Love In A Sinking Realm ⊰BTS⊱ Steampunk

CHAPTER 8 ✑ An Elegy Of Hope

⊰🎩⊱ Author's Note ⊰🎩⊱

I dedicate this chapter and this music to an honorable and good man. To my grandfather.

Ruthlessly taken away from me by covid-19, on the 6th of November 2020.

A week before I saw him before my eyes. And a week later his ashes lay in my house.

⊰᯽⊱┈─╌♚ ♕ ♚╌─┈⊰᯽⊱

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: The music does not belong to me, nor the the YouTube channel. Please credit the sources and the artists themselves💜

⊰᯽⊱┈─╌♚ ♕ ♚╌─┈⊰᯽⊱

Jihmm spent all of his money on supplies, provisions and new clothes before heading to Bolasaeg on horseback. The peasants were more than somewhat suspicious, eyeing them from the shadows of the stagnantly quiet village, murmuring the local incomprehensible dialect. Their disposition was stern and rough, clearly affected by the war's collateral damage.

They took the road in the forest and up the mountains to avoid detection. The sunrise awoke the broad canyons. Majestic species of birds glided harmoniously among the sharply outlined clouds. An otherwise stupendous sight, but rather stifled by an ill-omended darkness that had sank in Selenya's chest, like an impending calamity. While riding her great black horse, with the chilly air caressing her face, she battled to ignore this untoward sensation.

They moved swiftly, taking not a moment of rest, with the only company of Taehberius' directions on how to behave in a quarantined city. They all agreed unquestioningly, trusting into boy's knowledge as a Physician's Apprentice. But no word of comfort, or confidence could tame the anxiety that was pulsating with all its might the closer they got to Namjuniel.

Riding over the last hilltop, civilization appeared, like tiny dots of spacious streets, wooden structures and a large logged field. Farther away the Purple Lake mirrored the clouds that threatened the sky with rain.

"What is that?" asked Jinghim pointing his finger at the square treeless land a few miles away from the city.

Selenya and Taehberius glimpsed at each other intently.

"Not sure...," mumbled Taehberius, although both he and the girl knew exactly what it was.

And their suspicions were confermed after descending the precipitous hilltop and reaching a photographer standing at the corner of what appeared to be enormous, rashly dug, mass graves, with dirt and dust agitated by the wind, causing a dreary haze. He had his head covered by the the camera's cloth, taking pictures of the tragedy before their eyes.

"Graves...," said Yoon while pulling the strings of his horse, "Probably a few hundred."

"Probably more...", muttered Selenya, her stomach aching by the stench of death, "We shouldn't stay here."

"Agreed," said Yoon.

They moved towards the photographer.

"Excuse me, good sir!" called out Jihmm as friendly as he could manage, for not to raise suspicion.

The man withdrew his head from under the cloth, slightly bowed and wore his top hat, "Yes, good morning to you sirs...my lady."

"Pray, is this what we think it is?"

"I'm afraid so, lad," replied the man with an academic accent, while adjusting the lense of the camera, "This whole section of trees was cut clean to dig graves for the poor souls who died by this cursed pestilence. I came from behalf of the Royal University to document the events, hopefully to swerve the kingdom's attention to more pressing matters than capture the fugitive prince and his bastard brothers..."