Archive of Our Own

Sua had always known that her step-father was a smarmy bastard, so really, a murder attempt was only a matter of time. She just wished he had chosen someone other than the sniveling huntsman: Hyun-Woo hadn’t stopped crying since they’d left the palace. How was she supposed to believe that they were just going “flower picking” in the forest when he had been blubbering the whole fucking time. He was a good hunter, she’ll give him that, but Luka should’ve chosen his sister for the job. 

“W-we’re here,” Hyun-Woo announces between sobs. He wipes at his running nose with his sleeve. Ew. 

He’s polite enough to help Sua off the horse, though his crying intensifies when she thanks him. To make matters worse, the forest is completely void of flowers, so it looks like they’ll have to skip the pleasantries and move on to the murder.

Sua sighs, feeling much older than the fifteen years she has lived. “Let’s get this over with,” she tells a weeping Hyun-Woo. He was a nice guy and totally unsuited for the task, but she lacked options. “There aren’t any flowers, so let’s be upfront about this. I won’t run or cry, just make it quick.”

This only makes Hyun-Woo cry even harder. He just stands there… crying, you’d think he was the one about to die. His hands shake, and Sua is sure he wouldn’t be able to hold the knife or make clean, deep cuts. She can feel a headache begin to form behind her brows. Just then, as if the gods themselves heard her prayers, the furious gallop of a horse interrupts… whatever this was. Hyuna, like a prince pulled from a fairytale, arrives on her pure white horse. She dismounts quickly, and how could Luka look between the two of them and think that Hyun-Woo would be more suited for murder. 

Hyuna marches straight up the crying Hyun-Woo and delivers a hard slap to his head. Sua is surprised that he doesn’t fall from the force. “WHAT THE FUCK, MAN! YOU WERE REALLY GOING TO MURDER A CHILD?!” she yells, answering why Luka would choose the incompetent Hyun-Woo. Her eyes burn with a righteous rage. “OUR MOTHER DID NOT KILL ALL OF THOSE TALKING WOLVES FOR YOU TO BECOME A CHILD-KILLER!”

“I-I KNOW!” Hyun-Woo yells back. He falls to the ground, sobbing into his knees. “But it was a direct order from the King. What was I supposed to do?”

“Fucking monarchy,” Hyuna curses beneath her breath, which makes Sua raise an eyebrow. She turns to Sua. “Can you run away? We’ll lie to the bastard.”

“B-but the King commanded that I bring back the girl’s heart!” Hyun-Woo says from the ground. He sobs even harder, surpassing the limit of crying Sua had previously thought possible. Was the guy even breathing? “We can’t carve it from her chest without her dying!”

This time when Hyuna smacks his head, it is less harsh and more fond. “We’ll just use some other animal’s heart! The fucker won’t even notice.”

Sua raises her hand. “I object.” Hyuna and Hyun-Woo both frown at her with furrowed brows, to which she explains: “I’ve never even been outside of the palace, now you want me to run away. To where? I can’t stay in the kingdom, and I bet Luka blocked off every road out of here. The only option, then, would be the forest. Just kill me, it’ll be faster and less painful.”

“She’s got a good point,” Hyun-Woo whispers. Hyuna elbows him hard.

“God, do you not have any self-preservation instinct? Go through the forest and you should be able to reach a nearby kingdom. You can start a new life there.” Hyuna lifts Hyun-Woo by the collar and throws him onto his horse, smacking the horse’s rear and sending Hyun-Woo out of the forest and palace-bound. She mounts her own horse and tosses a dagger into the ground in front of Sua. “For the beasts,” she says before she’s gone. 

Sua is left staring in her wake. She picks up the dagger from the ground, watching it shine in the sun before she tucks it in the folds of her dress. The forest is well-lit, so she picks a direction and starts walking. It’s calming—the grass is soft, birds sing overhead and the weather is pleasant. If she hadn’t almost been murdered, this would be nothing more than a leisurely stroll. 

In hindsight, maybe walking to the next kingdom was unreasonable for a girl who's never been out of the palace. She doesn’t know how long she’s been walking, but her legs ache and her dress suddenly feels too stuffy. The thing was not well ventilated. “Hey!” she calls out to a bluebird on a nearby tree. “Do you know where the nearest house is?”

“Bitch, you didn’t even say please,” the bluebird responds, flashing its wings in a way that strikes Sua as offensive before flying off. If she had enough energy, she’d follow the fuck and smash its eggs. 

Sua makes her mistakes once. “Hello!” she says, overly sweet. She bats her eyes and gives her best demure smile. “Would you be so kind as to direct me to the nearest abode? I fear that I’ve exhausted myself and will soon collapse.”

The robin kindly directs her to a quaint little cottage. She thanks the robin and watches it fly off before she approaches the door. The wooden door was oddly small, with chipped red paint and a low handle. She knocks three times, calling out to any potential inhabitants with her ear pressed against the door. The cottage was empty. She tries the handle. The cottage was locked. She quickly glances at the surrounding area. The cottage was alone. She backs up, slamming against the door with all of her body weight. The cottage was no longer locked.

The inside felt small. It wasn’t that the cottage itself was small but that most of the furniture was clearly built for children, which made the few adult-sized furnishings stand out. It was also terribly cramped: the whole cottage was a disorganized mess, like a storm came through and none of the inhabitants ever got around to tidying the place. If she had any more fucks to give, she’d be more concerned over the fact that she may have broken into a single parent cottage. Instead, she goes to the one normal sized bed and promptly falls asleep. 

Sua is disturbed from her slumber by hushed whispers from all around her. She feigns sleep, listening in on the conversation. The voices question who she is, why she’s here and whether she was “the wretch that broke the door.”

“She’s beautiful,” a girl breathes, and Sua’s heard those words many times before but something about the way she says it—with a sort of child-like awe—compels her to sit up and confront the people whose home she broke into.

The first thing she realizes is that she was not in the company of children. The voices had been deep and gruff, but in Sua’s defense, she had never been around children, not even as a child herself. Six very short, stocky men with thick beards and bulging muscles surround her, but after the initial shock she directs her attention to the foot of the bed, because standing there is the prettiest girl she’s ever seen. Long, pink hair frames the girl’s face. The girl pushes up the glasses perched on her nose, golden eyes brightening when they meet her own. She feels sorely out of place among the gruff men of the cottage, like a flower blooming amid rocks and… very thick pieces of wood? She’s never been good at metaphors, and the muscles on the short men were very distracting since she had just broken into their house. 

One of the short men loudly clears his throat. He must be the oldest, or at the very least the leader. He has an air of authority about him, something that demands respect despite him being a whole foot shorter than Sua. His beard is sectioned into three thick braids, which somehow makes him more intimidating. “You a witch?” he asks bluntly. Sua shakes her head but he remains understandably skeptical. He directs his attention to the very pretty girl at the foot of the bed. “Mizi, is she a witch?”

Mizi tilts her head. Her eyes suddenly light up in understanding, and to Sua’s surprise, she climbs onto the bed until she looms over Sua. She falls flat onto the bed in surprise, her heart violently climbing up her throat. Mizi’s eyes bore into her with an intensity that felt as if she was trying to read her soul. Every cell in Sua’s body goes into overdrive, not at the close proximity but at how terrifyingly intimate it all felt. Then Mizi pulls away and gets off the bed, smiling as she turns to the man and shakes her head.

“She still broke our door,” cries the man with the shortest beard. It sort of looks as if he requested a bob cut for his face.

“No I didn’t,” Sua, being a liar, lies easily. “It was like that when I got here.”

“Mizi, is she lying?” bob-cut-beard asks. Mizi glances at her before shaking her head.

“It must’ve been those damn nymphs!” screeches an enraged eye patch wearing man. “Set their tree ablaze, I will!”

Before things can dissolve into chaos and “retributional” arson, Mizi turns to Sua with bright eyes and asks, “What is your name?”

It’s an easy question, one she’s answered a hundred times before, yet somehow it catches her off guard. She blames how distractingly pretty Mizi was. “Sua,” she squeaks. Her face feels impossibly hot.

“Well, you already know my name but just in case, I am Mizi.” She held out her hand and the sun could not rival her brilliance. Sua forgets about the six short men surrounding the bed, the world falls away until all that was left was her and Mizi at the end of it all. Mizi is still holding out her hand and she finally grabs it. Her hand is calloused and strong, sturdy. She wanted to hold her hand for the rest of her life.

Apparently that was everyone else’s cue to introduce themselves. The leader was Roy, eye patch was Troy, bob cut bitch was Joy, baldie with a beard was Fiddlewinks, receding hairline was Cloy, and big nose was Boy. The only reason Sua bothered to commit their names to memory was because they were related to Mizi and she needed a place to stay. 

“Please, allow me to stay in your home,” Sua begs with tears in her eyes, adding just enough shakiness to her voice to make herself seem fragile. She sees them visibly soften at the sight. “I am being hunted and have nowhere to go. I beg that you allow me to stay, please!”

“Yes, we should let her stay!” Mizi enthusiastically agrees. The others don’t share her enthusiasm. “C’mon! Isn’t it too cruel to just let her leave, especially since she’s in danger?” 

The six men look sympathetic but unconvinced. Sua didn’t want to walk to the next kingdom, she’d die by then. And her death would be painful and sweaty. Her eyes flit around the cottage, grasping at straws. “I can clean for you,” Sua offers quickly. “Let me stay and I will clean for you. I can do all of your housework, it’ll be like I’m a live-in servant. Please, let me stay.”

The leader, Roy, huffs. He makes a weird gesture with his hands—like he’s trying to strangle a goose— which somehow signals the rest to huddle together and have a conversation that seems to include lots of strange hand gestures and awkward glances in Sua’s direction. Even crouched down, Mizi towered over them awkwardly. She seems to be arguing Sua’s case, aggressively gesturing to Sua and the rest of the messy cottage. The few pieces of conversation she manages to catch are not in any language she knows. 

After some time—20 minutes but who was counting—they came to a decision. Sua had been too afraid to leave the bed and disturb their conversation, so when she

 is finally addressed, she feels terribly awkward to still be sitting in the bed. Mizi is beaming when she turns around, jumping on to the bed to pull Sua into a hug. “You can stay!” she declares as she presses a flushed Sua into her chest. “You’ll have to clean and cook but you can stay!”

“Yes, yes. Now can you get out of Mizi’s bed and maybe start on dinner? We have to get back to the mines,” grouches the joyless Joy—the prick with the god-awful bob cut beard. 

Sua chooses not to think about her being in Mizi’s bed, instead turning to Mizi. “You’re a miner?” Sua asks. They had strict child labor laws back in her kingdom, at least when it came to more risky jobs like mining. Sure, her hands had been calloused, but Mizi was too pretty for the dirty mines.

“Yup! Been working in the mines since I was a babe!”

Sua looks her up and down. “Aren’t you my age?”

“Well, dunno how old you are but I’m fourteen!” Oh god, she was even younger than Sua.

“That would make you a minor!”

Mizi gave her a weird look. “Yeah, I’m a miner.”

“You can’t be a miner if you’re a minor!”

Everyone else in the cottage looked at Sua in utter bafflement. “She has to be a miner to be a miner,” says the bald Fiddlewink. “She cannot be a miner without being a miner.”

It takes Sua to process what they are saying, her brain not fully comprehending the words leaving their mouths. Mr. Penderson talked about this once, at least before he tragically died due to a pun related misunderstanding. Homophones, always coming back to haunt her. “No, I meant she can’t be a miner if she is underaged—y’know below eighteen.”

Mizi still looks confused. “But I can and I am. Dwarves start working in the mines from a very young age.”

Sua is aghast. “Th-that doesn’t excuse or explain anything? Working in the mines is very dangerous and you are too young to be doing it.”

For some reason, Mizi looks upset. “I may only be half dwarf but I’m more than capable!”

Troy, the one with the eye patch, suddenly decides to chime in. “ We are dwarves, the people of fire and earth, blessed by Hephaestus himself, and we will not be ruled by the laws of man!” he huffs proudly. “Is it because Mizi is too tall? Neither blood nor stature define a dwarf, not truly. Mizi is a dwarf!”

Sua stares at them for a minute, the gears in her head turning as she goes through every bit of knowledge she’s absorbed over the years. “Wait…” She studies the six men in the room, piecing together the picture that was staring her in the face. “You guys are dwarves!” 

The one with the large sniffer, Boy, studies her for a moment. “...Yes. Are you only just realizing this?” 

“I-I didn’t think any dwarves would live so close by! I thought… Well, I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know anything…” Sua looks away from the people—dwarves in the room, grappling with this newfound knowledge. She actually didn’t know anything about dwarves and the like, especially that they apparently lived in the forest so close to her kingdom. “There’s a mine nearby?” Sua asks to distract herself from how little she actually knew.

“Yeah! There are tons of minerals and rocks down there!” Mizi enthusiastically supplies. “After we’re done, we take some of them out back to the forge and make stuff to sell in the markets.” 

“That sounds wonderful,” Sua says sincerely. Mizi was skilled, kind and beautiful. She was the most perfect girl she’s ever met.

“Ahem! We must be getting back to the mines,” interrupts Roy. “We should return by sunset, please have dinner ready by then.” He grabs a smiling Mizi by the collar, she waves as she is dragged away. The rest of them take that as their cue to depart until Sua is left alone. 

Housework was clearly not any of their strong suits. The mess encompasses the whole cottage, and Sua doesn’t think she can get started on dinner with the house in disarray. She walks outside and takes a deep breath. The sky is clear, the sunlight is warm and the forest is the perfect picture of peace. “I NEED HELP! THEY HAVEN”T DONE ANY HOUSEWORK IN YEARS! WILL BAKE FOR ASSISTANCE!” Sua shouts into the forest. There is a moment of silence before around 50 woodland creatures gather in front of the cottage. 

She sends the chipmunks and squirrels to gather ingredients for a stew, for the dwarves had fuck all in the cottage. The racoons with their nimble hands are perfect for organizing the dishes that no one ever bothered to put away. The deer… aren’t very suited for indoor work, they break four dishes before Sua sends them outside to assist the chipmunks and squirrels. The birds and rabbits were mostly moral support. Within an hour, the cottage looks livable and the rodents have brought back the ingredients for a very mushroom heavy stew and berry tarts. The animals refuse to leave without their payment, so Sua starts on the tarts. By the time the dwarves and Mizi return, the cottage is clean and the stew is done.

“Wow! You work fast,” Mizi exclaims as she enters. She surveys the room, barely recognizing the cottage. She pokes at a red carpet with her foot. “I didn’t even know we had a carpet! You’re amazing!”

“It’s nothing really. The cottage is a lot smaller than my old house,” Sua reminisces with a sigh. “My step-father fired all the servants and made me clean the whole thing. If I didn’t finish within three hours, he’d serve one of my birds for dinner.” She stopped keeping birds after that, but Luka kept serving songbirds for dinner. Afterwards she’d gather the bones and bury them in the garden, right where the flowerbed used to be. She hoped Hyuna was beating the shit out of him.

“Um… something smells delicious,” says the big nosed Boy. “I’m famished! It’ll be nice to eat something aside from roasted mushrooms with stale bread, won’t need any ale to get through this meal!”

They gathered at the table, filling their bowls with the stew and making small talk. It was… weird. It was nothing like how she’d take her meals: Luka sitting at the other end of a long table, roasted bird on her plate, eating in cold silence.They were talking to each other, laughing and smiling. Mizi joined in on the conversation, and Sua can see now that for all their differences these people were her family. She was never out of place here. Sua swallowed the stew, chewing on a mushroom. Her heart hurt, she felt like she was intruding on something, that she wasn't meant to be here, which she technically wasn’t. Sua was supposed to be dead, killed by a weepy huntsman commanded by her bastard of a step-father. Maybe it’s not too late to walk to the next kingdom. 

Someone taps her shoulder. “Hey,” Mizi says, and Sua hadn’t even realized she was sitting next to her. “The food is great. Thank you.” Mizi smiles at her and it makes Sua feel a little less out of place. 

Because Mizi is the best person in the world, she helps Sua clear the table and wash the dishes. Afterwards, she lends Sua a nightgown. “Where will I sleep?” Sua asks, glancing around the cottage. She could lay some sheets on the ground and sleep there.

“With me,” Mizi says too casually. Sua almost falls down from shock. “My bed’s the only one that’s… big enough. It’s only a big deal if we make it one.”

Sua’s heart rate reaches an unhealthy high. She feels like she has a fever. “R-right.”

The bed is plenty tall but not wide enough. Her legs end up tangled in Mizi’s and she has to press close to her. Sua’s heart is like thunder in her ears, keeping her awake with its ruckus and flushing out any semblance of sleep. Tomorrow morning will be rough.

_________________

The years passed uneventfully. Sua stopped counting the days, stopped waiting for her step-father to appear and ruin her fragile peace. Winter comes and winter thaws. Mizi grows more beautiful with each spring, and Sua’s affections only seem to grow with each day. It was terrifying: how unrelenting these feelings were, how they only grew with time. They filled Sua’s heart until she became afraid that she should suddenly blurt out I love you on any given day.

Mizi has been practicing her mealworking as of late, so Sua often finds her in the forge. She likes to watch Mizi work, admiring the focus in her eyes and the way the sweat gathers on her brow. She especially likes the way the fire makes Mizi’s eyes burn like the liquid gold of a newborn sun. Sua really should get started on dinner instead of watching Mizi for another hour. She doesn’t.

“It’s getting pretty late, shouldn’t you head inside?” Mizi looks away from whatever she’s working on. Her skin is flushed from the heat, chest heaving beneath her apron. “Are you okay? You look pretty red, did the heat get to you?” Mizi puts a warm hand to her forehead, and all of Sua’s blood floods to her cheeks in an instant. She feels warm for reasons completely unrelated to the forge.

“Y-yeah! I’m fine! I just… I gotta head back inside, dinner won’t make itself!” Sua excuses herself. She manages to lay out a couple of pans and vegetables across the kitchen table before she falls to the floor and screams into her hands. Her heart feels as though it would burst.

Sua is pretty sure the other occupants of the cottage know about her feelings. They’ve been sending the girls on errands together often, particularly to buy supplies or to sell some of what they make. The market they sell in is quite some ways off and in a kingdom Sua does not recognize. Somehow it makes her ache for her home, the one before Luka became her step-father, when her father and mother were still alive. They used to take her to the markets when she was young, swinging her between them as they walked along the road.

“What are we buying again?” Mizi asks while they’re saddling up Aurum—one of three horses that the dwarves have. 

“Eggs, milk and some flour,” Sua replies. “I’m thinking of baking a cake.”

“Can we get strawberries too? I love strawberry cake!” 

“Sure, sure. We can grab them too.”

The ride to the market is fine: the weather is nice, the road is smooth and Sua has her arms around Mizi’s waist. The market itself is oddly empty, lacking the usual business even for a week day. All of the shops were closed. “... I don’t think we’ll be able to bake a cake,” Sua mutters, gazing at the empty streets. “I think we better head home.”

They are met with the sight of a disheveled Roy when they return. “THEY’RE BACK!” he shouts, and suddenly there are five more disheveled men in front of the girls. They look really worried, like they were scared they wouldn’t come back.

“You girls went to the market?” asks Fiddlewink. He looks nauseous when they nod. “You girls cannot leave the forest anymore. It isn’t safe out there.”

“Why?” asks Mizi with a frown. 

“Beautiful girls have gone missing and they’re all within your age bracket. They come back but they never remember who took them and how they disappeared,” explains Fiddlewink. “We should be safe in the forest, but Sua, you must never open the door to strangers when we are gone.”

They repeat those words the next morning before they leave for the mines. Sua nods and reassures them that she would never open the door, and besides, she wasn’t alone, Mizi would be in the forge. They continue to fuss for ten more minutes before they leave, promising to come back early, at least before sunset. Sua doesn’t feel like watching Mizi in the forge today, the image of the empty market and disappearing girls prove to be too distracting for her to fully appreciate the sight of Mizi. She instead opts to clean the whole cottage as a distraction.

She’s finished dusting the cottage when there is a soft knock on the door. “Hello?” the voice of an old woman calls out. After a moment there is another knock, more forceful this time, and Sua feels her heart still. She inches towards the back door of the cottage, intending to call for Mizi. There is a long sigh from the other side of the door before Sua’s head is submerged in water. “Open the door,” comes the same voice, more boyish and youthful. Sua’s head is filled with cotton as her body moves to do what she was told. It’s an old woman, her back hunched and face wrinkled, but the yellow in her eyes feels familiar, not like the burning gold of Mizi but something more sickly and cold…

The old crone holds out a shiny red apple. “Eat,” she commands. Sua takes the apple from her hands. The waxy skin glints in the sun and it feels warm to the touch, if her mind was clear she’d notice how it pulsed in her hand. She takes a bite—the apple is bitter— and falls to the ground. “Maybe I didn’t need to go through the effort of a disguise,” mutters the old crone. She reaches down but before her fingers can even brush against Sua a flock of birds swoop down. 

Wrinkled hands swat at the persistent birds. “HEY!” shouts Mizi, led by a fluffy rabbit. The crone curses beneath her breath, abandoning Sua on the ground and running much faster than a woman her age should.“WHAT ARE YOU—” And the old lady is gone, but that is the least of Mizi’s problems. She goes to where Sua lies on the grass, the apple next to her still body. There is no pulse.

They have to pry Mizi away from Sua’s body. She is silent the whole time, staring blankly ahead as they gently remove Sua’s still warm body. Boy, who had the most medical knowledge, carefully inspected Sua. “She has no pulse, but her body is still warm. It’s like she's suspended in time,” he notes. “That apple you found next to her, it must have caused this. Can you describe the woman who was here earlier?”

“I-I don’t know! I didn’t get a good look. She looked old and the birds were swarming her. I shouted at her and she ran away. She was really fast though, too fast to be a regular old woman.” Mizi stared down at Sua. “W-what are we going to do?”

“What can we do?” Roy says sadly. “She may as well be dead—”

“Don’t put her in the ground,” Mizi chokes, tears spilling from her eyes. “P-please, don’t bury her. She isn’t dead yet, so don’t feed her to the worms like mom.” Troy pulls Mizi into his arms. She’s taller now, much taller than him, but she still leans down to sob into his shoulder just as she did when she was a child. “D-don’t give up on her.”

They make a bed for her in a clearing, so that when Sua wakes up it will be among flowers. Mizi appoints herself as her guard. “Today I managed to make a mushroom stew, kinda like the one you first made for us. Joy said it was pretty good, but I’m sure it’s nothing compared to your cooking,” Mizi says as she twirls the stem of a flower in her hand. “Y’know… the day we met, when I lied that you didn’t break the door… it was because I thought that a girl this pretty must’ve had a good reason for breaking down a stranger's door.” She quietly laughs to herself, brushing the hair from Sua’s face with a sad smile. “I guess it’s a little late to say this now, but I like you. I like you an awful lot… so please wake up.”

Days pass like this. None of the nymphs nor anyone else in the forest can figure out how to wake Sua. Then, on the 21st day a stranger arrives.

_________________

His horse is pure white, like freshly fallen snow or the fancy sort of cheese. The stranger leads his horse on a leather rein, and somehow he can tell that it’s the fancy kind of leather, the good shit. The bastard screams money. He’s very tall, towering over Roy like a tree to an ant, but he doesn’t back down. Something about this boy is strange, he reeks of magic but it isn’t coming from him so much that it is on him. 

The stranger smiles, flashing a protruding tooth. He holds out a hand that Roy does not take. “My name is Ivan and I am the prince of Schwúl,” he says brightly, not yet taking back his hand. “I am looking for a silver-haired man, probably a little shorter than me with teal eyes.”

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” Roy mutters, eyeing Ivan suspiciously.

His smile falls, just a little but Roy is good at noticing these sorts of things. “...Well, if you have a curse or something, I’d be happy to break it,” Ivan offers somewhat reluctantly. “Free of charge—”

“Wait, any curse?” Roy interrupts. It feels too good to be true, there must be some sort of trick or maybe it’s a cruel hallucination.

It’s Ivan’s turn to eye Roy suspiciously. “Well, yes. I’ve yet to come across a curse I haven’t been able to break.”

“How?”

“One of two ways, either with my lips or my sword.” Roy glares at him in unambiguous disgust, to which Ivan sighs. “It’s not a perversion of mine, trust me. And the sword thing is not an innuendo,” he explains, gesturing to the sword on his hip. “I can either break the curse with a kiss, or I can kill it with my sword. In most cases, it tends to be the former.”

Roy studies Ivan for another moment before he grabs his hand and leads him deeper into the forest.

The first thing Ivan sees is a pretty, pink haired girl. She eyes him suspiciously, as if he wasn’t the one dragged into the clearing. He still held the reins of Quark in his other hand, so at least he had a quick escape if need be. Behind her he can see the still body of a girl enclosed in glass, and Ivan can already see where this is going. The dwarf shoves him forward. “Tell her what you told me.”

“I break curses, and if you let me, I can break the one on the girl over there,” Ivan says to the girl. In an instant her eyes light up, happy tears spring from her eyes and she immediately hugs him. That girl must mean a lot to her, he notes, smiling gently and patting her head as the girl cries into his chest.

“H-how?” she asks between relieved sobs. 

“A kiss,” the dwarf answers with a huff. The girl immediately stills, looking up at him with sparkling gold eyes.

“A-a kiss?”

“It’s not like I want to,” Ivan reasons, “And it’ll be a quick one, just a peck and the curse is gone.”

The girl still seems hesitant. She looks away from Ivan, turning to the girl behind her. “No, you don’t understand. The girl you’re gonna kiss, Sua, she’s really pretty. Like so pretty you’ll probably fall in love at first sight,” she mutters, horrified. “You’ll probably want to marry her and take her away.”

“I can assure you that won’t be a problem.”

“No, no, you can say that now but you haven’t seen her yet—” 

“Like I said, that will not be a problem,” Ivan asserts firmly. Once he’s sure he has her attention he continues, “I’m sure she’s a lovely girl but she’s still a girl. And for that reason, I can assure you that as long as she remains a girl and lacks a penis, I will not be attracted to her. Besides, I already have someone in my heart.”

The girl blinks at him, and he can almost hear the gears in her head turn. Oh… Ohhh!” She looks visibly relieved at the realization. “Ok, ok, go ahead and kiss her, but make it quick!”

The girl in the glass coffin—Sua as the other girl called her—is indeed beautiful, easily surpassing all the other girls Ivan had kissed. Still, he’d much rather be kissing him than even the prettiest girl in the world, which this girl may very well be. Luckily, it seems to be a sleeping spell, so the kiss is chaste. The girl’s eyes open instantly, and Ivan is quickly shoved off as she wipes her mouth with a glare.

“Suaaa!!” the other girl cries, leaping at the newly awoken girl. Happy tears roll off her cheeks in fat globs as she hugs Sua. 

“I’m awake, Mizi,” Sua says softly, almost a whisper. Both of the girls ignore Ivan, focused only on each other. There’s a familiar look in their eyes that makes his heart ache. He feels a soft pat on his lower back. The dwarf watches the girls with a smile. He nods at Ivan.

“Who’s the perv?” Sua asks once the initial euphoria wears off. She’s still holding onto Mizi, one arm around her waist as she glares at Ivan.

The dwarf answers. “This is Ivan. He’s a prince and he’s searching for a… person. Have you girls seen a fellow with silver hair, a little shorter than this lad?”

Mizi’s response is a quick shake of her head, but Sua hesitates. She rolls the question around in her head before she asks, “Is he around our age?”

“Y-yes! Well, that is if you're in your early 20s.” Ivan doesn’t bother hiding his eagerness but he tries to reign in his hopes. There have been false alarms before, and those are always the most crushing.  

Sua looks into Ivan’s eyes, a grave expression on her face. Her eyes are striking in the sun.“...I think I’ve seen a boy like that and his location shouldn’t have changed. I saw him at my old residence—in the palace of Schnee.” She turns to Mizi. “The one who poisoned me, it was my step-father, the current king of Schnee. I always knew he was a bastard but apparently he’s also a witch—or is it a warlock since he’s a guy?”

“Well, that settles it,” Ivan says, mounting his horse. “Guess I’ll be on my way!”

There is a sharp tug on his shirt. He looks down at Sua. “Take me with you,” she demands.

Mizi and the dwarf are obviously startled by the sudden demand. “B-but Sua–”

“He poisoned me,” Sua snaps. “And he was going to kill me when I was younger, that’s how I ended up at the cottage. He’s the one behind the disappearing girls. This doesn’t end until Luka is dead.”

“I admire your determination but it’s not going to be pretty. You’ve done enough.” Ivan shakes off her hand.

“Well, good luck navigating the palace,” Sua huffs. “That thing’s a fucking maze. 200 bedrooms, you know.”

Ivan stops. He looks at Sua coldly. “And when was the last time you were in the palace?”

“I used to clean the whole thing in three hours. I can navigate that place in my sleep. Besides, the room with your boy toy, I still remember which one it is.” Sua shrugs, but her eyes dare Ivan to keep denying her help. He can feel a headache beginning to form, which he tries to alleviate with thoughts of Till.

“Fine! Get on—”

“Wait! I’m coming with you!” Mizi tells Sua.

“Wait, this really isn’t—”

“And where you girls go, I will follow,” declares the dwarf, hugging both of the girls.

It’s a touching moment of love and support, really, but Ivan barely wants to take one person. It’s not as if he were going to storm the castle: he was just going to grab Till and, if time allowed, kill Sua’s step-father for kidnapping him, nothing that needed an extra girl and dwarf.

“Aye! And I shall burn that bastard’s castle to the ground!” a pirate looking dwarf —holy fuck where did that guy come from?— announces.

Ivan does not jump when another dwarf, who was apparently next to him, suddenly pipes up, “And I shall follow!” At this point he only blinks as three other dwarves come out of the woods without a sound. There’s a lot of cheers and fussing while Ivan blankly stares at them from atop his horse.

And that is how Ivan ends up leading two girls and six dwarves to the kingdom of Schnee to fight the  exceptionally cruel king.

_________________

“So why did I wake up to this prick’s lips on mine,” Sua asks during the ride, her arms around Mizi’s waist. Behind them were the dwarves in a cart pulled by two horses. Honestly, with how long it was taking to get back to the kingdom, her initial trek through the forest was more impressive than she originally thought. 

Ivan released a long-suffering sigh. “It’s just how it works. You think I liked kissing you? Thank the gods I just had to wake you up. If that bastard had cast a transformation spell…” Ivan shudders in disgust at the thought. “...I’ve been looking for Till for a long time, I had to kiss so many people…”

“What’s the worst kiss you had?” Mizi suddenly questions, her eyes sparkle with a childlike curiosity. 

Ivan’s brows furrow in thought. “Frogs are pretty slimy and they're so small so it’s always uncomfortable, but if I had to say… there was a princess who got turned into a cockatrice and she almost bit my tongue off.”

Mizi nods along to his answer, absorbing the knowledge for who knows what. Sua decides not to ask how his tongue got close enough to almost be bitten off, but she can’t help but feel relieved that she was only poisoned instead of transformed. “You sound like you kissed a lot of people. What if you caught something?”

“Don’t worry, I am physically incapable of spreading anything. I was blessed as a child to never fall sick…” Ivan stops as they finally see the end of the forest. 

The palace looms ominously in the distance. The sky was a thunderous gray that threatened to spill at any time, and a strange black dot seemed to circle the palace. The whole kingdom seems to have been drained of all its color, each building washed out and recolored in grayscale, even the grass seemed a duller green. Just like that day in the market, the town closest to the forest is deathly quiet. The only interruption to the unearthly stillness was the clip-clop of their horses and the wind that howled like a wounded dog. It was cold despite summer having come early this year. The whole kingdom felt separated from space and time, like a ghost in limbo where the rules of the living no longer apply.

Everyone in the party was alert, they tensed at every rustle and howl of the wind. Sua’s grip on Mizi tightens the further into the town they travel. She hears a strange whistle that could easily be attributed to the wind if it were not a pitch too high and a bit too sharp, but before she can call out to the others, a crowd of people, makeshift spears and pitchforks in hand, surround them. 

Their sudden appearance startles Aurum into nearly throwing Mizi and Sua off of her back. Troy immediately takes out his battle axe and rushes into the crowd, swinging wildly at the clearly inexperienced mob. The rest of the dwarves hop out of the cart, ready to join the fight, and Sua sees Ivan fix his attention to the mob’s supposed leader—a figure in a gray cloak. Mizi is trying to shield her, which wasn’t necessary because most of the people seem to be farmers rather than fighters. In fact, these were the townsfolk attacking them. There is the sound of clashing metal up front. Ivan is fighting the leader, who is clearly far more skilled than the rest of the townsfolk—most of whom barely put up a fight as they were too startled by the sudden appearance of the once thought mythical dwarves, and while the dwarves maintain a defensive stance, they too stopped once they realized how weak and unskilled their opponents were, except for Troy who had to be restrained by Boy and Fiddlewink.

Ivan is skilled with the sword, he had briefly told them about the more violent alternative to a curse breaking kiss, but so was his opponent. The figure dodged each swing with ease. Their movements were quick and light, and they blocked Ivan’s longsword with their Hirschfänger— an odd choice since it was a weapon mainly used for hunting… Sua studied the figure more closely. Both Ivan and the person seemed to struggle with their opponents apparent intelligence and unpredictability, as if they were both unused to fighting a person in place of, say a cockatrice in Ivan’s case, or maybe a boar.

“Hyuna!” Sua calls out, which startles the figure enough for Ivan to land a cut to their shoulder.

“FUCK!” the figure curses, and yeah, it was definitely Hyuna. Hyuna pushes past the mob and looks over Fiddlewink’s bald head, the hood of her cloak falls and Sua is met with very familiar gray eyes. “HOLY SHIT!! Sua, you’re alive?! That’s great!”

Everyone else visibly relaxes at Hyuna’s evident joy at Sua’s not death, though whispers erupt among the townsfolk at the mention of their thought-to-be dead princess. “Y-yeah! I didn’t make it to the next kingdom though, that shit was fucking far,” Sua says with a nervous smile. “Anyway, what happened here?”

Hyuna sighs. “Let’s talk inside,” she says, gesturing towards the town’s tavern. “It’s sort of– well, not a long story but you might want to sit down for it. Also, sorry for attacking you, strangers are rare and typically hostile.”

Clearly the tavern has seen better days: a thin layer of dust covers the counter and stools, the wooden floor was in the middle of rotting and, as Troy quickly found out, all of the taps were empty. 

Hyuna takes a swig of something that she pulls out of her cloak before she starts. “So, after you left I sent Hyun-Woo back to the palace with a boar’s heart. Apparently, Luka wanted your heart to eat it, Hyun-Woo freaked out at that. Said he ate it raw. No seasonings, not even salt, just ate it raw. Gross, right?” She takes another, longer swig of whatever was in her cloak, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “Fuck man, this is the problem with a monarchy, no fucking standards or qualifications. It’s pretty fucked that someone should just be born with all that power because it’s their “birthright.” Luka wasn’t even born to it, he just happened to marry into the royal family,” Hyuna rants, “which makes it even dumber that he should be king. We gotta rely on the royal family’s romantic taste! Ugh. It’s just fucking nepotism!”

Ivan is sweating despite the cold and he seems to be trying to subtly put more space between himself and Hyuna. It looks like Sua won’t have to go back to being a princess, which was fine with her. “Hyuna, that’s… great and all, but we need to know more about Luka.”

“Ugh, just give me a minute.” Hyuna’s head drops to the counter with a loud thud. When she looks up after three minutes, her face is a little less flushed and her eyes are cold. “...Right, Luka. Y’know… I grew up with him before he married your mother. He was a cute kid…” She turns to Sua with a bitter smile. “It wasn’t even right after you left, it was three years ago. Luka closed off all the roads, made it almost impossible to get in or get out, and the people that he let in… they were always nasty. Still, life was almost normal. Then Hyun-Woo went to the palace and never came back.” She ran a hand through her hair. “”And things got even worse, very quickly. We tried to revolt… didn’t know that the bastard had a dragon.”

“A dragon? How did he get a dragon?” Mizi wonders aloud. “Dragons prefer more mountainy areas and the land here is pretty flat!”

“Don’t know, but lucky for us, we have someone with experience in this sorta stuff,” Sua says, looking at Ivan.

“Wait, wait, wait. Are you guys planning to storm the palace?” Hyuna studies the merry band of dwarves and royalty, clearly skeptical.

Ivan raises his hand. “I don’t want to storm the palace. I just want to find Till and maybe kill Sua’s step-father,” he clarifies.

Sua has a sudden stroke of inspiration. “Hyuna, you hate the monarchy, right? And Luka’s proven himself to be a tyrant. Then we all share a common goal: to kill King Luka. We should restart the revolution and work together so that we have the best possible chance of killing Luka!” Sua proposes. 

Oh no. Ivan does not like where this is going. “Wait a minute, let’s not be hasty—” 

“But what chance do we have at beating a dragon? The beast’s skin was impenetrable,” Hyuna reasons.

“Didn’t you hear me earlier?” Sua jabs a finger into Ivan’s ribs. “Ivan here has more experience with dragons than with women.”

"Why are you offering my services,” Ivan protests. Sua pulls him down by his ear. 

“You want to find your boy toy right? The king has more than a dragon guarding his castle, not to mention whatever magic bullshit he’s gonna pull. The more people we have, the easier it’ll be to get into the palace,” Sua harshly whispers into his ear. Ivan straightens as soon as she lets go, plastering the perfect cordial smile on his face with practiced ease. 

“As Ms. Sua said: I am very well versed in slaying dragons, more so than fighting people. I’d be happy to offer my support and help you wonderful ladies in overthrowing the tyrant of Schnee,” Ivan says with an agreeable smile.

 Hyuna’s spirit is reinvigorated at Ivan’s support. She joyfully jumps up from the stool, swaying a little as she stands. “We have a dragon slayer! You might be shit at fighting people, but as long as you take down that dragon we can pick up your slack! I’ll go tell Dewey and Issac!” She runs into the door before staggering out of the building. 

And with that, they stand before an uncertain mob of mostly farmers, two former royal guards and a tipsy ex-ex-revolution leader.

Sua stands on top of a wooden crate in front of the crowd. Mizi talked her into it, saying that it would make her seem more authoritative and dependable. Deep down she knew that it was a stupid idea, Ivan barely hid his snickers, but Mizi was so earnest and Sua got carried away. In the front row is Mizi and the dwarves cheering her on. She had no plan other than get the people on her side no matter what, and if all else failed, Sua was prepared to lie her ass off. 

“Citizens of Schnee, you have suffered for too long beneath the tyranny of Luka! That is why we must come together to kill him!” Sua declares, her legs shake beneath her dress. “I have heard of the dragon, and that is why we have enlisted the help of Prince Ivan of Schwúl, a renowned slayer of dragons and breaker of curses.” She gestures to Ivan, who waves at the crowd with a relaxed smile. “With the dragon gone, that leaves only the King himself and his guards. Compared to a dragon they are nothing.”

“But the King practices magic! What if he curses us or casts some sort of spell?” 

Sua gestures to Ivan again. “Ivan can deal with that. He has never failed to break a curse and any magic used against us will be swiftly dealt with by him.”

“Where were you all this time? Why have you only returned now?” 

“The King tried to kill me. Ivan was the one that saved me after I got poisoned. I… fell into a long slumber.” She wipes a tear from her eye. “And after I awoke, I knew I had to return to help my people.”

“But why did he try to kill you?”

Sua didn’t actually know why Luka tried to kill her. The most logical answer would be that he didn’t want her to seize the throne once she came of age, but that may put her in a bad position with the anti-monarchist crowd. “The King is homophobic,” Sua declares. She pointedly avoids looking at Mizi and the dwarves, though she can see Ivan’s shoulders shake in her peripheral vision. “When I was fifteen he discovered my lesbianism and for that he tried to be rid of me. He almost succeeded as well.” She points to Ivan, and suddenly it isn’t very funny to him. “This man lost his lover to that tyrant, that is why he was so eager to offer his assistance. We cannot allow his prejudice to take root and ruin what we hold dear. We must end his tyranny now!”

The crowd whispers among themselves. Sua hears some say homophobia was too far, while others lament over Ivan’s lack of availability. The longer she stands on the crate, the more distant the chatter feels. She doesn’t realize she’s fallen off of the crate until her back’s on the dirt and Sua’s staring at the gray sky. 

Suddenly the gray is replaced with gold. “Sua! Are you okay?” Mizi asks. Her cheeks are red.

Sua sort of feels like she’s dying, and this time there’s no magic bullshit to numb the feeling. “I like you,” Sua blurts. She’s always dreamed about her confession, how it would be grand and elegant, filled with all of the poetry Sua had written for Mizi over the years, but the reality has a lot less flowers and a lot more public humiliation with the bonus of the resulting mortification.

“I like you too!” Mizi says, and maybe Sua can die now. “I like you a lot, but I think we ought to focus on the matter at hand.”

“No. I’d rather just die now.”

“I think they liked your speech, they just want to know whether you intend on reclaiming the throne.”

Sua manages to gather the rest of her strength in her legs, standing unsteadily like a newborn fawn. The crowd quiets down once they notice she’s standing. “I also give up my claim to the throne.” She takes a deep breath before she shouts, “DOWN WITH THE MONARCHY!”

This gets the crowd cheering and chanting. Before Sua has the chance to fall again, Mizi has an arm on her waist. She leads her to where the dwarves are waiting to fret over Sua. They ruffle her hair and praise how well delivered her speech was, even though it was complete shit. 

Hyuna is kind and drunk enough to leave the planning for tomorrow. One of the farmers insists that they stay in his house, to which they politely decline. Instead, the merry band of seven dwarves, a prince and a former princess have made themselves at home in that farmer’s red barn. Sua is alone in the hayloft since she declined attending the celebration for the revival of the revolution. She can see the night creep through the gaps in the ceiling. Outside, there is a roar of laughter and bright fires going. Hope, it seems, tastes a lot like wine and looks a lot like six drunk dwarves dancing in a circle while everyone flocks to the curse breaking prince.

The wood creaks as someone enters the hayloft. Mizi's face is flushed and she sways with each step. She falls next to Sua, burying her face into her side. Sua strokes her hair absentmindedly. “Did… did you mean it when you said you like me?” Mizi asks, her voice muffled by Sua’s dress.

“Yes, though I was hoping it would be more… elegant,” Sua admits. Mizi lifts her head, swaying as she leans towards Sua. Her eyes have not lost any of her intensity.

“I love you,” Mizi says before she falls forward. Her soft snores are drowned out by Sua’s heart. Later, when Ivan checks on her, the jealous bastard smirks at Sua’s flushed face.

“Looks like someone’s having a good night,” he snickers. And if Sua was not trapped beneath Mizi’s pleasantly warm body, she would have kicked him off the ladder. Instead she only sticks out her tongue and makes a show of hugging Mizi closer.

_________________

“So, the dragon, you need to take care of that before we can even get close to the palace.” Hyuna draws a circle on the map spread out on the table. “The dragon stays within a ten mile radius of the royal palace. It… won’t chase you past that. We’ll be waiting a few miles out, do you think you can take care of it alone?”

Ivan looks bored. “Yeah, I always do.”

The closer they get to the palace, the worse things get. There’s this foreboding feeling as the surrounding area gets gradually less populated. At some point, scorch marks start appearing on the road. One of the former royal guards—Dewey if she remembers correctly—crouches down to briefly inspect the marks before they continue. Most of them are on foot, except for Ivan, who rides that stupid white horse of his. 

They’re still some ways off from the dragon’s ten mile radius when the air starts smelling like something rotten, eggs maybe. Everyone but Sua stills at the smell. She doesn’t realize everyone else has stopped until they’re all about five feet behind her.

“It-it’s not supposed to be out this far,” Hyuna mutters, color draining from her face. 

“What are you talking about? Sua asks, turning back, and that’s when the dragon decides to make itself known by fucking breathe fire. If Mizi hadn’t pulled her back, she would’ve been barbecue. 

The dragon is… admittedly smaller than she thought it would be, skinnier too, and it looked black in the distance but up close she can see that it was shit-brown. Other than the fire, the dragon was less impressive than Sua had imagined, though it proves to be just as deadly.

Their little army immediately scatters. “You said you can deal with it; go deal with it,” Hyuna shouts at Ivan. 

Ivan doesn’t move. He studies the dragon with an unreadable expression. The dragon continues breathing fire, though it doesn’t really hit anyone, just blindly torches the ground. “Ivan, you might want to hurry and kill it!” Sua shouts, and the dragon zeroes in on her. Mizi grabs her hand and they dive into a tailor’s shop just as the fire comes.

Ivan laughs, almost hysterically. “I can’t kill it. This dragon of yours is a person. It’s a fucking transformation curse!” He looks at the remaining people and dwarves. “We have to restrain the dragon. Do not kill it.”

Troy huffs in response, begrudgingly nodding. The other dwarves, Hyuna and the rest of their revolution members go running through empty shops, looking for anything they can use to trap the dragon. Their task is made a lot easier by the fact that the dragon is uninterested in anyone that wasn’t Sua. Her and Mizi duck through buildings, the dragon following them from the sky and occasionally diving down whenever they were out in the open. It wasn’t hard to dodge the thing, but Sua has always lacked stamina, she could feel her legs getting tired and her pace start to slow.

“SUA!!” Roy shouts and she breaks off from Mizi to run towards him. The dragon swoops down, she can feel the heat on her back before there’s ropes flying in the air and the dragon stops its approach. It fights against the ropes holding it down, tries to burn them off but it can’t even turn its head. The flames it spews only burn the ground in front of it.

“You might wanna hurry,” Hyuna says. Her feet dig into the ground, and Sua can almost feel the rope burn on her hands.

Ivan calmly approaches the dragon. It snarls at him as he grabs its head. For a second, it looks like it might try to spit more fire, and everyone watches in anticipation as Ivan looks into its eyes. 

Sua is unsurprised by the kiss at first. Then Ivan deepens it, forcing the dragon’s mouth open and sticking his tongue in. Ivan is unfazed through it all. Honestly, it was the most dispassionate kiss Sua’s ever seen—Ivan was impassive while he tongues the poor thing—and incredibly one-sided as the dragon kept trying to pull away throughout it.

Eventually, the dragon goes limp and Ivan pulls away. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and spits at the ground. “See? Bet you're glad it was a sleep spell,” he says, turning to Sua, and yeah,, she was.

The dragon’s body suddenly starts to change, its bone twisting beneath its flesh, limbs shrinking in on themselves. Hard scales become skin. Claws become nails. And its snout flattens. Soon there is a very naked and disoriented man standing in its place, a very familiar naked and disoriented man.

“HYUN-WOO!!” Hyuna flings herself at him. They fall to the ground, but neither of them seem to care. Hyuna cries into his shoulder, gripping his former scales, now skin. “You’re alive!”

“Yeah!” He glances at the people and dwarves surrounding them, noticeably avoiding Ivan. “Two questions: Where am I? And do any of you have some spare clothes?”

Unfortunately, nobody had thought to bring extra clothes to their siege of the palace, so Hyun-Woo has to settle with Hyuna’s cloak. They explain the situation to him, catching him up on Luka’s reign of terror and how he had actually been the bastard’s guard dragon for the past three years or so. He looks understandably overwhelmed by the end of it but they didn’t have time, there was still a King to kill.

Hyuna is just about to send him off—probably to walk home because she has unrealistic expectations on how far a person can walk—when Ivan asks, “Do you want to come with us?”

Hyuna glares at Ivan. She had thanked him for breaking Ivan’s curse, but both of the twins were awkward around him, especially Hyun-Woo who had been french kissed by a complete stranger. “He just turned back after three years of living as a dragon! Obviously we aren’t taking him with us!”

Ivan shrugs. “That’s for him to decide. What if he wants revenge? I won’t rob him of that.”

“I-I do! I’ll come with you!” Hyun-Woo chimes in. Hyuna glares at him but he continues, “I want to go with you. I… I hurt people, he made me hurt people. I can’t make other people do the work, not again.”

“Then it’s settled! We’ll try to find something for you on the way,” Ivan declares, clearly impatient. He mounts his horse and rides off.

“He really wants to find that Till guy,” Mizi notes, watching Ivan ride ahead. “I can understand why. He’s kissed a whole lot of people while looking for him.”

Sua rests her head on Mizi’s shoulder. “Yeah…” 

_________________

They find some clothes for Hyun-Woo in an abandoned house, though they are a size too small. The rest of their trek is uneventful, which somehow adds to Sua’s anxiety. There had to be something else. Luka wouldn’t rely solely on a dragon. What about the royal guards? The door isn’t even locked.

“Something isn’t right,” Hyuna mumbles. She turns to the crowd. “We’ll go ahead, wait here.”

Ivan enters first, followed by a hesitant Sua.

Mizi shares none of her reluctance. “Wow!” Mizi says, gawking at the chandelier above her head. “This palace sure is nice!”

Hyuna tentatively enters, closely followed by Hyun-Woo. Sua jolts when the door shuts. 

“Okay, it’s clear. Can you call in everyone else?” Sua urges, the foreboding feeling increasing tenfold. 

“Okay, okay.” Hyuna grabs the handle of the door and stands there. She backs up and throws her body at the door. It does not open. “We’re fucked.”

“No we aren’t,” Ivan says, unsheathing his sword, “because that dumb fuck let me in. Now it’s just hide and seek, and that bastard can hide but he’s got nowhere to run.” Ivan walks off before remembering he’s never been in the palace before. “Sua, where was it that you saw Till.”

Sua sighs, tightening her hold on Mizi’s hand. The palace, unlike the rest of the kingdom, has not deviated too much from Sua’s memories, none of which were fond. She guides them through marble halls and decadent rooms. It was earlier that day, a couple of hours before Hyun-Woo brought her to the forest to “pick flowers.” She found out by accident. If Luka wanted to keep his creepy little room a secret, maybe he shouldn’t have put the hidden door in the wall of the old music room, and maybe the door shouldn’t be opened by a button that a girl could carelessly hit. 

She remembers hiding behind thick, star-patterned drapes when she heard the click of Luka’s shoes against the cold marble. She remembers the mirror with the gold frame, how Luka went up to it and said Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Then the reflection in the mirror distorted, twisting until there was a boy around her age with hair like silver and the saddest eyes. Sua, the boy answered, and she swore his eyes flickered towards her. 

The boy is gone by the time her step-father leaves. The only thing in the mirror is her reflection. She hurries back to her room, and an hour later Hyun-Woo takes her to the forest. 

“It was here,” Sua says. She points to the mirror with the gold frame, surrounded by star-patterned drapes. “That boy you were looking for, he’s in the mirror.”

 Ivan approaches the mirror, eyeing his reflection. “How do I get him to come out?”

Sua stands next to Ivan. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all,” she recites. And there he is, older now but with the same sad eyes. The boy blinks at them and Ivan presses his fingertips to the glass. 

“Till?” he whispers, far more gentle with the boy’s name than he had been with Sua or Hyun-Woo or anything else. 

“Ivan? What are you—you need to leave.” 

“How do I get you out of here?” Ivan inspects the mirror, fiddling with the golden frame. He lifts his sword. “Stand back, I’ll try cutting it.”

“Ivan, no,” Till says firmly. “Don’t bother. I’m bound to the mirror, break it and I die… It’s too late for me. You need to go.”

Ivan reaches out as if to touch Till’s face but all his fingers meet is cold glass. He is undeterred. “I’m not letting you go,” Ivan declares. “The heavens could not take you from me. And don’t sound so hopeless, if I can’t break the mirror there’s always the alternative.” He drops his sword and presses his lips to cold glass. 

This time the kiss is nothing but passion, the culmination of years of yearning and desperation. It can’t be comfortable kissing the cold glass but Ivan does it like there’s nothing he would rather do. He kisses like a starved man, and Sua has no doubt he’d eat the broken shards. The mirror starts to crack, delicate spiderwebs spread all over the glass and Ivan steps back, unsure and afraid. Till reaches towards Ivan and out of the mirror comes flesh. Ivan grabs the hand, pulling until out of the mirror falls a boy. The glass shatters. They look at each other, breathless and terrified. Till touches the bridge of Ivan’s nose.

“Ivan,” he breathes. Their lips crash together clumsily, hands wandering each other's bodies as if to assure themselves that they are here, alive and together.

Hyuna awkwardly clears her throat. “This is beautiful, I’m very happy for you too, but we still have a monarch to kill.”

Ivan chases Till’s lips when he pulls away. “R-right, well, I guess I can help you with that,” Till says, getting up and dusting himself off.

“Can’t you guys do the rest yourselves?” Ivan complains. “Just stab the guy and you’re done.” Till delivers a light smack to his head.

“Come on, they helped free me, it’s the least we could do.” Ivan doesn’t stop grumbling, so Till bends down to whisper into his ear. Whatever he says gets Ivan eager to find and kill Luka.

Luka’s always had a flair for dramatic, so she can take a good fucking guess as to where he’s waiting for them. Sua leads them to the throne room. 

She’s right, of course. He’s sitting on her father’s throne, the one that was supposed to be hers, wearing the crown that belonged to her father then her mother, and finally to the blonde prick picking at his nails.

Luka briefly looks up, regarding them coldly except for Hyuna. His gaze lingers on her. “I’ve been called a lot of things—bastard, rat, motherfucker then king— but I’ve never been called a homophobe, so why is the mob outside calling me one?” 

“Take a wild fucking guess,” Sua snaps.

Luka seems to actually think about it for a while. “Okay, but I didn’t know at the time, and it had nothing to do with why I was trying to kill you. Besides, that was one time.”

“You locked me in a mirror for eleven years!” Till spits, outraged. “That’s two for two bastard!”

“What about Hyun-Woo? He isn’t gay.”

Till points an accusatory finger at Luka. “Okay, first of all dipshit, I’m not gay, I am bi. Second of all, Hyun-Woo’s aromantic. Three for three bitch.”

“Goddamnit,” Luka curses. “Wait a minute, you can tell me about Hyun-Woo’s sexuality but it takes eight years for you to tell me Sua’s location.”

“Well excuse me for not wanting to help you murder a child, while I myself was one,” Till sneers. “And Hyun-Woo’s been out for years.”

Luka rubs his forehead like they were annoying him. Ironic. “Whatever,” he sighs. He waves his hand and suddenly tree roots are shooting towards them. Ivan cuts them down in the blink of an eye, and Luka eyes him with annoyance. He clicks his tongue. “Annoying bug.”

Luka flicks his wrist and the marble floor melts beneath their feet before hardening once more. They can’t move. Suits of armor enter the room, swords drawn and steadily approaching. Till places his palms flat against the ground, muttering something beneath his breath that makes the whole floor shatter like glass. With their legs now free, Hyuna and Ivan make quick work of the suits of armor. 

Hyun-Woo was never good at close combat unlike his sister. But he was still a hunter, and you didn’t need to know how to use a sword for hunting. He draws the bow he had borrowed from a villager, sending an arrow through the air. The arrow grazes Luka’s cheek, burying itself into the throne’s velvet headrest. “You missed—” the arrow blows up. Mizi high fives Hyun-Woo as Luka stumbles off of the throne. It’s a fleeting victory, the burns on his face heal in an instant. Prick just won’t die.

“ YOU FUCKERS ARE DEAD!!” Luka shouts. More tree roots come their way. They collide against the barrier Till puts up before being dealt with by a wildly grinning Ivan. Him and Hyuna look worse for wear, but all of the suits of armor were destroyed. Luka focuses on pushing them into a corner. 

He doesn’t notice Sua creeping up behind him. Dumb bitch relied on Till for all of his information. Luka grins when he sees cracks forming in the barrier. He stops smiling when Sua digs her dagger into his heart.

She leans in close, whispering “Long live the king,” as she twists the knife. I’d like to see you recover from that, bitch, she thinks. He does not. Luka falls to the floor, his body shrivels up and rots in a matter of seconds until all that is left of him is a pile of dust. She spits at it.

There is a loud crash as something breaks through the front door with a curse. In mere moments the throne room is filled with people, including six very worried dwarves.

The pile of dust is quickly stomped over, being spread across the floor by the flood of people. Nothing that can't be fixed with a broom and dustpan.

“Is this the lad you was looking for?” Roy asks, studying an increasingly flustered Till. 

Ivan pulls TIll closer by the waist. He loudly plants a wet kiss on his cheek, never taking his eyes away from Till’s. “Yes.” And all of the young men and women who had fancied him shed happy tears, for the handsome prince was happy, even if he was not single.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you kept it,” Hyuna says when she sees the dagger in Sua’s hand. “Awwww. And you used it to kill the bastard.”

“Well, it’s not like I had many options,” Sua responds. “Anyway, what are you going to do now that the monarchy is overthrown.”

“Hmm… I’m thinking we can try out democracy. Maybe a parliamentary system, and if that doesn’t work we can run with a deliberative system.” Hyuna pulls out a cigarette from who knows where, lighting it with a match. She takes a long drag of the cigarette. “We’ll figure it out, it’s not set in stone. We’ll keep trying things until we find something that works.”

Sua genuinely smiles. “I wish you success in your endeavors.”

Hyuna smiles back at her. “What about you? What are you going to do now that you’re not a princess?”

Sua looks to where Mizi is excitedly discussing explosives with Hyun-Woo. She catches Sua’s eyes and waves. Her golden eyes sparkle brilliantly, and Sua’s heart swells with overwhelming affection for her. “I don’t know really, but whatever I do, I’m gonna do it with her.”

And she did.

_________________

It was a tale lost to time, forgotten as most things are. But if you are to remember one thing, remember this: nothing lasts forever but neither do humans, and that means they can spend their whole lives in love. In the end, they all lived happily ever after.