Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They say the joyous day of the announcement of the birth of a royal child was cursed.

King Kim Namjoon and Queen Kim Seokjin were said to have been overjoyed to announce the birth of their new child. They were said to have invited not only the entire kingdom, regardless of status, but also neighboring kingdoms to the celebration as well. The entire palace was said to have been cleared and refurnished for the sake of this single celebration.

And then the witch came.

The witch appeared as if out of thin air, cloaked in black as if to hide her hideous figure, old and hunched over within the dark folds of her misshapen robe.

"The mad one," the witch rasped, voice low and threatening, "shall bring ruin to the princess."

The witch was brazen to curse the baby child before the hundreds of people present that day. But the King was frozen to his throne, it's said, in shock, likely unable to believe the happenings before him. And so the Queen stood and claimed his husband's power and ordered for the guards to seize the witch.

Before they could manage to do so, there was the haunting sound of laughter, and the witch disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

Since then, the kingdom has been submerged in a fog of gloom for their unfortunate princess and the Queen and King searched far and wide for both their child's curser and her savior.

But until that savior was to be found, the princess was hidden and guarded with the greatest of securities for fear the witch would return and exact the very tellings of her terrible curse.

Chapter Text

When Jimin turns five, he finally meets the King and Queen. He’s grown in the castle his whole life, fed the best meat, taken on walks by a royal caretaker who only smiled when he used to stumble over his four stout legs and fall, and taught about the King and Queen who brought him to the castle when his mother died giving birth to him by the same caretaker. He lives the best life and finally meeting the King and Queen is the absolute best part of his five years of life.

They’re both so pretty, tall, with kind smiles. The Queen in particular walks up to him and crouches down, even if his dress will get dirty, and pets his head with a large, warm hand, smiling softly down at him with the warmest and prettiest smile Jimin has ever seen and Jimin loves him instantly.

“Hello, little dragon.” The Queen says. Jimin grins up at him and the Queen’s eyes crinkle in response. Jimin’s own sparkle at the sight. This is so cool. Can the Queen be this cool? “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

A favor? The pretty Queen wants a favor from him? Jimin nods his head furiously up and down, dislodging the Queen’s hand from his head, but he just smiles down at Jimin like he’s proud of Jimin’s answer. Is this what having a mom feels like? Jimin feels so happy. He wants to be with the Queen forever. “You see, I have a daughter. But the poor thing-”

The Queen pauses and frowns, and the King finally comes forward, warm smile replaced with a frown, crouching beside the Queen and rubbing a comforting hand up and down his back. The Queen shoots him a grateful smile. “The poor thing has been cursed, you see. A witch- A witch cursed her and I’m so- so afraid that something will happen to her.”

Jimin frowns. He doesn’t understand what she means by curse, but it sounds like something bad will happen to the Queen’s daughter and Jimin doesn’t like the sound of that. He growls softly and butts his head into his leg. He doesn’t want the Queen to feel bad. It makes him feel bad.

The Queen gives him the same smile he gave the King. “Thank you, little dragon. I was wondering. You’re a dragon, you’ll grow to be big and strong- would you mind protecting my daughter for me?”

Yes! Jimin thinks. And then realizes he doesn’t have a human mouth, so the Queen won’t understand what he’s saying, so he nods with what he hopes is the same energy he nodded with the first time. Yes! He thinks hard in his mind and hopes the Queen understands somehow. If the Queen is this nice and pretty, the Princess must be too! He doesn’t want something bad to happen to her!

The Queen brightens up considerably, so Jimin thinks he at least got some of it across with his nodding. “I’m so glad you’ve agreed. Do you know of the mark on your chest, little dragon?”

A mark on his chest? Jimin never knew about that. His neck isn’t long enough for him to look down at his body and the royal caretaker never mentioned it. What is it? He wonders. What’ll it look like when he’s big enough to see it one day?

“Do you want to see?” The Queen smiles down at him, laughter pulling at the edges of his plump lips.

Yes! Jimin nods furiously again.

“I’d be happy to show you, little one.” The Queen says, and stretches his hand out a little. For a moment, Jimin assumes he’s supposed to put his head in the Queen’s outstretched hand, but then something amazing happens and a ball out water appears floating above the Queen’s hand. Jimin jumps back in surprise, but ends up taking hesitant steps forward when the ball of water stretches out into a circle and Jimin can see his reflection in it. It’s amazing what Jimin sees, red scales that seem to shine in the light if he twists his body just right. As the Queen said, on his chest, there seems to be a mark that looks unlike the rest of its softer yellow surroundings or his red scales. Jimin looks as hard as he can at it through the water. It’s two blocks, it looks like, together, but the far sides of the blocks are smaller than the sides that face each other. In fact, it looks a lot like the doors to his stable look when the royal caretaker first pushes them open, before they fully split apart to let her inside.

Wow, Jimin marvels, at the mark, at his yellow slit eyes that blink back at him, at his yellowish underbelly and the way it differs from the much deeper red of his scales.

“It’s cool, isn’t it?” The Queen smiles, amused. Jimin nods vigorously. “I have a similar mark on my chest, only it’s the opposite, two trapezoids facing inward. It connects us, little dragon. I can tell what you're thinking when I tap into it.”

Jimin has absolutely no idea what a trapezoid is, but he’s absolutely floored by the idea that the Queen can understand him even though he doesn’t have a human mouth. Has she understood what he was thinking this whole time?

Could you hear me this whole time? He asks.

“I could, little dragon.” The Queen smiles. “Otherwise our conversation may not have gone this well, you see.”

That’s so cool! Jimin beams. I can talk to you super easy now!

“Indeed. My daughter also has a similar mark on her chest, so when you go to protect her, she’ll be able to understand you as well.”

We can be friends! Jimin cheers. He’s never had a friend before!

“Then would you like to meet her today, little dragon?”

“Today?” The King asks in surprise. Jimin almost forgot he was there, now he feels bad. The Queen snorts and Jimin remembers he can hear what he’s thinking and immediately begs him not to tell the King what he just thought. The Queen just winks at him.

“Let’s do it today, Namjoon. The sooner we can protect our daughter, the better.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? She won’t even know we’re coming”

Jimin doesn’t get why it wouldn’t be a good idea. If the Princess is going to be in trouble, Jimin wants to be there to protect her as soon as he can!

The Queen’s hand comes down to pat his head again and Jimin growls in content. “Of course it’s a good idea. A baby dragon is on my side and my own husband isn’t? Is this how it’s supposed to be?”

“No, of course not,” the King concedes, “I’m with you all the way, you know that, Jinah. We can take Jimin to meet our daughter today.”

“Good.” The Queen smiles and pecks his cheek and the King’s warm smile comes back in full force. The Queen is happy, the King is happy, and Jimin is about to meet the Princess, Jimin is happy too. This must be what having a family feels like!

The King gets up from where he’s crouched next to the Queen with a little groan and extends an arm to help the Queen up. The Queen grins as he takes his hand and pulls himself daintily upright.

“Getting a little old, are we darling?”

The King eyes him and then smirks. “Never too old for you, my Queen.”

The Queen giggles, hiding his smile behind his hand, and Jimin squeals in his mind. Is this how parents behave? Parents are so cute! Jimin wants to be a parent too! And he wants a wife- or a husband? The Queen is a man, so maybe he can have a husband too. Or will his husband be called a wife even if he’s a man? Jimin has to ask the royal caretaker when he next sees her

The Queen looks down at him and Jimin stops what he’s thinking and looks back up at her. Are we going now?

It takes a moment for the Queen to answer and Jimin blinks. Before he can ask if anything’s wrong, though, the Queen smiles brightly and turns to head to the stable doors with the King, his hand holding the crook of the King’s elbow. “Yes, we’re going now. You’ve taken long walks before, haven’t you, little dragon? It might be awhile before we get to her castle.”

She has her own castle? Jimin has a whole stable for himself, he knows that, but when the royal caretaker takes him for his walks, the world outside is so much prettier than the one in his stable and the castle is so big and pretty and Jimin hasn’t even seen all of it yet and the Princess gets one of her own? That’s wow. Jimin can’t even imagine having a whole big, pretty castle for himself. But he has no time to imagine it anyway, rushing to catch up with the already gone King and Queen with his short, stubby legs.

By the time they reach the Princess’ castle, Jimin’s whole body aches and he collapses onto his stomach, panting and trying to blink out the blurriness in his eyes. Puffs of smoke trail from his snout as he huffs and it takes him a minute to see the King crouched next to where he’s collapsed, eyeing him with warm concern.

“Was that too long of a walk for you, Jimin?”

Jimin sends up a bigger puff of smoke in response.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Here, take this time to rest, my wife has gone to see our daughter.”

Oh, Jimin thinks tiredly, closing his eyes, the King won’t be able to talk to me now.

The next thing he knows, he’s being placed on a stone cold floor. He jolts awake, skittering when he actually registers the cold of the floor beneath him.

“Are you awake, little dragon?” The Queen laughs. Jimin looks over to where she’s standing by a doorway to a place that looks similar to his stable back at the castle.

Where is this? He asks, pouting and shifting on each leg to bring warmth back to each leg.

“Your new stable.” The Queen answers. Jimin blinks at her in shock. “Our darling daughter refused to come down and you fell asleep on the path, poor thing, so we took you to your stable in the Eve Castle. We haven’t furnished it for you yet, but you can stay here for the night and we’ll bring your things in the morning, alright? And I’m really very sorry about my daughter, we made sure to punish her for her rudeness, I’m sure you’ll be able to see her sometime soon.”

There were so many things said in that speech, Jimin just chooses to focus on the last one so his head doesn't hurt. You didn’t have to punish the Princess, it’s okay if she’s shy!

The King and Queen blink in surprise and Jimin finds himself blinking with them in confusion before the Queen smils and comes forward to crouch before him and pet his head. Jimin blinks at him again, even as he nuzzles up into his hand.

“You shouldn’t question a royal again, okay little dragon? I’ll let it go for now, because you’re young and didn’t know, but other royals might take that as treason, you know? The punishment for that is something you don’t want to know, so don’t let a royal hear you questioning them, okay?”

Jimin stops nuzzling into the Queen’s hand and lets his tail drop. He didn’t know it was such a big deal, but what if it was someone else who wasn’t as nice as the Queen who heard him? He didn’t mean to do whatever treason was! He’s not a bad dragon, he’s a good dragon!

“That’s right, I knew you didn’t mean anything by it. But if another royal were to hear you, I wouldn’t be able to save you from your punishment like this, little dragon. Watch what you say, okay?”

Jimin nods dejectedly, and the Queen pats his head once more before standing and heading to his husband at the door.

“Rest well and I’ll have your caretaker bring accommodations for tomorrow, okay?”

Jimin nods again and watches as the King and Queen leave, closing the door behind them. The stable goes dark and it barely takes a second for Jimin to feel the coldness of the floor again. He scrambles for the door and stops right before it, staring up, up, up the length of it. He couldn’t open it if he tried. But thankfully there’s a sliver of light between the two doors and Jimin curls up as best as he can around himself on where it falls on the floor.

He can’t wait until he grows big and strong and can make fire for himself. And maybe then he and the Princess will be friends and he can protect her from all the evil witches in the world!

When he grows bigger, he hopes he won't have to shiver in the dark like this again and the Queen will pat his head more and the King will worry about him more and the Princess and him will be best friends.