The first time she lays eyes on him is in the middle of a battlefield.

Amidst the red haze of bloodlust and the carnage all around her, his dark locks stand out like a sore thumb. Beheading her men one by one, face crusted with what was probably her soldier’s entrails, uniform colour unrecognizable due to all the blood.

She finds him oddly attractive.

The man slips out of her mind just as easily as he slipped in it. One doesn’t have time to daydream when their throat could be slit any moment. She rides off, and he’s just another speck among the slaughter.

They meet again. Face to face. Sword to sword. She can’t feel her arms from all the chopping and disemboweling, she probably hasn’t showered in what felt like a week, and her ribs hurt like hell when she got her air knocked out of her earlier by some bastard. She killed him.

The man opposite her doesn’t look any better. He looks like . Although she has to give it to him for looking this good bathing in guts and blood.

Their swords clash again, and even though her arms hurt like a from that, her blood sings. Finally. Someone who can match her blow for blow. Adrenaline rushes through her. He gives her no leeway, no breathing space. She does the same – it’s only courtesy. She nicks him in the face, and that red trail runs down his cheekbones. How beautiful. He can only be even more beautiful covered in his own blood. At the thought, she feels her lips curving up into a maniacal smile and resists the urge to cackle.

Still needs a little more training, but pretty good. Has potential.

His right side is open, so she kicks him there. His face contorts in pain and he doubles over. Lightning-quick, she tackles the sword out of his hands and has him pinned on his back, hands above his head – he buckles furiously, but she’s stronger. This close, she can finally observe his eyes: brown with a ring of green around his pupils. His neck artery is prominent and pulses furiously under his skin, a sign of life. She idly wonders how it might feel to slit that vein and watch him bleed out slowly, watch his life fade before her eyes. It’s extremely tempting.

Her demon salivates at the thought holding his life in her hands. Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem to wish her to act upon it.

She’s not going to let him off scot-free, though. It’d be nice souvenir, she thinks, as she fishes out her own dagger and slashes a line across his stomach. It’ll scar. And it’s not deep enough to be fatal. He doesn’t have enough of her marks on him yet.

She lifts herself off of him, and throws his sword next to him.

“Run now, or I will kill you” she turns around and leaves.

Her country is winning.

As she storms castle by castle, her men die off one by one. Their country expands like a hungry abyss swallowing everything on its path, and their opponent gets pushed closer and closer to the capital.

How befitting that the road from one castle to another is traced with red ink. The colour of blood. Its coppery smell, embedded on the ground, slushing the soil, paving the way to victory.

The King of the other country sends in his unconditional surrender letter, promising castles and boons and treasures and slaves. As General, she gets first picks. None really interests her, it’s not like she can get any richer, being second in ranking only to the King. She indifferently listens to her reward lists, and offers a half-hearted thank you when it’s done. She thinks she will go to the camp. At least it can’t be any more monotonous than everything else in her life. She misses being in war, when every cell in her body comes alive with the thrill of killing and being killed. When her life is put on the line, and walking that rope is the best feeling she’s experienced in years.

The demon in her calls for blood. She resolutely suppresses him. No blood. At least not now.

She sets out for camp.

The last batch of war prisoners has arrived to camp, where they’ll be shipped of as slaves into households if they’re lucky to be picked, live the rest of their lives as slaves for soldiers in the camp, or beheaded and thrown into a ditch – nameless and unrecognized.

Because their country has lost the war. And winners write history. Soldiers on the winning side “protect their own nation” and those on the losing sides, who fought just the same and bled just the same and died just the same are forever lost to the flow of time.

She spots him, then, ragged and bloody, in a group of grimy troops. For a prisoner, he looks ridiculously calm, his alert eyes the only feature that gives his emotions away. The man also looks ridiculously good for a prisoner. She moves closer to where one of her men was head-counting. After telling the soldier that she’s taking this one as a slave, she drags him off, hands still bounds and feet still shackled.

They arrive at her quarters. She pushes him down onto a chair and plops herself down onto the one opposite him. This close, she can see that the wound on his face has scarred. A thin white line down his left cheek. Mine. The creature in her purrs in satisfaction at the thought.

“Hungry?” she asks.

He doesn’t seem inclined to answer, watching her like one would their mortal enemy. Which is very true. That’s exactly what they are to each other.

“What is your name?” she asks again.

Still silence.           

She leaves then, because her lieutenant has requested a meeting with her, and she senses she won’t get any response from him today. She sends for a bath and food for him. And a room.

She visits him again a few days later. The man is inside the garden, going over his katas with empty hands. She feels sort of bad for him. A swordsman’s worst nightmare is not being able to have your sword with you. His was confiscated, and as a slave, he’s not allowed any weapons. It must be killing him to be so defenseless. She knows she can’t stand not having any weapon on her. Like being stripped bare for all to see. and vulnerable. Her creature croons. Possessive.

She waves her steward over and tells him to bring her usual sword and one other over. “The black on the top shelf” She says. The old man returns moments later with 2 swords. She throws one over to him.

“Take it”

He looks at her for what seems like the longest time. “Why?” It’s the first time she’s heard his voice.

“It’s not fun when you don’t have a sword. Take it. The thing doesn’t ’like’ me anyway. Temperamental object” she mutters.

“Are you not afraid I’m going to kill you?”

“Like you can. You’re going to need a lot more practice” She replies nonchalantly.

“What do you want in return?” Ah, so not easily manipulated, then. Good head on his shoulders.

“Sparring. I’ve been so bored with other people. None of them fight like a man. Bunch of wusses who only knows how to yodel with a humongous sword. Like they think that makes them qualified soldiers.”

It might be her imagination, but it’s as if he smiled, just for a tiny bit

Something twists inside her, and it feels simultaneously like her creature craving for blood and yet not. Like a hunger she can’t name.

Slightly flustered, she charges towards him with her sword. He blocks. They fight each other, each one on edge. Her from the hunger, him from resentment. They block, they swing, they parry. She corrects him along the way.

She still kicks his .

He knows how to play the guzheng. He possesses excellent penmanship, unlike her chicken scratch. He’s very close to beating her. He already trounces her in chess. He never talks unless he has to, or unless she’s got him a weird position on the ground after their sparring and told him to “say pretty please”, which he would, but in a voice that suggests if she doesn’t then the end of the world is approaching.

They spar till they bleed, and her demon gets all excited like a kid on sugar whenever it marks him just a little bit. Still no inclination to kill, choke or strangle. There are reasons why she doesn’t have slaves other than him: she can take care of herself just fine, thank you; she hates her home crowded with “beings”; and she couldn’t resist the need to hurt if they’re too close. Sure, she kills on the battlefield and revels in it, but these slaves do nothing wrong and even someone like her isn’t immoral enough to slaughter them like pigs. So the slaves stay away except for the bare minimum.

And him, who has somehow bribed her demon.

One of her self-brewed alcohol batches is ready to drink. She drags him along to drink with her. Mainly to get pissed. She hasn’t got pissed in a while.

The booze is strong, like liquid fire that blazes down and coils heatedly inside her belly. She feels warm and comfortable. She also doesn’t remember how much she’s drunk.

Maybe I underestimated the strength of the alcohol. .

The wind picks up, and drinking under the Moon doesn’t sound or feel fun anymore. She’s cold.

Something warm envelops her, like the safest of cocoons. A steady heartbeat echoing in her ears. A hand, she thinks, trails down her cheeks.

She falls asleep. Peace. It’s the most peaceful she’s felt in a long long time. Her demon is quiet. No sounds, except….

Thump….thump…thump….

Blood. Warm and sticky. Gushes.

On her hands, on her face. She gasps.

It flows out of him, like a broken dam. The hole is his heart.

“No…no” Desperately, she tries to plug the hole with her bare hands.

Blood. Soaks her clothes. Permeates her skin. No. Stop. No.

Someone. Please.

His hands enclose hers. On his chest. He gives her a bloody smile. It looks more painful than a grimace.

His eyes catch hers. They shine. His pupils blown wide. There’s a stubborn light that clings to them.

His lips move. He mouths “Come closer”, and gasps from exertion. She leans to get closer to him, to hear him.

His grip goes lax.

She can’t see. Can’t hear. Can’t think. 

Her face is wet.

The only thing that matters – Me, too.

I was too late. I’m sorry.

Me, too.

 She buries him underneath a wisteria tree.

Be safe. I will see you soon.

Jaia will protect you for me.

“Yoon Jeong Han is a renowned and revered General from the 1500’s. She was famous for her brilliant war tactics and strategy, and led the Sidha’s army through 3 different wars, two of which were invasions. Her time and cause of death is unknown. Many of General Yoon’s personal belongings were donated to the Museum of National History by an anonymous donor, but her sword, Jaia, has never been found. It is hypothesized that the sword was broken when the General was young, as after some time, she never carried her sword ever again, and used another sword exclusively until her death.

General Yoon never married.”

“Aw…isn’t that sad? But you know, apparently she was supposed to die earlier, because one of the neighboring countries saw her as a serious threat. They sent someone to kill her at a royal banquet”

“Really? How did she survive?”

“Well, apparently, one of her slaves took the blow for her. It was fatal, and he died in her place. A few years later, the country that sent the assassins were razed to the ground! By her!”

“Oh my gosh, that’s so romantic!”

“I know right? I totally ship them!!! Actually, come to think of it, there’s another person I used to ship her with.”

“Who?”                                                  

“Choi Seung Cheol. He was the third Prince of the country she first led the invasion against. Handsome, talented, and he led the Army against her!”

“And? Why did you stop shipping?”

“Because he disappeared without a trace! The last time he was seen was at the final battle against Sidha. They never found his body, or his sword”

Author's note: So what do you think????

Did I do a good job?

Please comment on how you thought of it :)

Thanks for reading!!!