A/N: This chapter was betaed by armani-anagrammed.  Thank you so much!

A drop of water splashed onto his forehead.

It was like someone’s finger, poking and prodding him insistently until Kyungsoo, with deeply furrowed eyebrows, finally opened his eyes.

His vision needed a moment to adjust to the dark surroundings, but when it finally did, he found that he was staring up at the ceiling of a cave. The air was wet and cold.

Although confused, Kyungsoo wasn’t frightened. Under times of great stress, such things could be considered common occurrences.

He wriggled his toes idly, a habit he’d picked up when he was younger - something to distract him while he struggled to work through the fog clouding his mind, his limbs gradually waking back up from the tingling pins and needles. He grimaced when he felt his toes sticking to the damp soles of his boots, hearing the leather creak.

Kyungsoo always tried to recover the last memories of what he’d said and done first - remembering it usually in flashes of violent colors and loud sounds. Recalling the grotesque image of his mother’s corpse pointing at him, hearing his sister’s voice screaming in his ear as if she were still there now, he flinched away when another droplet of water fell onto his cheek.

The hallucinations were becoming stronger in his adulthood, now so vivid and clear that occasionally he would be convinced that they were real.

Come now, love. Now’s not the time to daydream.

From somewhere just outside of his field of vision, something scraped against the ground, a long and grating sound that raised goosebumps on his arm. Kyungsoo’s shoulders drew slowly together before he froze altogether, holding his breath as he waited cautiously for the sound to recur. Could it be real?

There it was again, and now he was able to tell that it was something dragging across the floor - something quite large, judging by the way the ground shook slightly, dislodging tiny pieces of rock from the ceiling and sending them falling to the ground.

You may want to take more care in your travels. A flicker of memory that suddenly came to mind. There’s been rumors lately of a frightening creature lurking the fen. That wouldn’t happen to be you, would it?

No, Kyungsoo thought, alarmed when the sound came closer toward him, this time accompanied by what seemed to be a low, grunt. That would most certainly not be me.

A large and dirty face - distorted as if someone had painted a portrait of a man only to smear it with their hands - leaned over him, filling his vision as it stared down at him with its disproportionately small and beady eyes.

Taking in a deep and slow breath -- Kyungsoo screamed shrilly. The figure screamed back.

As Kyungsoo slid back from under the monster, backpedaling away from it in fear, the monster followed his example, lumbering back behind a boulder far too small to hide its gigantic form and scrambling behind it clumsily.

“Wh-wh-wh-who are you?!” Kyungsoo yelped out his question while picking up the fallen pebbles from the ground. It groaned a frightful groan, shying away from each stone thrown at him. “What manner of creature are you?”

“Udo is not creature!” It moaned in pain, hands raised defensively in front of its face. “Udo is Udo!”

Kyungsoo held back in shock, stone still clenched in his hand and ready to throw as he watched the beast flinch back preemptively.

“You speak?!” Said Kyungsoo, incredulous.

After a moment of hard breathing, the monster nodded, hesitantly lowering its hands for the first time and allowing Kyungsoo to once again look upon its face.

Although it shared with him the same number of limbs and the same type of features, the monster was stretched out as if a strange caricature of a man that was far too tall and far too wide. With big ears that stuck out sideways and painfully lopsided features, in the faint light of the fire that was burning away in the corner, Kyungsoo found that the hulking figure was… human. A frightening beast of a human with a ghastly set of teeth - but a human all the same.

“You do not wish to hurt me…?” Kyungsoo phrased it as a question, still cautious and fearful of a painfully violent death at the hands of an ape-like creature.

“No, no, no, Udo wishes no pain.” Udo grunted. It waved its hands in front of him, as if trying to reassure Kyungsoo of his harmlessness. his lips, Kyungsoo continued to stare, still seated as far away as he could be.

“Udo finds the man asleeps in the mud.” It tried to explain, looking at him through eyes far too small for its face that seemed to blink one at a time. Udo pointed with one gnarled finger, and Kyungsoo followed it with his eyes to see the mouth of the cave, dripping with rain as it poured outside. “Udo brings the man back so the man does not get wet. Udo brings the man back so the man is not eated by dire wolves.”

Despite all his misgivings, the story seemed to ring true. When he was but six, he’d watched father’s funeral pyre from a distance and had collapsed upon seeing a skeletal face emerging from the flames, mouth left gaping wide in a horrible howl. The sight had been so horrible that when he’d next woken, he’d found himself miles away from town, huddled against the cold ground. It had taken him hours to walk back home.

...so, stranger things had happened.

More bewildered than frightened now, Kyungsoo found himself blinking at the other’s oddly child-like pattern of speech, taking in for the first time the fact that around the fire were small bowls of stone, filled with nothing but sparse berries and fruit, not the red and bloody meat as he would have feared from a monstrous, man-eating beast.

“Please not be scared - Udo only wishes to help. Please to be not telling others Udo is here.” The creature begged, sinking down into a crouch so that he could clasp his hands together with a pleading expression. Despite the fact that Udo could have crushed him with his bare hands if he had so wished, the shy manner in which he spoke and the clumsy manner in which he moved somehow reminded Kyungsoo of himself.

“You belong to the giant men of the red cliff, don’t you?” Kyungsoo said slowly, the revelation only just now coming to him as he took in everything he had just seen and heard and pieced together the puzzle in his mind.

“Udo is not man yet. But soon.” Said Udo, both confirming Kyungsoo’s suspicions and bringing to mind more questions.

“Just how old are you?” Asked Kyungsoo, still stiff as he watched Udo take a step closer toward his corner, small for Udo himself but moving to him so far that he was now nearly standing right in front of Kyungsoo, and forced to lean forward slightly where the ceiling became considerably lower.

“Udo will have seen fifteen summers this year.”

Fifteen!? Kyungsoo balked, mouth gaping open as he looked over Udo once again. With a head full of bushy curls and an impressive amount of equally curly facial and body hair, Udo’s jutting features and muscled body was so big that Kyungsoo couldn’t help but to feel like a tiny little flea in comparison.

And yet, given what the giant had just said, Udo was but a child.

A giant child, but innocent and naive all the same, the way all children were at his age.

It made something within him unfurl, a slight puff of tension releasing from his chest as he pulled himself forward into a more comfortable sitting position, dropping the stones he had in his hands back to the ground.

“Hello, Udo. Although the circumstances are certainly strange, it’s… it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He heard himself say slowly, an echo of etiquette that had been ingrained into him ever since he had been a child. “My name is Kyungsoo.”

“Kyung-soo.” The creature repeated in a way that reminded him of Kai, a timid smile spreading onto that wide face. “Friend?”

Though he’d held higher titles before, to be given something so simple from a mind so child-like and pure was one that made it incredibly difficult for Kyungsoo not to smile. Kyungsoo chose not to correct him, keeping silent instead.

Looking past Udo’s form, he took in the cave within which they sat. Other than the small bonfire and a messily spread bed of furs, it looked empty.

“Where are your father and mother?” Kyungsoo murmured, cautiously scanning around the room as if trying to spy another hulking figure lurking in the darkness, disguised as a rock or a boulder.

“...they have gone. Only Udo is left.” The giant shuffled on his feet, as if uneasy.

“‘They have ...gone’?” Kyungsoo echoed, his eyebrows furrowing. “Gone where?”

The giant child looked down, looking very much his age all of sudden when his lips began to quiver.

“Udo begs them not to go. Udo thinks there is no sense in fighting. But they say that Udo is a coward, and they travel away with the iron man.”

The iron man - now that was a figure Kyungsoo recognized - after all, his former brother-in-law would often charge into battle wearing a terrifying mask of metal.

So, Udo’s parents had fought alongside them during the Battle of the Northern Moors. What a tragedy - he’d heard from his sister long ago that none of the giant men and women hailing from the red cliffs had survived.

“Udo finds them fallen in the bog pits, but Udo cannot pull them away - the pull of the mud is too strong. Udo hurts himself instead.” The young giant pulled away the collar of his ragged burlap top, revealing a pink and fresh scar from where a hidden pike trap had ripped into his skin.

The giant readjusted his top, sinking down onto the ground with a loud rumble, looking as if he were nearly about to cry.

“So Udo stays here, instead. Udo is not to leave them all by their own.”

Poor thing, Kyungsoo thought to himself, shoulders relaxing as he finally saw the figure in front of him for what he was - not a beast nor a monster as he had previously suspected - but a broken-hearted child, abandoned to the world without being allowed to properly grieve.

He could tell that the young giant was lonely, viewing Kyungsoo not only with a great curiosity for all of their physical differences (a curiosity that Kyungsoo admitted that he shared) - but also as a companion during a lonesome time, desperately sought after company that would keep him grounded in his grief.

Kyungsoo felt both sincere pity for the giant, unable to imagine how difficult life had been for him to survive for so long half-starving in the wild - and also a great kinship to him, for he too knew what it felt like to be scorned and shunned.

In a way, he felt honored to bear witness to such a story, one of bravery coming from a child so young. So, rather than offering a pat on the head, a simple smile and a few easy words - Kyungsoo bore the information quietly, offering companionship when the conversation inevitably turned to silence. They shared a quiet peace for a long while, taking the time - a thousand droplets of rain, no more and no less - to reflect in silence.

-

So gradual that Kyungsoo almost fell asleep in the tranquility it brought, the rain at last drew to an end, now just dripping lightly at the mouth of the cave and revealing a world outside that smelled ripe with spring dew.

“...it appears time for me to take my leave.” Kyungsoo spoke in a neutral voice, staring out at the fresh green expanse. Udo looked stricken, distraught that the only company he’d had for months seemed so willing to leave. It was something which Kyungsoo regarded with a strange sort of fondness, somehow reminded of a large puppy begging for his attention.

Still, he stood.

Shivering in the damp cold, he stood there in sudden indecision, not wanting to leave when he took in with a strange sense of guilt the giant’s gaunt face, cheeks sallow from days of hunger.

Kyungsoo sighed, stretching slowly and groaning as the joints in his back and legs popped and creaked. Udo clambered to his feet as well, clasping his hands hesitantly together, looking around as if he wanted to speak but didn’t quite know what to say.

“...if you’d like, I can stop by every few days to bring you a satchel of food.” Kyungsoo muttered, spreading his hands out when the giant looked as if he were about to protest. “A kindness! To repay the kindness you’ve shown me.”

Udo still looked unsure, and to this Kyungsoo could only give one final assurance.

“...and I won’t tell anyone you are out here - I promise.” He swore, placing a hand on his heart.

After a moment, the giant smiled toothily, nodding at first slowly before building up to an eager bob.

“You… you will come back to visit, then?” The giant said in realization, in a manner that was oddly shy for a creature his size.

“That is what friends do, ...is it not?” Said Kyungsoo with a shy smile, flushing when he realized how unusual it felt on his own face.

To his great surprise, the giant burst into sudden tears, covering his face with his knobby hands as he wept into them like the child he was. Surprised, Kyungsoo found himself truly at a loss for words, scratching his head in wonder. He took a cautious step forward, placing a tiny hand on Udo’s large shoulders and squeezing lightly in comfort - only to find himself suddenly locked in an enthusiastic embrace.

You’re just like me, aren’t you? Kyungsoo thought, lightly patting the other’s back and laughing when he heard the giant’s blubbering grow louder in response.

Lacking a kind touch.

-

It was as if he had walked back into a strange dream.

Or perhaps it was from the dream that he had walked out of.

He took his time crossing through the fen, knowing that what he faced when he arrived back would be nothing but violence and scorn. And yet he walked on, shoulders squared, the words he’d been wishing to say for years now filling his mind, yesterday’s events now spurring him on with a purpose.

The dangling light of their room was oddly hazy when he entered, as if filled with the same curling smoke that clouded his mind.

Kyungri was sitting on the bed, lounging back as if all was good and all was right. She looked toward him in the way she always had - eyes passing over him as if she’d expected him, cataloguing his presence and dismissing it within her mind.

This would be the last time she would overlook him.

Kyungsoo steeled himself, bracing for impact as he clenched his fists and turned resolutely to face her. She met his gaze easily.

“Do you realize the hour, Kyungsoo?” She said, every word striking a chord within him. “Where have you been?”

...Kyungsoo stared for what felt like minutes, hearing whispers begin to buzz in his ears as he took a single wary step back.

“I was... out.” He whispered, barely managing to force the words through his lips.

He had the strangest feeling of deja vu.

As if nothing had happened, his sister leaned back against her pillows, plucking grapes from the bowl and rolling them lazily between her fingers. Not a trace of anger in her expression nor in her voice - just the exact same words again, repeating themselves like a premonition.

No - no it couldn’t be. Could it?

“Out where? Doing what?” His sister yawned, without the bite of anger that had accompanied the exact same words from before.

“I…” Kyungsoo started, only to never finish.

“You’ve been so strange lately. First you go to bed right without supper, and then this morning, you wake up early to tell me that you’d like to go out for a walk. And what a long one it was.” Said Kyungri with a dry sort of curiosity, popping another grape into . “I didn’t even know you liked taking walks?”

Had it happened at all? He’d never considered that possibility, and yet now it struck him. Had his illness progressed to the point where he’d dreamt something up that had never happened?

He glanced back behind him in paranoia, realizing for the first time that he had no idea just how many hours he had lost.

How many days had he lost? Had it all been just a hallucination?

The whole world seemed to shrink in on him and, without any understanding of what was going on in his fractured mind except for the fact that something was indeed very wrong with him, Kyungsoo remembered a flash of lips on his own, wonderful words whispered into his ear that made his heart ache when he realized how he, in all of his insanity, could have imagined it all.

He muffled a response under his breath, stumbling out of the room with a look of panic on his face.

“What do you suppose is wrong with him?” Kyungri posed the question they’d all been asking for years while looking down at her fingernails, lettings strands of her long and dark hair fall into her face.

Replacing the stopper on one of his lady’s many bottles of perfumes, Virgil looked over at her silently, the expression on his face revealing not a thing at all.

-

It must have been a great shock for the dinnish prince to find Kyungsoo suddenly huddled in his arms, quivering like a leaf with his face and hands covered with dirt. Perhaps ‘shock’ was an understatement. Kai, in the midst of helping out with day’s reconstruction, carried bundles of long wooden sticks under one arm and a rudimentary ladder slung over the other. Yet he could do little more than to drop both to the ground when Kyungsoo pulled him down into a sudden kiss, too stunned by the sudden affection to do little more than to stand there and let it happen.

Kyungsoo pushed the prince away as quickly as he had pulled him into it, searching Kai’s face for an answer with large and fearful eyes.

The prince grunted, looking as surprised to see Kyungsoo as Kyungsoo did him. He mirrored Kyungsoo’s puzzled expression with one of his own as he began to realize something was wrong.

Gripping the lord by his arms, Kai opened his mouth to speak - only to have Kyungsoo beat him to it.

“How did that feel? W-was it strange?” Kyungsoo blurted out, pointing at Kai’s lips almost hesitantly with before tapping on his own.

To his growing despair, Kai only blinked slowly at his question, tilting his head in birdlike confusion.

But there was still enough to give him hope - from the way Kai’s hand settled comfortably on his hips, a happy flush on his face that should have otherwise been shocked surprise.

“Did it really happen?” Kyungsoo pressed, voice pitchy as his shattered gaze passed wildly over every detail of the prince’s face. “The memories I thought we’d shared. Or perhaps it was just a dream? Lucid dreams! F-f-figments of m-m-my imagination!”

“Yev na b’at tale ya, ‘Soo?” [What are you talking about?]

Kyungsoo hardly even noticed the fact that the other was speaking a language he didn’t understand. He was lost in his own world again, frenetic and practically drowning in his own paranoia.

“The kiss.” He said, fingers trembling as he reached up to touch his own lips, still tingling.

“Not this one - but - but the one from before.” Kyungsoo tried to explain, though he knew that his cryptic response would be lost upon the other.

Fingers gripped his, stilling his trembling and drawing them into the other’s warmth.

“Se wasim tale basi sa na, ‘Soo [It was as beautiful as you.] - every night is dream.” Kai whispered, leaning in to brush his lips against Kyungsoo’s ear. “Where go, little bird? Ma han c’alad [I’ve worried]. Soo said - meet soon?”

The Tidreann lord seemed not to hear him, his eyes staring at a point hovering just beyond Kai’s shoulder, as if recalling to vivid memory something that Kai himself could not see.

“...so it did happen.” Kyungsoo said, suddenly in quite the daze. “I was so worried that it had been all in my head.”

His voice seemed as if it were drifting off and he swayed in Kai’s arms as if stricken with weakness. Kai held him up with two strong arms, holding him to his chest as if it were no trouble at all. The look on his other face, however, told another story - one of deep worry.

Kai cooed his name in his ear, urging him to speak as he brushed locks of dark hair from the young lord’s face.

“Things - things happen sometimes - things for which I find that I c-cannot tell whether they are real or not. B-b-because my mind - ” Kyungsoo attempted to explain, freeing a hand to tap absently at his temples. It was a constant, insistent motion that became almost violent, continuing on and on until Kai had captured his fingers again, pulling Kyungsoo’s hand to his lips for a gentle, soothing kiss. “ - my mind plays tricks on me sometimes. It- it creates memories where th-there shouldn’t be. Dr-draws pictures of things that aren’t really there. I fear there is something gravely wrong with me.”

Perhaps Kai understood but perhaps he did not care. Evidently, he did not think of Kyungsoo as a monster - these were words that Kyungsoo still remembered, now that he knew they were real. He held the sincerity of the words as close to his heart as the man who had spoken it himself.

“I am fearful, sometimes that the dream from which I choose to wake could be the sweetest of all - and that the reality in which I awaken may be the nightmare from which I so desperately wish to escape.” Kyungsoo confessed, trying to pull away only to be captured in Kai’s gentle embrace once again. Eventually, he collapsed against it, pressing his cheek against the soft furs that wrapped Kai’s body.

“When - when I am here with you - it’s as if I can finally find solace - a place where the images no longer haunt me. To - to imagine losing that would mean to imagine losing my mind.” He confessed fearfully.

“Stay. Do not close eyes, little bird. Stay with Kai, Kai keep safe. Basi m’ut - nul a’lim nal talem [Just ask - and the world will be yours].”

What beautiful words coming from that beautiful mouth. Kyungsoo wished he could believe them, wished so ardently that he could simply agree to it all.

And from where did his reluctance stem? Here he was, the man Kyungsoo had been searching for all his life. Someone who saw him for who he was, and not as how others painted him to be. Someone who he had just met - and yet who had offered to take him away from all of the fear and the sorrow, who had promised to hold him whenever his mind wandered. Was this not what he had wanted all along?

Kyungsoo filled his silence with deep and shuddering breaths.

“...would you still want me, even if you knew what I really was?” Kyungsoo asked, though he knew Kai would answer. Sure enough, a kiss was pressed silently onto his temple, and he fluttered his eyes closed, content with the simple answer for now.

Too tired to think.

Strong arms slowly wrapped around him - carefully - as if he were fragile. Kai lifted him into his arms effortlessly. His errands still lying scattered upon the ground, Kai chose to walk away from it all, holding Kyungsoo close to his chest.

Kyungsoo did not question where they were going - the distance nor the destination. He imagined each mile as a step toward a distant and far land - some place where everything was still undiscovered and new.

He closed his eyes slowly to still his beating heart. And took in the scent of smoke and honey.

-

In the days since those newest of revelations, Sehun had grown to enjoy Lady Bita’s company. Though certainly still wary of her sometimes overbearing affection, he had come to respect her greatly, viewing her no longer as a simple and troublesome woman vying to win his affections and instead as a childhood friend who had come back to him after a great war that had spanned decades - a friend for whose strength of character Sehun had come to admire.

Still, for as much as it charmed him most of the time, Bita could sometimes be so strangely sharp with her observation of things that it almost frightened him.

“You worry about him, don’t you?” Bita asked, waking Sehun from whatever daydream he’d been having. He pulled the book from his face and blinked open his eyes, staring up from her lap at her warm brown eyes for a moment before realizing who it was she was talking about.

“Though we may not share the same blood - Kai is a brother to me, closer to me in heart and soul than the brother I’ve had since birth.” He muttered, recalling the first time they’d met, the connection they’d felt that extended far beyond those of any simple friendships. It truly was the deepest of brotherhoods.

“...and yet I cannot help but feel as if he is in danger.” Said Sehun, voicing his thoughts aloud for the very first time. There was something about her company that prompted him to be truthful - the type of behavior that, coming from him, was usually so rare.

“Danger from what?” She asked, pulling the book from his lax fingers and flipping open to a random page. It was a book of fictional tales - one written for children. It was oddly charming, how unapologetically child-like Sehun could be at times. Lady looked up from where she had been napping at the sound of her light laugh. The mutt snuffled, peering at her master’s smiling expression for a second before tucking her head back down onto her arms.

“Why, from that Tidreann lord and his sister, of course. One would have to be a fool not to see how they plot and scheme.” Sehun spat, folding his arms behind his head to settle in more comfortably upon Bita’s lap. “Did you know Kai relearned a language he hadn’t used in months just to whisper sweet nothings into the boy’s ear?”

“I believe Queen Kyungri is certainly a force to be reckoned with.” Bita agreed before snapping the book shut and startling both of her companions. “However, I feel nothing of the sort from the younger brother. If anything, one would have to feel pity for the poor creature, so overshadowed by his sister.”

“Yes, well, evil begets evil, does it not?” Sehun yawned, impatiently brushing a fallen leaf from his hair.

“Not always. Sometimes, you must believe that from the greatest of evil can come the greatest of good. In fact, I believe I’ve read something similar in this little storybook of yours.” Bita said thoughtfully, tapping a finger upon the spine of the book. Sehun clucked with displeasure.

“‘tis not a storybook. ‘tis a most serious literature for the most academic of minds.” He muttered grumpily.

“Oh?” Bita flipped open the book to a random page, scanning it with feigned intent.

“Tell me then, if you will, what part of the ‘Great Adventures of Winky the Cave Troll’ could be considered ‘academic’?” She teased, only to have the book snatched away from her by swift fingers.

She laughed, staring down at a face that was now flushed a pleasant shade of red.

-

Tao was still shuddering beneath him by the time Yifan finally withdrew, pressing a kiss to his husband’s brow only to be met with a breathless laugh and a hand running through his hair. Rolling off of him, Yifan settled down heavily by Tao’s side, linking their hands together as they both panted in silence, straining to regain their breath.

After a minute of doing so, wordlessly, they shifted. Yifan stretched out his arm across the pillows as Tao lifted his head up, resting his head back down upon it as he settled back. Tao threw an arm across his husband’s chest and tangled their legs together, uncaring (for now) of the sticky drip of release that clung to their skin. As usual, they basked in the glowing aftermath.

“Alright?” Yifan asked in a hazy voice, as sleepy as he usually was after their nighttime activities. Still, it was pleasing to Tao to hear Yifan searching for affirmation, wanting to know that his husband was taken care of and comfortable before he drifted off into sleep.

“Wonderful.” Tao chuckled in response, digging his cold and dripping nose into Yifan’s neck to a low and grumbling groan.

As Yifan began to drift off, exhausted from a hard day’s work of reconstruction and diplomacy, Tao stayed awake, grabbing a washcloth from the side table as he gently wiped them both down.

It was a slow and therapeutic process, his heartbeat slowing and mind calming. Ears remaining perked to the sound of the crickets chirping outside and the rustling of leaves, his thoughts wandered.

“What do you think of our brothers’ suitors?” He asked, blowing cold air onto Yifan’s collar and watching as his husband slowly drew back into awareness.

“Mmm?” He groused sleepily. He smacked his lips, instinctively curling the arm he’d wrapped around Tao to draw his husband even closer. “...which ones?”

Following the aftermath of the great battle, there had been many offers of marriage made to both Sehun and Kai - offers that Yifan would accept with gracious smiles only to burn the papers in the fires of his room at night with angry grumbles and mutters.

“The only ones that our brothers seem to care for - the Trivanese lady, and the young Tidreann lord.” Tao kept the descriptions purposefully vague, knowing how his husband might react if he knew just who it was he spoke of.

“What, and do you believe that our brothers are serious about their offers?” Yifan, only half awake, could barely gather his thoughts.

But then something struck him about it all which caused him to frown deeply.

“Oh,” He mumbled thickly to Tao, “Our wedding took long enough to plan. If I shall have to plan two concurrently…”

Tao laughed brightly, remembering the events which had brought the two of them together - although difficult at times, he looked back on each memory with a great fondness, knowing that every step they had taken back then was one step closer to the intimacy and trust that they shared now.

“If it is love, Yifan, it is love.” Tao told him, pressing a kiss to the other’s nape.

“And you of all people should know that.”