Chapter Text
Jimin finds the scroll deep in the dark and dusty depths of the Old Library, where the stone is so cold that it saps light and life. The candle flickers wan and weak, a bare glimmer between the long, looming shelves. Even the howling wind doesn’t penetrate this deep into the frozen earth. In the gloom and the stillness, the cracking of the old wax seal is as loud as a swordstrike.
He speaks the Old Tongue poorly and reads it worse, but Namjoon is a stubborn tutor, so Jimin crouches in the freezing, hungry dark, cloak drawn close around his shoulders, and sounds out the ancient language. His fingers smooth over the cold parchment as he struggles through the passage, giving stumbling voice to words that have been unspoken for centuries.
Understanding blooms slowly, but when it comes, it leaves him breathless. After a lifetime spent in the depths of winter, hope burns like a candlewick—frail and flickering, but burning all the same.
Jimin swears the weather gets worse the further he strays from the heart of the kingdom. It was bad enough in the east, but the past week has been nothing but snowfall, drifts piling past his knees and the wind wailing between the ice-scraped tree trunks of the western woods, chilling him to the bone. He’s even considered leaving an offering in the hopes of some respite, but he has nearly nothing to burn and certainly nothing dry enough to kindle a shrine. Not that there’s anyone out there listening—if there were, he wouldn’t be out here on his own, hundreds of miles from home hunting down a whisper of a rumor of a myth.
It’s a relief when the snow finally lets up, leaving all of the cold but a blessedly clear sky overhead painted in the reds and oranges of an early winter sunset. It’s even more of a relief to see the glow of the town through the trees, a sight as welcome as the banners raised back home. If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll scrounge a warm meal and a night’s sleep by someone’s fireside.
As it turns out, he’s more than lucky. The town is a proper one, built up along the western trade road. The wide boulevard is a blessed relief after traipsing from hamlet to hamlet through the barren trees, and he spies the creaking of an inn sign just as the sun slips below the horizon. Whatever the place used to be called, the endless winter has peeled the paint from the board, but the carving stands out, and merry orange firelight shines through the warped glass windows, promising warmth and respite within.
He shoves his way through the door, stumbling as the freezing wind gives way to the still, soupy warmth of a taproom. The immediate change in temperature leaves his fingers itching, and he shakes snow from his hood and stomps it from his boots and swallows down a sneeze. It’s busier inside than he expects for a town so far from the capital—they must still get trade and traffic along the Westroad. With the easing of the snow, it’s as good a night as any for folk to gather for a drink and to remember the pleasure and warmth of human company.
Jimin, after six months on the road, is starved for both.
“What’ll it be, sweetheart?” asks the barmaid as he rubs his hands together, trying to chafe feeling back into his fingers through the thick leather of his gloves. “Meal, drink, bed?”
Near the fire, a few of the locals look up from their drinks long enough to clock him. Jimin keeps his movements easy and broad as he unwraps his scarf, waiting to see if they decide that his heavy pack and his weather-stained cloak make him worth bothering about. But they’re swift to dismiss him, turning back to their drinks and the warmth of the hearth, and Jimin lets out a breath.
“All three,” he tells the barmaid, coughing out the cold air and breathing in the smell of beer and smoke. His stomach rumbles almost immediately at the promise of a warm meal.
“Sit anywhere,” the barmaid tells him, disappearing behind the bar where a sullen-looking innkeeper pulls ales and keeps a close eye on the room. He’s not as unconcerned as his patrons, but Jimin doesn’t mind the narrow-eyed distrust. Strangers mean trouble for locals, and he knows he looks rougher than most, even with his sword hidden away beneath his cloak. He turns away and scrubs warmth back into his wind-chilled cheeks, wincing at the scrape. He needs a shave, and likely a trim while he’s at it. At this rate they won’t recognize him when he gets home again.
He takes a table away from the other patrons, ceding the warmth of the fire for a sliver of privacy, and sinks into the hard wooden chair with a sigh. His legs ache and so does his back, and it’s a relief to be off his feet and out of the elements. He drops his bag and, more surreptitiously, loosens his sword belt, leaning the scabbard against the wall and out of sight. It takes him longer to divest himself of the rest of his winterwear, and by the time he’s got his gloves off and is stretching his frost-nipped fingers, the barmaid is back with a serving of steaming stew and dark ale. Jimin pays in silver from the pouch on his hip. Gold, he’s learned the hard way, buys more problems than privledges—anyone rich enough to spend in gold is rich enough to be worth the bother of robbing, so his shrinking allowance of sovereigns stays tucked inside the lining of the pack at his heel. As does his signet ring, the only proof of his rank and status so far from the capital.
“Long trip?” asks the maid, counting his coin. She, at least, doesn’t seem to mind the novelty of him. Jimin favors her with a smile and warms his stinging fingers against the wooden bowl.
“Aren’t they all?”
“Haven’t seen you around before.”
“Visiting family up north,” he lies. “I just came up from Merona."
He’s been straying further and further from home in his search—first it was the coastal cities, and then the trading towns, and most recently the outer farmlands. He’s been chasing rumors of witches and snakes and godstouched, each lead leaner than the last. Now he’s well into the western woods, dragging himself through the forested foothills of the Westmounts with nothing to show for months of hunting save for a few more scars and little less hope. All the whispers of the godstouched—rumors of light-footed youths with shining eyes and starlit hair who speak the Old Tongue like breathing, of spells called forth from the very air without sigils to shape their witchcraft, of powerful witches bearing the marks of the absent gods—have turned up nothing but charlatans and illusionists.
It’s like chasing smoke. Some days, Jimin wonders if maybe when the gods fled the endless winter, they took their chosen children with them. It would be his luck to dedicate himself to a task that can never be completed.
Well, if that’s the case, fine. He’ll cross the mountains if it comes to that; he’ll go wherever he must. But the failure wears at him, and so does the cold, and so does the loneliness. He misses Namjoon and Yoongi—their counsel, of course, but also their friendship. He misses his parents, and the comfort of home, and the certainty of a lit hearth in the palace's grand receiving hall to warm his stinging, itching, frost-nipped fingers. Namjoon’s latest letter sits heavy in the inner pocket of his coat, bringing word of the king’s ailing health, the empty storerooms, the faltering magic of the greenhouses that everyone relies on to feed the people. It isn’t a call home, not yet, but… soon. They’ll need him home again. The kingdom will not run itself without its prince for much longer.
“Picked a good time to travel,” the barmaid tells him, pocketing his coin. At the look he gives her—there’s never a good time to travel, which anyone who has been on the road knows, prince or pauper—she laughs. “Sorry. Don’t often get to say that these days. Ah, you should see your face. ”
“I can’t imagine,” Jimin returns, letting himself smile at the joke. Across the room, one of the other tables waves her over, and she leaves him with a wink and a room key.
Jimin sinks back into his seat and turns his attention to his meal. It’s barely a few thin vegetables in broth and a slice of hard, dry bread, but it’s more than nothing. It’s more than he’s had in weeks, honestly. He tries to make it last, to savor the novelty of a warm meal, but it goes down quicker than he’d like, and when it’s finished he sits back and lets himself relax into the relative warmth and comfort of this remote, nameless inn.
He’d expected it to be hard, of course. The roads are bleak and grow bleaker with every year of the endless winter that holds the kingdom fast in its frozen grip. But hard barely covers the reality. Hopeless might be the better term. Sometimes, when he beds down in empty stables or skulks out of inns before dawn to avoid the attention of beady-eyed, starved innkeepers more eager for his belongings than his business, he can almost hear Yoongi’s I told you so whispered on the wind.
But he can’t give up. For every highwayman hungry for an easy mark and every abandoned farmer’s cottage left to collapse in the cold, there’s a family somewhere stubbornly keeping to the old ways, lighting fires and holding onto hope even in the deepest depths of winter. People still leave candles out on their doorsteps to ward away the dark; and when the snow breaks there are cherry-bright birds that flit between snow-heavy branches; and all along the coast, lanterns still strike out into the ice-capped ocean to guide ships safely into harbor. His people hold onto life with every tenacious ounce of stubbornness they have, as bitter and determined as the winter itself. Jimin can’t afford to offer them any less in return, no matter how tired he is or how much he longs to return home.
A ragged round of applause draws him from his thoughts. Across the room, a boy has risen from his seat near the fire to step onto a narrow wooden stage. Apparently there’s to be entertainment tonight. No wonder the barmaid is in such a good mood.
Jimin watches, intrigued, as the boy shakes out his hands and ducks his head at the scattered cheers of the group in front of him. Given his air of resigned embarrassment, Jimin has the sense he’s been coaxed up on stage, rather than taking the initiative himself. He sips his beer, watching with half an eye. The boy has a sweet, shy air and a young, handsome face. He can’t be much older than eighteen. Twenty, maybe.
“Go on, lad,” calls one of the men at the fireside benches, cheeks ruddy from windburn or his wine. “Let’s see a trick!”
The boy’s shoulders hunch up by his shoulders for a moment before he sighs in resignation, and Jimin finds himself smiling. When the boy’s eyes skim over the room, he raises his mug in a toast—though if he intends it in sympathy or support, he can’t entirely say.
Then the boy’s attention lands on him, and the whole world seems to go still. The wind quiets outside, and the drunken men go slow and silent across the room, and Jimin sits there, half smiling, arm half raised, staring at the boy while the boy stares back. Candlelight dances in his dark eyes.
In Jimin’s chest, an answering ember glows. The boy’s lips part. He blinks.
The stillness vanishes as swiftly as it arrived, and the boy’s attention slips away. Jimin takes a breath, mouth dry, as the room descends into noise and motion again. He sets his mug down, clumsy and too hard, and beer slops up the rim and over his hand. Something buzzes under his skin, unfamiliar. It’s embarrassing, he tells himself, to be so starved for human connection that a lingering look from a handsome boy across a bar has him feeling as though he’s stepped into a lightning storm. He wipes his hand on his trousers and pushes the heel of his palm against his chest, rubbing at his sternum as though he could push the feeling out.
“Just,” says the boy, and Jimin’s eyes snap back up to him. His voice is quiet but surprisingly rich and full, carrying easily across the room. “Just don’t get too close, okay?”
Then, with a flick of his wrist, fire appears in his bare hand.
Jimin sits up straighter, breathless all over again. He hadn’t expected to find a witch here of all places.
Up on the narrow stage, the boy draws the fire up with his free hand, a lick of flame pinched between his fingers as he tugs at it like pulling clay. His brow furrows fiercely as he casts, mouth moving silently as the fire twists and slims and suddenly blooms into a burning flower. The boy takes a deep breath and wets his lips, gaze focused wholly on the trick in his hand, then snaps his fingers. In an instant, the fire-bright bloom cools into a living rose, drawing a delighted gasp from the crowd. The boy grins, a wide, scrunching smile, and hands it to the barmaid. But as soon as the flower leaves his hand, it turns to smoke.
“Ah,” says the boy, wilting a little. “Sorry.”
The barmaid only laughs.
“Do another one!” demands the man from before. The entire taproom has turned to the boy; even the scowling innkeeper has left off scrubbing glasses to lean across the bar and watch. Jimin strains forward with the rest of them, captivated. The boy rubs his hand together and shakes his hair out of his face. His fingers smoke slightly, as though the magic isn’t entirely willing to let him go.
“Um,” he says. “Does anyone have a spoon?”
It’s quickly apparent that while the boy might know some spellcraft, he isn’t much more than a simple hedgewitch. His tricks are basic things—bent spoons and conjured cards, short-lived illusions, enchantments that falter at the slightest shift or stutter in his attention. He casts with his brow furrowed in fierce concentration, and his hands flutter in strange formations as he mumbles under his breath. Jimin has seen more impressive showings from the green apprentices back home, untrained children half this boy’s age.
But a witch is a witch, and the marvel of seeing genuine spellcraft—even the most simple, fumbling sort—is a rare and welcome pleasure. So he sits in the meagre warmth of the half-full taproom among strangers, months and miles from home and hearth, and lets himself enjoy the show.
It helps, he’ll admit, that the boy is easy to look at. Jimin has missed that too, since leaving home.
The show ends when the boy tries to conjure an illusion in the air above his spread hands and the image wavers and sparks and fades into nothing. A good-natured groan goes up from the dozen or so folk near the fire, and the boy blushes and ducks his head and gives a sheepish apology as he steps down from the stage. Jimin keeps half an eye on him as he begins drifting about the taproom, holding out a shallow wooden bowl. It’s a more polite sort of begging than Jimin has seen in a while, and by the time he finally reaches Jimin’s table, furthest from the fire and the crowd, he’s collected a half dozen copper bits. Someone seems to have left him the spoon as well, though given that it’s folded nearly in half, it isn’t much of a tip.
“Impressive show,” Jimin says, digging for his purse. The boy’s mouth quirks, sheepish, and he rubs at his arm.
“Not really,” he says. “I’m not very good at it.”
“Better than me,” Jimin tells him, tipping him a silver for his troubles. It’s an indulgence to spend his shrinking purse on a handsome hedgewitch boy with barely a flicker of the gods’ gift, but Jimin has had little to indulge in these past months. And the charity isn’t altogether honest—the boy might not be very good at it, but he learned his witchcraft somewhere, and Jimin wants to know where. Information like that, so far from the cities, is worth its weight in silver.
At the clink of the coin in the bowl, the boy’s eyes go wide.
“Thank you,” he mumbles, dipping into a bow. Up close, he looks a little older than Jimin had assumed, nearer to his own age. He has a strong chin and a round nose and a faint scar high on one cheek, and there’s a breadth to his shoulders, hidden beneath his too-large jacket, that suggests a life of labor, or at least a recent familiarity with hard work. Jimin favors him with a smile and feels only a little bad about the prospect of interrogating him.
“I should be the one thanking you. It’s been an age since I’ve enjoyed any entertainment. Let me buy you a drink?”
“Ah, that’s far too generous—”
“It’s entirely selfish,” Jimin assures him. “I could use the company. Unless you’re here with friends?” Though from the way the locals have gone back to their gossiping and their drinking, heads pressed close together as they crowd all the decent seats near the hearth, Jimin rather doubts it.
“No,” says the boy. He sounds a little rueful. Still, he hesitates, and for a long minute Jimin thinks he’ll refuse. There’s something to his look, a wariness that Jimin recognizes. A kind stranger is a blessing, but few strangers are kind, and even the kind ones often want something. Jimin can’t imagine he looks like the kind sort right now, wrapped in his travel-stained clothes, a few days past neatly shaven, scabbard in arm’s reach, sitting far from the fire and all alone.
“You can keep the silver either way,” Jimin tells him, gentler, and the boy’s shoulders unhitch.
“I wouldn’t mind a drink,” he allows, and he tips his meagre earnings into his palm to secret them away somewhere beneath his jacket. Jimin gestures to the seat across from, attention shifting only long enough to catch the barmaid’s eye and gesture for another round. When he turns back, the boy has settled himself in the chair across the table, shivering a little away from the fire, drawing his jacket tighter. Jimin feels bad about that, but not bad enough to forego this sliver of privacy. Even the most generous—and cheerfully drunk—locals don’t much care for a stranger butting into their business.
“Jimin,” he introduces himself. He doesn’t think the boy will recognize the name, not so far from the capital and civilization. Not when he wears his months of travel so heavily. And besides, it’s a common enough name.
“Jungkook,” the boy returns. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”
“I’m just passing through. You’re from around here?”
“No, not at all.” He gives something like a laugh. “I’m just passing through too.”
“And making a little on the side?”
Jungkook shrugs. “I suppose.” He startles as the barmaid drops a set of ales on the table before them.
“You boys let me know if I can get you anything,” she says, sparing a wink for Jungkook, who blushes. She leaves with a certain pronounced sway to her hips, and Jimin tucks his laugh into the lip of his mug.
“I think she likes you.”
“I know,” Jungkook says, looking more than a little embarrassed about it. Jimin takes pity on him.
“It’s nice to see folk out here are still eager for a night’s entertainment,” he says. “And good to see entertainers out here to help keep spirits up.”
“Help keep spirits flowing, more like,” Jungkook returns, taking a long pull from his ale. He seems to regret the bitterness a moment later, setting the mug down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and a wince. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be so…”
“Honest?” Jimin hazards wryly. He can’t say he disagrees. Jungkook ducks his head. His bangs fall in his face, hiding his expression, but the curve of his cheeks suggests a smile. It makes Jimin want to prop his elbow on the table, to prop his chin in his hand, to watch him fluster and blush.
“I was going to say rude,” Jungkook offers, eyes blinking up dark and round through the fringe of his bangs. He really is very cute. “They’ve been decent hosts. Better than most.”
“We can call it insightful, if you’d prefer,” Jimin offers. “Nothing wrong with seeing things as they are.”
Jungkook laughs, nose scrunching with it. It makes him look a little like a rabbit, teeth poking out. “Now you really are being too generous. I’m hardly worth the flattery.”
Jimin disagrees. There’s something delightful about watching him go shy and smiling. It’s been too long since he’s had any sort of laughter in his life, and longer still since he’s wanted to coax it out of anyone.
“If that’s generous then I fear you’ve been sorely mistreated.”
He means it in jest—and maybe he’s a bit out of practice flirting, but he’s surely not that bad—but Jungkook’s expression dims, his smile fading, and Jimin immediately regrets the joke.
“I’m sorry,” he says, straightening a little, sobering. “I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
“No, no. You haven’t.” The smile flickers and fades again. “It’s just… Ah, you know how it is.” His eyes dart up to meet Jimin’s, candlelight gleaming in their depths. “Not everyone is kind to a lone stranger on the road.”
Ah. Yes. Jimin knows that all too well.
“I’m sorry,” he says again with all the sincerity he can muster. “You know the roads, then?”
“Well enough.” He doesn't look like he wants to talk about it, which Jimin understands. There’s plenty from his own travels that he wouldn’t want to discuss either. Certainly not with a stranger, certainly not when the company is so pleasant and the taproom is almost warm and the skies are clear and the night quiet.
Jungkook’s attention cuts up to him again. “And you? You look…”
He stalls out, hesitating long enough that Jimin can see him struggling for what to say. He offers a smile in the hopes of setting him at ease. “Bad?”
“Like you’ve had a long trip,” Jungkook decides with surprising diplomacy, at odds with the flush creeping up his cheeks. “The locals aren’t so…” He stalls again, searching for a word, and Jimin sits in the stretching silence. Deep in his gut, a frisson of worry sparks. If he stands out so starkly from the people of the region—
“You just seem interesting,” Jungkook says, the flush well and truly high on his cheeks. He ducks his head. “Sorry, that must sound— Sorry.”
“Sounds insightful,” Jimin says, and there’s a momentary flash of that smile again, the bunching of his cheeks.
“Have you been traveling a while?”
Jimin shrugs. “A few months.”
Jungkook whistles, low. “That long?”
Jimin does his best to smile, but he feels it stick around the corners of his mouth, feeble. “It’s been necessary.”
Jungkook’s expression shifts into open sympathy. “I’m sorry. It must wear on you.”
“Sometimes,” says Jimin, eyes flicking across the knot of people across the room, the frowning innkeeper, the hovering barmaid. He hesitates, and Jungkook must take it for reticence because he leans back a little, making space across the table.
“What brings you out so far? That is— If you want to talk about it. I don’t mean to pry.” He says it easily, honestly, like he’s not put out by the possibility of Jimin keeping his secrets, and Jimin feels himself soften.
“No, it’s fine. It’s…” Now it’s turn to hesitate, and he twists his mug on the table, mouth pinched down in a frown. “Well, actually, I’m hoping it’s something you might be able to help me with.”
“Me?”
“Hopefully.” Jimin favors him with a smile, the kind he knows from experience helps put people at ease. “I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest about my intentions here.”
Jungkook goes carefully poised, a stillness Jimin recognizes and regrets as soon as he sees it.
“Nothing untoward,” he hurries to assure him, hands raised. “I swear. I only had a question to ask you. About your craft.” The words come out awkward, unwieldy. He’s out of practice at this. “I don’t— I’m not trying to take advantage. I really did want to buy you a drink.”
Jungkook unwinds slowly, mouth pursed. The guardedness lingers, and Jimin wishes he’d played this better. “You don’t have to buy my attention, Jimin-ssi.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I truly didn’t mean it like that. I’m— It’s been a while since I’ve met anyone so interesting. I didn’t want to scare you, I suppose.”
“What’s so important that you’d resort to extorting a stranger for his knowledge?” He cocks his head. “I’m afraid if you’re looking for a teacher, I won’t be a very good one.”
“I’m not,” Jimin assures him. “I’d make an abysmal student. I haven’t got the gift.” Despite all his hoping and praying as a child. He’s made his peace with it, mostly.
“What, then?”
Jimin hesitates. Across the table, Jungkook has gone tense and quiet, and Jimin regrets breaking the comfortable air they’d had. But he has to ask. It’s the entire reason he’s here.
“I’m… looking for a witch.”
Jungkook blinks at him, wariness ceding to confusion. “In general? Or did you have a specific one in mind?”
“A bit of both, I suppose.” Jimin wets his lips. “I’m looking for a child of Hecate.”
Jungkook frowns. “One of the godstouched?”
“Yes.”
Jungkook’s frown deepens. “All the way out here?”
“Well I haven’t had any better luck back east,” he tries to joke. Jungkook’s expression doesn’t change, and Jimin shrugs. “There was a rumor someone had seen one out in the hinterlands.” And the farmlands before that, and the coast before that.
“I think they just wanted your coin.”
Jimin grimaces. He thinks so too, but— “I don’t really have any other choice.”
Jungkook takes a long drink, then pokes at his cheek with his tongue.
“Why? What’s so important that it’s worth chasing a children’s story?”
Story. That’s the word Yoongi had used too, when Jimin had told him and Namjoon of his intentions. It had been a long, loud argument—but then, they’d been arguing about this since Jimin was old enough to understand how much his kingdom suffered under the curse that buried them in this endless winter and how it was his gods-given duty by blood and birth to fix it.
“I want to end the winter. I need their help to do it.”
Jungkook blinks at him, expression strange. “You want to end the winter,” he echoes.
“Yes.”
“And one of the godstouched will help.”
“I hope so.”
Jungkook blinks again and takes a drink of his ale, and then says, “How?”
“There’s an old story. A prophecy, maybe.” Jungkook watches him steadily, his eyes dark. The attention sends a shiver down Jimin’s spine. “It says that a witch chosen and marked by Hecate can turn the heavens and change the seasons. I think… Well. If it was a godstouched that froze the world, then with the help of a godstouched I can unfreeze it. We could have spring again.” He shrugs and looks down at the table, hands wrapped around his drink. “If I can find them, anyway.”
“You’ve been looking for a long time?”
Jimin shakes his head. “Only a few months. I know it’s not very long, but… I’m not sure how much longer I can spare, to be honest.”
Jungkook hums, fingers tapping against the table. “Well, it’s a nice tale.”
“Right.” Disappointment sinks in his gut, and Jimin sits back. If he’s being honest, he doesn’t know what else he expected. He’d call it a tale too, if it weren’t for the old scroll hidden in the depths of his pack, written in a tongue so old and honest that it demands belief. “Thanks for listening to it, at least.” It’s more than he’s gotten from most.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Jungkook says quietly. “I mean— It’s nice that you care. I think it’s brave.”
Jimin’s lip curves in a thin smile. “Most people would say stupid.” Most people have said stupid—the few that Jimin has told about the full shape of his hope, anyway. Belief isn’t a currency many save or spend these days.
“I mean, it’s a little…” He trails off, mouth twisting, and says, “I didn’t think people cared like that anymore.”
“About the world?”
“About fixing it, and not just surviving it.”
Jimin laughs. “It sounds nicer when you put it like that.”
Jungkook shrugs. There’s a smile tucked in the corner of his mouth. “I’m just saying it how I see it, I guess.”
Jimin returns the smile with one of his own. Across the room, someone bursts into cackling laughter, and Jimin turns in time to see the barmaid swat away a reaching hand and vanish back behind the bar, leaving the locals to hoot and holler and fall against each other. He returns to his own mug with a curl of his lip, drinking deep and setting it down empty.
“Why you, though?” Jungkook asks. Jimin looks up.
He’s frowning again, staring down at the place where his fingertips worry against a divot in the top of the table. The purse to his lips reminds Jimin a little of how he’d looked performing—focused, intent. His eyes flick up for a moment, meeting Jimin’s, and then he looks away again.
“I mean,” he continues, “why does it have to be you?”
“I mean,” Jimin says, wetting his lips and fumbling for an answer that isn’t because I’m the prince and this is my kingdom and that makes it my responsibility. “Someone has to, right?”
“People have tried, though.”
“I know.” Plenty have tried, people stronger and smarter and braver than he is. People with actual plans, with the support of lords and witches and money, with more than a story written on an old scroll in an even older language to guide them. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.”
“I suppose.”
“And I just… I guess I believe they’re out there.”
Jungkook’s mouth twitches. “One of the godstouched, you mean.”
“Mmh. If I can just find them, just convince them to help… I mean, I don’t think they’d say no, right?” Jimin swallows. It’s a question that’s kept him up at night, and he suddenly, desperately cares what Jungkook thinks. “If they had the power to fix this, to help people, to make the world right again. Surely they’d agree?”
Jungkook digs his thumbnail into the groove on the table and looks up. “Maybe,” he says, eyes dark. “If they can.”
Jimin frowns at him. “You think they couldn’t?”
Jungkook shrugs, not meeting his eyes. “Maybe.”
“Why?” Jimin leans forward across the table. “Please, Jungkook-ssi. Why wouldn't they be able to help?”
Jungkook stares at the table for a moment longer, then takes a deep breath and raises his mug, tipping his head back as he finishes the last of it. Jimin watches his throat bob and tucks his fingers under his knees, willing himself to be patient. The moment stretches, spooling away from him; the room goes still and slow again, like the freezing outside is inside too, like even time is frosted at the edges, stuttering as Jungkook drinks and sets his mug down and meets Jimin’s eyes.
Jimin can’t read the expression on his face, and for the first time all night he looks properly like a witch: quiet, inscrutable, half a step apart from the mundane world. Jimin shivers and—unconsiously, almost—leans closer.
“Magic is different, now,” Jungkook says quietly. “I think it’s the curse? That’s what my hyung said, anyway.” His mouth quirks for a moment. “It’s like the winter is drawing up all the magic in the world. We can feel it sometimes, like this… Like a weight on your chest. Like it’s pressing something out of you, making it hard to breathe.” He frowns, turning towards the fire. The light catches against the panes of his face, casts him all in shadow except for the faint gleam of his profile. “So maybe your witch would want to help, but maybe they couldn’t. Maybe there’s not enough magic in the world to undo all this.”
Jimin takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair. He understands what Jungkook means, a little. He’s seen the failing greenhouses, the ever-shrinking ranks of the gifted coming to court and seeking work in the capital. He’s followed the rumors and the whispers of powerful casters hidden out in the wilds and found the inevitable disappointment of empty and abandoned houses, spells still painted over the door—or worse, the picked-over bones of those who couldn’t escape the cold. Even Namjoon, safe back home, has started struggling to cast spells he’d once performed without effort. So yes, Jimin understands.
“I hope they’d try anyway,” he says. Jungkook’s eyes flick back to him. “I really, really hope they’d try.”
“Yeah,” says Jungkook. It hangs there for a long moment as quiet settles over them. Near the hearth, the locals are red-faced and loudly drunk, but the clamor doesn’t touch them here at the far side of the room, in the faint chill and the shadows. Jimin breathes slowly, taking in the smell of beer and smoke and the constant, metal-sharp tang of the cold.
“I don’t know,” Jimin says eventually. It’s a relief, almost, to admit such an uncertainty. “I just… I don’t know. I can’t not try.”
“I don’t know either,” Jungkook says. “But for what it’s worth, I believe you.”
“Thanks.”
Jungkook shrugs and looks away, shy again. Jimin sighs and sits back.
It’s properly late now. The wind has picked up, starting to rattle the windows and screech across the roof, drawing smoke from the fire. The dregs of their meal sit on the table between them—the empty mugs, his scraped-out bowl, the last gritty crumbs of hard, half-stale bread. The barmaid has disappeared for the night, and the innkeeper lurks behind the bar, mouth flat, staring at the pair of them. Jimin knows when he’s worn out a welcome.
But— He glances up at Jungkook, who watches him back with face half in shadow. Jimin wets his lips and leans a little closer.
“I have a room,” he says. “Do you want to come up? We could talk where it’s a little quieter.”
Jungkook’s mouth opens and closes again, and he says, “Just talk?”
“Well.” Jimin shrugs one shoulder. His heart beats fast and loud in his chest. He hopes he isn’t reading this wrong. “We can see where the night takes us.”
Jungkook smiles at him. He’s such a strange and lovely thing to find here, truly. The smoky candlelight draws long and strange shadows across the rough-hewn tables, over the weather-stained floor and the rattling windowpanes and the heavy stone hearth. And Jungkook sits among it, smiling and sweet, listening to his story and looking at Jimin like he sees him—not a prince, not some foolish would-be hero, not a beaten, road-weary pilgrim. Just Jimin.
Jimin, selfish, wants this a little longer. He hadn’t realized how lonely he was.
“Thank you,” Jungkook says gently, “but no.”
Jimin swallows and leans back. “Okay.”
“You’ve been very nice—”
“It’s alright, Jungkook-ssi.” He smiles and realizes he isn’t even lying. “Thank you for the company, and for listening.”
“Thank you for the drink,” says Jungkook. “And, y’know. Good luck on your quest.”
The funny thing is, Jimin thinks he really, genuinely means it.
“Good luck with your travels,” he returns, pushing himself to his feet. His knees ache from sitting still too long, and his pack is heavy when he slings it over his shoulder, and he’s tired. Down to his bones and then some, he’s just tired. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Jungkook says. His dark, dancing eyes follow Jimin across the taproom, a weight between his shoulders until Jimin turns down the hall and out of sight.
He leaves early, the taproom chill and empty, abandoned mugs and dishes still sitting on the table closest to the banked hearth. The world is pale and barely waking, a blanket of snow over the yard and the roofs and the road. It’s almost lovely this morning—the wind has settled again, and flurries spiral softly through the air, and the cold in his lungs feels fresh, for once. He pauses in the yard and breathes it deep, face tipped up to the slate sky.
And hears—something.
There’s a slight thud, a muffled noise coming from around the back of the inn. It’s barely anything, but it catches at him—a prickling at the back of his neck, a weight in his gut. His hand falls to the hilt of his sword.
Snow crunches under his boots as he rounds the side of the building. Out back is the stableyard, a flat, muddy expanse of churned-up snow and ice, the fence low and crooked and rotting in the wet and the cold. There are no horses, but the stable door is swung open, and a knot of men cluster around something on the ground.
No, not something. Someone.
As he steps into the yard, one of the men—from last night, Jimin recognizes vaguely, skinny beneath a fraying coat and red-faced from the cold—kicks out with his booted foot, and the figure on the ground makes that noise again, a choked-off yelp. The group shuffles a little, and Jimin’s heart sinks as he recognizes Jungkook curled tight, trying to protect himself.
“Fucking thief,” spits one of the men. The innkeeper looms nearby, eyes narrowed. “Walzing in here, spelling us, stealing what’s ours. Witches like youse’s why the whole world’s dying.”
“I didn’t curse anyone,” Jungkook wheezes, starting to push himself to his feet before someone else shoves a boot into his back and sends him crashing down again.
“Hey,” calls Jimin. “Hey! Get away from him!”
The men look up from Jungkook and turn to him, and Jimin strides towards them, burning with fury.
“You with him?” one of the men asks, nudging Jungkook with a foot again. “Come to soften us up so the bastard can charm his way out? Not this time!”
Jimin has no fucking clue what they’re talking about. “I said, get away from him.”
The first man scoffs. “Or what?”
Jimin doesn’t slow down in the slightest, kicking up mud and slush as he stalks forward and drives his fist directly into the man’s face.
“Ow, fuck!”
Someone else attempts to hit him; Jimin ducks the blow and drives his elbow into the man’s gut, then grabs a third man by the front of his coat and yanks him away, sending him stumbling face-first into the muddy yard. He turns to place himself bodily between Jungkook and the gang, looking them up and down.
They’re a pitiful showing—half a dozen skinny, half-starved men, angry and brittle away from the warmth of the fire and their drink. Jimin gives the innkeeper a long, hard look.
“I don’t know what you think he did—”
“Spelled us out of our hard-earned coin,” one of the men spits, blood in the snow. “We’re not a godsdamned charity.”
Jimin scoffs. “Blood won’t pay any better.”
“No,” the innkeeper agrees, “but it’ll feel good.”
So much for the fucking kindness of strangers. Everything feels colder, harder, in the flat light of day. Snow drifts down, the world slow and thick and frigid, and Jimin burns with an anger so bright it’s a wonder he doesn’t melt the ice around him.
“You want coin? Fine.” He digs out a pair of silver coins out of his shrinking purse and tosses them into the slush at the innkeeper’s feet. “Take your fucking money and leave.”
The innkeeper hesitates. “Or?”
Jimin’s hand settles on the hilt of his sword. He won’t pull on an unarmed man if he can help it, but with six to one odds, an added edge feels plenty fair. “Or I assure you, you’ll be in far worse shape than my friend here.”
For a moment, no one moves. Then the innkeeper curses and spits in the piling snow and crouches to pick up the coins. Jimin narrowly resists the urge to kick him over into the muck.
“You best get out of town,” the innkeeper says as he rises. “You’ll not be welcome here no more.”
“We wouldn’t want to be,” Jimin bites back, watching until they’re out of the yard before he turns back to Jungkook.
“Shit,” he mumbles, dropping to his knees and sparing a moment to dig through his pack for something to help stem the bleeding. “Are you okay? Here, let me see.”
“No, don’t,” says Jungkook thickly, leaning over to spit blood into the snow. It flecks red and steaming against the white. “Your shirt—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Jimin says, pressing it into his hand and his hand to his bleeding nose. There’s red all down his chin, and a cut near his eyebrow where a bruise is starting to swell. “What happened? They liked you so well last night.”
“They sobered up.” Jungkook hisses as Jimin helps him up and into the stables, where it’s barely any warmer but blessedly drier. The building is empty, no horses nor mules nor any other animal bedded down, but there’s a cloak laid over a pile of hay in one of the empty stalls with a pack lying next to it, and Jimin’s fading anger sparks lightning-bright again. They left him to sleep in the barn when the inn is right there and had the gall to beat him for it after? “Decided they wanted their money back and knew where to find it.”
Jimin curses and helps him sit down against one of the stall posts. Jungkook starts to take the shirt away from his nose and Jimin presses his hand back up.
“Keep it there,” he says. “Wait til it stops bleeding. I’ll be right back.”
“Jimin-ssi, really—” Jungkook starts, but Jimin is already out and around the side of the stables, scooping fresh snow into his waterskin and sealing it tight. He scoops another handful against his knuckles, the cool helping with the throb from punching the man. He should have backhanded the bastard. It would have been about the dignity he deserved.
When he gets back into the stable, Jungkook is struggling to stand up again.
“Would you stop that,” Jimin says, keeping his touch gentle as he nudges Jungkook back down. “You could have broken ribs—”
“I don’t.” He coughs and winces, but shakes his head. “I’d know. Trust me.”
Jimin grimaces. He himself knows perfectly well how broken feels different from bruised, but he dislikes how much of an authority Jungkook seems to be on that particular nuance.
“At least ice them?” he compromises, holding out the chilled waterskin. Jungkook takes it gingerly, leaning back against the stable wall and pressing it against his side with a wince. Jimin glances at the door, briefly, but the men don’t seem interested in a second round. At least they have some sense.
“We’ll have to leave,” Jungkook says quietly. “I’m sorry to get you involved.”
“I got myself involved,” Jimin assures him. “And I was headed out anyway. I’m sorry, though. You deserve better.”
Jungkook snorts, then groans. “Don’t make me laugh,” he says.
Jimin hadn’t intended it in jest, but he holds his tongue as Jungkook closes his eyes. Jimin crouches in front of him, knuckles smarting from the cold and the blow, unsure of what to do, how to help. After a moment, Jungkook opens his eyes and pulls the shirt back from his face.
“I think it’s stopped bleeding.”
“Is it broken?”
Jungkook touches his nose tenderly, then with a little more purpose. Pain feathers tight lines around his eyes, but he shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?”
"Be my guest.”
He’s right—Jimin doesn’t think it’s broken. He checks the cut at his temple while he’s at it—the bruising looks bad, but the cut itself is shallow and has stopped bleeding, blood dried tacky down the side of his face. Jimin fetches another handful of snow to clean it while Jungkook wipes away the blood down his chin.
By the time the snow sifts to a stop outside, he’s about as patched up as either of them can manage with their meagre supplies. Jimin sits back on his heels, appraising, and Jungkook’s mouth quirks in the shade of a smile.
“Thank you,” he says. “You really— Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” says Jimin. “I’m sorry about…” He’s not sure where to start. Last night. Today. The town. The curse laid upon the whole damned kingdom. He leaves it hanging, but the quirk of Jungkook’s mouth suggests he understands the futility of the apology. Jimin resists the urge to rub his face. “Where will you go?”
“North, I guess. I have— My hyung lives a few days from here.” His nose wrinkles. “I’d planned to spend a little more time in town before heading up to see him, but I suppose I’ll just visit sooner.”
“That’s good.” He’s glad to know Jungkook has someone in the area to look out for him. Someone he can stay with while he heals. The surge of protectiveness surprises him, a bit, and he clears his throat. “I could come with, if you, ah, want company.”
He winces almost immediately. He can't imagine Jungkook appreciates the offer, not after his polite refusal of companionship last night. But—company for a night and company on a road are vastly different beasts. Even if Jungkook isn’t looking for anyone to warm his bed, he might appreciate someone to have his back out in the wilds.
Jungkook gives him a look, a quiet, considerate thing, and Jimin waits. It takes surprising effort. Something about the attention reminds him a little of being back in court—doing his best to appear sure and steady under the desperate, seeking eyes of everyone come to plead for their livelihoods against this endless cold. Jungkook’s eyes have that same weight, that same seeking.
Then Jungkook says, “Do I look that bad?” and the tension eases. Jimin laughs.
“A bit,” he admits, eying the bruise blooming at his temple and another starting to show on his jaw. “And I’m heading north anyway. I don’t mean to impose, but company might ward off unwelcome attention. For both our sakes.”
“It might,” Jungkook admits. He hesitates a moment longer, then seems to make a decision, shoulders squaring. “My hyung might be able to help.”
“Help?”
“With your quest.” He says it without laughing or flinching, like it’s a legitimate and serious venture, which Jimin appreciates. “He taught me most of what I know, and he knows much more than I do. You can talk to him. And I would—appreciate the company, I mean.”
“Alright,” Jimin says, holding out a hand and tamping down an unexpected swell of relief. Jungkook takes it, his grip strong despite his beating, and lets Jimin haul him up. “Let’s go find this hyung of yours, Jungkook-ssi.”