Chapter Text
The first time Beomgyu wanted more was when he was a child, not much older than a toddler, and hungry enough to ask his parents for another serving of rice that did not exist in their stipend. Back then, he had silently accepted their tolerance of the situation, but going to sleep with a hungry stomach wasn’t something he could tolerate. And as he and his brother grew older, the other boy bloomed into the image of their parents while Beomgyu remained childishly infatuated with the idea of having more. Always scavenging to find things to sell at the market, Beomgyu believed himself to be the one responsible for his brother’s still-thick cheeks. That was a new level of greed, wasn't it? He wanted to have an overabundance, not only for himself, but for his brother as well.
The air was always warm but interspersed with a cool ocean breeze that had been recognizable to him since the first time he came to fish with his father. Now, alone, the wind pushed harder; it strewed his black hairstrands apart and punishingly etched a pink tint onto his full cheeks. Midday had been overtaken by clouds, looming dark and heavy in the gray sky. They signaled a more lucrative trip tomorrow, but Beomgyu was still confined by the ache in his stomach and pockets. One fish was enough to feed him tonight, but two would be enough to feed him at the market. If only he could lie on his stomach and catch a fish by hand as he had heard in the stories of in a nearby land.
Beomgyu ran his fingers along the branch-edge of his sampan boat before dipping them down into the depths below and watching tiny ripples course throughout the surface and become engulfed by waves. The waters were still warm from the previous summer, even when his sensitive skin was being attacked by the fall wind, but such a slight positivity couldn’t outweigh their murkiness. Like this, he would never be able to see any fish, much less catch one. But the ocean could only ever be as clear as the skies above; it was cursed to only ever reflect what it was given.
Slowly, Beomgyu pulled his hand from the waves, careful to hold it outside the wooden sampan for a bit longer so he didn’t drip saltwater over his own precious clothing. In his mind, he could imagine himself slipping into the depths as smoothly and quietly as a snake, where he could hibernate until the next spring came and cherry blossoms painted his humble home in a natural bouquet of pink.
Returning to his home, north of the beach, required an hour of wet soles in the soggy dirt path through his neighbors’ rice paddies. At least they had special shoes to keep themselves dry, Beomgyu didn’t. Still, he had been continuing this routine every single day for years, to the point that breaking such a ritual would feel wrong. Take care of the house in the morning, sit on the water and catch as many fish as possible during the day, take some to the market and bring the rest home in the evening. Ever since the last attempted barbarian invasion of seven years past, this was the routine that kept him and his brother alive.
Finally coming to the end of the rice paddies, Beomgyu lifted one leg and reached down to wipe as much of the moisture off as possible before pushing his brown pant leg back down and stepping back onto the newly dry dirt. He did the same with his other foot before continuing on his way home.
As the stilted house came into view, so did the paper parasols his hyung had been meticulously painting. The colors of red, gold, and beige seemed to be muted by the overcast sky, though Beomgyu knew they would be beautiful on a purposeful day.
Soobin’s fingers were careful, but the quick lines he drew made intricate patterns seem easy in a way that Beomgyu could never recreate. If only his hyung could do the same with clothing, something useful to them, and not the royalty with time to loiter outside...maybe then they could emulate that same opulence with patterns of gold dragon scales and flower petals that held motion instead of the stagnancy of peasant life.
Even as his dongsaeng approached, Soobin did not look up. He was in the middle of finishing the curved edge of a soaked leaf on his water lily painting. Still, he spoke, free hand loosely clasping the top of his crisp white hanbok. “You’ve dirtied your baji.”
Beomgyu looked down at his pants, seeing the brown murkiness of mud at the very cuff. He had forgotten to tie it back around his ankle after exiting the rice paddy.
He looked back up at his hyung and nervously smiled. “Guess what I got!” He swiftly changed the subject and held up the two fishes he had been carrying throughout his journey. Each hung from a line hooked in their upper lips and then wrapped around his hand. They were heavy enough for the lines to dig uncomfortably into his skin and surely leave red marks once he removed them, but it was worth it to see his hyung light up.
Soobin’s brush lingered over the paper panel in front of his fingertips, but with distracted eyes, he didn’t touch. A gentle smile crossed his face and he ushered the boy over with his free hand. Once Beomgyu stood close enough, Soobin reached out and patted his head. “Good job, Beomgyu. Now go change your baji. I’ll clean the ones you’ve soiled.”
Beomgyu made a noise of agreeance and then looked up at the sky when a drop of cold water hit his nose. With every passing moment it was becoming darker, though it couldn’t have been any later than the early evening. “Will you take your parasols in?” The slight movement of Soobin’s nodding head made Beomgyu look back down. “Alright. I’ll help you. Just give me a few minutes.”
With that, Beomgyu scampered up the wooden ladder and into their home.
Beomgyu sat atop his sampan once again. His straw hat mostly shielded him from the autumn wind, but he dreaded the coming winter months. If he were lucky, the storms would have brought an abundance of fish to catch. If he caught many fish in the next few days, he could potentially sell enough to stay inside for the winter. How nice would it be to hibernate until spring like a freshly born bear cub?
Just his luck, the pole tugged and he caught a fish easily. It had been a few minutes since entering the water, so he could only imagine how many more would come afterwards.
Quiet and still, he watched the water closely. Even the sound of his breath was empty without resonance. If he looked hard enough, there seemed to be movement underwater, but he couldn’t parse it. It was probably his wishful thinking that grew an illusion in his mind. Still, he bit his bottom and tugged it into his mouth as he watched the tiniest ripples slither away from his boat.
Just as Beomgyu was about to settle back down into a relaxed and patient state, he heard a familiar noise coming from the beach. The loud clashing of town drums that he hadn’t heard in seven years. For a moment, he thought his ears might be tricking him. He hoped. Beomgyu watched the dull gray waves rise on the nearest shore and then recede back into the water. His eyes narrowed and he swallowed down the anxiety of what he thought he had heard. Maybe it had just been the trauma of his childhood returning to the forefront of his mind. No, this kingdom was secure.
It was only when plumes of smoke rushed into the sky that Beomgyu realized his ears had been clouded by the ocean’s breeze. He quickly stood on his sampan, balancing himself when the water turned shaky. The smoke plumes were rising higher than the clouds and they were rising fast. He quickly grabbed one of the branches and sat back on his knees, paddling towards the shore. He kept thinking of his hyung and their home, all the parasols, their clothing and food, everything that could so easily burn down.
Beomgyu paddled, but the shore didn’t seem to be coming closer. If anything, his short and shallow strokes were making it worse. In frustration, he leaned down farther and dipped his opposite arm into the water, trying to push forward.
A figure came into his view, a little dot running towards him from the rice paddies. In only a few seconds, the person had crossed into the beach and was kicking sand up behind his feet with every step. Beomgyu’s eyes widened when he recognized his hyung, waving a hand up at him and ushering him to return faster. His mouth opened but was carried away with the wind. Beomgyu paddled as much as he could, but eventually became frantic enough to jump into the water instead.
Its warmth enveloped him easily, much softer than the striking autumn air above him. He pushed forward, eyes on Soobin, until his hyung looked away. Beomgyu followed his line of sight, in and out of the water, until he was faced with the image of men on horseback riding through the exact path Soobin had taken to come here. Beomgyu felt his heart leap through his chest, terrified at the image he was being presented with. It was an exact replica of what had come seven years ago. A group of huge men on huge horses running through their village and destroying everything they had built up.
Soobin waded into the water, far enough to meet Beomgyu and pull him out by his forearm. He continued to hold on as they ran alongside the beach, perpendicular to the water, and away from the men on horses. The wind still blew just as hard over the sand as it did over the water, and its iciness froze over his wet ears until they felt bruised. Slowly, he began to stray behind Soobin. His hyung had longer legs and a stronger physique that Beomgyu couldn’t match. Still, Soobin only gripped harder and pulled him forward more aggressively. As much as he wanted to look back, he didn’t. He knew he would lose his balance and fall. That would bring him to the same certain death as his parents.
But running in a flat, open land was not going to save them. There were no forests for miles, nothing to trip the horses or stop the riders. At this point, they would tire out far before the horses ever would. But still, Soobin and Beomgyu ran. And the sound of deep yelling voices behind them began to pierce through the wind. They called out in a tongue Beomgyu could not understand, but one that he could still recognize. The consonants erupted from deep within their throats, their vowels elongated and hissed like a snake. It rejuvenated Beomgyu’s fear and forced the energy through his legs to run faster than he had before. Every chunk of air he inhaled didn’t have time to thaw in his lungs before he pushed it back out into his surroundings.
Something landed on the ground in front of them, but Beomgyu didn’t have enough time to look at it before Soobin harshly shoved him to the side and into the cresting waves. He crashed into the wet sand, landing almost directly on his face. His still-present self-preservation forced him to immediately lift himself back up and turn towards his brother.
Soobin had become entangled in some type of net-cloth. He attempted to pull it off and away from his skin, but there wasn’t enough time and his limbs were too long and jumbled. The men had almost completely caught up to them by the time Soobin had one arm free. The only way Beomgyu could possibly escape at this point was if he abandoned his hyung, but that would never happen. He pushed himself from the ground and towards Soobin, attempting to pull the net away even if he knew it was in vain.
Within seconds, the horses stopped in front of them. Beomgyu let go of the net in order to hold Soobin close instead. He wrapped his arms around the boy’s middle and squeezed until the skin of his fingers had turned white and Soobin’s back was against his chest. The sound of drums haunted the air now that Beomgyu could hear better. Still, he didn’t want to believe it. Even with the men sitting in front of him, above him, staring down at him, he hoped the beating of the drum was really just the beating of his heart. All he could do was stare at them in silent fear as his chest heaved up and down with the attempt to breathe and live. It seemed that his hyung was in a similar position, saying and doing nothing while the men spoke to each other in that same snake’s growl.
Finally, one of the men slid off the side of his horse. He landed on his feet with the strength and confidence of someone who had been riding for many years. Someone who had been raised up in the snowy plains of a tribe far to the north. Up where they grew horses twice the size of any that Beomgyu had seen. Up where their men ate their meat boiled and grew just as large as the brutish creatures they rode in on.
When the man stepped forward, Beomgyu instinctively leaned back, still clutching Soobin close. The footprint left behind in the sand was deeply ingrained by the thick and heavy boots the man wore, leaving a mark that would soon be washed away by the tide. The layers of cloth wrapped around his body rubbed against the sheathed sword on his hip when he leaned down, creating some dissonant sound that made Beomgyu swallow out of nervousness. He could still hear the screams of his countrymen and smell the fires that raged behind the rice paddies. The unclean, unshaven, curls of hair that protruded from the skin around the man’s mouth as he leered down at the two was so foreign and wrong to Beomgyu. These men, all of them, they were unclean and they were savages and he couldn’t believe he was about to die at the hands of those who had killed his ancestors when the -
“чи өнөөдөр үхэхгүй.”
Beomgyu stared at the man as he rubbed a hand over his chin, a smile gracing the splotchy features. His voice was deep, deeper than his hyung’s. Like the largest, longest drum their village owned. It was deeper than the signal that the horsemen were returning.
“Та бидэнд маш их мөнгө олох болно.”
Again, Beomgyu could do nothing but stare in confusion. Their snake language was so distinct from anything that he had ever heard before that it was impossible to parse. There was not even a basic similarity that he could recognize, such as he could with some foreign travelers that passed through with a tongue that he could understand but not replicate.
Suddenly, the man grabbed Soobin by the cuff of his jeogori, attempting to pull him up and away. Beomgyu tightened his grip, squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head. “No!” He yelled, though he knew they couldn’t understand. “No!”
The man roughly grabbed his hair and tugged him back. When Beomgyu opened his eyes, he could see the man pulling Soobin in the opposite direction by his hair, too. Still, Beomgyu didn’t let go. “No!” He repeated over and over as the pressure on his scalp built. At some point, he heard Soobin repeating it alongside him, but his heartbeat was ringing through his ears so loudly that he could barely hear anything.
But, God, it hurt. Beomgyu had a good amount of hair on his head, quite long and thick, and he could feel the strands ripping out at the base. He let out a noise of pain, but continued pushing through it until he felt Soobin’s hands grab his own and tear them off until the two completely separated. The man tossed Beomgyu aside, only for another brute to grab him before he could catch himself and push him face-first into the sand. Beomgyu cried out as the man harshly pulled his arms behind him and tied them together with a coarse and thin rope. When he pulled Beomgyu back up onto his feet, the boy cried out again at the pain of his shoulder joints extending.
Immediately, the man turned him around until they were facing each other and slapped Beomgyu across the face. “амаа тат!” He said, and Beomgyu thought he could get the gist of that one. He didn’t move or speak again, even when the man tugged him towards the beast of a horse and lifted him to sit on top of it. He was extremely uncomfortable, especially when the man settled in behind him, leaning forward and into Beomgyu’s space in order to keep control of the horse from the strange position. His cheek burned with heat that somewhat alleviated the cold.
The man behind him reached up and slapped the side of his horse’s neck, causing it to rear up and begin running forward. The rest of the men did the same and soon they had all taken off down towards the rice paddies and towards the village. It was rocky and uncomfortable for someone who had never been atop a horse before, and Beomgyu thought he hated it. The man kept him stabilized, but Beomgyu would rather have fallen off and broken his face open against the ground if it meant he wouldn’t be taken back to the village just to meet a worse fate. Well, the ground was actually pretty soft right here. Maybe he should hope to fall and get trampled instead.
Soobin was in the exact position as him, looking just as stiff, uncomfortable, and terrified. Beomgyu wanted to ask his hyung why he had forced him to let go, why he had given up and allowed them to be taken this way, but he was fearful of the man looming behind him. Bigger than any human he had ever seen before and with skin as thick and rough as an animal pelt.
It didn’t take long until they arrived back at the village. As Beomgyu had anticipated, all their homes were utterly destroyed. Some of the fires were still raging and some had blackened the wood, breaking the houses apart completely. Just like theirs had melted down between the stilts and flopped sadly into the dirt below. But worse than that, there were bodies of the various townspeople lying across the fields, cold and slaughtered. Blades stabbed through their necks or stomachs, impaling them until they writhed to death in misery. Beomgyu couldn’t stand to look.
The horses came to a stop just at the edge of the rice paddies and each man began descending from his horse. The one behind Beomgyu roughly pulled him from the horse by his elbow and led him to a congregation a fair distance away. There was a living group of his townspeople huddled together and surrounded by many more brutes. Each of the captives seemed to be around the same age as Beomgyu and Soobin. Some were toned fieldworkers with muscles worthy of envy and some were more delicate with baby fat still rounding out their cheeks. And Beomgyu thought…well, Beomgyu thought he fell into the former category.
He pressed close to Soobin and the rest of the villagers as those men briefly spoke to each other. Then, they got back on their horses and began trotting up, forcing the group of people to be ushered alongside them. Any person that accidentally staggered behind or purposely attempted to sneak away was beaten back into the pack. Beomgyu eyed the swords each brute carried on his waist and the bows that hung on their backs, the bleeding faces and dirtied clothing of his townspeople, and tried to decipher why this particular group of people was not being murdered.
It must have been for their labor. With no elderly, children, or infirm being taken, there was no other option. If they were lucky, maybe he and his hyung could continue their humble lives in the rice paddies of China. Even if it was forced labor, he wasn’t losing much. That was life for people like him. No power, no autonomy. They could only hope to continue living under a benevolent master who allowed him to continue selling freely at the market. So Beomgyu and Soobin complied with the barbarians. They allowed themselves to be taken away from the rice paddies, away from the beach, and away from the home Beomgyu had known for his entire life.
They traveled north in daytime and rested under the stars at nighttime. Much of their journey was through open farmland and plains. Beomgyu imagined the luck of his kingdom’s army coming to rescue them, but he knew the men had purposely avoided populated villages and townships on their way out. After a week, they had exited Jin and entered Gojoseon. A week after that, they had left the peninsula and entered China.
Beomgyu expected the weather to become warmer as they walked. He was hoping, maybe, they could be sold onto the fruitful southern land that he had only heard of in the stories of various travelers. His imagination of it was certainly better than the reality, but daydreaming of a potentially better life was easier than crying over what they had lost. When his fellow villagers cried, even if it was only into the sleeve of their cream shirts, they would be beaten into the ground. Beomgyu allowed his mind to fill with the images of opulence; things that he couldn’t even imagine existing. Fruits and vegetables to match each color of the elements, clothing with blues and oranges and pinks brightening it, something better than where he had been and where he was right now. Beomgyu enjoyed the fantasy for a while longer.
But they didn’t pass into a new, warm atmosphere. Instead, it only got colder. Beomgyu didn’t know what direction they were walking at any given moment, but he prayed it wasn’t north. He wouldn’t survive in the snow, he knew that. He was too small, too weak, his joints froze over easily, and he wasn’t bulky enough to expend the type of energy that northern laborers required. It was the same for Soobin; he was a bit taller, but he wasn’t strong.
The anxiety built up as more days passed and they entered a forest full of bare, gray trees. They had no moisture in their bark or leaves on their branches, there weren’t even any on the forest floor. Beomgyu looked around at the horsemen, trotting along and speaking to each other while the captives remained silent. With their attention distracted, Beomgyu turned to his hyung and leaned close. “Where are we going?” His voice disappeared into the wind as he spoke, and the men didn’t seem to notice.
Soobin looked forward as they continued to walk. “Don’t know.”
For a moment, Beomgyu continued watching his hyung. But the boy said nothing more.
“You need to stay warm.”
The words had reverberated through the clothing of his hyung’s shirt and into Beomgyu’s cheek. Beomgyu looked up at Soobin from where he was lying on the boy’s chest. Every exhale came out in white steam before dissolving into the atmosphere. His limbs were a bit shaky and his fingers had lost their cherry blush within the harsh binds around his wrists. Soobin looked back down at him with downturned lips and a sigh as Beomgyu’s cheeks pressed into the boy’s collar, hiding away from the nighttime air. He could feel Soobin’s bones through the fabric. It had been two months of walking without any idea where they were headed. Some had already dropped, looking like skeletons before they even hit the ground. All the ones who did were people like him: small, weak, delicate. Realistically, he would be the one to die before Soobin.
“You become sick every winter already, but if you become sick in this atmosphere, I worry.”
Beomgyu drifted off to the sound of his hyung’s voice.
“I worry.”
Finally, the horsemen stopped.
Somehow, it was more difficult for Beomgyu to stand still than it was to keep walking. There was a dull throbbing from the soles of his feet to the tips of his toes and up to his thighs that only worsened when both feet were planted on the dirt. He lifted them up intermittently to relieve some of the exertion, but it wasn’t too helpful. He just wished these men would stop talking so he could keep going wherever they were going. Soobin’s chin lingered on his shoulder as a sign of comfort, but it really didn’t help. There was nothing to comfort him now.
Just as the pain in his feet was becoming unbearable, the loud thumps of hooves rang through his ears again. It made him flinch, an action that his body wasn’t quite ready for, and Soobin had to stabilize him.
A new group of men arrived in front of them, and Beomgyu could do nothing but stare. There were about twenty horses, much smaller than the brutes their captors used, but still large enough to carry a full-grown man and the golden plates draping over their front legs like skirts. The men on top held long sticks with silver-pointed tips. Beomgyu thought they looked much less useful than the swords of their current captors, but what did he know?
As the horses came to a stop, one man quickly hopped off and began walking towards the group of barbarians. Coming closer, Beomgyu was able to make out more of his appearance and it was weird. The man wore some golden helmet that completely obscured his face from the men he began speaking to. His arms, chest, and feet were covered in the same golden plates as the horse, leaving his lower body as the only place uncovered. In fact, he didn’t even wear pants. From what Beomgyu could see, the man had a brown piece of fabric wrapped around his hips and white pleats draping over it.
It looked so strange. Unlike anything Beomgyu had ever seen before.
After a few moments, the lead barbarian and the weird man came together and began speaking. The skirt-man handed the other some strange clump of metal and they both began making their way to the villagers. They would stop, look at one, and then point to the left or to the right. Beomgyu couldn’t understand what reason they were basing their decisions on. Those to the left consisted of the strongest, tallest men in their group, but also the smaller, weaker, and near-death men. Those to the right held some strong men, but also included those who fell between the two groups. Beomgyu didn’t know which one he would fall into, and he didn’t really care. He could only hope that one group was not being exterminated while the other survived. He just wanted to make it to whatever destination he was headed to.
When the weird man came to him, he grabbed Beomgyu by the chin and leaned forward. Though the helmet covered his head, nose, and mouth, it left the smallest gap for his eyes. The unnaturally colored eyes stared at Beomgyu and he stared back into them, even with fear in his heart. He had never seen a person with eyes like those; eyes as round as a black bear’s but with the reflection of the ocean in them.
“Θα μπορούσε να γίνει ερωμένος του Φαραώ.” The man spoke with a slight nod to his head. The tone of his tongue was much calmer than the throatiness of their captors. Though Beomgyu couldn’t understand it, he could recognize the consistent sharp consonants followed by soft vowels, something reminiscent of his own language. It brought a bit of peace to his mind, even if only momentarily.
“Αρέσουν στο Φαραώ τα αγόρια?” The barbarian’s voice came from behind the strange man, and Beomgyu’s eyebrows raised. The dark, husky tone of snake-language had somehow completely altered itself to fit such a relaxed and calm noise.
“Mhm.” The man nodded and pointed Beomgyu to the left. He stumbled forward a bit when he began walking, but carried himself successfully to the villagers. When he turned back, he could see the man staring at his hyung. But barely a moment passed before he pointed Soobin to the group on the right. He watched the boy begin walking away and to the other group. Beomgyu wanted to run over there, to tell the barbarians to put him and his brother in the same group, to do something. But when Soobin stood still with his group and turned to meet Beomgyu’s eyes, he shook his head.
There were so many things he could have been thinking, and so many reasons for Beomgyu not to make a scene, but he didn’t know. He couldn’t know what Soobin was thinking from such a distance. He couldn’t know anything. All he really knew was that this world wasn’t a place for people like him to fight. That right was saved for those who were given it by God, those who were born lucky. He and Soobin weren’t born lucky. They were born as tools.
So when ten of the strange men, with their small horses and pleated skirts, surrounded Beomgyu’s group and the rest surrounded Soobin’s, Beomgyu didn’t fight it. He didn’t slack in his walking as they left each other behind. He didn’t get beaten or accidentally murdered today. He simply allowed his swollen feet to weakly drag him in the direction they desired.
As the journey continued, the air became warmer. Even though winter had yet to end and the nights still made Beomgyu wonder how much longer he had to survive, each day brought a more bearable air.
For another month, they continued. Their new captors seemed to be much less jovial than the last. They didn’t talk to each other as much and they didn’t eat together before going to sleep. However, they also didn’t pay as much attention to the villagers, allowing them to speak to each other and walk a bit more freely. These people, Beomgyu thought, seemed to be a bit more solitary. He could appreciate that if it meant he was left alone.
But unfortunately, this comfort did not last forever. The men eventually led them out of the green grasses and trees they had been covered by and into barren sand. At first, it excited Beomgyu. It reminded him of his home on the beach; he was happy to enter some tropical region to live out the rest of his puny existence. He kept his eyes peeled in every direction, looking for the body of water this beach led to. It seemed to be the longest stretch of sand he had ever seen, but he still daydreamed about the possibilities of his future. There wasn’t much more he could hope for other than to be placed in a semi-familiar climate with rulers that left him alone like these men seemed to do. His only worry was that he would not be able to complete the labor they wanted. His body was on its way to collapsing after these months and he found it hard to even lay down at night. If he couldn’t perform well, he wouldn’t survive. But he had made it this far, he had to survive.
The longer they walked, the more confused Beomgyu became. The sand seemed to stretch into the horizon and off the face of the earth without a single drop of water to be found. He noticed that it was much thinner and lighter than the sand at his home; it floated into the sky with every step and entered his hair, eyes, clothing, and skin. At nighttime, he sat and grabbed a handful from where his wrists were still bound. The particles floated through his fingers immediately whereas his homeland’s sand would have stuck together. It was softer and darker, almost orange where his had been white. When he stood up to look for an ocean in the distance, the nightguard watched him closely, but said nothing.
There was no water. Beomgyu couldn’t understand it. But the more he stared, the more he thought the dunes of sand looked like ocean waves. It messed with his perception a bit, and he wondered if the ocean was really the ocean or just something he had conjured up in his daydreams.
By the time Beomgyu could see something more than just endless yellow sand, only twenty-three villagers were left from the thirty-four that had been separated into this group. Each time a person died in their sleep, the rest had no choice but to leave their bodies in the sand and continue on. Beomgyu held the hands of other villagers as they walked and silently mourned those who had passed.
At first, they could only see a black dot in the distance. It was far enough away that he couldn’t view any details until half a day later. Slowly, it grew and grew in his vision until the picture of a city was clear.
Beomgyu had never even been to the most populous part of his kingdom, but he had been to the market. Even there, with everyone in his village present, it was not even partially as large as this city looked. Settled within an ocean of gold were thousands of white buildings bunched together close enough that their sides were touching. The ground was a reddish-brown color that reminded Beomgyu of dirt, but it was as hard on his feet as wood when he stepped on it. Immediately, he didn’t like it. His soles had been covered with the bottom cuff of his pants since he had seen Soobin, and were now worn down to the point of being useless. Soft sand under his skin was nice and alleviated the pressure for the while they had been there, but this harsh terrain would not be good for him. Every step he took was accentuated with a limp, and one glance around him told him the rest of his villagers were in the same position.
Their gait significantly slowed and Beomgyu worried that the horsemen would begin beating them, but they simply slowed down to move at the same speed.
To distract himself, Beomgyu looked around at the city. The path they walked could fit thirty people side-by-side, but was separated down the middle by a row of square, gray rock-bowls filled with crystal blue water. In front of the buildings stood pillars of white, carved with images of humans and animals that Beomgyu couldn’t recognize. One of them held the image of a human body but with the head of a long-beaked bird. His eyes widened as he stared at it. Did this place really have bird-humans in it?
Once the shock began to settle, Beomgyu took in the people around him. They were a bit hard to see due to the horsemen, but the street seemed to be busy. There were people behind stalls, selling various pieces of pottery, clothing, and some rocks that sparkled under the sunlight, stringed together in order of smallest to largest. Some people were stopped at the stalls but most people were just walking around. It reminded Beomgyu of his own village’s market, but without the huge, bustling crowd and seemingly uninterested walkers. He didn’t really understand; what was the point in going to a market if you were not going to buy anything? In Beomgyu’s home, the sellers were the same buyers that supported others.
Even though he found their behavior strange, he did like their clothing. The women wore white dresses that fell to their ankles while men wore white dresses that fell to their thighs. Beomgyu still believed the image of a man wearing a dress was strange, but he was a bit jealous that their white cloth was untarnished. His, in turn, had been essentially ruined throughout the journey. This kingdom was extremely polished in architecture and seemed to be much more luxurious than Beomgyu had ever seen, but their people still wore the same white of peasants. It made him feel a bit more comfortable, even though he was clearly still below them.
But maybe this was the life of a laborer in this kingdom? Did they get to spend their days walking a busy, beautiful street after their job was done? There were so many people , maybe the division of labor gave each of them more freetime? How lucky would he be if that were the case?
It seemed that the passersby were also interested in him and the rest of the villagers. Occasionally, he would see someone peeking at them through the gaps in horsemen. He didn’t like it. He was embarrassed to be a representative of his home. In this state, he most likely looked as though he had crawled from a hole in the ground.
When Beomgyu heard a noise from the man beside him, he quickly turned to look. His first fear was that one would collapse and die in the middle of the street, but that seemed not to be the case. The man’s eyes were wide and staring off into the distance in front of them. Beomgyu followed his gaze and his own eyes widened.
There were huge mountains towering over the city in the distance. Without any clouds or fog, he could easily see their pristine white color and perfectly triangular shape. He had never seen mountains without curves, rigid edges, a tilt, or some type of imperfection. This land they had been taken to was truly something else. He continued to stare at them as the horsemen took the villagers closer, and soon he could see even more of the landscape come into view. There was a building ten times as tall as the street buildings, with walls as crisp and white as those on the mountains. There were stairs coming from the ground and rising as high as twenty people stacked on top of each other. At the top of the stairs were many more of the thick, cylindrical columns that held the ceiling in the air. The length of the building seemed to stretch much farther than Beomgyu could see from his place on the ground.
Between the center two columns sat a small, square hole. It was shadowed into darkness, preventing Beomgyu from seeing anything within it. There were several men standing beside it at the top of the stairs, dressed similarly to the horsemen Beomgyu had been stuck with.
Once they came to the bottom of the stairs, the horsemen stopped and waited as another group of men came towards them. Again, Beomgyu couldn’t stand having his feet on the ground for so long and it was becoming impossible to ignore, even by the splendor of such a monument. It was pretty, but Beomgyu also thought he might die at its feet.
This time, he didn’t even listen to the men’s conversation. He didn’t care about whatever language they spoke or how it sounded, he just waited for them to be done. And it didn’t take long before the new men pulled Beomgyu and two others aside. One came behind him and swiftly cut the ropes that had been binding him for so long. When he pulled his hands in front of himself again, his eyebrows raised at the wide and deep red lashes across his skin. The tips of his fingers were slightly gray, but color began to return almost immediately. He had not felt any pain on his wrists or hands, but he supposed he would once the blood fully returned.
The men began ushering Beomgyu and the two other villagers to walk up the stairs while the rest of his people were taken in another direction outside of this large monument. The muscles of Beomgyu’s thighs and calves could barely carry him upwards, and he held hands with the two others to keep them all stabilized. Again, the men didn’t lay a hand on any of them, and instead met their slow pace. Beomgyu didn’t have the energy or willpower to decipher the intentions of the men, the reason why only three villagers were picked apart from the rest, or what was intended for his future. All he could do was look down at the stairs as he forced his body to walk him up.
The guards at the top, with long spears and serious expressions, only glanced in Beomgyu’s direction before returning to whatever conversation they were having. The three entered the door at the usherance of the men who had taken them up, but Beomgyu still kept his eyes on the ground. His breath came out in staggered bursts, burning his lungs. If he lifted his head, he was sure he would lose consciousness and be left to die like the bodies in the sand. The only thing he could tell was that they had not yet entered any building. It seemed they had only passed an outer wall and continued on a bright white stone path. Beomgyu moved forward and tugged the other two along with him.
“Αυτοί είναι οι εταίροι?” A voice called and echoed through whatever space they were in.
One of the men spoke back to the voice, the new person, and then placed a hand on Beomgyu’s shoulder, nearly knocking him to the ground with only the placement of his palm. Beomgyu stopped walking and so did the other two villagers.
Suddenly, his chin was forced upwards by a thick hand. Beomgyu’s eyes met those of a man with eyes as green as the leaves Soobin used to paint on his parasols. The shape of his face was more like a rectangle, with a defined elongated nose and chin that made Beomgyu uncomfortable. It settled somewhere into the uncanny valley where Beomgyu recognized that this was a human, but still couldn’t reckon with it.
Once the man let him go, he moved to the next one and Beomgyu allowed his head to roll back towards the ground. It was definitely warm in this kingdom, but the sun beating down on the back of his neck was only dehydrating him like a fish. After a few seconds, the man led them inside while the armed men stayed out. And then, finally, they were in the shade. Still, Beomgyu couldn’t look up or do much of anything other than walk. With only one person guiding them, it must have been obvious. There was no fighting back at this point.
The man held up his hand in front of them, and they stopped. He then opened a door and Beomgyu finally looked up. The room was completely enclosed by white walls with no openings; there were torches in various corners, but the light was still dim across the barren room. The flooring was a bit uneven and there was a small hole in the opposite corner of the room that Beomgyu cautiously eyed. He wondered if it was a trap and the man would shove him down to his death.
But as his mind wandered, the man suddenly grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and began tugging on the knot that held it closed. Beomgyu’s eyes widened and he grabbed the man’s hands, enclosing around them and attempting to pull them off. He shook his head at the man, wanting to say something but knowing they could not communicate. His heart was beating quickly and sending a rush of tingles through the rest of his body that only resulted in weak trembles. The man stopped for a moment, staring Beomgyu straight in the eyes, and then simply continued to undo the knot. Beomgyu’s hands still covered the man’s, but he was too weak to tense his muscles. It took no effort for the knot to be pulled apart, and then for his shirt to be pulled open. However, it didn’t reveal his skin quite yet, due to the second knot underneath. That seemed to irritate the man, who glared down at it and quickly untied it before pulling Beomgyu’s shirt off his shoulders.
He then moved down to Beomgyu’s pants, and the boy’s hands followed his again even though he couldn’t do anything. It only took a single pull for the knot on his waist to be undone before they quickly unfolded and fell to the ground at his ankles. With the fabric of his cuffs already being undone and wrapped around his feet, the man simply pointed at them and then made a motion as if he were throwing something away. Beomgyu assumed it meant he wanted them off, but before he could move, the man had already gone to the next villager.
Beomgyu leaned down and attempted to pull the wraps from his feet, but flinched when a sharp pain ran through his foot. He peeled it back, slower this time, but was barely able to move it. When he squinted, trying to focus through the dimness of the room, he finally saw the problem. His feet must have begun bleeding due to their consistent abuse and without having any oil or a change of bandages, the scabs simply grew through the fabric of his pants.
With that realization, he nervously looked back up at the man, who was focused on undressing the last boy. Beomgyu’s eyes traveled down to the state of his comrades’ bodies and then immediately looked away again. He told himself he didn’t look as bad off as them, but he knew he must.
The man looked at him, to his feet, and angrily motioned away again while saying something Beomgyu couldn’t understand. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again before lifting his foot and pointing at the dark brown color that had overtaken the wraps around his sole.
It seemed to work, because the men made some noise in his throat before walking past the boys and to the door they had entered through. His voice echoed throughout the larger room outside and then in moments, he had come back in with a group of women. They pulled a wooden cart with several buckets of water behind them. Beomgyu and the other two boys backed away and instinctively huddled together, covering their nakedness. But he soon realized the women had their own breasts exposed and only wore pleated white skirts with golden bands around their heads.
Even though Beomgyu was deeply uncomfortable and couldn’t understand why these women were exposed in front of him, it made him feel better about his own nudity. That was probably strange and wrong, and it certainly made him feel a bit grossed out at himself, but the comfort was probably preferable if there was nothing he could do to get away from them anyway.
Two of the women grabbed a bucket of water and carried it to one corner of the room, the muscles in their arms defined and flexing as they did so. The rest followed and then there was a bucket in each corner except for the one with the hole. The original two ladies ushered him towards them, looking him straight in the eyes. He glanced at the boys beside him, but they were being ushered off into separate directions, just like him. Beomgyu hesitantly walked the few feet it took to get to them and then sat when they pointed at the ground. One carried a small bowl while the other dipped a larger cup into the water and swirled it around. He watched with heavy and tired eyes, knees bent underneath him and hands tucked away in his lap to keep some sort of dignity. But when the woman dipped her fingers into the bowl and brought her hand down to rub some thick, oily substance over his body, he didn’t stop her. Over his chest, his stomach, his crotch, and his legs. She then moved behind him to do the same over his head and down his back.
Beomgyu let out a sigh as her fingers pressed into his skin. It skirted the line between painful and relaxing. His muscles had been drained to a complete emptiness, but this woman seemed to be gentle enough that they didn’t break.
The woman in front of him kneeled down and he avoided looking at her, but she gently grabbed his chin with one hand and drew downward until his lips parted. She then brought her other hand up and tried to press it into his mouth. He could immediately taste some substance on it and shook his head, pulling away from her intrusion. She gripped him harder, pressing a thumb into the joint of his jaw and between his teeth until it was painful. In the next second, the woman behind him reached around and pinched his nose shut. He continued trying to shake his head, but they held strong and eventually he had to open his mouth to breathe. She immediately pressed into his mouth and he wanted to bite her, but she didn’t push in far enough. Her fingers rubbed against his teeth, putting a strange taste in his mouth. It was like swallowing a bucket of saltwater and grass.
His gut told him they were poisoning him. He remembered drinking from the ocean as a child and subsequently throwing up. These people must have been trying to do that to him. So as soon as the woman withdrew her finger from his mouth, Beomgyu spit it onto the floor. Part of him expected to get hit for that, but they didn’t seem to care. The unpleasant taste lingered in his mouth, but he didn’t have time to take it in before a warm waterfall was poured over his head. He closed his eyes as the woman behind him began rubbing back over his body, wiping him free of the stuff she had put on him. Why would she put anything on him if she was going to remove it anyway? Nothing made sense to him anymore.
They continued the same routine for a long while, as the thick substance proved to be difficult. The oil stuck to his skin and left him feeling uncomfortably sticky. Still, the consistent pressure against his skin began to wear him out. It had been so long since he had any opportunity to relax and even if this was not the most ideal place or time, well, it could be the last time he would ever have to relax. So, as they doused him in warm water and gently rubbed over his skin and hair, he couldn’t help his head from drooping forward. By the time he even realized he was falling asleep, he had fallen asleep.