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Many years ago there was a kingdom by the sea. Though it was small, it was also peaceful, prosperous, and justly ruled.
Seungwan loved her kingdom. She loved her simple job, working in her parents' bakery. She loved her fellow citizens, especially the people of her borough on the very edge of the shoreline. She loved her family, and her family's friends — like the local innkeepers and the blacksmith down the way — and of course the Lord of the kingdom himself, with his fair ruling and immeasurable generosity.
She especially loved the Lord's daughter.
Bae Joohyun was perfection. She was beauty, intelligence, gentility, and class — the epitome of what a future Lady should be. Her mind was deep and her heart was careful; her soul rich in both wit and purity. An ideal daughter for all the families in the kingdom, and an ideal wife for all the men who vied for her attention.
Seungwan will always remember her smile, and the way she looked at her like she was the sun itself.
They were inseparable, and had been for the years following the departure of Seungwan’s childhood friend, back when the girl was only just old enough to operate her parents' bakery herself. Kang Seulgi was older than her, and had been allowed to move up to greater things — to study under the tutelage of a nearby kingdom's royal physician — and thus left Seungwan without a close companion for a long while before she met Joohyun.
Of course, when they finally did meet, they clicked in a way that children only ever hear about in fairytales. Joohyun was as enrapturing as the damsels from such lore, and Seungwan had known this since she first saw the older girl standing at the cliffside on the outskirts of her borough, looking far into the distance as if searching for something among the rolling waves of the ocean. Even years later, she found herself enchanted just by watching her beloved recount her most recent dispute with her father.
She decided it must something about the way she broke her perfectly sculpted face of composure for Seungwan. It was nothing short of endearing, when Joohyun was the one of the most well–mannered people she had ever had the pleasure of knowing.
A muttered “Forgive me,” broke her train of thought, marking the end of a lengthy tirade to do with Joohyun’s fast approaching coming–of–age, and all of the responsibilities it entailed.
(Responsibilities like marriage; an issue that they both tried to dance around as much as possible.)
“Do not apologise for speaking your mind,” Seungwan reassured her with a grin, squinting up at her from her comfortable resting spot on her lap.
“Father has always forbidden me from doing so,” Joohyun responded bitterly, and the younger one just gave a gentle laugh.
“Honesty is of great virtue, though,” she commented with a slight shrug. "After all, what use is there in lying?"
The crinkle in Joohyun’s features eased away, softening into the gentle look she normally wore whenever Seungwan won a debate with her by sound reasoning alone.
“Indeed," the older girl nodded slowly, fingers pausing on the younger one's crown, where they had been running absently through her hair. The cry of birds overhead and the song of zephyrs in the trees hung over them for a moment more before Joohyun looked down at her with a smile. "You’re certainly different, Son Seungwan."
“You’ve told me before,” said girl replied jestingly. “Though you are just as different as me.”
Joohyun chuckled. “We're the same in being different, then?"
“Yes,” Seungwan replied easily, before giving a squeak of surprise as her view became obscured by mahogany tresses; the small sound muffled by a pliant mouth on hers until they part seconds later. “W…What was that for?”
Joohyun just blinked, staring at her thoughtfully for a while longer before leaning back on her hands to look up at the sky. “For being different with me."
Simple. Her reply was simple, yet Seungwan was as speechless as she would be if she were given a decorated scholar’s research to analyse — or perhaps the world’s most difficult riddle. Regardless, she made no other sound as Joohyun began humming a familiar tune to the birds cooing above them. Their tune. The one they composed themselves after hours spent sitting at the shore with just the company of each other and the crashing waves at their feet.
Seungwan gave a content sigh, shutting her eyes and putting her whirlwind thoughts to rest as she listened on.
Those were the moments she treasured the most, back then.
Their paradise began to crumble at the edges as summer drew to a close. After autmun would come winter, and with spring carrying Joohyun’s birthday (and her subsequent ‘suitor hunt’, as they had taken to calling it), there was only so much time they had together before the reality of things started setting in.
"You are still but a child, Seungwan,” her mother chided her one blustery day, after a morning spent pestering her about the total lack of necessity in being wedded after coming of age. “You are too young to understand."
Seungwan just huffed, the older woman’s words merely fuelling her frustration even more as she followed her into the kitchen.
"So is Joohyun!” she retorted, earning a stern look in return.
"The young mistress is becoming a woman soon. You would do well to follow her example and be an obedient daughter, once your time comes."
And just like that the argument was set aside with her mother starting work on a new batch of bread loaves and stuffed buns, and Seungwan couldn’t muster the energy to do anything other than join her; her brain whirling with protests and raucous defiance all the while. Conventions like forcing one to marry after turning eighteen were outdated and silly, in her opinion.
And it wasn’t just that. Her time with Joohyun had made her grow wary of the priest and his sermons, too. The ideas that he spoke of in them, anyway. After all, how can love of any kind, between anyone, be condemned by God as if it were sin? It didn’t add up.
Seungwan didn’t like it. As a matter of fact, she had decided she didn’t like church that much altogether.
(“I feel as though they are watching us far too closely,” Joohyun remarked after mass, once. At Seungwan’s curious look, the older girl simply nodded her head at the walls painted with depictions of Heaven and its winged seraphs; all looking down upon them with faces of reverence and joy.
Maybe it was the shadows cast in the setting sun, or a trick of the light from the open windows, but Seungwan could see something darker in their watchful eyes. “Perhaps they are envious, then," she said simply, linking her arm with Joohyun's.
Her maiden tugged her a little closer. “…Perhaps.”)
It was only after Joohyun fell ill that Seungwan reconsidered her stance. The kingdom’s most intelligent physician could prescribe herbs to soothe the chest pain at best, with the additional order of plenty of warm food, water, and rest for her to recover. So when weeks passed and she didn’t, the people of the kingdom asked that her health be treated by divine power instead.
Except everyone's prayers and the priest’s blessings did nothing and her beloved began to cough more than she spoke, and the young baker was quick to return to her disdain of the divines. It was at his advisor’s encouragement then that Lord Yongjoon sent for more skilled physicians outside of the kingdom; and that was how Seungwan reunited with her childhood friend, standing by the bedside of her lover with nothing helpful to offer other than her hand to hold as Seulgi examined her thoroughly.
“I have only seen a persistent disease like this a handful of times,” the young but proficient scholar concluded by the evening, graciously accepting a cup of tea from Joohyun’s maid. “Debilitating and generally long lasting, but not contagious."
Lord Yongjoon stepped forward then, the frown that had been on his face for the past fortnight etched on his features like marble carvings. “Is it curable?”
Seungwan looked away as Seulgi answered him with downcast eyes. “Not entirely, by my knowledge…no."
The room fell silent with the weight of her words until her assistant came hurrying into the room, carrying with her a satchel of herbs and strangely-coloured liquids that she promised would ease the symptoms and cool the growing fever.
“Thank you, Yerim,” the physician murmured as she set aside her drink to take one particular bottle and uncap it, before carefully feeding a spoonful to Joohyun. “This medicine will help her to sleep soundly. No coughing, no nightmares."
The Lord, the young baker, and the lone maid breathed sighs of relief. “Thank you,” Seungwan mumbled, only just noticing the subtle glances that Joohyun’s father had been taken to their joined hands. Her hand remained entwined with her beloved’s anyway, tightening with the somber look Seulgi gives her.
“Don’t thank me yet,” the slightly older one sighed as she packed her satchel and moved to leave.
“Our utmost gratitude goes to you regardless, Miss Kang,” the Lord insisted with a firm nod towards her. “Anything that helps ease my daughter’s pain is welcomed."
His sincerity garnered a wry smile from the physician. “Well, Seungwan. Miss Park. My Lord.” A deep bow, and courteous smile. “I will be in my quarters, should you need any further assistance. Come, Yerim."
Her assistant bounded out of the door after her with her cup of tea in hand, and after a long silence Seungwan felt a warm hand take her arm.
“Let us leave the Lord to be with his daughter for a while,” Sooyoung whispered, already leading her out of the door with promises of letting her use the kitchen to bake anything she wanted. The shorter one obeyed with a wary heart, but did her best to while away her time with Sooyoung without dampening the mood. After all, Seulgi was taking care of Joohyun now. Joohyun was in capable hands. Even if those hands couldn’t save the others before her.
But maybe Joohyun would be the lucky one. It certainly seemed so a week later, when they started getting results. The solemn expression that always seemed to plague Seulgi’s features when she thought no one could see had since dissipated, and Seungwan only found out why once someone knocked on her door one damp, but warm autumn morning.
“Sooyoung?”
The maid grinned down at her without a word, a familiar-looking satchel hanging from her shoulder as she stepped aside to reveal a smaller, paler figure wrapped in rich velvet and soft furs.
“Joohyun,” was all she can breathe then before moving to embrace her, stopping at the last second to avoid crushing her frail frame as she basked in the feeling of having her close. Sooyoung explained then that she was meant to and keep an eye on Joohyun for her trip outside, all before handing Seungwan the satchel with quick, concise instructions of what to use and when.
“I will be in the town centre if anything happens,” she assured them, placing an affectionate kiss to her mistress’s crown before chuckling at the older girl’s grumble. Seungwan quietly watched the tall youth make her way towards the apothecary, glimpsing a familiar physician’s assistant waiting by the doorway as Joohyun impatiently tugged at her sleeve to lead them off to their usual winding forest path.
“I missed you,” she finally spoke when they settled at their usual spot a half hour later. Her voice was scratchy, hoarse with days of endless coughing.
And yet still so warm.
“You don’t have to miss me any longer,” Seungwan replied confidently, but the older one only pursed her lips at her words.
“Father plans to have me go back with Seulgi to continue receiving treatment,” Joohyun mumbled, picking at the blades of grass by her legs. "…And also for their Prince to consider me. When I recover."
The last part caught Seungwan’s attention instantly with a snap of the twig at her fingers. “Will you say yes?” she inquired cautiously, inwardly unsure herself as to what part she was even referring to.
Joohyun reached out to hold her hand tightly. “I would prefer to be with those who love me."
Seungwan gave a soft smile and leaned against her lightly. “And there are so many who love you,” she said. The older girl looked at her fondly, but could give no response until some time afterwards, spent in relative silence and broken by a suggestion of returning home.
“I only want to be loved by you,” is what she said eventually, as they walked down the dirt path shadowed by a thinning canopy of trees, littering an endless rain of leaves through the air. Her eyes glittered in the dark; her hair haloed by the moonlight seeping through the dying branches and the glow of fireflies in the undergrowth.
Seungwan felt her heart break and her chest ache, and stopped to turn to her maiden with determination in her gaze. “Do not worry, then,” she said simply, embracing her softly for fear of instigating a coughing fit. “I will only ever love you."
A second passed before a smile pressed itself against her shoulder delicately, and the leaves continued to fall with it.
Everything was soon ruined by the coming of the northern winds.
Joohyun’s health deteriorated too fast for anyone to have predicted, even with her routinely doses of multiple medicines and the care of Seulgi being constantly on call. Winter made itself apparent in the shake of Joohyun's body and the painful wheezes that wrenched at her lungs, and even after they increased the amount and concentration of medicine, there was no visible improvement.
Seungwan went to church for the first time since summer, filled with a strange mix of desperation and resentment as she sat in the pews alone and prayed until the candles burned themselves out. No one answered her when she begged on her knees, and as she finally left it was as though the howling wind in the slits of the brick walls were the laughter of divines consumed by the envy Seungwan saw in them so frequently.
The only thing she could do then was return to Joohyun’s bedside — a somewhat surprising privilege granted by the Lord — and keep her company during the cold winter nights. Seungwan’s parents seemed to be just as oddly understanding about her absences, but so long as it involved her doing the kingdom a service by tending to their Lord’s daughter, all was forgiven.
If only it did anything to help, Seungwan would lament to herself in the darkness of Joohyun’s room. Even as the warmest room in the castle, and probably the whole kingdom, the strength of the winds managed to create drafts everywhere and snuff out whole fireplaces, gripping Joohyun with its unforgiving hand even after Sooyoung would wrap her up in layers of furs.
On one particularly icy night she tossed and turned until Seungwan had to wake her from her nightmare, unconsciously flinching away from the scorching heat of her skin as she caressed her face and whispered reassurances before attempting to sing her back to sleep. Slumber evaded Joohyun easily though, and the beginnings of dread rose in Seungwan’s stomach once she saw why.
The young mistress was quick to staunch the blood seeping from the corner of her lips, placing a trembling hand on Seungwan’s arm and shaking her head before the girl could think to call for help.
“I’ll be fine, Seungwan,” she croaked, managing a soft smile. “Don’t worry. I just want to stay awake with you, for now.”
“You’re dying, Joohyun,” was all Seungwan could say back, and Joohyun laughed as if she had told a silly joke.
“I know,” she mumbled, pulling her close to press her temple to her cheek. “I love you."
A hitch of breath preceded the steady start of Seungwan’s tears. “Don’t do this,” she weeped plaintively, and when Joohyun uttered the words again, she could only say them back.
They had begun to drift off together like that, until her beloved drew in a quick, sharp breath and then another, more pained one before pushing her away quickly. The dread in her gut became pure fear as soon as heaving coughs immediately wracked the older girl's form, spraying droplets of dark red on her sheets as Seungwan immediately stood and cried out for help, scrambling for the medicine in the drawers and fumbling for all the right ones as Lord Yongjoon burst through the doors within seconds, followed swiftly by Seulgi and Yerim and her satchel of remedies.
“You must leave for now, my Lord,” the former muttered as she pulled a beak-like mask from her bag and plucked multiple bottles from her case. “You too, Seungwan."
“But —!"
“Yerim, I need you to hold her down."
“Understood.”
Unable to watch his daughter suffering any longer, the Lord turned to take Seungwan by the shoulder and ushered her out into the hallway with the sounds of quick instructions and laboured, hacking coughs left behind.
“She will be fine,” the Lord said with unease in his eyes as Seungwan immediately moved to go back in, and though his words stopped her, she could believe it no less than when his daughter told her the same, mere minutes before.
The terror in her gut twisted around itself over and over again when he asked her to wait in Sooyoung’s old room down the hall, and she had to force herself to remember that regardless of her relationship with Joohyun, she was still only a baker’s daughter living in his kingdom. So she obeyed reluctantly, her heart feeling more and more like lead as she paced until her footprints wore into the wooden floors; before finally settling in the confines of the bed once the vicious northern winds reminded her of their presence. She had to be patient. Seulgi and Yerim had done the near-impossible and cured Joohyun for a period of time, even when it seemed unfathomable. They could do it again. She just had to wait.
It didn’t change the fact that she was physically sick to the stomach by only being allowed to wait.
After that, she didn’t know when she fell asleep — just that she did so at some point before waking to the sound of a tentative knock and the creak of the bedroom door opening.
“Sooyoung?” She shot up from her sheets at the sight of the familiar figure, disregarding the likely-dishevelled state of her appearance as she looked at the second woman entering after her. She didn’t even register the Lord’s absence, at the time. “Seulgi? What happened? Is she —?"
“Seungwan —” her lover’s maid started, but as her words failed to come out the baker felt clog, turning to the physician then with pleading eyes.
“What happened?” she tried again, her voice wavering with the same terror that clutched at her stomach as she left Joohyun’s side.
Seungwan never forgot the way her friend drew a deep breath at that moment, before shattering her world.
“I couldn't save her.”
It was the angels' doing, Seungwan knew.
She had been anxious about something like this since her prayers began to be left unanswered, following the day Seungwan saw the darkness in the eyes of their paintings, etched into the foundations of the church. Such a heinous crime of the divines' cruel intent called for her rage, even as silent and suppressed as it was inside her. The worst of all of it was that Seungwan could do nothing about it, simply because she didn't know what she could do.
So she did nothing but grieve, as any young lover would, and two nights proceeding the Lord acknowledged the Sons and their part in Joohyun's life with kindness. A basket of fresh fruit was gifted to their home to promote their health through the winter, and another basket of herbs and insamju were sent with blessings of good strength in body and soul respectively. Seungwan made sure to visit her Lord and thank him herself, with offerings of fresh bread in gratitude and mutual mourning.
It was by his order and her suggestion then that a sepulchre be erected for his beloved daughter at the cliffside beside the causeway — among the wild flower beds that Joohyun loved so much. Seungwan herself could think of no other place more fitting than there, for her love to lie in eternal slumber.
Even with that small comfort, the minutiae of life around the kingdom was dulled at once by the absence of her love and the subtle light she always brought with her. Seungwan could no longer bring herself to leave her room when the same chill that took Joohyun away was still holding the land in its icy, unforgiving grip. Soon afterwards Seulgi also left, returning to her own duties in her kingdom— but not before leaving a letter offering a place to stay for her old friend, if ever she decided to come visit.
Seungwan kept it in her bedside drawer, and never looked at it again.
The days that followed were spent in idle motion. Her parents knew to leave her alone and give her space, and she appreciated the small gestures of leaving her favourite bread by the door in the mornings, or preparing hot soup for her at night.
She would have felt guilty about it all, if not for the anger and frustration that ate at her every time she looked to the sky and imagined the angels holding her love captive. What right had they to snatch Joohyun's life when her time was not yet over?
Petty divines, was all she could think. If only there was a way for the angels to come down so she could confront them herself, instead of allowing them to get away with it like thieves in the night. The demons calling from the sea at her beloved's cliffside were insistent on pulling her down to Hell instead, but they did not deter her.
No, her weakness came with the funeral that she had been made to attend — to say farewell to Joohyun with everyone else, even though she didn't want to. She wasn't everyone else, and she was certain she would lose her mind by just being there. But when the time came and she didn't feel her knees buckle with grief at the sight of Joohyun's finely adorned coffin, she almost wished she had.
For when the priest recited ancient lines from his tome and the men lifted her love into the tomb, Seungwan could only think of joining her.
“The Angels, our guardians,” she would remember hearing faintly; ringing in her ears for a long time afterwards. “And the great divines above who watch and protect us. We part with this young soul and entrust her to you with sorrow, but also with the knowledge that she will be in your loving care. Our prayers go to you for her journey, for your blessing of those who have yet to pass on, and for Heaven's will in this realm be done. Amen."
A single bow of his head signalled the rest to follow.
"Amen," Seungwan muttered with the rest of the gathering.
She didn’t believe a single word of it.
No peace could be found for Seungwan, even close to a full lunar cycle later.
Joohyun was everywhere.
The blur of a familiar, petite figure eluded her gaze in the silhouettes in her bedroom and the reflections of windows and mirrors; with tresses of woven mahogany hair tickling her from the simplest brush of material against her skin. She still could not look up at the night sky and watch the stars anymore, for now all she could see were eyes of warm chestnuts in winter, dulling with the frigid gusts until they were as lifeless as the trees of the surrounding forests.
It all became too much, eventually. To see pieces of her scattered everywhere, like a last spiteful curse cast upon Seungwan by the angels above in their collective envy.
Thus, as those with weak hearts do, Seungwan went to join her love.
A lengthy letter to her kin was written, though done at first while sitting at the shore with the thought of chaining her ankles to rocks and submerging herself from the nearby quayside. But that would not be returning to Joohyun.
No; she wanted to be with her again properly, if only for one last, short time in the physical world.
The opportunity presented itself seven sleepless nights later, when she saw the crescent moon from her window and recalled dancing beneath its light with Joohyun by the cliffside, and she knew her time was then. So she dressed into her finest clothes — a midnight satin dress gifted to her by Joohyun on her fifteenth birthday — and ventured to her parent’s quarters with her letter in hand and a kiss to the forehead for them both. She was confident their new baker Minhyung would do a good job of taking over the store in her stead.
It was then with a giddy heart that she made her way to her beloved’s sepulchre by the sea, barehanded and barefooted and revelling in the familiar chill that had already begun to set deep in her bones. The entrance of the structure was relatively easy to open, and though her lover’s case kept her obscured from Seungwan’s sight, she basked in the knowledge of being able to lay beside her once more anyway.
And lie beside her she did, after closing the stone slab of the sepulchre over them and settling down in the pitch black, musty and damp and as bitingly cold as she anticipated it would be.
“I’m here, Joohyun,” she murmured once she had lay her head on the cold floor of the tomb, touching the mahogany of the coffin with her hand. Warm. “You don't have to miss me again. I will be coming to you soon."
An answer whistled back to her in the wind through the gaps of stone and flint, and she smiled at the faint melody of Joohyun’s voice hidden beneath its call.
Her final greetings given, Seungwan simply closed her eyes and hummed their song over and over again; knowing in her soul that when the winter came to take her tonight, the melody would lead her to her Bae Joohyun, waiting in the heavens. And when the pain in her lungs and in her head died into numbness, Seungwan knew she did not need to wait any longer to join her lost love — to fade together into the history books, as tragic lovers often do. And she knew; she was confident that she would never leave nor forget her maiden, her life, her love.
Her Bae Joohyun.