Transit Umbra

(or an account of the darkest hour)

Disclaimer: This story is a rewrite of some parts of Episode 10, with fanon in-between/extended scenes. As such, some of the dialogue were taken directly from the canon. I claim no ownership for them, or for any of the characters I use in my fic. XoXo

I. Interim at Dusk

His soul wanted nothing more than to sink into a pit of wrath and despair. It would have been the easiest thing in the world, but for the girl who wouldn't let him, damn her. Damn her masters, too, and their inane talk about kings and prophecies. He could still hear the sickening crunch of arrows sinking into leather and cloth and soft flesh. He himself had learned archery secretly - the way he had learned everything he knew, at the insistence of his father - back when he was a boy, and arrows hit wooden targets with a solid hearty sound that made him proud.

His father...no, it couldn't be...

his Kiha, who held his heart in her hands...

a whirling, steely-eyed lieutenant who would not enter the tomb where dead kings gather and refused to be his hostage, eyes glinting at the prospect of a challenge...Gak Dan, so steadfast in her duties, courteous to the last, who promised to protect the king as she would her own father...He told me to deliver these words to you...Be the Joo Shin King...

the feel of bodies falling against him, one on top of the other...Sueh Duruh, whose nickname was the Walking Boar...If he dies, he'll die standing up, said a breathless voice beside him several lifetimes ago —

He swiveled round and faced her.

"I told you," he said. "What?" she shot back, eyebrows raised in feigned innocence; yet with mouth firmly set in that line which meant she was about to be incredibly stubborn.

He could feel a vein in his temple throbbing with annoyance. "I said I will have nothing to do with your people."

"Oh, that. You know, I was just thinking about that myself." He had to hand it to the girl. With all that was happening, she still had the audacity to be cheeky. "Why am I following someone who doesn't want to be followed? I don't know how I feel about this myself...but I think I know why you don't want me following you. I know why you don't want our attention."

Damn her.

He stalked off. He wished to heaven she would stop following him around when he didn't even know where his feet would take him. How dare she know things about him; what right had she to walk with perfect synchrony to his steps as if she had been doing it all her life? A week ago he didn't even know she existed.

"You're afraid that my masters and I will be killed like the Julno men."

As dead a shot with words as she was with a bow and arrow.

She was hit on the shoulder, DamDuk recalled. She had been the first of the bodies to fall on him. He remembered her Master's ashen face upon seeing her on the ground; his curious relief as he checked her wound, though DamDuk didn't think there was anything to be relieved about at the spray of blood that spurted when he drew out the arrowhead from her flesh. She had whined when her Master tied her bandages in a tight knot. Hyungo slapped her arm and told her to hush. It wouldn't hurt at all, you stubborn girl, he admonished her, if you listened to your master now and then and stayed behind like I told you to.

"Would you stop following me if I break your legs?" Worrying about her was the last thing he wanted. He needed to sort through the tumult of emotions inside his chest: grief, guilt, resentment...and an overwhelming longing for Kiha. His world, which tilted out of its axis when Gak Dan told him his father was dead by Kiha's hand, would surely be put to right once he sees her. How could she be guilty? It had to be some lie, some grotesque misunderstanding. He needed only to look at her so he could be certain of it, so he could expunge the doubts they had sown inside of him. He wanted to hold her as he had done, that night in the Village of the Destitute. He wanted to drown in the deep pools of those haunting sad eyes that seemed to have seen so much, to ease all their secret hurts and heartaches. Don't suffer because of me, he had told her. What fresh pain was she suffering from right now because of this, because of him?

But the idea that his father was truly dead, that he had died hounded by enemies without his son to protect him, was growing harder and harder to refute, and DamDuk could not see how even seeing Kiha would somehow bring him back to life. He felt like someone was slowly pushing a broadsword through his own heart. A good son would seek justice for his father. He remembered Lady Yon and thought for the first time he understood Ho Gae's all-consuming rage. He would lay waste to the whole of Gooknae castle if he could, but what was he to do if he finds out he himself had caused his death, as the rumors were saying? In his heart of hearts he already believed it to be true.

"Where will you go first," asked the girl Sujini, unrelenting as ever. "I heard the King's body is in the temple. Will you go there or...do you want to go and see that woman first?" How easily she could match stride for stride both the pace of his feet and his thoughts. Was he really so transparent? She had so casually waded through the chaos in his mind and shone a torch to expose the conflict raging there. In his current state, it made him feel naked and vulnerable.

In the end it was she who made his choice for him by offering to find Kiha herself.

"I heard that woman is at the Yon residence. I'll go and fetch her but...do you think I'll be safe from her? My masters all say she's an assassin sent by the Hwachun."

There was no malice to her. Her concern was reasonable, DamDuk knew, yet his anger still flared. He resented it even more for echoing the very doubts he was trying so hard not to acknowledge. (Wisdom makes us fear, said a different girl, in a different time. The wise man catch the panther with a trap.)

"The only person I don't trust right now are you and your so-called masters," he snapped. The words were as much for her as they were for his treacherous heart. "That woman? I've known and trusted Kiha since I was eleven years old."

I've known you for a week, he thought. What right have you to know of my heart?

He left her there and made his way to the oracle's temple, resolutely not guilty about the wounded look his words had put on her face.