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Round 2: Alternate Universes
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Status: Closed
Seventeen Holidays
About
Sometimes its the characters that move us, but sometimes we fall in love with the the world behind the story. Something transformative occurs when we place the characters we love in an unfamiliar world, like the light has shone on a new side and we're seeing them anew. Run to the classics; revisit the magic of Harry Potter, the heart-punch of a Pacific Rim drift, the warmth of a Coffee Shop AU. Or maybe dig your fingers into a story that blew your mind - Battle Royale, The Raven Cycle, Interstellar - or demand better from a book that let you down (The Poppy War fin- mmph). Perhaps! You might combine two of your fandoms for maximum joy (Haikyuu and Tennis adjacent mutuals, I'm looking at you.) The possibilities are literally endless. Do it for the aesthetic, do it for the drama. Examples
Wonhui x MDZS/Untamed
Wonwoo as Lan Wanji, Jun as Wei Wuxian (Minghao as Jiang Cheng?). I want a cast that feels betrayed and shocked at Junhui's demise but then gradually learning his reasons behind it.
Mingyu/Seungkwan Debating AU
Imagine them as third speakers in the high school circuit. Rivals! Mortal Enemies! Prepared case summaries derailing into personal attacks, and then when their coach calls them out on it they become passive aggressive e.g. "there are major flaws in the opposition's arguments..."
Jeonghan as Mal from Inception
Any Jeonghan ship will do. I just want him to chaotically haunt a person while being sexy about it.
Rules
How it works
Prompting
Filling
Filling with art/media
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And I walk like a lion
Major Tags: Minor Character Death
Additional Tags: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Fusion AU, hamlet figure jww strikes again, not a 1:1 character mapping except maybe it is
Permission to remix: Please ask
***
When he was a child, Doyoung playacted chivalry with the other heirs of the Kingdom’s noble houses. After they finished their weapons training for the day, they would wait for the crown prince to be dismissed from his lessons so that they could spend their afternoons reenacting knight’s tales in a castle garden.
Minghao was the pegasus knight fiercely devout to his liege, the youngest but already intimately familiar with tradition, while Soonyoung was his trusty steed. Wonwoo played the captured prince, imprisoned on a terrace or under an arbor, and Doyoung—eager to show off his lance training—was the villain.
Each reenactment ended with Minghao’s training lance at Doyoung’s neck. With one swift motion of Minghao’s lance, Doyoung fell to the ground, his limbs askew, as Minghao rescued Wonwoo and recited his vows of fealty while Soonyoung pranced around in the background.
On occasion, one of Wonwoo’s sisters would grace them with her presence: Heejin clamored for them to carry her, Haseul stopped by from the stables and her and Minghao would hold lengthy conversations about pegasus knight training, and Seulgi sat under an arbor with a sketchbook, rendering the garden and their games in charcoal. Even baby Wonyoung visited the gardens on occasion, carried by a nursemaid and babbling for her brother.
Their names all grace the plaques of empty tombs now.
And the heirs?
The young heirs who used to act out knight’s tales all turned into monsters themselves.
⚔
Doyoung had only told Soonyoung before he transferred to the Black Eagles class. He had been so close to saying nothing at all, but that old Faerghan sense of loyalty dictated that he uttered his betrayal to Soonyoung during stable duty.
At least it was Soonyoung, out of all his childhood friends. Like Minghao, Soonyoung himself would stay with Wonwoo, but unlike Minghao, Soonyoung wouldn’t ask why. Wonwoo hadn’t been his confidant in two years.
Soonyoung looked at him with sad eyes but made no requests for him to stay, like Doyoung had guessed. They spent the rest of stable duty in silence, save for Soonyoung patting him on the back when they finished.
“Don’t be a stranger, alright?” he said, so incredibly earnest, and Doyoung couldn’t find it within himself to respond.
⚔
Wonwoo tried to talk to him after he transferred. Doyoung supposed that a painless transfer would be too much to ask for— just a discussion with the professor teaching the Black Eagles and then the deed was done, signed and bloodless, but of course he was still being haunted.
So here he was, trapped into a retroactive conversation with his former house leader at the training grounds before the sun rose because he frequented the training grounds at this time since no one else was around, except Wonwoo was already here this morning, turning the training dummies into piles of straw with his black magic.
“Hello,” Wonwoo said, turning his attention away from a dummy dessicated by Mire. His lips contorted into a grin once he met Doyoung’s eyes.
Doyoung grimaced. Trust Wonwoo to think that a smile was enough of a disguise. What a farce.
“What do you want,” he said bluntly. There was no use in exchanging pleasantries with a beast.
Wonwoo shook off his rudeness as easy as anything and pressed on. “I was wondering if we could discuss your recent transfer?”
Doyoung walked over to a weapon rack to pick up a training lance. It gave him the added benefit of no longer having to look at Wonwoo. “It makes sense for me to transfer to the Black Eagles,” he says. “You’re well aware that my house’s territory borders the Empire. I should learn the people that I’ll eventually be negotiating trade deals with.”
It was a truth. Doyoung didn’t feel the need to mention the quiet envy toward his younger sister Minjeong, who wasn’t saddled with the burdens of governing a territory and administrative work. He too once harbored dreams of his father realizing that Gongmyung was more suited to administrative work than he was, but then Gongmyung was buried, and becoming a martyr granted many privileges in Faerghus, but even a corpse couldn’t rule a territory.
He also didn’t voice the suffocating need to leave, sick of watching the monster that occupied his dead friend’s skin. But what was the point of discussing the affairs of men with a beast?
When Doyoung was done speaking, Wonwoo awkwardly said, “Thank you for looking out for the best interests of the Kingdom,” his voice too stilted and formal.
Doyoung whirled around, his hands gripping the training lance so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “I didn’t do it for you,” he sneered.
Wonwoo quieted. Really, the crown prince had to learn how to talk to people eventually.
“Nevertheless,” Wonwoo said, meeting his gaze, his eyes persistent, “you are always welcome here.”
“I wasn’t aware that you owned the training grounds,” Doyoung said brusquely, refusing to acknowledge Wonwoo’s statement. Lance in hand, he left the grounds.
⚔
Minghao stops talking to him for a week when it becomes clear that Doyoung won’t tell him why he transferred. On what would be the eighth day of silence, Minghao shows up at the training grounds and demands a spar, which he obliges. Afterwards, the two of them sprawled on the ground, Minghao talks about what’s been happening with the Blue Lions—Sana had apparently started yet another small fire in the classroom—and it’s like nothing has changed.
Wonwoo gives him small, shy smiles when they pass by each other in the monastery. Doyoung pointedly ignores him.
⚔
When Wonwoo was thirteen, his parents, siblings, and court supporters were murdered on their journey to an eastern Kingdom territory. His sisters’ carriage had tripped the ambush, their bodies charred beyond recognition and recovery.
The rest of the royal retinue had fared little better. Doyoung’s father had ridden to the capital to identify Gongmyung. He returned with a blackened iron spur, the only personal effect he’d been able to collect, and never spoke of the trip again. Why be reminded of what was left of his firstborn when he could instead be deified as a true knight, turned into an abstract and freed from a corporal body?
A month after, Doyoung and his father traveled to the royal palace to watch Wonwoo’s uncle be sworn in as regent. Wonwoo stood stiffly next to his uncle. He was nothing more than a gangly teen still growing into his blue ceremonial robes. His arms lay limply at his sides, his hands adorned with a pair of white gloves. It was the first time Doyoung had seen him since the tragedy. Wonwoo’s eyes were empty as he watched the proceedings. He was a future king with no subjects to rule.
⚔
Doyoung had only seen Wonwoo’s hands once since the tragedy. The two of them had been sent to suppress a rebellion in the western part of the Kingdom. They were now fifteen, the same age Doyoung’s brother was when he had been knighted. They were no longer children.
He watched the maniacal glee on Wonwoo’s face as he burned the rebels to a crisp, his expression transformed from prince to beast— no, not transformed. He was revealing who he had been all along. What he had been all along.
The smell of burning flesh and the screams still haunt Doyoung now at the Officers Academy. The crown prince discarded his gloves when they became too blood-soaked, unveiling his gnarled hands, burn scars littering his skin. His fingertips were ink-stained, corrupted with black magic residue. His palace tutors had never trained him in black magic.
When his hands had eventually failed to cast, he drew his bow, skewering rebels with arrows.
And instead of anyone condemning his actions, he was praised. The soldiers cheered at their crown prince’s ruthlessness. He used to cry when he broke training swords, and now he gleefully massacred his own countrymen.
And Doyoung realized that the boy he loved was dead.
Title from “Blessed-Cursed” by ENHYPEN
Re: And I walk like a lion
too good: "He watched the maniacal glee on Wonwoo’s face as he burned the rebels to a crisp, his expression transformed from prince to beast— no, not transformed. He was revealing who he had been all along. What he had been all along."
thank you for writing this 🫠