Taehyung One-Shots

Silent Guardian (M)

Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Beast! Taehyung, fluff, angst and smut

Warnings: Violence, rough sex

Word count: 10,047 words

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All my life they told me never to go into this forest. There are many wild animals inside. Predators that will kill a human without a second of hesitation. Poisonous plants that will extinguish your flame of life in an instant after being ingested. Dense growth that will confuse and throw away your sense of direction should you venture into their depths.

The most fearful of all is the beast. Since I was little I have been told never to go inside the forest where the most fearsome beast lives. When I asked what makes this beast so terrifying, I was met with many different answers. A savage being of the likes never seen before that will murder in the most grotesque way without thinking twice. A wild animal with cruel, yellow eyes, more cunning than any other predator. A merciless, hairy beast so ugly it must have been dragged from the deepest depths of hell. There are so many versions of this beast that I have no idea which one is true. Maybe all of them are. Perhaps none of them are. There is no way of knowing for as far as I know, no one has ever entered the forest before.

Any doubts I may have had have been quickly swiped aside whenever I brought it up. However, it never made me stop wondering. If the beast really is that powerful, why doesn't it attack anyone in the surrounding villages? If it loves human meat so much and is cleverer than most people, why has there never been a complaint about lost people or even livestock? Our village is right at the edge of the forest. Why the villagers haven't packed up and leave if they are so scared is beyond me. Perhaps it is one of those things where it leaves you alone as long as you leave it alone, I guess. I am skeptical, but I have never had a reason to actually find out the truth for myself.

Until now.

It's funny when I think about it. One of the main reasons I have never stepped foot into this forest is because my father and brother forbade me to. My father actually preferred to travel further away to get the necessary plants to use in his medicine making, and even after he passed away, I have continued buying and searching elsewhere for the materials I need. Now here I am, finding that it is this easy to go against their orders just because the plant I need to cure Jungkook's fever cannot be found anywhere else.

My little brother cannot possibly blame me for this. He was reckless enough to go about gallivanting past the border into the neighbouring country, bringing back an obscure illness a mere fortnight before he is meant to arrive at the capital to start his training as a soldier. Thanks to the copious volumes of medical treatise I have inherited from our father, I managed to recognise the symptoms despite never having encountered it before. Unfortunately one of the vital ingredients for the medicine to cure Jungkook lies in that forest, and there is no other substitute for it.

Even though it is approaching late morning and the sun has climbed a considerable height in the landscape of the blue sky, the leafy trees growing close together lend the scene before me a mysterious, dark aura, forbidding me from getting a better look into its depths. Armed with a bag, a blade and a deep, calming breath, I take the first step into the unknown of over two decades of my life.

Being the daughter of an apothecary, I am no stranger to foraging for rare herbs and plants that we don't grow in our garden or are not sold. It isn't my first time venturing into the woods and although nothing looks out of place at first glance, it isn't long after I am enveloped by its growth that I start to notice an unsettling abnormality.

No matter the time of the day or season of the year, the woods is always a symphony of tranquil sounds. The brush of a lizard scampering up a tree, the rustle of animals against the wild growth, the chipper of birds overhead, perhaps the soft tinkling of running water in the distance. It is never as loud as the villages and towns where people dwell, but the forest croons a quiet song of its own. However, now it's too quiet. I've been careful not to wander too far, following a path that is easy for me to retrace, but I'm far enough within the trees to feel unsettled by the lack of sounds that indicate the presence of life around me. The only noice I hear is twigs breaking and leaves rustling underneath my feet, clumsy compared to animals despite years of experience in the woods, the only movement I can see are made by my own limbs as I look out for the plant that I need.