Thing of the wind,

You come back to me when the trees wither down to naked husks

and black soil is hardened with frosted puddles. 

 

Leaving lines of sage in your wake, 

You are the harbinger of dawn, and of hymns that hail your return,

and of the last glimpse of sun on trembling waters.

 

My prince of the peatland,

Your smile is sweet like the song of a shrike, yet to me it is thorns,

for I am a pelt of a prey you left cold in the snow.

 

When I count the thousandth wind,

Your last kiss is reclaimed, and the withering halts for the night,

but as the wind changes course, again starts my count,

from solstice to solstice,

until your feet tread

upon the familial ground. 

​
 

Down by the bogs, where archaic birchwood was once swallowed by the peat, they used to spread their cloaks on the wet soil and lie among the wildflowers, without a care in the world for the pitiful state of their soaking vests. The sea of cotton-grass was stark in white and violets, for the sky was clear, and heath butterflies could feed for the scant few weeks they lived in the warmth. Kihyun lazed on his cloak with his hands behind his back, providing what little protection he could for his dampened hair. The chunky clouds overhead always had a tranquilising effect on him, and he blinked slowly, as slow as the movement of the earth was in those days. 

 

Birds chirped and chittered in the pinewoods that they left behind, and the soft breeze carried along the forest’s tunes, gentle, jolly, a choir of dancing leaves. They always lulled Kihyun into a white reverie, as ephemeral and fluffy as the clouds.

 

“I heard that in Com Blathach butterflies live forever.”

 

Kihyun blinked one eye open. Hyungwon’s head was resting on his lap, keeping his royal curls dry and clean, as the rest of his lanky body was soaking in the bogs from underneath the cloak. His hands were folded on his chest, and between his nimble fingers he twirled a shrub of crowberry, black and round and ripe, nestled between soft, seed-like prickles. His pouted lips held a line of a little smile. 

 

“That’s not true,” Kihyun refuted without much passion. Hyungwon’s smile curled, and Kihyun noticed a moth that found a habitat on the crowberry twig between the prince’s fingers. Its white wings were speckled black in perfect symmetry. Monochromatic, it stood out on the backdrop of blooming wildflowers and woods, and Kihyun thought of Hyungwon’s own monochrome, and how he, too, would stand out among the colourful butterflies of the Kingdom of Blooming Hollow. He’d learned about their patterns from encyclopaedia books, how they resembled scorpion grasses and cardinal flowers so they wouldn’t get caught, and he also knew that they didn’t live forever. They just lived all year long. Like the bogs in their kingdom.

 

“You’ve never been there, so you have no way of knowing for certain,” Hyungwon quipped, a little sly in his voice. He shifted his head carefully to have a better view of the crowberry, trying to be as gentle as he can so as to not disturb the moth’s slumber. 

 

“You’ve never been there either.”

 

“No, but I’m going to.”

 

Kihyun sighed, though as quiet as he was, Hyungwon must have felt his stomach rising, because he turned to look at him, his eyes as round and black as the crowberries on the shrub and ripe with freshness of his excitement.

 

“Do let me know what you’d like me to bring you back.”

 

He must have wanted to say something else, his lips stiff in the shape of upcoming words, but Kihyun wasn’t as perceptive back in the days, and he simply sighed louder in response. “Why would you bring presents to a son of the constable? You’d have to bring a load of presents for everyone, then, so they wouldn’t think you’re being ungenerous.”

 

Hyungwon’s eyes narrowed, as if offended, but his lips pursed in a concealed smile. “Such bold assumptions. Of course I will bring presents for everyone.” Then he turned away, finding more solace in the little shrub in his hands. “You aren’t all that special anyhow,” he muttered, and Kihyun lightly kicked the leg which held most of the weight of the prince’s head in wordless retaliation. Hyungwon gasped, jerking forward, and such rough movements awoke the moth.

 

In a sort of instinctual haste, its wings cluttered, and then the little thing fluttered away, into the white sky. They both watched it merge with the clouds, and there was no telling on whether the moth made it all the way to the dreaming stars, or if it was swayed astray by the breeze and plundered right into the bogs. 

 

As butterflies succumbed to the late rising breeze, so did the last warm days in their kingdom. When autumn knocked on their gates, they feasted. Feasted for weeks to come, every night an anticipatory celebration of the crown prince’s imminent coming-of-age. In his last season as a fourteen-year-old, Hyungwon made the most of his time. They squeezed amusement out of royal duties like they squeezed juice out of grapes. Picnics at the bogs were abandoned in favour of silly games of hide-and-seek in the blooming maple groves. They sneaked out of the library to help the farmers roll heavy pumpkins all the way from the cultivation patches; they picked apples with the peasants, and play-fought with the boys of the court using overgrown carrots and turnips, for which Hyungwon received a good berating from his tutors for acting so inappropriately for his age.

 

But if it were to be the prince’s last harvest, Kihyun was absolutely determined to make it his most memorable one.

 

For they were growing poor, and their soil was withering. Carriages with maize and potatoes were bountiful, but Kihyun couldn’t remember the last time he ate fruits other than apples. Hyungwon didn’t seem fazed by worry. If something was to weigh him down, he made no show of it – always high-spirited, and forever in love with the land he was prophesied to save. 

 

Prophecies aside, Kihyun knew one thing for certain. The truth was that they could all, without exception, tell that the land was in love with him back.

 

He was the moth of bog myrtle in the middle of monsoon season. “Oi, Your Highness,” Kihyun called, his head thrown back, watching the smoked clouds crowd for the foreboding storm. “We should head back.”

 

His Highness was knee-planted in the dirt, wrist-deep in a puddle he dug with gloves that were meant to be worn in court, and his mud-splattered face was gleeful with a smile, and in his soiled palms he held a family of wiggling worms. Strangely alive, almost scarily so, curling and uncurling ardently despite the after-rain chills. 

 

Kihyun sighed loudly, with his shoulders rising and his eyebrows slumping, to send his disappointed breath through the rising gale. “Are you a child, Your Highness?”

 

Though, were they truly younger, Hyungwon would have pinched a worm between his fingers and chased after Kihyun with his long, albeit slow, lanky legs, his roaring laughter and Kihyun’s disgusted shrieks following them right to the castle. 

 

“I heard there are no storms in Com Blathach,” Hyungwon said over his shoulder, his voice forcefully raised over the whistling of the wind.

 

“Shouldn’t you be happy to be escaping this absolute blight of a weather, then?” Storm clouds gathered closer and tighter, heavy over their heads, black airlessness that only the crown prince would find beautiful.

 

Hyungwon placed the family of worms back in the mud and stood up. Threw his head back and closed his eyes, making a pillow of his face for the rare raindrops to land on. Kihyun hated the rain, and the ceaseless wind he hated too. 

 

It was years later when he learned to anticipate it, with bitterness on his tongue and sweetness in his heart. He hadn’t yet realised it at the time, that the expedition force were to depart with the first northeast winds, and it was in all the following years that he prayed for the monsoon to rise after his birthday. 

 

But his fifteenth they spent together, Kihyun and his prince, and it was Kihyun who baked fruit loaf for Hyungwon to take with him on the journey, and not Hyungwon who tried to surprise his best friend with cooking skills he didn’t possess. 

 

“But eat it sparingly,” Kihyun warned, with all seriousness. “Make sure you leave some for your birthday, or it’ll appear as though I didn’t prepare a present for you.”

 

Hyungwon clutched the hefty, rolled up fruit loaf close to his chest and smiled slyly. He bounced on his toes, hovering over Kihyun then swaying back on his heels, then hovering again, then losing his balance when Kihyun sharply tugged on his arm. 

 

“Thank you,” Hyungwon stretched in a singsong. “I’ll cherish this bread forever. I won’t even dare try any of the succulent, most scrumptious cakes the people of Com Blathach will make for my celebration, not a crumb will touch my tongue, no-no-no—“

 

Kihyun kicked the prince in the shins and swiftly spun on his heels, thudding away. What seven years ago, what now, Hyungwon’s roaring laughter never quieted down. It naturally became less frequent as he grew older, but it was always there in his chest, waiting to erupt after a successful prank, and Kihyun never had a reason to miss it.

 

He told himself he wouldn’t miss it even after he bid his first farewells. Hyungwon reprimanded him for being so dramatic, it wasn’t a farewell, they were going to see each other again after the seasons complete their cycle. You won’t even notice the clouds changing, Hyugwon said as he saddled his horse, and smiled widely as he always did, and then smiled a little less when his father, the King, patted him on the shoulder, and kept naught but a resemblance of a smile as he stood at the front of the quad, next to the General, next to his father, a tall thin shadow on the backdrop of icy early morning hues.

 

Kihyun watched as, together with the last migrating birds, Hyungwon embarked on his first expedition into the unknown, in hopes that, one day, he could raise the herald of their drowning kingdom again. 

​
 

And so, Kihyun learned to wait for the wind. 

 

When the northeast blew, the cold came to rescue the longing staff from dwelling in the absence of the king and the prince of the castle. The queen, though fragile from poor health, took on the duties of the court, and Hyungwon’s little brother raised enough ruckus for the servants to keep themselves entertained.

 

But Kihyun dwelled, and his longing dwelled with him. It wasn’t until years later that he began to understand why the castle––no––their entire kingdom, their motherland, their bottomless bogs and their peakless mountains, felt so ghostly without Hyungwon around.

 

Their familial black soil slept peacefully under a layer of snow, and the snow laid undisturbed, too. No footprints strayed off the main road running from the gates of the castle through the village and stopping just before the towering fortress of shadowed pines. On the fourth expedition, Hyungwon set out alone in the lead, with his own order of knights, and the king stayed where he was always meant to stay – on his throne. Hyungwon was a man now, an honourable diplomat capable of signing peace, or asking for help, or resolving feuds. He always came back with lovely gifts. First time back, he returned with a basket of persimmons. Though still tough and crunchy at the time of harvest in Com Blathach, they were soft and ripe and dark when Hyungwon handed them to Kihyun with a big-big smile.

 

I heard Dún Geimhreadh has the coldest winters, Hyungwon would say when they stayed up late at night in his chambers, playing brandubh under the orange candlelight. In fact, their winters are so cold that they are forced to slaughter turkeys as an act of mercy.

 

How does this make any sense? Kihyun would argue, Even our chickens survive just fine in cold weather, and we barely have enough grain to feed all the livestock.

 

Hyungwon would shrug then, Maybe they just love to kill turkeys. I’ll bring back a turkey pie for you to try. 

 

And with promises like these, he left Kihyun to greet their frosty, famished hibernation alone.

 

When their castle snowed in and they had to keep windows shut all day long, Kihyun holed up in the working kitchen, baking. As boys, they played in the courtyard with other nobles and squires, trampling over fresh snow until they slipped on frozen grass; when they leaped from the edge of seventeen, and their knight ranks filled with young manpower, the snow in the courtyard was an unblemished white sheet. 

 

Sometimes Kihyun would step out onto the inner balcony, and there was the urge to marr this cleanliness with a boot or a handprint, but it smoldered as the wind blew into his sleeves, forcing Kihyun back inside. The kitchen was warm from the fire in the furnace, and the air was astringent with ginger and wine, and sweet with starches from potatoes, and thick with meat and lard. Truthfully, he spent most hours of the day studying, or sitting in for his father in court every once in a while, but he was more fond of the working kitchen than midday patrol in this freezing cold, and he was allowed this one indulgence to avoid his perpetually growing duties. He, too, was a man now. 

 

With lonesomeness stretched his perception of time. Years were trampling over the sopping ground, as it turned wetter with the ceasing of snow and first drops of rain that would later become endless. Like the bog seeping into the village paths, Kihyun was growing sturdy, sturdier, and yet unstable. He remembered the year he witnessed the last blooming daffodils. It was one of Hyungwon’s grander returns. Now a man, now confident, he told Kihyun about the fjords he traversed on a boat in the Kingdom of White Forts, and played a tune he learned on the lyre from a foreign bard. It was melting, thawing like the glaciers, each note dragged out with curled wrists, so dissimilar to the cheerful plucking their folk perform on their feasts. Kihyun felt Hyungwon wanted to say something with it. 

 

Which he did, that very night. 

 

And it left Kihyun feeling something he was convinced he was unable to – because he taught himself – trained himself – was trained – to never feel it. Ache. Ache, ache, ache, that prickled like frost in his eyes and tightened like a swamp around the frail weight of his heart. Agony – oh, how agonising it had been, kissing Hyungwon in the fortress of his chambers, where moonlight was soft in the prince’s long hair and so rough on Kihyun’s eyes, and where those hands – gloved, and dry, and callused with cuts, were finally bare, and just as tender as they were when they were children. 

 

Mo ghrá gheal, Hyungwon whispered, and Kihyun mimicked his language with his lips, my love, my love, my dearest love, though he dared not speak it. Beneath the armoured vest Hyungwon’s chest was crooked, unembezzled, unbedazzled, no herald, just bones that had already succumbed to the weight of his crown, and patched up skin. 

 

Do they even feed you out there, Your Highness, Kihyun humoured, wistful and weary, though his fatigue was in the head, and he no longer knew who he was. Himself, and to the kingdom, and to their prince. 

 

Hyungwon was kissing him. When the morning came, another came soon after, and another, and then they gazed into the dawning horizon, until the prince and his knights disappeared for another year. Kihyun clutched his chest. And then, whenever he occupied the prince’s chambers, away from the court’s eyes and ears, he held his hands over the badge on his vest and waited. 

 

How can I name the season when we first began?

In spring, crammed quietly between the shelves,

We learned the art of quills and ink that ran 

Ahead before we could pronounce those words ourselves.

And when, outside, we clashed with wooden swords,

We laughed, with flimsy wrists and wobbly feet,

And clattered to the ground with mayday moths,

And soaked with dainty myrtle in the peat.

When it snowed in, you read me by the fire;

In your chambers we quietly played chess.

Back then I could not know you were a liar

And that you’d leave behind your homely nest.

Perhaps I was a fool, the fault was mine –

I should have known loving you was a crime.

 

Heartache manifested itself in snow, and rain, and leaves, the colours of which Kihyun learned to detest. He hated the snow for it was the longest, and he was tired of the rain washing away memories of their decades, and he could only breathe when the trees withered. 

 

Wind was his only friend, as he was Hyungwon’s companion. Their prince was the thing of the wind – he returned after the west winds ripped off the last flaming maple leaves. Among the naked husks, Hyungwon was the triumph cracking frozen puddles over their black, hard soil.

 

Now a man, now a warrior, he was at the age his father became king. The king was still alive, still flourishing – as flourishing as their infertile mother earth allowed them to be. Though, whenever His Highness made his triumphant return, his white cloak flaring behind him in the presage of snow, his long black hair fluttering like a veil, and his strong, ardent stallion, Fiach, soared over the ground like a raven in the night, then the withering seemed to come to a halt for just those scant days the prince resided within the familial walls.

 

Kihyun wasn’t weighed down by the storm clouds when he resided in Hyungwon’s arms. And even the sky, the grey woollen sheet that seems to be perpetually weaving itself in layers and layers and layers, was as thin as cotton in those days. They kept the shutters open in Hyungwon’s chambers throughout the night, so that in the early morning, when they lied awake, cooling off, Kihyun watched as the pale light of dawn glided over Hyungwon’s chest and arms and face, and his eyes gazed somewhere far away, into the lands entirely unknown to Kihyun. 

 

“What are you thinking about, Your Highness?” Kihyun asked, shifting a little so his head rested on the softer part of Hyungwon’s shoulder. 

 

“Mm, you’re not asleep?” Hyungwon muttered and shifted too, to take a better look at Kihyun’s face. 

 

And just like that, the calm was quelled. Kihyun grunted, choosing to bury his face in the long tuft of Hyungwon’s raven hair instead of returning his gaze. He felt fingers on the crown of his head. It had been a decade since Hyungwon’s default state was to be armoured in leather and steel. His skin had toughened, as if he never once took off his gloves over the long seasons he spent abroad, but Kihyun remembered. Remembered how sensitive his royal hands had been, how any tiny prickle could drag out a drop of blood, and even goose-grass caused rashes to rise on his fragile wrists.

 

Wrists that used to be flimsy, ball-jointed, were now sturdy enough so as to serve as a direct continuation of his sword. 

 

Kihyun never had the need to swing his sword; on patrols it served more of a decoration, or a warning, than anything else. His skills probably staled even compared to the days they used to clash with wooden swords in the field, and then feast on custard tarts they stole from the kitchen underneath a weeping willow. Hyungwon rested his head on Kihyun’s lap and laughed. His hair was shorter then, delicate curls brushing just past his neck that were so inherent to his royal status. Kihyun had wanted to run his fingers through them, but the timid tendrils of the willow were always ahead of him, caressing the prince’s lovely cheeks and shedding its lance-headed leaves onto his crown.

 

The willow had long withered, too, swallowed up by the gluttonous swamp.

 

“You should rest, mo ghrá gheal,” Hyungwon whispered.

 

You should be the one resting, Your Highness, Kihyun wanted to say. Give a break to my heart, he wanted to add. He knew Hyungwon could not rest; his mind was always away in the foreign lands. But without traversing the world in search of salvation, his soul wouldn’t have remained here, in his kingdom, between the roots of his trees. Perhaps it was the only thing that didn’t change. Sometimes Kihyun believed he was sustained on memories alone.

 

“I know, I know, my love. The constant rain must be tiring you out.” Hyungwon’s voice sounded far away, as if directed somewhere else, somewhere beyond the horizon where only he could see. “But as long as the seasons change, we stay alive.”

 

Kihyun’s hands clenched into fists. 

 

Remember when you belonged to me all year long?

 

Doesn’t matter now.

 

Hyungwon was one with the blood of his people. And Kihyun just had to take these miserable few days, when nothing bloomed but the longing in his chest, and provide Hyungwon with a stable ground under his feet. His prince was a thing of the wind – he was always going to return, and Kihyun was always going to wait.

 

As long as the winds kept changing course.