Chapter Text
Prologue
July TA 2940
“ There is a word in my language, in yeon, fate. If two strangers even walk by each other and their clothes accidentally brush, it means there must have been something between them in their past lives. Think of it as a red string, tying two people together. Meant to twist and tangle, but never break.”
His eyes flickered to where their knees touch, expression melting into something gentle, almost fond.
“ Is there a tale behind it?”
His voice was low, a quiet whisper. Maybe he didn’t want to wake the cacophony of soft snores behind them, but it felt more like they were sharing a secret. Something intimate, a stolen moment amidst the chaos that’s been nipping at their feet.
“Of course.” She smiled, caught in the snare of his gaze.
“The story of the red string started when a man tried to outrun fate. When he was only a boy, he met an old woman tying a pair of red strings together, claiming to be a matchmaker. Little did he know she was a deity in disguise, and when asked who he would marry, she told him it was a girl living far beyond the mountain.”
A low crackle spread through the kindling fire as the wind picked up. Before she could reach for her scarf, a weight had pressed itself down on her shoulders.
He had taken off his coat, draping it over her wordlessly. She ducked her head away to hide the heat spreading across her face, thankful that she could always blame the cold.
“Curious, he journeyed to see her. But when he found her, he didn’t like what he saw, and in his foolishness and anger decided to throw a stone at the girl before running off.”
He raised a brow at this, but there was still more to the story, so she wrapped the coat tighter around herself and scooted closer to him. “Years passed. He grew up, met someone, and married her. On their wedding night, he asked why she always covered her forehead with red paint. She told him it was to hide a scar, one she got as a child when some boy threw a stone at her.”
The grass by their feet swayed gently with the breeze, almost hypnotic under the silver light of the moon. If she listened closely, she could hear the soft breathing of the forest behind them, along with the thrumming of her heartbeat, threatening to race from the way he was looking at her.
“And just like that, he knew. She was the girl from the mountain, the one the old woman had tied him to all those years ago.”
“And you believe this tale?” He asked.
She shrugged. “ They were just bedtime stories to me.”
“And now?”
Her eyes roamed over his face, so familiar to what she'd lost yet so different. High cheekbones and a strong jawline, she missed running her hands over them, through his hair, and down his neck, where she'd pull him close and — she caught herself. She'd been thinking of someone else, someone far away from her. The man before her was not who she thought he was, and she needed to find her way home.
But maybe, a small part of her mind whispered, she was where she needed to be, and that in yeon had made her climb mountains and cross rivers to be here, in this strange, ancient world where dragons and wizards walk the earth, to be with him.
“I believe in agency, in our ability to choose our destiny, our stories.” She explained. “But I also think everything is pre-determined, chemical, physical, and everything is in a way, inevitable.”
Their hands were lying side by side atop the wooden stump, and she moved her pinky, tentatively, carefully across the small space between them. He looked down with an emotion she couldn’t yet pinpoint, sliding his hand across her palm. She felt like breaking under his touch, trembling like a leaf, and he appeared to notice this, cradling her fingers with a tenderness that seemed almost impossible coming from him.
“ That this — ” She swallowed, “ is inevitable.”
He looked like he had been waiting for permission, and she had given it to him, his thumb drawing soft circles atop her hand. That night, something new was forged between them, not yet fierce but waking, like dawn breaking in the distance.