The Night Belongs to the Moon | Taeyong

44 | Reflection of the Night

It rained for seven days and seven nights, the patter unrelenting and merciless. It melted everything it touched and the world bloomed in its shades of grey. The snow had turned to streams, the trees had turned brown again, the mist had cleared and the cold had started to dissipate away as spring stretched its limbs waking up from its winter hibernation.

In the orange light of the first sun of the new season, Dal-ae awoke in a detention cell of the Prison of the Neutral Force on the rocky island in the middle of the ocean. Her wounds glowed red against her pale skin, her body covered in bruises with her limbs bandaged up only enough to keep her alive. Her lower lip was still swollen and her sunken eyes had turned ashen. She was dressed into a white dress too loose for her with her hair brushed away from her face. But despite the expected pain, she rose without a single groan and as she watched the sun melt into the ocean that evening, she found her scars finally starting to heal.

That night after the moon had risen in the sky, Jaehyun had visited her. His hair was a mess and his clothes were crinkled and unmatched. He looked exhausted, the shine in his eyes replaced with gloom. When he saw her, he smiled nonetheless and she could tell how much effort it took him.

'Are you alright?' he asked, walking into the light of the single torch outside her cell.

'Hm,' she replied and it wasn't a lie.

'They didn't allow us to heal you. Does it hurt?'

She shook her head. 'Don't worry, I am alright,' she said with a weak smile, then asked, 'Taeyong...'

He stared at her, tears pooling in his eyes. 'He is still unconscious,' he said.

And Dal-ae nodded more to herself than to him. 'Will he ever wake up?' she asked, her voice silent in the distant lull of the ocean waves.

Sighing, he pulled a chair in front of her cell and sat himself down. 'We don't know yet,' he told her. 'Senior Taeil believes it's possible to wake him up,' he said, running his fingers through his hair. 'He had retrieved the melted body of the Mizunabi from the Water City to study it. Apparently when the Mizunabi called for water, it also absorbed the water of the rain clouds. The freezing slumber of the butterfly only works in the snow and since the rain melted its wings away, Senior Taeil believes that Taeyong can be awoken too, if enough heat is provided to him.'

'But vampires cannot sustain in heat.'

Jaehyun nodded. 'They cannot but a little heat given slowly over time to his body might thaw the cold inside him, enough for him to wake up.'

'How long are we talking?' she asked.

'Years,' he said after a pause. 'Maybe ten, maybe twelve, the healers cannot tell.'

Dal-ae's expression did not change the slightest at this. She was still looking out in the distance at nothing in particular, her hair flowing in the gentle night wind behind her. There was a certain stillness to her that evening, a calm that could not be disturbed. To an onlooker it must have seemed like indifference but to Jaehyun she looked like someone who had already accepted her fate.

'Yuta?' she said, turning her gaze on him.

'They found records of his crimes in his mansion and much more evidence from his lackeys,' he told her. 'The investigation is still on. He is dead, so they can only punish those...' He paused and looked up at her.

'Go on.'

'...those who worked for him.'

She smiled and stretched her arms out. 'How many laws have I broken?'