A/N: This a sequel to I See Fire, so if you come here without reading it, it may be a little confusing??  For those of you who are continuing on from ISF who want some additional context, D.O. is supposed to be the brother-in-law of the masked commander (god that sounds super silly just writing it out like that).  He and his sister are Palisean by birth, though.

-

In a thousand years, what would remain of his legacy?

Just a box full of rust and lonely memories.

The crank he wound pulled the coil ever tighter.  Every tick of the gears shifting against the grain sent faint tremors vibrating through his fingertips.

He set it down in his lap.

The little monkey chirped as it was brought back to life, tilting its head, calculated and slow, staring through him with those soulless eyes.

Between the metallic chimes, the carriage beneath him groaned and shifted.  Wheels caught on stray pebbles, shaking the passenger cabin and sending a breeze of wind trickling in through the window.  It caught a tendril of Kyungsoo’s hair left exposed from beneath his hood, tugging it playfully loose.

He glanced up from his lap, staring out through the window and straining his eyes against the glare of the sunlight through the gauzy red curtains.

Dewy green.  A strange and wondrous landscape of rolling hills and drifting white clouds.

Even the air felt different here - in this strange land of light, drizzling rain.

“...look.”  Someone muttered as the gates loomed ahead, a sprawling map of twisted iron ivy that reminded him faintly of home.

“We’re nearing the city.”

-

Beyond the gates lay the sprawling sounds excited chatter and booming laughter.

The wonderful smell of freshly baking bread, the sight of colorful banners streaming from each building, flowers on every windowsill.

Children were running barefooted through the streets.  Women gossiping in groups, hoisting fresh baskets of laundry onto their hips.  Men with bushy beards and blazing pipes stuffed in their mouths stopped in friendly conversation.

Kyungsoo had never seen sights such as these - such enthusiasm was not a trait that was inherent to either the stout and serious Tidreann people, of whom his family had married into, nor of the quiet Paliseans of whom his ancestors belonged.

“Look there, Virgil.”  He could hear his sister speak to her servant, directing his gaze out onto the streets.  “See for yourself how years of peace and indolence have softened the minds of these uncultured brutes.”

Kyungsoo did not find them to be as uncultured nor indolent as his sister implied.  If anything, there was certainly something exciting to be found in the animated way these strange people lived their lives.

So different from his own, Kyungsoo thought, risking a subtle lift of his hand when a tan-skinned child, barely a toddler it seemed, began to follow alongside the carriage, eyes bright and hand waving furiously up toward him.  But not in a way that was at all displeasing.

As quickly as he had come, so did the young boy disappear, bare feet pounding on the cobbled stone streets.  Kyungsoo stuck his head out a little further, blinking slowly in surprise when up ahead out of the alleyway moments later, the same boy appeared, smiling as wide and waving as frantically as ever.

Kyungsoo felt a smile creep unbidden unto his face.

It became a secret game of sorts to pass the time - how fast Kyungsoo could spot the young boy through the crowd before he darted away again, each time appearing just ahead of their carriage wearing that same silly expression.

There he was, that little sneak, hiding behind the farmer’s wheel wagon!

And there he was again, peering down at him miraculously from the balcony of a bridge, perched there like a bird upon a branch before hopping away and taking off down into the many streets that were his home.

Kyungsoo was already anticipating the boy’s next appearance, his finger lifted partially, ready to point out the boy with a wry grin.  However, this time, he was greeted with the sight of the boy’s parents instead, forcing their struggling child sternly behind them as they locked their eyes on his, gazes hard and piercing.

With a hushed gasp, Kyungsoo immediately receded back into the carriage, pulling the cloth of his hood tighter across his face.

Of course, his sister was disdainful as always, peering down at him over her nose.

“Do not go sticking your head outside of the carriage like a commoner, dear brother.  Do not forget what we are here for.”

Kyungsoo felt the buzzing in his head start up again as he shifted obediently back against his seat.  Still, he could not help but to shift his eyes back toward the curtain, where the breeze and the sunlight were still trickling in.

Whether or not she noticed his attention wandering, his sister seemed appeased enough for the moment, gesturing over at her servant until he had placed a thick white napkin in her lap.  She unfolded a cake from within delicately, careful not to spill a single crumb onto her solemn black dress as she broke off a piece, handing it toward him in a way that seemed more a demand than a request.

“Here.  You must be hungry.”

He was not, but Kyungsoo knew better than to open his mouth in protest.  Instead, he chose to do so only to allow her to place the morsel into his mouth herself, saying nothing when she haughtily tapped two fingers under his chin, wordlessly commanding him to close his mouth and chew.

Kyungsoo ate without question, although he was sullen and quiet for the rest of the journey toward the castle, staring at the side of her turned head.

And if it is I who shall turn to rust, dear sister, he thought to himself, with more bitterness than anger, then it is you who will wither away into dust.

-

Despite it all, there was something to be pitied about his sister.

For as cold and as cruel as she could sometime be, she had always been both beautiful and regal.

Once, when it was their mother that they had both feared, his sister had been kind to him.  Laid next to him in his bed as he shivered in his night terrors, whispered sweet things into his ears and his hair until the voices in his head had stopped and he could finally sleep.

When their mother had died though, succumbing to her madness, his sister had been dressed in white the very next day, married off to a man two decades her senior that she barely knew.  She had still had maiden braids tied in her hair.

Years later, when his caretaker had died and he was sent off to live with her, she was a changed woman.

She no longer spoke of her dreams and wishes, but instead of the terrible machines of war.

For she was now the Queen of both her king’s land and of her very own, the wife to the very man whose fearsome feats in battle had earned him the title of the beast with the iron mask.

The very same man who, just months ago, had somehow been bested in battle by a mere child King and his savage little upstart of a husband.

And now, on a day of celebration where an entire city was rejoicing, she chose to wore a dress of all black, a bold reminder to all those who crossed her path of just what it was she had lost.

-

Though the city was in shambles, stone columns in pieces and walls crumbling all around, the people were hearty and optimistic.

They prepared tirelessly, food bundled in on horse-drawn carriages stacked high, men and women streaming in with bright smiles.

For today was a celebration - a proper (though symbolic) coronation of a king who had been previously crowned through the tragic fires of war.  This would be the day that would celebrate the victory of their people in the Battle for the Northern Moors.

It was a bittersweet moment for Kyungsoo and the others, arriving on the tail end of a festival commemorating the defeat of their own peoples.

Within their company were Trivanese princes and princesses, dark-skinned and fine-featured, and also members of their own courts, both Palisean and Tidreann, faces and hands wrapped tightly in their own traditional garbs.  The only ones who had not made their journey to the new capital were the giants of the Crimson Valley, for their entire kind had been wiped out both through years of constant war and the final battle which had took down their last struggling survivors.

They, for better or for worse, had all communed here today, not as spectators - but as prisoners of war, dozens of refugees shuffling forward with their hands raised, reluctantly resigned to begging scraps from their new lords and masters.

As they drew closer to the castle, the fanfares of pipe organs and drums growing ever louder, so too grew the loud pounding of their hearts within their chests.

The wheels of their carriages spun to a stop in the inner courtyard, tarried by the passing parade of men and women colorfully dressed, some riding by on prancing horses, others proudly marching by holding their birds of war aloft.

While they drew by, he heard a Trivanese princess in a nearby carriage shushing her pack dog, a vicious thing that could barely contain its snarls at the sight of beautiful tawny feathers and soft wings beating with blood and cartilage and bone.

“Hush, Lady.  Nothing but a distraction.”

His sister, on the other hand, was much harder to appease.  Irritated by their sudden lack of progress, she stood, drawing up her petticoats up and leaning outside of the window to offer the carriage driver a few choicy words.

“Why have we stopped?  What exactly is going on?”

“Ah, milady.  I’m afraid we cannot risk traveling through a crowd this size.”

“And why not?”

“Well!  Milady - surely we must take care, lest some poor child be crushed beneath the wheels!”

“I will have you know that we are not here to partake in the festivities.  I highly detest being forced to wait here and be humiliated in such a way -!”

He was so caught by his sister’s loud conversation that he nearly jumped out of his own skin when a soft knock resounded from the door on his side.

Mindful of Virgil’s attentive gaze suddenly focused on him, Kyungsoo swallowed thickly, slowly leaning over to peer out the window.

Another small child - just a beggar, given her wild dress and her dirtied skin.  She was blinking her large, doe eyes up at him - green speckled with beautiful blotches of grey.

He grunted toward her questioningly.

She held out a tiny hand, palm lifted up toward him in silent want.

Kyungsoo looked down toward it.  Counted each speck of dirt.  Traced the barely formed lines in the child’s palm with his eyes.

He was unsure, for a moment, what it was she wanted from him.  Clearly, she was asking for something - money, perhaps, of which his own homeland’s silver coins would be worthless.  Food, maybe, but all the reserves that they had packed away for the journey were firmly placed on his sister’s side of the carriage, looked over by the ever watchful Virgil.

Glancing back over his shoulder and making a quick decision within his own mind, he nervously tugged just once at his hood, before turning back toward the girl.

Quietly winding his toy monkey back up within his hands, he lifted it through the veil, placing it in her palms.  When she looked up at him curiously, Kyungsoo leaned over, placing a secretive finger on his lips.  “...shhhh.”

The look on her face was one of curious wonder, a dazzling smile and a silent laugh his only reward as the monkey woke up in her hands, scratching its tiny metal head with a faint chirrup.

A flash of warmth which he did not anticipate bloomed within his chest, and he leaned forward further, this time perhaps to whisper secrets into her ear - but the sharp whinny of a horse broke his concentration, jerking his attention upward.

At the exact moment the wind caught his hood, forcing it off his head and leaving the thick and dark strands of his hair left to shift in the breeze, his eyes locked with that of a man several paces away, mounted on a great, beautiful beast of a horse.

Chest muscular, bare, and tan.  Marked with the signs of red and black tattoos burnt into his skin like fire and ash.  Short auburn hair tossed in a wildly beautiful mess of feathers and beads tied colorfully into his hair.  And the man - the man looked straight at him, meeting his gaze head on with an intensity that sent chills up his spine.

For a moment, Kyungsoo felt as if all noise fell silent.  The tiny chirp of the mechanical toy in the child’s hands.  The piercing voice of his sister, arguing with the carriage driver.  The raucous laughter of the men and women tramping by with their drums and flutes and pipes.  And the ringing in his head - finally - finally gone.  Just blissful, wonderful silence.

The strange man, finally breaking the intensity of his gaze with a slow - solid - blink - offered him nothing but the slight quirk of his lips upward.  A shy smile - perhaps a gesture of hello.

He’d never know - for at the moment, the carriage lurched forward, the driver finally finding a break within the parade to skirt forward.  With a quiet gasp, he shrunk quickly back into the darkness of the carriage, drawing his hood tightly back over his head and face.

He could barely meet Virgil’s questioning gaze, burning a hole into the back of his head as he sunk down into his seat, trying desperately to hide the growing flush on his cheeks.

-

“Kai!”

The distant sound of his brother’s voice had him briefly distracted, and he turned from that vision of beauty for just a second.

By the time he looked back, the stranger was gone.

Although he strained his eyes, desperately trying to pick out where the other - dark and splendid, eyes that were begging him for something - had disappeared to, but the curtains to each cabin were now drawn tightly shut, the carriages rumbling past them like a somber funeral procession.

His brother arrived soon after in a storm of noise, leaping over a nearby fence and dashing through a cluster of handmaidens, shooting them dashing grins as they scattered with high-pitched shrieks and clucking irritation.

“Oh?  What’s this?”

Drawing up behind him, Sehun sounded breathless, leading his horse in a tight, idling circle across the dirt.

“Looks like the devils have arrived from all corners of the earth.”  Said Sehun scornfully, tossing his head at the sight of the rumbling grey carriages.  “Finally here, are they?  To the bottoms of our boots.”

Although usually a blind supporter of Sehun’s shrewd observations, this time, Kai paid his brother no mind, eyes still following the fluttering curtain of that carriage, quickly fading now from sight.

“I wonder how long they will be staying.”  Sehun’s voice sounded faint.  “Or how long elder brother will let them.”

As it rounded the castle walls, disappearing completely out of sight, Kai let it go, turning back with a toss of his head.  Dismissing any lingering thoughts with a smile, he dug his heels into the side of his horse, urging it forward into a trot and ignoring the indignant cry of his brother struggling to catch up.

-

It was not until they had reached the castle steps that Kyungsoo was finally able to shake the mysterious stranger’s presence from his mind.

Left to his own devices, he certainly could have spent hours agonizing over the detail of the other’s masculine features, so strangely wild and captivating.

However, the castle, as they drew near, was one that immediately drew all of his attention, forcing him to lift his head to witness its glory.

Though tattered and broken, the castle of the Northern Moors was gorgeous.  It was nothing like Kyungsoo’s childhood home, nor anything like Castle Kazimzad, where he had resided in the latter years of his life.

No, these walls were alive, full of natural light and creeping with beautiful ivy.  Aching with centuries of wisdom, a well-kept wealth of history in every stone.

He traced the cracks, delighting in the warmth it leant to his cold, cadaver-like fingers.

“Milords.  Miladies.  I am terribly sorry - I am afraid the King and his consort are occupied with the festivities at the moment.  Perhaps you might have caught a glimpse of their celebratory procession through the village?”

Despite the deference in his words, even Kyungsoo could pick out the ill-disguised resentment in the steward’s voice.

Who was it then that you’ve lost?  He thought to himself, eyes lazily tracing the path of a single strand of ivy creeping upward.  A friend or a lover?  Perhaps even a child?

Beside him, the others were in a titter.  Confronted with such appallingly disrespectful behavior from a servant, yet in no position themselves to correct him, he could feel them draw closer to each other, defensively closing their ranks as they whispered their disgust under their breaths in their native tongues.

Only a single Trivanese woman stood as silent and still as he did, choosing instead to look solemnly down toward her feet near where her dog lay in wait.

“We were invited here by your King.”  His sister spoke up, walking purposefully slow so that the steward could fully witness the swaying of her long, black skirt, allowing him no guesses as to who she was.   She stopped only when the bottom of her dress nearly touched his boots.  “As is the case, steward, I would imagine that your King would expect us to be treated just as well as any other guest of his.  Is this not so?”

His sister had a habit of ending her conversations like that.  Asking for an affirmation of her superior intellect and power.  He glanced over with great curiosity, watching as the steward’s expression eventually folded into one of great reluctance.

“Yes, milady.  Of course it is.  Allow me to... show you to your rooms as you wait.”

The following bow seemed forcefully drawn from him as he swiveled around, springing forward with a cold step.  His sister tossed back her hair with a smile, knowing she had won.

With no desire to stay close, Kyungsoo instead at the back of the crowd, following after the backs of the others as they made their way forth out a grandly decorated door and through a beautiful open courtyard.  One of many, it seemed.  The Moors seemed to like their sunlight and fresh air, when they could get it.

The fresh scent of dew still clinging to grass hit him as soon as he stepped into it, filling his lungs with the scent of something beautifully unfamiliar.  He closed his eyes, steps slowing as he tried to savor the moment.

If this truly was to be a prison, Kyungsoo thought to himself, he could see himself a happy prisoner, fortunate enough to   -  DONG   … DONG   … DONG  ! ! !

Heart immediately shooting up into his throat, Kyungsoo found himself so paralyzed with sudden fear that he could not even think to draw in a breath.  The only thoughts in his mind - where where where where where is that coming from - taking precedence over the need for oxygen.

Nervously clutching at his own arms, he spun in place, trying to catch the faces of the others (do they hear it do they feel it), only to see that their backs were still turned.

Vision swimming and frightfully blurry, he finally caught sight of the swinging church bell, ringing to mark the hours.

...a church bell.  Just a church bell.  Perfectly normal, just like everything else.

“Kyungsoo!”  His sister called out from not much further ahead.  “Come along!”

Nothing to be frightened of.  He thought to himself, forcing himself to swallow his own spit.

With one last weary glance at the golden, glimmering bell, he stumbled away through the grass, shuttered in his own mind with thoughts of despair.

No need to be afraid.

-

“Somehow, we must win the favor of the King.  Victory only lies in the hands of those who are clever, Kyungsoo.”

He only came out of his paranoia-induced daze in the relative safety of the room he was to share with his sister.  Decorated in a style that was as distinctly northern as it was extravagantly opulent, he the gold seams of his blanket, focusing obsessively on each crossed stitch.

“The future of our people lay in our hands, brother.  We cannot allow this new king to punish an entire people for the crimes of a solitary few.”

Unlike his sister who had Virgil to do her work for her, Kyungsoo had no servant to help.

After taking a few deep breaths, he began to unpack mechanically, laying out his clothes atop his bed with fingers that still shook.  Black, grey, black, grey, black.  The colors looked faded atop the bedding of rich gold and fiery red.

“Of course, the king would be a fool not to listen to us.  Though our nations may have once been at war, there would be no better opportunity to secure support in such a turbulent time of recovery.”

He only half-listened, tearing from his pack an old box of mahogany, unsteadily setting it down upon his wardrobe.  Undoing the clasp that held it closed, he cracked it open, hearing the wood give way with a creaking groan.  Inside it lay gears of all shapes and sizes - spare brass parts and unused cranks - little tools and tiny clamps.

He reached in, resorting them with his fingers and neurotically reciting each shape in his mind over and over as he attempted to calm his still stuttering heartbeat.

Helical gear.  Rack and pinion.  Rack and pinion.  Worm gear.  Helical gear.  Straight bevel.  Spiral bevel.  Straight bevel.  Spiral bevel.

Upon a razor sharp edge, a piece of bronzed metal that was ragged and worn, his finger was caught, peeling the skin away.

With a hissing wince, he jerked his finger away, holding it up to the light and watching as a single bead of blood welled up along the cut, trailing down his finger.

“Kyungsoo!”  His sister called to him, voice cutting.  “Are you listening to me?”

“...yes.”  He spoke quietly for the very first time that day, glad that he trained his voice over the years to sound steady and clear.  “Always.”

Deep and dreadfully melancholy, his childhood tutor had once told him of the quality of his voice.

Eyes glazing over in distress, Kyungsoo stuck his finger into his mouth and .

-

It wasn’t until night had nearly fallen that word finally reached the castle.

The king and consort had arrived.  Before supper was to be taken, it was determined that the king would see to their requests, inviting them all to greet him at the throne.

For his sister, it was as if a signal to prepare for war.

Virgil strained, grunting quietly as he struggled to lace up the back of his lady’s dress.

Dressing for court provided a moment of fantastical distraction for Kyungsoo’s sister - the rare opportunity to dress her best when she had not been able to for months.

As his bare fingertips were already dyed and painted in the traditional black patterns, for Kyungsoo himself, it was just a matter of choosing a slightly fancier wrap for his neck and face.  An extra bangle too, as his sister would not stop looking until he had finally pulled it on.

He sat there, watching as Virgil slid bangle upon bangle onto his sister’s own slim wrists, tying her waist with a beautiful girdle of bright white animal bone.

Truthfully, he did not want to go.  As his sister was prone to reminding him, he was not nearly as well spoken as she was.  Whereas she always had a natural talent for it, Kyungsoo himself had always been weak of mind and weak of tongue.  The two of them could really have not been any more different.

Still, there was no choice to be made here.  He would go - he must.  As the sole surviving male member of their royal house, he was obligated to his sister to court now that her husband had passed.  Unfit though he was for his title, there was no escaping familial duty, and the least he could do was to offer his unconditional support for a grieving widow, quiet though his support may have been.

His sister would find a way as she always would.  All he would need to do, as always, would be to stand and watch.