The girls all sat on the floor cross-legged in their father’s study room, staring up at him and their uncle doing paper-work and organising the taxes and deals with neighbouring kingdoms. They sat up straight, staring intensely hoping that their father would give in and let them go to the village.
‘The Ki Clans from the northern provinces broke our treaty. Our northern villages have been attacked and taken over by them, General Song and his man are ready to leave and aid the northern army with the Ki Clans as soon as you give the order, brother,’ The girls’ uncle informed King Soo Man after he read a letter sent in by an official from Genbu.
The King sighed, ‘as soon as my nine daughters are married off, I can go back to travelling from one region to another during the seasons in my kingdom. I wonder if it was a wise decision that we made to reside in Suzaku while the Princesses grew up, instead of travelling with them from one Palace to another… If we had, we’d be in Genbu right now, and the Ki Clans would never have invaded our territory.’
‘It is not your fault, brother, but we need to stop them soon. They’ve stolen food from the poor, and last Friday, two different pairs of twins died in the same village, it’s a bad omen.’
The King nodded, ‘send General Song. I trust he can take care of matters by himself. The leader of the Ki Clans was never a bright one anyway.’

Taeyeon and Seohyun listened carefully about the news of their Kingdom as they’d always been interested in the Kingdom’s matters. Taeyeon because she was the eldest daughter and always held the responsibility to herself; and Seohyun because she was intelligent and found these issues interesting. Their sisters however, were a different matter. No matter how mature and intelligent Sica was, she was quite introverted and never cared about the matters going about their Kingdom, what mattered to her were her family and friends. So it was no surprise that she’d dozed off while sitting on the floor, territorial fights always put her to sleep within 5 minutes. Tiffany was studying hanbok cloths under the large desk her father and uncle sat at, while Sunny stared out the window. The other four, however, were becoming restless and bored.

Yoona and Yuri started to poke Sica while she slept, and Sooyoung had stolen the food on King Soo Man’s desk and began eating. Hyoyeon stole Tiffany’s hanbok cloths and waved them around, out of reach from the older girl.
‘Give me back my hanbok cloths!! I need to choose which design I want before tomorrow so Lady Jiyoung can make my hanbok for the grand ball!!’ Tiffany hissed at Hyoyeon.
‘Nah, nah!! You can’t get it!!’ Hyoyeon teased.
‘Go Hyo!!’ Sooyoung cheered with full.
‘Sica unnie~’ Yoonyul began to whine and poke the older girl furiously.
She groaned and opened her eyes slightly, glancing up at her sisters.
‘Wake up~ Wake up~’ they sang and moved from side to side while moving up and down.
‘STOP!!’ Sica yelled.

King Soo Man and his brother stopped discussing their tax feud with the farmers and peered over the large table. The princesses stared back at them angelically in the same positions as when they’d first come in. It was as if they hadn’t just been making a ruckus a second ago, but they were. The princesses were professionals, you see. And could sense when someone was about to look at them or catch them doing the wrong thing, so they could easily stop what they were doing and act as innocent as ever. It was probably for this reason that their first nanny who looked after them when they were 5, thought she was going crazy. She’d put cookies in the cookie jar, but when she checked a minute later, they were gone. So when she went to see if the Princesses had taken it, she’d find them all sitting angelically playing with their dolls, not a sign of cookies or them having left the room anywhere.

The King sighed, he knew his daughters were troublemakers and their adorable looks couldn’t fool him anymore, not after 19 years with them.
‘If I promise that you can all go out to the village with the Princes tomorrow, will you leave me to do my work in peace?’ the King asked.
The girls nodded rigorously.
‘Okay, I’ll talk to the Princes about it. But, on the condition that you stick with at least one Prince and do not wonder off, and that there will be undercover guards everywhere to protect you.’
‘Okay, but why the undercover guards?’ Tiffany asked.
‘Because you are Princesses, there are evil clans out there trying to assassinate whole Kingdoms, starting with the Royal families. And we may have a snitch in the Palace that lets them know you are leaving the Palace, so we have to be careful.’

The next day, the Princesses were dressed in commoners clothing and stood in the garden waiting for the Princes. They wore no jewellery or anything that had colours, just so they wouldn’t stand out. They were all impatient, Taeyeon and Tiffany paced while Seohyun muttered to herself about the books she wanted to find. Sica and Sooyoung thought about the food stands and all the new foods they’d try out. Yoonyul were jumping up and down yelling ‘CANDY!!’ while Sunny sat and watched, her foot jiggling in anticipation. Hyoyeon was quite, which was rare, and anxiously kept staring towards the direction of the King’s study, where the Princes were speaking to the King.
‘What if he changes his mind and we can’t go?’ she asked Sooyoung.
‘Don’t be a drag, he promised, besides, here comes the Princes and it doesn’t look like bad news,’ Sooyoung said.

Yoonyul ran to Minho and began tugging on his sleeve, ‘can we go now, can we go now?’
Minho laughed at their childishness, ‘soon, we need to set the rules first.’
‘Okay, listen up,’ Onew tried calling the attention of his fiancée and sister-in-laws.
No one listened to him and they continued jumping around in excitement.
‘Wow… they really never get to go out much,’ Sungmin whispered to Key.
‘Yeah, well, most of the times we all went out, we did it without permission,’ Key told Sungmin.
‘Oh, right. I forgot, I guess I got so used to it, it was like a second nature or something.’
Key merely rolled his eyes and went back to watching Onew’s failed attempt to get the girls’ attention. Jonghyun sighed and watched Onew pityingly. He finally decided to be nice and help him, Jjong whistled loudly and the girls stopped talking. Onew shot him a grateful look and began talking.

‘So, King Soo Man organised groups and you are all to stay in these groups or else he’ll never let you go out to the village again. We’re all excellent swordsman so you will be safe with us, as you can see, we all have our swords strapped to our backs. In addition, make sure not to stand out too much, that’s why we’re all wearing commoners clothing. And avoid mentioning anything about being a Princess,’ Onew lectured them all.
‘Boo, boring~ We all know what to do hyung. Just tell us the groups already!’ Key exclaimed.
‘Fine! Onew said indignantly, ‘Taeyeon and Hyoyeon are with me. Jessica and Tiffany are with Jonghyun. Sunny with Sungmin. Sooyoung with Key. Yuri, Yoona, Seohyun and Taemin are with Minho.’
‘Why are there so many in our group? If Yoona was with Sunny and Seohyun was with Sooyoung, we’d all be in groups of three,’ Yuri pouted at having to share Minho.
‘Because Sunny and Sungmin and, Sooyoung and Key need to get along with each other. If they spend a whole day together, maybe they’d be able to tolerate each other,’ Onew explained.
‘Why doesn’t Seohyun come with us?’ Taeyeon suggested, ‘it’ll even out their group a little more, and besides, handling Yoona and Yuri will be hard for Minho so he might not be able to keep an eye on Seohyun.’
‘Hyung will be fine. He’s the best fighter ever!!’ Taemin boasted.
‘Yeah, and Minho-shi promised to take me to the bookstore,’ Seohyun added.
‘I can take you to the bookstore too,’ Onew said.
‘But…’ Seohyun protested.
‘It’ll be fine, hyung. I can look after them all. Come on Seohyun, and besides, Yuri and Yoona won’t cause trouble, will you?’ Minho grinned.
Yoonyul shook their heads, ‘no, sir.’
‘See? What could go wrong?’

Minho was proven wrong three hours later. They’d been having a good day exploring the village’s markets and stores when men from the Ki Clan approached them. The Ki Clan was easy to spot, all of them adorned red headscarves and black face masks, like ninjas, but Minho didn’t notice them until a lot later because he was too distracted watching Yuri admiring the freshly made candy. There were twelve Ki Clan members and they made a grab for Seohyun. Minho pulled out his sword and began fighting them. Taemin pulled Yuri and Yoona away, hiding them in a small alleyway, ‘stay here,’ Taemin ordered before running off to help Minho. The man holding Seohyun let go of her, she tried to run away but one of the men tried to stab her, Minho pushed her out of the way and was slashed across his chest.
‘Minho!!’ Yuri yelled and ran from her hiding place.
‘Yuri, stay there!’ Taemin warned fiercely, a side of Taemin no one had ever seen before.
Seohyun ran to her and gripped Yuri, she was shaking in fear and Yuri tried her best to soothe the younger girl. Minho and Taemin managed to fight off the Ki Clan members. Three were either dead or passed out, seven were severely injured and the last two continued fighting Minho and Taemin.
‘Damn, where are those bodyguards?’ Minho grunted.

Right on time, the undercover guards ran out and aided Minho and Taemin. The Ki Clan members knew that they were outnumbered and ran off, carrying the ones that were passed out even though they themselves were severely injured. The undercover guards ran after them, leaving the Princes and Princesses alone.
‘Thank gosh the street was deserted,’ Taemin sighed in relief.
‘Minho!! Are you okay?’ Yuri cried.
‘I’m fine…’ Minho said as he took off his shirt and ripped in, tying the cloth around his injury, ‘this should hold until we get back to the Palace…’
‘Hyung… where’s Yoona?’ Taemin shouted from where he stood in the alleyway, searching for Yoona.
‘Oh, great, they got Yoona!!!’ Yuri shouted.
‘No, they didn’t even get the chance to go near there… she must have run off…’

(a/n): Dosen't Yuri look so pretty in the picture?? ^.^   I'm soo jealous!!!

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