In Heaven [Tae Wang Sa Shin Gi, Dam Duk]
Mar. 5th, 2009 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meruhenTitle: In Heaven
Fandom: The Legend/Tae Wang Sa Shin Gi
Pairing/Characters: Dam Duk, mentions of others; no pairing
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1972
Warnings: Spoilers for the end.
Summary: What happens after
Notes: Written for Em, as part of my 500 words a day goal and for my March goal of writing complete things. Also, inspired by a short drabble Em wrote. :D
The light is blinding when he steps into it and when it dies, not suddenly but slowly, Dam Duk isn't sure where he is. Somewhere different, he knows; no battlefield, especially the one he had just been on, looks like this, or even feels like this.
It is beautiful, a forest, tangled as forests get, ancient and untouched by human hands. Stillness swirls around him, inviting peace. There should be laughter, Dam Duk thinks, the laughter of children and families. And love.
As soon as the thoughts hit him, he feels them: there is laughter bubbling just beneath the surface, love surrounding it all. Fitting for Heaven, Dam Duk thinks, and walks further. He might be in Heaven, home to the gods, but he does not fear them: he has faced down worse. And there is reason why he is here.
Dam Duk does not know if his body lives, down in the battlefield in Abullansa, does not know if his guardians live. He doesn't know what will happen, here or below, but being king has taught him one thing. Make a decision and stick to it; if it turns out for good or naught, only action can tell.
So he moves forward, one step followed by another. He doesn't know where he is going and there is no path, but he walks straight. He is looking for something, for someone, and he will not rest until he finds it. Even if he doesn't know who, or what, he is looking for, Dam Duk knows he will find it. There is no doubt in his mind and it is that assurance that sends him walking a little faster.
Forest gives way to grass and flowers, rolling hills and gentle rivers; and in the distance, there are mountains, capped with snow and piercing the clouds. It is something from a painting.
For a moment, and only a moment, Dam Duk wonders what it would be like to go sit beside one of the rivers he sees, shining in the distance, and just stay there. No more wars to fight, ministers to deal with, people to deal with. Just him and the peace of this place.
The laughter that lurks just beneath the surface bubbles up, breaks, and somehow, Dam Duk feels the very air is laughing at him for his thoughts.
He won't stop, no matter what he thinks, though; and so he moves forward, again and again. It doesn't take long for him to find someone.
Only the someone he sees is not the someone he is expecting. He's expecting no one, so perhaps that is not right: the first person he sees is the last person he expects to see. Not because it is odd for him to be in Heaven, but because he is the one walking toward him, lacking all of the hostility of their last meeting, of all of their meetings since they were 11.
Ho Gae smiles at him and extends his hand and Dam Duk takes it, after a moment's consideration, and to his surprise Ho Gae pulls him into a hug.
"They're waiting for you," Ho Gae tells him. He is smiling, as he used to when he was younger, and there is something sincere and happy about him. He slings an arm around Dam Duk's shoulders, and walks with him.
They walk in silence. What does one say to your cousin who was once your best friend who became your enemy? Dam Duk doesn't know. But it doesn't matter, for this silence they walk in is not tense and fueled with hate, but with something lighter.
This is what they might have become, if things were different.
The rivers grow larger, the closer they get, and before he realizes it, Dam Duk is standing on the bank of one. Ho Gae skips rocks across the surface.
They have not been walking that long.
"Take care of Kiha for me," Ho Gae says. He picks up a flat rock and skips it across the surface of the river. It jumps three, four times before falling into the water. "They're still waiting."
Dam Duk wants to know who they are and why Ho Gae seems so sure that he'll be able to take care of Kiha and even opens his mouth to ask, but before he can say anything, Ho Gae presses a stone into his hand.
"Why don't you try skipping it across the surface?" he asks, looking and sounding more like the young version of Ho Gae - the one who had been Dam Duk's best friend. "It's simple. Watch me." He picks up another and skips it across. "Just a flick of the wrist." It skips four times and he sighs. "Can't get it to go all the way across."
"I'll get it," Dam Duk promises, the words slipping out unheeded and he walks closer to the edge, balancing the stone in his hand. He tosses it in the air once, testing the weight, and then throws.
It skips across the surface, barely touching the surface, until it nearly reaches the other bank. It drops there, in the shallows, suddenly; perhaps too suddenly, Dam Duk thinks, and then he realizes that he can see it still, because it grows. It grows, the stone rising up out of the water, a perfect flat stone; the last of a series of steps across the river itself.
The others follow, rising in the spots the stone hit. Dam Duk looks to Ho Gae, wondering if he is seeing correctly or not, and Ho Gae only nods toward the stones.
Heaven is laughing at him, Dam Duk thinks. He could stay, in that spot with Ho Gae as his friend and the peace of the valley around them, but even Ho Gae watches him with expectant eyes.
There is no choice. Forward it is, forward he goes: stepping carefully across the stones, growing old as he watches.
Time passes but does not, in Heaven. Dam Duk wonders how much time has passed in his world, if the aging of the stones is a true reflection of time. He wonders if everyone has passed on, if the world he knows is gone.
"Nothing is truly gone." The voice echoes around him, coming from nowhere. He looks over his shoulder to see if Ho Gae hears it as well, but behind him there is no one, nothing. A wide plain, but not the one he and Ho Gae crossed. The river whose bank he now stands on it, it is not the same. "As nothing is truly the same."
The voice sounds like the Oracle. Not Kiha, but the one before, the one who knew him and saw what he was and warned him to flee. He didn't listen to her, because he could not.
"Who do you seek, Dam Duk?" the voice asks. And because he knows what he wants, although not who he seeks, and although his heart is filled with fear, it is the same as any war he has fought: he answers.
"The lord of this place."
"And why do you seek him?" The voice still echoes around him, but it coalesces into a figure, approaching him. One he knows and yet does not.
"To tell him that we don't need Heaven to order us around. People can survive on their own, without Heaven controlling them." The words are not profound, not pretty, not in this place; the beauty surrounding Dam Duk makes a mockery of them, for he knows there will never such beauty on Earth. But it's cold, somehow, lacking in something. He can't put his finger on what, but he knows there is something off about the beauty surrounding him.
The desire to be home wells inside his heart. And his worlds of only days before come back to him: "Home is wherever you are," he had told Sujini that day. It's true, but so much more than that: home is the land, home is the air, home is the world - his world. His friends and mentors and family.
"If you leave this forest now and forget you spoke those worlds, you'll be forgiven." The voice speaks again, the figure approaching: it is the Oracle, who transforms in his aunt, who takes on the form of his mother. It is all of them, and none of them, and it doesn't grow close enough for Dam Duk to get a good view. "If you dare to repeat them, there is no telling what will happen."
"I won't forget them," Dam Duk tells the figure, trying his hardest to focus on it. "Will the gods curse me for telling them the truth, for speaking for the best interest of my people? Are they that petty?"
"The gods are what made you." This comes from another voice, different from the first. The voice belongs to another figure, one that is solid and closer to him than the first. It still doesn't help Dam Duk get a good view on who he is speaking to. "The Heavens shined upon your birth, blessed you with everything."
"The Heavens blessed me? The gods made me into a king?" There were few times when he lost his temper, but Dam Duk can feel the anger rising in his heart. The gods might think they have been a blessing, but he can't see it: when he doesn't even know his own son, it's no blessing. "They didn't make me into a king. The gods weren't there when I needed to make decisions about sending my men into battle. They didn't comfort me when I had to watch them ride into battle, knowing they would die. The Heavens have done nothing but give me heartache."
He's yelling by the end and his voice is startlingly loud in his ears. He falls silent then, suddenly. No one else speaks.
The figures are still there when he looks around, silent as stone. The sound of his breathing, harsh and heavy, is loud in the atmosphere. The laughter is gone.
"Is that what you think?" This from another voice, a third: this one from behind him. Dam Duk spins on his heels, hand going to his hip where his sword normally is. It's not there and there is no need for it, not in Heaven, but the motion is automatic.
This figure is close enough that Dam Duk can see him. It's his father, but not; the features are not quite right, just off enough that Dam Duk knows this is not the father who watched over him and guided him as a child. This figure is at once comforting and awe-inspiring, odd emotions for a man who hasn't felt awe in years, who has shrugged off comfort for just as long.
"You no longer need Heaven?" the man asks, smiling at him. "Why is that?" Where the other figures tossed off his comments without explanation, this one wants an explanation, wants to know why Dam Duk is there to throw off the grasp of Heaven.
But that's not quite right. Hee knows why, Dam Duk is sure. He just wants to hear it aloud.
"Because we can live without Heaven guiding us."
"Is that so?" he asks. He is still smiling, still happy and content, and Dam Duk wants to forget it all and find a quiet spot in the Heaven that this man controls. But there are people waiting for him. His friends, his family.
There is a future for him, in a world separate from this one.
"Yes," he replies simply, because nothing else will suit. The man reaches out to him, touches his head, and Dam Duk closes his eyes for a moment.
Sujini is leaning over him when he opens them, with Jumuchi and Chuh-Ro right behind her.
Fandom: The Legend/Tae Wang Sa Shin Gi
Pairing/Characters: Dam Duk, mentions of others; no pairing
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1972
Warnings: Spoilers for the end.
Summary: What happens after
Notes: Written for Em, as part of my 500 words a day goal and for my March goal of writing complete things. Also, inspired by a short drabble Em wrote. :D
The light is blinding when he steps into it and when it dies, not suddenly but slowly, Dam Duk isn't sure where he is. Somewhere different, he knows; no battlefield, especially the one he had just been on, looks like this, or even feels like this.
It is beautiful, a forest, tangled as forests get, ancient and untouched by human hands. Stillness swirls around him, inviting peace. There should be laughter, Dam Duk thinks, the laughter of children and families. And love.
As soon as the thoughts hit him, he feels them: there is laughter bubbling just beneath the surface, love surrounding it all. Fitting for Heaven, Dam Duk thinks, and walks further. He might be in Heaven, home to the gods, but he does not fear them: he has faced down worse. And there is reason why he is here.
Dam Duk does not know if his body lives, down in the battlefield in Abullansa, does not know if his guardians live. He doesn't know what will happen, here or below, but being king has taught him one thing. Make a decision and stick to it; if it turns out for good or naught, only action can tell.
So he moves forward, one step followed by another. He doesn't know where he is going and there is no path, but he walks straight. He is looking for something, for someone, and he will not rest until he finds it. Even if he doesn't know who, or what, he is looking for, Dam Duk knows he will find it. There is no doubt in his mind and it is that assurance that sends him walking a little faster.
Forest gives way to grass and flowers, rolling hills and gentle rivers; and in the distance, there are mountains, capped with snow and piercing the clouds. It is something from a painting.
For a moment, and only a moment, Dam Duk wonders what it would be like to go sit beside one of the rivers he sees, shining in the distance, and just stay there. No more wars to fight, ministers to deal with, people to deal with. Just him and the peace of this place.
The laughter that lurks just beneath the surface bubbles up, breaks, and somehow, Dam Duk feels the very air is laughing at him for his thoughts.
He won't stop, no matter what he thinks, though; and so he moves forward, again and again. It doesn't take long for him to find someone.
Only the someone he sees is not the someone he is expecting. He's expecting no one, so perhaps that is not right: the first person he sees is the last person he expects to see. Not because it is odd for him to be in Heaven, but because he is the one walking toward him, lacking all of the hostility of their last meeting, of all of their meetings since they were 11.
Ho Gae smiles at him and extends his hand and Dam Duk takes it, after a moment's consideration, and to his surprise Ho Gae pulls him into a hug.
"They're waiting for you," Ho Gae tells him. He is smiling, as he used to when he was younger, and there is something sincere and happy about him. He slings an arm around Dam Duk's shoulders, and walks with him.
They walk in silence. What does one say to your cousin who was once your best friend who became your enemy? Dam Duk doesn't know. But it doesn't matter, for this silence they walk in is not tense and fueled with hate, but with something lighter.
This is what they might have become, if things were different.
The rivers grow larger, the closer they get, and before he realizes it, Dam Duk is standing on the bank of one. Ho Gae skips rocks across the surface.
They have not been walking that long.
"Take care of Kiha for me," Ho Gae says. He picks up a flat rock and skips it across the surface of the river. It jumps three, four times before falling into the water. "They're still waiting."
Dam Duk wants to know who they are and why Ho Gae seems so sure that he'll be able to take care of Kiha and even opens his mouth to ask, but before he can say anything, Ho Gae presses a stone into his hand.
"Why don't you try skipping it across the surface?" he asks, looking and sounding more like the young version of Ho Gae - the one who had been Dam Duk's best friend. "It's simple. Watch me." He picks up another and skips it across. "Just a flick of the wrist." It skips four times and he sighs. "Can't get it to go all the way across."
"I'll get it," Dam Duk promises, the words slipping out unheeded and he walks closer to the edge, balancing the stone in his hand. He tosses it in the air once, testing the weight, and then throws.
It skips across the surface, barely touching the surface, until it nearly reaches the other bank. It drops there, in the shallows, suddenly; perhaps too suddenly, Dam Duk thinks, and then he realizes that he can see it still, because it grows. It grows, the stone rising up out of the water, a perfect flat stone; the last of a series of steps across the river itself.
The others follow, rising in the spots the stone hit. Dam Duk looks to Ho Gae, wondering if he is seeing correctly or not, and Ho Gae only nods toward the stones.
Heaven is laughing at him, Dam Duk thinks. He could stay, in that spot with Ho Gae as his friend and the peace of the valley around them, but even Ho Gae watches him with expectant eyes.
There is no choice. Forward it is, forward he goes: stepping carefully across the stones, growing old as he watches.
Time passes but does not, in Heaven. Dam Duk wonders how much time has passed in his world, if the aging of the stones is a true reflection of time. He wonders if everyone has passed on, if the world he knows is gone.
"Nothing is truly gone." The voice echoes around him, coming from nowhere. He looks over his shoulder to see if Ho Gae hears it as well, but behind him there is no one, nothing. A wide plain, but not the one he and Ho Gae crossed. The river whose bank he now stands on it, it is not the same. "As nothing is truly the same."
The voice sounds like the Oracle. Not Kiha, but the one before, the one who knew him and saw what he was and warned him to flee. He didn't listen to her, because he could not.
"Who do you seek, Dam Duk?" the voice asks. And because he knows what he wants, although not who he seeks, and although his heart is filled with fear, it is the same as any war he has fought: he answers.
"The lord of this place."
"And why do you seek him?" The voice still echoes around him, but it coalesces into a figure, approaching him. One he knows and yet does not.
"To tell him that we don't need Heaven to order us around. People can survive on their own, without Heaven controlling them." The words are not profound, not pretty, not in this place; the beauty surrounding Dam Duk makes a mockery of them, for he knows there will never such beauty on Earth. But it's cold, somehow, lacking in something. He can't put his finger on what, but he knows there is something off about the beauty surrounding him.
The desire to be home wells inside his heart. And his worlds of only days before come back to him: "Home is wherever you are," he had told Sujini that day. It's true, but so much more than that: home is the land, home is the air, home is the world - his world. His friends and mentors and family.
"If you leave this forest now and forget you spoke those worlds, you'll be forgiven." The voice speaks again, the figure approaching: it is the Oracle, who transforms in his aunt, who takes on the form of his mother. It is all of them, and none of them, and it doesn't grow close enough for Dam Duk to get a good view. "If you dare to repeat them, there is no telling what will happen."
"I won't forget them," Dam Duk tells the figure, trying his hardest to focus on it. "Will the gods curse me for telling them the truth, for speaking for the best interest of my people? Are they that petty?"
"The gods are what made you." This comes from another voice, different from the first. The voice belongs to another figure, one that is solid and closer to him than the first. It still doesn't help Dam Duk get a good view on who he is speaking to. "The Heavens shined upon your birth, blessed you with everything."
"The Heavens blessed me? The gods made me into a king?" There were few times when he lost his temper, but Dam Duk can feel the anger rising in his heart. The gods might think they have been a blessing, but he can't see it: when he doesn't even know his own son, it's no blessing. "They didn't make me into a king. The gods weren't there when I needed to make decisions about sending my men into battle. They didn't comfort me when I had to watch them ride into battle, knowing they would die. The Heavens have done nothing but give me heartache."
He's yelling by the end and his voice is startlingly loud in his ears. He falls silent then, suddenly. No one else speaks.
The figures are still there when he looks around, silent as stone. The sound of his breathing, harsh and heavy, is loud in the atmosphere. The laughter is gone.
"Is that what you think?" This from another voice, a third: this one from behind him. Dam Duk spins on his heels, hand going to his hip where his sword normally is. It's not there and there is no need for it, not in Heaven, but the motion is automatic.
This figure is close enough that Dam Duk can see him. It's his father, but not; the features are not quite right, just off enough that Dam Duk knows this is not the father who watched over him and guided him as a child. This figure is at once comforting and awe-inspiring, odd emotions for a man who hasn't felt awe in years, who has shrugged off comfort for just as long.
"You no longer need Heaven?" the man asks, smiling at him. "Why is that?" Where the other figures tossed off his comments without explanation, this one wants an explanation, wants to know why Dam Duk is there to throw off the grasp of Heaven.
But that's not quite right. Hee knows why, Dam Duk is sure. He just wants to hear it aloud.
"Because we can live without Heaven guiding us."
"Is that so?" he asks. He is still smiling, still happy and content, and Dam Duk wants to forget it all and find a quiet spot in the Heaven that this man controls. But there are people waiting for him. His friends, his family.
There is a future for him, in a world separate from this one.
"Yes," he replies simply, because nothing else will suit. The man reaches out to him, touches his head, and Dam Duk closes his eyes for a moment.
Sujini is leaning over him when he opens them, with Jumuchi and Chuh-Ro right behind her.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 07:03 pm (UTC)WANTING TO STAY BUT KNOWING HE CAN'T, HO GAE HO GAE HO GAE BEING AT EASE IN DEATH AND PROBABLY ABLE TO SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE AND NOT THAT DAM DUK WAS AGAINST HIM FROM THE START, TEACHING HIM TO SKIP STONES LIKE WHEN THEY WERE KIDS AND DAM DUK WAS THOUGHT TO BE A WEAKLING, DAM DUK REFUSING TO BACK AWAY AND PRETEND HE NEVER STOOD UP TO HEAVEN, AND LOTS OF LITTLE LINES!
-but being king has taught him one thing. Make a decision and stick to it; if it turns out for good or naught, only action can tell.
-the first person he sees is the last person he expects to see. Not because it is odd for him to be in Heaven, but because he is the one walking toward him, lacking all of the hostility of their last meeting, of all of their meetings since they were 11.
-The words are not profound, not pretty, not in this place; the beauty surrounding Dam Duk makes a mockery of them, for he knows there will never such beauty on Earth.
*LOVES*
no subject
Date: 2009-03-05 07:06 pm (UTC)