TAEHYUNG

~

“Jung-kook!”

The kennel master’s son could feel his lungs burning as he tried his best to keep up with his very best friend, but even though he had been raised running alongside the hounds, he was no match for a horse. He thought to himself how very unfair it was that the two friends were having a race when he was on foot while Jungkook was mounted on his favorite hunting courser.

“Jungkook, I – can’t – keep up!” Taehyung managed in between gasps of air, and he finally had to halt when he noticed that the younger was no longer in sight. He bent over then, pressing his palms against the leather breeches covering his knees, but the material made his hands feel all the more sweaty. Why his mother had insisted on the leather when it was nearly summer, he could not understand; likely something to do with looking more presentable, even though that didn’t make much of a difference to him.

The steady clip-clop of a horse’s hooves brought him out of his thoughts, but he realized too late that they were not coming from the direction that Jungkook had ridden off in. Taehyung turned to find a large black palfrey meeting him eye-to-eye, and he found his heart in his throat when he looked up to see its master. The boy found himself immediately in a deep bow, instinct of his societal position moving to the forefront of his mind.

“Taehyung,” the man rumbled, his voice deep though not particularly unkind. “Where is my son? I know you’ve been out here with him.”

Still bowing, Taehyung nodded, fidgeting with his hands behind his back. After another moment, he stood and, without meeting the man’s gaze, he responded. “Lord Lennaris, sir, the young lord and I were just having a race, but he ran ahead on his courser, and unfortunately, I could not keep up.”

The man, Jacaemar Lennaris, nodded and moved his gaze farther down the path, which, if one followed it far enough, would lead all the way from their home in Maidenpool to the seat of Queen Daenarys in King’s Landing. Taehyung had imagined what the shining capitol looked like on many occasions, but he also knew that there wasn’t much reason to imagine such things; he would never see King’s Landing. As the kennel master’s son, he had grown up in Maidenpool, and the farthest from it he had ever been was on occasions similar to this, when he and Jungkook would explore the nearby riverlands or when he aided his father with the hounds on a hunt. To even think about a city as large and bustling as King’s Landing was naught but folly for someone like Taehyung.

“Be sure that my son returns to the castle when he wanders back this way,” Lord Lennaris added as he turned his palfrey back toward the town’s gates. “We have guests tonight and he needs to be prepared for dinner. On time.”

Taehyung nodded and threw himself into another hasty bow as the lord parted ways; however nice the man was, the boy always felt a sense of embarrassment and inferiority in his presence.

A few minutes passed before he heard the steady beat of hooves again, but this time he was relieved to find that it was fast-paced clip of Jungkook’s sure-footed little courser.

“We