Kindred Spirits | A Story For Those Who Loves To Read

Happy 10thversary Armyyy! (please imagine it in your biased voice) Since the world is celebrating the golden tunes of our purple ocean. I thought why not give you a gift that is inspired by our safe haven, born on Taetae’s 27th B-day and with the hope to reign for years to come. I present you the fourth chapter of ‘Destiny (운명), Yeoubi (여우비) and Take Me Back To The Night We Met’. Happy Reading!

Kim Tae In

Please read the previous chapters to enjoy the unfolding of the story and let the boy take you on an unforgettable journey ahead.

Previous Chapter III: Take Me Back To The Night We Met | A Story for Those Who Love To Read

The boy felt bedazzled when he opened his eyes and found himself resting in an open field. The tip of his nose was cold due to the wintry touch of the breeze but the sky was in complete contrast with the frigid atmosphere. It wore a vibrant frozen blue with white gypsy clouds that sparkled under the rays of the bright sun. It almost hurts if one keeps staring at the blue.

The whole place was blossoming with giggles and laughter of children, joyful smiles began clearer with every passing second as the boy gained his full consciousness. He looked down and saw himself dressed in brown suspenders with a shirt twice his size. The tip of his toe peeked through the worn-out leather shoes.

He quickly brushed off the dead grass from his clothes, looking around to search for any known signs. His heart thudded inside his chest as he tried to understand where was he and how did he get transported to the barren land heaped with crops?

‘The prince finally woke up‘, a 5-year-old girl shouts as she rushed towards the boy and holds his hand in delight. The boy spots two more 5 years old dressed in pretty white summer dresses, with blonde hair all of different lengths crowned with flower tiaras.

Their small faces looked adorable like the moon, covered in freckles all over. He was unable to think clearly and neither felt the need to push the girls away. The little girls giggled and made him sit on what looked like an old dried bark.

One of the little girls ran near a group of coetaneous girls like him. They sat forming a circle, dressed in the same summer dresses as the little girls, with hair tinted in different shades, varied styles, and each head crowned with one of a kind flower tiaras. 

The boy noticed a hand raised in the air from the middle of the circle, it held a thick flower tiara made with wildflowers. A trinket tied on the wrist of the hand with a daisy charm. The boy felt strange to notice such a tiny ornament so vividly despite the distance but he could not understand a single word that the girls were chit-chatting. Their voices came muffled as if somebody had put his head inside the water.

He tried to get a good look at the person holding the tiara but the little girls who sat near him kept his hands and legs occupied adorning them with armlets and bracelets beaded with fine bark and wild blossoms. 

The little girl soon ran back to him holding the same tiara that he saw in the girl’s hand. She looked at him for a second before tightening her grip on the tiara. Then, she swiftly yet carefully climbed up the bark and crowned him with it. All three of them exclaimed in unison ‘Our prince is the prettiest of all.’

As soon as they finished the little girl slipped and was about to fall but the boy caught her in his embrace making the trio burst into laughter. He then noticed the coetaneous girls getting up from the ground and standing in a line. The girl with the daisy charm was leading the pack. He couldn’t see her face as it hid behind the silky chocolate tresses.

‘Our carriages are here, Mother will be waiting’, one of the girls from the trio mention before they followed the daisy-charmed girl. The boy could not understand any of it as he tried to convince his mind to get him back to reality. He remembered that he dared to cross the premises of the haunted library but after that, he could not recall any incident and found himself stuck in this mirage.

His thoughts sliced up as one of the little girls rushes back to him. She was the same girl who crowned him with the tiara and whom he rescued from falling. She spoke in her naive voice ‘Let’s go, Prince, Mother is waiting for us’. He felt skeptical about following the girl but eventually decided to follow her instead of standing still and letting his mind get the best of him.

The boy spotted two carriages with brown and black shiny horses tied to them governed by chaperons dressed in royal attires to chauffeur them. The little girls quickly climb up and sat in their tiny royal seats on the back of the carriage. The boy was about to get up when he noticed the chaperone eyeing him from his seat.

‘Prince I’m afraid, you will need a bigger seat, the one with the sweet ladies has your royal seat.‘ The old chaperone said with a dense voice.

The boy hesitated and looked towards the carriage of the girls. He couldn’t look at them properly as he was afraid that the girls might think he was gawking so he asked the chaperon if he could sit beside him.

‘It will be my life’s most virtuous honor but prince I’m afraid that the people and king himself will’… ‘No more words, I am sitting beside you’ The boy declared in between the chaperone’s words, surprised by his sudden outspokenness.

Their carriage made its way through a thick dense forest, adorned with tall green deciduous trees and a carpet of dried twigs and leaves that crunch beneath the metal wheels. The thin, droopy branches made an indefinite canopy from which the sun played hide and seek with its rays. The path almost seemed as if it was paved by the horse carriage’s continuous trails. Sounds of the horses’ hoofs mixed with the crawling of the carriage and occasional chirps of the wild birds filled the atmosphere.

The boy felt mesmerized by the beauty as he looked around enjoying the scene. He did not feel scared for a moment rather there was a sense of serenity that he felt for the first time since he landed here.

He gathered courage and finally decided to ask the chaperone ‘Where was he? Where they were heading? why did everybody address him as a prince?’  but the chaperone let out a chuckle before replying ‘My prince, you never fail to amuse me, did you again went on one of your future escapades? What character you played this time and do they still travel in a pencil-shaped vessel?’

The old chaperon laughed asking the questions and witnessing it, the boy also laughed nervously before deciding to save his questions for later.

The carriages stopped in front of a huge iron-barred gate with heads of lions carved out of gold on each pillar. The paint on the bars shone under the sunlight as if someone sprinkled dust of glitter on it. It looked like a royal entrance, two guards in royal attire ran towards the gates to open.

The broad path was bordered by neatly chopped shrubs that led deeper to lush green mowed fields. The boy noticed a white stone fountain from which water sprinkled acting as raindrops for the nearby shrubs. There were royal workers scattered on the field, occupied in their work but as the carriage rode further all stood still paying homage to them. He witnessed an old gardener engrossed in trimming dead branches on one of the shrubs, near the path. The gardener did not hear the sound of the carriage and stood up abruptly to pay respect to them. His sudden action cost him a side-eye look from the chaperones as they crossed him.

After reaching the tip of the path, their carriage stopped and the boy helped the little girls to get down from the carriage. He tried to spot the girl with the daisy charm, slyly but did not find any hands with the trinket tied, anymore. Even if he was astonished by the giant castle that stood in front of him, he was more displeased by the fact that he couldn’t get to see the face of the daisy-charmed girl.

He felt teeny observing the white stone castle bordered with gold. It was built using marble stone with a surface that looked like glass. There was a wide staircase leading its way covered with a thick carpet of vivid blue. The group of girls began cascading up the stairs and the little girls followed by running after them, giggling and smiling.

The boy decided to follow them just when a young lady dressed in the royal maid’s outfit captured his attention. She wore an outfit tinted with earth tones and a small metal rectangular badge pinned on one of her breasts that spelled ‘Arwen‘.

Her face looked plump portraying the youth in her. She doesn’t have freckles on her skin rather her skin looked crystal clear with emerald green eyes adorned by thick brown lashes and bronze hair braided back with a leather string. A few loose strands of baby hair tousled around the side of her lean neck. She looked way too beautiful to be a maiden in the castle.

‘My prince, she asked you to meet after the dance and wants you to keep this’ The maiden spoke and handed him an armlet with a tiny metal daisy attached to it, it was a replica of the trinket that he saw on the field tied in that mysterious girl’s wrist.

The moment he held and recognized it, he asked the maiden instantly ‘Who gave it to her and if she can take him to that girl’ but the maiden giggled shyly covering her mouth with her palms before she replied. ‘My prince, your humor never fails to amaze me, I will be delighted to help you meet her but it’s already late and you need to get dressed for today’s dance’.

‘Dance?’ The boy questioned completely flabbergasted by his surroundings as the young maid’s expression changed to concern. before she replied again ‘Pardon me, my prince but I feel you should meet my highness first, You seemed a little flustered’

‘Ye..s Yes! That will be nice. Take me to her.’ The boy felt his voice sounds demanding even if he spoke softly. He noticed Arwen staring at him in confusion for a minute before she lowered her eyes to guide him the way. She might be surprised by the casualness in his tone. The boy thought.

He and the maiden were about to proceed to meet the Highness when he heard a girl whisper ‘HEY’. He quickly turned around to identify the speaker just when their eyes met making him feel frozen in his place. It was the girl he saw in the portrait.

Must Read Chapter II : Yeoubi | Sunshower | A Story for Those Who Love to Read

Author’s Note: Annyeong Chingudeul, Please don’t forget to read the previous chapters before, to enjoy this chapter more and I’ll be listing the sequence of the chapters here in this article. Also, if you want you can find all of them on Hanami Creatives plus if you wish to be entertained by the poet inside me you can find me on Instagram Id: thegreycrescent

Click Here to Read Chapter I : Destiny (운명) | A Story for Those Who Love to Read