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They take her away just after midnight. The witching hour, as they say. It’s not a surprise, not really.
Chaewon always knew this day was coming.
The villagers have been whispering nonstop about who to pick. Who to sacrifice to the “goddess of the forest”. They called it that at first, back when one of the shepherding dogs disappeared into the woods to die with grace after a fight with a wild fox went wrong. The very same dog had bounced back the very next day, spry and healthy and uninjured as can be.
It left again a week later, answering some unknown call to return to the forest.
A couple other small but strange miracles occurred, such as one stalk of corn growing so many ears, already peeled, that it looked like a bizarre, yellow-leafed tree. One local farmer’s sickly herd of pigs all magically recovered too, though they all broke through the fence and escaped into the wilderness after the first of their brethren was sold and slaughtered. Though the farmer was furious, other villagers clapped his back and laughed at how he must have incurred the wrath of the “goddess”.
Some started calling it a demon after the local magistrate was found by the treeline, torn to pieces in a sea of red-dyed grass with nothing but his head intact.
The few murmurs of he deserved it for what he did to that poor girl were drowned out by the numerous questions of what in the world did that?
The “goddess of the forest” officially became the “demon of the woods” after the vicar’s son braved the unknown to deliver a message signed by the elders of the village, a plea for mercy. At least half a dozen men and a couple women had been killed in a similarly bloody fashion by then, and some children had disappeared too, filling the village with a dense fog of dread. A curse, some said. We’re all cursed.
And perhaps they were cursed indeed, or perhaps they had somehow unwittingly signed a deal with a devil, for the vicar’s son came back quivering in his skin, babbling about wolves and judgment and moons and dreams.
He also brought a piece of parchment with a reply:
Bring me a girl.
The question of who was all too easy to answer. The Park family hadn’t been in good standing with the village for years, not after Chaewon’s mother ran off with an outsider. Her last remaining relative fled last summer as well, and while the children still speak fondly of the three strange women Cousin Sooyoung left with, the village matrons hiss about witchcraft and sin and straying from the Light of the Above whenever Chaewon walks by.
It doesn’t help that Chaewon turned down a proposal of marriage from the Leader’s son a few months ago. How could one like she possibly reject the kindness of the Heir? people asked. She must be as vile and tainted as her wicked cousin, they decided. Never mind the fact that the Heir was the kind to smile with his mouth and not his eyes. Chaewon was the one deemed wrong.
So naturally, Chaewon would be the number one pick to be a sacrifice.
It would be nice if they showed a little courtesy though, Chaewon thinks as she’s all but dragged forward by two pairs of hands clamped to her biceps. She has no physical evidence of where she’s headed thanks to the blindfold they forced on her, but it’s not hard at all to guess. Indeed, the harsh crunch of dry farmland dirt quickly gives way to the quieter footfalls of rich soil and soft moss.
It doesn’t take long for Chaewon to feel like they’re being watched.
The men surrounding her feel it too, everyone silently agreeing to come to a halt. It’s quiet, saved for the ragged breathing of someone to Chaewon’s right. He lets out a gasp at some point, leading to Chaewon’s own sharp inhale, but she releases her breath when nothing happens.
They wait.
And wait.
And wait.
It could have been minutes, it could have been seconds, it hopefully hasn’t been hours, but Chaewon has no idea how much time has passed. She’s pretty sure she hears someone’s teeth clicking and chattering though, so it’s probably been a decent while. She doesn’t know what kind of cue the men are waiting for; perhaps lightning from above, a booming voice from the skies, a giant–
Awoo~
Chaewon doesn’t even have time to process what she just heard before her surroundings descend into chaos. The men scream, they run, and Chaewon is jostled about, trying to keep her balance without the aid of sight. As countless boots patter further and further away from her, Chaewon tugs at the blindfold, hissing at the tight knot behind her head.
She finally yanks it off, and there’s nothing around her.
This part of the forest looks like any part of the forest might look, generic and tree-dense. There’s no identifying markers anywhere, not even footprints from the group that led her here. Chaewon can’t see the marks from her own steps, and an involuntary shudder runs down her spine.
“It’s fine,” she mutters to herself. “This is fine.”
And so she wanders.
Once again, the concept of time seems to vanish into the darkness, ‘forever’ indistinguishable from ‘now’. Chaewon walks, but she has no idea where she’s going. They’ve never been told how thick the woods are, and she can’t help but feel a twinge of despair at the thought that she’s just stumbling deeper into the maze the further she goes. The sunlight is so weak through the countless branches canopied over Chaewon’s head that it’s hard to tell night from day, and the only gauge she has of how long it’s been is her growing hunger pangs and the bitter dryness of her mouth.
And then she comes across a fallen tree.
It’s an extremely inconspicuous tree, the same cliched kind of appearance one would imagine if told to think of a fallen tree. Not too big, not too small, but just right. There’s nothing wrong with being so inoffensively ordinary, of course, except for one small fact.
Chaewon has seen this tree before.
She stares at it, trying to decide if it’s better to believe that she has a terrible sense of direction and has accidentally been walking in circles, or if it’s better to think that she’s simply gone crazy.
She really doesn’t want to think about the host of this forest playing with her the way a cat toys with a mouse.
She hears it first, low, steady thumps that sound just like a heart if each beat only throbbed once.
She feels it next, just as she’s trying to write off the sound as her own blood pounding in her ears. She feels the ground shaking in time with each thud, getting stronger the louder the sounds get.
She sees it last.
Two red pinpricks, glowing in the gloom. Bone white material surrounding the lights– a skull. A giant skull. A giant wolf skull.
The… thing’s body is cloaked in a shroud of shadows, black mist obscuring the rest of its shape from Chaewon’s mortal eyes. Whatever it is, it’s huge, the skull floating where a horse’s head would be.
The Demon of the Woods’ jaw slowly opens.
Chaewon closes her eyes and clasps her hands together. Never much of a person for praying, she nonetheless begs, “Please make it quick, please make it quick, please make it quick.”
There’s a rasping sound.
Chaewon cracks open an eye as far as she dares, a mere sliver of vision. It’s enough to see the skull tilted at an angle though, almost like a curious or confused dog–
Bone and darkness leap forward.
Chaewon screams.
Then all goes black.
Chaewon wakes up in the most comfortable bed she’s ever even dreamed of.
Instead of hardened straw and hay with a lumpy, moth-bitten excuse for a blanket, Chaewon feels as though she’s nestled between warm clouds wrapped in liquid cloth. It’s what she imagines silk would feel like, a blasphemous thought, but she’s too snug to bother being properly pious. For all she knows, she’s already dead and this is the Land of Promised Light, filled with happiness and joy and fulfillment. Father Lee always said she wouldn’t be allowed there, not after what her mother did, but perhaps the Light felt merciful after her sacrifice?
Or maybe this is the Well of the Dark, where all sinful souls go, and this is a test of temptation before she’s sent off to an eternity of suffering.
That thought sobers her up quickly, and Chaewon all but leaps out of bed, throwing the covers off.
The first thing her eyes register is more luxury, sinful, hedonistic, beautiful luxury. Furniture made of dark, polished wood decorated in ornate carvings, a mirror brighter and clearer than silver and framed in gold, colored walls papered with flower and bird patterns, a cozy rocking chair covered in a plush throw, a fireplace made of white stone with a painting of mountains placed on the mantle, a shelf lined with what must be what they call books, real books…
Trials of temptation already forced out of her mind, Chaewon drifts towards the most forbidden. She raises a finger and gently traces the gilded and etched symbols along one of the book’s spine. Letters, she remembers Sooyoung’s odd new friends saying. These are letters.
Chaewon drags herself away from the shelf of books to examine the two doors connecting this bedroom to who knows where. Brass knobs twinkle at her, and Chaewon tries the first one, mildly surprised when it’s not locked. It leads to a smaller room, this one with a huge, white stone basin vaguely similar to the ‘washing tub’ the Leader is rumored to have. Chaewon’s pretty sure his is supposed to be made out of wood though, not this strange, smooth stone shared by another seat-shaped object in this room and another, smaller basin attached to a wall. They all have golden metal contraptions attached to them, and Chaewon fights with her curiosity for a bit before abandoning this bizarre room to check the other door.
It’s a bit of a letdown when Chaewon steps through the new doorway to find what’s undoubtedly a kitchen. It’s a very fancy kitchen at least with a huge, black stove, plenty of counters and cabinets, a wall of silver utensils and shiny cookware hung on racks, and other signs of opulence that the village would surely ban. Chaewon’s favorite is probably the lace-lined tablecloth, frippery normally reserved only for the vicar’s family during the annual Harvest Prayer meal.
Chaewon looks away from the table designed for two and squints at the three remaining doorways. The only one without a door seems to lead to a sitting area with another two chairs covered in cloth placed before another fireplace. There’s even more books in that room, enough to make a delighted shiver go up Chaewon’s spine, but she forces herself to keep examining this fantastical cottage.
Chaewon’s hypothesis that one of the doors goes to a small pantry is confirmed by a quick check, though ‘small’ is a complete understatement. Her eyes widen upon seeing how much food there is, bags of flour and racks of dried meat, plus piles of different fruit… She slams the door harder than necessary in shock at the bounty before she turns past the kitchen towards the door clearly leading outside, her eyes skipping over the black mass sitting at the table–
Chaewon freezes.
She glances at the wolf skull out of the corner of her eye.
And then she screams.
The wolf skull jumps, and a part of Chaewon (a very tiny part) acknowledges through the fear how funny it is that her being scared seems to have scared the Demon of the Woods. Her fear wins out, however, and Chaewon retreats towards the kitchen, her hands feeling behind her for something, anything to defend herself.
The Demon raises two clawed hands in a gesture usually used to convey a lack of threat, and Chaewon’s screams die in her throat as she recognizes what she’s seeing.
The Demon has a human-shaped body now.
Chaewon stares, and in response, the two red pinpricks of light in the wolf skull vanish for a second before reappearing. A blink, Chaewon realizes. The Demon is blinking.
“S– Sorry,” a distinctly female voice says. “I’ll leave. You should eat though.”
The Demon moves a claw, and Chaewon watches, mystified, as the black shadows swirling around the Demon continue to coalesce into form. A waistshirt, a tie, the lapels of a coat, down into sleeves… The Demon gestures at a bowl of cut fruit sitting on the table that wasn’t there before.
“You should eat,” the Demon says again before it drifts towards the front door, fumbles with the doorknob, and disappears as the door closes behind it.
Chaewon waits for a second.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
And then she exhales sharply as her lungs burn from the breath she was accidentally holding.
Chaewon sinks into the chair opposite the one previously occupied by the Demon. Suddenly feeling more exhausted than she can ever recall feeling, she eyes the sliced apples and oranges warily. There was a story like this, wasn’t there? About a boy and girl, siblings, imprisoned by a witch wanting to eat them…
Her mouth may be watering, but Chaewon can feel her heart pounding in her chest. Think, she tells herself. Think. It didn’t look as though the Demon locked the front door, so maybe she could escape through it? Chaewon has no idea where she could possibly go, but she’d rather not wait for death. She glances up to look through the kitchen window to see if the Demon is nearby–
And she looks the Demon right into its two glowing eyes.
Not expecting the Demon to be literally standing right outside the window looking in, Chaewon does the only thing she can think of: scream. That tiny, rebellious, crazy part of her wants to laugh at how the Demon seems to wince at the sound, but the self-preserving part of her quickly runs for the door.
Chaewon isn’t surprised when the Demon beats her to the exit. It stands there, blocking her route to escape with arms crossed.
“Can you please stop screaming?” it asks, and something about its very annoyed tone sets off that tiny, mutinous, equally annoyed part of Chaewon.
“Can you please stop trying to scare the Light out of me?” Chaewon retorts. She, too, crosses her arms, and while she did it out of habit, she realizes a second too late that it might come off as her mocking the Demon.
Oh well. If Chaewon is going to die, at least she can die standing up for herself for once.
She’s tired of being bullied and threatened and frightened and shamed.
The wolf skull tilts.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” the Demon says, its voice more controlled now. “I’m just… trying to see how you are doing. Why aren’t you eating?”
“Eat? So you can fatten me up?” Chaewon retorts.
“Fatten you up…?” The Demon tilts its skull even more. “Why would I want to fatten you up? You look fine.”
Chaewon glares defiantly.
“Because you want to eat me, of course,” she snaps. “You want more meat on these bones so you can make the most of your human sacrifice.”
“Human sacrifice? Eat you? What?” The Demon sounds equal measures disgusted and confused, and its jaw even hangs open slightly as though it’s incredulous. “Humans are so weird…”
“... You mean you don’t want to eat me?”
“No! Why would I–”
It must be the sheer relief of maybe not dying that gives Chaewon the courage to interrupt the being that has her life in its hands.
“You sent back a note saying ‘bring me a girl’. Isn’t that what all demons want? A young girl as a blood sacrifice–”
“No!” the Demon protests, this time sounding straight up horrified. “We’re not monsters. I just told him… That boy is an idiot,” it suddenly hisses before sighing. The Demon moves to sit at the kitchen table, Chaewon following along. “The men sent a boy. I asked him to bring someone. It gets… quiet out here.” The Demon gestures out the window. “I wasn’t sure if he understood me. He was too busy wetting himself. And interrupting me with his pleas.”
The skull on the other side of the table never changes shape or anything beyond the jaw moving as the Demon speaks, and perhaps it’s just Chaewon’s imagination, but she could swear that she could see the Demon’s exasperation in the stark white bone. She can see the way its nonexistent expression seems to soften when it turns towards her, and she knows without a doubt the Demon is rolling its eyes when the red lights move upwards then back down.
“He screamed a lot, more than you, so I figured maybe the boys of your hamlet are just… loud like that,” the Demon continues. “So I thought I’d ask if any of the girls would be stronger. But he wasn’t responding anymore so I left a note.”
“‘Bring me a girl,’” Chaewon whispers, though the Demon clearly heard with its nod.
The Demon places an arm on the table, leaning forward. Again, the skull doesn’t move, but if it were human, Chaewon was sure she’d see narrowed eyes. Indeed, the air around them suddenly feels more charged, like the buildup of a storm.
“I told him to ask for volunteers. But he didn’t, did he?”
Chaewon swallows nervously, eyes glancing down, but then she lifts her head.
Why should she try to downplay someone else’s wrong?
“Nobody asked. They just took me. They chose me because–” Chaewon swallows again. “They chose me because I’m the one nobody wants.”
The Demon’s claw on the table twitches.
“Well,” it says after a pause. “I want you. You seem nice. When you’re not screaming like a boy.”
Against her will, Chaewon’s lips curve into a smile.
“You seem nice too. When you’re not acting like a scary monster.”
Unfortunately, Chaweon’s first smile in a long time slowly disappears as she remembers exactly who she’s sitting with. A part of her doesn’t want to ask, but she summons what’s left of her courage from earlier.
“Those people who were killed… did you…”
“They deserved it,” the Demon answers promptly, but there’s no malice in its tone. Rather, the Demon speaks quite matter-of-factly, as though it were merely pointing out the natural food chain of the wild. “They hurt people. So I stopped them from hurting anyone else.”
“I see,” Chaewon says, and maybe she really is doomed for the Well of the Dark, but it’s hard for her to find enough sympathy for the victims to argue with the Demon. Whatever energy had to fight back earlier has abandoned her now, and she sits back in her chair.
The Demon carefully pushes the bowl of fruit towards her.
“Say, do you have a name?” Chaewon suddenly asks.
The two little red lights blink.
“Hyeju,” the Demon of the Woods says. “You can call me Hyeju.”
“Hyeju,” Chaewon repeats out loud. Hyeju, she echoes in her mind.
Hyeju.
Chaewon doesn’t think it’s too fantastical to say that living with Hyeju is like living in a dream.
A soft bed, comfortable clothes, fresh food, water that comes at just a turn of a knob, and books… Oh, the books…
Hyeju teaches her how to read and write, slowly but surely. A patient instructor, Hyeju never belittles Chaewon, nor does she ever bring up how the Scriptures forbid women from literacy. The one time Chaewon alludes to it, Hyeju just snorts derisively and continues with the lesson.
Maybe that’s the best part about living with Hyeju: the lack of judgment, the lack of chains. Chaewon’s pretty much consigned herself to the Well of the Dark at this point for her Lightless thoughts and for giving in to temptation, but it’s impossible for her to resist the allure of literature. Countless stories, countless worlds, both real and imaginary, just at her fingertips… A wolf skull can’t smile, but Chaewon knows she’s not alone in her delight the first time she finishes reading something on her own.
Even when Chaewon bungles her first attempt at cooking, Hyeju is all laughter and no shame. Well, not all laughter, perhaps. The demon is clearly taken aback and a little bit stern as she rushes to Chaewon’s rescue, but she doesn’t berate her or curse her.
“How did you set water on fire?” Hyeju asks, shaking her head with a wry smile as she snaps her gloved, human-shaped fingers.
The fire vanishes.
Chaewon stares into the black of the pot before admitting quietly, “They never allowed me to cook. They said my hands would taint the food. So they made me do everyone’s laundry.”
Hyeju glances down at said hands before looking back at Chaewon’s face.
“What, and you won’t taint their clothes? They’re stupid,” she says bluntly before zipping into the sitting room and coming back with a book of pictures, recipes, and instructions.
Chaewon asks one day after a surprisingly successful dinner where Hyeju gets all her supplies and books.
“Magic,” the demon responds cheekily before adding, “My sisters help find stuff too.”
“... You have sisters?”
“You should meet them sometime. They’d love to meet you.”
Chaewon tells herself not to read too much into that note of pride she thinks she hears in Hyeju’s voice.
The next time Hyeju throws Chaewon’s admittedly weak heart into a loop is the day she wakes up to a stranger in their kitchen. A very pretty stranger, but nonetheless, Chaewon inches towards the nearest frying pan.
“What are you doing?” the woman asks in a very familiar voice.
“... Hyeju?”
The woman pats at her body and squishes her own face.
“What, did I do it wrong? Do I not look human?”
“No, no, you look great,” Chaewon hastily assures her. “I just didn’t… expect. I just didn’t expect this, that’s all.”
The woman with the pretty face gives a pretty smile. It’s more of a self-satisfied smirk, but the result is the same: Chaewon can feel a strange fluttering in her stomach, almost as though a bird within is trying to take flight.
Other strange sensations start popping up more and more as they go into the winter. The two of them are cooped up inside a lot more often thanks to swirling snow and biting cold, and Hyeju continues to stay in her human form. At some point, Chaewon starts to wonder if she’s caught a slow, long lasting sickness; the symptoms are all there, including more stomach birds, a flush of heat whenever Hyeju is near, and a bizarre, almost dizzy lightness that would worry Chaewon more if it didn’t make her feel so glad.
Glad that she was chosen, glad that she’s still here, glad that she’s with Hyeju.
Chaewon accepts this eternal sickness the day she asks Hyeju, “Which form do you prefer?”
“This one,” Hyeju replies after a moment of thought. Her human face must have been crafted by the angels, Chaewon thinks, as her companion breaks out into one of those bird-creating smiles. “I like being like you,” Hyeju continues so sincerely that Chaewon gets a new symptom, a constricted chest.
“How long can I stay here?” Chaewon asks once the last bit of snow has melted and fresh wildflower blooms start peeking through the dirt.
“As long as you’d like,” Hyeju answers as she digs small holes for Chaewon to plant vegetable seeds in.
“Do you never get bored?” Chaewon asks the day they go fishing in the stream behind the cottage.
“I have you,” Hyeju answers while taking on the noble task of hooking worms on the line.
“Don’t you ever get tired of having to watch over the village?” Chaewon asks during a rare walk closer to the tree line than she’s ever dared.
“Someone has to do it,” Hyeju says in all her skulled glory, materializing from space to empty space as she shadows Chaewon’s steps.
“Will you… Will you leave someday?”
Hyeju snorts, and the skull leans towards Chaewon.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily. Who else am I going to make fun of all day?”
“Hey!” Chaewon protests, smacking Hyeju on the nose.
And so time passes in a haze, just as it would in a dream. Sometimes, Chaewon wakes up in the middle of the night, terrified that it all really was just a temporary delusion and that she’s back in the village. It’s not the loss of the cottage and freedom and books that would hurt the most; it’s the thought of Hyeju not being real, that the one person that accepts her and embraces her as she is in all her flaw and sin doesn’t exist.
She mentions such a nightmare to Hyeju once, offhandedly and casually with a light laugh and dismissive wave. She half expects Hyeju to laugh along or to poke fun. Instead, her companion leads her outside to a small clearing.
“Here,” Hyeju says, handing her a golden band. “Dream or nightmare or reality,” she says. “No matter where you are, call upon me through this, and I will be there. I will be here, for you.”
Chaewon stops having nightmares after that.
The summer solstice. They come for her on the summer solstice.
Chaewon wakes before the sun has risen, a strange smell permeating her room through the window. A forbidding feeling chasing up her spine, she rushes to get dressed before storming outside.
Hyeju is nowhere to be seen.
Chaewon sniffs the air carefully, rubbing her eyes as the red of the rising sun starts to paint the trees. The crimson begins to dance, however, and Chaewon squints.
She realizes what it really is the same second she finally identifies the smell.
Fire and oil.
“Hyeju!” Chaewon calls out as she rushes into the woods. “Hyeju, where are you?”
She reaches the clearing with the fire in record time, guided and pushed along by the forest itself. She can hear the branches and trunks behind her creaking back into place even over the sounds of the crackling bonfire, but that all fades beyond notice when Chaewon sees the cause of danger.
A group of men from the village.
Their partially familiar faces shift between dark and light as they surround the blazing bonfire, lighting their torches. Some of them are armed with boar-hunting spears, while others carry long, strange sticks strapped to their shoulders. One of them is crouched by the ground, and Chaewon’s heart breaks when she sees a dead wolf at the man’s feet.
A voice rises out from the din.
“Hey, you guys think the other team found the Demon yet? Or do you think they’re mincemeat?” The Heir’s disgustingly recognizable laugh is enough to make Chaewon’s stomach churn unpleasantly. She touches the ring on her fourth finger for comfort as she listens to the man detail his plans. “If these two fires won’t flush it out in the next five minutes, I’m setting another one.”
“Sir, we must be careful that the fires don’t spread to our homes–”
“You think I don’t know that?”
The Heir sneers and turns.
He sees Chaewon.
She doesn’t give him a chance to get the first word in.
“Get out,” she says, her voice ringing with all the resentment of the past and all her strength from the present. Hyeju’s authority resonates in her words as she demands, “Get out of our forest!”
Chaewon’s audacity is rewarded with the wonderful sight of the village men heeding her words. Just like magic, they all take off and run without a single protest. They drop their torches, some of the flames catching on trails of oil and encircling the clearing in a ring of fire. The new blazes jump higher than Chaewon expects, forming an impenetrable wall, but she’s not scared.
Not anymore.
She turns towards the one man fallen to the ground.
She wonders how she ever feared him, the pathetic creature scrabbling around on the dirt like a bug. She then reconsiders, recalling how everything and everyone in the village bent to his rule, all because he was born in the right family.
Giving grace to the person she used to be, the one trapped and smothered under a doctrine she never chose, Chaewon steps forward.
“Y– Y– You… How are you alive!?” the Heir stammers before regaining his footing. “A demon!” he declares with almost admirable conviction. “You must be a demon with her face!”
Chaewon raises her chin.
“Maybe I am.”
The man lifts his stick and points the barrel right at Chaewon’s chest.
“Begone!” he yells. “I shall vanquish you with my blessed bullet of L– Light!”
There’s a click, a bang, a whoosh, and a thud as something hits Chaewon’s chest and bounces right off.
“How dare you,” a voice hisses through the trees, stirring the flames into a bigger frenzy.
The man drops his stick in fear and shock, and right before his and Chaewon’s very eyes, the wolf corpse at his feet begins to dissolve. It starts sinking into the ground beneath it, strands of fur melting into blades of grass. The man’s stick likewise is absorbed into the dirt, and Chaewon enjoys the sound of his whimper at the sight.
The wolf continues to decay. Fur gives way to muscles giving way to bone. The ribs crumble to dust one by one, leaving only the spine and skull.
Chaewon can already feel what’s coming next.
The skull begins to float in the air, enlarging as it rises. The Heir whimpers pathetically as shadows converge under the skull, forming an anomalous shape incomprehensible for mortals. Two red lights glare out of the darkness of the skull’s eye sockets, a familiar sight to Chaewon.
“What should I do with him?”
“Exactly what he deserves.”
Hyeju accepts Chaewon’s decision with a nod.
“You should head back home,” the Demon of the Woods says casually as though there’s no man cowering in wet trousers nearby. “I’ll make sure none of these fools ever bother me or my wife ever again.”
Chaewon narrows her eyes.
“Wife?”
The giant wolf skull moves its snout pointedly in the direction of Chaewon’s left hand, where her ring is glimmering from the firelight.
Chaewon shakes her head and sighs.
“You need to learn from some human traditions, you know,” she scolds. “But clean this mess up first. We can talk when you get back.”
The fires part for her like sentinels bowing to their liege, and Chaewon goes home.
Chaewon’s pretty sure she hears a couple more bangs in the distance as she slices into a watermelon. By now, the sun has risen properly, illuminating the kitchen in gold. Other fragments of light dance through the room, refracted through a crystal butterfly placed on the windowsill, Chaewon’s first birthday gift from her… companion.
Later, Hyeju will tell her about how she destroyed the village. She will clarify that she asked one of her fellow Daughters of the Moon to spirit away the more innocent villagers while she ‘took care’ of the rest. Hyeju will then ask if Chaewon minds the village and the Church of the Light of the Above being eradicated, and Chaewon will say no.
But first, Hyeju will properly ask Chaewon to be her wife. She will ask if Chaewon doesn’t mind that she got the order a bit backwards, and she will ask if Chaewon thinks they can make each other happy. Hyeju will then ask if Chaewon would like to spend the rest of their existences together.
And to that, Chaewon will say yes.