“Seulgi, By the Gods, you’re alive!”

“That I am.” Seulgi dismounts her warhorse and sighs. Blood paints her armor like a horrid love letter for death. The scouting mission had turned sour once the enemy camp defied the ‘no weapons’ agreement. They had lost limbs but no lives. Soldiers were immediately escorted to the infirmary.

“Are you hurt? What happened? Is the blood yours? I thought you were-”

“Lady Irene, I am alright.”

Her replies were curt as always. Her face was inscrutable. Irene was unsure whether this was a good or bad thing. She was always hard to read, facade intertwined with the sudden bursts of emotion that went as quickly as they came.

“Pardon me, but I must make haste with my duties.” Seulgi strides off to her office, her steps heavy.

Normally, Irene would not step foot into Seulgi's personal space. She was a woman who respected privacy and was bound to her duties. She was a docile and submissive doll, a perfect wife. She would wait for Seulgi to come out of her office late in the evening when the sun had long set and the sky turns as dark as the glare she wears in battle, the one that she brandishes as fiercely as she wields her sword. Tiredness never seeping into her form, not even her eyes.

But Irene knew. She knew in her soft movements and the way she held onto the stairs’ railing as gentle as she held children’s wrists. She knew in the way her voice would lose its usual bite, clipped sentences now ending in warm whispers. She knew in the way her ears would quirk down as she stepped out of her office, like the taut strings of responsibility for the day had been cut loose.

And no matter how hard Irene tried to reassure the aloof general to be vulnerable with her, the woman is adamant in keeping up her guard. It’s frustrating, and one of the things Irene resents. But she could never hate Seulgi. How could she when Seulgi, though kept her heart to herself, gave her whole being to Irene? Her heart was never on her sleeve, yet in the quiet of the night, when the breeze on the beach halts for a few seconds, Seulgi had given her soul.

So normal. She was in love with the person she swore to hate and run away from. She fell in love with an arranged suitor when she used to pray to the Gods for her freedom. She felt free in the arms of her avowed duty as a disgraced princess. Irene barges into her office with determination set in her gaze.

Seulgi spins on her heel to let her back face the intruder while pulling down her cotton shirt drenched in blood. Her armor was scattered across the floor in pieces. Drops of red stain the wooden floors near her feet; a roll of gauze falling off the table she bumped into in her hurry to hide away from the princess at her door.

“You’re hurt.”

“Is it our wound, my lady?” she tries to jest, the strained smirk on her face audible. “Please stay out of it and exit my quarters.”

“Seulgi!”

Irene picks up the gauze on the floor and marches over to the stubborn girl still turned around. She holds the general by her broad shoulders and turns her around with all her might. She sees the gash still trickling blood. A fit of silent anger swells up in her. Worry and care disguised with emotions made of thorns. Seulgi, ever so stubborn, would be tamed by the mere shift in her usually bright expression. She dresses her wound without saying a word.

She sets down the medical equipment and wordlessly commands Seulgi to stay sitting. Walking over to the wide windows and looking as the sun sinks into the horizon, the minutes passed like time was moving backward. The hands of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room seemingly held still after what felt like an hour.

“Does your distrust for me surpass your duties? That you can’t even bear to tell me you’re unwell?”

“Lady Irene, I trust you. I trust you more than my brothers in arms. I am more devoted to you than my duties, and that’s precisely why…” Seulgi stills, her eyes shaking and guilt-ridden. “Forgive me for my incompetence.”

Irene bristles. She squares her shoulders and steps towards Seulgi, fingers splaying and closing trying to feel the nearly invisible weight of the wedding ring on her finger.“Am I not deserving of your tears? Of your pain? I see you fume and cry with your brothers and I don’t get a semblance of emotion. You are my wife are you not?”

“My dearest, Irene,” she stood up slowly, “you deserve so much more--so much more than what I can give you. You… my tears will stain you. The flames of hell at my ankles my every waking moment for the atrocities I’ve done. I cannot and will not subject you to my burdens. What kind of wife am I if I gave out my smiles to strangers and gave you my pain in private? What kind of love do I devote to you if blank faces get the best of me, while you receive the parts of me that are damaged and scarred?” She spoke with conviction, her eyes glossed over with shame but her voice never shook. She never raised her voice at her beloved, always soft-spoken but b with certainty and confidence. “I swore to give you my best, everlasting and ever loyal,” I swore to you my love.

“Oh for ’s sake Seulgi! I am not the perfect being you place on a pedestal, and I am not a frail little girl whom you have to protect and walk eggshells around! I am not like one of your sketches that you shield from the rain. I hoped you had seen me as an equal in the way you knew not to swaddle me when it came to ruling the kingdom and living as my own person, but God, I guess I was mistaken. You swore to be the best, yet you do the same as the others. I am a princess only in title. I thought you’d seen past that.”

“I do!” A crack. For the first time since they’ve met, Seulgi is visibly shaken.

“I’m sorry for casting you aside. I’m sorry for foregoing your thoughts. I’m sorry for being so hesitant to reach out when you’ve stayed with arms wide open by my side despite me trying to keep you out.” More fissures. She keeps her eyes on Irene’s own. Not once does she look away. Steady and true, mirroring her sincerity.

“I just--I don’t know! I don’t know, and I’m afraid.” Her walls crumble. She pushes past the urge to look down in dishonor. She plows through the impulse to get on her knees and beg for a break--for a way out.

“Uncertainty leads to certain failure. I always have to be in control. I always have to know. And for once I’m clueless and I’m terrified.” Slowly, and not all at once. “I can’t. I can’t…”

“You idiot.”

Irene closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, then tenderly smiles and pulls her into a tight hug, silent permission. You can. Seulgi's walls collapse and she crumbles. She cries like a child, unrestrained and stricken with agony, clawing at the back of Irene’s shirt like she’ll slip away if she loosens her grip. The princess doesn’t hush her cries. She takes it all in. “I’m here. I’ll be here as long as you want me to.”

Irene pushes her by the shoulders just enough to cup her face and look into her eyes. “I know you trust me. I was foolish to let my words slip through my irritation. Seulgi, my star, you have to trust yourself. You swear to never hurt me, but don’t give yourself the room to trust in your words.” She brushes away the strands of hair sticking to the sweat on her face. “ Let love in your heart, my dearest warrior.”

Irene holds her impossibly closer. She’s so in love. Her pride and values won't allow her to kiss her wife whilst vulnerable--their first kiss. So she settles for her heart to talk in her stead. Each beat against Seulgi's chest, all the kisses she wishes to give, all the ‘I love yous” unspoken.