For the Prisoner

10. Meeting Again

Once the group arrived at their prior camp side near the clearing they left Hongjoong on, Seonghwa lifted his hand to signal their stop. His other companions had noticed the change in the woods, the way sweet birches and mighty oaks took the place of the twisted mangroves of the swamp. Their despair magnified as they recognised the old spot, but at the same time, feeble hope sparkled in their eyes. Perhaps this time, they would leave this forest with positivity.

Seonghwa found it unfitting to camp directly near Hongjoong, even when he hoped the gargoyle would be up and about by dusk. He had missed the gargoyle, even outside the answers he sought. As horrid as the noise of him cracking rodents' skulls for dinner was and as unsettling his amber eyes were, he meant a security Seonghwa sought. It was a suffocating blanket upon him, the same clawed hands that had pushed the priest against trees and rocks, encasing and obscuring him with those dark wings.

Now that Seonghwa felt stripped from his promises to God and everything important to him, he would give anything to have Hongjoong smother him. He craved shelter, even if it came with such fear.

The thought of getting Hongjoong back and looking into those amber eyes again sent the priest's heart into a frenzy. It thumped against his sternum as if wanting to leap from his chest, delighted to rejoice with its owner.

Seonghwa couldn't tell how much of its thrill was his own. He wasn't supposed to feel that way. Not towards Hongjoong - demon or not, he was atrocious- and especially not as the one Seonghwa had become. Someone tainted. Someone dirty. Someone not worthy of extending his defiled hands to others in sympathy.

Yet, he shared the excitement of his friends. They set up camp and Wooyoung suggested freeing Hongjoong from the stone right away, but Seonghwa asked them to wait. First, Yunho should arrive and understand the current situation. San gazed into the woods with a yearning of a thousand suns, the lock clutched tightly in his hands. While using Yunho as his excuse, Seonghwa found the time to seize his second reason.

He wanted to talk to Hongjoong while the gargoyle wasn't listening one last time. If Seonghwa had been wrong and the compassion he had interpreted into Hongjoong's last words that sent his heart stuttering for the gargoyle was void, then Seonghwa wanted to bask in those sweet emotions just a while longer. It was selfish, reaping them, but Seonghwa felt cared for in a way he never experienced himself, only ever caring for others.

When he passed Jongho on the log the crusader found a seat on and patiently carved his wooden figures, he wordlessly nodded at Mingi. The witch sat with his staff in his lap on the earth, meditating over a potion he was mixing. Above it in the air floated a rune encased in embers, cast by the magic in his fingertips. Wooyoung watched him with a mixture of fascination and horror.

Jongho nodded. He would have an eye on the witch. While his blade hadn't been blessed in a long time, it might still be strong enough to cut the fiend if he turned on them.

Seonghwa stole away into the forests and their solitude. Soon, the worst part of winter would be over and the slumbering flowers would shake off the stiffness of their stalks. In the time it had taken the group to find the witch, the last of the little white wildflowers lining the forest paths had hidden away under the earth. As he walked, Seonghwa trailed his fingers over the flimsy bark of the birch trees. Pieces peeled under his hands to sail to the ground.

The priest clutched his cape around his body with nervous fingers. He was almost reluctant to lift his head and search for the clearing among the woods. Since he would lose his path otherwise, however, he battled his anxiety.

Doused in a wintery haze that cast a thin layer of snow over the forest floor, the woodland greeted him. It was early noon, but the skies were grey with the impending blizzard lurking in the clouds. They darkened the firmament and made the shadows of the trees flourish.