— salt to the sword (two)
— pairing: doh kyungsoo x reader (oc; female)
— other characters: lieutenant kim junmyeon and his oc, hwang haewon, assassin oh sehun and his oc, princess jaehwa, general park chanyeol (his oc will start appearing from the next chapter; y’all can start making guesses on who she is lol) and sergeant zhang yixing. (any new characters added in the future will be listed here!)
— genre: historical fiction, fantasy, angst, romance, childhood friends to enemies to lovers, crown prince!soo x warrior consort!oc, arranged marriage!au, loosely based on 100 days my prince.
— summary: the conspiracy you’re entrapped in is turning out to be far greater than you and the crown prince. while your friends are trying their every way to get you both out of this, there might be people behind the scenes, people you once knew, that have caused this chaos upon you.
— warnings (for this chapter): angst; mentions of blood, injuries, death, war and trauma; themes of mutual pining; corrupted judiciaries and lawmakers; prophetic dreams; it’s a mess, bro.
— word count: 7.4k
— tag list: @jenmyeons @j-pping @baek-byunies @rosetvler @hoho-cham @kysoobydoobydoo @dobomiyeon @coffee-prince-kyungsoo @lucymheng @kunrengui @chanyeolscoon @mitamixer
— author’s note: hi hello, i’m back with your local royal idiots and their brave little posse! if this is your first encounter with this series, i would ask you to read the prologue and the previous chapter so the events in this chapter make sense to you. the links will be on the series masterlist! as always, the scenes included in this fic (and the rest of the series) are completely fictional, and any connections with actual korean and japanese history are entirely coincidental. any constructive criticism, know-how and feedback will be welcome! hope you all enjoy it! <3
Jaehwa has had dreams—brilliant, ominous, coloured in blood and fire—and each of them seems to end upon the hilt of an arrow.
In her mind, it's always the same, and yet, it never is. The earliest of them have the dawn of her mother's joy as she watches her little girl take her first steps, the liquid light of her tears when she spoke her first eomma. Even then, she barely knew the shape of her father's face, and even that absence turned into a ghost beneath the yoke of time and the tainted allegations of his tyranny. But what she never forgets is the face of her brother.
"Hyung, catch me if you can!"
The pink of her skirts flitted across the field as she ran, the callow laughter of her brother following in the coattails of her sprint. Spring always had its ways and excuses of bringing him out, luring him into her games even though his hands now hold the reins of the kingdom more often than they hold books and toys.
When he finally swoops in on her, she's already on the ground, kissed by the sun and the sap of the grass beneath. They're bodied by their giggles and the weight of their breathlessness, and despite their erstwhile contest, she doesn't refuse when he holds out his hand, the warmth of his brotherly vigilance a balm on her fatigue. Obsidian moons turn into crescents as he chuckles, pulling a whine from her when he tweaks at her braid.
"The queen will have you hung upside down from her palace window if she heard you call me that."
"Oh?" Jaehwa pokes her tongue out, only to be booped in the nose by him. "Am I not your sibling? Should I call you Your Highness?" She scoffs, never failing to uphold her blooming patrician charms, even when it's just a matter of a faux fight with her brother. "You're too short to be a king."
He gives her immediate chase as she runs off in the wake of her retort, fleeting cherry blossoms whisking through the air as they make laps of the royal gardens. The last of the winter roses bleed their scent into her breath as she runs past the flower maze—they're her brother's favourite, and her ultimate choice of bait when it comes to teasing him about this certain warrior girl he seems to have set his heart on.
"The crown prince must have time to play with me today because Y/n is away with Governor Park's son!"
