#blood & sand: ksj

[cinnaminyoons]

( AUREATE. )

ミ☆ the stars look very different tonight.

⤷ PAIRING ksj x m!reader

⤷ WORD COUNT 1.7k 

⤷ REQUESTED

someone said reqUESTS??¿¿ heheheh,,,, youve written some DAMN GOOD fantasy aus so,,,, maybe some mermaid stuff??¿ or honestly just anything that involves the sea JFBSJS im sorry if it's not very specific;; but everything you write is pure gold so u bet imma simp anyway hehEh

when you were young, people thought you had been blessed by the gods. 

even when you become older, travelling far to the big city for your education, they tell their grandchildren of the boy whose gifts couldn’t be human. they whisper stories of how he swam with sharks and dolphins alike, how nobody could beat him in a race on land or in water, and how he could stay underwater for twice as long as their best men and come up to the surface with armfuls of oysters, each of which would have a pearl for the family who bought them.

you didn’t hear the stories they told of you until you were older, but your mother did. you lived with her, just the two of you, in a house atop a hill, and behind your house was the pale yellow shore and the deep blue-green sea. she saw the wary looks some of the townspeople shared when dolphins rose soon after your arrival on the beach—still in her arms, as you were too young to walk on your own—and you began clicking at them, and they clicked and squealed back.

you spent your early days, from morning to evening, playing along the stretch of beach that sat behind your house. sometimes other kids from the further-inland town joined you, but mostly, you played with your own company.

spending time by yourself was better, in quite a few ways. for one, you didn’t have to get pushed around by the bigger kids when they played too rough. two, it meant that you met a new friend.

the memories of him feel foggy when you look back on those years. regardless, you remember being struck by his beauty even as children—large dark eyes with lashes that brushed his cheeks whenever he blinked, hair so black it looked almost blue when it caught the light. his smile was the embodiment of innocence and his laugh was that of an angel’s, chiming high and clear like a bell whenever he pulled you along by the hand.

every day, he promised to meet you again, until he didn’t. he hadn’t told you why he stopped coming; you only knew that his spot where he’d sit at the edge of the pier was empty for years. 

you didn’t know where he lived. you never thought much about it, simply that he was a good playmate and your very best friend, but the one time you did ask, he had replied, the sea is my home. 

you thought him to be so clever—and as he was a year older than you, you put him on a pedestal, as all children do with their elders. when someone new around asked you where you lived or if you were told to run on home before night fell, you said the same thing: the sea is my home. 

of course, they all took it as a joke. careful of that boy, the old woman by the market would chuckle at cocksure tourists when you appeared, small and no older than ten, announcing yourself as their guide. he has spent so much time with the sea that it runs in his blood.

when you come home, you’re no longer a child. you have a degree and a good job way out in the city, which feels so congested and loud once you step onto the empty beach. you’ve been here two whole days and two whole nights to greet your mother and the townspeople who didn’t think you abnormal for your talents. two days, you hope, is enough to be polite, enough to pretend that you don’t hear the ocean calling for you.

you’re sure they won’t mind.

the beach really does feel like home, and it hits you like a tsunami with how much you simply feel. the gentle waves lapping at the shore are the view out the kitchen window, the sand is the carpeted floors, the trees edging the beach are the books your mother keeps around the house. the dawn sky is your roof, and the water becomes your blanket. 

one thing peculiar, however, is the fact that the waves splashing against the shore and the squawking of birds and the rustling of trees aren’t the only sounds. a single, clear voice carries over the wind, high and melodic, swelling and dipping smoothly in a way universally recognisable as a song. no words are spoken, but they aren’t necessary.

instinctively, your feet carry you closer to the source. your sandals swing loosely in one hand and the sand is slightly cold beneath you, but the day will warm soon enough. after a few strides, you squint against a silhouetted figure in the near distance—you don’t really need to, but surprise guides your actions.

you hurry up. the voice is still singing but it’s become a slower hum, evidently calming down from the peak of it. you stand at the far end of the pier from the figure, whose broad shoulders shimmer in the sun from the few stray droplets that race each other down. eventually, they soak into the waistband of the figure’s beige shorts, almost pink in the sunrise.

they stop singing. it’s a slow halt, a fade-to-black, and then it’s just silence separating you. 

they turn their head slightly, almost looking over their shoulder. “i thought you had forgotten about me.”

you swallow around the lump in your throat, approaching with silent steps. “i could never, jin-hyung.”

he smiles. you can’t quite see his smile—he’s not turned around enough—but his cheeks push up slightly. “come sit, then.”

you do so, pausing before you set down your shoes and take a seat next to him, legs dangling off the end of the pier. you push your hair out of your face. you say quietly, “you left so suddenly. where’d you go?”

“i’ve never been the rebellious type.” he shrugs. on another person, it might seem dismissive and rude, but on him, it’s only capable of being elegant. his grace is like it’s ingrained in everything he does. “i wasn’t supposed to talk to you at all. you were my secret for a few years.”

you tilt your head and watch the side of his face, rimmed in pale gold. older now, he’s grown into his features. “why was i your secret?”

“do you ever watch the sun come up?” he asks suddenly, looking east, away from you. the seawater has set in his hair from the wind and the time spent out of the water, forming delicate crystals that look like stars against the sky of his hair. “you used to like dusk better than dawn. do you still?”

you rest your hands on the edge of the faded wood, leaning forward to watch the water lap against the poles holding the pier up. “yeah.”

“why?”

“it meant that night was coming, and i liked looking out my bedroom window to see the stars,” you reply, legs swinging slowly. “night reminded me of you, hyung.”

he smiles, and finally, he looks at you. you feel, distantly, all the breath leaving your lungs. he looks to have been carved out of marble: a perfect, ethereal recreation of all beautiful things mixed together, just as you remember him to be. his eyelashes still brush his cheeks on every slow blink, his eyes still so dark that he never seems to look at you, but through you.

“you are sweet,” he murmurs, shifting closer to you. he closes his eyes when he gives you another smile. “i’m sorry i wasn’t here for you. i wanted to say goodbye. though, i’ve never really liked goodbyes—they always feel so final, like it’s the end of it all. i prefer to make promises. they sound much better, wouldn’t you say?”

“i would.” you can’t make yourself to look away from him. doing so feels like a crime. you find yourself murmuring, “did you think of me?”

he huffs a laugh, rosy lips curving up into a bright smile. “every day i thought of the little boy who looked at me like i was the moon and all the stars. every day i wondered what he might look like, what he might sound like, after so long.” he places his hand on top of yours and squeezes gently, still looking out over the calm blue water. “did you do the same for me?”

“always. you took my gifts—did you like them?” you turn your hand so that part of his palm presses against yours. you lace your fingers together. you put your gifts in a little wooden box below his favourite climbing tree once a week, and in the morning, it would be gone.

“i did,” he says and raises his other hand, shaking his wrist lightly. the small lacquered beads, meticulously carved into an array of his favourite flowers, are fashioned into a bracelet, fastened tight against the skin so it won’t slip off in the currents. “they were beautiful; thank you.”

“always,” you repeat gently. 

he turns to you and leans forward on your entwined hands. so close, you can’t believe he’s so... radiant. his golden skin seems to shimmer, glowing at his edges from the rising sun at his back. he smiles prettily, sweetly, in the same way he used to. you can’t help but melt into his touch when he reaches up and cups your cheek. his hand is warm and familiar. 

“my time with you is never long enough. i promise i'll see you again,” he whispers with those eyes so dark and hypnotising. he leans in until you feel the little puffs of his breath against your cheek. his saline scent engulfs you and it stings less when his lips press against yours in such a way that it steals all the air from your lungs. 

you watch, thoughts hazy, as he draws his hand away from yours, fingertips trailing along the length of your fingers and lingering for a soft moment. he slips beneath the foamy ocean waves, and the last smile he gives you is another promise. 

you can taste the salty sharpness of the ocean on your lips as you keep your gaze trained on the water and the horizon. the sun rises, round and full and coloured a soft romantic gold. 

in the distance, the water parts gracefully. you catch the glint of delicate peach-pink scales against the deep blueness, appearing pale orange in the light, and you smile. 

the sea is my home.

#seokjin #kim seokjin #seokjin x male reader #kim seokjin x male reader #seokjin x reader #bts x male reader #bts x reader #bts jin #bts seokjin #bts mlm #bts fanfiction #bts imagines #male reader #m!reader #kpop x male reader

[lolabangtan]

the lady with the flaming sword | ksj

Kim Seokjin, crown prince of a flowery and lush southern kingdom, is sent along with his troops to no man’s land in search of a group of grave robbers that had been seen prowling around the sepulchre of King Yong, who was once his father’s greatest ally. However, the prince loses sight of his men and ends up at the gates of a black castle that feels rather familiar.

Word count: 9k

Warnings: BDSM (masochist/sadist dynamics), paranormal, horror, angst (don’t read it if you’re feeling specially sad today lol it ruined me too), emotional manipulation.

# sub!Seokjin, prince!jin, dom!reader, princess!reader, ‘friends’ to ‘enemies’ to ‘lovers’, no the title is not an analogy for dick, vaginal sex, oral sex (both male and female receiving), use of restraints, choking, knife and blood play, seokjin is a painslut.

Blood play is pretty dangerous, even if I ignore any of its risks in this fic for literary purposes. Be careful of major blood vessels and STDs. Summing up, this story does not portray blood play in a realistic way (or in the way that should be in real life, at least). Honestly, i went feral with this one, too.

Those were dangerous lands. Plagued by demons and dark creatures, the road that supposedly led behind the mountains was rocky, and riding his horse was becoming incredibly painful, especially in his buttocks. Seokjin should rush if he didn’t want to end up as some beast’s supper.

“I have to turn left next… And follow the river,” he managed to read, turning the map upside down in an attempt to clarify the drawings. “What river? What road! I can’t even see beyond my own nose!”

The land on which his mare trotted was dry and barren, allowing the silhouettes of its horseshoes to be marked on it, but the wild wind would take only a few seconds to blow them away.

Seokjin had lost his men in the most ridicule of the ways—after ordering them to split so they could explore more of the area at once. The wind, however, blew the sand into the already dusty and dimmed sky, and soon he could no longer see any of the soldiers that were with him roughly a few minutes before. And there was no sound around him, only the mocking whistling of the wind.

The prince wanted to trust them and hoped to reunite with them at some point, even if the Forgotten Lands were elusive in their directions and all the rocks that appeared on the road in front of him looked the same.

The Forgotten Lands were dark and wilted—they had been forgotten for a reason. A place where one had to walk carefully to stay alive, it was a territory surrounding other kingdoms and whose history was no longer known. One could still distinguish roads and ruined houses, burned by the fires of battles led by those who did not want to risk destroying their own land.

As far as Seokjin could remember, the ruins of King Yong’s kingdom had to be near there, on the border with the Led Mountains.

All his father told him before he left was that a handful of robbers had been seen by neighbouring kingdoms prowling the grave of the northern royal family. That, and that he should be careful—after the Great Terror of the warlords who took power after the Revolution, the lands of the late King Yong were infested with outlaws, banshees, succubus, and other creatures from hell.

Fortunately, Seokjin hadn’t encountered any of them yet, and his main worry now was finding his men so he could catch the raiders.

The northern kingdom had never been known for its beauty, he remembered, but he could never have imagined that it could look like this. Dry, infertile, riddled with black ash and a reddish sky. It was truly a heart-breaking landscape when Seokjin recalled what it used to look like.

But his priority now was to find them. He couldn’t waste any more time plainly thinking.

The hours passed and only more arid and ruined land opened up in front of him. Some of the ruined constructions were still burning, probably lit by an assault or encounter between bandits.

Beyond the large pointy stones that pierced the thick clouds of ashes, an esplanade of lava and fire stretched as far as the eye could see. Seokjin gently pulled his mare’s reins to slow the pace and guided the animal through each of the stones after ensuring that they were solid.

He really wanted to take off his helmet, and his cuirass, and practically every single piece of his armour until he was wearing nothing but his aketon and underpants—the heat was barbarous.

However, if he did so, he’d probably get killed, and Seokjin certainly was much keener to keep himself out of the morgue rather than suffering through a bit of sweat and the sweltering feeling of his fringe dampened and pasted to his forehead.

“This map is useless,” he resolved.

The illustrations and patterns were certainly not helping at all. The place where he was probably wasn’t even appearing in the map.

Suddenly, a loud roar made the ground shake.

Seokjin’s mare baulked when he tried to move his legs slightly back, so he pressed softly with both knees to stop her from bolting. “Whoa! Duchess, halt! You’ll make me fall off you!” he exclaimed. Then Seokjin put his hand on her neck. “Lower your head, just like that. Good girl.” He realised he was gasping, too, so the man forced himself to calm down. “Let’s take a deep breath.”

Where could a howl like that have come from? Everyone knew of the beasts that swarmed the Forgotten Lands, all the banshees and sirens and demons, for they were the best place for those vermin to be left alone, but Seokjin knew of no animal that could produce such a sound.

Without looking away from the bright scarlet horizon, he listlessly beckoned Duchess to continue trotting along the side of the esplanade.

The rocks seemed more stable there, and he still did not want to demand much concentration from the mare, so they advanced towards the rocky hills where the noise had come from.

Seokjin soon realised that the growls were not growls per se—instead, they were the sounds made by the black stones of a half-ruined castle crashing as they twined around each other with the quietude of a snake. As crumbling as it seemed, the fortress stood. Barely, in tears, under the terrifying red sky and buried under the thick ash.

But it stood.

The stone walls and ramparts seemed to have come to life, although they were already dying. They writhed like a wounded man, they struggled with death, they moved though they wished to collapse. What kind of heartless desire was keeping them up?

He knocked on the gate and it opened at once.

The wood creaked slowly as it shifted backwards. The gate was scorched in the centre and splintered at the corners, but it moved firmly, as if offering him to enter at will.

Behind the giant gatehouse lay a deserted courtyard of dirt. Banners and flags, whose imagery had been erased by time, still waved in the strong wind. The battlements, on the other hand, had collapsed, and the gaps they left had breached the stones of the wall with their weight.

Seokjin approached the keep despite Duchess’ neighing. Surely she was only frightened by the grunts caused by the stones.

When he reached the entrance to the keep, he got off his mare to inspect the gateway.

“Hello?” The hall behind the half-ruined door was empty. Lamps and curtains flickered with the wind that blew through holes in the walls and whistled through the corridors. A chill ran down Seokjin’s back. “Is anyone here? I come in peace! I’m Kim Seo-”

“I don’t allow just anyone into my castle, Sire,” he heard, the gloomy voice echoing throughout the stone walls, “And I don’t let anyone out of it, either.”

You had waited for him to move into the room, and now you had cornered the man, blocking the exit to the door. Seokjin stared at you as he stepped back, getting deeper and deeper into the bowels of your castle.

“Run.” You could use a hunt, a chase, to entertain yourself today. The days were endless in the lands no one remembered. “Run and get out of this place if you don’t want to be killed.”

“Who are you? What is this place?”

But you raised your sword, and Seokjin flinched, having finally understood that no gallant act would get him out of that situation. He would have time to seek an answer to his questions when he left that castle safe and sound. Only the wind enclosed within the walls and the stone that ringed beneath his running feet would witness his cowardice.

Seokjin ran up the spiral staircase that would likely lead him to the top of the tower. From there, he could jump down the collapsed stones on the battlements and go back to the gateway.

The sound of your footsteps made it clear that you, on the contrary, were not in a hurry.

However, as Seokjin ran, the charred figures around him began to come alive. Suddenly, the statues and paintings pulsed in his memory, regaining their colour. The walls seemed to be reborn in his mind, and he recognized it instantly.

Stopping to catch his breath, he smiled, cheeks aching from the happy grimace.

The sudden life seemed surreal, but they throbbed within his memory, moving, rummaging through the dirt of what he thought was already forgotten, for his own healing, slow as it had been. For the sake of his sanity. The lights and glows of people chatting and walking, and the idle ado of the market outside the keep.

Seokjin approached the statue of a young woman and caressed her chin, feeling warmth under his finger pads.

Your cold fingers appeared as a ghostly presence around his nape, drawing him towards you to whisper in his ear. “I think I’ve had enough of playing cat and mouse. Who are you? I don’t like it when people show up at my castle unannounced—stay still or else I’ll slit your throat.”

“Nice,” he blurted out with an amused grin when you made him hold his hands up to chain him, “I like things like this.”

You scoffed, taking off his helmet and throwing it to the ground. “Freak.”

“So mean. You haven’t changed a bit.”

The way your eyes shone, sharply lit by the orangish candlelight, sent a shiver, both of thrill and the most absolute happiness, down his spine. But you shook your head and hung the chains onto a free wall-candlestick hook.

“I don’t know what could you possibly mean, sire.”

“It’s me,” sobbed Seokjin, pulling the chains to draw your attention towards him with the clinging sound, “It’s me, Y/N. Seokjin. I can’t have aged so much that you can’t recognise me anymore. In that case, consider me deeply aggrieved.”

He was bending his back, offering himself to you. With utter trust. Raising your hands to stare at them for a moment, you realised that only a man who had known you all his life could show himself in such a way and with such a smile. So you looked back at him, frowning upon the sound of his name.

“Seokjin?”

“Y/N,” he breathed.

You cupped his face, drinking from each and every one of his features. His dark hair falling on his forehead. His lips, pillow-like and wet—painfully so, perhaps waiting for a kiss from yours. “Is it really you? Seokjin as in…?”

“Yes, I’m Prince Seokjin. It’s me, Y/N. And this is-this is you! Princess… Y/N, it’s you.” Seokjin sipped his nose as two thick tears rolled down his cheeks. A wide smile, however, decorated his face. “How is it possible? How can you be alive? The king, the queen, your brothers… Are they…?”

Looking down, you shook your head.

“There’s only me left.”

Seokjin’s arrival was definitely a pleasing surprise. It had been so many years since your loneliness began that you didn’t expect to see anyone ever again.

“Please,” you heard, “Take them off.” He was squirming, his arms hanging from the chains and his thighs restless.

You smiled. “It’s been so long… How long already? I can’t remember. But I finally have you all chained up for me, and you want to leave already?” Taking his face in your hands again, your lips hovering over his, you saw a blush taking hold of his neck and creeping up to his cheeks. “Won’t you at least kiss me?”

“That—that wouldn’t be right, Y/N,” he babbled, looking down at your lips either way.

“Let me feed you, then. You’re safe here.”

Once you unchained him, you led him into the Great Hall, where you offered him a feast of which he had no doubt, as he told you that he had come to the Forgotten Lands to capture some grave robbers but had lost sight of his men during the journey.

You were lucky you could take some food from the thoughtless mavericks who wouldn’t blink twice before delving into the Forgotten Lands.

“It would be impossible to bring these lands back to life,” you explained, “Farming was never enough and the mountains have always made trade difficult. King Chong was more enthusiastic about war treaties than-” You looked up to Seokjin, who was devouring the meat as if he had been starving for years. “Is it good? The bath will be ready by the time you finish.”

Sitting in the middle of the deserted hall, with the only company of your presence and the shadows that projected the red light, the man finally looked at you and smiled. “Sounds good. Then… Can I stay a while longer? We have so much to talk about, Y/N… About whether you’ll come back with me.”

“Come back… with you?”

The seconds of silence in which you looked into his eyes passed for him like sharp blades cutting through his chest.

“Let’s not talk about it now, Seokjin,” you continued, “Eat a little more. You must be starving.”

“Why? Do you want to stay here?”

“I like it here. Nobody bothers me, nobody expects me to be anything. It’s so different from the heartless nest of snakes where I grew up,” you mumbled, chin resting on your palm, as you watched him swallow one of the grapes in the bunch, “What did you remember this place to be like?”

“It was so warm,” Seokjin retorted with a frown, “despite being a cold place. Your family was so warm, so… welcoming. It was a place full of life, always. So colourful. I loved coming to visit you.” His gloomy smile broke your heart. “We’d sneak into the kitchens when night fell to steal scones and buns, remember? And I’d take the blame whenever we got caught so you wouldn’t miss any of the balls and dance with me.”

“Deep down, you have always been my knight in shining armour, haven’t you?” you mumbled, caressing his chin to wipe away a drop of wine on his chin.

Seokjin licked the pad of your thumb without hesitation when you offered it to him.

“You never let me.” He was staring at you—challenging you? You weren’t sure. But the way his dark eyes glowed with the dim candlelight made you feel a delicious and exciting knot in your belly. “There was always something stopping you. You never… fully let me into your heart.”

You chuckled. “There are so many things you didn’t know back then.”

“Tell me, then.”

His question was clear. Seokjin wanted to know why his princess, the woman of his life, the one who would have been his future queen, had never been entirely his. You couldn’t blame him, and you were quite eager to understand it yourself. Why things had to turn out to be like that.

“What would be the point now?” you whispered.

“Seokjin.”

The fumes of the bath had left him drowsy, and he seemed to be engrossed in his thoughts, both arms resting on the black marble edge. The man heard your voice echoing through the bath and turned around, catching a glimpse of your figure approaching him from behind the darkness of the large room.

“Wait!” he spluttered. You could hear the sound of water splashing as the man moved nervously to reach for the robe you had given him. “Give me a second. I’m—I’m naked.”

Once you reached the bathtub, you smiled down at him, amused by his sudden embarrassment. “Do you mind if I join you?”

Your question took him by surprise.

Childhood friends as you had been, you were still the daughter of a king, a lady—the lady to whom he was devoted. The thought of seeing you bare was inconceivable to him. It had always been. Yours had been a body for him to admire from the most tender love and to imagine naked only in the solitude of his chamber.

Without a response, you took off your robe and let the thin fabric slip down your shoulders, exposing your breasts. Soon after, it fell to your feet, and the rest of your skin was at the disposal of his intrigued eyes.

“My sweet boy,” you laughed, stepping into the water.

Blushing before your naked figure, Seokjin looked away to stare at his own arms tangling around each other, but you grabbed his chin gently so he would look at you again. “I don’t wish to… spoil your maidenly decency, Y/N,” he managed to explain.

“I have no decency left, Seokjin,” you chuckled as your breath hit his lips, “Nor any desire to have one. Not with you finally here.”

After all those years of grieving and mourning both you and the love he felt towards you, the love that could have grown to be so splendid, had life and fate not been so merciless with you— all of it exploded sweetly when you kissed him, and it spilled over your lips like honey.

His hands travelled to your waist as yours moved to his cheeks, trying to deepen the embrace.

“We would have been so happy together,” he muttered, “If only I had refused to go and fight in Emperor Callas’ crusade… We would have been able to get married in time. You could have come to Orleil and avoided the siege.”

You listened carefully as you nibbled his earlobe. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m here with you—I’m fine.”

“Yes, and I can’t believe it, my love.” And then he looked up at you with the most hopeful and relieved smile that could ever exist.

“The rebels got what they deserved. The Great Terror ended the peace of this kingdom, and it ended them, too. Now oblivion is part of its history. This castle is mine. I am this castle’s. No king thinks his own kingdom will ever be considered a Forgotten Land. It was no one’s fault.”

Seokjin simply kissed you again, deeper, nipping your lips as he tried to swallow you and melt you into his arms. You felt his hardness brush your entrance with its tip, and he whimpered. “Forgive me,” he moaned, “I got carried away with… I’m sorry.”

“Do you still want to preserve my womanly decency, my love? I’d rather take you to my chamber.”

Clumsily and awkwardly, you led him by the hand to the sleeping quarters and slowly opened the door to your chamber, letting the expectation grow inside him as it also grew inside you.

“Earlier, when you were chained up at my mercy, you seemed to be quite fond of the restraints… The bulge in your trousers gave you away.” Seokjin looked up at you, mortified. “The curtain cords on my bed are quite sturdy—just ask me and I’ll have you at my disposal.”

He swallowed hard. “Please.”

“So polite,” you chuckled, pointing to the bed for him to lie on his back.

Once Seokjin got rid of his clothing, trying to escape from your piercing gaze, and lay down as you asked, you straddled him and tied his hands to the wooden headboard. The knot around his hands was not too tight, but it was tight enough to send a sweet chill of helplessness through him when he pulled to free himself.

In case you needed to get him rid of the restraints quickly, you took your dagger and stretched out to leave it close.

At the sight of your silver knife between your fingers, Seokjin trembled underneath you.

The way he did it, though, licking his lips, staring into your eyes, pulling at his restrictions to taste the helplessness, made you turn tilt head to the side and bend over his chest. One of your arms rested next to his head, and the other travelled to his cheek to caress the skin with the blade.

“Aren’t you scared of my little toy, Seokjin?” you purred, amused, and wondered if you could make him come only stroking his tip and putting your knife against his throat.

He rashly shook his head. “I-” But the man choked on his spit, making you pierce his beautiful neck with your eyes. “It makes my… my belly tingle, and feels somewhat… It makes me hot. It makes me-makes me want you to—I don’t know. Sorry.”

“Stop apologising for everything you say. Can’t you see how wet I am?”

He nodded and moved his head upwards until he forced you to push on his neck with your knife. “I have no money with me, my lady. I left my sack of gold with my braies,” he joked.

“Oh?” Licking your lips, you rested your butt on your thighs again. “I don’t believe your word, good sir. Perhaps I’ll have to take your wealth by force. You’re not afraid of my toy? Maybe you’ll be afraid of what I can do to you with it.”

His dick twitched between your butt cheeks, making you grind against his lower belly while losing your balance.

Your jerky move, however, accidentally brushed the blade of your knife against Seokjin’s belly, and a lonely tear of crimson, glossy blood flowed from his skin. As willing as you were to apologise, his sudden moan led you to bend down and lick it clean. It was sweet, just like you had imagined, and had a somewhat honey-like taste that made you drool all over him.

“Y/N,” he suddenly whispered, “I’m so hard. It-it feels good.”

“I see.”

Slowly, you dragged the blade across the skin of his inner thighs, fascinated by the sight of his flushed cock hardening beyond imagination.

You were going to have fun like you haven’t had in decades.

Seokjin’s deep groan encouraged you to bend down between his legs and lick the tear of blood that had spilled from the thin wound. “So good,” he moaned, the feeling of both your lips near his dick and the sting on his leg becoming too much to handle.

Then you sucked into the cut.

“Shit!” His cock twitched next to you. “Stop teasing me, please, Y/N.”

Wishing he could taste his blood on your lips, you reached down to bend over him and kissed him, wrapping your fingers around both sides of his hair.

“As my little prince wishes.”

After amusing yourself for a while with his whimpers, licking his tip with small, short strokes of your tongue, you decided to pull and end to his pleas and took his cock into your mouth, wrapping your lips around it and sucking.

“Mmh-shit! God, so good!”

Tightening his thighs highlighted the pain of the cuts on his inner thighs but, sickly enough, it gave him chills all over his body that built up in his belly. It only made him bend his back, trying to make you swallow more of him.

“Look at you, my prince, so ruined and close,” you whispered against his shaft, pumping it.

Then you travelled back to his legs and reopened the cuts with your fingertips, drawing more blood, to sucked into them without stopping the motion of your other hand.

Seokjin moaned from the depths of his chest and pulled on the restraints. “So close! So, so close!”

“Are you going to give it to me, my love? Give me all your seed, all your blood, all of you. Give it to me, come in my mouth. Don’t you want to fill it with your load, Seokjin? You’ll be doing it in a second if you’re good for me and let me suck your blood. True royal blood for me. All for me.”

“Cum… mouth! Yes! Suck me!” His loud pleas were making the walls tremble. So powerful. You obliged, excited for the upcoming meal. “Faster, please, don’t stop!”

“Did you ever picture me like this when we were younger, Seokjin? Kneeling between your legs and sucking your dripping cock after it got hard because you’re a pain-slut,” you asked against his opened flesh, peppering it with kisses.

When your hand noticed his dick twitching harder, you began to stroke the tip with the pad of your thumb, playing with the slit while your teeth took one last bite at his inner thigh. Then you sat on your knees to watch Seokjin squirming over your sheets.

“I asked you a quest-”

“You-fuck! You know I did! I did! I was so eager for us to get married, Y/N, so eager to take you home and lay you in my bed and bury—burying into your wet, warm cunt and never leave!”

“You earned your treat,” you muttered.

“Yes, please! It feels so-so good!” groaned Seokjin, “Thank you, thank you! Hng, shit, so good!”

With only a couple more strokes of your tongue on his length, you noticed the warm flesh twitching, and his load spurted into your mouth, bubbly and dense. It was full of life, full of him. So, you parsimoniously swallowed down everything you wanted.

“I want to taste you, too,” he groaned, “Please.”

Pursing your lips to hide a smirk, you straddled his head after taking off your robe and let him nuzzle your core and its wetness, hoping it’d drive him crazy. “Why don’t you lick it, my prince? Don’t be shy—I’ve been dwelling on those lusty lips of yours all over my soaked cunt since I first saw you.”

“Mmh-more!” he mumbled against your clit and did as told.

You obliged, burying yourself onto his face to leave him little room to breathe—but he was loving it, the slut, slurping and licking and kissing and fucking your core with his tongue, unravelling on the feeling of the soft flesh of your thighs brushing against his ears and the way his head would hit the pillow every time you rammed into his face.

And hell, you were loving it, too.

“So good, my love, you’re doing so well,” you moaned, throwing back your head, “I’m going to come, prince. See, you’re going to make me come with those sinful lips of yours!”

The anticipated climax finally hit, and you had to stop yourself from pulling his hair harder, or else you’d hurt him in a not so nice way. Seokjin drank any remains of arousal there could be left in your cunt and finally let go of you, allowing your exhausted hips to sit down on his chest.

You felt his hardness against your butt. “My god, Seokjin, I can’t believe you’re ready for more straight away,” you chuckled.

“Ride me.” His whimpered request made your core tingle, and you looked down at him, at his dark, glassy eyes, at his thick lips that still glowed with your arousal. “Please—ride me raw. I can’t believe this-that this is happening but, please, I need to be inside of you.”

Of course he did. He had been waiting for this moment all his life.

You straddled him, teasing your core with his tip until Seokjin was whining beneath you, using the ropes to propel up his hips. The message was clear.

The feeling of someone stretching you was reborn from their ashes. A groan escaped your lips and Seokjin smiled, overjoyed to know that you liked to feel him inside you. And so it was—you would never tire of his cock slowly sinking into your pussy, rubbing your walls until he bottomed out.

“Is it as good as you imagined when we were kids, you naughty boy?” you asked with a grin, nibbling his earlobe.

“Oh, mhf-fuck, it’s even better! You’re so tight, and wet, and warm, and I can feel you all-all around me, god! I can’t-” He began to thrust up into you, chasing his orgasm. “Yes, oh, shit! Ah-ah-mph! Please, please, I need to come, so bad, inside!” When you pushed your hips against his one more time, he hissed as he looked up at you. “Please, Y/N, I’m so close!”

With your hands cupping his face, you kissed him deeply. It ignited a fire within you that forced your body to go feral, to suck him into you completely and scratch his skin until even the tiniest portion of him was printed on your finger pads. The feeling of his cock rubbing on your walls was truly getting the best of you.

He was mesmerised by the picture of your figure straddling him, riding him into oblivion, and you couldn’t help yourself from drinking from his glossy gaze.

“Heavens, Seokjin, you feel so good,” you moaned against his lips.

“P-please,” he insisted out of breath.

Seokjin was noticeably getting harder inside of you, his balls tight and ready to give you all of him. “You’ve been doing so well, prince. Using your cock and your dirty mouth to get me off.”

“I’m close!” Seokjin turned his face to the side, unable to contain the pleasure within his body. “Please, don’t want to come with-without your permission! Please, please, princess, my lady, I’m so close!” he cried. His heels kicked the bedding as he writhed. “I’m-I’m coming!”

In a second—and without your permission—you had him spilling all his cum into you, throwing back his head so his dreamy, swan-like neck was at the disposal of your hungry mouth.

“I’d eat you up if I could, Seokjin, my love,” you growled as your lips sucked and bit into his skin.

Your hips ramming into his helped him ride out his climax, and soon he was begging you to stop and demanding a hug from you, to which you obliged with much enthusiasm. “Goodness, Y/N, I’m-I don’t think I know how to talk anymore.”

“You don’t need to,” you whispered against his lips.

Apart from eliciting an erection and consequently several orgasms from him, the knife you had taken out earlier fulfilled its mission and cut the cords with which you had tied the prince. Shortly after, as you tore yourself away from him, Seokjin stretched out on the sheets, fighting against the urge to sleep that was growing on him by the minute.

“You’re exhausted, my love. Time for bed.”

The fire and lava that surrounded the castle filled the room with violent reddish light. It used to make it difficult for you to sleep—it was terrifying—so you got out of bed and went to the window to draw the curtains while you put out the flame on your candlestick.

“Don’t-” His hand grabbed yours and you look down at him, staring at the way his eyes glowed with the dim candlelight. “I… I’m still afraid of the dark. Don’t blow them out.”

You nodded and put the candlestick back on the table. “As you wish.” After you opened back the curtains, you dipped a cloth in the water of the basin and approached Seokjin. “Spread your legs, love. I have to clean your cuts.”

“In the end, it was me who bled on your sheets.”

You smirked. “And you can’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it as much as I did.”

Seokjin had decided to stay in the castle until his men returned. They would be looking for him, surely, and the place was not difficult to find—there were hardly any buildings left standing in the Forgotten Lands.

When you two were not frolicking in bed, you spent your time around the keep and within the walls. Slowly, the light returned to the dark castle of the king in the north.

Seokjin loved to hear the birds chirping in the morning and to wake up with the woman he loved in his arms. He’d kiss your temple, turn you over to kiss you some more on the lips, whisper sweet nothings in your ear, and nuzzle your neck until you convinced him that both you and he had things to do.

The way he whined made you frown on your way to the bed, and Seokjin hugged you when you sat up next to him.

“What’s the matter?”

“Your cousin was such a brute,” he pouted, “I can still feel the cut on my ankle. He almost made me limp.”

You could only laugh at his complaints, welcoming into your arms as he put one of his legs on top of yours to pull you closer and hug your side. “What can I say—I kept all the wits of my bloodline, love,” you joked against the crown of his head.

“I’m so glad my grandfather banned inbreeding.”

Your breaths began to become even. The morning light was filtering more strongly through the windows, and the sound of the market people outside the keep hummed with mockery that you had to get out of bed.

Seokjin started caressing your bare belly with his finger pads, drawing invisible shapes on the skin while his head rested on your breasts. “What if you become pregnant?”

His question took you by surprise.

“Fortunately, that won’t happen,” you retorted.

Out of the blue, he got on top of you and aligned his dick with your entrance. You felt him slowly stretching you out and, soon after that, he was thrusting into you, pleadingly peppering your cheeks and neck with pecks. The lack of warming up made it take you a little longer to get used to his cock rubbing your walls, so you hissed against his hair.

“Co-come back with me. Be my princess, my queen, Y/N, please, please,” he gasped into the hollow of your neck, “Don’t you know how-how happy will e-everyone be when they find out you survived? My parents will be so… so happy!”

What you wouldn’t do to follow him. To go with him and be his queen, the queen you knew you could become. The life you knew you deserved. Not that black, ashy castle that only stood up because it lived on your famished spirit. Not your rotten, cursed existence.

But you had managed, with his delirious love, to make that dying fortress look a little bit like home. It was like magic.

You wanted your magic prince to stay with you forever.

“I’m the forgotten princess of a forgotten land,” you retorted anyways, breathing hard, “I’m a forgotten soul. There is no room for me in a place where things remain and queens give birth to future kings. This is my place now, Seokjin—I can’t leave.”

Your words were accompanied by a groan as Seokjin lowered his hand to your clit, rubbing it, perhaps hoping that, if he gave you enough pleasure, you would agree to go with him.

As for your hands, they moved to his neck and your thumbs pressed on his trachea. What you wouldn’t do to ruin him, to wreck him with your very hands, to suck him into your own body and see him vanish within you. Perhaps he’d ask for mercy. Perhaps he’d ask for more.

Perhaps, if you snuck into his mind with enough strength, if you pulled his strings and played with him just right, he’d be yours, yours, yours.

Seokjin shivered over you, gasping for air.

His thumb rubbing your clit had begun to take effect on you: your thighs tightened as you felt the knot in your stomach get wider, flooding your whole body with anticipation until it exploded and you shove his dick into your cunt, again and again, to ride out your orgasm.

Seokjin’s hand grabbed yours and it was not until then that you noticed his reddened face.

“I-I’m close,” he babbled, still trying to catch his breath after you let go of him. Once his chest finally began to rise and fall steadily, he looked at you in the eye. “I’m going to cum. Do that again, please.”

You nodded. “Pinch my arm when you want me to stop.”

Silly you. He was already yours—utterly yours. Handing himself over on a platter, you could ask him for his heart, ploughing his own chest open, and Seokjin would give it to you.

He thrust into you slowly, trying to move as evenly as possible not to rush his climax. Whimpers came from his contracted throat, as if they were struggling to surface, soft words of sweet nothings. Seokjin was getting closer and the lack of air was not helping him to hold it.

“You’re so tight,” he managed to say with a wet voice, drool trickling down his wide-open mouth. He was too close, too close, it felt too good. You thrust up to shove him deeper into you, and Seokjin pushed himself harder. If he could talk, he’d ask you to ruin him with your hands right away. Ruin him and keep him on your palms so he could be with you forever. “Shit! I-I’m coming!”

When you felt a pinch on your wrist, the vision above you of his red face contracting through his climax looked divine to you. So much that it took you most of your willpower to let go of his neck. But you did, and Seokjin came instantly as he pushed the remnants of his orgasm into you.

“So good! Y/N, so good, yes, thank you!” he moaned against your chest.

You moved your lips to his ear. “It would’ve been a pity not to put that swan neck of yours to good use… You did so well, my prince. You gave me so much. I can feel your seed dripping out of me.”

Seokjin raised his head to kiss you, and you accepted the gesture with a conciliatory and soothing smile, letting him sink onto you and merging with you in an embrace. However, his tongue slowly began to grow weaker, sleep taking its toll on his body, and he ended up falling asleep next to you while you played with his hair.

He was yours, yours, yours—and yet he was not.

You decided to close your eyes for a while next to him, and you ended up losing track of time until you noticed his stomach roaring next to you. You let out a gentle laugh through your nose.

When you opened your eyes, you saw him sitting on the bed.

Seokjin was rubbing his left ankle with a grimace but turned to look at you as soon as you made it known that you were awake. “Good morning.”

“Morning, my love,” you groaned, “I assume you are hungry. Or is it a beast what you’ve got roaring in there?”

“Do you want to find out?”

With a naughty laugh, you took his foot carefully to lift it and put a cushion under it.

“My cousin was indeed a brute. Heavens, does it still hurt?” you muttered then, grabbing a bandage. Perhaps that way it’d move around less and it wouldn’t hurt so much. “After all this time?”

Seokjin laughed. “It was the other ankle. I just bumped this one earlier.” You let go of his leg with an apology, but Seokjin smiled and turned over to nuzzle into your neck. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like it when you touch me, Y/N.”

“Silly boy… Are you tired?” He nodded, eyes closed and chest rising and falling quietly. “You stay in bed. I’ll take care of breakfast—need you with renewed strength to satiate me, my love. You can’t feed me with those tired little eyes of yours.”

“I need my beauty nap, too,” added the man.

“Nap? You just woke up!”

But Seokjin snorted, turning over once again and tucking himself into the blankets. You told him not to come down too late, or else he’d end up with a sick stomach. However, the concepts of too late and too early did not exist anymore in the castle, so you couldn’t really blame him.

You waited for him in the Great Hall for an hour, but he didn’t show up, so you decided to go back to the sleeping quarters and wake him up.

On the way to your room, you passed by the chapel and saw Seokjin.

Your dry heart stopped in terror.

He was standing in front of a perfectly arranged bunch of bones, still covered by a silk gown and decorated with tons of expensive jewellery, as if time hadn’t passed. A beautiful sword lay embedded in the ground, piercing its chest.

His eyes could not leave the image, however—and you feared that he’d come to the moment when he’d find out everything.

“I told you not to come in here,” you grunted, striding across the room.

Seokjin looked up at you, painfully, avoiding the sight of the bony skeleton lying on the ground. “This sword—this sword is mine. I gave it to you after I won your birthday tournament with it.”

“Yes,” you replied with a forced smile, “I’ve kept it since then.”

“And this was its ultimate role. To kill you.” It felt hard, escaping from his piercing gaze. “I can recognise your clothes and jewellery. That’s your corpse—you can’t fool me any further,” he uttered at your bewildered grimace.

“If you pull out that sword, this whole place will fall apart. It’s been stuck and burning since that day,” you muttered. His intense gaze was still fixed on your eyes.

“If I pull it out, will you fall apart, too?” You nodded absently. “Why?”

“You know why.”

Seokjin looked away from you, pursing his lips. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” he whispered then.

“It doesn’t matter, Seokjin,” you said as a cooing smile stretched your lips, “Your memory has been keeping me here all these years. Alive, in some way. Waiting for you… Waiting for you to stay here—with me.”

Then Seokjin turned to take you in his arms and kiss you. He pressed himself against your chest and kissed you with all his might as you moved your hands to the back of his head, assuring him that you were there with him.

“Is this the reason why you can’t leave? The reason you’re still here?” he asked against your lips.

You chuckled. “I am this castle now. I stand, but at what cost?”

He ended up asking to go somewhere else, for the picture of your corpse was engraved by fire in his mind and he claimed to be feeling weaker and weaker.

“So you can’t—you can’t really come back with me.”

His shivering voice broke the remains of your heart and you raised your hand to cup his sombre face, on the verge of tears.

“Of course,” you whispered, “And I can’t ask you to stay. You’re a prince, a future king. You’ll have to marry a well-bred lady, someone up to the standards and who won’t blink at the thought of being a queen. I can’t be that queen, Seokjin. Not anymore.”

He couldn’t believe he asked you to go to Orleil with him. He could not believe that he had put you through the pain of having to say no to him without explanation, all to prevent him from discovering such a painful truth—that you could never be his queen.

Seokjin grabbed your hands with a jerky move and kissed them a thousand times with a thousand pecks.

“I’ll come back. Whenever I can, I promise. I’ll come back to you,” he mumbled against your skin.

You chuckled, cupping his cheeks to draw him towards your lips. “Will you, my little prince? You’ll come back to feed my famished loneliness?” But a sudden clashing sound of the gate bursting open took you out of your reverie. “What was that?”

“I’ll go see,” said Seokjin, standing up, “You stay here.”

You, however, followed him downstairs quietly. No one would enter your castle without you allowing them to, and in order to do so you would protect it tooth and nail, and keep the shabby thread of your existence safe.

“Your Highness!”

The soldiers entered the fortress looking everywhere and you heard a horse whinnying in desperation.

“Lord Yunghae!” exclaimed the prince as he rushed down the last steps, “I’m here, I’m safe. I didn’t think you were all together. Why did it take you so long…?”

The man in the most ostentatious armour knelt the instant he saw Seokjin, and the others followed suit. “Thank God you’re okay, your Highness! We truly thought you were in danger or, worse, wounded by the raiders. It has been a month since the retinue got lost! What in heaven’s good name has kept you here for so long?”

Seokjin turned around and glimpsed you hidden behind a column, sword in hand.

“I stopped to inspect the place and decided to wait for you here.”

As the soldiers continued to talk, perhaps trying to convince him to resume the search with them, you saw the prince wink at you with complicity, almost oblivious to the pleas of his faithful men, and you winked back at him. A feeling of warm familiarity crept into his stomach.

“I haven’t finished with the castle,” he retorted. Seokjin then gestured you to leave, blowing a kiss when it was safe.

“The king is dying of worry, your Highness, and the raiders probably left after taking everything with them.”

You raised your hand to catch the kiss and pressed it against your lips with a mischievous smile, and turned around before having the chance to notice the way he frowned as the oh-so warm and familiar intimacy in his belly broke into pieces of ice all the way to the ground—at that moment, your face became that of an unknown ghost.

The stone staircase led you to your chamber, where you waited for Seokjin, wondering what he’d do with the soldiers. Would he come back to his kingdom?

The thought made you boil.

After a few minutes, you accepted that Seokjin was nowhere to be seen, but you needed him. Utterly. Your body was aching for him, and you were starting to feel famished and deprived of his touch and essence. A second without feeling him inside of you, or pressed against your skin, giving himself up to you, was a century of starvation.

You heard a sound coming from the chapel, and there you went, curious to know what had happened and, above all, what had taken him so long.

“What are you doing here alone?”

He pursed his lips, looking down. “It’s been a month since I left in search of the robbers, so my sister must have been helping my father in court all this time. I’m sure she’s doing much better than me.”

“I’ve told you so many times, Seokjin. You will make a good king. Just as much or even more than your sister. Wise, merciful, just.” You turned to leave the room with a suggestive smile, expecting him to follow you, and continued talking. “Stop doubting yourself.”

A broken cry brought you back to reality. “Who are you?”

Seokjin was dangerously close to your flaming sword. A single tug, no matter how gentle, would dislodge it slightly, and you would disappear forever.

“What do you mean?” you retorted with a fraught smile, “It’s me, Y/N, my love.”

“I am King Shihyuk’s only child.”

The chapel fell silent. You decided to remain quiet, too, as he tried to cut you open with his eyes. Maybe that way Seokjin could see what you were hiding inside, but he waited for you to say something, anything, and your silence only bled him out.

“Anyone who dares to cross this place ought to be careful,” recited the man with trembling lips. Two lonely tears threatened to spill over his cheeks. “For the Forgotten Lands are infested with sirens and succubi,” he continued, “Who take the form of those who are long gone and lure you into their lairs.”

You stared at him.

“All I want is to feed on your spirit.” Your voice was now cold, no grimace as an act of demeaning deception. “But it will slowly kill you—that is the deal I’m offering you. Seokjin, you wouldn’t have stayed here if you didn’t need me. If you pull out that sword, it’s all gone. Forever.”

His grip on the hilt of the flaming sword tightened as you approached him. His fingers were trembling. “You are a monster.”

“I would never dream of hurting you any more than what you beg me to,” you muttered. Smiling when his hand slowly withdrew from the sword, yours moved to his cheeks and wiped away his tears, whispering against his lips. “You can always come back to her, my love, as long as you come back to me.”

“She’s dead.”

“No, she’s not. Not when you are here,” you insisted.

Your kiss tasted like poison to him. Sweet, agonizing lips against his, teeth nipping them as you stuck your tongue in his mouth and your hands moved to his nape, wondering what he would taste like to you upon his discovery.

It was a salty flavour. Like spilled tears, they danced over your tongue. His pain gave you a feeling of euphoria.

You needed more—more of his sorrow, more of his lips, more of his whole being. Pulling up the skirts of your satin dress, you exposed your thighs and pushed Seokjin to the ground by his shoulders until he was sitting down. Then you straddled his lap without breaking the kiss and undid the laces of his trousers.

Seokjin hugged your waist in desperation as your cunt sucked him in, and he knew he was lost. Whatever sanity could have remained in him, had he pulled out that sword, it was all gone now. Part of his mind vanished like dust as you clenched around him, feeling his dick twitch inside of you, and you groaned and grabbed the hair of his neck to pull him closer, to make him go deeper.

“Tell me you are not ecstatic, my prince,” you whispered against his lips, breathing erratically as you moved up and down, “I dare you. Tell me you’re not elated, flying over the top of joy and buried deep inside of me at the same time.”

He cried against the hollow of your neck. “I miss her.”

“I’m here,” you cooed, “You’re touching me. You’re loving me. I’m here.”

This man had been looking for her all his life. He had longed to find her again and kiss her and love her with his whole being. It was a true pity, such a promising love story thrown away—by the time the rebels reached the castle, decades ago, you had already killed her.

How could have you imagined that your spirit would remain locked under the silly sword that you tore away from the girl’s shivering hands? You wouldn’t have killed her if she hadn’t resisted, but perhaps you’d saved her from a less dignified death.

“I’m close,” moaned Seokjin.

You were attached to that place for all eternity, so you may as well use it to your advantage.

A smirk pressed against his wet cheek and you sank your nails in the flesh of his nape. “Already? Did I not train you well enough, my love?”

“Please. I need you, please, let me-let me come.”

His breathing began to become more irregular as your legs pushed harder against him. You were reaching your climax too, his gasps and groans only pushing you towards it. The way his girth rubbed against your walls, pushing his tip against your cervix, making you clench around him—it was delicious.

“You feel so good, my prince,” you moaned, “So big, stretching me out so well… Come kiss me.”

Seokjin obliged immediately. He let you tilt up his chin so he could look up at you, and welcomed your lips with a soft hum, feeling bad for all those people who didn’t know what it was like to be held by someone who loved you and whom you loved back just as much.

“P-please!” he insisted, dragging his breathy pecks down your chin, neck, and chest.

“Just a little longer. Hold on a little longer, my prince. Just a second and you’ll have me coming around your hard, dripping cock. Can you do that for me, love?”

When you saw him nodding to your words, you threw back your head and unbuttoned your bodice, permitting him to suck one of your nipples into his mouth. Barely a few seconds later, you were reaching your climax, clenching around him and propelling you on your heels to keep both of you attached to the ground.

The urge to swallow him whole with your cunt was too mighty.

Something finally pulled within Seokjin’s body, a wave of warm pleasure that made him thrust up, and he spilled his seed into you, sobbing. “I’m coming! Y/N, you’re making me come! Don’t-don’t stop! I love you! I love you so much, Y/N, so much!” he screamed as you rode off his orgasm, barely feeling your legs yourself, “I love you!”

“And I love you too,” you muttered in his ear.

The crown prince of Orleil was rumoured to have a mistress that did not live at court as any other concubine would. The lady was said to have visited his lover’s palace in the past, to have known the king, to have met the highest ranks of the nobility—but she no longer did.

Forgotten by those who wanted to remember her again, Prince Seokjin’s mistress lived in the Forgotten Lands, a most suitable place for a woman like her.

He visited her as often as he could, either on his way to another kingdom or brazenly enough to gather a few of his men and head straight to the half-ruined castle. The soldiers would wait patiently nearby as their prince entered his mistress’ residence, and would not leave until he came out, which could sometimes take longer than a fortnight.

Even if it rained, thundered, or snowed, Seokjin never missed a day when he knew he could be welcomed into her arms. Even after the years passed, after riding on horseback became more difficult and his sight was not that good, he would always go to her. He did so until the very day of his death, after becoming a husband, after becoming a father, after becoming a king.

Seokjin kept his everlasting promise: to come back to her, always—to keep her alive.

Don’t hesitate to like, reblog, and leave some feedback if you liked it! It’s always good and encouraging to know what you think <3

“THE LADY WITH THE FLAMING SWORD” is copyright ²⁰²¹ Lola Bangtan, all rights reserved.

#sub!seokjin #seokjin x reader #seokjin smut #seokjin fanfiction #sub!bts #sub!jin #sub jin #sub bts #prince!seokjin #prince!jin #knight!jin #princess!reader #bts smut #oneshot #seokjinff #661010 #romance #angst #horror #fantasy #f2l #secondchance #royalty #supernatural

[outroshooky]

my pretty sleeper | ksj

⇢ genre: series; part two (ghost!au; person b crying and screaming that they’re sorry, believing they caused person a’s death. person a’s ghost at their side, helplessly trying to comfort and hold someone they can no longer touch, or speak to, anymore.) (angst, fluff)

⇢ pairing: kim seokjin x reader

⇢ word count: 5.8k

⇢  warnings: major character death (reader insert); blood mention. there are darker themes here, please read with caution.

⇢ a/n: thank you for all of the positive feedback on part one!! this is a bit angstier than what i usually write but nonetheless, i’m proud of it. i hope you enjoy this winter-y fic; thank you to oh ms. believer for inspiring me all these years later (in the bleak bahamian summer, no less).

part two of the verses and vibes series. part three will be uploaded on wednesday, january 29, 2020.

“the woods are lovely, dark and deep,   but i have promises to keep,   and miles to go before i sleep,   and miles to go before i sleep.”

⤷ stopping by woods on a snowy evening; robert frost

Never in your life had you seen a more beautiful snowstorm.

Soft flakes drifted through boughs hanging like some great Gothic arches above you, a chapel of nature’s own wonderful creation. They swept past birds fluffed to fend against the bitter cold, settled around you in drifts like a miniature mountain landscape. Ahead you, the path stretched in peaceful calm, the white blanket an insulation for the sounds that leapt and tumbled with the puffs of wind exhaled from some indeterminable heaven. Somewhere to your left, a finch trilled a cheery tune, and the boysenberry vines rasped in scratchy reply. 

It was the picture-perfect scene to accompany what would, under all usual circumstances, be a nicely brisk walk in the chill of winter.

Unfortunately, these are not, by any standards, usual circumstances.

The snow falls delicately around your hustling figure, bound against the cold in nothing but the simple dress of a commoner and the jacket of a noble of the highest degree. Your outfit is completely contradicting, but it is not like you have a choice in the matter.

Because as hard as you try to will a speck of snow to settle gently in the crook of your palm, it does nothing but continue its downward descent, rocking to and fro hither and there. It passes through the translucent aura that is your hand, your arm, your entire body.

Perhaps the statement about how never in your life had you seen a more beautiful snowstorm needed to be amended to how never in your afterlife had you seen a more wonderful blizzard.

It is ever surprising to you how, though you are no longer made of tangible matter, the whistle of wind through endlessly tall trees will never cease to send a shiver down your transparent spine. The chill rests on your shoulders, curls around your neck with chilled lips; you know it must be cold, but you can’t for the life of you actually feel it. When you tread on the freshly-covered path, hurrying along in your urgency, the untouched pure white remains… untouched. When you glance behind you at the ringing of bells, no footsteps imprint on the finely frosted earth.

The horse is a dappled stallion, wide-eyed and foaming at the bit, hooves prancing high to escape the tug of the fallen snow. The gentleman sits, hands loose on the reins, comfortable in the saddle. He's handsome, with a jaw cut like glass and deep almond eyes peering out from a woolen scarf tucked beneath the folds of his jacket. As he passes by, wrapped deep in fur to fend off the chill, you step to the side of the path out of pure habit. It would take no effort at all to simply continue on your way, letting horse and rider barrel straight through your unseen figure, but you’ve learned by now that animals have a better sense of the preternatural and decided to spare the horse (and gentleman) undue panic.

The rider’s eyes never waver from the path ahead, confident and illustrious in his goings. He is bold and dashing and incredibly handsome, and you notice, too late, the scrawled insignia etched into the leather of the saddle, as refined yet regal as the very stranger who claims it.

The symbol of the nobility burns a brilliant gold against the black tanned skin, and your throat constricts with the pain of remembrance.

 Eyes as warm as the heat of summer sunshine; brow regal, fit for a king; tawny hair artfully sweeping across the breadth of his forehead; lips as plush as fat grapes in the fall; jaw as defined as a blade through wa-

The horse nickers, ridding snow from its hooves in dirt-flecked clumps, sending them straight through the aura of your petticoats.

You sigh, ruffling the folds of your dress, tucking tighter the corners of your jacket out of reflex. There are, you suppose, some benefits to being a ghost, but the complete and utter loneliness does tend to be a drawback. 

Indeed, the complete and utter loneliness makes you question whether your mission is even worth it in the first place. Is it worth trying to reconcile things with a lover when they can't even see you, hear you, feel you? You could caress their cheek with the most loving of touches, and yet they would guess it to be nothing but a passing breeze. The curse of eternity is one spent in solitude, a soul left to wander the earth with a purpose unfinished, aptly never to be ended. You watch as the horseman canters on, and something clenches in the space where your heart once nested, like the wrens that call the castle battlements home.

No. No. You cannot allow yourself to think like this. You cannot allow yourself to doubt, to assume that for a moment love is not a powerful enough force to wrest the bounds of time and shatter the fettered chains. Love is a blade more powerful than any forged sword, a fire more passionate than any raging mountain blaze. With love, one can mold a landscape to their liking, shift the sands of what is known into a brand new reality, a dawn previously inconceivable to any and all. 

Eyes as warm as the heat of summer sunshine; brow regal, fit for a king; tawny hair artfully sweeping across the breadth of his forehead; lips as plush as fat grapes in the fall; jaw as defined as a blade through wa-

The thought of him fills your mind; the gap in your chest mends. Every step you take is one step closer to him.

With every rise and fall of your boots, your boots seem to land in the tracks of the horse and rider, their figures now only a mere shadow against the backdrop of nature’s finest woodland cathedral.

The more you push on, the more memories seem to unconsciously surface in your mind. When you came to in that field, your mind was as untouched as the fallen snow. However, it took merely a wobbly rise to your feet for you to notice the massive jacket that hugged your frame, permanently welded to your aura whether you wanted it to be or not. Simply put, whatever you wore at the time of your death became your spirit’s regalia, and you often thanked the stars that you hadn’t decided to go riding in the buff that day. Not that you would in the first place.

With that jacket came the flood, as you called it. The waves of memories that lapped at the shores of your consciousness, their chaotic dances spilling foam into the crevices of your mind. They came back to you in one fell swoop, overwhelming in their sights and sensations and feelings, and you wondered how you could have, even if just for a brief moment, forgotten it all.

Eventually, the mouth of the forest opens to a broad, rutted dirt road, which has turned to mud with the advent of the blizzard. At the mouth sits a thatched roof shack, cheery with the ice that dangles precariously from the thickets of straw. Beyond it, fields of grain- sorghum and wheat and barley, their stalks cut low to the base. In a single breath, curling in on itself in the chilled air, your senses are flooded with thought and sound and breath.

“Catch me if you can!” Seokjin’s fingers slap at your shoulder, tagging you plain as day. He is barely thirteen, still gangly and slender with youth, but experienced eyes can see his frame beginning to thicken. There's delight in his eyes, a mirth that sparks double when he sees the fiery temper in your own. 

“Seokjin!” You hiss. He's playing a game of chance, egging you on as his father pauses at the edge of the forest to speak with the farmer who came bounding out of the newly-built barn. One of the things you loved about the king was his flexibility, his genuine interest in the lives of his subjects. He was willing to lend an ear to all, and it brought him a certain respect, from the lowest beggar to the highest knight. With that in mind, you dared not cross him. “Not now!”

“Papa’s not looking!” He teases, skipping backwards when you swing outwards with a well-timed smack. “Catch me if you ca-an!”

“Seokjin!” You hiss again with vigor, a concerned glance over your shoulder. “You’re not about to get us both in trouble!”

“You won't get in trouble.” He’s breathless, riled in his own games while his father talks business just beyond the magnolia bushes. “You're with me.”

“Just because you're the prince does not mean that I won't be sent to the gallows for participating in one of your stunts. This is an official business trip and I am thirteen and as so it happens your maid and I kind of need this jo-”

Without hesitation, the young prince saunters closer, leans in, and taps your nose lightly with a single digit. “I said,” Seokjin breathes, voice nearly a whisper. “Catch me if you can.”

In one fluid motion you lunge forward, your index finger landing squarely in the middle of his forehead. 

A smile breaks across his visage, radiant and mischievous, the grin of madmen. Or young boys. “Game on.”

You blink and the scene clears. The horses’ reins in your grasp evaporate, leaving you in front of a crumbling stone wall falling apart at the seams.

Peering closer, you realize the house has aged fast, too fast to be natural. The straw has grown thin in some places, the roof sagging inward, spine exhausted. The windows are grimy and cracked with age, and the foundation settles crooked into the soft earth. Beside the chimney, a rabbit twitches, darting into the brush at the inkling of eyes watching from afar. Something isn't right here, you think. Something is different from before.

You turn towards the horizon, the spires of the castle piercing the far-away arch of the sky, and continue on towards him.

He had never cared that you were only his maid.

You had been in his life as long as you could remember, and he had been in yours much the same. Your mother having been attendant to the queen meant that you inherited the duties for her royal child, born in the frigid chill of December a year and two months after you. From a young age you learned how to reorganize his endless closets and dressers, to attend him in a court of nobility, to keep a pitcher of cold water and a bottle of lavender on his bedside table every night. The fair-minded, fair-haired prince had never understood how you were any different to him- you thanked the stars his parents taught him humility from an early age- and as a result, he treated you much the same as he treated any of the other young boys in the court. You had never been “merely a maid” to him- you were a playmate, confidant, best friend, and later- much, much later- a lover. The only lover, in fact, that ever mattered to him.

He had had suitors from when he was as young as ten years old, coming to seek his hand in uniting their great kingdoms. They pranced about him in grand dresses of silk and lace, curtseying and bowing and placating themselves for his eyes. More than once, they’d nearly popped out of his head at how tight their bodices were. And yet, he never took one to be his bride- never even expressed interest in having one as his bride.

You secretly pondered if he was the stuff of legend, Ancient Greek myths that whispered of men coming together in ways that male and female could not. Meanwhile, as the years passed, you grew all the more closer to him, and he all the more closer to you. Often he'd tug a sewing needle out of your hand to insist that you go riding together, pulling you away from mending the jacket he’d torn the last time you went riding with him. He would beg you to visit him in the sparring circle to show you some new masterful combination he’d learned with sword and shield, even taking such liberties to teach you yourself some swordplay techniques. He would even take you down to the market to buy fresh vegetables for your grandmother, or new silks for a coat. It was clear that he cared about you deeply, deeper than he’d ever admit to himself for a long, long time.

Your journey continues on mile after mile; the closer you get to the center of the kingdom, the more broken down it all feels. Granted, it is the dead of winter, but the world seems to have fallen into disrepair along with it, lulled by the hypnosis of the cold into a weary, uneasy slumber. Cattle shuffle stiffly along their paddock fences; dry tufts of grass poke through the chilled mud. Civilians too hustle, wrapped in rags without splendor or hint of grace, trying their hardest to protect against the frosty bite. So much has changed in the brief time you've been gone, and for the first time, worry begins to gnaw at your thoughts with true voracity. It doesn't feel right, none of this does; but you know in the core of your being, that this, somehow, is home. 

With every landmark you pass, a new memory washes over you, scent and sight and feeling. You make a left at the second crossroads and continue on at the third, but your mind flashes back to the times you went right and then left to the beekeepers’ fields, or left and then right to the carpenter’s shack. Every memory rekindles a bit of something in you, something that you can name only as humanity, and you swear the chill’s begun to set in a little colder than it was before. You are more alive now than ever, you think.

It is as if in the brief time you slumbered, the world aged a hundred years without you. The miles to the city walls pass quickly, but not without mention. The closer you get, the more decrepit it all feels- richly constructed halls now ground to sawdust, fields of grain and vegetables now plains of snow and ice. The walls themselves are in poor shape, the dull stones lacking the regal glory they once held, and you ache at the sight. Once the pride and joy of the kingdom, now a sad hallmark- if there was anything left of the kingdom to begin with. 

A mere trickle of people flows on either side of the gate, a much, much slower stream from the constant push-pull of the tides you’re used to. Here, the roar was once chaos- a wave of crowds jostling in, a tide of jovial citizens pouring out in a flood of color and sound and energy. But the banners flutter threadbare, flapping without statement in the wind, as if they have fallen asleep at the helm, in the bleak of midwinter, in the midst of it all.

You crane your neck to see the guards as you approach, careful to keep your space from the few stragglers limping up the path along with you. In your youth, you knew every castle employee, every knight and guard and maid. Now, you squint till the nearest stern face comes into view, and realize, with a jolt of clarity, you don't recognize him at all.

His face is cold-cut, molded from a block of iron. His lips are pressed tightly together, back as straight as a ramrod, mouth as firm as an oak tree. He is completely unfamiliar to you, and for some reason, trepidation begins to roll a metaphorically thrilling drum beat in your stomach.

The fear, which had numbed to a gentle stream in the back of your conscious (if you could call it that), rose to a fever pitch. 

Something was horribly, horribly wrong, and you were absolutely determined to find out what.

You had a feeling that this is what you were brought back for, to get to the bottom of this horrid stunt, to find out why everything you knew had been thrown off its axis in one fell swoop. It thrummed in your silent pulse, lofted like owls’ wings through the quiet of the forest. No was simply not an answer, and when a renewed sense of determination beat in the space where your heart would have been, you touched your chest with a sudden burst of fondness. Seokjin was close, so close. It would be like old times; together, you would solve this, bring closure to this plague of wintertime. And you, his wonderful bride, reunited with him as if no time had ever been wasted in between. Not to mention you were home, back in your city, the place you had labored to visit for days, weeks, even months since you’d awoken in that godforsaken wheat field with a royal riding jacket wrapped around your shoulders.

Unassumingly, the guard turns his head and stares straight at you, gaze blank, numbly focused.

You hold your breath for one moment, two.

He blinks, stark eyes staring right through you, and thumbs the rutted shaft of his spear. You force yourself to tear your gaze away from his own, and, with only a moment’s hesitation, stride unfailing into the heart of the kingdom.

Your walk to the castle, at the very top of the city, is seemingly the longest, most arduous part of your journey by far.

Everywhere you look, in every corner seems to be darkness and despair. Shapeless forms, nameless figures cluster around pathetic fires, which sputter and lick with the will of the wind. Dead leaves tumble down the cobblestones to embed themselves in snowbanks, piled up high, effective barriers against the frost for the unlucky souls with no other place to go. Doors are wrenched shut but rattle every now and then, the muted glow under their edges a telltale indicator of the separation between poor and poorer. You hasten to avoid those clusters around the fires, god forbid a careless sweep of your petticoat extinguishes what little hope they have left. You pause for a moment when you see a mother clutching a child to her chest, wishing not for the first time you could simply reach out and make her problems melt away. If anything, you’d only make her feel worse, the lofty draft of your fingertips an added stress upon her already narrow shoulders.

With every step you take, you can feel the individual consciousnesses trapped here crying out for you, flocking to you, a bright burning candle flame against a backdrop of nighttime. There are so many souls beneath the ground, you wonder if there was some sort of famine. Does Seokjin see any of this? Where has he been? The questions plague you one after the other, much like the howling spirits that crowd the back of your mind, individually vying for your attention. No, you reassure yourself. I know him. Seokjin must have the situation under control, or if not, he's working to get it under control. The kingdom will be saved; happily-ever-after is just out of your reach, soon within. It simply cannot be any other way.

The higher and higher you climb, the more desolate the path becomes. It is clear that the only people who trek up here nowadays are the guards on their shift rotations, but even then, you’ve noticed less and less the closer you get to the castle. We had plenty of guards; I don't understand why the sudden lack, you think to yourself. Sooner or later you will have your answer, though, because you find yourself at the base of the castle, and your mouth drops open in some sickened form of awe.

Ah yes, what's the name of that feeling?

Horror.

Your home has fallen into disrepair, a state of shambles that never would have been allowed in the days of your lifetime. 

There are cracks and crevices that fracture the bones of the grand hall, splits and nicks in the wood from years of neglect. There once perched gargoyles and flowers and creations atop the limestone columns, so wonderfully sculpted that they seem to leap from their very material constraints into living, breathing figures. Now, only shattered fragments of the beasts remain, flower petals chipped away to fall hundreds of feet to the stiff dead stalks of grass below. A castle, once inhibited with beauty and life, now lies dormant, sleeping, decaying. A single piece of limestone, the wing of a butterfly, shears off, rebounding off the gutter to tumble to the dirt. From dust it is made, and to dust it shall return, but if you had a heart, you swear you would have felt it break.

Once again, it is the thought of him that keeps you moving, pushing on, except the fear is all-consuming now, a snarling dog snapping at the heels of your fantasy. You can barely think as you approach those great dark oaken doors, palm flat against the decaying planks as you pause, your eyes fluttering shut.

You still, readying yourself for this. This, the thing you have been waiting for, the only thing to keep you going, demanding that day after day you push on. Anticipation of it has pulsed in your veins for days, weeks; the closer you got, the more anxious and excited you became, but it is here now. It is here; there is nothing you can do to stop the hands of fate, for she brought you here to reunite you with him, Seokjin, the prince of your land but the king of your heart.

The toe of your boot eases into the splintering wood, and in one beat, your entire body passes through into the grand entrance hall.

For all of your preparation, however, nothing could possibly steel you for what lay on the other side of those doors.

The grand hall looked like it had been ransacked by an army. 

The stone arches above your head no longer bore their weight proudly, but drooped with depression suggesting hopelessness. A flurry of activity buzzed around you, a servant even stepping through you by pure mistake, but it was not the kind of bustling, cheery frenzy you were used to. This was a quiet kind of frenzy much like silent fury, the calm before the storm. Footsteps resonated against the grand ceilings flaked with paint, yet there was no exchange of greetings, no playful step of the servant children. It was an atmosphere so foreign it may as well have been a completely different house, rather than the home you knew so well as your own.

The throne room is many paces away from the entrance hall, but with your internalized map of the castle, it took a few mere passes through walls (and a left, another left, and a right) to land you in the hall of kings, or the waiting room outside of the throne room. There is a layer of dust that sits upon the artifacts, the Staff of Arrn’och, among others, nearly broken in two in its display case. Everywhere you looked, it seemed, was desolation. God forbid what the throne room itself would look like.

With a sudden bang!, the doors at the far end of the room were thrown open, a ragged, hunched figure stumbling through the open gap. Male or female you could not discern, matted strings of hair shielding its twisted visage, but the sobs its lungs produced pierced you to the core. The pair of guards at the opposite end of the room strode forward, collecting the pathetic creature by the underarms and practically dragging it down the muddy rug. Although you could pass through whatever surface you pleased, your instinct urged you through the gap in the closing doors, and you managed to slip past just as they slammed shut behind you.

In front of you lay a dias, fifty feet in diameter, upon which two thrones of the same size sat, both lonely, one bare. While large windows perched over the dias, casting blocks of light across the stone floor, any natural light that managed to filter into the high-ceilinged hall was dulled by grit and grime. Torches flickered low in their sconces, doing their best to compensate, but instead casting shadows across the walls that seemed to flinch at the quickest intake of breath. Indeed, the throne room had suffered much in your absence; it was as if you stepped into a nightmarish equivalent of your past life.

It was too dark to see the face of the king as you approached, his profile framed by shadow as he argued with an attendant.

“-can’t turn down every citizen who wants to make an audience with you and has good reason to do so,” The attendant insisted, his tone desperate. “The people are starving, but they haven't lost hope! They're looking to you, Your Majest-”

“And why would they look to me?” The king snapped, voice gravelly, a thickness there that you’d never heard before. “What good have I been to them? Haven't they seen enough of me yet? Every day, a miserable existence, and they seek to know my counsel on matters such as one calf between them?”

“One calf, my king, would provide food for their children for three days,” the attendant murmured gently. “Your people need you now, more than ever.”

But the king seemed not to hear, dismissing the attendant with a flick of his hand. “I can't hear any more.”

The attendant hesitated just a fraction, but bowed respectfully. “As you wish.”

It was at this moment you realized there were only two thrones, not the three you had been expecting. Although the queen had passed many years before, they had always kept a throne in its place for her, in her honor. You wondered now at this- where was Seokjin’s throne? 

The king, bowed over with the bridge of his nose pinched between two fingers, paid you no mind as you approached, dipping a respectful curtsy out of habit. He’d certainly gone grayer in these last few months, his shoulders having lost their proud touch, and he looked as if he was a completely different man, aging a hundred years in the mere two hundred hours it had taken you to get back to the place you so lovingly called home.

In your living days, you would not have dared step up the dias to look at the king eye-to-eye, god forbid he strike you down himself. But you were not alive, and these were desperate times, and desperate times called for desperate measures.

And so, with one fluid motion, you stepped atop the dias, skirt swirling around your ankles as you paused, waiting for something, but you did not know what. 

The king lifted his head, and as your eyes met his, aged with the aches and pains of ruling, you felt as if someone had ripped the very carpet out from underneath your feet and cast you back to the underworld below.

Because these were not the clear eyes of the king, sparkling and gentle in their mirth. These were not the bright pupils that brought forth memories of afternoons spent on the lake, or crystal clear waterfalls that tumbled through mysterious glades. 

No, these eyes were dark, once as rich as chocolate, but now as muddied as silt. Cataracts strung silky webs across the clag, weaving intricate patterns in the depths of emotion, rendering not only the viewer incapable of reading emotion, but the seer incapable of, well- doing just that. While crows’ feet stamped their corners and fine lines etched their lids, you would know those eyes even if you had seen them once in ten thousand years, for they stamped themselves onto your soul all that time ago, never to be undone by any mortal power.

“Seokjin?” You gasp, and at once, all of time seems to stand still.

For it is indeed Kim Seokjin who sits on the king’s throne, his beautiful features softened with age and the passage of time but still regal, ever unforgettable. He is enthrallingly handsome, but your heart aches evermore, because you have missed it all.

You have missed seeing the aches and pains of early, and then middle age set in. You have missed watching his child, the prince or princess (and surely more than one), stumble across the floor of the nursery for the first time. You have missed him sleeping in the early morning, worrying in the late evening; you have missed him in bed and in combat and all things in between. For it has been years, perhaps decades since your death, and in one horrifying moment, it clicks into perspective.

And then he tilts his head up at you and whispers your name, and it is as if every weight on your metaphysical shoulders has been lifted. “Is it really you?”

“Yes,” you warble; somehow tears streak your cheeks, pale in their sheen. “Yes, Seokjin, I'm so sorry; I'm here now, it's me-” you grab for his hand, but it passes right through, and he recoils at the draft. “I'm so fucking sorry.”

Flashes. A golden field, merry horses, a beautiful spring day. “Take my jacket, my darling. It will keep you warm.”

Hooves pounding, heart racing. The royal horses are afraid of practically nothing, their one fear far from your mind, unworthy of mention. Together you dash through the meadows, up and over hills and valleys. What you would give to run free with him forever.

“She's here,” Seokjin’s voice nearly breaks as he half-rises from his chair, extending an arm to brush his thumb along your cheek. “After so long waiting for my queen, she's finally here.”

“You can see me?” You beg for clarity, but alas, he does not reply.

You pause atop a hill crested with wildflowers, white and pink rivers that cascade down the landscape, tumbling, flowing unbridled and uninhibited. Seokjin is a mere few paces behind you, slowing to appreciate the beauty ahead of you.

“My lord?” The attendant steps forward

“Can you not see her?” Seokjin turns, gesturing to you. “She's right here. She's come back to me after so long,” and there's so much fondness, so much promise in his voice that you know, just know that things will be okay. You will right every wrong, fight every demon- “I have missed her dearly.”

“I've missed you too,” you choke. “With every bone in my body I have missed you; I have been walking for days, Seokjin, I'm so sorry-”

It is then that your horse nickers and tenses, rearing without warning and whinnying like the devil himself. He panics, lashing and whirling about, and you can only hold on for so long before you are thrown from his back like a rock from a slingshot.

Seokjin is screaming. You have never heard him scream like that before, a sound that seems to so purely channel fear and terror and anguish, all in one. He is a roaring fury, knife drawn from his belt, and he beheads the snake lying hidden in one fluid motion before dropping to his knees at your side. His shoulders shake as he weeps, cradling your body to his as your eyes roll back in your head and you cough, frame shuddering, barely conscious.

“Sire, there is nobody there,” The attendant says, as softly, carefully as he can.

“Don't leave me,” he’s sobbing, over and over. “This is all my fucking fault, I'm so sorry, so so sorry-”

“My love,” you whisper, fingers brushing the inside of his palm. It is all the strength you can muster. “I will have gone a thousand years, but to still find your eyes imprinted on the breath of my soul.”

He’s whimpering, blubbering, desperate, screaming for help. Screaming and screaming, but there is no one to stop the ceaseless flow of blood, and your final act of life is to stain the sleeves of his riding jacket crimson where it lies comfortable across the breadth of your shoulders.

“I have never forgotten you,” he exhales. “It has been sixty years and not one day have I gone without envisioning your face in my hands, beautiful.”

“I’ll fix this,” you promise, but it's starting to fall into place now, why everything around you is falling apart. “I'll help fix the kingdom if you would just tell me what's wrong, Seokjin. Please, I want to help. Tell me what I can do.”

“I have loved you perhaps too much,” his voice cracks, wobbles with ache. “I've neglected these people, our people. I say our people because you have always been my queen; I have never taken another; there is no one who is worthy of replacing you.” 

“Perhaps you should retire for the night, my king. You've had a long and tiresome day,” The attendant tries to coax Seokjin, but he pays the servant no mind.

“You're here in this moment for a reason, my sweet. You're here and we will fix this, I promise you,” Seokjin is nearly begging, the urgency in his voice bleeding scarlet. He rushes forward towards you. “We will fix this together-”

“Seokjin, my love-” You rush towards him with the same intensity, but your hand passes through his chest, and suddenly you are staring up at him, and his eyes are blank, unseeing.

The attendant clears his throat. “Your Majesty, there is no one there, sir. It is merely a draft.”

“I want to help you,” you plead, fingers tracing his sternum, his ribs, his heart. “I'm here, Seokjin. I'm here, right in front of you; I'm here. Believe in me. Believe in us; believe in love as I have believed in love. Please.”

The once-legendary prince, now dishonorable king looks out over a barren, desolate throne room as a zephyr of cold brushes icy digits down his shoulder, along his chest. “Ah,” he utters, sounding exhausted all at once. “I believe you're right.” A small chuckle parses his lips. “What am I saying? Perhaps I shall retire for the night, yes.” He pauses. “Goodnight, Yoongi.”

“Goodnight, my lord.” 

“Yoongi?”

“Yes, my king?”

“Start keeping the fire burning in the hearth. It's too drafty in this hall in the evenings.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Sleep well.”

“You as well, my faithful servant.”

#bts #bts angst #bts fluff #kpop angst #kpop fluff #seokjin angst #seokjin fluff #kpop fanfiction #bts au #verses and vibes #outroshooky