Chapter Text
Joonghyuk didn’t think it made sense for them to hold umbrellas over his parent’s coffins. Their bodies were bundled in silk and herbs, sealed in a wooden box of ornate animal carvings painted in gold, forever oblivious to cold or warmth. He was left out here, with Yoo Mia, to endure the rain.
The guards dutifully held black umbrellas high over their heads, silent as the priest bemoaned the deaths of the king and queen. Tomorrow, he will rejoice at the coronation of the new sovereign. The crown weighed heavy on Joonghyuk’s head, even as it sat back at the capital. He feared that it would slide off, the minute it touched his hair. He barely came up to the shoulder of an adult. At his side, Yoo Mia tightened her cold fingers around his own, her small tail wrapped around his leg. He wondered if she understood anything that was going on before her. Why they had to dress in black. Why tails had stilled and ears had been lowered. Why they weren’t at the estate but here, in the royal burial grounds. Did she even know that people could die? At what age should you have realised, the mortality of yourself and your loves? In some way, perhaps, he had lived with the same ignorance, till now.
A quiet rage poured in, filling up his chest that had been scooped and hollowed out by grief.
When the priest had said enough, he stepped forward to lift his parents upon his shoulders. He had always been strong, but the weight of it all made him struggle to push himself up onto his knees. He looked over to his side, in the distance.
Beneath the older mausoleums, past the weathered headstones, two white figures, one smaller than the other, stood under the stone roof, watching the funeral. Almost like statues, were it not for their long robes that billowed with the wind. He squinted past the fog of the rain, only to realise they were not robes but long, silvery translucent wings, gently folded behind their bodies. Upon their heads, their feelers fluttered. Moths. He’s never seen them before. They might as well have been ghosts.
“The grave keepers.” Hyunsung whispered.
Joonghyuk turned back to see his personal guard lift the other side, allowing him to stand once again. He wanted to ask more, but it wasn't the time. In a solemn march through the doorway, they laid his parents within their own mausoleum. Together forever, in health and in death. As he watched the priest perform the final rites, the gold incense case swaying on its delicate chain, filling the small room with coiling smoke, a story he remembered stirred with the ashen smell. A story told to him when he was a small cub.
The omen of the moth. A hero was sharpening his blade on the night before a battle. Underneath the full moon, the hero spots a moth basking in its cold light. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he approaches the moth. The moth glances over to the hero, eyeing his armour, polished sword and his comrade’s encampment in the distance. Then, the moth bursts into laughter, teeth white and gnashing. It doesn’t matter how much you try or prepare. Don’t you know? Your comrades will die all the same. The hero growled and pulled his ears back, demanding the moth to explain themselves. They never did, and vanished as quickly as they were spotted. The following day, half his army perished. The hero wept for the fallen and cursed at the moonlit moth, who had parted with such cruel words. It’s a cautionary tale for children to stay away from strangers (moths, particularly), but as he grew, he realised, there was never a need to fear such things. There weren't any moths in the capital. Not even in the far reaches of their territories.
He turned towards the old graves again as he stepped out. They were still there, as real as him, watching, shrouded in shadow. He heard no laughter. Maybe they did, he thought, on the night before his parents were slain. White teeth gleaming and grinning. That was all he knew about moths after all. When he returned to Yoo Mia’s side, the guards drew the iron gates of the mausoleum shut, dividing the world of the dead from the living, severing responsibilities and leaving it all for him to bear.
As they took their leave, he turned to their direction again once more. While the taller figure had their eyes set on the closed grave of his parents, the little one had his head turned to stare at him. This time, he believed, that they had not been simply watching, but rather, waiting.
At his crowning, Joonghyuk declared war.
He had never been grateful nor glad for being made a king. But for once, he was relieved that his order for his most loyal and brave to be buried on royal grounds was carried out undisputed. They deserved that, at the very least. It had been 4 years since they went to war, and in those years his body had been tempered by battles that shaped it into something truly befitting of a royal panther. A cut and a head above the rest. If only it was enough to turn the tide. The fighting had been fiercer, sharper at the edges, fuelled by its own cycle of revenge. They all had a part to play in this self-sustaining machine. He wondered who struck first. Or rather, what the first strike was. The assassination of the late king and queen? The sabotage of the summit the year before? He didn’t know anymore. The kingdom’s aches and hatred spanned centuries.
The smell of familiar incense being lit roused him from his brooding. The ceremonial trumpets came alive, signalling for the march to begin. They were headed back to the burial grounds again, this time with many more bodies. All along the path to the hill where it sat, guards lit the way with silver torches, relics reserved for tradition and honour. Before him, his resting comrades slept in closed caskets. Those wounds could never heal.
The survivors marched up the hill, burdened by the weight of the dead. But still, they marched. For this one day, they were allowed to grieve, before returning to the battlefield once more.
The procession reached the hill and made for the area where the old graves were, just past where his parents laid. He remembered standing there, barely 16 when the world had decided to tip him over his head. Then he remembered something else. His head snapped toward that crumbling mausoleum.
There. A lone white moth, underneath the roof again. Watching with intent. Right at him. He was closer than he was four years ago, and could see the lithe frame of the man clothed in white, pale and quiet. Had it not for Hyunsung who saw the same thing he did back then, he would have truly thought he was going mad.
The trumpets cried once more, and Joonghyuk returned to the more important matter at hand. The eulogies began. And then the reading of the rites. The torches danced with the wind, as did those white wings.
“Do you remember him?” Hyunsung asks. Neither of them looked at each other. They were supposed to be paying attention, after all.
Joonghyuk softened his gaze forward, a signal that allowed Hyunsung to continue.
“He’s the only one left. I think this place is a little better now, don’t you think?”
His eyes swept around. Not that he remembered much from before, but the grass did seem trimmed and neat. More notably, he realised most of the graves had been bestowed with fresh flowers. He did not recall the burial grounds in any other shade besides grey and a stark white.
“My lord.” Hyunsung said, motioning for him to take his place at the front.
He walked by the caskets, newly lacquered and polished. He didn’t think the dead had a need for decoration. All of this was just mourning, from the detail in the fabric, to the carvings in the wood. But this is what people needed to do. But what he needed was to win this war. So all these patterns in thread and paint could serve as a celebration of love and life. Not the loss. He promises, to the mass before him, to the tired and weary eyes, that he would strive for that day.
Until gold finds it glimmer, their hearts and claws shall be steel. Blood shall be their nourishment.
He raised his sword to the sky. Their comrades are lowered into the ground, taking his promise to the earth.
The sun finally dipped into the horizon, ushering everyone to retreat back to their homes and dry their tears. Joonghyuk ordered Hyunsung to stay. His ears flicked up and his tail stiffened in surprise, but did not ask. Loyalty and obedience ran deep in those that belong to the dog clan.
“I will visit my parents.”
When the light of the torches passed the hills, he made his way over. Remarkably, the polished granite of the mausoleum had kept its shine. There were hardly any dead leaves that littered the steps, like the other graves, flowers were thoughtfully placed by the side. White and soft.
The moth was standing much closer now, just past the fence that divided his parent’s grave from the rest of the grounds, with something in his hand. At the side, Hyunsung had a hand resting on the handle of his blade, eyes trained on him. Slowly, the moth brings up the object, turning it over. Rice wine.
“Bring him over.” Joonghyuk told him.
Hyunsung relaxed, but his hand remained on the grip as he gestured for the moth to come. With approval, the pale man approached Joonghyuk. He took such slow and measured steps that the crinkled leaves barely crackled beneath his feet, as if his duties had required him to be quiet. Strange, Joonghyuk thought. Not even thunder could wake the dead. His black wispy hair gently brushed against his skin that was barely a shade different to his white wings, which trailed behind him on the ground. On closer inspection, they seemed like bundles of cloth, dusted with luminescent powder that made them look so fragile. His feather-like feelers lowered as he bowed, crowning his head like a laurel. It was like meeting a fairytale, existing in blurry, ambiguous features from his imagination, till it had crystallized before him, as if it had been a dream of his.
“My lord, thank you.” said the moth, with a gentle voice. When he brought up his head, their eyes met.
“May I?” he gestured a hand to the bottle he held. Joonghyuk nodded.
The moth retrieved two small cups from his sleeves and placed them down next to the flowers. His movement was elegant and well refined, experienced from the years of servicing the dead. Slender fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle while he used his other hand to pull back his sleeve, revealing a thin wrist, no wider than the wooden rulers he snapped in half when he was a cub. The moth would have perished in the cinders of a battlefield within seconds. As he tipped the bottle into the porcelain cups, the sweet smell of the wine wafted around.
“Apologies, my lord, for intruding upon your privacy. I was content to wait till you had finished your visit.”
“It is alright. What is your name, caretaker?” Joonghyuk asked.
“Kim Dokja, my lord.” He bowed again. ”I hope I have taken care of the late king and queen well enough.”
“Well enough, that you know they enjoyed rice wine.” he commented.
“It was mentioned to me, those years ago.”
“Did you pour for them every day?” he asked.
“Whenever I could afford it, my lord. The troubled shipments have recently made it difficult for me to acquire even a bottle. When I do, it does not come cheap.”
To the north border, where the rice fields were. Where the fighting was most desperate. Some of the bodies buried today had come from there. If they could just push them back further, the trade routes could resume. But even then, how much of the fields would be salvageable now? He would have to confer with his advisors on the state of their grain and food supplies, and how much his people have been enduring.
“On the days I do not have wine, I will brew osmanthus tea for their highnesses.” He looked up to see Dokja studying his face and the darkened expression it had taken on.
“That is to say, my lord, that we will make do. Until gold finds its glimmer.”
A smile formed on his soft face. The most beautiful thing Joonghyuk had seen in a long awhile. Did his subjects feel this way, a swelling of comfort and hope, when he spoke those words? Or was it simply this caretaker, who took his own speech and weaved it into a wish, a small act of faith just for him? Gods, he hoped it was both.