purple cosmos || seongjoong

the untrusting

Mingi wasn't expecting Isabel, Belrose's acting leader, to actually listen to him. Perhaps someone else had finished the job of convincing her for him, or she had truly listened to her conscience (or sense of self-preservation) on the matter. By Saturday, the prisoners had all been moved from the dungeons. The husband and wife pair had been moved into the manor itself. Whether it was to keep the wife more comfortable or to simply keep a closer eye on them was hard to tell.

Even though it was a Saturday, there was still work to be done, courtesy of the laziness everyone had during the rain. He was in the middle of shovelling horse dung from the stables when someone approached him from behind. Mingi turned his head, curious why the person hadn't yet announced themselves as they came to a stop before him.

"Hello, there."

Mingi froze at the hesitant voice, the pitchfork in his hands going a little loose in his grip for a second. Because right there, perhaps a metre away from him, was the prince. Choi Jongho was right there, in all his fabled glory, even still wearing that long flowy grey robe people always talked about. All that was missing was the golden crown.

A little bit of horse shit was discolouring the upper part of one of Mingi's boots. He was sure he had smeared it on his coat somehow, too.

"I was told to help with the stable today." The prince said.

"Really?" Mingi glanced around them. The horses were outside, enjoying the chilly but sunny winter day in the paddock. It was only them there, them and the layers of old hay and dung and leftover horse feed.

"To clean, and to help you feed and water the horses." The prince elaborated. "I have some experience with grooming as well, but I'm by no means a master of it."

"You what?" Mingi said dumbly. The prince was very handsome, and something about him seemed very mature, even though Mingi knew he had been born two summers after Mingi himself.

"Handling the horses was one of my main responsibilities during my training." At Mingi's continued stare, the prince spoke again. "I went through the basic soldier training at the capitol. It's how I met Knight Wooyoung."

"Nice backstory." Mingi said. He had an idea, and he liked it so much that he acted on it. He tossed the stinky pitchfork towards the other. To his surprise, the other man caught it easily. He didn't even flinch as the dung came dangerously close to his shiny boots.

"You're gonna get dirty here today." Mingi warned, looking the prince up and down. "Perhaps you should change your clothes."

"I don't have any others," was the response. The prince didn't look particularly put off by this though.

He was a fair cry from the whining and crying nobles that Mingi knew he shared a barracks with. The pair set off to work in companionable silence. Mingi was expecting at least something, an upturned nose or a grimace as they got to work. But Jongho's expression was neutral the whole time, as if he had something to prove to Mingi.

By midday, they had gotten decently far into cleaning the stables. They had removed the layers of dirt and other unspeakable things, and Mingi was throwing buckets of water from the river nearby onto the floor. He tasked the prince to fill up the buckets for him, and after a brief explanation of where to find the river the prince was running back and forth at a startlingly quick pace. To top it all off, he carried two buckets instead of one, not even looking like he was struggling all that much with the weight of them.

The prince was made of surprisingly strong stuff. The only time the man slipped up was when Mingi gave him a soft slap on the back when they left for lunch. The man flinched, stumbling slightly on the cobblestone.