A/N: A collection of short AU stories, focusing on Seungnyang/Taltal. Can also be read on my tumblr account.
Life could be horrible in the wrong trouser of time. Terry Pratchett.
Amnesia, Part I:
The first thing Seungnyang was unfortunately aware of was the painful throbbing in the base of her skull. Then there was the metallic taste of blood lingering in the back of her scratchy throat. Never again, she lamented as she struggled to open her eyes (it was battle, indeed, and one quickly lost), not another drop of wine. Never. A moment passed silently as she gently tested limb after limb before rolling her head side to side; and then she stilled, a frown creasing her brow because she couldn't remember drinking the day before.
Instantly, panic warmed her blood, flushing her cheeks.
In, out, she breathed, focusing on the sounds around her as she clenched her hands into tight, trembling fists. In, out. Stay calm. Her left calf twitched as she finally opened one red-rimmed eye and then the other. Her vision swam, and there was no other soul to be seen in the small (opulent, spotless, utterly grandiose) room, but Seungnyang refused to let her guard down. Where … where am I? she wondered before noticing how her hands were unbound, how a blanket had been draped over her legs.
Slowly, she sat upright, and a damp cloth flopped onto her lap. Seungnyang, hastily pressing a hand to her wet brow, blinked at the sight; then winced as pain lanced between her eyes, unbidden tears causing her to sniffle for a moment. When the throbbing settled to a bearable ache, she ever-so-slowly looked up to inspect her surroundings. To her right, sat a porcelain bowl filled almost to the brim with pinkish water; to her left, well, nothing around her would be seen in a room in Goryeo.
Seungnyang frowned when the world swayed alarmingly to the left, all of a sudden; sweat beaded on her warm brow as she lifted her arm, but she quickly stilled when a familiar twinge of pain in her side spoke of a wound that was still healing. She groaned, hunching over slightly. And why am I wounded? After a moment—after realizing that moving around was actually out of the question—she carefully rolled over to lay on her side, then inhaled deeply, staring ahead unseeingly for a long while.
Eventually, she pressed her palm against her brow, as if to steady herself, and willed everything—the bowl, the ornate screen divider, the world—to cease their incessant spinning. Seungnyang shut her eyes, and waited for a moment. Only a moment.
The vibrant interior of the abandoned hovel was painfully noticeable underneath the many fine, fragile sheets of cobwebs lining the little abode; 'painfully' so, for Seungnyang had some trouble keeping her head tilted up, had immense trouble focusing on the here-and-now (and not on the throbbing wound in her arm), and just couldn't fight off the dizzy spell that was making everything around her brighter and wholly nauseating.
"We really shouldn't have come to Gaegyeong," the exiled prince was complaining somewhere to her right. She didn't bother looking at him. "We might as well hide in the forest. This is all of your stubbornness. We really shouldn't have—"
That was when the fight in her vanished without her consent, and Seungnyang felt (but couldn't stop) her body drop painfully on its side like a puppet cut from its strings. Her eyes slid shut, and she barely breathed.
"What's wrong?" Panic threaded through Tahwan's shrill voice. "Seungnyang … Seungnyang, what's wrong? Seungnyang—!"
Then she only knew pain.
(And later, only panic, for it dawned upon her that her secret had been discovered while she had been unconscious. But Jeombak—)
With a start, Seungnyang awoke, immediately grimacing as her stitches pulled at her flesh. She stilled instantly, body tensing until she was almost vibrating in her too-tight, too-warm skin. A bead of sweat rolled down her brow, down the bridge of her nose, before dropping onto the hand she used to prop herself up; then, breathing out slowly, carefully, she gently raised her head and looked across the room. Did Jeombak find a different hideaway? she wondered, dazedly. But where was he? And where was the exiled prince?
The porcelain bowl had been removed, a tray bearing a few dishes left in its place. The sliding door to the porch had been opened—moonlight cast an eerie gleam across the room—a few candles had been lit, and a hoary-haired crone sat mutely beside the doorway, her gnarly hands folded neatly in her lap, her beady eyes focused unblinkingly on Seungnyang's form. A moment passed in strained silence.
Eventually, the elder pushed herself to her feet—joints popped, legs trembled—before shuffling across the floor to give Seungnyang another long, hard look. The wizened face staring back at her was utterly unfamiliar, and the glint in the narrowed stare meant nothing for a bewildered Seungnyang.
"Name?" the crone barked all of a sudden.
"Seungnyang," she automatically responded, wincing slightly as she pushed herself upright. Seungnyang inhaled loudly as she gently shook her head, as if to dispel the gnawing confusion rising inside her.
"Better."
Seungnyang had nothing to say to that. But she did have questions; a few, just a few, for thinking made her head throb even more. "Where are my companions? Where am I?"
"Ki Seungnyang …" The woman announced Seungnyang's name like a warning, as if they were familiar with each other. "You've been left in my care." With that, the woman turned away, clearly done with their downright perplexing conversation.
Seungnyang, on the other hand, did not feel the same and hastily pushed herself to her feet. "Wait—" But she winced and flopped down when pain flared in her gut, in her side, and (again) in her head. Her visitor paid her no heed and departed the room, silently shutting the door behind her. What, what was better? But she couldn't move, couldn't speak for a long while.
Eventually, slowly, she moved her arms. Then rocked her head side to side. A wince fell from her lips, but Seungnyang breathed in deeply, ignoring the fading burning of her lungs—her 'family' had always considered her to be stubborn. So she pulled herself up, perhaps too quickly, before staggering across the unfamiliar room in search for the familiar. Am I prisoner? she wondered as she traced her fingertips across a chest of drawers; inside the topmost drawer sat her prized possession, her bow. Or a reluctant guest? But why can't I rememb—?
Seungnyang caught a glimpse of herself in the looking glass. And it was all wrong. The woman staring back at her was older; her hair was long (too long, unpractical, and she looked more like a woman than the man she had been pretending to be for so very long), her skin was pale (she spent most days outside, huffing and puffing as the sun burned her flesh), and her robes suited a noble lady not … her. This was all wrong.
The numbness of shock began to dilute as her blood thickened with white-hot panic, her heart hammering against her ribs like war drums. Her eyes fluttered, and for a surreal moment, she wondered if this was a different life, if she had been reborn as an aristocratic lady, one who was easily dazed and breathless at everything out of the norm. Life would different, she thought hysterically, but it would never be mine.
Seungnyang, shaking her head hastily, screwed her eyes shut and bit hard on her lower lip. In, out, she breathed, focusing on the painful beat of her heart as she clenched her hands into tight, trembling fists. She calmed, eventually, after reminding herself of her bow, which was within arm's reach. But then, out of the blue, she remembered one crucial detail: when she (and the prince) had fled from General Bayan, it had been her arm, not her side, that had been wounded. That had weakened her to the point of collapsing.
A frown grew on her face.
Life, after that, was a confounding, permanent repetition: she had never slept so much before, and it certainly alarmed her how she couldn't stay awake for long, but her slumber was frequently was interrupted by the comings and goings of the crone, who would ask Seungnyang the same set of questions. (Her name, her country, her age). Again and again. To the point that she had to wonder if everything was a dream; and she had a great many dreams, but none of them were remotely helpful. Until, abruptly, they were.
For in her sleep, the temporarily forgotten past—
"Name?"
The-girl-who-was-Seungnyang-but-couldn't-remember lay on her back, head rolling side to side, unfocused eyes flicking around, as if blind to their surroundings. Fingers grasped her jaw, turning her back to a frowning old woman. Their eyes locked, and the-girl-who-was-Seungnyang-but-couldn't-remember abruptly recalled the question with startling clarity.
"… don't know," she muttered dazedly, writhing as the elder draped a wet cloth across her burning brow, "don't know."
—washed over her—
"What happened to the Lady?" It was a servant, and the young girl wasn't bothering to keep her voice lowered; the-girl-who-was-Seungnyang-but-couldn't-remember had no desire to reprimand the speaker or to even move, so her eyes remained shut. For a moment, she only knew pain and the gentle tugging of sleep, but the conversation continued, this time muffled and distant and radiating alarm. "—but who would dare to attack her? And in a Temple no less! Cowards!"
—in an awful deluge.
Days passed sluggishly, and Seungnyang had never felt so tired, so utterly useless before. Days passed too slowly, and as Seungnyang recovered, she began listing what she knew, putting the pieces of a perplexing puzzle together: she could roam freely, yet she still sensed ever-present eyes watching her every restricted move, and the few servants she saw never addressed her. Their eyes, however, voiced a thousand mystifying tales.
Servants stopped whispering as she came close. Servants kept on bowing (a few were reluctant, but they still paid their obeisance to her, a 'Lady') as she hobbled past. Her elderly caretaker—still nameless, unsmiling, frequently chewing something, constantly appearing when one least expected it—gave minimal responses ("Soon" or "Answers shall come") as a still feeble Seungnyang asked question after question concerning their location.
Eventually, she was left alone for short periods of time, and it was then that she starting planning. Perhaps it was too soon—some days even moving was completely out of the question—but nothing made sense, and she couldn't wait, had to leave, find the familiar, and Jeombak and Tahwan had to be somewhere! She wasn't going crazy, wasn't! So she secretly lined one of the (no, 'her', apparently) outer robes with necessary provisions for a short journey.
So for now, she rested.
For now, Seungnyang slumbered, slipping in and out of blissful nothingness; when she cracked open her eyes, in the short moment between waking and falling back into the vice-like embrace of sleep, familiar faces blurred around her, hushed voices far away and wholly incomprehensible. It was the servant she had seen a few days ago, removing dirty dishes and soiled clothing from the room; then it was the older servant who frequently hummed under her breath, opening the sliding door as quietly as possible to let in the afternoon sun.
It was only when Seungnyang took note of a face she couldn't place—had she seen that girl before?—that she pushed herself upright, burrowing the heel of her hand into each eye in a valiant attempt to stay awake, alert. Her body hunched over, and her eyes flicked to the side, surveying the stranger: frizzy hair tied back severely, a small mole on her right earlobe, a lazy left eye that focused on the walls.
Quietly, Seungnyang slipped off her bed to sit on the floor (the futon was still too soft for her, and frequently left her poor body aching), and there she watched with bleary eyes as the servant placed a teapot as well as a small cup on the nearby table. Watched as the girl bowed slightly, almost tripping over her own feet as she left. Seungnyang blinked, shrugged, and then reached over for the teapot.
Night had fallen, and as Seungnyang lay shivering on her side, staring almost determinedly at the empty teapot, she wondered if she had done something utterly, completely wrong in the period between helping the exiled prince and forgetting. For a moment she believed it, that the toxic fire running through her veins was punishment, but with a shake of her head, she drew herself up with difficulty and inspected her cup.
Well, she would have, had her legs not given out all of a sudden; had she not lost control of her upset stomach, expelling everything she had consumed, perhaps even what appeared to be blood, all across the floor.
Footsteps came rushing down the corridor.
Oh, she couldn't breathe, what was—poison? No, no, nonono—get up! The door opened, and for a moment there was only silence, and for a moment Seungnyang wondered if she had lost her hearing. Then there was a chaotic rush and hands were everywhere at once and a familiar voice panicked—"Seungnyang! Seungnyang!"—and oh, it was Jeombak!
Even as she struggled to breathe, struggled against the fire rushing through her, she couldn't help but to notice the premature wrinkles lining her companion's face, the few grey strands peppering his hair as he crashed to his knees and clutched desperately at her arm. Seungnyang kept her eyes on him until she couldn't, clenching her jaw shut to swallow a cry of pain.
"You're late," her caretaker announced calmly. Her fingers (also familiar, calloused and small and stubby) pressed at Seungnyang's fluttering pulse. "She may be my patient, but she's your w—"
Seungnyang convulsed as—what it felt like—her insides twisted, her eyes shooting open to see a third presence. Black spots danced across her vision as the long-haired scholar she had seen at General Bayan's side grasped her free arm—she immediately tried to pull away—and hauled her up, forcing her to rest against his chest.
"Seungnyang!" Jeombak cried, quickly closing the distance between them as Taltal—the enemy, still the enemy no matter what Bayan had done in the past—forced her mouth open and placed a finger deep into her throat.
She gagged.
Hands cupped her face as she hunched over, heaving and shuddering. Jeombak, now sitting a little further away, let out a stream of nonsensical chatter, but she couldn't hear, couldn't concentrate. Couldn't move as the crone forced her head back, forced some tonic down her throat, forced her to lay down. Eventually, or perhaps an eternity later, the fire receded and her eyes grew heavy.
With a jerk, Seungnyang forced herself to remain awake. Jeombak was still there, still watching her, now calm and visibly relieved. But Taltal was also in the room, and wasn't he leaving? Why was he there? How could she welcome sleep if—the scholar reached over, brushing a clammy hand across her brow; darkness unfurled its blessed wings over her aching body, and Seungnyang succumbed to its sweet grasp.