Kyungsoo did not know that he was different until the day that he was taken away because of it. 

The winter that he was born had been a difficult one, the summer before wrought with drought so that the fall harvest was one of the worst the village had ever experienced. Do Semin, wife of Do Insung, had gotten weaker and weaker as her belly grew rounder and rounder, and the young husband was often followed by somber whispers and pitying glances when he went into the town to buy food or medicine for his wife. Insung’s elderly mother traveled up the mountain every day, even when the snow began to fall heavy and ice covered the path, to pray to lady Samsin* for the health of both mother and unborn child. 

The week that Kyungsoo was born, it had snowed so much that Old Lady Do had not been able to go up the mountain for the past four days. Families are locked inside their homes, fires constantly burning and huddling together for warmth. Those who do dare to or need to venture outside are met with cold white powder that rises past their knees. 

When Kyungsoo comes out, he does not scream and he does not move. His mother, tired, weak and sweating, cries and cries so that her wails can be heard over the howls of the wind and snow against thatch rooftops. 

“I want to hold him. Give him to me,” she demands with more strength than she has been able to muster in the last two months. Insung’s mother hands the small, still body over miserably, heart still crying to lady Samsin from the depths of her chest.

Semin takes the baby in her arms and holds him close against her bare chest, burning and covered with sweat from the exertion. She rubs his back, his arms, kisses his head.

“Kyungsoo,” she says, rubbing more vigorously. “Kyungsoo.”

The baby stirs in her arms then lets out a weak but beautiful cry. Semin closes her eyes and does not open them again. 

As Old Lady Do takes the softly crying child out of the room where her son is weeping over his wife, she thinks she should have kept going up the mountain. 

Kyungsoo is raised as a treasured child. His father and grandmother shower him with affection and celebrate abundantly every year that the frail child grows older. He is smaller than the other children his age, but is as rambunctious as any other and well liked by his peers. From the time that Kyungsoo can push himself to stand on wobbling legs, he is impossible to keep in doors. Rain or Shine, snow or gales, the child confounds his father and grandmother by wondering outside through any crack in the house. Old Lady Do takes to lovingly calling him her little mouse for the way he seems able to escape through even the smallest hole in the floorboards. 

They stop fighting it after Kyungsoo turns four and disappears for almost an entire day only to be found by a desperate Insung just before dusk, tending to a patch of vegetables on the very outskirts of the Do family fields. 

The father knows he should scold his son, show him some of the parental severity Kyungsoo has been sorely missing in his life, but cannot bring himself to do so when round eyes and puckered lips so like his wife’s glance up at him from under his own dark eyebrows. 

“They are sad,” Kyungsoo says simply. He’s the wilted leaves of a carrot as if it were a small animal in need of comfort. Sweating and panting from his frantic search across the village, Insung crouches with a sigh next to his son. The summer had been hot and the few and sparse rain storms had done little to help the crops. 

“You’re mother used to say things like that too. ‘The vegetables are happy today, they look sad now, they want to hear a story’. She used to talk to them, sing to them. Said it helps them grow.”

“What kind of songs do they like?” Asked the boy seriously. 

Insung blinked at his son and smiled slowly.

“I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to try different ones and see which work best.”

It was a few nights later that Insung sat at a long table with the other men of his village, somber faces avoiding each other and silence heavy in the air the way it is after a long and serious talk, when everyone is thinking about what’s just been said. For almost five years, the summers had been dry and the winters harsh to say the least. The onggi** were running low and even the food stored to preserve below the earth from the last good harvest more than six years ago was almost gone. Every spring there was less game to be found in the hills and forests surrounding the village, even the animals leaving in search of greener pastures. And then this morning, Old Man Suh had found three of his cows dead in the field, the others growing sick from eating too much spoiled feed. The village numbers had dwindled over the years, the previous winter alone taking with it more than fifty children and elders. Even with the reduced numbers, however, to migrate a village of more than 600 inhabitants was no small feat. 

But that was starting to seem like the only option. 

A soft knock at the door of the house is enough to startle the silent men at the table and they turn to see Old lady Do standing with a strange expression on her face and little Kyunsgoo clinging to her skirts. When the boy sees his father he perks up and runs to him unheeding the heavy atmosphere in the room. 

“Kyungsoo,” says the farmer disapprovingly even as he hoists his son into strong arms, “You should be asleep by now.”

“I found a song they like!” The little boys says happily, ignoring his father.

“What?” Insung bows his head apologetically at the others in the room and moves to hand his son back to his mother.

“I tried different songs for the vegetables. And I found one they like best! Actually, there are a few now. I think they really like singing,” The boy chitters happily. 

Insung feels confused and a little bit frustrated until he looks up into his mother’s serious face. 

“I think you should come with us,” she whispers. The farmer looks at her then glances back at the table gesturing with his head. Two other young farmers, Kim Soo Hyun and the village head Gong Ji Cheol, stand and follow him out leaving the rest to exchange curious glances around the table.

Grandmother Do leads them through the dark, her lantern held high and barely illuminating the path to the Do property. Ji Cheol follows up the rear of the group with another lantern. Even in late September and with the sun having set long ago, the night air is heavy and ripples with heat. Only little Kyunsgoo seems oblivious to it all, happily explaining how he’d been singing to the plants every day since his father’s suggestion, trying out different words and tunes to find what they might like best. Suddenly, the wavering firelight catches on something that is not dry, cracked earth. Instead, warm orange light reflects off the glossy broad leaves of a head of cabbage. Multiple heads. Insung feels his mouth drop open in shock as Ji Cheol raises his lantern higher and swings it around. Not only cabbages but carrots, celery, melons of all variety, extend around them and even far beyond the boundaries of where Insung knows his fields to end. 

“What… what is this?” Soo Hyun’s shocked voice finally breaks the silence. 

“Little mouse,” the old woman coos at her grandson, “why don’t you show your Appa how the plants like your singing.”

“Okay,” the child answered merrily. Insung put his son down and the boy inhaled a large mouthful of air, opened his mouth, and sang. 

Kyunsgoo’s village was a small and old one. It had been home to the same families for generations. In all of its history, only two other people had been born with Magic and that had already been many years before even Grandmother Do was born. When the news of the crimes and subsequent culling of Magic people spread to the town, it was met with little interest and quickly forgotten. 

The child whose voice brought life to the dying village was a gift and a miracle. For nine years, Kyungsoo was raised a treasured child, but not a spoiled one. Throughout the spring and the summer he sang to the fields, and every fall he joined the young men of the village in the harvest. In the winters, which continued to be cold and harsh despite now having plenty of food, he helped to repair roofs and till the frozen ground so that it would be ready for the spring. The village children loved him and the adults respected him, but no one treated him any differently than the other children his age. Perhaps their smiles were tinged with an extra fondness and appreciation, but his father would not let there be any more than that. 

Kyungsoo did not know that he is different, so he did nothing to hide his gift, never having a reason to.

It is the spring of his fourteenth year that he is out singing in the fields of Young Man Suh, son of the late Old Man Suh who had passed two winters before, and encouraging a mulberry bush to grow bushels of berries to replace the ones that the household’s young children were picking off and stuffing into blue tinged mouths. The children giggled delightedly, for every handful they tore from the branches another three handfuls would grow. 

“How are you doing that?” A voice demands suddenly. Kyungsoo turns and finds a young man of around sixteen, staring open mouthed from the foot path that runs just off to the side of the Suh property. He is dressed in brilliant colors and robes Kyunsgoo has never seen before and a wide-brimmed hat strung with beads that swing under his chin. The moment he stops singing, the berries cease their incredible growth. The surprised Suh children run shyly back towards the house, all except for the eldest daughter, a girl of six and with the bravery of a tigress. She stands before Kyunsgoo and eyes the stranger suspiciously. The unknown boy glances from the bush and back to Kyungsoo, ignoring the child completely. 

“How did you do that?” He repeats. 

“Who are you?” Kyungsoo answers the boy’s question with his own. “We don’t get strangers in this village.”

The young man turns up his nose arrogantly. 

“I am Byun Baek-Ho, a page to his Majesty Kim Min Jung. I am collecting taxes from the surrounding villages. Now answer me or I will include in this village's taxes a fine for insubordination. How were you doing that? Are you a Magic user?”

“Our village has delivered taxes to the chancellor at the greater town over the mountain by way of messenger for hundreds of years. Our taxes for this year have already been delivered; you have no business here,” says a deep adult voice.

A heavy hand lands on Kyungsoo’s shoulder from behind as Farmer Suh pulls the boy gently towards him. His wife and the young children watch concernedly from the porch of the house. Byun Baek-Ho only narrows his eyes, not budging. 

“Is he your son? It is against the law to house a Magic user.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Farmer Suh nudges Kyungsoo and his daughter towards the house, refusing to answer Baek-Ho’s questions. “We’ve paid our taxes. If you have complaints I can take you to the village leader. I don’t have any more answers for you.”

The young man’s sharp and sinister eyes slide from Farmer Suh to Kyungsoo’s retreating back and rest finally on the still mulberry bush, branches hanging almost to the ground heavy with fruit. Without another word, he turns and leaves. 

Ji Cheol, Soo Hyun and Farmer Suh gather in the main room of Insung’s house that night. Kyungsoo wants to join them, saying he is old enough now to be included in the affairs of men, but his old grandmother begs him for his company. She has grown frail over the years and her old legs can barely carry her anymore, so Kyunsgoo obliges her. He hears the men’s voices drifting faintly through the thick wood of the door in urgent whispers and the occasional raised yell of his father. He has never heard Insung sound afraid before. Grandmother Do’s hand grows slack in her grandson’s hold and he turns to find the old lady asleep. Slowly, silently, he creeps up to the doorway of the main room where the men are speaking.  

“He must leave. It will more than fifteen days for a party to travel down from the imperial city, he can be long gone by then,” Ji Cheol’s voice says. 

“They’ll kill us when they find him gone. It’ll be like an admission of guilt,” Soo Hyun sounds frustrated.

“What can they prove? It’s the word of one page against that of an entire village. We say the boy must have been fatigued from walking in the sun and imagined things. They won’t be able to prove the existence of someone who isn’t here,” says Insung’s voice, tinged with desperation.

“And the green fields? The onggis full to the point of bursting? How will we explain all of that after another summer of barely any rain?”

“What are you suggesting we do, then, Soo Hyun? You want to give Kyungsoo up? You know what they’ll do to him! If he’s lucky, he’ll be sold off to a rich man to be locked in a cage and treated like an exotic animal for the rest of his life! You’ve heard the same stories,” Farmer Suh forgets to keep his voice quiet in his frustration. Kyungsoo gasps at the mention of his name but is drowned out by Soo Hyun’s raised reply.

“Of course I want to protect him too, we all care about Kyungsoo! But we need to care about the rest of the village too.”

The outbursts are followed by silence and Kyungsoo hears a quiet sobbing. He feels sick at recognizing it as his father’s. 

“Enough,” says Ji Cheol’s strong voice decisively. “I will not be a man who sacrifices any one of my people even at the sake of the others. It is not what the village would want either. If the boy sent word to the palace today, we will have time to think of what to do before they arrive. Kyunsgoo leaves tomorrow and we will figure out the rest.”

As it turns out, Byun Baek-Ho did send word to the palace. But he was also not one to waste time, an intelligent if corrupt young man who’d risen from a poor family through his own ambition to win a place in the palace. After sending a hawk to the imperial city, he’d gone back to the large town over the mountain where the chancellor was a greedy and faithful servant of the King, always ready to garner favor. 

Before the sun broke the surface of the earth the next day, Baek-Ho was leading a group of the chancellor’s men down the foot path and towards the village.

The last Kyunsgoo saw of his father was a broken man restrained by Soo Hyun and Ji Cheol as men in beautiful blue, red, and yellow hanboks lead him away from the village he had always called home. 

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* Lady Samsin is the Korean diety related to pregnant women and childbirth. learned this from the manwha The Art of Taming a Tiger (obssessedddd)

** An onggi is an earthenware pot where food is traditionallay stored and fermented