The food there is gathered on his plate does not seem to shrink despite the fork he occasionally brings up and down between the plate and his mouth. He has been staring down at a piece of green vegetable that lays on the left corner of the dish all while he not even notice that the fork in his hand has not been moving since he has taken it in his hand. Instead, his senses are too distracted by the many foreign eyes that linger at him above the tables around him from time to time. They appear to be curious, some envious, and then there are those who abhor him. Yeosang cannot bear the weight of those eyes, if he has to face them, his fragile being will then shatter.

He listens to how Seonghwa speaks effortlessly to the other knights, seeming like someone who simply converses with whoever it may be. But Yeosang has already figured that Seonghwa is classified higher in the knights' rankings, all by the simple information of him being called 'Commander Park', and never his first name. It makes Yeosang feel ill at ease to know that rules for him must be more strict, and flaws may give him severe consequences.

Yeosang is brought out of his internal worries and into the ones he keeps in the real world when Seonghwa shoves at his shoulder.

"Eat your food and be grateful that He has granted a peccator a full meal."

With the pressure from the stern cold voice, he has no choice and starts digging into the now cool food on his plate. After the first bite is down, it gets easier to swallow the cooked victuals and his hunger is finally satisfied after hours of torment.

The knight raises himself from the table, his attire clinks in the movement against the wooden materials he sits on and Yeosang lays his fork down to the empty plate again.

"Get up. Leave the plate, someone will clean them up after us," Seonghwa says, but Yeosang can not stop wondering if the order is misleading him. After all, do the boy know that good deeds are seen as the extremely finest way to behave if you wish yourself to have a flawless life.

But Seonghwa is not being dishonest when his hands are more worthy than the lie he would have been telling Yeosang otherwise. Yeosang knows that. He fumbles to his feet and turns around immediately as he follows the commander away from the uncomfortable stares he has on him. Yeosang has no time to think of where he is brought before he has left the building and can breathe the fresh air again. The sun is peeking down from the sky, and Yeosang lifts his head to feel the warmth touch his face. His attention is already slipping so far away that he doesn't see how Seonghwa has stopped in the middle of the courtyard, and the boy now jolts directly into him, the collision sending a startle through his body and he takes a step back in fear for the knight. His eyes seek shakily for the dark orbs of the knight, but when he finds them, they are not angered.

Seonghwa has furrowed brows and his eyes are squinted slightly in consideration. Some of his fingers tap against the opposite arm.

"Are you sure that you are not feeling aeger anymore? I can take you to the healers quarters, if you wish?" Seonghwa asks thoughtfully and grabs the boy's shoulder.

Yeosang swallows his words and stills everything until he can feel his pulse beat around in his body before he finally shakes his head in opposition to the awaiting requester. Even if he still had been feeling feverish, he would not have told so, if that meant omitting being locked inside the chamber until he was feeling well again.

"I appreciate your worries, Seonghwa, but I am feeling completely fine," Yeosang says and strays his sight to his feet that lightly crush the little stones between the gaps of the cobblestones underneath the leather boots he wears. He can feel the squeeze Seonghwa gives his shoulder before steering him in a different direction.

"Licuit, this way then."

The light push has the boy looking up from the ground again, and instead detecting the unknown way across the still empty courtyard. Their boots echo against the ground as the only sound he can hear. The laughter from the feast hall has faded behind them and Seonghwa leads them toward a small closed wooden gate door that must open to even more grounds of Lectushire Fortress. Yeosang can not imagine what he may find on the other side while he is too focused on Seonghwa's hand that still lays on his shoulder, and then suddenly they stand in front of the gate. The knight is not leaving his shoulder when he moves his right hand forward and pulls the heavy door open. Yeosang shudders when he feels the small sensation of a breath tingling in his neck and his mind floods with imaginations of the handsome knight, there never should have appeared in his thoughts at all.

A huge old tree crowns his being when they step through the opening, and Yeosang is left astounded by its mesmerizing size. Curved branches stretch out to the buildings that surround it, leaves coloring this courtyard in blood red. Yeosang has never seen anything like this and for a moment he wonders if this mystic tree is one of a magical kind. Seonghwa is not pushing him forward but lets the boy stand and admire the sight in front of him.

Then a voice answers his many questions, "It is a Japanese Maple tree that our blacksmith brought home from one of his journeys to Japan in his young days. It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Magical," Yeosang whispers and takes another step forward the tree.

The boy does not see the small smile that Seonghwa wears when he proceeds to move further under the Maple tree's powerful colors. While Yeosang tries to form any words for his admiration, he all of a sudden stands beside the slender trunk of the life and glances up through its leaves, his hand gently resting against the rough surface.

"She is the heart of Lectushire Fortress, our precious devitiae that we protect with our lives. You may not be surprised by that."

And he was not. This tree was alive, its heartbeat throbbing right under his palm and its breath mingling in the wind that breezes through its red leaves. The boy took a minute more to watch how it peacefully swayed with its crown above him and then turned to the knight who awaited him. At home had they never treasured nature as much as this Maple tree signified those people did.

The courtyard they walk inside is closed off by the buildings around it, unlike the one Yeosang had crossed earlier. The tree is protected well. Now, he realizes how great this fortress actually is. With a raised head, Yeosang sees that Seonghwa already is standing by another door that he holds open, and he hurries through the opening. All those unknown passages excite him and his eyes start twinkling in a sudden eagerness for what the knight has to show him now. Further down the path from the single pitch roof that stretches from the building and a couple of meters out, several different plantations are situated, but Seonghwa does not direct in that way, instead, he steers toward a small half-open stonehouse in the far bottom of the small hill where tall spruce trees stand. Whirling smoke rises from the house and soon Yeosang smells it too.

Seonghwa is not telling him anything of where they are going, but Yeosang doesn't ask, as it seems it is not needed. After the last steps on the small stairs downward the elevation Seonghwa turns around to face Yeosang, and the gentle expression is gone, blurred of a stone-cold utterance.

"Peccator, this is where our blacksmith stays, be kind."

The order makes him swallow a lump and his eyes feel watery, but Yeosang is unsure if it is the words that impact him or the fact that the smell and feeling of smoke flush through his face at the same time the knight speaks. Yeosang follows him closer to the open fire that blows around with pieces of ash and sparks. A pounding sound has Yeosang stepping back again while he coughs the smoke out of his lungs.

"Oh, hello, Commander Park, what a surprise you just gave me," a man says, lowering the heavy tools he has in his hands.

Yeosang can only guess that this man must be the blacksmith. The boy eyes him carefully. It is an elder man, short cut grey hair, but despite his age, does his muscles still show from under his clothes. A piece of scorching hot iron is held in his one hand, and when Yeosang wants to greet him, he stutters across his words. The man is missing an eye.

"And you brought someone I see, a new trainee?" the blacksmith asks, as he lays his tools on a stone table in the open-sided house.

Seonghwa replies directly, "Yes, he needs a weapon."

The blacksmith hums and steps around to where Yeosang stands, looking at him with his single, bloodshot eye.

"The forced type, or a voluntary one?"

The man smells immensely of smoke and sweat, but Yeosang does not move.

"He is a peccator, he had no choice, sir."

The man mumbles for himself while he takes his leather gloves off and reaches his hand out for Yeosang, "My name is Theodòre, but make it easier and call me Theo."

Slowly, he takes the hand and shakes it, while telling his own name. Theòdore smiles crooked with his holes of missing teeth and Yeosang hurries his hand away from the man again, scared of the sudden act.

"Interesting, very interesting. Well, you're lucky that I got a helping hand today. San! Come here!" the blacksmith yells and someone suddenly hastens out of the small stonehouse, his hands fiddling around until they brush his long blonde strands of hair out of his eyes.

His eyes are young and filled with curiosity when he sees Yeosang. The boy named San nods approvingly at Seonghwa, but instead of greeting him back, Seonghwa's expression turns disappointed and he suspires.

"Choi San, tell me, why are you not inside your chamber at this given time?"

Exaggeratedly, the boy throws his arms in the air, dropping what he has in his hand, "My wounds are healing just fine, and besides, I needed to refill my stock of arrows!"

Yeosang can only guess that those two knights know each other and he glances down at his feet while they speak. He thinks about if Seonghwa really is meaning that he will get his own weapon as the words feel like an odd faraway dream that does not seem to be any near this world. Not even close to a world like Wooyoung's. Yeosang's imagination of himself holding a sword like Seonghwa's, Seonghwa's brother's, or even Choi Jongho is failing him and he may laugh out loud for the things he sees. It all is too foolish. If his father knew about this, he would have betted all his riches on that Yeosang is not even having the strength to lift a single weapon. He is too weak.

"Yeosang, come with me," Theodòre calls and the boy looks up at his only eye.

After thinking for a moment the boy reluctantly decides to follow the blacksmith into his stonehouse but the sight that awaits him has him contemplate this decision. Yeosang sees weapons. They are everywhere, hanging, laying, displayed, hidden, all sizes, all different kinds; the boy has never seen so many in his whole life. He gasps.

"They are all handmade and designed by me," the blacksmith's hands are already grabbing around one of them and pulling it closer to Yeosang for him to survey its beautiful and aesthetic outlines that are cut into the iron.

Yeosang reaches his fingers forward to move along with the sword's decorative patterns, "This is incredible," he mumbles.

Theodòre chuckles at the boy's remark, "It is, what I want you to do now, is finding your own special weaponry. One that you think will match with yourself the best when you stand in a battle."

It takes Yeosang several passing seconds to embrace what he is told, and he withdraws his hand when he finally does. His mind is at a loss for words. He gazes up at the blacksmith, perplexion coating both his eyes.

"You want me to decide that?"

The elder man nods confidently at him, but Yeosang is still bewildered.

"But I have no such knowledge of weapons. I-I don't even know how to use them."

His heart is pounding inside his chest by now, and he stares at the iron in front of him. He does not know what to do in this situation.

"That is why you have to choose by your heart. Take the one you feel the most attracted to and have faith in what fate has led you to."

But this guidance is nothing like the one he needs. Yeosang is stalled from doing anything as he just stares until his eyes start to burn. It is all grey and metal, flooding into a mass of harsh murdering. He has no target for his eyes to land on, and although, when he sees the little blue stone, he pulls the metal into his hand. Immediately, its cool surface heats and melts into his palm like a first kiss, and the boy is soon closer to calling himself a real man.

"A slender Crusader sword, with a beautifully sculpted quillon and a blue stone in the middle of the cross-guard, designed as a cross there can kill the unfaithful. It will only bring you luck."

⚔︎