Seungwan rushed into the clearing with a heavy heart, hoping against hope that she wasn’t too late. She saw with mixed horror and delight that Joohyun had already found the cursed flower, but she hadn’t yet touched it.

“Joohyun!”, she called out, hoping to catch her attention. The princess turned, but her face was still set in contemptuous distance.

“Is this the proper way to address your princess, Lady Son?”, she demanded archly, her cold words barely wounding Seungwan when all she could think was that Joohyun was safe for now. She only had to keep her attention on herself as she approached.

“Joohyun, I’m truly sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I understand why you don’t want there to be barriers of formality between us, but the truth is that these barriers aren’t born from my words”, she explained, well aware that they both knew this. But if she said it, maybe Joohyun would understand that she wanted the same. “They will still be there, even if I call you Joohyun. Even if I call you… Hyun”, she added with a forced chuckle, far too horrified at her own daring to find any amusement in the situation.

Joohyun seemed equally shocked at the nickname, only staring intensely at Seungwan. The latter stepped closer, almost within reach to pull the princess away from the flower and far from the danger it posed. “No matter how close we are, how close we become, you’ll still be my princess. No force in this world can change that. We’ll have to… work around it. But there is no use in pretending it isn’t there”

She paused, legs nearly buckling under the weight of the suffocating silence. Joohyun took a step and immediately she was jumping forward to seize her hands. She couldn’t risk Joohyun making any sudden movements and touching that flower.

They stood facing each other, both hands held tightly. Joohyun’s eyes were still wide, confused, searching, and Seungwan could relate because she felt just as confused by the situation. What was she doing? She glanced to the side and her conviction returned at the sight of that odious plant. They had to go back as soon as possible.

Just as she tugged on Joohyun’s hands, wondering how to suggest returning to the palace, the princess turned to follow her eyes. A smile painted itself on her face as she remembered what she’d been doing and her fingers disentangled themselves from Seungwan’s hold. As much as she appreciated Joohyun being distracted from her strange actions, this was the exact opposite of what she wanted.

“Perhaps we should return to the palace”, She blurted out before the princess could make a move, reaching out blindly and managing to wrap her hands around Joohyun’s elbow. “It’s getting late”

“Don’t be silly, Seungwan”, Joohyun replied easily, although she didn’t try to pull away. “We still have hours before the sun sets. I’d like to walk a little longer”, she said with a pleased smile, taking in the trees around them at a glance before returning her eyes to their original target. One of her hands rested over Seungwan’s and she stepped towards the flower, leaning down to study it closer.

She couldn’t win an argument with a princess. If Joohyun wanted that flower, there was nothing Seungwan could say to dissuade her. So how could she protect the princess from its evil effects? She took a deep breath, thinking quickly and coming up with possibly the worst idea she’d had so far.

“Would my princess like a flower?”, she asked in her cheesiest tones. Joohyun’s back straightened as she studied Seungwan with confusion, so she threw in a wink for good measure.

The princess groaned dramatically, making a show of pulling her arm away despite not actually letting her hand drop from Seungwan’s. “Your princess is perfectly capable of picking her own flowers”, she replied with poorly-concealed amusement, the coldness of before now only a playful imitation.

“But what would the people think if they knew that she’d done something herself when there was a perfectly good underling standing by to follow her every command?”, Seungwan insisted in her best attempt at a light tone. She felt a cold sweat begin to gather in the back of her neck, but she couldn’t back down now.

“You are right!”, Joohyun gasped out with dramatic intensity. “They would think their princess was most improper, and unfit to rule”

“Yes, from lack of practice!”, Seungwan joined in easily, concealing the sigh of relief that escaped her at her success.

“Very well, my underling, I command you to pick a flower for me”, the princess declared in her most regal voice. Seungwan giggled, pulled her out of the way and reached for the only flower in the clearing.

She froze, rooted to the spot, and could only watch as the world around her narrowed to a single point, then to nothing at all.

(…)

She awoke in a strange place. It was a circular room, every wall covered in shelves that were filled with all sorts of items. On some, there were books. On others, transparent containers of all shapes and sizes, containing diffuse objects that she couldn’t identify. The rest were filled with colourful rocks and gems, strangely shaped devices and a variety of items that she couldn’t begin to name.

She saw all this at a glance, before a face suddenly appeared over her field of vision. It was a young woman, around 16, wearing an oversized hat that kept falling over her eyes, so that one of her hands was always pushing it back. Any other observations were cut short as all of Seungwan’s attention was drawn to the fact that this woman’s hair was bright red, even her eyebrows sharing the same garish colour.

“Oh, you’re up”, the strange woman said without any surprise. Like it was everyday people awoke from their curses into her little circular room. Or maybe this was the curse and the woman was the devil or something. Waiting for Seungwan to arrive so she could torture her.

“Am I cursed?”, she blurted out, her tongue strangely unresponsive. She finally began to move, noticing that her entire body seemed stiff and sore, like she’d been exercising heavily for three days straight.

“That’s a strange way to phrase it”, the woman replied. She moved out of Seungwan’s field of vision, but she could still be heard shuffling some things around somewhere to Seungwan’s right. She slowly turned her neck to follow her movements and found her simply putting things away in even more shelves.

“You were under a curse. Now I have saved you from the curse. I wouldn’t say you are cursed, in the permanent sense. Why, do you feel particularly unlucky in your daily life? Persecuted by misfortune? I can run a few tests”, she informed Seungwan as she moved from shelf to shelf. After everything was put away, she returned to Seungwan’s side.

“Who are you?”, Seungwan decided to ask, curiosity winning over fear of the unknown.

“The king’s mage, obviously”, she scoffed indignantly. “Who else could have saved you in three days flat?”

“It’s been three days?”, Seungwan asked with horror. Joohyun must have been so worried for her. Joohyun… She’d managed to bring her back to the palace and saved her life in the process. What would have happened if the bandits had found her and brought her back to their leader? When he found out that she wasn’t the princess, she couldn’t imagine they’d be too bothered about sending her back home. She really should have thought of these issues before reaching for that flower like some dumb hero.

“Well, that’s ungrateful of you. You try breaking a soul-stealing curse, see how long it takes you”, the mage huffed under her breath. She took out a leather-bound book and began to scribble something on it. “Maybe I’ll leave your soul in the stupid flower next time, teach you to appreciate what you have”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that”, Seungwan quickly apologized, feeling only a little like an idiot for doing so. “I was just surprised to learn about this whole thing in the first place. I was picking a flower and suddenly everything went black and I was in a strange room”

“It’s not strange, it’s quirky. Shows individuality”, the mage stated defensively. “And how surprised could you be? The first thing you asked when you woke up was whether you were cursed”

She had a point there. “Well, you know, if you live in a world with magic, whenever anything weird happens you assume it’s magic. And when it’s a bad kind of weird, it must be a curse. Right?”

The woman shrugged, but didn’t bother responding. She was clearly invested in whatever she was scribbling. Seungwan rubbed her sore neck, suddenly intrigued by a new question. “Um, mage?”, she began hesitantly. The woman didn’t seem too pleased with the address, but she didn’t protest it. “Wasn’t I in any… pain? While you were treating me?”

“Well, yes, of course, your body suffered tremendously while I saved your life”, the mage said with an unbothered shrug. “But your soul was in the flower, so you didn’t feel anything. You must be sore, though”, she added thoughtfully. Seungwan let out a small sigh of relief at the information. So the princess hadn’t suffered under the curse. That was good. The book really should have made that more obvious, though. It would have made some things a lot simpler.

A door swung open, startling Seungwan and interrupting the conversation, and she carefully turned her neck the other way to face the intruder. It was Lady Kim, casually biting into an apple as she stepped into the cluttered room.

“Hey, Sooyoung, how’s the – “ She paused, stared right at Seungwan. Seungwan stared back, trying not to show fear. “She’s awake! How many times did I tell you to let me know right away when she wakes up? Her Highness has been asking me about her every five minutes!”

Seungwan’s heart swelled at the words, elated to hear about the princess’s concern. She really wasn’t mad at her, then. That was good. She didn’t know what she’d do if Joohyun were mad. Probably apologize, but she was sure that apologizing to a princess must have an entire ritual associated. She couldn’t just drop by and say sorry, surely.

“She literally just woke up, will you calm down?”, Sooyoung requested with impatience, returning Seungwan’s attention to the present and away from hypothetical worries. “I was writing you a note, see? Just like we agreed” She waved her little book around with raised eyebrows, but Lady Kim didn’t seem convinced at all.

“Please, you think I don’t recognize your chimera notebook?”, she said testily, stepping closer to the table where Seungwan lay and kicking an empty bottle in the process. “You were just writing down some weird new animal hybrid you came up with, weren’t you?”

Seungwan had already begun to tune out the strange conversation, her thoughts once more focused on Joohyun. She didn’t know how she ever could have been happy at Joohyun’s concern. If she really had been asking about her so often, then she must have been so worried and upset over her. She had to find her, as soon as possible, and show her that everything was fine.

“They’re not weird, they’re cute”, Sooyoung argued, clutching the notebook to her chest. “I want to mix a bunny with a piglet, but I need to figure out which parts to choose from which animal to maximize adorableness”, she elaborated, this time to Seungwan, who absolutely did not want to hear about any of this, not to mention how she wasn’t even sure what they were discussing.

“That is the most useless hobby and it never works anyway. Can’t you stick to making potions and casting protective spells?”, Lady Kim cut in with a bored huff, appearing to remember her apple as she reached for another bite. Could Seungwan leave in the middle of the conversation? Would that be rude?

“Can’t you stick to dressing the princess and brushing her hair?”, Sooyoung spat back. The younger girl poked out her tongue at her, which she quickly retributed. Right, this was going nowhere and she really did have to go now.

She carefully pushed herself upright, moving her arms from one side to the other to ease into her sore body. Then she swung her legs over the side of the table. This seemed to bring the others’ attention back to her when she already appeared to have been forgotten.

“Oh, are you going?”, Sooyoung asked disinterestedly. Lady Kim turned to face her, and Seungwan did not appreciate the attention. Couldn’t they go back to arguing over whatever it was? Chimeras, she thought she remembered hearing.

“Yes, I was going to go tell Her Highness I’m alright”, she said meekly. Both women looked at one another and shrugged.

“Great, save me a trip. Tell Her Highness I got held up and couldn’t accompany you back”, Lady Kim remarked casually, stepping around the table to settle on a nearby chair with a graceless flop. These two weren’t the most hospitable, were they?

“Anyway, your hobby is gross and doesn’t cast you in a very flattering light. You should try making friends instead of sitting alone in this tower and putting duckie feet on beavers or whatever your last project was”, Lady Kim carried on without pause, her attention already back to the mage, who didn’t even seem phased by the harsh words.

Seungwan quickly reached for the door before she could get trapped in another round of this. “Hey, do you even know where you’re going?”, Sooyoung called out, stopping Seungwan in her tracks. She sighed as Seungwan shook her head. “You’re at the top of the mage’s tower. You’ll have to go down a lot of stairs, then you’ll find an opening in the wall that leads you out of a painting in an abandoned corridor. It branches off of the main hall, so just go along it and if anyone sees you tell them you got lost”

“And don’t mind her, she’s been up here so long, she’s forgotten how to talk to people”, Lady Kim added jokingly, snorting as the mage reached out to smack the back of her head. At least she seemed a bit friendlier. The fact that Seungwan had risked her life for Joohyun seemed to have finally taken her out of the suspicious list, which was one less concern.

Seungwan travelled across the secret passages with a heart nearly as heavy as her tired limbs. She was safe and she was about to bring the good news to Joohyun, but she wasn’t sure how to get the story back on track. After two nearly successful attempts to steal away his daughter, the king would be wary or letting her out and eager to assign guards to her at all times, not to mention how the princess herself would be changed by the events.

Instead, nobody seemed very worried about the princess’s safety and Joohyun herself might be chastened by Seungwan’s experience but would still be far from the desperate princess she should be. Once the final kidnapping attempt took place, she should be surrounded with guards, to the point that she would risk her life in an attempt to run away from home and recover her freedom.

The way things were, there was a definite chance that the last attempt to take Joohyun wouldn’t lead to such drastic consequences. And then what would Seungwan do? Could she really convince the princess to run off into the unknown? She hadn’t even let her touch a measly little cursed flower, so how would she stand by while Joohyun got herself captured by bandits?

“Fudge”, she mumbled to herself, breathless from all the stairs. Something told her a lot more would go wrong before she finally managed to get the princess to her happily ever after.