Category: Mild Romantic Fluff, Friendship Fluff
Characters: Yona, Lily, Soo-Won
Requested By: YonaWon (Ao3)
Lily awoke with a frightened start as the shriek of a snapping twig pierced the forest air, her heart pounding frantically in her chest. Fear was all she knew these days, since she and Yona had been captured and imprisoned in Sei, and since she had escaped with the red-haired princess into the wilderness. Her sea-blue eyes frantically searched the dank forest for the source of the disturbance. She huddled further amongst the sturdy roots of the tree she had been resting against, meagerly hoping it would swallow her up and hide her from what were likely prison guards coming to retrieve her renegade self. Yona was nowhere to be seen, either; where was her friend? Had she already been taken, leaving Lily defenseless? She tried to control her shallow, rapid breathing as she trembled against the forest floor, a rabbit caught in a hunter's trap.
"Lily, relax; it's just me." At the sound of Yona's faint whisper, Lily instantly melted into a puddle of relief against the tree. The princess emerged from the greenery with a mildly serious expression. She then scurried quickly over to her to kneel beside her. She must have run off to retrieve water while Lily slipped into unconsciousness. The thought made her eyes water, and she dropped her gaze to the loamy earth; Yona was so strong and capable, while she was just dead weight. It was frustrating.
"Lily, we have to go. There are Sei soldiers nearby. They may already know we're here," Yona told her and grabbed her by the wrist, already pulling her to her feet. Lily gasped, probably much too loudly, as she was pulled up and dragged further into the forest by the rushed princess. In some fragile, cowardly part of her, Lily wanted just to collapse right there and have Yone run off by herself. Though she had been asleep for at least an hour, her feet and calves were already screaming in protest each time they slapped against the cold, thick layer of forest debris, and the numerous cuts across her legs and arms stung horribly as the air whipped over them. Lily's mouth and throat burned like fire as she breathed, parched from thirst, and within minutes that burning flame spread to her lungs, which were begging for relief. As much as she wanted to give up though, she didn't; she couldn't, not with Yona there.
I have to be strong like Yona. I can't be dead weight! She told herself as she squeezed her eyes shut, pouring all of her strength into continuing the feverish pace. It wasn't to be, though; the Sei soldiers were indeed aware of their presence.
Lily looked over her shoulder with a fearful gasp as the forest behind them exploded with energy; the birds were startled from their nests, calling out to the night in warning as the bushes violently shook as the armored soldiers tromped and hacked through them. Their angry shouts echoed behind the two girls, and Lily could see the flash of their blades in the moonlight. The thwang! of bowstrings soon joined them, and Lily shrieked in alarm as an arrowhead nicked the soft flesh of her ear and embedded itself into the thick bark of a tree as she dashed past. Yona tried to throw them off, weaving through the trees as the arrows whistled by around them. To Lily's amazement and relief, however, the sounds were rapidly retreating as the comparably lighter and smaller girls placed increasing distance between them. A strange euphoria, probably from the mixture of terror and adrenaline, filled Lily's blood as she considered that they might actually escape.
Then Yona screamed in agony as blood exploded from the back of her heel. Her hand was ripped from Lily's when she lost her footing and landed roughly on the ground. Lily's feet slipped in the loose dead leaves as she scrambled to a halt and scrambled back to Yona. The redhead was whining loudly and tenderly holding her foot, which had an arrow sticking out of the back of it. The arrowhead pierced deep into her flesh. Lily fell on her hands and knees beside her injured friend, looking wildly into the dark woods. She could not hear their shouts anymore, or maybe they weren't shouting at all; like beasts, they were surrounding and enclosing their prey.
The air all around Lily and Yona echoed with trembling leaves and resounding footsteps; in her panic, she wasn't even sure where they were coming from. It was like they were everywhere. Gulping, Lily looked back to Yona and grabbed her by the arm to drag her across the ground into a bushy thicket. The girl did not protest even as the pokey branches pricked her skin. The copse was not as sure a shield as Lily would like; Yona's bright red hair stuck out brightly against the muted smudges of brown and green, and a trail of equally red blood glowed ethereally in the patches of moonlight, leading right to their location. "Lily," Yona groaned and looked up at her with eyes scrunched up in pain. "Go on without me. You can still get away."
"No! I won't leave you!" she insisted hotly before looking down at the arrow, her eyebrows knit as she struggled with what to do. It was bleeding profusely, puddling around Yona's foot, and there was no way she would able to walk with such an injury, let alone run. Lily's hands fluttered about the shaft of the arrow, but never gripped it because she was afraid of hurting the already distraught girl.
"Lily-"
"No!" she snapped again and glared down at Yona. "I won't leave you, Yona. Either way, we are going together!" Really, there was no "either"; their outcome was inevitable. Lily's breath hitched in her throat as the air rang with snapping twigs again, frighteningly close. Speaking would undoubtedly alert the enemy to their location, so neither of them said anymore. Desperate to protect the girl who had done so much to protect her, Lily did her best to cover Yona's body with her own, hoping her dark hair and clothes wound blend in better with the earthy tones of the forest thicket. Below her, she could feel Yona shuddering in pain, and so she tried not to place too much weight on her to avoid causing her more discomfort.
Lily's eyes trained on the thin spaces between the interwoven branches of the thicket, and for a while, all she could see was the moonlight splashing across the empty ground. The forest air was now alive with the sound of leaves and twigs crunching underfoot. Then, to her acute alarm, a pair of dark boots appeared in her line of sight. Lily held her breath, but her heart did not obey despite how much she willed it to; it pounded thunderously against her ribcage, and she thought for sure that the perpetrator could hear its constant drumming. Lily watched with eyes as wide as saucers as the boots milled about only a few feet away, sliding in the leaves as their owner searched for signs of the girls. Lily prayed with everything she had that they would escape unnoticed, but they seemed unfounded.
It took everything within her not to jump violently when the stranger knelt, and she watched as his hands ruffled through the strewn leaves, picking one up. Lily saw with dismay Yona's blood glittering on its dull surface. A second passed as the man no doubt traced the path of the blood droplets with his eyes, and a sickening feeling grew in her stomach as he stood up and came marching up to the thicket. Trembling, Lily threw herself over Yona, thinking that maybe she would just be killed on sight and her body left there, and Yona could go unnoticed hidden beneath her. Large hands ripped apart the branches of the thicket and allowed the harsh light of the moon to spill over her.
"Finally, I found you. Are you hurt, Miss Lily?" Lily's eyes snapped open in shock at the voice who greeted her, and her head whipped upwards.
"General Geun-Tae?" Her voice was like a parrot's squawk, high-pitched and squeaky with the sheer amount of disbelief in it. The long-haired man smirked down at her before standing up straight and cupping a hand to his mouth to shout into the dark of the forest.
"Hey! I found her!"
Lily exhaled deeply, momentarily relieved, but then just as quickly, a fresh wave of horror crashed over her. If the general was here, then surely King Soo-Won was with him, and Lily absolutely could not allow Yona to be discovered. That was just as much of a death sentence as being caught by the Sei soldiers. Resolutely, Lily remained hunkered down over the princess and warily looked up at the general. "What's the ma- wait, who are you hiding?" he accused, and though Lily tried her best to resist, his brute strength was too much for her; with frustrating ease, he grabbed her by the shoulder and firmly but delicately straightened her up into a sitting position, and Yona came into plain view. To the princess' credit, though her face was smudged with dirt and her hair tangled with leaves and her skin shining with a thin sheen of sweat, her expression was as fiery as her hair as she glared up at the startled general. "What-? But you're-"
"Good job, General. We should get Miss Lily out of here as soon as possible." The dreadful pit that had formed in Lily's stomach grew three times bigger as Soo-Won's voice came fluttering into the clearing. She peered nervously around Geun-Tae as he came casually strolling onto the scene with General Joo-Doh walking stiffly behind him. Geun-Tae whipped around with a complicated expression, his eyes flicking from the injured Yona to the king and back. Soo-Won's face morphed from a small smile to a bewildered one. "What is it?"
"Er-" Before the general could explain, Soo-Won came walking over to the destroyed thicket to investigate himself. As he did so, Yona was just dragging herself into a sitting position with one slim hand curled around her still-bleeding ankle. She tossed her sunset hair to glance blankly up at him the king's eyes grew incredibly wide. A tense moment of silence passed. Before any of the men could decide to put Yona to an untimely end, Lily threw herself between them, throwing out her arms on either side as if it would make herself a wider shield.
"Don't hurt Yona! She helped me escape from the Sei prison, and is my friend. If you do anything to her, I won't forgive you!" She tried to pour malice and intensity into her voice like Yona would, but to her irritation, her throat would not obey. Her voice cracked and trembled, her arms matching the tremor, and her glare was as unsteady as the branches trembling in the wind above. Despite that, her voice seemed to rouse something inside of Soo-Won. He nodded before looking at Geun-Tae.
"General, look after Miss Lily here. Yona is hurt and needs medical attention," he ordered. Lily could not read the expression on his face, and that frightened her.
"No! I'm staying with Yona!" she snapped hotly as the general shrugged and promptly leaned down to very rudely grab Lily by the waist and haul her out of the thicket to throw her over his shoulder like a mere sack of potatoes. "Hey! Do you hear me? Unhand me now! This is no way to treat a lady!" she screeched in anger as she beat on his broad back to no effect. As the general whirled around to begin walking towards his horse, it gave Lily a clear view of Soo-Won kneeling in the remains of the thicket behind the bedraggled, regal exiled princess. Lily's heart jumped in her throat as she began more panicked for her friend's welfare than irritated at her own treatment. "Let me go! I'm not going anywhere without Yona! Yona! Yoooooonaaaaaaa!" she wailed as she continuously struggled in the general's grip with frightened tears streaming down her cheeks, washing the dirt away with them before falling into the air, glittering like diamonds in the streaming moonlight.
Yona kept her expression as rigid as stone as the man who killed her father knelt in the crumpled branches and crushed leaves to bring his face down to the level of hers. As the moonlight shone down from the breaks in the canopy above, it washed over his golden hair to turn it a shining silver. His pale skin seemed to glow, making him look like an angel sent from above to deliver Yona from this fresh Hell. Yona knew much better than that, though; pretty-faced and elegant as he was, Soo-Won was no angel, but a devil to the core. His expression was as unreadable as hers as he lifted a hand to hold it out to her in offering.
"Yona, you must trust me. I will take both you and Lily to a safe place." Lily had stopped screaming and was just sniffling miserably on the other side of the clearing, perched in front of the broad general on his destrier. The stoic Joo-Doh was watching with apparent interest from beside his own, and Yona was quite aware that his hand was resting on the hilt of his sword. Her mouth twitched as she straightened herself up, though it sent pain shooting through every nerve in her body, and made a show of resting her hands primly in her lap rather than taking the one held out in front of her.
"Trust you? I think not. For all I know, this is all a show for Lily's sake. You've never cared about me, Soo-Won," she said bitterly. Hearing the words spit like acid out of her mouth made her sad. Even now, after all, that had happened, she desperately wanted for them to be untrue. She wanted the man that she loved once to feel something for her so she could fall into his arms and be safe and wanted. That would never be, though; if Soo-Won had cared, he wouldn't have murdered her father in cold blood. But what about that time? chimed the annoying voice in her head. He had shielded her from prying eyes once, and had allowed her to escape back to her party unharried. If he had truly wanted to be rid of her, he surely would have done so by now. Already, Yona's resolve and stubbornness was waning, but she still refused to allow the quiver to come to her bottom lip or the tears to flood into her eyes. Her eyes burned like the dawn as she waited for his response.
"Yona," he exhaled deeply, and with the way he tilted his head and closed his eyes, she could tell that his patience with her was already wearing thin. "I haven't the time to explain it all to you right now. Please, if not for your own sake, then for Lily's. You both direly need medical attention." At the mention of her friend, another piece of Yona's shield went splintering off. Lily was of much weaker constitution than Yona, having been sheltered in a palace and not subject to the hardships Yona had of late. Yona knew that the girl had reached her limit already. Still, she had too much pride to rise to the king's bait.
"Don't try to use her as leverage, Soo-Won. That still doesn't change anything. Face it- you can't give me a legitimate reason for me to-"
"Fine!" he barked at her suddenly, cutting her off. Despite herself, she jumped slightly at the ferocity in his voice and the intensity of his gaze when he snapped his eyes open to gaze ferociously at her. With a flushing rising into his cheeks, he spat, "How about because I love you, Yona? Is that good enough for you?" Yona was immensely struck, having expected any other reason but that. Her knee-jerk reaction was to claim it as a lie immediately. However, Soo-Won anticipated such a response and thus acted appropriately to quell her continuous rebellion.
With his face now as red as Yona's fiery hair, he stiffly wrapped a hand around the back of her head to jerk her forward. Every cell in her body pulsed as his lips crashed against hers, fiercely but passionately. One part of her was screaming to pull back and slap him. The other part of her strongly overpowered it, the part of her that she had tried to quash ever since that night at the castle watching Soo-Won draw the bloody blade out of the corpse of her beloved father- the part that loved Soo-Won deeply, wholly, with everything she had. Enslaved by her emotions, Yona slumped against Soo-Won, her slightly shaking hands curling into the fabric of his high-quality, kingly robes as her eyes drifted shut. "I care about you, Yona… Really, I do," he whispered against her lips, and that sent a trembling shudder throughout her entire body unlike anything she had ever felt. No, I can't let him get to me! she thought with gritted teeth and jerked back stiffly for a second.
"You're a liar! You don't care about me!" she insisted, and she hated how weak and feeble her voice sounded. That part of her tugged fiercely, drawing her body further against him though her mind tried to resist. He doesn't… He can't love me…
"You're like a stubborn child," he grunted. At once, he swept her up in his kiss again, even more fiercely than before. Her senses became dominated by the feeling of his lips moving against her own, hungry and full of desire, and his slim fingers sliding through the tangled strands of her dawn-colored hair. As he kissed her intensely, Yona could not deny it this time; there was no lie. Soo-Won loved her, despite all the twisted things that he had done. That made her sadder than anything yet. The tears began to stream silently down her cheeks.
Though she loved him, though she trusted him, she could not forgive him. Thus they could never be no matter how much either of them wanted it.
"Lord Soo-Won, the Sei soldiers will be here soon," Joo-Doh coughed awkwardly from his spot across the clearing, and Soo-Won jerked slightly. Yona's let out a small sigh as he pulled back from her, very hesitantly, and her eyelashes fluttered open to look up at him with faintly peek cheeks. He sniffed as he tried to resume some kind of kingly manner, sitting stiffly upright as he uncomfortably teased his fingers through his long, blonde hair. His eyes twitched slightly as he muttered, "Will you come with me now?" Yona silently nodded, wiping at her eyes with backs of her hands while she stared mutely down at her lap.
Her mind was still descended in fog. She struggled with the realization that her feelings were reciprocated and the uncertainty of her future. How was she going to keep moving forward, knowing this? She couldn't abandon Hak, Yoon, and the others, and she just simply couldn't forget the fact that Soo-Won killed her father. Yet, he had softened something inside of her. Now she just didn't know what she was going to do anymore. Slightly frustrated with it, she decided that she didn't have to conclude that now, and she was just going to face the moment.
She rested her head against Soo-Won's shoulder as he slipped his arms around her, effortlessly lifting her from the thicket and turning around with her nestled in his arms like a groom would his bride. It was not preferred of Yona, but she was severely dehydrated and unable to walk with her injury, so she just obediently remained in his gentle hold. Both of them flushed simultaneously when they realized that Geun-Tae and Lily were gawking shamelessly, their mouths wide open. Joo-Doh, he was too serious for that, but he definitely looked floored and uncomfortable.
"But- I thought- Lily?" General Geun-Tae stammered and looked in bewilderment at the other princess. "You-? I'm so confused," he exhaled deeply and slumped his shoulders with a tired expression. Lily had gone pale and was looking at her in deep concern, and so the princess just smiled wearily and waved a hand to indicate that she was just fine (well, fine enough) with the development. Lily frowned deeply but nodded in understanding, probably just content with knowing that Yona would be okay in the hands of the king. Yona looked up at Soo-Won, who twitched his nose with an expression halfway between a glare and a smile as he regarded Geun-Tae.
"I don't want to talk about it. Let's go," Soo-Won huffed as he promptly carried Yona over to his horse and set her into the saddle before climbing up himself. She swallowed slightly as he put one arm around her middle and held him securely against him, her head pressed right in the middle of his chest. As he turned the horse around with a whip of the reins, she resigned herself and flopped wearily back against him.
"This doesn't change anything, you know," she murmured to him while keeping her gaze on the shifting landscape of the forest.
"You sure have gotten stubborn, Yona," he sniffed at her, doing the same. He knew it didn't change anything, either. They were going to be at odds, for the foreseeable future, at least; their paths definitely intertwined, but would they ever be joined?
Yona didn't know, and it hurt her wearied mind to contemplate it. Instead, she pondered fantasies that had been lost to her- the dawn of a romance between herself and the king. She closed her eyes, savoring the way he held her tightly, securely, like he never wanted to let her go, and for the briefest of moments pretended that he wouldn't have to.
If Yona was the dawn, Soo-Won was the dusk, two very similar things that could never meet, and were destined to oppose each other for the rest of time…