"Slave, could I ask you a question?"

Jimin stopped washing the dishes and glanced over his shoulder to look at his master.

"I am not quite in the position to deny you, am I?" He said calmly, submerging a wooden plate into a bowl of water and scrubbing it with a brush made of horsetail.

"Hmm... such a prickly man you are," Lisa chuckled, crossing her legs on her wooden stool as she knitted a plush-toy in the shape of a rabbit. "Most men simply accept their defeat after a certain point. Your meagre defiance will not set you free, it only embarrasses you."

Jimin perked one of his brows. "Really?" He asked. "Is that what you thought of your husband when he first began to rebel against the people above him? Did you also think he was shameful for thinking like a predator when he was cleary prey?"

Lisa's expression quickly became serious.

"I never agreed to what my husband wanted to do, slave. He was greedy. He wanted more when he had enough and there was a time when I despised him for that. He had a family, a decent home... we were not rich, and we owned no land, but sometimes happiness can be found even in the simple things, can't it?"

The woman poked her toungue out as she stitched the lining of the rabbit's neck.

"Eventually, I simply had to accept my husband for who he was and what he wanted," she continued. "His crave for power... his lust for money... we are outcasts and poorer than we have ever been before, but my husband has people to rule over now. People that depend on him and look to him for leadership and that- I suppose, has made him happier than his family alone ever could."

A silence settled in the small cottage home, and Jimin suddenly found his eyes focusing on his own reflection in the dishwater.

Black disheveled hair, dark circles around his eyes, and pale skin, making him appear ghost-like. Jimin's wildest partying days hadn't made him look this wrecked. His longest nights spent crying hadn't made him feel so numb.

Squealing interrupted the tranquility that had settled inside the house when the children stormed past the door after playing outside all day.

Jimin looked through the window and could see that the sky had begun to weep softly onto the earth's soil, turning the earth into mud.

"Mama! When is papa coming home?"

The little girl asked immediately after entering the house.

"Anytime now," Lisa said, discarting her knitting tools. "So that means I must give you two a bath as quickly as I can."

The children immediately began to scream like crying piglets.

"I don't want a ba-ha-haaaath," the girl cried loudly, while the boy began to negotiate, telling his mother he would clean the garden forever if she allowed him to skip just one day of bathing.

Jimin's lips edged up as he watched Lisa try to control her children, but all the chaos instantly stopped when the frontdoor opened, and Sejin stepped into the house, his presence alone stiffening the atmosphere.

Jimin's breath hitched.

Prepare yourself.

"Good evening lovely ladies, and my strongest warrior."

"Papa!" The children ran into their father's arms after the man hung the keys to Yoongi's chains up on the wall.

"I have good news my loves," Sejin said, pecking the heads of his children. "Prince Namjoon has agreed to pay everything we asked for to the last Drachma. He answered us right away meaning he barely hesitated before agreeing. I discussed it with the men, and they think we should up the price. Perhaps we will get twice what we wanted, isn't that amazing?"

Jimin's eye twitched.

"Are you serious?" Lisa asked, her jaw dropping. "You're getting everything?"

Sejin nodded and smiled, walking away from his children to lift his wife in his arms.

"I told you it would all work out, didn't I dear? He whispered. "I just needed your faith... your so good to me Lisa... without you I am nothing."

The man and his wife connected their foreheads, and Jimin kept his eyes focused on the dishwater as he kept one of his hands submerged.

"Ew mom, dad!" The son complained, making gagging noises when their parents smiled at each other like enamored teens.

Lisa scrunched her nose. "I was just about to bathe them before you showed up."

Sejin hummed. "Is that so? Well, I wouldn't want to stop you."

Jimin gulped, his heart becoming tighter in his chest when Sejin's daughter scurried towards him and giggled like the mischievous child she was.

"Can the slave prince bathe us today papa?" She asked as she grabbed Jimin's hand and pulled at him. "So you two can play that game in your bedroom that you like so much..."

Jimin clenched his jaw and felt himself begin to tremble.

You're not having second thoughts are you?

The prince grimaced.

Will you truly force your brother to bankrupt the kingdom just because you are too weak to save yourself?

Lisa glanced at her husband, and when she met Jimin's eyes, the prince could tell that she knew something was off.

"Sweetie, get away from the slave for a moment, okay dear? He has dishes to clean. Mama is going to bathe you as always. "

"But-"

"Now, Rose."

Your life would become what it was before... you would return to being Namjoon's comfort dog, you would fall back into accepting cock from guards who think you're nothing but a lonely, spoiled, cowardice brat.

The little girl pouted, but when she tried to walk away, she frowned and looked at her hand, as it was still being clutched tightly inside Jimin's.

"M-mama... papa he- he won't let go..." she said, tugging at her hand a bit harder.

You would waste away without anyone caring, without anyone blinking an eye, just as the king always told you you would. Is that what you want, boy?

"Slave, release her," Lisa ordered sternly.

Is that how you will live out the remainder of your life?

"Let her go right now or you will be without an arm, slave," Sejin said, his voice wavering with something closer to fear than anger as he took an intimidating stance.

Rose tried to pry her hand away from Jimin, but the prince kept squeezing her fingers, his breathing growing heavier as his father's words stayed ringing through his skull.

"P-papa he's hurting m-"

Jimin's sense of time and reality shifted out of focus.

He took his other hand out of the dishwater, revealing the knife he had been clutching inside it and placing it against the little girl's neck.

"NO!" Lisa screamed, reaching out as she let out an agonized shriek.

Jimin's fingers quivered, but he managed to press the girl close to him as he threatened to slit her throat with a wide-eyed glare.

"You will... you will let me go or she dies!" He said, firmly tucking the knife under the girl's chin.

He shuffled towards where Yoongi's keys were hung up on the wall and hurriedly retrieved them to slide them into his pocket.

"You're dead..." Sejin growled. "You coward! Going after a little girl? Is that all you can do?!"

Jimin's eyes darkened and his eye twitched again.

Kill her. Show him.

"Dont provoke me," he warned at a gutteral tone, tightening his hold around the crying girl.

"Papa, help me! Please! Help me!"

Tears welled up in Sejin's eyes. "It's okay baby, papa is going to save you... papa is right here..."

"Please don't do this!" Lisa begged. "She's innocent! She didn't do anything wrong!"

Don't drag this out boy, finish it.

"I... I am leaving," Jimin announced. "And you are going to let me."

The prince began to back up against the door, and for a moment, it seemed like perhaps, he had found a way to escape the house without anyone dying.

Everything would work out peacefully. Freedom was within his reach.

But that all changed drastically when the little boy attacked.

"Release my sister slave!" The kid roared, running up to Jimin with his wooden sword in his hands.

"No! JASON!"

All Jimin wanted to do, was hold out his hand and tell the boy to stand back. He wanted him to listen to his parents and stay away so that there would be no casualties.

Stopping him had definetly been Jimin's intention. It was all he thought he was capable of doing.

But when Jimin looked down at his hands after feeling a sudden weight drop on his arm, he realised that, somehow, he had not done what he initially set out to do.

The little girl slid to the floor against Jimin's body, and blood dripped down from his fingers and his stained knife.

He frowned.

"Oh..."

Jimin looked down at the girl's body, only to see the boy fall to the the floor not a moment later with a stabwound in his throat.

It was silent. Jimin looked around but couldn't comprehend what he'd done and for atleast a minute or two, it was silent.

Jimin flinched when Lisa screamed so loudly it would've probably destroyed her vocal chords. She looked like her soul had been shredded. Like her mind had been torn. Her heart, obliterated.

The prince barely heard Sejin hold her back when she lunged towards him without a weapon, without a plan. She simply threw herself at the prince and sobbed as though her own life did not matter anymore.

Jimin frowned, stepping back only to jab his knife into her stomach, feeling disoriented to say the least when he watched her collapse on top of her children.

Slowly, the prince looked up, and he was met with the sight of Sejin staring at his family with glassy eyes.

Silence, once again, took over the small, cramped little cottage.

Jimin nibbled on his lower lip, tangling his fingers into his hair as he looked at the scene.

"This - this wasn't my original plan..." he murmured. "But... it seems it couldn't be helped..."

The prince gulped, stepping over the pile of bodies to get to a tray of bread that stood on the kitchen counter, picking up a loaf and tucking it under his arm before turning back around.

He glanced at Sejin when he put his hand on the door to leave, observing the stunned man who could not stop staring at his butchered family.

"I guess..." Jimin said, slowly opening the door. "I guess you did not protect them after all..."

The prince chuckled, and then he smiled softly as though a weight had fallen off his shoulders. "But... that was never your first priority anyway, was it?"

The Kind Prince of Delos couldn't help a broad smile from creeping onto his face before swiftly escaping into the darkness, feeling the soft pitter-patter of rain on his skin when he stepped outside.

The black sky welcomed him, and a thick mist washed out the borders of the village, but the prince had never been able to see more clearly than he did in that moment.

His heart was racing, his mouth watering with the pleasure of power.

Jimin's eyes shifted to a corner of the village, where he saw not one, not two, but ten dark riders sitting on nightmarish horses that seemed jumpy and restless like excited children, waiting at the border of the village as they stared at the prince.

Tell them, boy. Jimin's father ordered, a low chuckle following his words.

A smirk crawled onto Jimin's face.

"Tell them what?" He asked, biting his lips with an excited smile.

Tell them... your command.