The faerie queen Olympia felt it the moment it happened—her blessing was very much tied up in Flaxie’s curse, and since her magic was facilitating the hundred year sleep of Prince Jinyoung, she felt the immediate tug on her powers when he pricked his finger and began his long rest. Olympia sighed to herself. The whole thing was a terrible mess. If Flaxie had just stayed on her high horse and hadn’t bothered to trouble herself with the affairs of the mortals she disliked so much, Olympia would have gotten to give her normal blessing of athletic talents and Jinyoung would have been the better for it.

With one last resigned sigh, Olympia took her wand and opened the portal from the faerie realm into the land of mortals. There was work to be done.

The palace was still abuzz with activity when Olympia slipped in. No one seemed to have realized yet what had happened to the prince, which was a great relief. It would be much easier to work with calm and order over panic and disarray.

Quiet as a whisper, she followed the tug of her power and found Jinyoung collapsed in the room of one of the maidservants, in front of an open window. She saw the parcel open on the bed with the distaff and needles. The dreaded spindle laid on the floor, beside Jinyoung’s body. Well, she thought, either Flaxie lured the prince here, he’s been dallying with one of the maidservants, or he was trying to sneak out. No matter. Fate has quite the way of making sure that events unfold as they must.

Olympia waved her wand to levitate Jinyoung’s body and move him to the bed in his own room, settling him into the comfortable blankets and cushy pillows. He’d be there for quite a long time, and he deserved a good presentation when true love’s kiss came to find him. She had debated since the fateful christening what would be done about the rest of the palace. It would be very troubling on all accounts not only for them to go on with their day-to-day lives for multiple generations with a comatose prince in residence, but also for Jinyoung to awake to a world where everyone he knew and loved was dead. The boy would be confronting enough when he awoke without that added pain thrown into the mix. So Olympia waved her wand and put a spell on the rest of the palace. The king and the queen slumped over in their own deep sleep, halted in the middle of what they had been doing. All the servants and guards felt a strong and magically induced desire to leave the palace and go to their families, and those who did not have families were filled with the sudden thought of retiring to the countryside. Slowly, the palace emptied out, leaving the royal family to their slumber.

It would be hard for the kingdom to lose their entire royal family at once, but Olympia had planned for that. It would be too complicated to convince everyone that their rulers had just up and left the kingdom, so a memory charm would have to do. She’d sweep through the kingdom and the neighboring one and rewrite their memory of their history so they would believe they’d always been a part of the kingdom that bordered theirs. So little about their lives would change with that slight shift in leadership that most of them would likely never catch on to any potential discrepancies around them.

Feeling a bit exhausted at the prospect of all this expenditure of power, Olympia went back outside to the palace grounds. She couldn’t simply make the palace disappear with everyone still sleeping inside of it. Perhaps surrounding it with a charm of forgetfulness would make anyone who looked at it or came close to it immediately have it slip right out of their mind?

But when she lifted her wand to cast the spell, someone cleared their throat behind her, and she whirled around. Flaxie was standing there with her own wand brandished, looking incredibly vexed.

“I see you have interfered with my curse,” Flaxie said coldly. “How rude of you. I will still not forgive these mortals after a hundred years have passed.”

“You’ll find someone else to be angry with in another hundred years,” Olympia said crossly. “Leave it be. The son is not at fault.”

“Very well. I will not kill him. I will just assure that he stays forgotten, even when the years have passed. No true love’s kiss will come to awake him. Let him keep on sleeping and sleeping while the world goes on with no memory of him and his accursed family.”

Flaxie waved her wand, and thick and ropy briars covered in piercing thorns shot out of the ground, surrounding the palace and entangling it in an impassable wall. Olympia waved her wand and attempted to slash through the wall, but it would not budge.

“If someone can pass through it in one hundred years, I will consider the family’s debt to me paid,” Flaxie said smugly. “But no mortal I’ve ever seen has the magic to do that…or any magic at all.” With a laugh, she waved her wand again and opened the portal to the faerie realm, leaving Olympia alone.

“Curse that dreadful woman!” Olympia snapped. She did not like being thwarted any more than Flaxie did. She lifted her wand, fuming in anger. A faerie could not completely undo the spell of another, but elements of it could at least be altered by an equally complex and power spell, as had Jinyoung’s initial curse. “The key through this wall of briars will not be magic greater than Flaxie’s," Olympia declared. "It will be through an act of human strength greater than the capabilities of most mortals. The wall of briars will open to the one who achieves such a feat, and that person may enter to bestow true love’s kiss upon the prince.”

It was still quite the daunting barrier, Olympia thought grimly, but it would do. Mortals were always surprising her. Perhaps there would be one among them strong enough to rescue the sleeping prince in a hundred years’ time.

Mark had been waiting in the fields near the palace for Jinyoung when the wall of briars rose from the ground and swallowed the palace. He lept to his feet, rubbing his eyes in disbelief at what he was seeing, but when he opened them again, the tangle of briars was still there. Why is this happening?, he thought wildly. How is this happening? Is Jinyoung…is Jinyoung safe?

Sitting around and puzzling it out was meaningless, and every minute he waited was another minute Jinyoung could be in danger. For the first time in his life, Mark abandoned his sheep and ran down the road leading to the palace courtyard. Standing in the middle of the courtyard was a beautiful blonde woman in a dress that looked as if it was woven from clouds. Gossamer wings sprouted from her back and seemed to shed sparkles with each delicate flap.

A faerie, Mark realized. A faerie is attacking the palace.

The faerie lifted her wand into the air, a burst of power shooting out and settling over the briars. “Wait!” Mark yelled. He didn’t know what he could do to go against a faerie, but he wasn’t about to let Jinyoung’s home be consumed, especially if he was still inside it. “Stop it!”

The faerie whirled around to face him. She was startlingly beautiful, and Mark felt a strange compulsion to drop to his knees in front of her and grovel for forgiveness for having addressed her so rudely. But his mind remembered that Jinyoung was the priority here, even as his body resisted. If Jinyoung was in danger, he had to keep him safe.

“A mortal,” the faerie said in a strong voice. “You noticed what happened to the palace, I presume. No matter. I will clear that memory up for you, and all will be as it should-“

“NO!” Mark said. “The only thing you’re going to do is tell me what you’ve done to Jinyoung and why, and then undo it.”

The faerie looked at him in annoyance. “You mortals are so very rude and upfront. I am a queen, you should at least address me as ‘Your Majesty.’” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you know Prince Jinyoung personally?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Mark said through grit teeth. “He’s my childhood friend. The one I love with all my heart. My intended life partner.”

The faerie’s eyes widened in interest. “Oh? Is that love mutual?”

Mark nodded.

“I see. That is indeed quite problematic. For you see, Jinyoung is under a spell that can only be broken by true love’s kiss. It was part of a death curse cast on him by an evil faerie when he was a baby which I fixed up and made a little less fatal. So you see, there’s no reason for you to snap at me. I’m the good queen here.”

“If the spell can be broken by true love’s kiss, why is the fact that I love him problematic? I could break it right this second.”

“No, you certainly cannot. Even if you were to bestow true love’s kiss on him right now, nothing would happen. It will only work after he’s slept for a hundred years.”

Mark stared at her in confusion. “A hundred years?”

“Indeed. And you mortals have such a short lifespan that I’m afraid that you won’t live to see the end of the hundred years. That’s why I say it’s problematic. But still, fate has a way of seeing things through. I’m sure another true love will come along for Jinyoung. I am sorry that it will not be you.”

Her words felt like a kick in the gut. “You mean there’s no way around this?” Mark asked desperately. “He has to remain asleep? It has to be a hundred years? Nothing can change that?”

She nodded grimly. “Nothing can change that. Terrible, I know, but the prices mortals pay in life often are. I suggest you let me fix your memory so you can forget this whole troubling situation and move on with your life.”

“No,” Mark said again, his voice weaker this time. He could not believe what he was hearing. This was the reason why the king and queen had been so edgy around Jinyoung his entire life? This was the calamity that had been destined to befall him? He did not want to think of it, the fact that Jinyoung would sleep through the rest of Mark’s lifetime and awaken only after he was dead. There was no other way the story could end. Most people didn’t live past the age of sixty-five at the latest, and for Mark to live to save Jinyoung, he would have to survive to the age one hundred and nineteen. A complete impossibility.

 It would be terrible knowledge to live with the rest of his life. And yet, forgetting Jinyoung would be far more terrible. From the moment they’d locked eyes from across the pasture as the royal carriage passed, Jinyoung had touched every aspect of Mark’s life, shaping his path and defining his happiness. His love for Jinyoung was so firmly woven into his heart and being that Mark knew any attempt to extract him would leave him with so many gaping holes inside that he’d never be put back together into a whole person. He needed those memories. If he wasn’t going to see Jinyoung ever again after this, he at least needed the recollections of his sweet smiles, kind words, fierce kisses, and gentle heart. He needed the touch of Jinyoung in his life for it to retain its purpose and meaning.

“No,” he said again. “Don’t take him from me. You faeries have already taken everything else. Don’t punish me any more than this. Let me keep my memories.”

A look of pity flashed across the faerie’s face. “Very well,” she said. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have one person keep him in their memory while he sleeps. Flaxie would hate that.” She leaned in, pressing her lips against Mark’s forehead. “There. Your mind is safe. You will remember. I’m not sure what good it will do you, but I hope you will be able to make your peace.” She unfurled her wings and lifted off into the air, and with one more pitying nod, she flew off into the village to shower her magic over all the people and erase Jinyoung’s existence from their minds.

Mark sank down on his knees, staring up at the wall of briars in agony. What was there to do now? How was he supposed to face the endless stretch of time awaiting him before his own death came to him without Jinyoung at his side? How was he supposed to go on? He had no motivation to do it. No end goal, nothing he wanted now that the most important thing in his world had been taken from him. If he carried on with his life, he’d most likely end up married to someone like Lissa to churn out little ones to take over the farm when he died, and that would be the legacy of his existence. The thought of it repulsed him. Loving Jinyoung had shown him how much more the world was capable of giving him in happiness and companionship and connection, so how could he now resign himself to settling for something lesser?

And what would it do to Jinyoung, to wake up in a world that had moved on without him, and Mark gone even after having promised forever to him? The faerie had suggested the possibility of another true love, but Mark couldn’t accept it. Who in the world could possibly love Jinyoung more than he did? Whoever came for Jinyoung would be a stranger chasing legends and rumors, charmed by the fantasy of a beautiful, sleeping prince without knowing anything about the reality. They wouldn’t understand all the turmoil in Jinyoung’s heart, and the strength that had rose to meet it. They wouldn’t know his worries and fears or the way he was terrible at games but sang like a lark or how good it had felt to hold his hand when he was small and have that hand grow bigger and bigger, still reaching out no matter how many years passed.

Mark rose to his feet, squaring his shoulders. No. That will not be the ending. I chose the path that led me to Jinyoung, and I’m not turning around and choosing another. I will see him again. Even if I have to live to one hundred and nineteen to do it.

He placed his hand against the wall of thorns, not caring as his skin was pricked and pain lanced through him. “Jinyoung,” he whispered, stealing himself for the road ahead of him. “It will be a long one hundred years. But I’ll wait for you until then.”

Mark’s father gave him one year before pulling him aside for a serious discussion.

“Son, I think it’s about time you got serious about becoming betrothed to Lissa,” he said solemnly. “She’s at the age to marry, and so are you. I don’t understand why you’re waiting. The match is suitable on both sides.”

“I know the match is suitable, father,” Mark said. “But I don’t love her.”

“She is a good girl, one who can make you happy if you give her the chance to. A marriage to her will increase our holdings, contribute to the prosperity of our farmlands, bless your household with children, and give you comfort in your old age. What reason do you have not to approve of it other than the minor issue of love?”

“I have already found someone else to devote my life to,” Mark said simply. “And I will not abandon them for someone I do not love.”

“Who is it? If you would tell me, perhaps we could come to a new arrangement.”

Mark shook his head. “I said to devote my life to. Not to spend my life with. I am sorry. But I cannot be with that person during your lifetime. I don’t expect you to understand, and I am unable to explain myself. So if you wanted to pass the farm along to my brother and have him marry Lissa, I will move out and forge my own path so I’m not a burden on you.”

And that was exactly what happened. Mark purchased his own plot of land and left the farm where he’d grown up, and his younger brother married Lissa. Within a few years, they had their first son, and all of their lives were better for Mark's absence.

Mark built the farming cottage with his own two hands, based on the vision of the cottage Jinyoung had always wanted to live in with a snug hearth, chicken coop, and pig pen. He spent the remaining money he had on bartering for livestock and equipment with which to till the land, and took his first staggering steps to establishing himself on his own. At the entrance of his property, he put up a sign that read Jinyoung’s Farm, and that was what it was known as from then on.

He liked the hard work of getting the farm operating. It was hard work, but a good way to keep his body fit and strong. It was a way to pass his days and drive him forward. It made him think of Jinyoung, but not in a painful way. He simply imagined how much Jinyoung would have loved the farm, how he would have built a fire every evening in the winter, how he would have doted on the livestock and gotten sad when they were turned to meat. How they would have spent their nights together in their big bed, how warm Jinyoung’s body would have been. How he would have tasted.

Sometimes, he’d talk to Jinyoung as he worked. It was crazy, he knew, but he was sure people would think him crazy one day regardless, so did it all the same. He told him about his days and the latest news, the way he always used to. He told about the crops and the livestock and his increasing flock of nieces and nephews and the change of seasons and the loneliness of being without him.

And it was indeed a very lonely thing, even with the memories in his heart. He felt the physical absence of Jinyoung every day, and his body ached for him without release. He knew he could turn elsewhere to relieve his desire, but his body was adamant about what it wanted, and it wasn’t interested in anything that wasn’t as satisfying as the one he’d held in his arms and kissed among the hay bales as if everything had depended on it. And everything had depended on it, in the end.  He could never escape the grip of that memory. He didn’t want to, and he knew if he ever took his mind from Jinyoung or gave into being without him by accepting someone else, he’d never be able to be strong enough and firm enough in his purpose to make it to the end of the one hundred years. But all the same, it was the deepest kind of loneliness he’d ever felt.

And he had years upon years left to feel it.

When he was forty, his father passed away at the age of sixty. There was no sickness in particular, just a gradual weakening of his body with age. Natural causes, they called it. Something that might one day come for him. When his tears were dried, he steeled himself even more. He could not let his body weaken on him.

When he was fifty, his brother’s children started having children of their own. All the farmers his age had set aside their tools and let the younger generations take over. But Mark had no younger generation to fall back on other than the occasional assistance of his nephews, and continued to work alone. He still talked to Jinyoung as he went about his day, and would visit the wall of briars each week to be close to him as he slept. Everyone in the village thought he was crazy, but they tolerated him. “Faerie touched,” they said. “Not quite right in the head, but harmless.”

In his sixties, his brother passed away, and Lissa soon followed. Mark’s body was beginning to ache with the work he was doing. The youngest of his nephews and his wife came to the farm to help. The wife tried to fuss over Mark and do everything for him, but Mark was stubborn about doing as much as he could on his own, so he wouldn’t lose his strength.

In his seventies, Mark was the oldest person in the village, in the kingdom, and possibly on the entire continent. His hair was snow white. His skin was wrinkled. His back was becoming stooped and his joints ached. He talked to himself constantly and was always prattling on about faeries and palaces and a prince that no one else had ever heard of. The years were getting hard on him, and he felt it down to his very core.

But there were still many more left to go.

Mark woke in the morning to the sound of someone banging around in his kitchen. He groaned to himself—he’d forgotten to lock the door again. He was always forgetting things, and that detail was among the most annoying when he did, since the children were always coming in and raiding his food supplies. It was true that he had more food than anyone else in the village—he received daily offerings, in fact, ranging from honeycakes made by the baker’s wife to fresh vegetables grown on one of the local farms—but the presence of the noisy children grated on his nerves.

“Who is it?” he called out from his bed. He hated how his voice sounded now. You could tell he was ancient just by listening to him—his voice had the quality of an antique sword coated in rust.

“It is Wendell, Honored Elder,” came a loud young voice from the kitchen. Mark tried to remember which one he was. One of the great-grandchildren of his brother, he thought. The robust one, who was always stealing Mark’s honeycakes, even though those were Mark’s favorite—or Jinyoung’s favorite, technically, which made them among the most precious of the offerings to Mark.

He’d never asked for the offerings. In fact, he found it completely ridiculous that when he’d hit his eighties, he’d practically ascended into godhood among the villagers. They all called him ‘Honored Elder’ and decided that they weren’t going to let him do anything for himself for the rest of his life so that he could rest in leisure. They took over his farm. They gave him food. They sent their sons and daughters to clean his house, wash him, read him books, and help him to bed. They practically worshipped him as the god of longevity.

It was very vexing to all of his plans to keep himself strong. His body had weakened with lack of use. His joints were stiff and knobby. He had a cane, but everyone pushed him around in a wheeled chair. He was losing his vision, had gone partially deaf, and had only a few teeth left to speak of.

But still, he was alive. That was an accomplishment. No one in their recorded history had ever lived past the age of one hundred, but here he was, still standing. Or sitting. Or as the case was more often, lying down.

Wendell ambled into the room, hands full of honeycakes. “Want one, Honored Elder?” he asked, extending one to Mark. “There are plenty, since today is a holiday.”

“Is it?” Mark asked, snatching one and gumming into it. He thought of Jinyoung shoving his face with them after the first time he’d seen Mark talking to Lissa and smiled to himself.

“Of course, Honored Elder. It’s your birthday!”

“Is it?” Mark asked again. He’d been doing his best to keep track of the passing of time, but the years were getting fuzzier to him. “How old am I this time?”

“One hundred and eighteen!” Wendell said proudly, as if it was his personal accomplishment and not Mark’s.

One more year, Mark thought. When you’d lived as long as he had, one year was rather short in the scheme of things, but then again, when you had nothing to do with your time, it tended to drag. He needed a project. One that wouldn’t kill him. And he was pretty sure such a project didn’t exist, since recently it felt like simple things like washing and getting up and moving his legs would be the death of him.

But there was something he did very much want to do. When the day came to go to Jinyoung, he wanted to walk there himself. He didn’t want to be pushed or wheeled. He didn’t want anyone to do the work for him. When he woke Jinyoung up, he wanted to be there with him, alone.

When he’d built the farm, he’d made it as close to the palace as he could. It was about a mile and a half walk from his door to the briar wall. When he’d been younger, it had taken him only a half hour to make the journey. Now that he was one hundred and eighteen, it would probably take him an entire week. Or, more realistically speaking, he frankly would never be able to do it at all without falling over dead partway through. It was beyond the capabilities of a mortal to make that journey with such a useless body.

But then again, living so long should have been impossible, too. Mark was seemingly quite good at defying logic. Why not defy one more thing before he met his end?

“Boy,” he said, squinting his eyes at Wendell and trying to make out his shape through his hazy vision. “You’re a big lad, aren’t you? Strong?”

“Uh-huh! I can lift a calf over my head!”

Mark wondered why such a thing would ever be necessary, but refrained from commenting. “Good. You’ll be the one to help me with something. I need to walk.”

“P-Pardon?” Wendell stammered, at last caught off guard. “Walk?”

“Yes. It’s this thing we do with our legs when we want to go somewhere, boy.”

“But I can wheel you wherever you need to go, Honored Elder.”

“I don’t want to wheel, boy. I want to walk.” He gave Wendell his sternest expression. “Or do you not think me capable of a few good miracles anymore?”

“No…”

“And wouldn’t you like to help me with the miracle? You might become famous yourself, eh, boy?”

Wendell perked up a little. “You really think?”

“I do.” Mark pointed to his long unused walking stick. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to help me walk each day. Each day, I’ll walk a little further than the day before. We are going to do this every day, no matter the weather, until the very last day, when I reach where I’m trying to go.”

“And where is that, Honored Elder?”

“The wall of thorns,” Mark said. “I’m going to awake my sleeping prince.”

It was impossible. It was impossible for his body, his brittle bones, his aching back, his knobby knees, his stubborn feet. The whole task was undoable from the very start.

And yet, he was so determined to do it that he did somehow manage to wake each morning, have Wendell help him out of bed, and plow forward with the help of his cane and the assistance of the eager boy who thought he was helping a god of longevity on a heavenly mission. The first few days, he could barely walk a full minute. It took him weeks to even make it out his own front door. And when he did make it out the front door, then he had to contend with the entire village begging him to go back inside and not risk his wellness by making such an effort.

It made him understand Jinyoung a little better, that. That cooped up feeling of having the whole world trying to protect you when you just wanted to live. He fought back against it a bit more vocally than Jinyoung did, taking advantage of being part-god, part-lunatic in the eyes of the people to berate them until they let him have his way.

And so every day, he did the undoable. He walked forward, and came closer and closer to the wall of thorns before asking Wendell to wheel him back home to rest. They’d rub ointment on his throbbing flesh, and Mark would take a bit of drink to numb the pain before going to sleep and awaiting the trial of the next day.

But through the pain, he still felt happier than he had in years. Jinyoung, he thought with every step, it’s almost time. You’ll be awake, and I’ll get to see you one more time before the heavens at last take me.

And so the months passed until a year had gone by, and Mark had reached his hundred and nineteenth year. On the day before Jinyoung’s birthday, he and Wendell reached just shy of the briar wall. Tears spilled down Mark’s eyes as he looked at it. “Tomorrow,” he whispered. “Tomorrow I see you, my beloved prince.”

“Why do you weep, Honored Elder?” Wendell wanted to know.

“Because I waited many long and lonely years, and finally I see the end of the road,” Mark said. “Come now, boy. Come and take me home.”

The next morning, Mark awoke ahead of the time Wendell usually came for him. This time, he got himself out of bed, as difficult as it was. He fetched his cane and, bracing himself, began the journey alone.

It was even harder, without Wendell’s support. Impossible, impossible, impossible, his mind tried to tell him. Beyond the strength of any man of your years. But there had never been any other man of his years. It was up to him to determine what could and could not be done. And this was what he’d been waiting most of his life for. This was what his whole life had been building up to.

He thought of each of the hundred years as he walked. The good times and the bad, the lonely days and the days filled with enough memories for him to be happy. The family of sorts he’d found in the community, in spite of having no children of his own. The kindness he’d been met with even though he’d been off his rocker, faerie touched, and the sole believer that the wall of thorns was anything more than a strange mutation of nature.

And then he thought of the first nineteen years of his life. Of those nights with Jinyoung under the stars. The touch of his hand, the feel of his lips, the twist of his mouth into smiles and pouts and puckers. The moments that had made all the years after it worth it. The love that still burned strongly in his heart. The love that had turned the impossible possible.

Carried by those memories, he walked and walked and walked until afternoon passed and night came, and walked further still. He walked with all the remaining strength in his body, knowing he would never need to walk again after this. Just long enough to see Jinyoung, to kiss him one last time. Just enough to reach that long awaited end of the road.

At long last, he reached the wall of thorns, placing his hand against it. This time, it parted at his touch, seeming to acknowledge him, as if something inside him was the key which unlocked it. He didn’t think too much of it—his mind only fixed on Jinyoung. He walked through the opening and into the palace, the thump of his cane echoing through the silent hallways.

He’d never been in the palace before, but there was a trail of rose petals beginning at the entry and traveling inside, presumably as a guide to Jinyoung, most likely the doing of the faerie he’d encountered a century ago. Though his legs were strongly protesting at having walked so far, he followed the path down a long hallway until it turned into a corridor where the rose petals stopped in front of an opened door.

His heart slammed as he went inside. There he was, visible clear as day even to Mark’s nearly blinded eyes. Jinyoung just as he remembered him, sleeping peacefully on the bed, his chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm. His hair still smooth and deep black. His lips still full and petal pink. His skin unwrinkled and soft. Jinyoung, frozen in his seventeenth year, so beautiful and precious that Mark started weeping at the sight of him. It felt like breath his body had gone without for a hundred years was flooding through his body. It felt like he could stare at him for another hundred years and still not see him enough.

He approached the bed reverently, body tremoring so much that he could scarcely walk. He wanted to reach out and touch his cheek. He wanted to lay down beside him and hold him in his arms, feeble as they now were. And yet, sudden he felt ashamed of himself, awkward in his ancient body. Would Jinyoung even want to be touched by him now? Would he be disgusted to receive a kiss from such papery lips?

All the same, he knew he could not leave him to sleep any longer, locked in time and forgotten. He deserved to live. Mark had already had his chance, and it was time for him to pass that gift along to the one he owed his life to.

“I am sorry, Jinyoung,” he whispered, tears clouding his eyes. “Your true love is but a crazy old man. But he loves you all the same. He has loved you longer than the lives of most men, and longer still.”

He leaned in, pressing his lips against Jinyoung’s. It had been so long since the last time, but he still remembered it. It still sang through his entire being, pouring life into his dying body. An awakening kiss, one that would give him just enough strength to see this moment through before the end came.

He drew away, gazing down into Jinyoung’s face. His body stirred, limbs creaking in protest, a mumbling sigh escaping his lips. Then, very slowly, his eyes began to open. He rubbed them off, blinked through the film that sill obscured his vision, and then turned them to Mark.

He studied him for a moment, looking momentarily confused before a look of deep, overwhelming sadness clouded his eyes and tears budded and began to slip down his cheek. “Mark,” he said, his voice hoarse from lack of use. “You have gotten old without me. Why wasn’t I there with you?”

Such a Jinyoung thing to say, Mark thought, heart aching. Still the exact same as he was. The exact soul I have loved for all my life.

“You have been sleeping, Jinyoung,” Mark said, at last reaching out to his cheek. “I have come for you, to wake you up.”

“How long did I sleep?”

“One hundred years. Over a lifetime, dear one. I waited for you, all this time.”

More tears flooded from Jinyoung’s eyes. “Oh, Mark. Was it very hard? You look so exhausted. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Please, don’t weep for me. I want my last memory of your face to be of your smile.”

Jinyoung bolted up. “Last memory? What are you talking about?”

“I’m a very old man, Jinyoung. I have lived long past my time so that I could see you once more. I will not make it another year. Perhaps not another day. I lived long enough to wake you, but I-“

“NO!” Jinyoung said with surprising fierceness for one who had just woken up after a hundred years of sleep. “No, Mark, you can’t leave me. You can’t wake me up to a world where I’ll be without you. I need you with me. I want to spend the rest of my years with you.”

“I will be with you, Jinyoung, just as you were with me,” Mark said softly. “But I can go no further than this. If I could, I would do it in a heartbeat. But my body will not last longer. I have already lived too long.”

Jinyoung shook his head. “No, no, no, this isn’t fair. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. We were supposed to be…the two of us were…we were supposed to have a future together.”

“I built the farm for you. It’ll be waiting for you, when you’re ready. It is perhaps a blessing, Jinyoung. You would not want to live your life with one so decrepit as I. It takes all the strength I have just to lift my hand and touch your cheek.” Tears slipped down Mark’s cheek, and he swallowed heavily. “You are still so young. You have so much time left ahead of you. Please take it, Jinyoung. Please live it well and happily. For me.”

“With you,” Jinyoung said. “I want to live it with you. Please, Mark, please. I would live with you and love you even if you were a thousand and one. Whatever strength you need, I will give it to you.” He pressed his lips against Mark’s, as if his kiss could transform him and extend his life. When nothing happened, he kissed him again more desperately, the tears falling harder. “I love you,” he choked out, sobbing pitifully. “I cannot let you go. I cannot.”

Mark rested his forehead against Jinyoung’s, closing his eyes as more tears fell. He thought it would be easy for him to die after seeing Jinyoung one more time. He thought that would be enough for him, and that he would find his peace. But suddenly, he realized he wasn’t ready to die. He wanted to live with Jinyoung on their farm. To raise chickens and pigs with him, to cook him suppers, to dance with him in the kitchen, to share their bed together and kiss each other awake in the morning. The energy and thirst for it was alive and strong in his mind. But his body was too tired. He’d never be able to make it back to the village, even if Jinyoung wheeled him. He had no more strength left. No more matter how badly he wanted to live, he’d gone as far as he could go.

He heard someone clearing his throat behind them and weakly turned his head. The faerie from a hundred years ago was standing there, also just as young and beautiful as the last time he'd seen her. To his surprise, there were also tears spilling down her cheek. He didn't think faeries had those kind of emotions.

"I underestimated you far too much, mortal," she said in a choked voice. "You actually did it. You actually lived to see this day. A feat of strength that should have been beyond the capabilities of mortal men, the key to open the way. You did it through your own strength and endurance and force of will. Truly, you are a miracle among mortals. You have chosen your true love well, Prince Jinyoung."

"But he says he will leave me," Jinyoung said, holding on tightly to Mark. "He says he can't stay with me any longer."​

“He has already lived the span of two lifetimes, my child,” Olympia said gently. “You are young, too young to fully understand the burden that puts on the body and extends to the soul. He is very tired. You should not make demands of a weary man. You should ask him what he wants to do.”

Jinyoung turned his eyes to Mark, sad and beseeching. In spite of Olympia’s words, Mark knew Jinyoung did understand, in a way. He saw everything Mark had endured in the lines carved in his face, in the feeble state of his body. He knew this and grieved it, but also saw in Mark the pain of those years by himself. He didn’t want to live with that same pain. He didn’t want Mark to die without giving him the years together to make up for it.

“I want to stay with you,” Mark whispered. “With all my heart and soul, I want to stay with you, Jinyoung. I would live to a thousand and one, if it’s at your side. But living to the end of another lifespan is at last something too impossible even for me to do. No matter how strong my will is, my body is too weak.”

Olympia smiled widely, drying off her tears. “Well. That at least can be helped. I wasn’t sure if your spirit would wish to endure for another lifetime, but it seems you’re strong enough for even that. It seems my parting gift will be of use to you, after all.”

She approached Mark gingerly, touching her finger to the place where she’d once kissed it to seal in and protect his memories of Jinyoung. The mark felt warm when she touched it, as if her kiss was still branded into his skin. “This was a special kind of magic,” she said. “I preserved your memories, yes, but that was not all I preserved. I kept the memory of everything you were in that moment—body, mind, and spirit. I wasn’t sure, but as the faerie of strength and endurance, I recognized the possibility that you would make it all the way here, to the end. And if you did, I wanted to give you the choice to be rewarded for it. I can give you your body back, from that day. I can return you to who you were when you were nineteen.”

A flood of hope surged through Mark at the possibility of a lifetime with Jinyoung with his grasp, but there was one thing that still made him hesitate. “Will I forget?” he asked. “Will I forget the last one hundred years? Because…I want to remember everything about them, even though they were hard. I want to remember what being without him was like so I never for a moment take being with him for granted.”

Olympia nodded. “Never fear that. The seal on your memory will remain true. Everything else will go back, but that will always remain with you.”

“Then do it,” Mark said, exhaling his breath. “It seems I have one more life left in me to live, after all.”

The faerie queen leaned forward and planted a kiss on Mark’s forehead. A strange feeling overtook him, as if years were melting off of him and he was being stripped back layer by layer. The wrinkles ironed out. His back straightened. His long and scraggly white hair began to shoot back toward his head, glistening with gold. His sight cleared, and sounds flooded into his ears, louder and more distinct than he’d heard them in years. The ache vanished from his limbs, and his body felt strong and hearty, capable of doing all the things he used to do. Capable of harvesting wheat, of running down a hill, of turning cartwheels in the grass.

Capable of holding someone he loved in his arms.

He turned to Jinyoung, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’ll stay with you, Jinyoung,” he said, his voice and powerful and clear, all the rust scraped off. “No more waiting for you. Just living.”

“Yes,” Jinyoung breathed, placing a hand on Mark’s cheek, blinking back his own tears. “No more dreaming. I’m ready to wake up and be here with you.”

They leaned in and kissed each other with all the greed built up after one hundred years of waiting. Mark felt like he would never be able to let go of him again, like he could spend years upon years reacquainting himself with Jinyoung’s lips and tasting him over and over again without ever becoming full. And yet at the same time he understood that while life could be incredibly long, it was also unbearably short in years to spend with someone you could happily be with for thousands upon thousands of years together. Their years were numbered, and there was so much to fill it with—evenings in front of the fire, mornings spent snuggled under their quilts, afternoons in the fields, days upon days upon days of loving each other.

Mark pulled away gently, reaching out to take Jinyoung’s hand in his. “Come on,” he said. “Our home is waiting for us.”

Before they left, Olympia undid her spell over the king and queen. There was quite a bit of confusion as the situation was explained, and Jinyoung’s parents were hysterical with tears at the joy of getting to be with their son for more than seventeen years after all. There would be have to be a bit of patching up between them, as Jinyoung’s connection to them had been fractured by his resentment for their constant fear for him throughout his life, but Mark knew that there was love enough in all their hearts to heal the rift. After nearly losing Mark, Jinyoung better understood the utter terror of the feeling of not having time enough to fully be with the one you love, and couldn’t now refuse to forgive them for their fear of being without him.

Olympia offered to restore the proper memory of the kingdom and its ruling family to the people the king and queen had once ruled over, but they shook their heads. “Our time has already passed,” the king said. “The people who truly remembered us are already dead. I would like to spend what remains of my life with my family instead. My wife and I will make a new home for ourselves, somewhere. And Jinyoung…”

“I never wanted to be a prince,” Jinyoung said frankly. “I want to live on a farm and grow things. I’m going to marry Mark and we’re going to have a home together.”

“M-Marry?” the queen stammered. “But we haven’t planned for that at all! You’re only seventeen, and we’d thought—”

“I am technically one hundred and seventeen,” Jinyoung corrected her. “I am well past the age of marriage. But I mean to do it all the same.”

“We’ll be engaged for a year and wait until he’s a proper adult, ma’m,” Mark said, feeling a bit nervous as Jinyoung’s parents sized him up. It was an odd thing to feel again after being the ever-respected Honored Elder for the last forty-so years of his life.

“If you want my opinion on the matter, it’s quite a good match for your son,” Olympia offered. “He wasn’t properly blessed by me or Flaxie, so he’s lacking in physical ability and missing a green thumb. Mark excels at both, and will make up for everything Jinyoung does not have.”

“You mean I can’t grow things?” Jinyoung asked in horror. “But…but…won’t that mean I’ll be a terrible farmer?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. Not everything good about you is something given to you by us. You have strength on your own. Why not take the years you have been given to find out what those strengths are?” Olympia smiled benevolently. “As for me, my work here is done. I’m not quite sure you’ll ever have to worry about this given the circumstances, but if you have a christening in your family, be sure not to snub Flaxie, all right?”

When the chaos was calmed, Mark brought Jinyoung back to the village to show him the farm. Thanks to the support of all his village guardians, it had been well maintained over the years, still filled with livestock and yielding bountiful harvests year after year. The Jinyoung’s Farm sign stood exactly where Mark had placed it, though it was now weathered with time.

Mark gave Jinyoung a tour of the land, excitedly showing him every inch of their farm and introducing him to all the livestock. Every little detail delighted Jinyoung, and he said over and over again, “It’s perfect! It’s just how I imagined it! Is it really all ours?”

When Mark brought Jinyoung to the cottage, Wendell was waiting inside, gloomily eating honeycakes at the kitchen table. He lept up as soon as Mark entered the room, sweat beading on his forehead. “The Honored Elder isn’t here! I lost him! Please don’t be angry with me, it was an accident, I swear!” His brow suddenly furrowed. “I don’t know who you are.”

Mark knelt down in front of him. “You don’t recognize me, boy? They’re less wrinkly, but some of the things about me should be the same. My nose, perhaps? My eyes?”

Wendell squinted at him. “Are you related to me? You look like my oldest brother.”

“I’m your great-great-uncle Mark.”

“Nuh-uh. The Honored Elder is my great-great-uncle Mark.”

“Yes. And I’m him.”

Wendell stared at him in disbelief, but then slowly his eyes began widening. “Y-You actually did another miracle, Honored Elder?”

“I did indeed, boy. Although perhaps you shouldn’t call me that, anymore. I don’t look so much like an elder anymore, even if I am one.” He gestured to Jinyoung. “I have someone to introduce you to. This is Jinyoung.”

Wendell’s eyes got even bigger. “Jinyoung, your imaginary friend?”

“He doesn’t look so imaginary now, does he, boy?”

 “Have you been invisible this whole time?” Wendell asked, looking stricken.

Jinyoung shook his head. “No. Just sleeping.”

“I’m going to marry him next year, so you’ll have a new great-great-uncle, boy,” Mark said with a grin. “How would you like that?”

Wendell looked delighted at the prospect. “Neat! I have like a billion brothers and sisters, so you could adopt me!”

“Um, well, we’re a little bit young to have a child your age,” Jinyoung said tentatively.

“Nuh-uh! Great-great-uncle is one hundred and nineteen! He’s the oldest person alive! Even if he did a miracle, he’s still totally ancient!”

“I wouldn’t mind having you around sometimes, boy,” Mark said. “But there would be two problems if you tried to live with us.”

“Like what?”

“One: honeycakes are Jinyoung’s absolute favorite. You’d have to share them.”

Wendell’s lower lip jutted out. “And?”

“Jinyoung and I are very much in love. If you stay here, there will be a whole lot of kissing for you to watch.”

Wendell’s nose wrinkled. “EW! NO WAY! Don’t do it around me!”

“I can’t make any promises,” Mark said. “In fact, I rather feel like it now…”

“Goodbye!” Wendell yelled, barreling out the door. They laughed as they watched him go.

Jinyoung sobered up after a moment, glancing around. “You…you really waited for me, didn’t you? No wife…no children?”

“None.”

“No lovers at all? I would have understood. Or at least…I would have tried to understand.”

“I told you, Jinyoung. I never intended to court anyone other than you. Besides, I spent a good number of my years without you bound to either my bed or my wheeled chair. I stopped thinking about it so much, after a point.” He laced their fingers together. “But I have gone a very, very long time without that in my life. I hope you’re prepared to make up for that.”

“Oh, I think I can just about handle it, Honored Elder,” Jinyoung said with a teasing smile. “I rather feel like it now, too.”

They leaned in to kiss, and Mark lifted Jinyoung up in his arms and spun him around happily. It had been a long road, far longer than any mortal man had ever walked or likely ever would. But he was ready to keep going, with his true love at his side. There was still life left to live, and things left to do with the person he’d been waiting all those years to be with. He’d take his rest at the end of it, and embrace the long sleep he’d been warding off at long last. But for now, there was still so many things left to live for, and he wasn’t about to waste a single moment of that precious, fleeting time.