Na Eun resisted these persuasions as well as she could, but they did not fail to have their effect on her mind, and when her sisters were gone, their words and her own curiosity were too strong for her to resist. Of course they could be wrong, but what if it could be a façade? It actually could be true. Her sisters were never wrong. They help her with everything, and she can’t betray that trust.
 So she prepared her lamp and a sharp knife, and hid them out of sight of her husband.

 After a while, around nine o’clock, he came to see her.
 That’s a change. He never came this early, only at ten, at the latest. Hopefully the reason is all but fatal.

 “How was it to have your sisters here?” he asked.

 “Fine. It was nice.” she said.

 “Nice? That was it? It wasn’t fun for you? You did once say that you and your sisters always had fun together.”
 Na Eun nodded. “Yes. But that was before they had matured and gotten married, and moved away. But you are right, they did have fun.” Na Eun turned to face him, and slowly lifted her hand to caress his face. “They enjoyed your servants. They were amazed by the art work. They just missed my husband.”
 Taemin held her hand away from his face and clasped it in his. “You know they can not see me.”

 Na Eun shrugged. “I know. I told them that.”
 Taemin shifted. “You told them you have not seen me?”
 Na Eun stayed silent. Had she given herself away already? Was he suddenly suspicious of her? He sounded shocked, as if she made a terrible mistake.
 “Well. . . I um. . . I didn’t say I didn’t see you yet. I told them they could not see you because you work during till the late hours of the day.”

 “Oh.” Taemin said. “Well, I didn’t want them to know about this because, they would have thought that was strange.”
 “Why so strange to you?” Na Eun asked.

 “I don’t know. I know that you already think it’s strange, and you and your sisters are probably one and the same. . .” he trailed off and Na Eun could see her head, basked in shadow, turn away slightly.
 “Oh no. Where all sisters and like to have fun, but we’re different not only in appearance but in attitude.”

 “How?” Taemin asked.

 She told him of her sisters personalities. Min Ah was tall, pretty, and full of life. She was always happy and bubbly and always had her sisters backs. She married when she nineteen and still is the old sisters Na Eun always know, she’s just a little older now, about twenty-two.
 Then she told of Se Kyung, how silly and childish she could always be. And even though she’s older, she still acts like the childish one, even though she’s only the second oldest.
 Then she told him of how different she was from her sisters. She wasn’t as out going as they were, she was actually almost quietly. The reason being, she was constantly in school. Her parents put her in classes for oboe, dance, singing; not to mention writing, geography, and science. Classes for a total of eleven years, and not a single friend she could make. Her friends were the servants, the cooks, her parents, and her sisters. She went outside so many times, and always beheld in being kissed at her feet by every single person. Not a single soul who was willing to know her to become a friend, or more.
 Taemin said he was glad nothing more of a friend was what she needed, for if she married someone else, he would become jealous.

 If this was not a monster lying with her in her bed, she wanted to tell him everything. But if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter because she would kill him. It. If it was.

 “Taemin.” Na Eun said.
 “Yes?”
 “Why did you marry me?”

 Taemin turned to face her. “Why do you wonder? Is it my concealemnt that deceives you?”

 “No. But, please tell me.”

 Taemin squeezed her hand. “I found out about you through everyone else, but wanted to get to know you through you.”

 Na Eun wouldn’t look at him. “But weren’t you chosen by the oracle to marry me. Like, an arranged marriage.”
 Taemin took her chin and turned her head toward him. He leaned closer to whisper, “It’s not arranged if the two are in love with each other.”

 Na Eun had to fight not to shed a tear. Oh, what do! He was so loving and acting so. . . human. Or something else. She couldn’t forget his wings. He gave her a long kiss and sounded like he was smiling when she heard him chuckle.
 After a session of passion and pleasure, the two fell asleep with their hands entwined together, but Na Eun wasn’t sleep all the way. She closed her eyes but was aware of what she was hearing.
 Taemin’s breathing had turned hallow and he was completely asleep.

 She silently and carefully rose, slowly and clasping her fingers from Taemin’s. But as she tried to let go, his fingers tightened and she gasped. She quickly covered as Taemin started to shift and he unclasped his fingers. Na Eun quickly shot her hand from his and stepped back to stop herself from making any other noise. Taemin still didn’t move an inch.

 Oh, so close, Na Eun thought.

 Na Eun took her silky white dress from atop their canopy bed and quickly wrapped her self in it. The dress was more or less a little big, showing the little bit of her (curtsey of Taemin who gave her the dress). She tiptoed to the small cabinet drawer and recovered her lamp and knife, stopping multiple times as the little door kept squeaking and she didn’t want to wake him now. Though, Taemin still did not move.

 She slowly set the lamp on the floor and gathered a small vase of oil. There was only little left in the lamp and she need to refill it. She turned the nozzle and light came aflame. It still wasn’t enough to light the room completely, so the bed was still plunged in darkness. Reluctantly, she slowly took the small dagger in her hand. It’s sliver blade glinted in the flames light spark. In all her days of living, she had only ever held a blade in her hand. The incident hade been catastrophic once it spread threw the kingdom. Wanting to do something and try to save a small boy from an attack from a rapid mountain lion, little Na Eun, only fifteen at the time, had stole a hunters large and heavy sword to fend off the thing. It did not go well as the sword was too heavy to lift and she had nearly cut herself into oblivion. Never again did her mother let her hold a sword. Fencing classes had been all for nothing. Luckily, this wasn’t a sword. It was more or less a small knife. It may be too small to kill the monster. Hopefully, there will be no need of a bigger knife.
 She slowly approached the bed, the room becoming more visible to her eyes. But then she stopped. She covered the flame as a breeze flew from her window, but that’s not all that happened. The moonlight moved across the room and it stopped right on to the bed. She saw pearly white skin, the bright white of wings, and the soft flutter of eyelids moving. But Taemin still did not wake. Na Eun gasped. That was strange. She almost saw him.

 She walked again, gaining confidence as she started to walk faster.
 She carefully climbed up on the bed and lifted the lamp to beheld not a hideous monster, but the most beautiful and charming of the gods, with his chestnut curls wandering ever so slightly over his snowy neck and crimson cheek, with two dewy wings on his shoulders, whiter than snow, and with shining feathers like the tender blossoms of spring, and even a marble like chest that could kill on the first sight.
 His beauty was so startling that she gasped and rushed herself out of the bed. But out of clumsiness, she tripped on something but held out her hands so she could fall without making a loud sound.
 She had to fight not to yelp as a burning pain seared inside her leg.

 She grabbed her sleeping gown to find a rip and lifted it to uncover a long red scar on her leg.

 She had wounded herself on one of the arrows in Cupid’s cast-aside quiver.
 Cupid! That is who is in her bed now.

 She picked up her lamp and carefully as she could climbed back into the bed. She could not believe it. Her husband was literally a god!

 Her husband -Cupid! Her husband! Of all people?!- soft eyes fluttered and his brows made a slight crease as if in struggle in his dreams. Na Eun had finally looked at him long enough to know that she really does love this creature. This god. And her adorness did not stop there, as you wouldn’t expect it to. Suddenly, a burning sensation was in her chest. It spread like a wild fire, spiraling down into her gut. Na Eun took an intake of breath. It hurt at first. And then, it calmed. A much more manageable emotion awakened. Love.
 She was already in love with him but being scratched by one of his arrows, it started to grow into something else. The pain twisted and turned. Something of a feverish passion.
 She moaned. “Oh. Oh my.”

 She started to get a headache, and her hands started to clam up and shake violently. Her eyes dilated and her skin flushed a light shade of pink. Taemin started to stir in his sleep. He could hear the faint sound of trembling in his sleep drunken state. Na Eun’s hands shook and shook. So much, hot oil from the lamp started to spill in large drips, and then fell upon Cupid’s shoulder, startling him awake. He gritted his teeth to hold in a gasp, and he yelled, and shot his hand up to the source of his burning pain.
 Na Eun screamed and dropped the lamp and the knife. She stumbled off of the bed and landed on her bottom with a loud thud. The lamp was still a lit, and shining on the whole room now. The hot oil was still dripping from the lamp, and was quickly starting to melt the hard wood.
 “What in the world. . .” Taemin, Cupid, started to yell, but then he met the eyes of Na Eun who was holding her injured leg and looking helplessly up at him. His eyes looked momentarily at the dagger, which was still held in her hand, and at the lamp that was spilling the last drips of the oil.

 She could see the emotions spilling from his eyes: shock, sadness, anger, betrayal.
 She had angered him alright. He would wake up in the middle of the night to find her asleep next to him. Not holding a dagger seemingly to prepare a pyre after cutting off his head. Na Eun dropped the knife, skirting it far away from them, and opened but no words came out and before she knew it, Cupid spread his white wings and flew out of the window. “No, wait!” Na Eun yelled.
 Na Eun, in vain endeavoring to follow him, rushed to the window, but because of her feverish passion in love for him, her body escaped her and she fell from the window and hit the hard ground down below. The headache she had pulsated and she felt her vain pop out of it’s place. Cupid, beholding her as she lay in the dust, stopped his flight for an instant and slowly flew back on the ground. He looked to Na Eun in contorted grief and anger. He realized, this may be the emotions his mother felt when she found out about Na Eun and him. But his reasons are on a totally different scale.
 Na Eun groaned and held her back as she tried to sit up.

 Cupid sighed. “Oh foolish Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After I disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and cut off my head?”
 Na Eun groaned again and sat up on all fours. She moaned, “Taemin. . . Cupid. . .”
 “But go.” Na Eun’s head shot up and this time she dared to release a single tear. “What?”

 “Go,” Taemin said. He crossed his arms and looked at her crossing. “return to your sisters, whose advice you seem to think preferable to mine. I inflict no other punishment on you than to leave you forever. Love cannot dwell with suspicion.” So saying, he fled away, leaving poor Na Eun prostrate on the ground, filling the place with mournful lamentations.

 She started to sob in her shaking hands and muttered over and over again, “I’m so sorry. . . I’m sorry. . .”
 What a fool she had been. Hearing those words from Cupid, her father’s voice started in her head. He was talking about him and his wife, and how love worked in many ways, starting with trust. “Where love is for the highest bidder, there can be no trust. Without trust, there is no love.”

 Suddenly she fainted and all the world went into darkness.

 When she awoke, she had recovered some degree of composure and she looked around her. But the palace and gardens had vanished, and she found herself in an open field. It was also day time now.
 Not only did he disappear from her life, but he took their place with him. Well, maybe it wasn’t their place anymore. He had left her. . . and without the knowledge of his baby inside of her.
 She suddenly felt sick all over again and vomited into the green grass of the field. All of that commotion must have made her and her baby sick. She needed something to eat, to calm it down.
 She heard trickling water from near by and quickly ran to the source.

 A running clear water creak were right behind the trees, running out of the earth’s large stone rocks and down into a small abyss.
 Na Eun desperately dived her head into the water and drank fast and thirstily.

 A movement appears in the trees, but she does not acknowledge it.

 Softly and slowly a man with short brown hair, and wearing a long loin cloth appeared. Na Eun stopped drinking from the water and looked at him. She widened her eyes. This was the wilderness god, Pan. He traveled the world by boat and lived in every different forest he can find.
 He looked at Na Eun and soon recognized her beauty; the wonderful Venus human from a near by kingdom. Her popularity didn’t go unnoticed once he heard of Venus being angry with her. Not only did he recognize the beauty, but he recognized the strong passions from within her; hard thirstiness, pink and puffy eyes, and shaking fists. Something happened to her, and must have been the cause of her husband, Cupid.
 “Milady, what has happened?” he softly asked.

 Na Eun sniffled and shook her head. “I. . . I have no where else to go.”
 She started to sob again and Pan grabbed her before she could fall into the moving creek. He carried her to the large stone rock and was startled when she didn’t let go of him and cried into his shoulder. “It was my fault. I was foolish to follow order, now he’s gone!”

 Pan softly rubbed her back in comfort. Cupid had left her, and grieving like this? His mother should have taught him better.

 “Milady, I sense. . . something moving inside of you.”

 Na Eun let go of him and wiped her tears, even though there was still some pouring out. “Yes. I am pregnant.”

 Pan took her shoulders. “Then you must find somewhere to rest. There is a small town near by. You can not miss it. Rest for a long time, it may take time to cure your condition.”

 “Condition? My condition for loving my husband? I do not want to be cured from it. I want to find him!” Na Eun gathered herself and took a breath. “You are a god. Where could he be?”

 “I do not know myself, princess. But still, go to the town and rest. Here,” Pan walked away for a second and appeared back with two large rolls of bread. Na Eun snatched them from him and hungrily ate them with gluttony.
 “Now go. I believe that is where your sisters reside.”

 Na Eun furrowed her brows. “How do you know?” she asked with a full mouth.

 “I heard of two princesses living with their husbands. I believe their names are Min Ah and Se Kyung. Ring any bells?”

 Na Eun nodded. “Yes. Oh thank you so much!” She jumped off the rock and eagerly hugged Pan. Pan chuckled and hugged her back.
  Pulling back, she ran from him and yelled, “Thank you!” before running off back into the fields.