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Gwyl Canol Hydref (Autumn Equinox) – September 23, 1918
Wild white bell-shaped flowers spring in arbitrary sprays from the short patch of earth just beyond the orphanage’s wrought-iron gates.
He taps a light finger on his new creations, smiling when they seem to lift their heads a fraction above their necks before dropping back into their customary droop. Almost as if they’re bowing, Jungwoo muses.
Jungwoo has come to know that these blooms are called lily-of-the-valley. He doesn’t know how or why these are the only ones he’s able to make bloom, but there’s an aura about them – the kind where he can’t tear his eyes away from. He’s come a long, long way from the boy of ten who wanted to burn this odd ability to ashes and grind them into a powder of dust.
At twenty, Jungwoo has come to a raw acceptance that there’s something a little strange about him that makes him just a little bit less human. Sometimes, he’s able to produce more than a single stem at a time, but never anything quite as colourful or enchanting as the assortment of deep purple foxgloves that mysteriously adorn the awning above their doors every February, heads lowering fully to the ground and petals shrivelling up miraculously come the first of March. Still, he supposes he quite likes the white lilies juxtaposed against their red fruits.
The year is 1918. Jungwoo has heard the riffs of a great world war that has never quite reached their borders, but then again, they’re in two wars of their own – one that, unknown to his countrymen at the time, would find themselves continuing to be embattled for the next twenty-seven years. The other, a mysterious illness that so far has only just begun to brush the edges of their population.
Jungwoo doesn’t see these as anything more than merely a part of life that is to be survived.
Late September shines a watery, weak sun over the capital. It’s Chuseok – a Korean Thanksgiving day – or Shūbun-no-hi in Japanese, meaning that there’ll be an abundance of red bean rice balls being sold everywhere, and if you didn’t buy at least one you’d be severely questioned. Jungwoo reminds himself to tell Eunwoo to purchase a box before noon. The season sees them in the last vestiges of the worst of autumn, when the blossoms wilt their last petal, when the cold and emptiness settles in comfortably. Jungwoo feels especially lonelier during this period. It’s always easier to get lost in his own dizzying thoughts when the weather drapes a dreary canopy over the entire city.
It’s been eight years since the Japanese dug their claws into Korea and after eight years, their grip is an iron one. It’s not so much a suffocation as it is an entrapment. He is free to wander the streets, but each step is tread with an element of caution to it, because he can feel eyes like a brand on the back of his head everywhere. Whenever he crosses beyond the safety of his home, Jungwoo has to remember that he is Kousuke of Keijo, and not Kim Jungwoo of Gunpo, or just Jungwoo of Seoul.
In Seoul, fragments of their life before 1910 can still be captured in the half-torn posters of dissidents framing the long street corridors, in the stubborn chins of bakers, butchers, grocers who pretend to mistakenly speak their mother tongue when serving chinilpas, in the soft piano music from the churches playing a disjointed tune of Auld Lang Syne, a song of rebellion against the annexation. Sometimes Jungwoo slips in to sing along too, but he never stays long enough to make friends with any of them, always careful to remain just outside of the fray. He’s so afraid that he’ll come to care for them too much, only to see them slaughtered tomorrow, next week, next month.
It’s in these fragments that Jungwoo draws comfort in, that even with these usurpers holding their very livelihoods carelessly in the palm of their hands, dangling life in one and death in another, there’s still a piece of Seoul that is still theirs. Jungwoo believes that as long as this belongs to them, there’s still hope. Even in the darkest of times, Jungwoo has always had the uncanny ability to peel patches of silver linings out of them. Old Mrs. Im still remembers when she had found him outside the orphanage on a cold and wet December night, rags for clothes soaked all the way through, and bare feet caked in dirt. Even so obviously abandoned, he had smiled through his film of tears and told her that it wasn’t their fault, and that his parents were having a better life now with their hands washed off of him.
That had been 15 years ago, when he had woken up to an empty house, with the moon high in the sky and crickets chirping noisily in their hiding places. With no family left, and with only three day’s worth of food, he had picked himself off the cold, hard ground and left the innocence of childhood and the wide plains of the Gunpo countryside behind, because there was nothing and no one left for him there.
Jungwoo keeps to the protection of the shadows that the slip roads and smaller streets offer when he cycles around the neighbourhood to deliver newspapers in the wee hours of the morning. The air is crisp, fresh, cool even, which is mostly the reason behind his volunteering for this job over the mid-morning bread and milk deliveries. Eunwoo hadn’t minded, because he liked to stay and chat with the residents at their front doors anyway.
There’s a tiny stretch of a cobblestoned path that he always needs to ride through before circling back to the little publishing house. The ride is considerably jaunty, but he will never trade that for anything in the world, because the air here is lighter and sweeter, the sticky, chest-tightening repression melting away. His soul stirs awake, and somehow it’s only here that he feels alive.
He has a bit more time today, having finished his rounds earlier than expected so that he can help with the Equinox preparations. He navigates the bike to a gentle roll, slowing down so he can stretch his right arm out just far enough that he doesn’t roll over the grass, but close enough for the tips of his fingers to brush the rough trunk of a tree. A lone leaf flutters down to rest on his head, and all at once he hears and smells everything – the early morning dew dotting the underside of a blade of grass and the whispering of the trees as if they’re talking to each other. He hums a tune subconsciously from a faraway memory and the whispering crashes around his ears, rising steadily in decibels like from a pianissimo to a mezzo-forte.
He tries to copy the murmurings. ssh sshhhhhh shhh, he says to them. shhhh-can you understand me?-sshhhhhh? He laughs loudly at his poor imitation, throwing his head back gaily, and the movement knocks the leaf off his hair. The rustling quietens at once, but he can still hear them, like the sound of gentle waves rumbling onto the shore, faded into the background but very much real and present if you listened hard enough. A force, a power – something not entirely of this world – seems to emanate on either side of the pathway. It’s like a small bubble of magic opening up just for him.
He wants to believe that this is just for him.
***
There is a memory that hovers between dreams and wakefulness, taunting him but never quite reaching him, like a fog that never lifts above the Baekdu mountains in the far north. There’s always a glimpse of a tree standing tall among an army of other trees, the warmth of a golden sun, and echoes of a melodic, lilting tune, but never anything more. A part of him buried deep in the recesses of his mind acknowledges that to remember this would somehow be the start of something life-changing, and this still frightens him. More frightening than when he had arrived a lost and shivering mess as a stranger to Seoul’s bustling urban jungle, or when he’d finally accepted the part of him that grew flowers wilfully from a mere thought.
Even before being cast away, a crown of loneliness had always rested atop Jungwoo. He had felt it when he talked to his mother about his dreams of being dragged into a dance around a ring of stones forever, feet never tiring. He had felt it when she would regard him with a distant expression, as if he wasn’t her own, when he asked for her help to craft a necklace of acorns with which to decorate the bottom of their garden. When she had asked him why, he couldn’t for the life of him answer, because he didn’t know why himself. A part of him had just felt pulled to do it, and it was strong, and altogether inexplicable. It hurt more when she was silent, because it made him feel as if she didn’t want to understand him, or couldn’t bring herself to.
It would be many years later that these differences would start to become terrifying, manifesting themselves physically in the form of mottled dark green patches on his forearms and tendrils of vines curling over his head and natural light brown locks. There had been so much blood when he’d tried hacking at it, slicing the unholy parasites off with a blunt kitchen knife, but he’d kept sawing his way through anyway. And the blood...the blood on the floor had shimmered, like threads of gold woven into each drop.
Again, that strange compulsion had surfaced, and it had told him to go into the garden and lie among the weeds and flowers. Jungwoo had dutifully obeyed, because there had been nothing else he could have done for himself before Mrs. Im found her way back to the kitchen and saw a monster instead of a ten-year-old child.
When he’d awoken an hour later, his body nestled among the flora, the wound had vanished, and so had the vines, and all that was left to show for it were crusted patches of blood clinging to his hair.
He had rubbed the dried blood between his fingers, searching for any trace of gold within, but in this flaky powder form, it had been too impossible to make out. God, he whispered, invoking The Almighty’s name, what am I?
He’s an angel, isn’t he?, he remembers his mother saying to his father once, when he was a twitchy, young thing of four with a sweet smile and nothing alien had yet to surface, and his parents were so proud of his caramel-coloured eyes that speckled with hints of olive green. A beauty.
Since then, whenever the horrid green patches surface, or when he feels a sliver of a vine poke through his head, Jungwoo keeps that memory, holds on to that. Because if he grips this one tightly enough it might be truer than the other uglier one brimming and lurking at the surface, waiting to come out with claws and teeth, sharp and blazing, almost vengeful.
He thinks about how anything lovely or beautiful could ever be evil and monstrous, and then he remembers Mrs. Im’s bible lessons and that Lucifer, their brightest star, had fallen from heaven, and then he doesn’t quite know anything anymore. He examines the lines on his open palms. What am I?
***
Nos Galan Gaeaf (Eve of Samhain) – October 31, 1918
Halloween has become an unexpectedly important celebration at the orphanage in recent years. Maybe it’s because they want to believe that there are darker monsters out there than the ones prowling their streets outside armed with bayonets and rifles.
A row of pumpkins is messily strung up above the main hall to greet every resident and newcomer alike, toothless orange mouths grinning wickedly back at them. Toy bats and spiders with a year’s worth of dust atop them line the rickety wooden stairway. The older children have been charged with directing the placement of the decorations, and Jungwoo assigns a few thirteen and fourteen-year-olds to arrange wax candles on any open surface, all cares of dripping hot wax on the tables and floors thrown out the window because no one really minds. The house – ambushed with false plastic gods and cheap holiday accoutrements – is cast into a murky grey under the weak candlelight. Jungwoo adores it.
The older ones who’ve grown up and left the orphanage come back too. It’s tradition.
Jungwoo launches himself into Taehyung’s arms when he comes through the door, burying his nose into the crook of his neck. If Jungwoo is an angel, Taehyung is a cherub. His three years over Jungwoo hardly shows in the cheeky curve of his mouth and sparkle of mischief in his eyes. Jungwoo misses him the most, because he’d been his first playmate, friend, and brother. “Jungwooooo I’ve missed youuuu!” Taehyung wails loudly into his ear, returning the hug just as tightly.
“I’ve missed you more,” he says, keeping Taehyung in a chokehold for a bit longer. He’s glad that Taehyung lets him, tightens his hold on him even.
Namjoon, his adoptive brother, is the next to step through the dimly lit archway, nose wrinkling at the suffocating scents of cinnamon and sandalwood pervading the house. He’s carrying a basket in each hand, likely laden to the brim with candies for everyone, tiredness betraying his grin. He looks positively winded.
“Hi Jungwoo,” he greets him with a warm smile. “I’d hug you, but these bags are occupying my hands.” He scuttles towards the living room where the children are crowded into for the festivities.
“Hi Namjoon,” he breathes out softly. He wishes that he had a big brother like Namjoon who could take care of him just like he did Taehyung. He was the sort who carried responsibility and trust so easily on his shoulders. Sometimes he thinks back to how close he had come to being adopted along with Taehyung, only that the Kims had room for just one. And Jungwoo had insisted so fiercely that it be Taehyung who went, because he knew that he needed and deserved a loving family in Namjoon and his parents.
Taehyung finally disentangles himself to greet the other children and Jungwoo treks behind him, soon finding himself surrounded by a gaggle of toddlers and teenagers alike, some of them dashing around his legs in a good ol’ game of catch.
By the time Namjoon has given out a basketful of candies and chocolates to everyone, the floor is a mass of loose limbs, all the children piled comfortably on top of each other as they try to pry a story from Taehyung’s lips to while away the time before the dinner bell sounds. Ever since he’d left the orphanage, there’s been no better bedtime storyteller than him.
Jungwoo can tell that Taehyung is a little tired from the way he keeps glancing at him, a silent plea for rescue. “I’ll tell everyone a story before bedtime,” he quickly promises, finally allaying the rising eddy of moans and groans.
He turns to Jungwoo. “But for now, I really just want to catch up with my best friend.” A rush of happiness wells up in Jungwoo’s chest at that, and he can’t help but rush forward to engulf him in another bone-crunching hug.
“So,” Taehyung begins, when they finally have only each other for company, and there’s that glint of trouble in his eyes that Jungwoo knows and loves so well. “Do you still grow flowers?”
A proverbial branch snaps into two. “Flowers?” He hastens to smoothen his features, steady his voice.
“Yeah! Remember when we used to play out in the garden, and one day we stepped on those flowerbeds and you screamed and Jimin started crying because you were so upset? And then you just picked up one of the stems and held it in your hand, and then the petals opened.”
“That doesn’t even make sense, Tae,” he returns quickly, shakily.
“O-oh. But Jungwoo, you did it, I swear I saw it. You -”
Fear coats his insides with acid.
“You made a flower come back to life.”
His blood runs cold. Not safe. Not anymore.
He coughs out a chuckle and punches his shoulder lightly in play. “How could that even be possible? No one can do that. You’ve always had an overactive imagination, Tae.”
“Jungwoo, could you help me with setting the table please?” One of the other older boys calls from the dining area, and Jungwoo never imagined that he would ever have felt so relieved not to have to talk to his best friend of 15 years.
He shouts back an affirmative and makes sure to throw a helpless glance at Taehyung, standing quickly. He lets muscle memory manoeuvre him swiftly to the kitchen, because his mind is going into overdrive with anxiety.
When he reaches the kitchen, he doesn’t stop. Instead, he pushes open the back door and runs out into the night.
He doesn’t know where he’s going, just choosing to give up all control to pure instinct.
Instinct leads him to the woods. Jungwoo himself isn’t exactly sure where he is; he’s still very much a stranger to Seoul in so many ways. A warm tingle travels up his spine the deeper he enters, and it’s that same rush of energy he gets as when he cycles on that cobblestoned path. His fingertips down to his toes buzz with that same electric spark, and he’s suddenly overcome with a thought that he could raze this entire forest if he so wished, could grow them all back a thousand times lusher and denser than what it was.
He takes off into a running sprint towards the centre of the forest and then drops into a roll, letting the momentum spur his lanky body into a series of full body tumbles before coming to a stop with his back against the soft, damp earth. Peals of laughter escape his lips easily, and he runs his arms and legs up and down the grass as one would when making snow angels. A susurration of the trees picks up, and it’s only then that Jungwoo realises that not a single leaf has fallen even though they’re in the dead of autumn.
“You’re strange, just like me, huh?” He whispers conspiratorially to a blade of grass.
“Hardly.”
Jungwoo jumps violently, head whipping sharply towards the sound.
A shadow emerges from behind one of the larger trees, and the figure behind it is a young man. Jungwoo places him somewhere in his mid-twenties at the very most. He looks Korean, but in these uncertain times, one would be stupid to make assumptions about anything.
“Who are you?” Jungwoo asks this in formal Japanese.
“Not someone you were expecting,” he replies in Korean.
He understands both, Jungwoo thinks in panic, and he curls his fingers into the short tufts of grass around him in place of moving or attempting to run. He might have a weapon on him. By now, the man has come even closer, but to his surprise he settles into a cross-legged position on the ground a couple of feet away. A bed of intertwined holly leaves rest in his hair, peeking out in odd angles from his mass of thick black locks. His attire resembles that of the Western-educated – a full black suit; long-sleeved collared black shirt and cuffed trousers with a black overcoat draped over his narrow frame, but no shoes. He’s barefoot. Everything about him is black save for his eyes that glitter a deep, beautiful green. There’s something enthralling about this combination, because there are elements of both the modern and primordial.
Jungwoo is enraptured.
He could have been just any person wandering the woods just like him, but when Jungwoo studies him, he knows that this isn’t the case with this one. No, he glows with visible strength, and there’s a palpable magnetism to him that is plain in the way he runs his eyes ever so conspicuously over Jungwoo, in the way his body seems to be pulled taut and yet flows with such grace, as if to declare that there was something more to him, and that he didn’t believe in hiding it.
He imagines himself burning just as brightly. He has only ever felt like this just once, when he had pulled his lilies from the concrete pavement and crushed the red juice of its berries into the Go’s teacups. They had been looking to adopt, and Jungwoo had been a prospective candidate. He’s a beautiful child, Mrs. Go had cooed. When she had brought the cup to her thin lips, his stomach twisted painfully and he had knocked it out of her hand as quickly as he had placed those berries in them. “He might be troublesome,” they had said after that, and had chosen to adopt another boy – Ji Hansol – instead. So many times when he had been wanted, but not enough.
He folds his long arms behind him, shifting his entire body weight on his palms. Under the moonlight, his eyes shine like green orbs. “Trick or treat?”
Jungwoo stutters out a soft trick, because it was Halloween, after all. He tugs self-consciously at his own clothes as he shifts closer – a long-sleeved navy blue shirt and brown cargo pants.
He smiles, seemingly pleased with the answer, waving a hand over the patch of grass before him, and all at once a handful of holly leaves and berries have replaced them. Jungwoo gasps at both the blatant display of magic and the startling similarity to his own abilities.
“Your turn, little one,” he looks expectantly at Jungwoo, plucking a fresh holly leaf and adding it to the collection on his head.
“It’s Jungwoo,” he murmurs, letting a dash of annoyance colour his voice at the diminutive nickname.
The corners of his lips turn up in amusement, and he bends his head forward in acknowledgement.
“Okay. Trick or treat?” He echoes his question back at him.
“Your choice, Jungwoo.”
With a wave of his own hand, lily-of-the-valley flowers decorate the next patch of grass, and it’s almost like a proper mini garden now with these mismatched blooms.
The man-god – Jungwoo’s decided on this moniker for now – smiles again, and Jungwoo can see excitement flicker like a wild flame in his eyes.
“Stunning,” he whispers, cradling one white petal gently.
“These are lily-of-the-valley,” Jungwoo says, stroking them with equal tenderness. His finger tingles where it touches the flower, and he knows this isn’t natural at all, but right now, he doesn’t feel afraid. A secondary thought strikes him, that with this man in his presence, he isn’t actually afraid of this other part of himself, embraces it, in fact.
He looks up at him, bringing the petal to his nose to breathe in its musky scent. His fingers hover in the air, apprehension and eagerness warring with each other before the latter finally wins out. He moves to pluck the red berries from its stem and sucks one into his mouth, and realises that this is the first time he’s wanted to show his ability to someone else. The man-god’s eyes are burning with wonder, and no one has ever looked at him like that before.
“Well, aren’t you going to give me one too?” he asks with a twinkle in his eye.
Jungwoo cracks a small smile, letting a little bit of pride show through his usually impassive mask. His teeth are stained a bright red. “They’re poisonous.”
“You couldn’t have known that the first time you ate them, surely.”
Jungwoo opens his mouth to answer, but the man-god forges on, as if he hadn’t actually wanted one.
“Ever wondered why you haven’t died?” He grins knowingly, embers stoking something worldly in his eyes, and his smile looks like it holds so much of the world’s secrets. It occurs to him that he had probably known what they were and their poisonous nature long before he had told him, and his heart seizes with a sudden bout of unease.
He doesn’t answer, simply tosses the flower away. A breeze has picked up, and the cold wind slices into his face a little. The trees suddenly seem alien with their branches for claws, and holes pulling their trunks into ugly, long maws. That knot wedges itself into his stomach and where a few moments ago he had wanted to stay here, he now yearns for the lukewarm porridge that they would no doubt be having for dinner tonight. He swipes his tongue over his teeth and tries to scrub out the taste of the berries.
“Lily-of-the-valley was one of the flowers used to treat the effects of gas poisoning in this great world war,” his companion says, picking up the forgotten flower, twisting it deftly between slender fingers before tucking it into his sleeve. “So they have both deadly and healing properties. Plus, they also symbolise purity, humility, and a return to happiness.”
A return to happiness?
“Isn’t that beautiful?”
“B-beautiful?”
“Don’t you think so? Only the most beautiful things have two sides to them. Otherwise, they aren’t fun or interesting at all.”
Jungwoo’s mouth turns dry, and the knot in his chest unfurls just a little.
“It’s the eve of Samhain today.” The youthful creature continues as if he hadn’t expected an answer – something that Jungwoo observes might just be a habit of his – pausing his fascination with the flowers just long enough to look at him.
“S-Samhain?” It takes significant effort to curl his tongue to pronounce the word properly.
“Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, Eve of Samhain - they’re all just names to call the same thing. The difference is in how it’s celebrated. Your lot just hangs plastic pumpkin lanterns and light candles, but really, it’s supposed to mark the end of the harvest season, and the true beginning of winter.” He touches the tip of his finger to one of Jungwoo’s lilies and it crumbles to ash. “It’s meant to honour the arrival of the spirits and the bridging of all realms.”
He’s by Jungwoo’s side in the next second, lifting the ashen finger to Jungwoo’s cheek, painting a stroke of charcoal black across the left side. “Careful, Ellyllon. Tonight is when the wandering spirits are at their strongest.” Jungwoo lets out a tiny exhale, mouth opening slightly. His touch is but a brief contact between his finger and his cheek, but it sends a warm flush to his face all the same. His gaze on Jungwoo is arresting; he’s rooted in place, and his senses narrow to a singular focus: on him, and nothing else. “And not all of them are particularly kind.”
He feels something being pressed into his hand – it’s one of the holly leaves. “Don’t let go of this. You’ll be safe on your way home as long as you have this on you tonight.”
Jungwoo wants to ask what about the other nights, but bites down on his bottom lip and nods instead, not really understanding, but just enough to grasp the supposed importance of this leaf to his well-being, for tonight at least. Satisfied, the man-god rises to his feet, regarding Jungwoo with an undetectable expression for a moment longer before slipping back into the darkness of the copse beyond.
Silence reverberates throughout the expanse of the woods. He doesn’t know what time it is, but without the presence of the man-god, the woods suddenly feel chillier. He wishes for the warmth and kinship of his brothers and sisters. He pushes himself off the ground to start for home. When he looks down, the cluster of holly and lilies have vanished, clumps of grass there as if they had always been. His fingers clench tighter around the lone holly leaf gripped between them.
***
Two weeks before Alban Arthan (Yule) – December 8, 1918
Jungwoo’s dreams continue to be haunted by this nameless god in the weeks that follow. He’s riddled with confusion, and feels even more alone than before he had met him. Because now he knows that there might just be someplace where he belongs, and it isn’t here.
So he goes back to the woods, but this time in the day. His body knows the way now.
Ellyllon. The whisper crackles in his ears, and then the rest of the trees seem to catch on too, and their chants rumble throughout the expanse of the forest. To Jungwoo, it almost sounds like murmurs of reverence.
Ellyllon, he hears a voice say, and he turns to where the man-god is standing by a tree, one palm pressed to the bark, while the other hangs by his side. The tree has a full body of leaves, again.
“Am I Ellyllon?” He whispers it from where he stands, knowing somehow that it will still carry to him.
The man-god beckons him closer with a jut of his chin, and Jungwoo understands that he’ll only receive an answer then.
“Ellyllon,” he repeats again, reaching a hand out for Jungwoo to place in his. Jungwoo does so. “Yes, and no.”
“There are many names for your kind. Ellyllon, Plant Cael, Tylwyth Teg, Crimbilion. But you are without a doubt, one of Queen Mab’s.”
More foreign names that he doesn’t understand.
“Crimbilion. Or, changeling.” He pushes Jungwoo’s sleeve all the way to bunch up at the crease of his elbow and chants a string of foreign words. To Jungwoo’s horror, those hideous green patches and whip-like vines begin to protrude from his flesh. He rips his hand back quickly, cradling it to his chest, sickened and completely afraid that his worst fears can be called forth with such a simple utterance of a song.
“I know what you are, Jungwoo. But your secret can be safe with me,” he says, voice laced with kindness. Then he hears his voice again, but this time only in his head. If you let me. No one will have to know, ever. Not in this lifetime, and in the next, and the next, and the next.
Lifetimes?
“Who are you!” he screams out, tears collecting and threatening to spill over.
Terror envelops him, seeps into his bones. He feels his knees give away as his stomach scrunches into knots, and as if the earth is connected to his pain and confusion, explodes all around him. Bursts of lilies bloom and shrivel up in an endless chain around them, and it’s so frightening because he can’t make it stop it at all. He cries out at his own self-made chaos, trying to scuttle away from the showers of flowers and soil.
Beside him, the god – for surely he’s purely a god now, far from a man at all – merely crouches next to him and extends a hand out, a lone lily resting in the centre of his palm. The one he had slid into his sleeve. The gesture is innocent, non-obligatory even.
Jungwoo takes it. Crushes it. Brings it back to life. All this in the time taken for a single flap of a butterfly’s wing. Its red berries gleam under the sunlight. The god breaks one off the stem and feeds it to Jungwoo, and the vines and green moss recede, disappearing under his human skin once more.
“They won’t last long.”
He unfolds himself fluidly from the cross of limbs over limbs on the ground. Every movement is effortless, from when he rises, to when he glides to a stop at the foot of an oak tree. His voice is softer now that there’s more distance between them. “The berries. Very soon, you’ll find yourself immune to them, and you won’t be able to stop yourself from reverting to your true form.”
“How do you know all this?” His demands spill out as sobs. “Who are you?”
“Why, the trees told me, of course. Magic doesn’t go unnoticed, you know, especially yours. You’ve been leaving your mark, Jungwoo. Nature doesn’t simply feel a fey prince’s power when he walks through their territory and not whisper tales about it.” Pure chastisement coats his voice, and nothing else.
Jungwoo tries to let the weight of those sentences settle, but there are too many unspoken revelations and implications within that only serve to discombobulate his very core. His insides bubble with unfettered power and fear and he doesn’t know which is stronger. He covers his face with his hands. He feels as if he has been asleep for the past twenty years, and is only now waking up.
“Please tell me who you are,” he pleads again through the gaps between his fingers.
The god tilts his head just a bit, considering. Something inscrutable passes in his eyes, and then he’s nodding. “Alright. You get to have one secret of mine, but only because I know one of yours. Like you, I have many names. I rule the forests – nature itself. Many know me as Cernunnos, but you can call me Youngho.” He moves to stand before Jungwoo to stroke his hair, tucking a brown strand behind his ear gently.
“So you are a god,” he murmurs, letting his hands drop from his face.
He laughs at that, and when his body shakes, so do the trees. But then his smile turns grim.
“Changelings cannot live for very long in the human world. I can save you, Jungwoo. But it has to be your decision.”
Somehow, Jungwoo had known that someone like him would only have a short life to live.
“I only have two more weeks left before my power begins to wane, and after that I won’t be able to help you anymore.”
“Why will your power wane? And how can you help me exactly?” He pulls the folds of his thin sweater over his hands and rubs his hands together to fend off the cold creeping from within him.
Youngho cups his cheek, the memory of his first touch causing a faint pink blush to bloom once more. He leans into it, memorising the fit and feel of it. “By becoming one of mine.”
Then a whirl of green smoke wraps itself around the god of the forest, its green folds transporting their king to a world where mortals can only ever dream to enter.
***
Alban Arthan (Yule) – December 22, 1918
Jungwoo squares his shoulders and looks at his reflection in the mirror. The person looking back at him is himself, except he’s much paler, has green-gold eyes, and a nest of vines for hair and spirals of autumn leaves and flowers coiling around his arms. He pokes at his own arm, trying to imagine the sensation of them on his human skin. Scents of pine, sandalwood and walnut hang in the air, but when he looks away from the mirror the scents dissipate.
“Human?” he asks Fey Jungwoo, a cheeky grin painting his lips. It answers with a stubborn staccato shake of its head.
“Ellyllon?”
The creature – no, Jungwoo – nods and smiles.
Sprigs of lily-of-the-valley sprout from his right palm, and he tucks them into his hair, their white bell-shaped petals arranging themselves into a crown fit for the prince that he is, and the prince whom he is about to become.