Crackling fire.
Soldiers marching.
The unbearable heat.
The wails and screams of the tree nymphs as they scrambled to escape their own home.
That's all that plagued your mind as you ran. You had no idea where you were going you just knew you had to run.
You couldn't help but blame yourself. Maybe the dream you had the night before was a warning. But you decided not to listen to it.
You and Jimin had gotten separated in the chaos. You hoped that the tree nymphs made it out alright but you assumed that the worst had happened.
Despite the rain, the fire still managed to burn strong, as it engulfed the trees. You were soaked to the core you wanted to stop running but continued, if not to save yourself, then to save everyone else.
You didn't know if anyone was following you and you didn't want to chance it by looking back. The rocks and sticks didn't feel good underneath your bare feet and you cut your foot several times, not to mention the exhaustion finally began to set in. The rain wasn't helping either, despite your lightweight clothing it made you feel heavier and freezing.
As you were running someone reached out and grabbed your arm and pulled you into the shadows, wrapping you in some kind of cloak.
You were about to shout at this mysterious person but you heard footsteps running in your direction.
"She went this way!" You heard someone shout as the footsteps passed you and faded into the distance.
You looked up at the person who had helped you to try and figure out who they were. It was hard to make out their features in the dark but you recognized them as the head of the royal guard of Vraitis, as he would always stand by the king and queen when you met them.
When the footsteps finally faded he looked down at you,
"Are you alright, Princess?" He questioned.
You nodded, out of breath from all the running.
"Come with me," He stated as he started leading you through the forest.
The two of you walked in silence, occasionally hiding in bushes or behind trees from Worden soldiers that you came across, using the sound of the rain and nighttime to your advantage.
After a while of pure silence and not seeing any threats you decided it was safe to ask questions,
"How did you find me?" You began.
"That siren, Yoongi could tell you were in the area and his highness sent me to get you." He replied.
"Hoseok and Yoongi? They're alright then?" You asked.
"They're safe for the moment, yes."
"What about everyone else?"
"I'm unsure of their whereabouts for the moment, we'll have to get to safety to find out."
You nodded and continued to silently follow the head guard.
♡◇♡◇♡
The two of you arrived at a curtain of vines in the middle of the forest. The head guard pulled them away, allowing you to walk into the clearing that the vines were concealing.
There were several tents in the area and a fire pit and other amenities such as benches made from logs and torches that dimly lit the clearing.
You looked around the clearing for familiar faces but the only one you saw was Hoseok.
He was sitting on one of the log benches alone while several guards and servants were rushing around, attending to people who were wounded or gathering supplies.
You rushed over to him, relieved to see that he was unharmed.
You stopped in your tracks when he looked up at you. He looked so different from the typical cheerful and happy Hoseok. You recognized that look, you saw it all too many times.
You weren't sure what exactly happened but you didn't want to pry.
He stood and smiled as he walked over to you. You assumed he didn't want you to worry but it was too late.
When he approached you he was about to speak, but instead, you hugged him tightly, gently pulling his head close to rest on your shoulder.
You felt hypocritical as you didn't like seeing him pretend to be happy when he was clearly in pain despite that being exactly what you would do, for the entirety of your life up until this point.
He was shocked for a moment before relaxing and hugging you back.
Neither of you spoke and you stayed like that until Hoseok sighed and pulled away.
"You don't have to tell me what happened yet, but I'll be here to help you like you were for me when you need it," You told him, causing him to smile slightly.
"Thank you, Y/N, but there's something you should know..." He replied.
"What is it?" You asked.
"Seokjin and Jimin are still out there and... well..." He trailed off and turned to one of the tents where several people were rushing in and out with medical supplies.
You looked at the tent then back at Hoseok before rushing towards the tent, understanding what he was implying.
You walked through the opening of the tent and Hoseok followed behind you.
Yoongi was lying on the ground, covered in wet cold towels. You could see the burns on his skin through the towels as his breathing was shallow and quick and he was sweating as if he had a fever as well.
Before you could even react to the sight before you, you and Hoseok were ushered out of the tent to make room for the people attending to him.
You stood outside the tent, unmoving, lost in your own thoughts.
"Y/N?" Hoseok spoke up with concern.
You stayed silent, unable to respond as you were troubled with guilt.
"Y/N, are-"
"It's all my fault..." You cut him off.
"What? Don't say that! We don't know whether that's the case!" He exclaimed.
"But it's still a possibility?" You turned to him.
You were both aware that Worden only attacked because of you. Not to mention the fact that you completely ignored the dream you had. If you had reacted sooner then Yoongi might've been in better condition. Jimin and Seokjin wouldn't be out alone by themselves and there would've been far fewer people that were injured.
"Y/N, don't think like that, there was nothing you could've done," Hoseok stated.
"You don't know that!"
The two of you stayed quiet until Hoseok changed the topic,
"Are you injured?" He asked.
"No," You stated plainly.
You probably were in fact injured, but they were most likely mild as you didn't feel any pain. Plus, you didn't want to take resources away from people who actually needed them. You knew that you would've been their top priority because of the prophecy, and you didn't want that.
"Then come with me, I'll show you to your tent." He replied before leading you to one of the tents, it was smaller than most of the other tents but it was quite nice on the inside.
"There's a lake you can bathe in beyond the tree line but just make sure to be careful." He said, you nodded in response.
Hoseok left shortly after you entered the tent and you began looking to see what else was in the tent to distract yourself.
♡◇♡◇♡
You gathered a towel and a change of clothes that were in your tent, they weren't anything particularly fancy, but they would be suitable for your current situation.
You walked out of your tent and saw people continuing to rush around the campsite with supplies, tending to the wounded. You sighed heavily and began heading towards the lake.
On your way there you passed by a canopy that had caught your eye. You saw people laying underneath the canopy with blankets covering them, only showing their feet.
They were dead.
You felt chills run up your spine when you noticed someone covering the body of someone who you had recognized.
Anyone would've been able to tell who it was simply by the luxurious slippers they were wearing.
It was the king of Vraitis.
Next to him was the queen. You stared at them for a moment. You had become desensitized to the idea of death, having looked it in the eyes several times yourself and having lost people to it.
You felt wrong just passing by so you looked around the campsite and noticed a small cluster of violets growing nearby. You gently picked one of the flowers and set it in between the king and queen before continuing to the lake.
You got undressed and got into the water, washing your body while checking for injuries to make sure you didn't have any wounds that could get infected. When you realized you were completely unharmed, much to your surprise, you brushed it off and began thinking.
You floated in the water on your back, staring up at the stars admiring the view.
You heard rustling and quickly looked around, covering yourself despite your body being hidden thanks to the dark water. You grabbed a rock from the edge of the lake and held it up as protection.
Namjoon emerged and stood at the edge of the lake, before he could get a word in you threw a rock in his direction. He quickly dodged it then looked at you like you were crazy.
"What the hell was that!?" He exclaimed.
"What do you mean!? Why are you even here!? Ever heard of privacy!?" You shouted back.
"Relax, it's not like I can see anything, besides, I need to talk to you."
"Couldn't it have waited until after!?"
"No, it's important."
You glared at him for a moment before sighing,
"Fine, what is it?"
"Come to Hoseok's tent when you're done, we'll discuss it then." He left right after and you rolled your eyes.
You quickly got out of the water, dried yourself off, and got dressed before heading to Hoseok's tent.
When you entered Seokjin, Hoseok, Namjoon, and Jimin all stood around a table in the center of the room.
You were glad to see that Seokjin and Jimin were alright but held off on expressing your relief.
"You're here good," Hoseok stated, his mannerisms were completely off. He seemed like a different person entirely as he stood at the center of the table, "Worden has completely taken over Vraitis and everyone in this room holds some sort of position of authority."
"What's this about exactly?" Jimin questioned.
Seokjin and Namjoon both glared at him, telling him to be quiet and he looked at them confused before holding his hands up in surrender.
You knew where this conversation was headed. And while you wanted to help and you studied diplomacy, war tactics, and the like, your skills were never put into practice. You were stepping into uncharted territory and you were still getting used to the idea of magic existing. So how would you act as a leader to people when you had neither the experience nor know-how.
"Like I was saying," Hoseok continued, "I'd like for the five of us to split the responsibilities that my parents had. I figure having a group of people looking after everyone rather than just one person holding the responsibility would be much more comforting for everyone. For now, we'll stay here and recoup, then begin planning what we'll do next."
"Sounds good to me," Seokjin replied.
Namjoon nodded in agreement and the three of them turned to you and Jimin.
"Oh sure, it's just that I know next to nothing about this place and your people, not to mention I'm a total outsider," Jimin stated sarcastically.
"Well, Jimin, they're going to help us obviously, I'm in the same position as you and I'd be happy to help," You said. He looked to you then back at Hoseok.
"Fine, I'll help," He murmured then left the tent.
The four of you stood in the tent awkwardly waiting to be dismissed by Hoseok.
"You're dismissed, go get some rest," He sighed.
Namjoon and Seokjin left and you followed behind glancing back at Hoseok before leaving.
When you exited the tent Jimin was already long gone, and Seokjin and Namjoon split off to their own tents. You headed to your tent as well and went to sleep straight away.
♡◇♡◇♡
You spent the next few weeks in solidarity. You mostly helped out by gathering resources, serving food, or cleaning. And whenever you had free time you'd spend it taking care of Yoongi as he was still in bad condition.
Every so often you would discuss with Hoseok about what was going on at camp and comfort him occasionally because of his parent's passing but other than that you didn't talk to people much.
Several things were put on hold, like learning how to fight or getting mythical beasts on your side to aid you in the coming war. But with Worden invading it was hard to get food for everyone at camp, let alone magical creatures.
One evening after you finished grabbing laundry that was hung up on tree branches to dry deeper in the woods you heard strange grunting noises. Curious, you followed the sound and wound up finding Jungkook in the woods with what seemed to be a training dummy, practicing fist fighting.
You turned to leave, not wanting to disturb him when he called out,
"Y/N? What are you doing here?"
You paused and turned around before responding,
"Just laundry..."
The tension in the air was thick. You weren't surprised given the fact the last time you saw each other you had slapped him across the face.
"Look, I'm sorry for talking about your... friend... like that, I didn't realize how important he was to you..."
"Oh, it's fine... I'm sorry for slapping you..."
"Don't apologize, I would've reacted even worse if someone was talking about Isla the way I was talking about your friend."
You nodded and started looking around the clearing, avoiding eye contact, until finally, you looked at the training dummy then at Jungkook.
"Has that always been here?" You asked.
"No, I wasn't able to sleep last night so I made it to use as a distraction." He replied looking at the dummy.
"Do you think you could continue teaching me?" You asked.
"How to fight?" He said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, I'm still not that great at it and I don't think that I've really retained many of the lessons I was taught on the boat..." You trailed off, "That is if you want to of course."
"Sure, how about later this evening we can meet here?"
"Alright," You nodded, "I'll see you this evening then."
"See you," He said smiling slightly.
♡◇♡◇♡
That evening you put on something more comfortable and headed to the tent with critically injured people to check on Yoongi. His condition hasn't gotten worse but it wasn't getting any better either.
You then headed to the area in the woods with the training dummy. Jungkook was waiting there wrapping bandages around his hands, covering his bruised and bloody knuckles.
"Hey, Princess," He greeted you after noticing your presence.
"Hello," You replied.
"So, why don't you show me how you make a fist?" He said as he walked over to you.
"Sorry?" You looked at him, confusion washing over your face.
"When it comes to fist fighting you kind of need to know how to make a fist properly."
"Don't you just hold it like this?" You held up your hand, making a fist with your thumb curled under your fingers.
"If you want to break your thumb, yes." He took your hand and readjusted your hand to make a proper fist, placing your thumb over the middle of your fingers and adjusting your arm as well, "That's how you make a fist."
He continued adjusting your form but you couldn't focus much on what he was saying. You were flustered by how close he was to you and how he touched you. Every time his hands brushed against your bare skin you couldn't help but notice how rough and calloused his hands were yet he still managed to be gentle with you.
You continued learning combat with him, occasionally forgetting what he's taught you in previous lessons, sometimes purposefully, then he would teach you again. Eventually, you two started sparring for practice, and every time you were hit or possibly injured in some way you walked it off, not because you were able to ignore the pain, but because you hadn't felt any, to begin with.
However, balancing combat training with your duties as a leader, along with taking care of Yoongi and helping out with cleaning became exhausting. On top of that, Yoongi's condition only worsened ever since you started sparring with Jungkook. Not to mention you were having issues with getting sleep in because you kept having strange dreams about Yoongi and you saw people in your dreams that you'd never met before.
So instead of sleeping, you spent time reading books that were retrieved from the library by some of the guards during one of their excursions that they often went on for resources. You were trying your best to educate yourself on the different creatures and beings on Vraitis but the information in the books was scarce, to say the least.
You also started keeping a journal, writing in it when you were awake at night and had nothing to read. You mostly took notes of what you read in the journal, things that you should bring up to Hoseok, or any changes in Yoongi's condition. But on the off chance you were feeling sentimental, you would write about how you felt about your current situation. Sometimes you would write letters to Taehyung, your family members, or the people at Vraitis, detailing what you would want to say to them in the case of your death.
One evening you headed to meet with Jungkook in the forest. You felt particularly exhausted during this sparring session, as you were in charge of planning patrols for the week.
While sparring you lost focus and Jungkook landed a hard kick in your side, causing you to topple over and fall on the ground. He walked over to you and held his hand out for you. You grabbed his hand and he helped you up.
"Are you alright? You seem pretty distracted lately," He stated.
"I'm fine," You brushed the dirt off of you and looked up at him, "Shall we continue?"
He looked at you, eyes filled with concern as he shook his head.
"No, you should get some rest."
"What? I'm fine to continue sparring," You complained.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm aware that you're very capable, but you're clearly too distracted to keep up for the moment, we can continue tomorrow, just make sure you get a good rest tonight."
"Alright..." You sighed and began walking back to camp.
"Hey, Princess!" Jungkook called, you stopped walking and looked over your shoulder, "Goodnight."
"Night, Jungkook," You smiled at him and continued walking to the camp.
Instead of heading back to your tent, you went to check on Yoongi. No one was tending to him at that moment, so you decided to change the dressings on his burns yourself. After taking off the old dressings and putting on the new ones you noticed a bruise on the side of his torso as if he'd been kicked. You also spotted several other bruises that you hadn't noticed before.
You cocked your head in confusion. You wondered if someone had been hurting Yoongi even further, but who would do that and what reason would they have for doing so. After taking care of Yoongi you decided to head back to your tent, seeing as it was too late to bring this up to anyone and they had all gone to sleep.
♡◇♡◇♡
At the crack of dawn, you headed straight to Hoseok's tent. Despite your promise to Jungkook, you hadn't gotten much sleep last night, as you spent your time writing rather than resting.
You entered Hoseok's tent to see that he was still sleeping but you decided to disrupt his sleep by tying the opening to the tent to hold it in place so that the sun would help wake him.
"Hoseok," You said firmly.
He stirred, looking at you through one half-opened eye, squinting to see through the sunlight.
"What could be so important that you had to wake me up at such an ungodly hour?" He murmured, his voice hoarse.
"I would like for Yoongi to be moved to my own tent," You replied.
"Why?" He asked.
"Personal reasons," You stated.
He looked at you skeptically.
"Okay... sure..." He said, "Now may I sleep?"
Before you could respond he had already fallen back asleep so you let him be and began grabbing some things that Yoongi would need from the storage tent and brought them to your own tent. Shortly after you asked a few of the people who had been tended to the wounded to move him to your tent when they had the chance. Afterward, you had a quick breakfast, gathered a few things in a small bag, and put on a cloak before you went to meet up with Seokjin for a morning patrol in the town with a few others.
It would be your first time actually exploring the town of Vraitis itself, and you were disappointed that it would be on such awful terms.
You and Seokjin waited by the exit to the campsite for the other people who would be going with you on patrol. The two of you conversed about simple topics like your combat training and his magical abilities while you waited.
Once everyone had arrived you left for the town, you were on the lookout for burn cream to treat people who had endured burns during the fire, but more specifically for Yoongi. Obviously, there were necessities that you were also looking for such as fruits and vegetables because the garden that was at camp hadn't begun growing, and it wouldn't be a good source of food for at least a few months. Plus, any other medical supplies would be useful.
While searching through the town you and Seokjin had split off to look for medical supplies while the others looked for food. You entered several shops that claimed to sell items for healing, but most of them were of the spiritual variety. And any shops that were meant to have more medicinal-based items were completely trashed. You and Seokjin only managed to find one tub of burn cream and some bandages.
"We should head back now," Seokjin said after you had finished clearing out another store.
You sighed and nodded in agreeance before the two of you began heading back to the campsite.
As you walked through the abandoned streets you had come across two Worden soldiers who had been messing with one of the townspeople who remained in the city. You and Seokjin hid behind an old vendor wagon that had been left behind while you waited out the soldiers, not taking any risks.
"Please sir, I haven't any money left," The old townsman pleaded with the guards, "After the invasion-"
"Invasion? You're calling us invaders now? His excellency is bringing peace to your land and you have the nerve to call us invaders?" One of the guards spat.
"Th-that's not what I meant at all sir! All I've left is my daughter, I can't afford the taxes you're requiring of me," The old man said shrilly.
"A daughter eh?" The other guard said with a sly tone, "Perhaps if she's pretty enough she could substitute as money."
You were about to stand and begin defending the man when Seokjin grabbed hold of your shoulder, warning you not to make any rash decisions, to which you complied.
"I beg your pardon?" The old man replied in disbelief.
"Well go on then, bring 'er here and maybe we'll think about letting you off the hook." The guard said.
"Absolutely not! My daughter is not currency! Under no circumstances will I give her to you as tax payment!"
"Your mistake old man," The two guards began beating the man senselessly.
Seokjin quickly grabbed your wrist, using this as an opportunity for your escape, leading you back towards the forest. You looked over your shoulder as you fled, watching as the two guards hurt the poor man because of something he had no control over.
After arriving back at camp you went straight to your tent where Yoongi was now resting on the floor near your bed with a pillow and a blanket covering him as he lay there still unconscious. You walked over to him and changed his dressings once again, applying the cream you had found on patrol to his burns before putting on new dressings.
You took the towel that had been resting on his forehead to help with his fever and soaked it in a bowl of cool water you had prepared earlier that morning. After ringing out some of the water from the towel you gently placed the back of your hand on Yoongi's forehead to check his temperature before putting the cold towel back on his forehead.
Knowing that you were alone you gently kissed his cheek, and quietly thanked him for everything he'd done for you, hoping for his health to get better. You put the blanket back over him and laid down on the ground next to him. Finally, you felt more at peace and managed to rest for a while, closing your eyes and falling into a deep sleep, succumbing to your exhaustion.
♡◇♡◇♡
Hello!
I wanted to ask how you guys have been doing lately?
I've been well, I recently went on a small vacation which really helped me feel more inspired to write.
I hope you guys are enjoying the double updates!
Thanks for reading!