"Your Majesty?"
Soo-Won snapped out of his stupor, tearing his gaze away from the blades resting on a mount in front of him. "It is time for dinner." The feminine teen smiled, dismissing the servant away as he stood up. The blades glinted, winking back at him as an image of its owner blinked back at him. Ever since he found out that those persons were alive, a fraction of his guilt was removed.
Even then, the way that person gazed at him with hate-filled eyes broke his heart. The way she had spat out his name stung in a way that it never disappeared. As of now, he still felt the heartache he felt back then. Eyeing the blades once more, they glared back at him as he contemplated what he should do with them. Their owner would never come and retrieve them.
They were gifts from him, after all.
"Yoru..." My sweet little Dai...
Soo-Won blinked in confusion. That... had come out of nowhere. He never said anything but ever since he met Yoru on that fortunate day, he had these out of the blue flashbacks that puzzled him. He would see flashes of a woman who shared the same hair color as the woman he loves. He never learned the woman's name and until now, he wished to know who she was and what her connection was to Yoru.
What his connection was to the woman.
Those images would never have appeared if it weren't for the fact he knew of her. The one thing that utterly baffled him was the fact that he and Yoru, and that woman and him had a memory that was exactly the same. It was when he had been fifteen and Yoru had just arrived back from a three-day journey to who-knows-where. Everyone in the castle had been panicking when they couldn't find her.
Three days later, Miss Meixiu scolded Yoru as soon as she dismounted Kage. The maid never fails to surprise him as she kept doing things out of her character. He clearly remembered laughing at Yoru's predicament while she had sent him a glower.
Coincidentally, it was far too similar to what the woman and he did in that dream he had just a few days after Yoru's return (who, not to everyone's surprise) from her journey to the Earth Tribe. In that dream, the woman had been gone for days and he (was it really him? Or did he simply entered the body of someone that woman had been living with?) had been laughing at the side as a man with bright red hair scolded her.
The color reminded him of his cousin and he quickly pushed back down the guilt resurfacing. Soo-Won simply cannot fathom how and why he had those dreams. How and why he felt so at home whenever he dreamt. His fingers curled around the sheaths of those precious blades, raising them up until they were at eye level. The scent of faint blood reached him and he was thankful of the fact that it wasn't her blood.
He would go crazy if he knew how she was injured and who did it to her. The King wouldn't rest and sleep until he knew who harmed her. That was why he barely slept a wink after he found Yoru at Awa Port. Her state back then reminded him of that time and he would rather leave that memory behind. Placing the sheathed blades under his robes, he left his quarters and headed for the dining hall.
There was still much work to be done.
He can only hope that his plans would coincide with theirs.
oooOooo
Hak kept stealing glances at his sister, who hadn't stopped fidgeting ever since Yoon said that they were heading for the Water Tribe. He didn't understand but her eyes held that wariness he thought she had grown out of. It was like they were children all over again. However, this time, there were no strangers that could make her uncomfortable. There were no people there who would stare at her and scrutinize her.
