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“Master physician?”
Wonwoo looks up as the door to his chambers is flung open and a young squire stumbles inside, gasping for breath. He raises an eyebrow inquisitively at the boy, who swallows and straightens his back.
“Master, it’s sir Soonyoung. He’s been injured.”
“Where is he?” Wonwoo asks, getting up and starting to gather his things immediately.
“No, master, he’s–”
He’s interrupted as several people muscle past him through the door, a carrier in between them. Soonyoung lies on it, battered and bloody. Wonwoo’s stomach sinks.
“Clear the table,” Wonwoo orders, pointing at the squire and then at one of the tables in the center of the room.
He does so, as Wonwoo skims through his bookcase, pulling out various books on medicine and healing, throwing them onto the table he’d been sitting at moments prior. When the squire has finished clearing the table, the knights who’d carried Soonyoung in put him on the table and rush out, not wanting to get in Wonwoo’s way. The squire stands in a corner, waiting to be dismissed.
“Get out!” Wonwoo snaps, gesturing towards the door and sending it flying open.
The squire startles, turns it into a bow, and then runs out of the room. He forgets to close the door and with another flick of his wrist Wonwoo closes it behind him.
Then, Wonwoo starts a fire in the fireplace in the corner of his chamber. He grabs a pot and fills it with water, hanging it over the fire. Finally, he goes to Soonyoung’s side.
It’s bad, he can tell as much immediately– Soonyoung’s eyes are open, but his breathing is shallow. He’s very close to disappearing. He seems to spot Wonwoo out of the corner of his eyes, and a small, pained smile comes across his beautiful face.
He opens his mouth as if to say something, but ends up saying nothing and instead coughing up copious amounts of blood– Wonwoo tilts Soonyoung’s head to the side so the blood can run out of his mouth, but it’s a futile thing; Soonyoung is dying. His lungs have been torn and pierced. He’s drowning in his own blood.
One of his hands comes up to clutch Wonwoo’s wrist tightly, as a wave of pain seems to ripple through Soonyoung.
“It’s alright, Soonyoung,” Wonwoo murmurs softly, taking his face in his hands. He presses a kiss to Soonyoung’s forehead before resting his own forehead against his. “You won’t be gone for long.”
With a last gasp for breath, and a shudder, Soonyoung passes over and lies very still. Wonwoo presses another soft kiss to his forehead.
Then, Wonwoo steps away from the table. He sighs, looking out the window pensively for a moment–
The sun is still high in the sky.
He sticks his head out of the door and calls on a guard posted further down the hall, and asks him to bring him a dead goat, recently slaughtered, and intact. They give him a look, but don’t question it.
Going back inside, Wonwoo clears the floor around the table, shoving things into cabinets and rolling a carpet out of the way. He mutters a few words under his breath, and Soonyoung’s body floats a few inches off the table, allowing Wonwoo to sweep the table away with a flick of his right hand– it slams against the wall opposite, several glass bottles standing on the shelves rattling precariously.
Soonyoung stays in midair as Wonwoo stands near the door, foot tapping against the stone floor impatiently. Where’s that damn guard?
After five more minutes pass, someone knocks on his door.
“Come in.”
“Master physician,” says not the guard, but one of the knights. “May I ask what you need a dead goat for on this fine day?”
“Silence,” Wonwoo sneers, snatching the goat from him and placing it on the table, summoning a knife from across the room which flies dangerously close to the knight’s ear.
“Is that Soonyoung?”
“Jeonghan, I told you to be quiet.”
“Is he–”
“Quiet,” Wonwoo hisses, putting the knife down and shoving Jeonghan backwards out of the room, following him and closing the door. “You’re disturbing me. Don’t make me report you to the emperor.”
“Is he dead?” Jeonghan asks, voice softening a little.
“For now,” Wonwoo replies.
“Surely, you don’t mean to–”
“What? Are you going to rat on me?” Wonwoo whispers. “Don’t forget, Jeonghan. If I go down, you go down with me. I said I’d forget what I saw, but I’m more than happy to remember what you and Crown Prince Mingyu were–.”
“Relax,” Jeonghan says, with a tight lipped smile. “I’m not ratting you out. Just be careful. You’ve already got the whole castle talking about you.”
“Can’t a physician ask for a dead goat anymore?” Wonwoo sighs, falling back from Jeonghan.
Jeonghan rolls his shoulders back, “I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed. How long will it take?”
“Not sure,” Wonwoo says. “No more than three days, I think. It’s not like I’ve done it before,” he adds, a bit belatedly.
Jeonghan raises an eyebrow at him. “It isn’t?”
Wonwoo’s upper lip curls, “watch your mouth, or you’ll start finding dead rats in your bed.”
“Geez,” Jeonghan laughs. “Alright, alright. Fine. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”
With a curt nod, Wonwoo disappears back into his chambers, locking the door behind him. He bristles, going back to the dead goat and picking the knife up again.
The goat is brought to the center of the room, and murmuring the words of the incantation under his breath, Wonwoo pushes the knife in below its sternum and makes a deep cut downwards, the guts of the goat spilling onto the floor. He waves his hand, and the guts fly into a bucket which stands a few feet away from him.
Wonwoo dips two fingers in the blood which has spilled from the goat onto the floor, and stands up, taking a few steps forward, and starting from where he’s standing, draws a circle with the goat’s blood on the floor. Dipping his fingers in the blood again, he then draws a large pentagram in the circle, each of its points touching the outer ring, the goat in the center of all this.
He draws Soonyoung’s sword from its sheath and places it outside the circle, its tip meeting with a point of the pentagram. At each of the other points he places a candle, and with a sweep of his hand, he lights them all at once. Wonwoo looks outside and sees that much time has passed without his knowing, as it often does when he’s performing a ritual or some other magic. The sun has nearly set.
The goat’s body is put aside for now. Wonwoo walks to his bed and picks Soonyoung up again, his body not yet rigid with death, nor cold– his face still has its color.
He steps back into the circle and places Soonyoung in the center, his head facing the direction of the sword. Carefully, Wonwoo removes the last of Soonyoung’s armor, and undresses him so that his battered chest is now fully exposed. He brings over a bowl of warm water and dips a piece of cloth in it, using it to wipe away the blood and grime, washes Soonyoung clean until the only signs of battle still on him are the gashes and the way his ribs in some places stick out or curve in unnaturally where they have been shattered.
Wonwoo finds a new, clean knife, and before cutting, he kisses Soonyoung’s forehead once more, murmuring a soft apology.
Then Wonwoo splits Soonyoung open, from navel to collarbone. His hands do not shake. He has done this before, and he will again– as many times as he has to.
He peels back the skin, using his knife to loosen it from muscle when necessary, until he can see Soonyoung’s rib cage clearly– his lungs are ruined, several ribs broken and piercing them. Wonwoo picks them clean, and the ribs are then pieced back together, bound by the goat’s entrails.
As for the lungs themselves, Wonwoo leaves them alone. The incantations he’ll speak over Soonyoung will do the work of weaving his tissue back together. Once he’s done with his ribs, he folds the skin back into place, and seals the cuts he’d made with a paste of ground up herbs and Wonwoo’s own blood.
The innate magic quality of the body of a practitioner of the arts was useful in many spells and potions, but was strictly banned– you were not to desecrate your own, or anyone else’s body. At least not while you’re under the service of the emperor.
Wonwoo has always found this rule rather stupid, and the reasons for it even more so. Desecration? His own blood, freely given, was not a desecration, but a sacred act.
What was more sacred than this– bleeding for the person you love? Loving someone so much that you love them back to life? That’s what Wonwoo’s doing. He’s not desecrating Soonyoung. He’s sanctifying him.
To Wonwoo, nothing was more holy than this, this love, this bond. He’s crossed every line for Soonyoung, including the one between life and death. And he’s about to do it again.
He sits down cross legged on the floor at Soonyoung’s side, and picks up the knife again, wiping it clean on the cloth he’d used to clean his wounds. Then he cuts a thin gash into Soonyoung’s left wrist and draws the blood out slowly, letting it drip into a goblet. He cuts another gash into the skin of his palm, and lets his blood mix with Soonyoung’s in the goblet, swirling it a few times before he lifts it to his lips and drinks.
His eyes are closed, his hands resting on his knees. The goblet is beside him, empty. Taking a deep breath, Wonwoo begins to murmur again, old words and new, weaving and unraveling, until he begins to see the light, far, far away from him.
Wonwoo steps towards it, and consequently steps over the stonewall separating the world of the living and the dead. He picks up his pace, running, running, running towards the light until it consumes him and he’s thrown into an abyss. He falls for a minute or a year, then lands on his feet. He’s surrounded by ghostly shapes, things once human, but now without faces, because no one lived on who remembers what they looked like.
“Soonyoung!” Wonwoo calls out. “Soonyoung!”
He looks around, pushing through the crowd until he reaches the marsh, the surroundings familiar.
“There you are,” a soft, familiar voice says.
Wonwoo turns and sees Soonyoung coming toward him, a wide smile on his kind face. He runs forward to meet him and takes that face in his hands.
“Sorry I took so long,” Wonwoo says, as Soonyoung wraps his arms around him. “Let’s go back.”
“You show me the way,” Soonyoung whispers. “I’ve forgotten. I’ve been wandering around for too long, I think. I lost my sense of direction.”
“Alright,” Wonwoo says.
He’s about to step away, when Soonyoung pouts and pulls him back towards him. “Master physician,” he says, in a melodic voice. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Wonwoo laughs, shaking his head, but he kisses Soonyoung nonetheless. Even in death, his lips are soft and warm against his own. He pulls away, and takes Soonyoung’s hand, leading him back towards where he came from. There is a lake where the water is still and cold, but if you swim downwards long enough, eventually you’re swimming upwards.
They go to that lake, and they dive in together. Occasionally, Wonwoo will look to his left, just to make sure– and always, Soonyoung is already looking at him.
They swim until a light appears, and swim towards it, through it, and then they’re falling, and then–
With a gasp for breath, Wonwoo lands back in his body, doubling over and clutching his chest. He hears coughing and looks up to see Soonyoung on his hands and knees, coughing up the last of the blood that was left in his lungs. He crawls forward and wraps his arms around Soonyoung, muttering under his breath words of healing and comfort. Soonyoung clings to him, pushing off the floor to wrap his arms around Wonwoo’s shoulders, breathing hard.
“You never really get used to that, do you?” Soonyoung pants.
“I don’t think so,” Wonwoo replies. “How do you feel?”
“Splitting headache, and a little bit like a horse has trampled me, which is pretty normal given that a horse did in fact trample me.”
“How can you make jokes when you just died?” Wonwoo murmurs, forehead resting on Soonyoung’s shoulder. “Losing you doesn’t hurt less even when I know I can bring you back. There is always that fear… that maybe I can’t reach you… that maybe–”
“You can always reach me,” Soonyoung says, and he sounds so sure of it that Wonwoo can’t help but want to believe him. “Since I’m always looking for you, and waiting for you to come and get me.”
“And I’ll always come,” Wonwoo says. He lifts his head up so he can look at Soonyoung. “You know there isn’t a place you could go where I wouldn’t follow you. To the ends of the earth, through death’s country, and whatever comes after.”