disclosure. Because you see, after we’ve entered, things have started going… sour, so to speak.”

Yeji raised an eyebrow for him to elaborate as she polished off the rest of her breakfast.

“Well, if all the food isn’t eaten by nightfall, it rots from inside out and turns to bugs. And the clothes, if they aren’t washed and folded before midday, pop moths out from the stitching.”

Chaeryeong scrunched her face in disgust, “Witch-cursed?”

Seungmin nodded, the weariness in his face suddenly very visible, “Witch-cursed. And because these two idiots are allergic to hard-work, I’ve had to—“

“Hey!” Felix shouted back, offended.

“Yeah, you’re one to talk, Mister ‘I can’t eat cheese, I’m allergic.’”

“I am! And don’t talk, I eat everything else perfectly, unlike you , Sir ‘Gourmet Or Nothing’ preparations!”

“ Anyway,” Felix continued, “this wouldn’t have been so difficult had we not had a second problem— we can’t leave.”

“Oh?”

Chaeryeong rasped her fingers against the table, “Mage?”

Seungmin sighed, “Yup. Eternal storm that doesn’t let us open the door and leave, and an internal ever-burning fire that grows and tries to lick our ankles.”

At the girls’ horrified expression, Jisung smiled and gave them a wink, “Lovely, isn’t it?”

“So we’ve been stuck here,” Felix threw his arms out, “Which wasn’t so horrible, until it became pretty horrible, and we’ve been waiting for three months for someone to save us, and here you are!”

For a minute, Yeji and Chaeryeong just stared at the three pairs of eager eyes, and then looked at each other, like they had no clue where to start, which Jisung falsely interpreted as disbelief and exclaimed, “Some proof! Of course, we dare not ask your aid without some proof of the elements you deal with, naturally, of course. So,” Jisung side-eyed left and right at his companions, before touching his nose in a loud exclamation of, “Not it!”

His little game landed a distraught Felix dragging his feet to the door, nervously rubbing his hands together and pulling up his sleeves, waiting until he was sure Yeji and Chaeryeong were watching before pulling the door open.

It was immediate.

The fire from the corner of the room roared like a wild beast, galloping out towards Felix, while an immediate fog descended and poured through the door, lightning striking the porch and bringing a hooded figure about the size of a bush to apparate before their window, holding it’s bony shadow hands out with swirling electricity sparking, a burning red in its eyes that left its haunting mark on the window as Felix slammed the door shut and slumped down to the ground against it.

Seungmin and Jisung were already running around putting out the little flames on their couch and rug as the fire returned to its place. 

“And there you have it!” Jisung threw his hands out, falling back onto the couch and throwing his feet up, “Where will you start?”

Chaeryeong opened her mouth from where she stood at the window, staring at where the mage had been as though she had a myriad of ideas, but Yeji held up her hand, “Uh-uh, hang on.”

Felix’s eyes blew wide in worry, “What? What’s wrong? You won’t help?”

“Oh, we’ll help ,” she crossed her arms, “but helping means you three are going to dust your swords off and join us at the table as we plan how to take this thing down.”

Seungmin stood in protest, “But!”

Yeji held her hand up, “Chaeryeong is a Rank one taking on this Quest to save your sorry butts, and I won’t hear any excuses from you on it. A mage is serious business, and I won’t have her risking her or mine life while you three sit back and watch.”

Jisung scowled, crosssing his arms, “You sound like the last night knight that came through here, stupid Hyunjin.”

Yeji blinked in surprise as he went to grab his weapons regardless, before fondly smiling, deciding they didn’t need to know she was rather pleased she was sounding like her brother. Besides, she had her own hidden reasons for employing their help, one for her good and the other for theirs, and she was sure that both were noble enough to be right and true.

As soon as she got the three of them prepared and gathered, helping them sharpen their unused swords and step into their unused armor, Chaeryeong had drawn up a plan on the floor in chalk.

“We’ll attack the mage from outside, but it’ll retreat into the fire in here when we do, so you three will need to draw a perimeter and fight it back till it comes back out to us. It’s probably drawing energy from the residual witch magic in here, so we need to keep it as far from the house whenever we can.”

The mature face that had scared Yeji had first met now reassured her, because she saw all the knowledge Chaeryeong couldn’t show in her rank pouring out at full force.

It made her neck feel a little lighter when they drew together.

Perhaps she fiddled with the acorn a little too long, because it went more noticed than it had been when it was tucked under her collar, and Seungmin was suddenly staring at it for a moment too long, and then giving her a broad smile.

“Ah, how rare! A Baby Boon— congratulations!”

Yeji froze, and blinked several times in confusion, which Chaeryeong misread as being cornered and promptly socked Seungmin in the shoulder hard enough to bruise.

“What?! That’s what it is!”

“Yeah, but she didn’t say anything probably for a reason, you can’t just go around congratulating people like that— “

“ Yeah ,” Felix hissed, putting up his hand like it would keep Yeji from hearing, “ What if she’s cursed or something? ”

Sputtering indignantly, Yeji’s hand curled around Acorn protectively, “I am not-“

“I apologize on behalf of my guys,” Jisung said, haughty with no small serving of suave side-stepping, “They’re both a bit dim-witted.”

“ Oi!”

“Who are you calling-?!”

“Now wait a second,” Yeji held her necklace up, shoving them away from each other before another fight could break out, “You’ve seen one of these before? You know what it is?”

“Well… yeah?” Seungmin looked at her like she was the crazy one, “It’s a Baby Boon. Extremely rare, but only given to truly noble knights. I’ve read about them.”

Jisung snorted, “ You would have.”

“So when are you due?” Felix dared ask, since the topic was properly out in the open, and everyone turned to Yeji expectantly.

“I, uh… am I supposed to know that?”

Their looks turned far too sympathetic for her liking in the blink of an eye, and she felt her cheeks heat up in an embarrassment she didn’t know she could feel over something she was never informed of.

This Chaeryeong picked on rather seamlessly, shoving the boys aside and taking her wrist before they could pity her any longer.

“An easy enough calculation if you’ve done it before, which of course you can’t have been expected to know. No matter, we’ll figure it out after this mage is properly turned to dust anywho, there’s no rush to it now, is there?”

Clearly she was very decided about it, because soon enough they were in the forest outside the cabin, and Yeji was hiding behind a bush with her sword drawn blinking rain from her eyelashes and very much not thinking about how Acorn would swing and hit her square in the chest to the very beat of her heart.

It certainly must be rare, she thought to herself, if both Hyunjin and Jisu didn’t know of it… and Ryujin sounded like it was a thing I made up.

Must be… special.

And that made her smile as their fight began, as her sword rang out, shining just as Chaeryeong’s arrow hit true, beneath the hood of the mage and bursting it into flames. Throwing the perimeter dust around the clearing, she swung for the base of the mage’s cape as it tried to levitate and strike Chaeryeong back, momentarily dazing it enough to give it a strong powered attack to it's center, stepping back to cover her ears as it screamed defensively and teleported out to the cottage. 

Chaeryeong stepped out from the bush for a second, talented ear to the air to listen as it landed in the fireplace and the boys cried out a battle-cry to attack it. When the mage tired of the boys, it would return, and again the two would take their turns attacking it. Chaeryeong’s arrows never missed, but Yeji’s blows started to lose their strength as her stamina ran thin, and in one horrid moment of her foot slipping and her sword feeling too heavy for her hands, the drum of her heart over Acorn near her chest would near paralyze her over her lack of strength to make it long enough to see her little one— till she tightened her grip and felt a strong voice remind her—

You didn’t gather any strength to earn her.

You needn’t to see her.

Just enough for what’s right in front of you, Yeji.

With a battle cry, Yeji swung forward and bashed the creature in the face, leaving it retreating while she ran over to a cheering Chaeryeong to hide beside her in a thrum of fire in her bones.

It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. And she’ll come whenever she’s ready and you’ll be ready then too.

They hid together in the bush, waiting in ambush for when the mage would inevitably retreat from the blinding attack of three swords and right back into their hands to finish them. Yeji wasn’t sure if it was sweat or rain that made her hands so slick around her sword, but it made her fidget like an anxious squirrel with a seizure disorder, twirling the hilt of her sword one way and then the other while they waited. It took Chaeryeong a couple of times of poking her shoulder for Yeji to realize she was trying to get her attention, but when she finally noticed, Chaeryeong was giggling at her and stepping out of the bush, something sparkling in her hand.

“I’ve got a plan— wait here in case I need backup!”

Before Yeji could ask what exactly that would look like, Chaeryeong jumped out in offense as a burst of bright smoke brought the mage back to them, carefully ducking below the ring of electricity it sent out to protect itself, swinging her arm out and throwing a flash of silver out, nocking her bow in the same motion, so that as the flash hit the mage in the chest, a fiery arrow followed to drive it fully through the mage’s cloaks to the center of it’s core, exploding in a blinding rage.

The last thing Yeji could see before her vision went white, was the mage’s cloak melt off and the creature grasp it’s head in utter defeat, while the explosion itself sent a limp Chaeryeong-shaped shadow flying back into the forest.

Her feet kicked into action as the explosion crested, running straight into the smoke of it, where it swirled around a skeletal shadow-form, that reached out it’s bony fingers as it’s hollowed mouth and sunken red eyes, which had significantly dulled from the attack, looked up at Yeji in surprised defeat, the edge of Yeji’s sword against its throat to keep it on the ground.

Chaeryeong called out from somewhere further in the forest, “ Finish it, Yeji!”

Yeji sat down, sword still braced to keep the creature down, while she fished out a crystal ball from her pocket, of a softer pink glow than Chaeryeong’s flash attack had been.

“I give you a choice,” her voice was steeled, but not thoroughly unkind, “A Katharine to give you a second chance, or a quick but certain end to your black life.”

The creature looked up at her like she was telling it a new thing it had never heard, glancing at the crystal Katharine and Yeji’s grip on her hilt, skilled and unwavering. Back and forth it glanced, before looking up at the skies, where the clouds pulled in the wind, no longer tethered by it’s magic. The red in it’s eyes softened into a peach color when it looked back at Yeji and nodded to the crystal.

Yeji nodded back, kissing the little spell of purity, before pressing it against the mage’s mouth, waiting until it closed it’s mouth around the crystal before pulling back with her sword, letting it hang by her side while she watched.

The creature closed it’s eyes as the Katharine burned bright, a sunset pink that melted through it, till the color woven into it’s skin melted in the power of it, and washed into a white. The mage swallowed the crystal, and with it swallowed it’s old identity for a new one, opening it’s eyes to reveal a green light where the red one had been, slowly standing and turning to observe the world, as though for the first time, it’s cloak forming around it as it finally looked up at the sky, clear and bright. Then it looked down at Yeji, a soft hum of gratitude from it’s core, as it fluttered and flashed in the light.

And dissapparated.

A soft wind replaced the area where it had been.

“…You didn’t kill it.”

Chaeryeong was slumped at the tree she’d been thrown into, and although looking a little worse for wear, the little scratches and bruises on her skin slowly mending themselves. Yeji helped her sit up, frowning at the healing until she noticed the triangular fruits tucked into Chaeryeong’s palm.

“Sorenberry?”

“Of course.” Chaeryeong threw another in her mouth, wincing as it’s sharp flavor burst as she chewed it, “Collect them wherever I go. I’m never in low supply— you need?”

Yeji took one for the sake of her exhaustion, and settled into the ground next to Chaeryeong, the bird-song and peace of the mountain slowly returning as the clear skies did.

“You didn’t kill it,” Chaeryeong repeated, “…that’s not Code. Or Academy protocol.”

Yeji shrugged, “My brother and I learned that Katharine spells wipe them clean in our first year, and we’ve done it ever since.”

“But they’re shadow creatures. A storm mage is one of the most convoluted. You don’t just… redeem something like that.”

“No easier than you just kill one. But you’re not wrong— I have no clue what it’ll do after this. It might become a Wisp, it could be a neutral Creature of the Earth, or it could become a Storm Mage again, I simply don’t know. But I don’t think I need to.” She turned and poked Chaeryeong’s rather old-looking contemplative expression, “Fancy move, what you pulled. Learn that from someone?”

“Oh, ah, not exactly,” Chaeryeong blushed, “I watched a knight do it with an added enchantment only a Rank Four or higher can pull, and, uh… I’ve always been the back-up for the move before.”

Yeji stared, “Why… didn’t you ask me to do it then? That was dangerous!”

Chaeryeong stared at Acorn, and with an expression so sincere and innocent, more akin to her age than any face she’d given Yeji before, exclaimed— “How could I ask you to? I couldn’t!”

Something in the way she said it felt between being protected and loved, and the peace Yeji had chased for before washed over her easily in that comforting thought of being taken care of every step of her way. Even, and perhaps especially, when she wasn't looking for it.

The sky cleared into fresh mountain air, crisp and cool, and this time Yeji took Chaeryeong’s hand as the younger knight limped her way beside her.

“We had a neighbor, this great knight, renowned and well-feared, Knight Momo,” Chaeryeong explained, “She had a Baby Boon. Raised her as a single mother. Her daughter is a little older than my sister, a great knight of her own, graduated a couple years before my sister. Her and her mom would let us go on adventures with them. I… really owe everything to them honestly.”

Yeji had heard of Momo— one would have to live under a rock to have not.

“Would… would I know her daughter?”

Chaeryeong shrugged, “Probably, she’s a local legend where I’m from. Tzuyu? She was young for her graduating class but—“

“Tzuyu?!” Yeji’s eyes grew wide and she dropped her hand, “Freaking Tzuyu was a Boon Baby?”

Chaeryeong smirked, stretching her knee as it healed, “She never mentioned?”

“I—! We barely had the courage to breathe the same air as her, much less try and speak to her.”

Cackling, Chaeryeong shoved Yeji and her disbelief to the side far too nonchalantly.

“No, I’m serious! I— wait, should I know your sister?” Chaeryeong hesitated and Yeji took her arm, “Oh, moon and stars, she’s a legend too isn’t she?”

“Um, well…she’s a Rank Five now, I believe… do you know a Chaeyeon?”

Yeji properly lost all semblance of dignity at that.

“You’re Lee-freaking-Chaeyeon’s sister? Are you serious ?!”

“See, it’s not a thing I’m overly fond of leading with—“

“Dude! She was top of my class, she, like, owned my brother in Practical Defense! I begged her to teach me everything she knew.”

“Yeah, uh, she’s good at what she does…”

“And you!” Yeji skipped ahead till she could properly take Chaeryeong by the shoulders and look her in the eye, “She would tell us all about you!”

Chaeryeong paled, “What.”

“She would go on and on about how you would recite form spells in your sleep, and how you were the heart and soul of the great knights of old, the things every knight of this age had forgotten to be!”

Chaeryeong’s eyes were wide and shaking, altogether too vulnerable as she listened to Yeji. And in a swell of immense pride and terrible fondness, Yeji added softly,

“And she was absolutely right.”

Chaeryeong's attempts to scoff did nothing for the rosy pride that rose up to her cheeks, “Well, I still suck at diplomacy.”

“Well, nothing a little practice won’t fix,” Yeji linked her arm with the younger girl’s and led her straight back to the cottage, “And I know just the three knights we can work on it with.”

There wasn’t too much of a spectacular cottage to return to, it’s inhabitants clearly unbothered by the idea as they sat outside on the porch they had never thought they’d step foot on again, faces dusty with ash but bright in gratitude. They didn’t have much to offer in thanks to the two knights, but what they did offer in witch’s cheese and sausage the two knights denied anyway.

“We’d much rather your company as reward,” Yeji said sweetly, “to accompany us to the temple and give report for our quest.”

The smiles dropped like heavy weights into the ground.

“No way.”

“Nu-uh!”

“Not happening.”

“But you’re knights?” Chaeryeong frowned, “And you’ve helped us carry out our quest! It’s only right, according to Code—“

“—but we go to the temple, right?” Jisung interrupted, “And we give our report, and they ask us ‘Say, why haven’t you been doing quests all this time?’ And look at our rank and suddenly give us more than we can handle in sending us out and about the country!”

Chaeryeong opened her mouth, and then turned helplessly to Yeji.

“Well… for one, you don’t know that’ll happen, but more importantly— why haven’t you been doing quests?” Yeji pointed out, “You’re all academy graduates, more than capable of doing good, so… why haven’t you?”

“I’m not good at finishing things,” Jisung said proudly.

“I put my foot in it with diplomacy,” Felix followed.

“I’m not made for fighting, I’m more of a bookish knight myself,” Seungmin added firmly.

Chaeryeong raised an eyebrow, “And?”

The three turned to her and she stammered, “Well, what I mean is… none of those things make you a bad knight. Sure, there might be some things you need to work on, and yes, maybe there are things that are your strengths and others that make you ill-equipped for certain quests but… you needn’t do them alone, which you three clearly know, since you work so well together. And a knight’s duty is broad and varied. There isn’t a certain quest that makes a better knight than anyone else, only that you do them. Not… whatever it is you three have been doing. In fact,” she crossed her arms rather firmly, “it sounds like you’ve been running away from your rank and bringing more trouble onto yourselves this whole time.”

The three looked between each other nervously, before Jisung firmly stood up.

“Rank isn’t everything,” he clenched his fists, “Knight Chan showed us so— he hasn’t taken any quests for the past year, and is the most respected knight in the kingdom!”

“Well, of course rank isn’t everything!” Chaeryeong replied just as defensively, “It’s nothing at all to measure the will of a knight who doesn’t stop learning, and growing, and doing good. You’d be half a knight as Chan if you could ever acquire a rank to reflect your goodwill like him.”

“Twelfth Rank Knight Chan?” Yeji raised an eyebrow, “Knight Chan who aggressively climbed ranks in the first two years of his knighthood and comes to the academy to speak on the importance of not rushing yourself but still accomplishing your quests, that Knight Chan?”

“Who’s curently trying to gain the favor of Princess Sana’s hand, that Knight Chan.” Chaeryeong rolled her eyes, and looked at the boys again, “You know that quests look differrent and take longer when a knight climbs rank. And if falling in love with an enchanting princess was not his quest… well, he’s on a different sort of quest for himself either way. Either way, you know what it’s not? Running away from what’s in front of him.”

Felix kicked the ground sheepishly, “We really weren’t running away… it just seemed too big for us, whatever we faced.”

“Well, that’s what landed you in a quest you couldn’t run from,” Yeji pointed to the cottage with disdain, “Better the quest you see coming than the one you don’t, in my opinion. You boys just sound like you need a lesson in how to equip yourselves before a quest.”

Jisung scowled, “Stupid, pretty-face Hyunjin said that too.”

“And he wasn’t wrong,” Seungmin mumbled back.

“Maybe now’s the time we learn,” Felix said hopefully, albeit a tad sheepishly, “Since… we have someone willing to help us?”

They waited for Yeji to smile, before Chaeryeong broke into excited clapping, “We can go to the temple near my place! Oh, Yeji you can meet Momo and Tzuyu, and ask them everything you want to know, too!”

“Is it far?” Jisung whined as they gathered their things and started off, “I’m allergic to walking far distances with a purpose.”

“Oh don’t complain. It’s not as far as Yeji’s temple and we did that in the storms.”

“But—“

“Anymore complaining and we’ll leave you alone to explain to the villagers why you were haunting their mountain.”

“ Haunting?! We were there against our will!”

“So? Do you think a ghost chooses anymore than you did? No! And you terrified those poor people all the same.”

Felix frowned, “Well, maybe we should drag the storm mage to explain—“

“Those people didn’t help us! They had it coming!” Seungmin argued.

So Chaeryeong raised an eyebrow and linked her arm with Yeji’s, “I’m hearing these three want to do the explaining themselves, hm?”

“Oh yes,” Yeji laughed, “That’s what I’m hearing!”

“No, hey!”

“Wait—!”

“No-no-no, wait, please—“

“We’re sorry, don’t make us!”

"Don't apologize to the enem–"

"You want back in the cursed cottage, Jisung? Because we'll leave you back in the cursed cottage. "

The girls giggled back, and the sun started to set on the mountain, a more warm and welcoming golden glow than the cabin they left behind.

“Oh hey,” Yeji frowned, “Why did you come to the temple in my area?”

Chaeryeong simply shrugged laying her head on Yeji’s shoulder, “The river was clean and fresh, and the land led down so invitingly. My sister always said the land knows where you ought to go best. I had always thought it was silly, but I don’t think so anymore,” she smiled up at Yeji, “Because I found the temple, with a quest that intrigued me, and asked Jisu for a knight who would teach me, and I met you.”

Yeji smiled gratefully, tucking Chaeryeong’s hair behind her ear from where it had come out of her braid, “You’re too sweet. I haven’t taught you anything at all, Knight Chaeryeong, you know it all yourself.”

Blushing a shade that challenged winter berries, Chaeryeong buried her face in Yeji’s cloak.

“Except diplomacy,” Yeji teased, “We’ve got to work on your subtly a bit, you righteous preacher.”

Chaeryeong laughed, and her laugh was a childish and free thing that made Yeji’s heart sing in all sorts of pleasant tones that put her at ease and made her forget her worries.

“Yeji?”

“Mm.”

“You’ll be a good mother.”

And Yeji didn’t know anything about that, but Acorn rested as close to her heart as Chaeryeong, and she thought that maybe she would one day.

~⚔️~

Ryujin despised Yeji. Truly. Honestly and fully.

Because a fairy was never caught up in complicated little emotions like pity and anxiety and fear, but somehow a terrible sort of knight who didn’t think to send letters home about her whereabouts and didn’t track the days as they passed managed to make all three emotions wreck a warpath in Ryujin’s chest.

She’d gone on a murderous vengeance of cleaning after the second week, and had promptly given up by the seventh. On the ninth week she renounced companionship forever, and lasted three hours flying to scout for a new residence to terrorize before remembering she’d already cooked meals for herself that would go to waste if she didn’t finish them— and when she did, decided it was too much work to proper up another stove for herself that was as perfect as this one anyway, and simply went to market to get herself more food. 

By the thirteenth week, the trees had burst into their flavors of autumn, and Ryujin could’ve almost convinced anyone she didn’t know Yeji. And she didn’t need her even if she was acquainted with vague runaway knights who forgot their housemates so carelessly. 

Of course, the act would fall apart at nights, when Ryujin would twist and turn with all her troublesome little emotions in her matchbox bed, and in a flurry of anger, fly out of the little flowerpot cottage to buzz about the apartment, complaining to anything that would listen to her, before crashing into Yeji’s bed, hauling back the sheets, and making herself quite at home on the knight’s pillow until sleep claimed her.

She would call it an act of revenge, but any sane person would have probably named it an act of heart-sickness in missing one’s dearest friend.

Ryujin would never know such a thing, much less name it.

Which was why she didn’t move a muscle when the door creaked open on the evening of the third day of the fourteenth week, no matter how enticing the smell of lamb roast that accompanied the gentle footsteps.

“Ryujin? Little pixie?”

“Out of town,” she called back, dull and altogether grey, “Nowhere to be found. Possibly deceased.”

Yeji’s footsteps always had a sort of gentleness to them, padded and light like some mythical being that floated over the top of the floorboards— or maybe Ryujin’s mind was playing tricks on her, and she was hallucinating some comforting version of a noble and kind knight that didn’t make her feel like she’d just flown through a waterfall of molasses and left to drown.

“Oh, that won’t do,” Yeji’s voice sang quietly, the bed dipping as she sat down, and promptly causing Ryujin to come rolling towards her, a limp deadweight Yeji gently picked up, “I had brought us supper, but you’ve done such a stellar job of stocking us meals and keeping this place exceptionally clean. Actually,” she frowned, running a finger over the bed frame, “Did you use a spell or something? It isn’t even dusty… and you hate dusting.”

Ryujin frowned, remembering oh yeah, I do, the realization of which gave her such a renewal of her anger, she sprung up on her wings, pointedly looking away from Yeji’s eyes.

“Well what would you know about me? I don’t even know you, who are you? My housemate was declared dead after she left home without any notice for weeks on end, we had no choice but to declare her death and claim her property.”

“Oh did you?” Yeji raised an eyebrow, “Who claimed all my spoils and possessions then?”

“Well, I took the burden upon myself to divide them up, and it was with great personal pain, I assigned each thing away,” she glanced over her shoulder, before pouting proudly, “I gave a great deal away to Jisu.”

Yeji barked a laugh, “What?!”

“Mhm, she simply could not be comforted in her grief any other way.”

“Well, that’s odd,” Yeji played along teasingly, “Because I visited her before I came here, and she didn’t seem all that moved in grief, or comforted by my foiling of my supposed demise.”

“Well, grief certainly does odd— wait ,” Ryujin froze in the air and turned an angry accusatory eye towards Yeji, “You mean to tell me you were in town and didn’t come straight to the Fourth Great Oak to the Right but went and talked to that nonsense selkie instead?”

“Of course,” Yeji played off, breezing by the stunned fairy cheekily, “I know you aren’t taken by emotions like longing and separation grief, not like my dear selkie friend, you know?”

A deep scowl on her face, Ryujin threw her heel into the ground and zipped behind Yeji’s head, half a mind to set the edges of her hair on fire and see just how composed she was then.

“Your quest was so complicated then?” Ryujin grit out, a little spark of vengeance glaring in hopefulness, “Nearly died? Fell into all sorts of trouble?”

“Actually, I finished it quite easily. Made a friend with this young knight I was paired with too. We had to travel over to her temple to reintegrate these troublesome knights, and then met up with another knight who’s just like me,” Ryujin deflated a little as Yeji touched her necklace gently, “She had a pinecone… she still keeps it on her shelf. Her daughter’s a little older than me, a proper legend, can you imagine? Oh, and she gave me this, to figure out when baby will come—“

She pulled out a paper disk, and despite Ryujin’s attempts to hold her temper, she curiously hovered over her shoulder to see. It twisted over itself, with dates along the sides, and another that would change through the hole in the disk as it was twisted.

“See, I just… line up the date Acorn came to me… align it with this mark… and… there!” She flushed proudly, “That’s the date we’ll meet my darling!”

Ryujin squinted uncertainly as the date became clear to her, “That… can’t be terribly accurate, can it? It’s just a flimsy piece of paper, after all.”

“Well, I thought so too, so I got I verified by two certified experts,” Yeji frowned, and then played with the edges of the disk, “And by experts I mean my new friend who’s heard stories, and this one knight who read this one transcript no one else had seen on a cavern wall on this village chieftan had recieved a Baby Boon– but that's good enough for me."

"Yeah, uh-huh, sure," the date on the page was in harrowing red in Ryujin's eyes, "But you're sure that that's the date?"

"Mhm. And we've got to do a lot on that day when baby comes," she pulled out a list that was tucked away in her pocket, a rolled up little scroll that broke Ryujin's heart when it rolled out down to Yeji's waist, "I'll need to go down for registration to three different places within the first two days, and give myself space and time to go get the things we won't even realize we'd forgotten, and– oh, I'll probably need to meal prep things that are simple and easy to store for a bit, since it'll be too busy to–"

"--but it's on that day?!" Ryujin cried out again, more exasperated than before.

Yeji stared at her, properly confused, "...why, yes. Is there a problem with that day?"

"But- but that's illegal!"

At this point, Ryujin had gone a proper funny cherry tomato color, and since Yeji couldn't see the microscopic pin-pricks of tears in her eyes she teased her all the more for it.

"Oh? Haha," Yeji poked her little feet lightly in teasing, "And why would that be, hm?"

"Because that's Christmas! "

Now, in all honesty, even if Yeji had registered the date to be a markedly celebrated holiday, she would not have been able to conflate great emotions of distress, since the momentous and once-in-a-lifetime occasion of her baby's arrival seemed to trump all else. Christmas was undoubtedly special, and while it was a season she'd put aside her own schedule to cherish people around her and slow down for things that were important, it had always looked different depending on the season of life she was in, and it seemed to her, the greatest celebration in her life had arrived on the most excellent calendar date for her.

But she was not in the mind of a certain fairy, to whom Christmas had been an altogether meaningless and arbitrary date until the entrance of someone else to dote upon, someone to throw up Christmas candles with and cut a whole honeyed ham with and remember the past year in gratefulness because the past year was truly filled with memories enough between two. It was Yeji reminding Ryujin very sincerely how much the little fairy meant to her, and Ryujin admitting that her life had, perhaps, become brighter with Yeji in it.

But Yeji didn't realize the weight of all that, so she brushed it off with, "We'll celebrate early or something. We'll be busy enough the day of, anyway."

It was entirely practical, but for the holiday to be so easily thrown aside was a personal knife twisted into Ryujin's heart.

The fairy let out a sound of mangled distress, followed quickly by hot tears that splashed down to her toes made Yeji realize the full extent of her lack of tact.

Yeji opened her mouth, and then closed it again, conflicting thoughts of Ryujin misinterpreting her teasing far too seriously and wanting to apologize and make it right with her as quickly as possible short-circuiting any logical processing, and the two opposing thoughts rendering her utterly speechless as the fairy threw her dust forward in an angry fit and flew off to her little cottage pot, slamming the door of it and leaving it swinging from where it hung from the force of her pain.

The treehouse on the third floor of the Fourth Great Oak to the Right returned to a silence.

A week later, Ryujin hadn't left her pot, and Yeji sat crying to herself as the first snow floated down and blanketed their village in white. She had distracted herself as much as she could for those seven days, cleaning herself from travel and setting up whatever was left for the nursery and readying the house for a smaller, fragile resident. Although it sat bitter in her mouth whenever she felt the distinct lack of fairy dust or fluttering of wings behind her ears. 

Her brother sent a soft-knit doll that spurred her into an impromptu shopping trip for toys she didn’t know existed was suddenly on her list of necessities, and it was only when there were baskets of cute things for little hands in every possible free space she had that she had been forced to face the reality.

She had four weeks till Christmas, and there was not a single thing more she needed.

Except her little housemate.

“You really only need to be kind and let her choose to forgive you,” Jisu had waved off her concerns when she’d visited and smoothed a blanket over the side of the crib which she’d bought off one of the adventurers, a fine thing of high-quality silk and skilled embroidery that Yeji imagined would be a comfortable thing to be swaddled in, “Fairies can be stubborn about their pettiness, you can’t do anything about it.”

Which, rather naturally, made Yeji wish for a second opinion on the matter— a flare of emotions that lasted less than five minutes when she realized the only other opinion she had was Hyunjin’s and Chaeryeong's, the former of whom would just as quickly tell her to kick the fairy out while she had the chance.

She's more trouble than she's worth, she could hear him write, You ought not to burden yourself at a time like this.

It took a few more days, while she was sweeping snow off their porch, for her to gather the words to inquire of the latter, but when she did manage to write out a letter to sample her thoughts on how to win back a fairy, she only received a reply of surprise at even attempting such a thing, and eagerly asking to keep her updated on how it turned out, and to include any tips should she acquire them. As well as a lengthy postscript wishing her grand blessings as the arrival of her baby drew closer.

So Yeji tried to earn her forgiveness her own way, with as much sincerity as anyone would put into a dear relationship that had grown roots and settled deeply into an unrootable corner of her heart.

She tried with little pieces of cheese— sharp, well-aged as Ryujin liked— and whatever fruits she managed to scour out during the cold season from passing travelers. 

They disappeared, so they were clearly well received, but the enjoyer herself refused to seen.

“Well,” Yeji spoke quietly to the pot, a brisk morning seven days before Christmas, as though Ryujin’s ear was pressed close to the wall, listening carefully, “I’m going to fetch tinsel and candles from the market today… and I’ll go down to the butcher for ham tomorrow, if… if you’d like to join.”

The pot was quiet. Yeji traveled alone to the Christmas stalls.

She picked the brightest and most  beautiful she could find, and left all the bags out under the pot, in her deepest show of explaining where her words could not.

The bags were sorted in the morning, candles lining the windowsills and arranged decoratively as possible on all tables, tinsel tucked into little corners and catching morning sunlight in glittering radiance.

Yeji didn’t notice most of it, only the tinsel hanging off the edges of the pot and a warmth flickering within the pot, casting shadows of fairy wings dancing just beyond her sight. 

“Ah, thank you,” she whispered, like a hidden secret between them both, lingering a moment longer, just to hear the twinkle of Ryujin’s wings fluttering happily.

And that was enough for Yeji to go into the market, even with as little clue as she had.

“…You sure you know what you’re doing?” Ms Jamie raised an eyebrow when Yeji tried to pick a pig.

“Probably. Unless I’ve made some sort of horrible decision, in which case, please help me. ”

Ms Jamie's usual standoffishness disappeared for a moment, thorough confusion garnering enough empathy for her to even look Yeji in the eye.

“Where’s that little friend of yours?” She looked around Yeji’s waist, like Ryujin would pop out from thin air, “She always knows what she’s doing, snobby as she is.”

“Uh… sick.”

“Hm,” the concern disappeared as quickly as it had come, and Ms Jamie waved her away, “Take the runt if you’d like, but don’t loiter asking stupid things.”

So Yeji left with an armful of alright-looking vegetables, that she mainly picked based on what she thought picture-book veggies were colored like in their ripeness.

She kicked open the door, trying not to drop anymore tomatoes, only to see Ryujin hovering face-level, arms crossed as she critically evaluated everything in her hands. 

In fact, she wouldn’t even let Yeji take another step into their home, flitting from one purchase to another until—

“Satisfactory.” She said with a curt nod, “These will do.”

Yeji bit back a gleeful smile, “Oh that’s good.”

“And you didn’t attempt to pick a pig,” Ryujin flicked her wrist and sent the groceries in on a gust of wind, which promptly turned and spun Yeji on her heel and back down the stairs, “Excellent. We’ll get this done quickly then without having to return a borish one.”

The walk back down to the market was much quicker, Yeji on Ryujin’s glittering trail, heart full at seeing her friend so eagerly dart about, slamming down Yeji’s pouch of coins and very decidedly hovering over a pig until Ms Jamie finally gave in on trying to convince her of another one and called her husband to butcher it.

“I should've given you the runt,” she grunted, refusing to look Yeji in the eye as they traded gold for pink meat.

The walk back to the Fourth Great Oak on the Right was much slower, Ryujin flying an inch above Yeji’s head halfway there, until she finally gave in and settled onto Yeji’s head, pulling out strands from her braid over her lap to strap her down.

Yeji stopped dead in her tracks.

Ryujin waited two seconds before kicking her feet, “What, your legs die or something? Well that’s tragic, because I can’t fly you anywhere, you bumbling oaf, you'll have to sit here and freeze until your legs turn on again."

Truly, it wasn't for lack of strength Yeji stopped in her tracks, as much as lack of sight, as a horrid blurriness overtook her vision, and made everything an icy grey as she finally tried to do justice in her words.

"I'm not much of a diplomat," her words warbled slightly as she ran her arm across her eyes, "But I've got to apologize for what I've said to you."

The ends of her hair tugged as Ryujin played with the strands between her hands, "Oh, don't be daft. You're a mother-to-be with a million things in your head, whatever could you have to apologize for?"

"A lot it would seem," Yeji took a deep breath, focusing on the floating lanterns along the path decorated in bright red bows for the season, "I haven't taken care of a good thing I've got, what business do I have chasing the one I haven't touched yet that'll come no sooner with my carelessness? No… I've been a true dimwit," she paused as the word fell heavy, "I neglected you in my last adventure and took advantage of your patience with me all this time. You've been nothing but kind, reasonable, and fair with me, and I didn't act justly in loitering on my return home without a letter, carelessly tossing aside your feelings when we met again after so long, and then disregarding a date you'd held so preciously. I… hadn't realized how much Christmas meant to you," she admitted, "But even so, that's no excuse for how I acted. And I'm sincerely sorry for it."

The air was still and quiet in the openness of Yeji's apology, frost from the ground slowly creeping in to chill Yeji's toes, as Ryujin stilled in Yeji's hair, mumbling in a tone too low to hear, before swinging her head down over the edge of Yeji's forehead.

Yeji went cross-eyed looking up at her face, upside down and all, and was met with a light flick between her eyes.

"I'm the only one allowed to call you dimwit, you hear me?" Ryujin scolded, with no real fire as she even smoothed over the spot she had flicked, "And… that's quite decent of you, knight-friend. I… wouldn't know much about decentness like yours, it's really not fair in my pettiness, why couldn't you be a little less noble, hm?" She waited until she felt Yeji loosen up and gather a laugh, before adding in a quiet, serious voice, "But that's truly too decent of you. Consider… consider yourself forgiven, knight-friend. I shan't remember it as long as you shan't."

Yeji breathed out a long and true sigh, and lifted up her hand for Ryujin to crawl into, smiling at her dearly and cupping her and her wings close as Ryujin hugged her thumb and smiled back.

"Now. Let's get out of this wretched cold, hm?" Ryujin insisted, "We want to be better than ice blocks for when your baby comes, don't we?"

Yeji laughed to herself and added some fire to her steps as they carried their christmas pig home.

"Do you suppose your baby might like roasted ham?" Ryujin wondered absently as she left it in the ice at the roots of the Fourth Great Oak to the Right, "Since it's a magic baby and all… but then again maybe not. Shall we cook it two nights before? In case the little thing doesn't care for the smell?"

Yeji considered it, lifting Ryujin to her shoulder once the fairy had satisfactorily laid the meat to freeze, "Well… I suppose we can't know that. So there's no reason to change our tradition of Christmas ham on Christmas."

Ryujin gasped a little, surprised, "Really? Truly? Are you sure? Won't you want to have all your energy for the baby's arrival?" And then, considering it herself, decided, "Yes, you will. Let's do it the day before, why don't we? We'll pretend it's Christmas, just for ourselves."

Yeji laughed as she kicked off the snow at the doorpost to their treehouse, waiting for the spells to whir out of protection and welcome her, before considering out loud, "But I suppose there isn't a much better way to gather our energy than a proper christmas honeyed-ham, is there?"

Ryujin was quiet on her shoulder as Yeji pulled off her frozen boots and gloves, before glowing a shade brighter and replying softly in a voice that betrayed her smile, "Well. I suppose there isn't."

So Christmas morning came in all her glory, in crystal glimmering snow and twinkling bells on the wind. 

Yeji woke up early, pulling out her little set of a manger and all the novelty of a singular odd stable to place on their center table, next to their blooming vase of IceDrops, courtesy of Jisu who'd stopped by Christmas eve to confirm that all was well again at the Fourth Great Oak to the Right.

"Told you she'd come around. She's a darling little thing," she'd smiled, giving Ryujin a little wave as the fairy peeked out in surprise at being praised, blushing something furious, muttering something about "silly queenie behavior," and flying off before she could get too used to it, "As are you. All set for baby?"

Yeji had touched Acorn and nodded, "Not really, but you can't ever be truly set for these things I suppose. You've just got to take them in all their excitement."

Jisu gave her a softer smile and a tight embrace, "Oh, you really never change, Yeji~"

Laying out silverware on Christmas morning, Yeji wasn't so sure her friend was correct on that matter. She'd changed quite a bit, and looking back with a sort of Christmas joy, she knew it was entirely for the better.

"Look at you with your motherly glow already," Ryujin flew in, armed with a bright pink ribbon with golden stitching she had bought for the day, that she got to work on pulling Yeji's hair back to weave the pretty thing into, "Absolutely deplorable. Save some cheer for the rest of us, why don't you, hm?"

Yeji laughed, holding as still as she could for Ryujin to finish the bow on her head before reaching up and admiring– "Oh, it's so soft! Did you make this?"

Crossing her arms indignantly, Ryujin scoffed, "Of course I didn't, what do you take me for? I'm only a fairy after all," she waved her hand absently, "That silly brother of yours, he had some insight into these things. I ordered it through him."

"Oh, you're both speaking to one another now? That's–"

Ryujin scrunched her nose, holding her hand up, "Don't push it, knight-friend. He's only middlingly tolerable, and only because he shares some of your blood. Don't expect us to shake hands over anything."

Reaching up to touch the ribbon, Yeji smiled as her friend flew to prepare the kitchen for her work.

"Of course not, fairy-dear, wouldn't dream of it."

Yeji waited until Ryujin had settled down from her excitement, a flurry of joy giving her speed to bring all the ingredients for their dinner up to their kitchen in unparalleled efficiency. When everything was laid out and Ryujin was about to set a pan to the stove– "Nu-uh! Not that old thing for you, I've gotten something better…"

Rushing to one of the few cabinets that Ryujin hadn't dared touch of Yeji's clutter, Yeji pulled out a hefty iron skillet, smoothly polished with the fresh smell of enchantments still on it.

"Ta-da! Merry Christmas my little fairy-friebd!" She laid it on the fire for her, excitedly clapping, "I don't really know how it works but my friend Chaeryeong said it makes food taste like something quite exotic and– hey, are you alright?"

Ryujin was not, in fact, alright. She gaped at the beautiful skillet in dumbfounded delight, staring at it in all its glory for a whole two minutes, before lifting her hand to snap her fingers, and watching the metal criss-cross in bright purple spells that made the food near it hover, haloed in a similar light.

"You." She pointed to Yeji, still staring at it in wonderstruck joy, "Out."

Yeji giggled, "Are you sure I can't help?"

"Yes. No. Out. Let me properly acquaint myself with my one fated love without your loud breathing ruining it."

Which Yeji took, in delight, to mean that Ryujin was thoroughly charmed by her gift.

While the fairy cooked, Yeji spent her quiet hours of the morning refolding blankets over the cradle, pulling out two outfits and giving one of the many bottles she had a final shining, the light setting when she placed a set of nappies on her baby's dresser and looked around at the bedroom in a settled joy, strumming from Acorn to her heart.

It was hard to believe she was here, in the same sort of emotion that it wasn't hard to imagine at all.

It would be, because it was meant to be, and when it would be, it would be perfect.

"Shall we start here?" Ryujin flew in with the matchbox, "Ah, no, we should leave the candle by the crib for you to do with your baby, I think. Let's do the others, shall we?"

They weren't in any sort of rush, even as the sun didn't slow her course to the horizon. They slowly followed around their trail of candlesticks through the apartment, lighting them one by one like little stars to guide them in their home. Below the mantle that mounted Yeji's sword, beside Ryujin's cottage-pot, the three on the center table beside the IceDrops, two on the bathroom vanity, the scattered few in the kitchen.

Before finally, the one on their dining room table. Surrounded by holly and throwing a warm glow onto the two decorated plates of honey-roasted ham and all the fixings Ryujin had spared no small effort to prepare.

It smelled as full of color as it looked.

And it was enjoyed slowly, just as thoroughly as it had been made.

"Did you ever learn why you got paired with Chaeryeong?"

"Well, she says she had followed the river to our temple and asked for an experienced knight, and when I asked Jisu, she simply said that I was the only one who fit Chaeryeong's needs," Yeji shrugged, "But I have my suspicions."

Ryujin nodded in agreement, "Sounds like meddling temple-keeping selkie wisdom if you have me."

"Well, I don't know about wisdom, but it sounds like some sort of selkie meddling for sure." 

"It doesn't surprise me she was made queen by a batch of us, you know," Ryujin shook her head, slowly savoring a slice of ham and looking off into the distance, "She must have dulled them to extraordinary measures. Quite remarkable."

Yeji raised an eyebrow as she mopped up her plate with a potato, "Your compliments are indiscernible from your insults, you know."

"Good," Ryujin held a pea up proudly, "Wouldn't want to be losing my touch, after all."

The evening held no time at all, as they talked through the past year, in full laughs and content smiles, a bright rosé sparkling in the candle as the night grew dark and quiet, and their plates were polished clean. Whether it was their full bellies or their contented company, they'd fallen into an easy silence.

Yeji's hand was around Acorn, her eyes to the window.

And Ryujin's heart knew what that meant before her mouth could give words to it.

"I'll clean this up– no, I want to, don't you dare stop me," Ryujin scolded Yeji's hovering hands, placing a wine glass into her hand of her unfinished drink, "Why don't you acquaint yourself with this on the couch. I think… it's about that time, wouldn't you say?"

Yeji smiled and didn't say a word, nodding and moving herself out of Ryujin's way.

Ryujin took her time with the dishes. She hadn't expected to be given the time to enjoy her Christmas so thoroughly as she did, but the gift of it rested warmly over her. It wasn't even for the holiday itself if she thought about it– the weightiness of Christmas had pivoted something new to Ryujin, of a foreign history and the striking idea that love wasn't so much what you got out of someone as the journey of what you put in. 

Love was a myriad of different colors, and Ryujin had grown quite fond of Yeji's the best.

And Ryujin wasn't the only one.

She cracked open a window to let the winter breeze in to air out the kitchen when it happened– it was so beautiful and strange and sudden that Ryujin barely had the time to realize it was happening until it was.

It was a soft shine through the sky, glittering around the edges where starlight struck it. It rippled and flowed as it floated down, a bubble filled with a lavender haze, a smoke that shifted within.

The route it took was undeniable, Ryujin open-mouthed as its path charted for their porch, straight towards the open doors, where she looked as saw Yeji sitting on the floor, wide-eyed and speechless as it came towards her.

On her chest, the acorn glowed like a beacon, pointed up at the bubble as though calling it home, and the bubble hummed something soft and undeniable, a thrum of a steady heartbeat unmistakable as it passed through the porch doors as rested a breath away from Yeji's face.

The whole world seemed quiet for this moment. 

Yeji reached out, hesitating only once before touching the bubble with the surety that it was hers and had come for her. And the bubble responded in same, the edges of it pulling back, the mist spilling out as Yeji reached in.

Ryujin held her breath.

A small cry broke through the silence, and with it, the bubble quickly dissipated, suddenly dropping something into Yeji's hands and making her gasp at the unexpected weight of it.

The baby was a small thing, with long limbs and silky dark hair. She rubbed her little fists into her eyes, scrunching them closed and letting out a soft coo as she tried to remain asleep as long as possible.

And Yeji was enamored with her .

Her soft pink skin, her perfectly numbered fingers and toes, her rounded lips.

"Well, isn't she just a doll," Ryujin whispered, slowly hovering closer and closer until she dropped on the table next to them.

"Yuna."

Ryujin double blinked, "I'm sorry?"

"Yuna," Yeji broke into an unbridled smile, "She's Yuna. This is my Yuna."

Yuna, suddenly aware of her skin in a new world, pulled her body close together, fists she couldn't control rubbing at her face indignantly, before she let out a determined cry of protest at the world seeming so cold.

"Oh, oh, darling," Yeji folded Yuna close to her chest, "Ryujin, fetch me a nappie, and that shawl Jisu brought."

As Ryujin hurried off, Yeji very honestly could not take her eyes off of Yuna. Even if she tried, she was trapped in a dream, and as she swaddled her baby tight, she was sure she didn't want to ever wake up.

Wrapped warmly, there was someone who did want to wake up.

Ryujin brought the candle from her crib, setting it on the edge of the table and holding the match up for Yeji to strike. She set it quickly atop the pink wax, a new warmth a soft glow cast on her baby's face.

The warmth was curious, and it made Yuna decided to open her eyes for the first time and greet the big wide world for all it was to her.

The first thing her big brown eyes fell on, was Yeji.

"Perfect. Absolutely perfect ," Yeji whispered, fingers running lightly over Yuna's wispy hair and down her cheeks, thinking of all the history trapped between them that was yet to be discovered, all the things she knew and didn't know and how it all paled to this moment before her.

Here, smiling down at Yuna's beautiful face, she only had one thought.

" Welcome home, baby girl ."

And Yuna, looking up at her mother and being sure there was nothing more perfect, smiled straight back.