"I live for the dream that my children will be born free," the princess breathes. "That they will be whoever they want to be, and that they'll never ever have to carry a sword wherever they go."
"I live for you," Jeongguk answers. Simply because, he...
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IT'S AT THE START OF DAWN when the skies are painted with a dark blue and a hint of purple that Jeongguk finds himself jogging down the quiet streets towards a little house near the lake. All the houses he passed have their lights turned off, the inhabitants still soundly tucked into bed.
However, Jeongguk had woken up a half hour ago with his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't tell if it was excitement he's feeling, or if he's actually scared or nervous. But he picked up the bag he packed the evening prior and quietly tip-toed out of his house, leaving a note for his father on their dining table to not worry him.
"Is it finished?" Jeongguk asks excitedly, barely even stepping past the threshold of Yugyeom's small house before he's throwing off his cloak. "Can I see?"
"Will you keep it down, you'll wake the entire street!" His friend complains—to hardly any effect, unfortunately, as he himself reprimands Jeongguk in a not-quite-silent volume. "Come here and I'll show you."
Jeongguk wades through the scrap pieces of paper thrown around the room to peek over Yugyeom's shoulder, unable to help himself from gasping at the scroll laid out before him.
"Woah," he marvels. Yugyeom's exquisite penmanship is constantly the talk of the town, but no one has ever mentioned his prowess in illustration. Resisting the urge to reach out and run a finger down the gold-gilded lines of Yugyeom's painting on the light-brown paper, Jeongguk whispers, "It's beautiful."
"Of course it is. I made it," Yugyeom answers. He stretches his arms out and twists his body side to side to work out the kinks in his back. "I've been working on it since yesterday and the details are tough. You owe me big time, Gguk."
He picks up the scroll and holds it under the light. It certainly wasn't easy to forge an entry permit into the Capital. The guards there are really strict with outsiders, but Yugyeom's work has an eerie resemblance to the one Jeongguk had given to him as a sample.
Yugyeom passes the scroll to Jeongguk carefully. "You sure you still want to go through with this? I mean, I've never been there but I recon it'll be much more chaotic than Moonrock."
