IT TOOK ME A THOUSAND YEARS || Taekook ||

Chapter 13

: the origins (part 1)

Content Warning: Dark themes ! with gore!

<       ||       >

Play Stigma to feel the plot to a new level

Year 11XX

Imagine you were a farmer's child, watching your parents work hard in fields day and night, to plough it with the help of cattle because there were no machines to help you, and even if there were any, imagine how hard you would work to rent them with your money or buy one for yourself.

Imagine how hard it would be to dig channels just for water, so you can water your crops and help them grow.

Imagine how your life would have depended on the yield of the crops, for if they don't grow, days of hunger, sleepless nights, and helplessness await.

Scary, isn't it?

Now let's twist it a little bit.

Imagine you are the farmer, with a significant other and a child or two of your own. Imagine working on the field you inherited from your ancestors -to feed your own family, to offer them protection, to give them peaceful slumber.

Imagine you were stuck in this same cycle for years, then collect enough to take another step and open a stall of your own, producing and selling, finally eating well and living better.

Blissful, isn't it?

Now let's add layers to it.

Imagine you were a King of a kingdom with numerous farmers, traders, merchants, and whatnot, all living to sustain themselves just like the farmers; facing favourable as well as unfavourable conditions. While you watched over all of them and all these occurring scenarios, as well as went through thick and thin with your people. Smiling when they smile, starving when they starve. Building a kingdom with your blood, sweat, and tears like the farmer with their crops.

There isn't a day when you don't fear an attack on this small and fragile bubble and the possibility of not being able to protect it. The king, just like any other, has fears and insecurities.

And that's because they treasure their kingdom, as they build it, and work hard for it day and night, and it being taken away isn't as simple as someone taking a prized possession away from you.

There's a reality for a defeated kingdom, a "conquered" kingdom. As pleasing as it may sound to the conqueror, being on the other side isn't obviously as such.

Being the king, you would be murdered; your family would be too. But before that, you'll be forced to watch your people suffer, their hard-earned money, their homes, their lands being stripped away from them, them being enslaved without discrimination. No, being a woman or child wasn't going to bring mercy. In fact, it was going to make matters worse.

Now look back to the part where we discussed how you would be a farmer, fearing for your family's well-being and worrying for the yield to come to bear the fruits of your hard work only for it to be destroyed by locusts and pests; that causes the heart-wrenching pain to be felt. Take that and then multiply it by hundreds of thousands.

That is what it feels like for a true King to lose his kingdom. Because it's not just a kingdom, they are his family; their smiles and happiness -his yield, and crops.

Let that sink in.

This was what the King of the kingdom of Kim was feeling at that moment. He knew that the siege that was trying to stand strong would be broken soon. The people were hiding in the fortress. It was their last hope of protection after being attacked -by three of the neighbouring allied kingdoms.