Chapter Text
Across all the lands, the Kingdom of Polaris is known for three things:
The first is its proximity to the glittering Diamond Bay, which provides rich earth perfect for agriculture as well as a bountiful sea-based economy that other kingdoms, inland and across the ocean, can only jealously gaze at from afar. The second is its warm and welcoming atmosphere; visiting allied dignitaries are treated so well they almost always overstay their official schedules, and twice a year the palace throws a grand festival open to people of any kingdom, of all walks of life.
The third and most famous of them all:
The Queen’s smile.
Already, merely seven years into the young Queen’s reign, tales of her beauty and benevolence fill the scrolls of scholars and the songs of bards. She is rumored to have thwarted her own assassination plot simply by conversing with the would-be-killer and offering them hand-made pastries. She encourages her people to come to her directly for concerns and conflicts, and many say they immediately forget their grievances as soon as they enter her warm presence. Seven years prior, the fate of Polaris and its allied kingdoms had been in question upon the tragic death of the former King and Queen, but their eldest daughter has proved to be more than competent. She continues their legacy with nothing less than the grace and intelligence of a true leader, and her famed smile is a symbol of this and the goodness with which she rules.
Currently, atop the small dais in the heart of Polaris’ palace:
Queen Minji wears a dark, extremely displeased scowl.
She leaps to a stand, hand raised in a dangerous command. The cowering figure before her glances back and forth between the Queen’s raised fist and the Captain of the Guard, who cracks her knuckles menacingly from her position directly right of the throne.
“Say that once more, clearly, else I will personally have your head.”
The young woman grimaces sheepishly up at her. “I… sort of lost Dongie?”
The throne room is deathly silent for one long, tense moment. Then the Queen, slowly and deliberately, drops her fist. The Captain of the Guard pounces immediately.
“No! Please!” The young woman wails. “Minji, make her stop!”
“Hold still, you brat!” The Captain growls, managing to wrangle the screaming victim into a headlock, and then digging her knuckles into the crown of her head. She starts shouting too, however, when the young woman bites at her to escape. Together they fall to the plush red carpet beneath them as they begin to wrestle in earnest.
Their shrieks echo around the large room. Thankfully, The Queen has no more scheduled audiences for today, but this wouldn’t be the first time the duo has spooked an innocent citizen passing by the outer gates. She drops back into her throne with a sigh.
“Alright, Bora, that’s enough. Gahyun, please elaborate?”
Bora hauls Gahyun to a stand by the back of her royal robes, the sight reminding Minji of a mother dog picking its unruly pup up by the scruff of its neck. She might have been amused, if Gahyeon hadn’t just slunk into the throne room with a trademark sheepish grin, and blurted this unfortunate piece of news.
“Cheater,” Gahyun mutters to the Captain beside her, shoving her arm off her shoulder. “Siyeon’s been teaching you wolf wrestling techniques, hasn’t she?”
“One thing our little genius doesn’t know,” Bora responds coyly, sticking her tongue out at her.
“Kids, behave.” Minji rubs at her forehead underneath her crown and shoots them both a stern look, ending on the younger of the two. “Princess Gahyun, how under the stars did you lose Handong?”
The Queen uses her little sister’s official title only in times of business, and this fact is enough to make Gahyeon straighten up and clear her throat. “Sort of. I sort of lost Dongie.”
Bora snorts. “How do you sort of lose the Royal Advisor, the Guardian of the Crown Princess, a whole magic shapeshifter?”
Gahyun’s arms twitch as if to strangle the Captain, but she catches Minji’s serious gaze and tucks her hands neatly behind her back instead. Hesitantly, and then in an avalanche of tangents and backtracks, the Crown Princess explains how exactly she sort of lost an integral member of the makeshift royal family. Bora appears to blank out a minute in. Minji does her best to keep up with the rambling story, but all she catches is that it has something to do with one of Gahyeon’s latest experiments with magic, a bunch of mirrors in the Scar Forest, and a dinghy filled with fish.
“...And then after Dahyun nearly shot Chaewon with the sulfur arrow, we had to beg Arin to sub in for Miyeon in the pig-wrangling part, and you know how Jane gets about me and my flying inventions even though that was literally one time and Yehana forgave me a long time ago for the broken arm, so I was asking around the Everglow Tavern for another ten bags of flour, and that’s when I heard the recent rumors, and that’s when I realized Dongie was missing.”
Minji doesn’t exactly understand how point A got to point B, but this unique roundabout way of making connections where others might not see them is typically how Gahyun’s mind works, and why she is probably the most intelligent and magic-minded person in Polaris. And also probably the most chaotic princess any kingdom has ever seen.
“You realized Dongie was missing because if she had been there, there’s no way she would have let you near those poor pigs, much less let you subject your friends to your deathtrap inventions.” Bora, surprisingly, seems to have followed Gahyun’s conclusion.
Minji straightens, alarmed. “Tell me you did not do anything irresponsible.”
Gahyun grins. “I did. I made pigs fly. It was glorious.” She sneezes, and a cloud of flour settles onto the royal carpet.
Minji sighs again.
Gahyun’s grin is slightly more apologetic. “Anyway. Aside from my free reign of irresponsibility, it was the rumours I overheard that led me to my conclusion.”
“Tavern gossip?” Bora clicks her tongue. “The only good information that comes from tavern gossip is when Yeeun has acquired new ores for her forge. Everything else is old husbands’ tales. Whispered right in your face with stale ale breath. Ugh.”
Minji eyes her from the side. “Spend a lot of patrol time in taverns, Captain?”
Bora coughs. “...So I’ve heard, anyway. So what were the rumours about, Princess?”
“Scar Forest,” Gahyun saves her by blurting excitedly. “There have been sightings of something strange deep within its shadows. Dongie has to be there.”
“The rumors that surround Scar Forest change with the frequency of the moon,” Bora dismisses with a wave of her leather gauntlets.
“And yet,” an amused voice, soothing even as it is gruff, calls from the shadows, “some rumors turn out to be true.”
From the discrete doorway that connects the throne room to the rest of the palace, a sturdy figure dressed in dark furs emerges and heads directly to Bora’s other side, pausing only to ruffle the Crown Princess’ and then the Queen’s hair.
“You don’t count, Singnie,” Bora says, feigning indignance despite the warm twinkle in her eye. “The rumors about you said your kind were beasts that would devour me if I stepped into your territory. Turns out the fearsome, ruthless leader of the werewolves is just a cute, cuddly pup.”
The werewolf in question leans in to playfully nip at Bora’s ear. “I can be both, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” Bora swats at her, smirking, but makes no real attempt to prevent her gentle attacks.
Minji fixes her askew crown with a grumble. “If you do not keep your teeth to yourself, Alpha Siyeon, I will have my esteemed Captain dress in full ceremonial armor to future audiences, helmet included.”
“I have a shelf of silver in my alchemy room, if you’d like a custom set made,” Gahyun pipes in.
Siyeon fixes the sisters with her signature glare, sharp and intense as only a wolf’s can be, but she soon breaks and barks out a sheepish laugh. Stepping a safe distance away from Bora, she asks, “So what’s this about my favorite feline friend and the Scar Forest?”
“The Princess lost her kitty cat, and she thinks she’s in the Forest,” Bora quickly summarizes, before Gahyun can let loose another rambling explanation.
Siyeon hums. “I see. Is Dongie’s absence related to the white powder on all of your clothes, or is that a separate story?”
“With Gahyun, everything is somehow part of the same outlandish tale.”
“That’s it!” Gahyun snaps her fingers, eyes growing wide with her sudden breakthrough. “Do you remember when Dongie first came to us?”
Minji exchanges a wry glance with Bora, who had been Minji’s personal guard at the time. They had both been present when the stray orange tabby in Gahyun’s arms suddenly transformed into a beautiful woman, and then back into a cat but of the long-fanged panther variety, when Bora had tried to get between her and the Princess with her sword drawn. There had been a lot of hissing (mainly from Bora), a lot of firmly barked orders (mainly from Gahyun), and a lot of crying over spilled desserts (mainly from Minji). The poor palace kitchens never quite fully recovered from it all.
“I vaguely recall, yes.” Bora rubs at a phantom claw mark beneath her fauld. Which, actually, might have come from the overprotective, petty Guardian cat long after her presence had been accepted in the palace for good.
“The reason she stopped in Polaris was because she sensed an intense concentration of magical potential. That was me!” Gahyun points both thumbs emphatically at her chest, ignoring the flour that trickles from the seams of her elbow sleeves. “It’s the same story! Cats’ interest rarely sways… she must be snooping around whatever magic has been spotted in Scar Forest. It must be something big and dangerous. There’s no other reason why Dongie would go missing,” Gahyun solemnly finishes her conjecture with confident fists to her hips. Minji restrains herself from sighing again as another cloud of white dust falls onto her beautiful carpet.
Siyeon arches an eyebrow, and teases the Princess: “Or maybe you have a competitor for her affections. She’s finally found a magical creature cuter and more chaotic than you.” She yelps as Bora elbows her, because for all of their roughhousing, she would never want to see Gahyun actually hurt.
But Gahyun only scoffs. “Please. No one is cuter and more chaotic than me. This has been affirmed by both Dongie and the Royal Queen Herself, and is therefore as good as law.”
Minji shrugs. It is true.
Siyeon also shrugs, because it really is true. “Some laws could stand to change.”
“Well, it is a law that the Crown Princess must always have a companion when gallivanting off in public,” Gahyun says, voice an airy imitation of someone’s lecturing tone, vaguely familiar enough to make Minji narrow her eyes, “so who shall accompany me to Scar Forest in Dongie’s stead?”
“You most certainly will not go to Scar Forest, with or without a companion,” Bora admonishes before Minji can say the exact same thing.
“I agree. Your Highnesses have allies in the wolves, but the Forest is home to far more unpredictable and dangerous beings than even we,” Siyeon adds, serious for once.
Gahyun whines in protest. “But you know Dongie will only obey orders from me and Minji. If someone else were to find her, she would simply spit a hairball at them.”
“Yes. Yes, she would.” Bora’s face twists as if she speaks from experience.
“I absolutely must go to the Forest,” Gahyun insists. “Because what if — what if she’s lost, not by choice? What if… she can’t get back home?”
Otherwise her typical humorously clever self, Gahyun shows vulnerability only in the rarest of moments, and even then still under a veneer of cheeky nonchalance. They all know that Handong is more than capable of taking care of herself. Yet, the young Princess still thought her beloved companion’s absence strange enough to notify her sister, and now her voice begins to wobble, worry bleeding through as her whirlwind of a brain calculates possible scenarios that Handong could now be in without her.
“How about this?” Siyeon sees the panic begin to crease her soft face and swoops in, voice as soothing of a rumble as she can make it. “The Captain and I have business to attend to in the outskirts of the Forest — I came in to fetch her for it, as we must make it to the clan before sunset falls. While we’re there, we can ask around about the rumors, and keep a lookout for the cat, hm?”
Gahyun looks up at her with glistening eyes and pouty lips, and Minji briefly considers actually proposing a law that mandates Gahyun as the cutest person in Polaris. From the way Bora and Siyeon immediately move to dote on her, she would have at least two other votes. Three, she reminds herself, and feels a pang of worry herself for her absent Advisor.
“Will you really do that for me?”
“Of course, little kit,” Siyeon hushes, a comforting arm slung around Gahyeon’s shoulders.
Bora nods in agreement, smoothing down Gahyun’s hair. “We’ll leave immediately. I’ll even bring a pouch full of fish to tempt the silly cat with.”
“A clever, if patronizing idea, but it might not be the best to have meat on your person for this particular event,” Siyeon muses, other arm coming up to sling around Bora’s shoulder.
Bora blanches. Her hands freeze in Gahyun’s hair as she appears to remember just exactly what werewolf tradition she has the obligation to fulfill, this being her second anniversary as Siyeon’s betrothed. A smirk plays at Minji’s lips; her Captain, despite her smaller stature, possesses a strength and self-assurance that intimidates all who come before her, whether they be friend or foe. It is rather amusing, then, to see stutters in her unyielding presence when it comes to matters involving Siyeon and her clan.
“Well then, fish aren’t necessary. I will simply die. Then I won’t have to experience tonight, and Handong will most certainly appear so she can cough a hairball onto my dead body.”
“You’re so dramatic, love. It’s just a little ceremonial wrestling and hunting. Your specialties.”
“‘A little’?! You all have inhuman strength! Your baby cousin almost crushed me because he accidentally sat on me!”
“Your inaugural howl was the loudest of all the pups last year. Everyone was impressed, even the elders.”
“I was screaming because you jumped off the cliffside with me on your back!” Bora cries.
“Flying wolves,” Gahyun murmurs to herself, momentarily distracted from her own distress. “Now that’s an idea…”
See, Minji likes to think she is a good Queen. As the face of Polaris, she truly does her best to represent the Crown and her kingdom well. She has maintained her famed smile even when things have gone terribly wrong, and even managed to turn some of the worst of situations into ones of hope and prosperity. Some are unforeseen tragedies, like when her parents set sail for a visit to a kingdom across the ocean, were lost to a storm, and left their barely-of-age daughter to take the reins of one of the most prominent kingdoms in the land. Some are more predictable but no less unfortunate, like the fires that wiped out whole acres of crops during a particularly dry drought and left many people hungry for a season.
Other situations are simply, utterly bewildering.
Like the time she had sent her trusty Captain of the Guard to investigate a farmer’s complaints of fox sightings near his sheep pens, and she came back engaged to the leader of a werewolf clan.
Or the time the stray cat that had attached itself to the Crown Princess’ ankles six moons prior suddenly transformed atop a tray of macarons and magically bound their souls together.
These particular events have somehow turned out to be the best of them all, not only because Polaris has gained the loyalty of two powerful magical beings, but because Minji and Gahyun have gained two permanent members of their chosen family.
So as three of her favorite people tease each other and the squabbling quickly escalates to a screaming chase around the throne room, Queen Minji lets herself smile, genuine and fond. It is, after all, what Polaris is known for. And somehow, things have always ended up more-or-less alright under her calm, optimistic disposition. She counts on this to assuage her worries, even as Gahyun sneezes more flour all over her royal robes so violently that Bora trips over Siyeon and almost impales herself on her own sword scabbard.
She forgets, though, what Princess Gahyun is known for, what Handong would softly warn her of if she were here to advise her now:
Nothing ever goes according to plan, and most certainly never quietly.
Minji smiles, unaware of the chaos to come.