Dragon Prince - Chapter Twelve
Dragon Prince
Chapter Twelve
It took longer than any of them would have liked to deal with the village, but not a single member of the clan was willing to walk away without doing something. Soojin compensated for the lack of movement by shifting the clan in a large arc around the village daily. The small movements kept most of the people within from panicking too much at the stillness.
Every day, for five days, the men in the clan had been split into three teams. After much debate it had been decided that the first would dig a long grave for the bodies of all of the villagers. The wisest thing would be to burn the village to the ground, but not a single one of the gypsies had been able to suggest it after the flaming horror that a portion of the village had died in. It was settled with no argument at all that the bodies would be buried in a large grave for the entire village.
The second group was in charge of keeping the clan safe and carrying supplies such as meals and other necessities to the working crews. The third group had the worst task. They were charged with the task to collect and wrap the dead. Fabric was taken from homes and shops and then used to carefully wrap each person before transporting the body to the grave where it was to find its final resting place. Due to the nature of the tasks, Soojin insisted that the teams rotate and only those that wanted to help do so. No one was forced but nearly the entire gypsy clan joined in the work.
Hyunjoong saw little of his friends in the days that the dead were dealt with. Every single one of them had joined a team and worked hard during the hours they were able. The prince had found himself unable to participate at all. It wasn’t as though he was a stranger to hard labor, he simply didn’t think that he could stomach getting anywhere near the village any time soon after what he had seen. Soojin had been understanding and sympathetic and instead gave him a task that would allow others to work in his place.
For five days the prince of the kingdom had been stuck as a baby sitter although stuck really wasn’t the proper term. Hyunjoong couldn’t really bring himself to dislike a moment of the time that he spent working with the children. Any child Micha’s age and younger had been assigned to his care leaving him in charge of a total of eight children and one infant. Although the infant was collected periodically throughout the day by its mother, Hyunjoong was in charge of the rest of the children twenty four hours a day.
Micha had immediately decided that the little girl he had found in the village was to be her sister. Hyunjoong found the idea endearing, to say the least. The child would not talk, and rarely allowed herself to get out of touching range from him. He couldn’t say that he blamed her after the horror she had likely seen.
By the end of the first day Micha and her playmates had been demanding to know what the child’s name was. They would not accept the fact that the child would not or could not tell them and they demanded that she be given one if she wouldn’t share. By the next morning he had decided to call her Haneul in hopes that she would be able to have an open and good life. Micha had congratulated him on his skill in naming and had then presented the little girl with a Link.
After that point the deal had been sealed. Haneul was constantly connected to Hyunjoong or Micha and although she never smiled, she never cried either. Hyunjoong entertained the children every morning by teaching them the stretches, with Micha’s assistance. After that the children and the prince turned into a lunch work crew, and helped the women of the clan carry and move things, stir and add ingredients for the majority of the morning. The afternoon was spent playing games of the children’s invention, before they reported for evening dinner crew duty. A bit more play and a story or two usually had the children tired enough to be put to bed in the wagon and Hyunjoong too exhausted to stay up any longer since he knew the next morning they would be up with the sun to do it all over again.
On the morning of the sixth day Hyunjoong was shaken awake by Kyujong. “What?” he asked, sleepily blinking at the man who held a small glowing crystal.
“Wake up the children. It’s time to perform the funeral for the village. It starts with the rising of the sun, their parents will be over to get them shortly,” Kyujong told him. He set the small crystal on the floor of the wagon to give the prince light, and then slipped back outside. Still yawning, Hyunjoong began to wake the children, a task that became infinitely easier once Micha awoke and declared herself his helper. By the time the last of the children had crawled out of their blankets, parents were beginning to arrive to claim them.
‡†‡†‡†‡†‡
Hyunjoong stood with every member of the clan in a loose ring around the mass grave that had been dug. Haneul was curled in his arms and he didn’t know if she was awake or asleep but he didn’t have the heart to disturb her and find out. Around him the gypsies were silent, every eye trained on the area in front of them.
The grave was massive, bigger than any he had ever seen. Within it were more bodies then he cared to count wrapped in fabric. There were flowers of colors he had never seen scattered over them, giving bright color to the otherwise plain dead. Over the grave, suspended by several strong poles, was a huge piece of fabric stretched and secured with heavy ropes. In the sling that it formed, was all of the dirt that had been removed from the hole as if waiting to return to where it had come from.
As the first sign of the sun began to tint the horizon, a lone voice began to sing. The song was slow, haunting and lonely. It made a pang of hurt slice through Hyunjoong’s chest and he clutched the little girl in his arms closer to him. The voice was slowly joined by a second and a third, and then one after another the voices of the clan were added together until the entire clan had joined in the mournful noise.
The noise slowed and turned, weaving from deep sorrow to a low steady note. From the front of the gather crowd stepped figures, clothed in colors, colors that he had never seen. Each person was covered from head to toe in fabric of one color that seemed to swirl and curl around them as they moved. Their faces were covered with a thin see through veil of the same color. Hyunjoong counted five figures that stepped up to the edge of the grave, Jungmin among them.
The song of the clan slowed and then all at once burst forth into something else entirely. At the sound of the change the five figures began to move as one, twisting and flowing around the edge of the grave. It was a dance, Hyunjoong decided, but a kind of dance he had never seen before. The dancers didn’t seem to dance, they seemed to float, their bodies swaying and flowing like water. As the song rose, they did too, speeding their dance and the motion of their limbs until they were simply colors, flickering in the strange predawn twilight and not people any longer.
Hyunjoong couldn’t help feeling caught up in it. The rise of emotions, the sound of the voice lifted together in a wordless song that spoke to him of love, hope, joy, and the promise of something greater. The song rose in volume and spirit, higher and higher, until Hyunjoong didn’t think it could go any higher. Then, abruptly, the sound cut off and silence settled over the clan. The dancers, having fallen when the song stopped, rose and melded back into the crowd while everything hung suspended as if waiting for something.
Then, the first rays of sunlight came over the horizon and began to light the area around them. Men stepped out, Hyungjoon among them, and each stood beside one of the poles. The song began again, quietly at first but slowly building as it had before. When the edge of the sunlight touched the first edge of the grave the song once again found its crescendo. As the voice called out a single note, both Hyungjoon and every other man that had stepped out made a quick sharp motion with their hands. The suspended sling of dirt came crashing down and Hyunjoong realized belatedly that they had each thrown a dagger to sever the ropes holding on to one of the poles.
As the dirt settled into the grave on top of the bodies the gypsies across the way from him parted suddenly. Through them a large flat stone moved as if being driven along by the muddy water that bubbled beneath and around it. Behind it walked Youngsaeng, his eyes focused on the stone. He stopped at the edge of the grave but the rock did not. It moved to the center and then was pushed up to stand by the water beneath it. It settled a few feet into the loose soil.
Once it stopped moving, the surrounding watchers hummed a single peaceful note as the muddy water swirled and covered the entire stone. It raced around it, with such force that it sounded like a waterfall or some other sound that he had never heard, yet through it all the gypsies continued to hum.
Hyunjoong didn’t know how long he stood there, transfixed by the sound of the song and the swirling motion of that water on the rock. He watched the sunlight slowly move from one edge of the grave to the other. When it hit the other end of the grave so that the entire thing was bathed in fresh morning sunlight, the swirling water stopped and gravity took over, sending it with a rush into the soil below it. The hum faded away in a way that the prince could only describe as peaceful. As if by some unheard cue, one by one, members of the clan began to disappear and head back to where the wagons were circled up.
The prince stood, transfixed by what he had seen until everyone else had trickled away besides him and the man on the other side of the grave. He took a step forward then another to inspect the stone that now stood upright. Haneul squirmed in his arms and he set her down, knowing she would not wander too far from him while he was busy.
Carefully he stepped onto the loose soil and was glad when he didn’t sink too far into it. Several more cautious steps brought him to the stone itself. His fingers reached out and touched stone that had been scored smooth. On the face of the stone were shapes and symbols that he had never seen carved into the rock as if water had worn at it for years instead of minutes. He ran his finger over them, puzzled.
“It is my language,” Youngsaeng’s voice startled him from his thoughts and he glanced at the man who had remained behind as well.
“Dragon language?” Hyunjoong asked. Youngsaeng nodded. “What does it say?”
“It is a song,” Youngsaeng replied as he stepped forward and traced a symbol with a finger. “A prayer for those that have passed, to move on well to the next life, for those that remain to never forget, and for those who have done this to be brought to justice.”
Hyunjoong, swallowed thickly as his fingers ran over the bumps. “My father, you want to bring my father to justice.”
“Yes,” Youngsaeng said simply.
“You don’t even know he did this,” Hyunjoong accused.
“Why don’t you ask Haneul?” Youngsaeng replied sharply.
Hyunjoong’s eyes widened as he glanced at the little girl who was playing with a handful of dirt. The scenes he had seen only days before rushed back into his head and he had to fight back nausea and tears all at the same time. He clenched his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to the smooth surface of the rock. Cool fingers stroked along his neck soothingly.
“It is hard to discover everything you loved is a lie. Dragons have dealt with that for years,” Youngsaeng said softly.
“Youngsaeng,” the prince replied. “What happened between humans and dragons? Why did we start killing each other?”
Youngsaeng laughed bitterly. “You are asking a dragon for the story?”
Hyunjoong nodded and pulled his head away from the rock so that he could look at the man beside him. “I’ve heard it from a human, now I want to hear it from a dragon.”
The man studied him for a minute before nodding. “Fine I will tell you, but you will not be interrupting me and trying to correct me all the time.”
The prince grinned at that. “I will try my hardest not too.”
Youngsaeng offered him a nod and a smile at that and flexed his fingers that were still on the back of the prince’s neck. “Let’s see, I guess I should start with our history. Long ago dragons-” Youngsaeng broke off his sentence abruptly and his head jerked towards the direction of the camp.
“What is it?” Hyunjoong asked worried.
“Something is wrong at the camp. There’s shouting,” Youngsaeng told him abruptly before turning and heading off towards the camp at a flat out run. Hyunjoong stopped only long enough to gather Haneul into his arms before following.
‡†‡†‡†‡†‡
It was only thanks to Youngsaeng’s excellent hearing that they didn’t have to waste precious minutes searching through the village for the source of the disturbance. They weaved their way through the wagons and in no time at all came upon what was causing the commotion. There at the edge of the camp were four figures in light travel armor.
One of them was engaged in an intense sword battle with Myungki while two others were fending off a number of people with expert moves. The fourth had his bow drawn and an arrow pointed threateningly at Kyujong who mirrored him. At the sight of the man Youngsaeng snarled dangerously and moved faster than any human the prince had ever seen. In seconds he had smashed into the man threatening Kyujong, knocking him off balance and slapping his bow to the side so that the arrow sank harmlessly into the soil.
The scuffle was brief and in no time Youngsaeng had a dagger in his hand. At the glint of metal Hyunjoong screamed, “No!” He deposited Haneul as gently on the ground as he could given the circumstances, and dove towards the man. Just before the dagger would have met flesh, the prince managed to snag Youngsaeng’s wrist. There was an almost animalistic snarl and the man’s head snapped to look at him, his eyes gone completely black. “No don’t. He’s here for me. He won’t hurt anyone.”
Youngsaeng’s arm jerked against his hold and he tightened his fingers as best he could. “Please. You remember him. You have seen him before, Youngsaeng.”
The man’s eyes closed and when they opened, the prince was staring into eyes that were brown with occasional swirls of black. “If he so much as threatens anyone here again his life is forfeit,” the man snarled before jumping off the person he had pinned to the ground.
The man on his back on the ground stared up at the prince with wide frightened eyes. “What is he?” he asked shakily.
Hyunjoong offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. He glanced around them and Youngsaeng snapped a few short commands. A few moments later all of the intruders were left free of harm and they cautiously moved to the prince. “His name is Youngsaeng and he is a dragon.” He could feel Youngsaeng’s glare without even turning to look and it caused him to grin. “And these are my best friends and personal guard.”
Chapter Thirteen
Masterlist
AN: Well I don't know how I feel about this chapter, I think I would have been feeling the same way about anything I wrote after last chapter though. Sorry this is later then normal. I have been cleaning so much the past couple of days that I am very tired. If you don't hear from me for a few days it is because my messy bedroom has eaten me and I have likely perished trying to break free...
Chapter Twelve
It took longer than any of them would have liked to deal with the village, but not a single member of the clan was willing to walk away without doing something. Soojin compensated for the lack of movement by shifting the clan in a large arc around the village daily. The small movements kept most of the people within from panicking too much at the stillness.
Every day, for five days, the men in the clan had been split into three teams. After much debate it had been decided that the first would dig a long grave for the bodies of all of the villagers. The wisest thing would be to burn the village to the ground, but not a single one of the gypsies had been able to suggest it after the flaming horror that a portion of the village had died in. It was settled with no argument at all that the bodies would be buried in a large grave for the entire village.
The second group was in charge of keeping the clan safe and carrying supplies such as meals and other necessities to the working crews. The third group had the worst task. They were charged with the task to collect and wrap the dead. Fabric was taken from homes and shops and then used to carefully wrap each person before transporting the body to the grave where it was to find its final resting place. Due to the nature of the tasks, Soojin insisted that the teams rotate and only those that wanted to help do so. No one was forced but nearly the entire gypsy clan joined in the work.
Hyunjoong saw little of his friends in the days that the dead were dealt with. Every single one of them had joined a team and worked hard during the hours they were able. The prince had found himself unable to participate at all. It wasn’t as though he was a stranger to hard labor, he simply didn’t think that he could stomach getting anywhere near the village any time soon after what he had seen. Soojin had been understanding and sympathetic and instead gave him a task that would allow others to work in his place.
For five days the prince of the kingdom had been stuck as a baby sitter although stuck really wasn’t the proper term. Hyunjoong couldn’t really bring himself to dislike a moment of the time that he spent working with the children. Any child Micha’s age and younger had been assigned to his care leaving him in charge of a total of eight children and one infant. Although the infant was collected periodically throughout the day by its mother, Hyunjoong was in charge of the rest of the children twenty four hours a day.
Micha had immediately decided that the little girl he had found in the village was to be her sister. Hyunjoong found the idea endearing, to say the least. The child would not talk, and rarely allowed herself to get out of touching range from him. He couldn’t say that he blamed her after the horror she had likely seen.
By the end of the first day Micha and her playmates had been demanding to know what the child’s name was. They would not accept the fact that the child would not or could not tell them and they demanded that she be given one if she wouldn’t share. By the next morning he had decided to call her Haneul in hopes that she would be able to have an open and good life. Micha had congratulated him on his skill in naming and had then presented the little girl with a Link.
After that point the deal had been sealed. Haneul was constantly connected to Hyunjoong or Micha and although she never smiled, she never cried either. Hyunjoong entertained the children every morning by teaching them the stretches, with Micha’s assistance. After that the children and the prince turned into a lunch work crew, and helped the women of the clan carry and move things, stir and add ingredients for the majority of the morning. The afternoon was spent playing games of the children’s invention, before they reported for evening dinner crew duty. A bit more play and a story or two usually had the children tired enough to be put to bed in the wagon and Hyunjoong too exhausted to stay up any longer since he knew the next morning they would be up with the sun to do it all over again.
On the morning of the sixth day Hyunjoong was shaken awake by Kyujong. “What?” he asked, sleepily blinking at the man who held a small glowing crystal.
“Wake up the children. It’s time to perform the funeral for the village. It starts with the rising of the sun, their parents will be over to get them shortly,” Kyujong told him. He set the small crystal on the floor of the wagon to give the prince light, and then slipped back outside. Still yawning, Hyunjoong began to wake the children, a task that became infinitely easier once Micha awoke and declared herself his helper. By the time the last of the children had crawled out of their blankets, parents were beginning to arrive to claim them.
‡†‡†‡†‡†‡
Hyunjoong stood with every member of the clan in a loose ring around the mass grave that had been dug. Haneul was curled in his arms and he didn’t know if she was awake or asleep but he didn’t have the heart to disturb her and find out. Around him the gypsies were silent, every eye trained on the area in front of them.
The grave was massive, bigger than any he had ever seen. Within it were more bodies then he cared to count wrapped in fabric. There were flowers of colors he had never seen scattered over them, giving bright color to the otherwise plain dead. Over the grave, suspended by several strong poles, was a huge piece of fabric stretched and secured with heavy ropes. In the sling that it formed, was all of the dirt that had been removed from the hole as if waiting to return to where it had come from.
As the first sign of the sun began to tint the horizon, a lone voice began to sing. The song was slow, haunting and lonely. It made a pang of hurt slice through Hyunjoong’s chest and he clutched the little girl in his arms closer to him. The voice was slowly joined by a second and a third, and then one after another the voices of the clan were added together until the entire clan had joined in the mournful noise.
The noise slowed and turned, weaving from deep sorrow to a low steady note. From the front of the gather crowd stepped figures, clothed in colors, colors that he had never seen. Each person was covered from head to toe in fabric of one color that seemed to swirl and curl around them as they moved. Their faces were covered with a thin see through veil of the same color. Hyunjoong counted five figures that stepped up to the edge of the grave, Jungmin among them.
The song of the clan slowed and then all at once burst forth into something else entirely. At the sound of the change the five figures began to move as one, twisting and flowing around the edge of the grave. It was a dance, Hyunjoong decided, but a kind of dance he had never seen before. The dancers didn’t seem to dance, they seemed to float, their bodies swaying and flowing like water. As the song rose, they did too, speeding their dance and the motion of their limbs until they were simply colors, flickering in the strange predawn twilight and not people any longer.
Hyunjoong couldn’t help feeling caught up in it. The rise of emotions, the sound of the voice lifted together in a wordless song that spoke to him of love, hope, joy, and the promise of something greater. The song rose in volume and spirit, higher and higher, until Hyunjoong didn’t think it could go any higher. Then, abruptly, the sound cut off and silence settled over the clan. The dancers, having fallen when the song stopped, rose and melded back into the crowd while everything hung suspended as if waiting for something.
Then, the first rays of sunlight came over the horizon and began to light the area around them. Men stepped out, Hyungjoon among them, and each stood beside one of the poles. The song began again, quietly at first but slowly building as it had before. When the edge of the sunlight touched the first edge of the grave the song once again found its crescendo. As the voice called out a single note, both Hyungjoon and every other man that had stepped out made a quick sharp motion with their hands. The suspended sling of dirt came crashing down and Hyunjoong realized belatedly that they had each thrown a dagger to sever the ropes holding on to one of the poles.
As the dirt settled into the grave on top of the bodies the gypsies across the way from him parted suddenly. Through them a large flat stone moved as if being driven along by the muddy water that bubbled beneath and around it. Behind it walked Youngsaeng, his eyes focused on the stone. He stopped at the edge of the grave but the rock did not. It moved to the center and then was pushed up to stand by the water beneath it. It settled a few feet into the loose soil.
Once it stopped moving, the surrounding watchers hummed a single peaceful note as the muddy water swirled and covered the entire stone. It raced around it, with such force that it sounded like a waterfall or some other sound that he had never heard, yet through it all the gypsies continued to hum.
Hyunjoong didn’t know how long he stood there, transfixed by the sound of the song and the swirling motion of that water on the rock. He watched the sunlight slowly move from one edge of the grave to the other. When it hit the other end of the grave so that the entire thing was bathed in fresh morning sunlight, the swirling water stopped and gravity took over, sending it with a rush into the soil below it. The hum faded away in a way that the prince could only describe as peaceful. As if by some unheard cue, one by one, members of the clan began to disappear and head back to where the wagons were circled up.
The prince stood, transfixed by what he had seen until everyone else had trickled away besides him and the man on the other side of the grave. He took a step forward then another to inspect the stone that now stood upright. Haneul squirmed in his arms and he set her down, knowing she would not wander too far from him while he was busy.
Carefully he stepped onto the loose soil and was glad when he didn’t sink too far into it. Several more cautious steps brought him to the stone itself. His fingers reached out and touched stone that had been scored smooth. On the face of the stone were shapes and symbols that he had never seen carved into the rock as if water had worn at it for years instead of minutes. He ran his finger over them, puzzled.
“It is my language,” Youngsaeng’s voice startled him from his thoughts and he glanced at the man who had remained behind as well.
“Dragon language?” Hyunjoong asked. Youngsaeng nodded. “What does it say?”
“It is a song,” Youngsaeng replied as he stepped forward and traced a symbol with a finger. “A prayer for those that have passed, to move on well to the next life, for those that remain to never forget, and for those who have done this to be brought to justice.”
Hyunjoong, swallowed thickly as his fingers ran over the bumps. “My father, you want to bring my father to justice.”
“Yes,” Youngsaeng said simply.
“You don’t even know he did this,” Hyunjoong accused.
“Why don’t you ask Haneul?” Youngsaeng replied sharply.
Hyunjoong’s eyes widened as he glanced at the little girl who was playing with a handful of dirt. The scenes he had seen only days before rushed back into his head and he had to fight back nausea and tears all at the same time. He clenched his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to the smooth surface of the rock. Cool fingers stroked along his neck soothingly.
“It is hard to discover everything you loved is a lie. Dragons have dealt with that for years,” Youngsaeng said softly.
“Youngsaeng,” the prince replied. “What happened between humans and dragons? Why did we start killing each other?”
Youngsaeng laughed bitterly. “You are asking a dragon for the story?”
Hyunjoong nodded and pulled his head away from the rock so that he could look at the man beside him. “I’ve heard it from a human, now I want to hear it from a dragon.”
The man studied him for a minute before nodding. “Fine I will tell you, but you will not be interrupting me and trying to correct me all the time.”
The prince grinned at that. “I will try my hardest not too.”
Youngsaeng offered him a nod and a smile at that and flexed his fingers that were still on the back of the prince’s neck. “Let’s see, I guess I should start with our history. Long ago dragons-” Youngsaeng broke off his sentence abruptly and his head jerked towards the direction of the camp.
“What is it?” Hyunjoong asked worried.
“Something is wrong at the camp. There’s shouting,” Youngsaeng told him abruptly before turning and heading off towards the camp at a flat out run. Hyunjoong stopped only long enough to gather Haneul into his arms before following.
‡†‡†‡†‡†‡
It was only thanks to Youngsaeng’s excellent hearing that they didn’t have to waste precious minutes searching through the village for the source of the disturbance. They weaved their way through the wagons and in no time at all came upon what was causing the commotion. There at the edge of the camp were four figures in light travel armor.
One of them was engaged in an intense sword battle with Myungki while two others were fending off a number of people with expert moves. The fourth had his bow drawn and an arrow pointed threateningly at Kyujong who mirrored him. At the sight of the man Youngsaeng snarled dangerously and moved faster than any human the prince had ever seen. In seconds he had smashed into the man threatening Kyujong, knocking him off balance and slapping his bow to the side so that the arrow sank harmlessly into the soil.
The scuffle was brief and in no time Youngsaeng had a dagger in his hand. At the glint of metal Hyunjoong screamed, “No!” He deposited Haneul as gently on the ground as he could given the circumstances, and dove towards the man. Just before the dagger would have met flesh, the prince managed to snag Youngsaeng’s wrist. There was an almost animalistic snarl and the man’s head snapped to look at him, his eyes gone completely black. “No don’t. He’s here for me. He won’t hurt anyone.”
Youngsaeng’s arm jerked against his hold and he tightened his fingers as best he could. “Please. You remember him. You have seen him before, Youngsaeng.”
The man’s eyes closed and when they opened, the prince was staring into eyes that were brown with occasional swirls of black. “If he so much as threatens anyone here again his life is forfeit,” the man snarled before jumping off the person he had pinned to the ground.
The man on his back on the ground stared up at the prince with wide frightened eyes. “What is he?” he asked shakily.
Hyunjoong offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. He glanced around them and Youngsaeng snapped a few short commands. A few moments later all of the intruders were left free of harm and they cautiously moved to the prince. “His name is Youngsaeng and he is a dragon.” He could feel Youngsaeng’s glare without even turning to look and it caused him to grin. “And these are my best friends and personal guard.”
Chapter Thirteen
Masterlist
AN: Well I don't know how I feel about this chapter, I think I would have been feeling the same way about anything I wrote after last chapter though. Sorry this is later then normal. I have been cleaning so much the past couple of days that I am very tired. If you don't hear from me for a few days it is because my messy bedroom has eaten me and I have likely perished trying to break free...