Chapter Text
When Seokjin was very young, coming up on his fourteenth year, in fact, his mother dragged him out of bed as their village was burning.
He could hear the screams of his people as his mother dragged his frightened body through the fiery pyres of their village.
”We need to get to the river, it’s your only chance, my son!” His mother’s voice was frantic and choked with smoke. Seokjin’s bare feet burned and stung as they went.
Children and adults alike lay scattered between buildings like broken dolls, battered and bruised like a war had been going on. But it wasn’t a war. It was a massacre.
Seokjin didn’t need to see the enemy or cared to know who they were. It was all the same. Innocent blood spilt over land feuding. He was surprised and unsurprised at the same time.
A mist started to form in the clearing as his mother dragged him out of the village and down towards the river. He wondered if it was his mothers doing and realised it probably was. She was shielding them from angry eyes that may follow them.
Tied up on the river bank was the small fishing boat his father used and Seokjin had taken over when his father hadn’t returned two years ago from the last siege. Another stupid tussle for land that left Seokjin fatherless.
Tears fell silently down his face as he stared at the single boat, which had been filled with furs and food as if his mother had been predicting what might happen. And knew that there was only space for one person inside the boat. His running slowed and his knees threatened to give and they neared the boat. Something desperate clawed it's way up to his throat but never escaped. Perhaps it was a scream.
"Please, no." He whispered, using his voice for the first time since waking, his voice hoarse from the smoke and tears. His knees began to shake. "Don't make me go." His plea went unanswered and his mother pulled him to a stop, her movements quick and desperate.
"This all should last you a month on the river. You know how to hunt for yourself. I have a friend who lives near the falls. You must get out before the rapids-" Seokjin pulled his arm from he grasp and stumbled backwards. "I won't go!" His voice has risen.
His mother turned to him this time, but only with sympathy and fear in her eyes. "My son, you will go. It is your only chance. You are only a sapling still."
"I won't leave you." He tried again, lip quivering. She smiled softly, her beautiful face crinkling gently and she reached out to hold his face in her hands.
"I have lived a long and fruitless life. It all meant nothing until you came into my life. And I would rather die here at my post than spend another eternity wandering and lost. My son you will live forever, you shall not die here because of the selfish whims of man. You will live." She was crying now. Beautiful sad tears that Seokjin had only seen once before when the news of his father has arrived.
"You will not be alone. You will find someone to walk through eternity with you, my sweet boy." She stroked his cheek and began guiding him forward again, towards the boat.
"What about you?" He asked, a thick sorrowful resignation in his throat. "Who will be with you?"
"I have never been alone. I will go and meet my soul in the afterlife. He has waited for two years now, but what are a few years in the face of eternity? You will find your soul too, my son." She settled him into the boat and wrapped him gently in the furs as he cried.
A shout came from upon the hill and Seokjin saw the men as they began to pour down the hill towards them.
His mother began pushing him off the river bank and he frantically grasped her hands to keep her with him, but she pulled away firmly and sent him a kiss in the wind. His boat began to move.
"I'll keep them off for as long as possible! Be safe, my heart!"
Seokjin turned away, too fearful to watch as the hoard swarmed closer. Hours passed as he floated down but he did not cry until the gentle mist which surrounded his boat like a gentle caress began to fade into the atmosphere.
Seokjin experienced many horrors on this night, but when he passed by his neighbouring village, which could only be seen from the river from the flames, a familiar sight greeted him. A desperate mother and child.
"Please!" She called out to him, and Seokjin watched and she waded into the river. He used his oar and steered the tiny boat a bit closer to her. The child couldn't have been older than his ninth year, he was tucked in her arm tightly, dirty and tearful.
"Please take him in your boat. He is small, he can fit. I beg of you, please! Just take my boy!" The woman cried desperately but the wind had picked up again and Seokjin began to struggle against the water.
Men with torches were coming, again and again, Seokjin could do nothing as his boat was swept further away. He cried out to them, to apologise, maybe, or warn them. But it was too late.
The boy caught his eyes as they were seized and this time Seokjin couldn't look away. Seokjin's hand outstretched slightly, wishing nothing more than to reach out. The eyes that stared back at him were angry and accusing. And scared, desperate.
And for as long as Seokjin will live, those eyes would forever haunt him.