Taekook Oneshots

Purple Summer

The field will wave with corn
The grey fly choir will mourn
And mares will neigh
With stallions that they mate
Foals they've born
And all shall know the wonder
Of purple summer

It was just an adventure. That was it. There wasn't supposed to be anything fancy going on, no unexpected sights, nothing out of the ordinary. We were basically still kids, no matter what our parents said, and it was impossible to imagine that anything could happen to us. We thought we were invulnerable, as long as we stayed in the places we knew.

And yet, when we set out that full moon, everything changed.

Midsummer is a dangerous time for youngsters, especially those who don't understand the threats around them. Mothers keep their children safe, hold them where the firelight makes everything clear, keep them at home where they belong. Within the stone walls of a village, nothing can happen. Within a small family cottage, no child can be tempted to step where they should not. Where they can't, if they want to see tomorrow as the same person they were today.

When I was a mere sixteen summers old, growing into a man in the village I grew up in with the people I loved, I began to grow unsettled with the gentle rhythm of country life. And I believed that I was old enough to be unbothered by the tempting whispers of the Forbidden.

I was wrong.

My friends and I set out when our parents were beginning to settle in bed, each promising that we were going to visit each other and stay the night. It was a simple excuse, one we'd used before to do other, less daring things. Find the secrets of the village when we were boys. Discover something new about the place we lived in. Back then, I suppose the village walls were protective enough to stop any wandering spirits from taking our attention.

Besides, back then we were too focused on finding the old well that my mother had told me about the day before that little adventure.

Now, all we wanted to see was the wonders of the forest during the night.

Our village sat comfortably at the border to a forest that climbed over a huge mountain range. The men hunted within these forests for deer, whilst our mothers cared for the young, prepared meals, did the generic housework, and-

Okay, maybe our lives weren't that ordered.

These forests were hunting grounds for anyone who was brave enough to enter. Man, woman, father, mother, person or parent, they all entered the forest to find food. Whether you hunted or gathered was organised based on your ability, whether you were pregnant or not, and what you'd brought with you. If you forgot a weapon, it would've been a bit difficult to hunt, for example.

Children were never allowed to enter the forest alone during the summer, especially guarded closer to midsummer, and around full moons. It was too dangerous. The forces within were particularly powerful on children, the adults stated. And so we would have no chance if we weren't accompanied by a guardian or parent of some sort.

Even an older sibling was a safety net.

But on this particular night, the six of us snuck out of the protective boundary of the village walls, helping each other over the locked gate by hoisting or pulling each person over the wooden structure, which was centuries old and nearly ten feet tall. It was a credit to our upbringing that we were able to scale it, given the strength and forethought required in order to make the jump without getting hurt.

Once we got over that particular hurdle...or rather, massive dark wooden gate, it was easy enough to run into the forest, laughing in whispered tones and grinning conspiratorially at each other. We'd made it. Those adults had no idea where we were, and they couldn't control us anymore.