House of Cards | BTS+

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A Flashback

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Being a diplomatic escort in an alternate dimension wasn't on the top of Lilith's list of career goals. Becoing a seamstress had always been the ticket—except she'd grown up in a world of mass-produced stitching and the only jobs related to clothing were working in retail.

Getting swept up into Era that fateful day had been like waking up from a daydream and finding out that the present has far more to offer than the fantasy. A silly young man named Jackson, his assistant Opal, the two of them had made the drop on Lilith on her way home from the grocery store—all giggles and loud chatter—and Lil never looked back.

Her silly, eccentric new friends had taken to her own oddities with adoring fascination. Opal saw Lil's potential in garment making, and Jackson in garment making of the combat variety. When she wasn't fulfilling her escort duties, Lilith was studying as an Era seamstress' apprentice, studying literature on Mysterium, and learning the art of swordplay. Three years went by in a beautiful blur of friendship, fresh discoveries and personal triumphs.

And then the blur came to a crashing halt, into images so defined they may as well have been carved into stone.

Lilith had naturally met Kim Namjoon on occasion after occasion. Jackson and Joon were friends, both fortress leaders, both always at the same mandatory gatherings. Lilith met both Dai Yu and Kiara, the ladies switching between who might be Joon's escort for such events. Lilith was particularly fond of Dai Yu's pop-culture infused jokes—and how even though phones weren't a thing in Era, Dai Yu somehow retained her love for the art of making memes.

As fate would have it, the only other member of Noon Mool fortress that Lilith ever seemed to cross paths with at these events was a delightfully warm man named Park Chimin.

Lilith found Kim Namjoon to be a bit stiff, although Jackson loved to poke fun and make Joon uncomfortable for a laugh. By contrast, Lil found Chimin's company to be her most favorite in all of Era.

Jackson was a riot, supportive and friendly and sociable.

Opal was cheerful and encouraging.

Chimin was seeing and understanding and sharp—and he saw the sharpness in Lilith, mingled with her feminine warmth, and he gravitated towards her friendship like a moth to flame.

She noticed his warmth right away, too, but that wasn't what made her gravitate towards his friendship as well. It was the lovely contradiction of him. Jackson and Opal fulfilled the shallow assumption that to be cheerful and kind, one must also be a little bit dim-witted. Chimin was cheerful and kind...and also devilishly cunning. Lilith felt a kind of camaraderie in that which she couldn't quite find in her own Fortress members, who were neither particularly devilish nor extraordinarily cunning. But genuine and lovely to a fault, they were certainly that.

The day that Noon Mool launched its assault, Lilith had been hiding out in her little garment laboratory, stowed away in the vault section of her fortress where Mysterium and other precious materials were kept under tight storage and control.

She'd never forget that she was humming 'Thriller' as she was finishing up her first full set of combat armor. It was meant to be a gift for Jackson.

The high-security, two guards and an alarm system, vault door had burst open like an explosive force had knocked it loose. Shock and confusion met her whenever Park Chimin stepped through the doorway in that moment with a stern, scared look on his face. Then her workshop quaked as if a series of earthquakes were all striking her precious Fortress at once.