Category: General Fluff
Characters: Yona, Hak, Shin-ah, Yoon, Jae-Ha, Zeno, Kija
Requested By: Scarlet (Ao3)
A content smile decorated Yona's face as she reclined underneath the shade of a towering oak tree. Its emerald-green leaves blanketed the expanse above her head to shield her from the worst of the sun's hot rays, allowing only thin beams to spear down and blot across her cloak and pink gown in little gold circles. The space underneath the forest's thick canopy was as cool as a springtime night. Snuggled within the tree's twisted, gnarled roots, Yona rested safe and content.
Not too far off, her companions were gathered around a small campfire smoking some trout from the nearby river. The pungent aroma of smoke, grilling meat, and the faintest hint of salt made her nose wriggle; from the tang of the salt and smoky fish flesh on her tongue, their lunch was nearly ready. With a high-pitched whine, she slowly eased her stiff body into a sitting position and stretched her arms above her head. Her muscles uncoiled and her joints popped, spreading the satisfying sensation of wakefulness through her body and bones. Just as she was standing to walk over to the small encampment, the musky forest air rang with the snap of a twig.
Everyone was instantly on high alert. Sooner than she had even registered that he had moved, Hak was at her side with his arm slung across her chest in a protective gesture. The air was now filled with crunching leaves, shaking leaves, and snapping sticks from the underbrush directly in front of Yona. Her dragons crept forward to crouch in a shielding semi-circle around her. Yona plucked her bow from where it rested against the tree trunk and notched a single arrow; she did not yet draw the string and prepare to fire, for she had no idea whether the stranger approaching was friend or foe. The sounds of their advance were raucous and uncaring. If they were an enemy, either they were completely clueless to how much noise they were making, or they were so confident in their abilities that they righteously didn't care. The group collectively held their breath as the bush directly in front of them rattled wildly, and then-
A toddler waddled out from within the spiny leaves. He stopped, gawking at the group of young adults with wide sea-green eyes and sticking his dirty fist in his mouth to lick at his chubby knuckles. All of their mouths hung open in utter shock as they gaped back at the little boy, still holding up their weapons threateningly. Yona was the first to move.
"Why, hello there, little one!" she smiled kindly and threw her bow and arrow down to the ground. She ducked underneath Hak's arm to hurry over to the little child, and he craned his head back to stare up at her. He was the cutest thing, with wavy straw-colored hair curling just above his shoulders and ruddy, round cheeks. Yona crouched down in front of him, and he followed her motion, keeping eye contact with her all the while. "What are you doing so far in the forest by yourself? Where's your mother?"
"It's a baby," Jae-ha gulped.
"Yeah, we noticed," Hak grunted back and leaned his weapon against the tree before joining Yona at the toddler's side. The quiet boy tore his gaze away from the princess to stare at Hak, still sucking on his fist. "He can't be older than a year and a half." Yona agreed with the assessment; his steps were unsure and fumbling, and he didn't seem to know many words. She would be surprised if he were even one year in age. The toddler looked back to Yona again and shuffled forward to touch her cheek, and then cooed happily. His round, sausage-like fingers petted her dawn-colored hair with evident admiration.
"Red!" he asserted confidently.
"That's right! It's red," she agreed, easing herself down on her knees. The baby immediately clambered up into her lap, sitting contentedly on her plush thighs and gurgling contentedly while playing with the soft silk of her dress. "This little one is lucky to have stumbled upon us. Who knows what might have attacked him out here," she tutted with a frown. She began to stroke his soft, fine hair, and he clapped his hands gleefully, bouncing a little in her lap. "It is imperative that we find his mother…"
"He can't have traveled too far… After all, he is but a small child," Kija grimaced as he approached. The baby took notice of the white dragon's coming and ogled him with those wide green eyes, then pointed at his head.
"White!"
"He certainly is a smart fellow," Shin-ah sniffed while peeking over the blushing Kija's shoulder. He sounded amused, but it was hard to tell with the mask and the blank expression of his mouth. The baby gawked at his colorful mask, then squealed with delight as Ao appeared on his shoulder. Babbling, he groped for the chipmunk insistently. The rodent seemed to understand his request and scuttled down Kija's arm to rest on his hand, chittering like it was having a conversation with the young child. He clapped his hands again before reaching out to pat Ao gently on the head. Ao nuzzled into his palm, making him scream in utter glee, before returning to Shin-ah's shoulder.
"Aren't you going to look at the baby?" Yoon asked Jae-Ha, who was standing several feet away and looking very uncomfortable.
"I don't like babies."
"What? But he's so cute, Jae-Ha!" Yona protested, and as proof, lifted the baby for him to see. The toddler stared brightly up at the green-haired man, rolling his tongue around the whole fist shoved into his mouth. Jae-Ha scowled as drool puddled onto the luscious grass blades below.
"Keep that gross thing away from me!" Yona pouted and lowered the baby back into her arms, bouncing him against her shoulder. The toddler once more became transfixed with her strands of dawn-red hair and shoved a thick swathe of it in his mouth to suck on it. She didn't much notice, too busy trying to riddle out how he wandered out into the woods alone.
"His mother must be worried sick," she sighed. The baby spat out her hair, now maroon as it was dripping wet with spit, and it stuck thickly to her neck. The boys looked on with expressions ranging from concern to awe to disgust as she ignored it. "We should walk in the direction he came from to see if we can happen upon someone, or a village, even. Someone should know where this little guy came from!"
"I agree," Yoon nodded. "We certainly can't continue on our journey with a random baby."
"We're already criminals. Why not add kidnapping to the list?" Jae-ha joked, earning a sharp jab to the ribs as Hak walked by him. The tall man leaned against the tree, wheezing as his intercostal muscles burned. "It was a joke, Thunder Beast… A joke…"
So, with the mystery baby in tow, the Happy Hungry Bunch set out in search of a mother.
Yona and Hak were in front, with the princess carrying the toddler. He remained completely calm, ogling the wonders of the forest over her shoulder. She much liked lugging him about; he had that pleasant milky baby smell, and his happy coos and gurgles were music to her ears. She loved the way his fat little fingers played with her hair. She talked kindly to him, pointing out random things that he eyed. Every time she spoke, he clapped his hands excitedly and reached out to touch whatever she was talking about, if it was indeed touchable. The curious baby very nearly grabbed a fistful of poison oak, and she had to yank him away at the last moment and occupy him with a butterfly flitting by to keep him from getting upset.
"I never knew you were so good with babies," Hak remarked after about thirty minutes of tromping through the woods. Yona blinked at him, then gave the baby a small smile. It seemed he had tired himself out with all the investigating and was lying with his head propped on her shoulder, sucking his thumb. He was trying desperately to stay awake, but his eyes continuously drooped and fluttered with encroaching sleep.
"Tired," he mumbled.
She stroked his soft blond hair a few times before looking back to Hak.
"I didn't know, either," she snickered.
"It seems our Yona has good maternal instincts," Jae-Ha quipped from a few paces behind them. Yona flushed at the very suggestive grin splitting his thin face. "She'll make someone a good wif-"
Yona never really was sure if it was divine intervention in the form of a protruding tree root or Kija's foot. Still, whatever he tripped over, it made Jae-Ha immediately faceplant into the detritus. The group howled with laughter as he slowly leaned up, spitting decaying leaf litter out of his mouth. All the commotion made the baby sit up, his head bobbling and eyes blinking blearily as he tried to determine what all the hubbub was about. He looked down at Jae-Ha, still sprawled in the grass and dirt practically seething, and began to laugh good-naturedly. Jae-Ha sniffed derisively at the toddler before sitting up and brushing leaves and twigs from his clothes. "Little smartass," he grumbled under his breath.
"You know what I've been thinking?" Hak said suddenly. He was staring thoughtfully at the toddler. Yona looked between the tall warrior and the chubby baby, unsure just what he was so transfixed with. "That baby looks a lot like Soo-Won." Yona's wide eyes beheld the sleepy toddler for a few seconds before the resemblance finally struck her like a bolt from the blue.
"Oh my goodness! He does!" His eyes were the same shade of green as Soo-Won's, and the color of his hair was an exact match as well; it even possessed the same amount of bounce and wave. Pursing her lips, Yona held out the baby at a small distance to stare intently at it. The toddler continued to suck its thumb obliviously with his sock-clad feet kicking a little in the air. For the first time, she noticed that the child was actually dressed in lavish clothes; all the dirt and grime he had accumulated tromping through the underbrush had masked it, but he was wearing a rich red robe-like garment with gold accents and very clean bloomers. He was most certainly a child of a noble. "It couldn't be time-travel, could it?! Is this Soo-Won from the past?" she whispered in quiet awe.
"If we kill him, will everything that's happened up until now be reversed?" Jae-Ha frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Yona inhaled in pure revulsion and smothered the baby protectively into her chest, tossing an affronted glare his way. He quickly threw up his hands in surrender. "It was a joke! Man, tough crowd today…"
"No, it wasn't," Shin-ah piped up from beside him. Jae-Ha gave him a cranky side-eye.
"Don't worry, baby. I won't let any of these mean boys hurt you," Yona cooed as she nuzzled the crown of his head with her cheek. The toddler warbled pleasantly in response.
"Guys, this is not King Soo-Won from the past," Yoon snorted with a cantankerous roll of his eyes. "Seriously, the baby had more maturity than you do. He just happens to look like him."
"Can you prove it?" Zeno grinned from his perch on a rotting tree stump. Yoon glowered at him, but kept his mouth shut because he knew he couldn't definitively prove it, and Zeno stuck out his tongue at the young boy with a devilish and self-satisfied snicker.
"Of course it isn't Soo-Won," Hak huffed and took the baby from Yona's arms to hold it out and give it a disapproving once-over. "I was just saying they looked alike. That's all." The toddler blinked brightly at Hak, sucking on his fist again. He then squealed and reached out to slap his spit-covered hand against Hak's cheek. The knight grimaced in utter disgust as the thick, goopy liquid slowly dripped down his face, while the baby howled with shrieking laughter.
"He likes you!" Yona grinned. Hak wasted no time in handing the baby back to her.
"Yeah. Sure," Hak grunted and wiped the spit off his face with his sleeve. Yona began bouncing the baby in her arms again, and his big head plopped down on her shoulder. He yawned loudly before sticking his thumb back in his mouth and sucking on it contentedly, then snuggled up into Yona's neck. She hummed a senseless tune under her breath while slowly swaying from side to side and bouncing his round body gently. "We need to find his mother. I can't believe we've been walking thirty minutes and haven't come upon anyone."
"There's no telling how much his path twisted and turned," Kija frowned. "We could have walked in the entirely wrong direction."
"That's encouraging, Kija," Jae-Ha lamented wearily.
Just as the group was beginning to debate turning in another direction, Hak hurriedly shushed them and glanced off into the forest. A voice was floating on the dank forest air- a woman's voice. It rapidly grew closer and louder in pitch, and the panic was clear in her voice. Yona grinned brightly at Hak.
"It must be his mother! Come on!" She ignored his orders to wait and took off into the forest in the direction of the woman's cries. Before she could reach her, however, she stumbled into some brambles. The tiny barbs dug into the hem of her dress like prickling teeth, shredding the fine fabric but refusing to release it at Yona's insistent tugging. "Oh, my, what a mess-! Ma'am?! Ma'am, are you looking for a baby?" she called out into the wilderness, deciding that it was useless to struggle against the thorns and electing to instead attract the woman to her. The cries stopped short with Yona's yelling, soon replaced by very frantic crashing in the underbrush. A nearby hawthorn rattled so violently that several of its red berries rattled to the ground before a breathless, red-faced, wild-eyed young woman burst through.
"Oh, my baby! There you are!" she wailed with relief. She surged towards Yona, tripping over her own feet from running too fast, and landed on her hands and knees right in front of the bramble thicket. The woman groped at Yona's dress in an effort to reach her son, sobbing so hard she couldn't breathe, and Yona encouragingly shushed her while holding out the baby to her. She hugged him tightly to her bosom, stroking his hair and cradling him while choking out words of gratitude: "Oh- hic- thank you so much, I- hic- I turned around, and he was just gone! Hic- ungh- I've been searching everywhere for him! I thought- hic- I thought he had been snatched up by something awful, and I- I- I- oh, my darling baby, I'm so glad you're all right!"
By this time, the boys had caught up to Yona. Hak cursed under his breath and knelt to begin carefully disentangling the ruined hem of her dress from the clinging brambles. Yona smiled brightly at the woman when she looked up with wide, teary eyes. "I must repay you somehow. Money? I have money, or food, or anything-!"
"It's all right, ma'am. We don't-" Before she could finish, Jae-Ha clapped his hand over her mouth and leaned over her shoulder with a charming smile laced with just the smallest hint of roguish mischief.
"Some warm food and a place to sleep would be marvelous, madam."
The Happy Hungry Bunch, ironically, had only been another two or three minutes from the baby's home, which turned out to be a prominent city. The woman's husband was the local steward of the settlement, explaining the baby's apparent status. He was similarly beside himself at the toddler's disappearance. As his wife and Yona came strolling up, swinging the happy baby between them, he actually fell down the steps of his lofty home trying to reach him. Yona looked on happily as the family reunited. Many tears were shed at the toddler's return, by the parents and the servants alike. It was clear that he was very cherished and loved. I hope he grows up in a warm and untroubled home, she prayed.
The group was repaid with a warm welcome, warm food, and warm showers. The mother had stumbled into the guest bedroom just as she was dressing and, of course, recognized her dawn-red hair immediately. She was very gracious about Yona's wishes not to be outed and provided her with a silk headwrap to cover her conspicuous locks. The silk dress was smooth on Yona's freshly-washed skin, and the fragrance of milk and honey soap clung to her petite frame mingling with the pleasant rose perfume the lady of the house had loaned her. They enjoyed a rowdy dinner, regaling the nobles with modified tales of their exploits, and retired deep into the night with full bellies and happy smiles. The steward's wife let Yona rock the baby to sleep and place him in his cradle. Just as the princess was slipping down the hall to scurry to her bedroom, she encountered her bodyguard. He was sitting beside her bedroom door, hunched over. He had most likely fallen asleep awaiting her return.
"Hak," she called softly as she knelt beside him and shook his shoulder. He did not jerk or gasp, but instead cracked an eye open to look at her. He had not been asleep after all- only resting his eyes. "Thank you for waiting up for me," she smiled graciously. His lips curled into a thin smile, and he reclined back against the wall, stretching out one of his long legs with no care if someone might trip over it.
"Always, Princess."
"That baby was adorable," she mused cheerfully. Though it was late in the evening, her interactions with the toddler had left her invigorated and humming with energy. Hak smirked airily with a nod of agreement.
"Yeah. Kinda scary how much he looked like Soo-Won, though."
"Indeed," she giggled. The little bubble of happiness inspired by the comment soon burst inside her, however, replaced by numbing sadness. Soo-Won's name could only bring her sorrow and regret now. Hak noticed her change in mood immediately and scooted closer to her, reaching up to grab her head and nestle it into his shoulder softly. She did not retreat from the intimate action but rather welcomed it. Her hand curled into the thick fabric of his sleeve, and she exhaled miserably. "What am I going to do, Hak?"
"Just keep going," he answered. "Just keep pushing forward and try to make the world a better place for kids like him." A smile blossomed on her face. It was a lovely sentiment and a very Hak thing to say.
"Yes…" She could get up and crawl into the been that had been offered her, but to her sleep-addled mind, leaning against Hak was infinitely more comfortable. As she reclined against him, his body heat lulling her into a sense of security, her eyes began to droop. I'll make the world a much better place, so that families like this can live carefree and happy…
You'll see, Soo-Won… You'll see.