“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
― Jalaluddin Rumi

 

The open sky from the asphalt rooftop of the Haeyang headquarters was a vast expanse of pure darkness and nothingness, like a swallowing black hole that consumed everything in its milieu. This made the stars glimmer and shine like bright diamonds on a murky landscape, flickering and blinking boldly across the celestial sphere.

 

On the highest building on the northwest side of the capital, Yerim felt like she was on top of the world. Untouchable, isolated, yet safe. There was no need for her to pretend, put on a mask and assume an identity that was nothing like herself.

 

Perched up on the topmost tower of the western region of the capital, the city was bare, exposed and out in the open all for her to see and no one could see her from up close, yet in a way she felt comfortable vulnerable all by herself in the cold, autumn night.

 

She feels the chilled breeze brush against the exposed skin on her cheeks and flutter her wavy, golden locks as they flew behind her. Closing her eyes as she folded her arms against the ledge, Yerim takes a deep breath as she rests her chin under her forearm and lets go of her facade for the first time in a long while.

 

When she opens her eyes, she perks up startled and in shock, with her eyes wide open and gaping in consternation as she outlines a shadowed silhouette a few metres away from her - on the murky, overcast balcony unlit and lacking candles she can barely figure out his features or his clothing, yet can see a glimpse of his chiseled jawline, defined nose, long eyelashes, and caramel coloured eyes over the haze of fog blocking her vision.

 

    “Have I surprised you, My Lady?” A flash of pearlescent teeth smiles at her sharply from the young man as he gradually moves towards her and hearing the loud clicking of his leather boots against the asphalt and she moves away from him, carefully walking backwards before halting at the sound of his deep voice.

 

    “No, you have not, Lord. I was doing nothing in particular so you did not phase me at all.” She responds affirmatively, tilting up her chin in indignation and facing away from him avoiding eye contact, but she can feel from the back of her head that his eyes are burning intensely at the nape of her neck.

 

The young man tilts his head teasingly, clicking his tongue in a loud, ticking sound as he positions himself right next to the corner of the gravelled ledge where she had been pondering and contemplating on.

 

“I am glad to hear that, young miss. The view from up here is spectacular, and I don’t blame you one bit about how you’d leave the bustling crowd of the party when you can be up here and seeing the entire city from up above.” His cordial, soothing voice softly vibrates in her ear like  warm honey, and Yerim finds herself smiling timidly at how comforting he sounds to her.

 

She knows better than anyone not to simply trust anyone she comes across and anyone who wanders through the gated walls of King’s Landing, even in the heavily guarded corridors of the faction headquarters, but she knows all this small talk is purely a foolish, childlike game. She plays her cards and risks losing nothing, a pastime that will be the tea time anecdote of a youthful endeavour.

 

Years of growing up in the circle of nobles, royalty and aristocrats have embedded and imprinted on her mind that a lady of her standing will be arranged a husband of similar or greater standing, tie herself and associate herself with another noble family and connect and form alliances of power, connection and bloodlines, not romance or love. One night of playful teasing and flirting with an unknown young man will be long forgotten and a glimpse of a love affair she may never have. It won’t hurt anyone.

 

    “You’re not for parties either, I assume, My Lord?” She cheekily looking at his shadowed figure from the corner in her eye, with the drooping gemstones tucked in her hair flying as the wind flew against her face.

 

    “Never was for it. Not my typical crowd either, My Lady.” He hums nonchalantly, folding his slender figures as he sighs deeply and looks down at the demarcation of faded lines carved into the thriving city below him.

 

    “Although - I wonder why a beautiful, young lady like you tonight isn’t popular with the crowd here? They must be blind if they don’t see what I see.” Yerim gets a taste of her own medicine when he reciprocates her by mocking her, and she hears herself bitterly laugh under her breath.

 

    “Now, you mock me, Sir. I am only an ugly duckling among the flock of swans that the Princess has in her arsenal. Even the lowliest servant in this estate is lovelier than I am-”

 

    “You see yourself too lowly, My Lady. A beauty like yours is so alluring, so luminous, so radiant, yet they all overlook and ignore it. What a shame-” He approaches her closely and grasps her chin tightly between his smooth fingers and she gasps at the warmth of his touch.

 

His sweet scented locks press against her now sweaty, clammy forehead as she flushes at the abrupt contact, and inhales the fresh minty odor of his breath as she closes her eyes firmly unable to believe this was actually happening to her.

 

He leans forward to meet her lips and cups both of his palms against her cheekbones, and she tips her toes upwards to reconcile the obvious height difference, and Yerim nearly squirms in joy at the overflowing, exuberant bliss she is feeling, until the distant, obscure sound of raucous footsteps gradually getting closer and closer tears them apart as she forcefully pushes him away against his firm chest, and he groans as his back hits the cobalt wall behind him ungracefully.

 

    “Jungkook??!! Jungkook, we have to get going- We need to find lover boy Jimin before he gets in any more trouble-” Wait. Yerim pants against the concrete walls and grips tightly, struggling to stabilize her uneven breath, and she squinted in suspicion as she attentively tried to identify the existence behind the low, husky, orotund voice that seemed so familiar to her yet she couldn’t remember to whom it belonged to.

 

    Kim Taehyung. The one and only Kim Taehyung. How could Yerim forget her favourite cousin? How could she forget the lanky, blond haired boy who always held her hand and read her stories going to bed when she was scared?

 

The boy who would climb across ample, far reaching flower fields to pluck out a single peony just for her? Who got bruises on his protruding knee caps and nearly tore his ankles climbing up trees to pick out fresh apples for her to eat?

 

Shame she hasn’t seen or spent enough time with him recently, ever since the Hanyang heir and his underling stole him away into their exploitations and jeopardies around the lower caste streets of King’s Landing.

 

Hanyang? Jungkook? Wasn’t the underling’s name Jungkook? Jeon Jungkook, if she could remember correctly? What was a Hanyang doing on sacred Haeyang territory? Yerim digs her trembling hands under the countless layers of her silk dress, and clasps her fingers around the leather sheath of her silver tipped dagger to point towards the foreign intruder.

 

"How dare you, Hanyang filth cross into our sacred territory!" She screams as loud as she can, as she whips the knife from her pocket and points it threateningly in front of her. 

 

“Yerim, wait I can explain-” Taehyung runs over frantically towards the edge of the balcony, who carries with him a timbered torch that lights up the prominent, sharpened features of Jeon Jungkook. The traitor.

 

…

 

    “How many times do I have to tell you to let go of me?! Do not touch me like that- ” She screams sharply, tugging and pulling violently against the secured fist gripped around her delicate wrists that were leaving ugly, purple bruises and cuts on her colorless skin.

 

    “Joohyun, you are in no position to speak like that to me? Have you forgotten your place? I am your only husband and the head of this household! You would be nothing without me and you do not forget your place!” A robust, bearded middle aged man barks vigorously at his much younger wife and slams her against the pointed corners of the jaded table.

 

She whimpers in agony, feeling the penetrating rim poke her lower back, and she thumps ungracefully against the ash flooring of the master bedroom of the manor. The Bae manor, majestic in size and ceremonious in upholstering, was lifeless, hollow and barren.

 

Her husband, General Bae Woohyun, had risen up the ranks of the Royal Forces and made a name for himself in the Haeyang noble circle, and as a result, was barely home in his ancestral home. His wife, Lady Bae Joohyun, was left the task of overseeing the household while her husband was away. When he was around, however, she wished he’d never came back.

 

    “You haven’t fulfilled your one duty either, Joohyun- You haven’t provided me an heir either- You are a piece of filth that is a waste of a wife-”

 

Her lithe body is suddenly carried off the ground as her husband’s muscular arms tightly grip around her limbs towards the mattress, and her reverberating screams are heard in vain as they drown out gradually until they are silenced.

 

Joohyun sits up on her futon bed, beads of sweat dripping from her forehead and panting out of breath as she is bolted awake suddenly from the pounding sounds thumping from the manor’s wrought iron gates. Her ebony locks are a tangled wreck from rolling around in her mattress, and through her walled mirror, she has never looked so miserable from a night’s sleep since.

 

She grips on the alloy candelabra on the corner of her oak dresser by her pillow as she covers herself in a silk robe over her cotton nightdress as the chills of the early evening had peeked through her barred windows.

 

    “Who is it? Who dares to barge into my manor? My husband's household? ” The lady asks as she swings the iron door wide open, holding up the candelabra both to light up the dark corridor and as a weapon against any perpetrators or trespassers.

 

A gaunt, scrawny copper and silver haired old lady comes running up the staircase eagerly looking for her, and Joohyun almost slumps in relief when she sees it is only one of her servants, Hweya, whose family had been serving the Bae household for generations and generations before her. Almost.

 

“Pardon to disturb you, Lady Bae, as it is very late in the evening, but Lord Jung Hoseok insists to see you. Instantly. He says it is very confidential and that you need to be spoken to as soon as possible.” Hweya trembles as the stinging breeze perpetrates brutally against her brittle frame, yet she still remains dignified in delivering a confidential message to her lady.

 

She has seen Joohyun’s husband Woohyun wane and grow up, and will remain loyal to her dying breath to this family. Even Joohyun.

 

“Lord Jung? Why then- Let him in and let him rest in our drawing room with warm, chamomile tea and the best loaves of butter bread we can serve him.” Lady Bae clears as she quickly nods at her servant before promenading her way by the ledge of the spiraling staircase, looking down at the well furnished living room below her.

 

“Of course, Lady Bae.” Hweya bows respectfully at her lady, before briskly stomping down the wooden steps and forwarding orders to other servants, butlers, guards and assistants in the manor.

 

The padlocked, ferrous metal gate in the front of the manor is instantaneously swung open to let Lord Jung Hoseok, and surprisingly, his military ranking subordinates who flank closely behind him, before it is instantaneously shut again to make sure no one had seen them enter the estate.

 

    “Lord Jung, Lord Do, and Lord Lee, we welcome you into the prestigious House of Bae’s Manor. May you find our service warm and pleasant.” A dark haired armoured guard politely acknowledges and greets the noble lords of much higher rank than his own entering his lord’s manor.

 

Hoseok smiles an insincere, grave smile, recognizing the respects paid towards him and his colleagues, yet his grin immediately drops as he remembers the purpose of his visit. The two Lords behind him detached, unfeeling and unemotional in their military uniforms.

 

    “Why thank you, Young Sire. Our Houses and our Forces are full of gratitude to the Bae family’s always cordial treatment. Unfortunately though, I have news for Lady Bae and the rest of the House that she will need to know first.”

 

Lord Jung and the two other lords are grimly let into the ostentatious, ornately decorated drawing room of the Bae manor, and they are welcomed by Lady Bae hovering over and watching them curiously from above by the ledge of the staircase.

 

    “Lord Jung, Lord Do and Lord Lee, I welcome you to our household. If you had let me known sooner I would have prepared more for the three of you.” She bows at them, before walking gently down the descending staircase to greet them properly.

 

She holds her palm forward, and the three noblemen brush their lips against her knuckles as per custom, and a way of respect towards their General, whom they respected in battle and war.

 

Hoseok steps forward bravely, yet wistfully. “There was no need, Lady Bae. For the mere fact that we always welcome into this household with open arms is already enough. Yet there is something you need to know first, Lady Bae.”

 

Her breath catches, and she tugs on her fingers in anxiety of what to expect. The three aides of her husband were rarely in their household unless it was for celebrations and mournings of fellow men in their artillery.

 

    “What is it, Lord Jung?” She asks nobly, courtly, as expected of a woman of her standing. What her husband would have expected her to act.

 

He sighs deeply, and suddenly Joohyun feels goosebumps form on her skin and chills down her bones.

 

    “With all due respect, My Lady - We would excuse ourselves, Lady Bae. We are sure you would like to hear this solely from Lord Jung.” Lord Lee Taemin bows his head slowly, unable to look at her in eye, but through the glimpse shadow from her lighted candles, she can see tears form in his honey coloured eyes.

 

    “Of-Of course. If that is what you think suits best, I will honorably respect it.” She responds, acknowledging their absence and exit out of the drawing room towards one of the dining rooms in the manor.

 

The click of the door rings in her ears as the doors are firmly shut, and suddenly Joohyun feels the room is colder than it was before. It was now only her and Lord Jung present in the drawing room, and her nerves were getting the best of her.

 

He gets on both of his knees against the carpeted floor and looks up solemnly in barely a whisper, but loud enough for only her to hear.

 

    “I am sorry to inform you this and to be the one to tell you yourself, Lady Bae - but your husband the Honorable General Lord Bae Woohyun was caught in battle, and it was too late to save him. I am so sorry for your loss, Lady Bae, and that he was a magnificent, honourable man, but on behalf of those who served on his side, we will be of your service for as long as you will need us, Lady Bae. Just as your husband would have wanted.”

 

Joohyun nearly snorts in irony of how distorted her husband’s sergeant view him, and nearly break out in laughter and relief that she is free of her monster of a husband, yet she remembers it is improper and far from festivities yet.

 

    “Thank you, Lord Jung. I am devastated by the loss of my husband and will miss him very much, and he would be proud of the service and loyalty of his officers. He saw you like his own sons.” She nearly regurgitates as bile forms in at the insincerity of her rehearsed words, yet she fondly caressed her abdomen remembering that her husband’s legacy still lives on.

 

Yet she is forced to handle it alone, all by herself. As was her duty. Her purpose.

 

    ...

 

A/N: And there you have it, Scene IV! I hope you guys have been looking forward to this one, especially because I have as well!! Things are definitely rising up in King's Landing, and I hope you guys join me throughout it all. Thank you for all the love and support you've given me since. Please, please comment, subscribe, upvote and share this fic with your friends especially because it means a lot to me as a writer. <3 xoxo See you guys again till next update! (School is about to start + I have MUN stuff + Actual work so I may not be able to update as often but I will do my best!)

 

Song: "First Impressions" by Adrian Johnston (Becoming Jane OST)