Broken Glass - Taekook

2

Over the next few hours, I drift in and out of consciousness, my body exhausted. My ears drum with every heartbeat, each one reverberating through my bones with surprising strength. I try to get up, to look at my surroundings, but the effort just makes me black out. After I do this a few times, Seunghyun approaches me and quietly tells me to wait for when my body is ready. 

I don't know how long I lay there, half awake, half alive, before something seems to click within me, and the tiredness begins to fade. The blurriness of my existence clears at the edges, and Taehyung seems to notice this, because he helps me sit up, and lean against the wall, so that I don't expend too much energy at once. To my surprise, I don't fall right back down. When I mention it to Taehyung, he merely smiles and tells me that I must be getting better, slowly but surely. 

Once I'm stable, I'm finally able to take a glance around the home of the people who decided to save my life. 

I'm sat on a heightened bed in the corner of a small room, directly opposite a door, which appears to lead to the outside world. It's left slightly open, to allow the slightly blue light of day to enter and allow for proper visibility. A fireplace sits in the left corner, opposite me, the hearth stones charred from continuous use, the centre inhabited by the current fire, which crackles and jumps cheerfully within its boundaries. 

To my left, a door hangs slightly open, and I can just about see the start of a bed, and yet another door, which is firmly closed. No light seeps through the outline, suggesting that it's one more room, but I have no idea what lies beyond that. 

To the right of the fireplace, Hyejin and Namjoon are sat, quietly discussing something amongst themselves. I recognise the mirror from earlier, still broken, in Namjoon's hand. Every so often, one of them will pull a concentrated face, and the green marks on their arms, as well as their eyes, will glow with a faint green light. But each time, whatever they're trying clearly doesn't work, because they shake their head and return to thoughtful conversation. 

Seunghyun sits beside them, sometimes offering a contribution, sharpening an old knife with a weathered whetstone. His movements are measured and calm, and the gentle rhythm of his actions creates a light scraping sound, predictable and somehow comforting. After Taehyung has checked on me, he goes to a small rack beside the fire, sets it up with two sticks, and starts to sort out plants based on criteria I don't understand. 

As I'm sat there, two young men enter the house, offer me a glance, and then shrug and completely ignore me. Namjoon breaks off mid-sentence at the sight of them, walks over, greets them warmly, and then surprises me by eagerly embracing them both, carefully avoiding the items they carry,

One is much taller and broader, his face partially hidden with a hat, with some sort of dead rodent in his right hand, a leather bag slung over his shoulder, hanging open to reveal a selection of roots and leaves. A sling hangs from his belt, worn from use. 

His companion is shorter, his dark hair tied in a topknot like Seunghyun's, but he carries two dead birds in his hand, and the other hand rests on the handle of a wicked looking knife in his belt. A similar bag hangs over his shoulder, but it's closed. 

The two strangers make their way over to the fire, which has died down slightly over time. The shorter male takes the dead animals, calls to Hyejin, and the two of them begin to prepare the freshly caught meat, whilst the taller male sets up a cauldron to hang over the flames, reaching into a bucket beside the fire for extra wood. I watch, intrigued by his seeming fearlessness of the fire, until he suddenly snaps his fingers, and it grows twofold, the fading light leaping up much higher than before. 

The shorter male takes a small waterskin out of his bag, and pours it carefully into the cauldron. And there's too much water in that thing. I don't know how, but he manages to fill the large container with just that waterskin. As it begins to boil, Hyejin brings over the prepared meat, which has been stripped of skins and feathers, and diced into easier-to-manage squares, dropping it all into the water.