Trahn-gwok-tan loomed above them in all its glory, as if telling Kai-Se he would never reach it without feeling like a horse stepped on him first. Just the sight of stairs carved around the mountain made him feel faint. He made Nao-Zai carry him all the way up there while he was gallivanting around in Shaoryeong?

Wow. Talk about shameless.

And the way he brushed Nao-Zai last night even when the soldier was asking for nothing but the truth was harsh, to the point of being cruel. Kai-Se tucked his hands under his arms, relishing in the smallest bit of warmth his own body could afford him. It would be winter soon. Where had autumn gone and why did it depart so fast?

His mother craned her neck at the stairs and visibly blanched. The sun had long ago set on the horizon, plunging them into the deep ink of the night. They had no choice but to trek up those steps and get some rest. Then, in the morning, they'd be on their way once more.

Kai-Se still couldn't believe his mother had survived the trek back to Dangrao and how she harnessed the sang-kwonxia and defended Saengje for so long. Queens really were made up of different things. He drew closer to her and rubbed her arms, up and down—a paltry attempt at serving her. As a son, it's the least he could do to the one who took care of him even if he wasn't from her womb.

He sniffed, the beginnings of a cold heavy in his temples and the back of his nose. Nao-Zai flashed him a look—concern and frustration rolled into one. It has been taking him forever if Nao-Zai was angry at him or what. They were fine two nights ago. They should still be fine now, right?

"Everyone up the crest?" Shima-e called, her voice, albeit a bit muffled by the loud rustling of leaves, carried enough authority to demand to be heard even by the ones at the foot of the mountain. When everyone gave their confirmation, she closed her eyes and exhaled. "Let's go pay a visit."

With that, their journey up the stairs began. Halfway through, the cold had been chased away by Kai-Se's wild heartbeats and the sweat building on his forehead, his back, and his arms. Nao-Zai, being the soldier that he was, breezed through. At least, until the first three-quarters. By the time they stepped off the last rung, one giving way into the temple's vast, algal-covered courtyard, even the healthiest boys were down on their knees, gasping for breath.

He glanced at his mother. Despite the gaunt expression on her face and the thin line of sweat glinting against her graying hairline, she remained standing. Despite the probable numbess in her knees and hips, she turned towards her clan and moved to check in on them. He couldn't lose to that, not when she raised him to take on everything head on and to never fear. To never give up.

Kai-Se gritted his teeth and faced Nao-Zai who watched the Queen usher the last mother into the higher ground. The bundle in her arms squirmed and started to cry, until the mother began rocking it, humming a familiar lullaby. Ask for tips from that mother, Kai-Se filed the note in his ever-growing list of things to do. With so little time to spare.

No, he's not stressed. He's fine. Peachy.

Like the mighty Queen bustling around her clan in front of him, he's fine.

He had to be.

So, Kai-Se turned and trudged up the distance between the rim of the peak and Shin-Ki's front door. The shaman stood under the roofed patio characterized by its shadowy shingles and pointed tips coated in the thinnest layer of gold.

"Good evening, Shin-Ki," Kai-Se tucked his hands to his stomach and bowed partially. "We've come to request your assistance to us for the night. We will leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow. We just need a roof above our heads against the harsh winds."

The shaman didn't look like they were pleased at being forced to listen to Stiff Kai-Se, but what could he do? It wasn't like he was here as a guest. He was here as the Crown Prince of Xuijae, albeit a fallen one. "Well, whatever," Shin-Ki waved their hand and whipped their back to them. The feathers in their necklace swayed with the motion. "As long as you clean up and leave the temple as you found it, I'm good. Enjoy Trahn-gwok-tan."

They looked back at them over their shoulder, at Kai-Se, specifically. Their eyes flashed hazel against the darkness as they added, "While you can."

Then, they disappeared into the darkness of the temple's altar hall, leaving the rest of them to scramble after the shaman. Kai-Se mulled over the shaman's words and what could they mean. Was it a bad idea, coming here? What was Shin-Ki warning them about?

Maybe nothing. His mind hadn't been the most trustworthy companion lately. He couldn't trust it. So...he'd just trust Nao-Zai and the people around them. That's right. Now that Kai-Se had been sure he wasn't in the right state of mind, he shouldn't be making decisions.

But that would mean passing everything to the people he cared about and letting them shoulder all of the burden. All because he couldn't. Rather, he was too weak to. On their way past the elaborate altar hall, Kai-Se happened to watch Nao-Zai from his periphery. Even though guilt and something heavy and unnameable sat in his gut at how he acted with the soldier, he still worried about him, fussed about him in his thoughts, and found himself unable to look away. The only thing he couldn't do was to sit down and talk, like what Nao-Zai had been asking of him for the longest time now.

Kai-Se shouldn't talk. It was against everything he stood for. Because the moment he opened his mouth, the moment his worries left his mind, then they would become real. They would become everything he thought of them—unsurmountable, unreachable, a cage, a trap. Whatever bad thing he wanted to call it. The moment he told Nao-Zai that he's afraid, that maybe he's descending into insanity, and that he believed he shouldn't have been the one to always survive—they would become true.

Worse, they would introduce nothing but worry in Nao-Zai. He bet the soldier already had a long list of worries he had to mind. Kai-Se shouldn't add to that. They both have lives. It's best if they both live it, first for themselves, then for each other. Kai-Se had already made him go through a lot just by being stubborn and desperate. One of his fears was that by being mixed up with a mountain's worth of troubles and hardships, sooner or later, he would cause Nao-Zai to leap to his death. All just to save him. Again.

And again.

Over and over.

Why was Kai-Se the only one being saved? Was it because he was fragile, that he couldn't do anything on his own? Despite all Kai-Se's efforts, this pretending, this...facade he has been keeping for many, many years just to survive, has become hefty. It demanded too much of a price and brought too little rewards.

Besides, if he wasn't a prince, a dutiful son to his mother, and the glorified spirit nanny, then...who was he? It's not like he had the time to figure that out. And with the rate things were crumbling around him, it's not like he would ever have that in this lifetime.

"Shima!" a voice called through the crowd as they stepped into a wide, empty hall. It was supposed to be for private prayers or something of the sort, but they piled inside it like a group of wet ducklings running away from the rain. "Where are the blankets?"

His mother was already on the job, raiding the cabinets, the drawers, and overhead compartments. Soon, the demands of the clan erupted in a chorus, almost like the public dining hall he used to frequent as a piper. Water. Fire. Food. Mattress. Spare sets of clothes. It's helpful Kai-Se had his fair share of wandering around Trahn-gwok-tan and that the rooms and halls were kept as consistent as Shin-Ki's obsessive orderliness would allow.

He and his mother's footsteps thumped around the hall. From his periphery, he saw Nao-Zai stalk to the open pit in the middle of room and began attending to the food. Kai-Se watched the soldier's mouth fall into a thin line and his features curl into a frown. Why was he angry?

"Kai, the sheets?" his mother's voice speared through his thoughts. He turned to find her extending her arms to him. Even at her age, she didn't buckle under the weight of the fabric and cushion. She distributed it to the elders at the opposite corner.

Just as he was about to claim he could finally rest, heat built up in his right lobe. In a flash of light—which never failed to elicit a couple of shocked gasps from the crowd, by the way—An-Ri blinked into existence. And began crying. This time, her tears turned into droptlets of fire which fizzled against Shin-Ki's wovem mats.

"You kept me in there for too long!" An-Ri wailed, jabbing a finger at Kai-Se. He blinked. How was he at fault, when she could leave any time? "You baddie!"

A what? Where did she even learn that word? Just as the murmurs heightened and his mother's own confused expression digging at the back of his head evolved into a torrent of questions, he crouched next to the ancestral spirit and "Okay, okay. Kai is sorry," Kai-Se said. "You're free to come out when you want."

An-Ri sniffled and blinked her round purple eyes at him. Her ears twitched. One of her tails, which had stayed out since she developed the ability to speak, brushed against the mats when she moved it in anticipation. "I can?" she asked. "But you said I can't."

Kai-Se sighed and picked the spirit up. From his periphery, the rest of his audience had turned back to their own worries, like feeding their own children or preparing for bed. The Queen rolled her eyes, pushed the loose strands of hair off her forehead, and stalked off. Maybe she thought of this as things she could simply never understand.

"You can leave," Kai-Se answered, giving An-Ri a little bounce. Behind him, Nao-Zai crept forward with a bowl of soup on a spare tray he found lying around. Kai-Se retreated with An-Ri to the single unclaimed mattress pushed to the corner nearest to the wide windows. Outside, the low-lying plains of Chaebeon sat undisturbed while the darkness of the night swallowed them whole.

"But you must remember that before you set fire to something or yourself," he continued, sinking into the mattress and settling An-Ri on his lap. "I need to drain that magic from you until you learn to control it."

An-Ri stuck her bottom lip out. "Con-trol?"

"Yeah. How about we try it now. Do you like to?" Kai-Se took the spoon, giving Nao-Zai an acknowledging nod as thanks for preparing An-Ri's food. He scooped some broth and blew into it, just to make sure it didn't scald her tongue. He stuck the spoon into the spirit's mouth and watched her expression.

She smacked her lips. "Yes!"

Kai-Se shoved another spoonful of soup into her mouth before rummaging around his mind for An-Ri's first lession in korza control. How would he even explain it if he didn't get it himself? "Let's learn how to call off your tail first, yeah?" he smoothed her hair down as he fed An-Ri another bite. He glanced at the bowl to find bits of noodles and chopped garnish floating in it. Was that the last of their supplies? What the nearest route to town?

An-Ri bobbed her head a little too eagerly. Kai-Se smiled. "Okay, first," he said. "Think of your tail being gone."

"Gone?" the spirit's ears twitched away from each other as the tail tapped its furry blob against the mats' knots. "Like 'poof'?"

A light chuckle tore through Kai-Se. He fed An-Ri another spoonful, making sure to include the vegetables this time around. She didn't notice. It didn't have any taste anyway. "Yes," he said. "Poof."

An-Ri glanced at her tail and scrunched her face. Her eyes squeezed shut, a strained groan rumbling from her throat. Then, she threw her arms up with her fists closed. "POOF!"

One of her fists collided with Kai-Se's nose. Dark spots splotched his vision as the force threw his head back. If An-Ri was in her full strength, she would have detached his head from his neck right then and there.

All Kai-Se could manage was a weak, "Ow."

"I did it!" An-Ri giggled and patted her back. Her face morphed into pure glee as she leaped from Kai-Se's lap and tried to show Nao-Zai her handiwork. "I did it!"

Kai-Se shook her head to dispel the black splotches from his eyes. When he wiped a knuckle down his throbbing nose, it came away red. At least An-Ri didn't knock him out cold. That would have been a problem.

"That's great, An-Ri!" Nao-Zai praised, taking the spoon Kai-Se had left and proceeding to feed her. "But what do we say to Kai? You hurt him."

An-Ri pouted. She twiddled her fingers and turned to Kai-Se who still nursed his dripping nostril. "I-I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to."

At that, Kai-Se smiled and opened his arms. She ran to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "It's fine," Kai-Se said, stroking her back before she started crying again. "I'm fine. See?"

He held her at armslength to let her know the bleeding had stopped. "Magic will heal it," he said. "That's why you must learn to control it. So that you can do cool things like this!"

An-Ri nodded, wonder glinting in her round eyes. Then, she started yawning. That's enough entertainment for now.

The rest of the night was spent with cleaning An-Ri up even though she would probably disappear into the earring while she slept. After a few hours, the lights outside Trahn-gwok-tan dimmed, the magic infused in them doing what they're programmed to. It meant Shin-Ki was asleep by now.

An-Ri didn't appear to be going any time soon, so Kai-Se handed her to Nao-Zai. "I'm going to clean up," he said. In reality, he just wanted to be alone and spend the night that way. "I'll be back."

"You should eat something," Nao-Zai said. "I can heat the soup again."

The rumbling in Kai-Se's stomach had long flattened into a dull ache, but it's not like he'd act on it. "I'll be quick," he said, stalking off towards the doors leading to the temple's corridors. He ducked out, shut the door with a faint thud, and rested his forehead at the splintering wooden rails.

What was he doing? He should be thanking Nao-Zai for even offering to do that for him, and yet he had to nerve to walk out on him like that. A breath escaped his lips as he tore off the door and fled to the wash area. He splashed cool spring water into his face until the water drenched his whole face and his arms. He changed his clothes and used his old ones to attempt to brush off the dirt on his skin and the ones populating his nails.

When he was done, the moon and the stars had only brightened in the sky visible from the wide, open windows. His footsteps brushed against the mats, keeping care of each of his movement to avoid waking up any and everyone who might already be deep in sleep.

He made it to the mattress and found Nao-Zai passed out with his back to the rest of the clan. Tucked inside his arms was An-Ri's snoring form. Her little white fenhai rode up her stomach and legs so Kai-Se reached out and straightened them before bugs feast on her skin. There was a small strip left in the mattress and Kai-Se blew a breath. It's his lot. He should make-do with it.

So, bracing himself for a whole night of tossing and turning, of numb hipbones and stiff necks and shoulders, he sank to the floor. Staring at the gray wall that was Nao-Zai's back only reminded Kai-Se of all the failings he had done and had been doing the past few days. He sighed and pressed his face into his clothes, breathing in what he could before it was taken from him. Because he didn't know how long before it would eventually be. He didn't know how long he had until this sense of peace and security vanishes.

He could only ask the heavens which would forever remain silent. How long would it take for him to break whatever this perfect thing they had between them?