Night Prince

Taken

"We can kidnap her," Seri suggested.

The firm yet gentle hands rubbing ointment attentively to the friction burns around her wrists froze just as Pyo Chi Su spluttered.

"Are you crazy? You want us to kidnap the princess?! Ya, this woman is out of her mind."

Ah, how they have all missed Pyo Chi Su's foul-mouthed tendencies – sarcasm intended.

But what could they say? Seri naturally brought out that side to the captain even if she was simply sitting there, glaring at him with hard daggers.

Seri only softened again when she felt Ri Jeong Hyeok's fingers brush over her wrists gently before he began to rub more ointment to soothe the dulling pain around her wrists. The prince has been quiet but uncharacteristically sullen too ever since they left the rebel's camp.

One couldn't blame him. After all, the princess was still in that camp.

"What do the rebels want anyway?" Joo Myeok asked casually while poking at the fire with a stick.

"They're building weapons. That can't be good for anyone." Kwang Beom added in.

"D-does that mean we're in trouble?" Eun Dong asked timidly as he stopped combing Sir Phillip's mane.

The boys' exchange probed Seri to think deeper about the whole situation surrounding the rebels. From their motives to what she saw, she refused to back down from a mystery worth solving.

Sometime during the night when the royal entourage was discussing tactics with the prince, Seri slipped back into the tents and pulled out the very book that started it all – the royal book.

Immersed in the mystery, Seri didn't even notice that it got quiet outside the tent nor the fact that the prince had joined her because all she was focused on was the book.

When Ri Jeong Hyeok walked into the tent, he saw Seri bent over the bed, reading from a thick book. If his heart wasn't this heavy, he would have chuckled at the sight of his favourite bookworm. 

Seri had decided to use the bed as a makeshift table, which meant she was seated on the floor as she read. He stood there, simply watching her for a few seconds until she shifted the book down to her lap when the position became too strenuous for her neck. That was when she noticed him by the tent.

"Ri Jeong Hyeok." Seri greeted him with a tired smile.

"What do you have there?" Ri Jeong Hyeok crossed the threshold to take a seat next to her.

Showing him the book, a tight smile slipped onto the prince's face when he realised what she was reading. Quietness was relative to the couple as the prince watched his princess run her fingers down the list of the 'Missing', a reminder of the families out there who had their loved ones taken away from them, leaving them with nothing but grief without closure.

There was nothing worse than a mourning period, than a mourning period without proper closure. Like the royal family, many of the townsfolk had to deal with the same grief Ri Jeong Hyeok was dealing with, not knowing if their loved one had truly perished from that war.

Silenced by the rippling pain in his heart, Ri Jeong Hyeok simply watched Seri quietly, leaving her to work in peace as she muttered underneath her breath. Everything about Seri's demeanour screamed focus and he recognised that look in her.

It was the same look she wore when she was trying to figure out his brother's mystery. Now, they were moving on to the next; a bigger mystery – a mystery that was beyond their capacity to imagine.