Chapter Text
The first thing Jimin remembers is singing.
Not his mother’s voice, he never knew that, but the collective hymn of twenty children’s voices rising in the morning air, sweet and high as birdsong. Ashara provides, Ashara protects, Ashara gathers the lost lambs home. The words felt like warm milk in his mouth, safe as the wooden walls of the church and the soft wool quilts the Omega nuns tucked around his small shoulders each night.
He was three, perhaps four, when the church took him in. The story they told was simple: his parents had died in a plague that swept the outer villages. Ashara, in her infinite mercy, had guided the church’s wagons to find him crying beside their cold bodies. A miracle, Father Hyunsik had said. A sign of the goddess’s infinite love for all her children, even the lost ones.
Jimin never questioned this story until much later. As a small child, it was enough to feel wanted and loved, to know that he belonged somewhere. The church housed a dozen other orphans just like him, and under the gentle guidance of Sister Kanao and Father Hyunsik, they learned to read and write, to tend the garden, to fold their hands in prayer and feel grateful for each meal of rye bread and barley soup.
And there was Taehyung.
Taehyung arrived when Jimin was six, delivered by the same wagons that had brought Jimin years before. Unlike Jimin, who had been found alone, Taehyung came with stories. His village had been raided by bandits, he whispered to Jimin in the darkness of their shared sleeping hall. His grandmother had hidden him in a grain barrel before the men with long swords came. She’d told him to be brave, to remember her songs, to never forget where he came from.
But Taehyung had only just turned five, and memories fade when they’re not carefully tended. Soon enough, he was singing Ashara's hymns with the same sweet clarity as the rest of them, his grandmother's lullabies dissolving like morning mist.
They soon became inseparable. Where Jimin was curious and quick to speak, Taehyung was steady and watchful. Where Taehyung was bold enough to climb the apple trees behind the church, Jimin was clever enough to know which branches would hold their weight. They shared everything: bowls of barley soup, warm spots by the fire, whispered conversations after the nuns had blown out the oil lamps.
The years danced by in a rhythm of seasons and small adventures. In summer, they would sneak away to the river that curved behind the church grounds, splashing in the shallow water while Sister Kanao believed them to be napping in the shade of the dormitory. The water was always cold, fed by mountain springs, and they would dare each other to wade deeper until their teeth chattered and their lips turned blue. Afterward, they would lie on the sun-warmed stones, letting their skin dry while they made up stories about the clouds drifting overhead.
"That one looks like a dragon," Taehyung would say, pointing to a particularly elaborate formation.
"Dragons aren't real," Jimin would reply, though he'd tilt his head to see it better.
"How do you know? Maybe they live beyond the mountains, where the church wagons can't reach."
These were the moments Jimin enjoyed most, when it was just the two of them and the endless sky, when the church bells seemed distant and unimportant. They would talk about everything and nothing: whether the fish in the river had souls like people did, why Sister Kanao’s hair was always perfectly braided, what lay beyond the forest that bordered their small world.
Winter brought different mischief. There was the time they hid Father Hyunsik's hymnal beneath Jimin's mattress, thinking they could avoid evening prayers if there were no songs to sing. They giggled through dinner, imagining the confusion when prayer time came. But Father Hyunsik simply smiled and began the first hymn from memory, his voice leading theirs as if nothing had changed. By the third verse, even Jimin and Taehyung were singing along, their sabotage forgotten in the familiar comfort of the melody.
"Did you really think I wouldn't know these songs by heart?" Father Hyunsik asked them later, when he found the hymnal during his evening rounds. His tone was more amused than angry. "I've been singing to Ashara since before you were born, little ones."
They spent the next day copying prayers as penance, but Father Hyunsik brought them honey cakes while they worked, and the punishment felt more like a game than real discipline.
Spring brought the Feast of New Growth, when all the children would gather small offerings for the Lamb: wildflowers braided into crowns, perfectly smooth river stones, their best drawings of Ashara's sacred symbols. These gifts would be blessed by Father Hyunsik and then sent to the High Temple in the wagons that came monthly for supplies. Jimin always chose his offerings carefully, spending hours to ensure each petal was perfect, each line precisely drawn.
"The Lamb sees all gifts with divine eyes," Father Hyunsik would remind them as they prepared their offerings, eyeing a particularly scratchy scripture Taehyung held with a toothy grin.
"What matters is not the richness of the gift, but the purity of the heart that gives it."
Jimin pictured the Lamb sometimes, a figure of impossible grace receiving their small tokens with gentle hands. In his imagination, the Lamb lived in rooms filled with light, surrounded by the combined love of all Ashara's children. The thought made him work even harder on his offerings, desperate to contribute something worthy to that sacred space.
The church itself felt vast to their child eyes, though Jimin would later realize how small it truly was. The main sanctuary could hold perhaps fifty people on the wooden pews Father Hyunsik had built himself. The altar was simple stone, decorated with carved symbols of Ashara's protection: the crescent moon, the flowering vine, the lamb cradled in gentle hands. Behind the altar hung a painting of the goddess herself, a woman with kind eyes and outstretched arms, her robes flowing like water, her face radiant with divine love.
On festival days, families from the surrounding farms would join them for services, and the sanctuary would fill with voices raised in harmony. Those were the times Jimin felt most connected to something larger than himself, when the ceiling seemed to lift and the very air thrummed with collective faith. He and Taehyung would sit together in their designated spot, sharing a hymnal and trying not to fidget during Father Hyunsik's longer sermons about Ashara's infinite wisdom.
But it was the ordinary days that Jimin always remembered most. Helping Sister Kanao tend the herb garden, their small hands learning to distinguish between mint and sage. Gathering eggs from the henhouse while Taehyung distracted the aggressive rooster with exaggerated courage. Sitting by the fire on cold evenings, listening to Father Hyunsik tell stories of Ashara's early miracles while they mended clothes or sorted dried beans.
Jimin loved these stories, the way they painted pictures of a time when gods and humans lived side by side, when miracles were as common as sunrise. He especially loved the tales of Ashara's compassion, how she had wept for the orphaned children of war and gathered them to her breast, how she had taught humans to build homes that would shelter not just their own families but any stranger in need.
It was a beautiful world they lived in, bounded by stone walls and familiar routines. The children had their lessons and their chores, their small rebellions and smaller punishments. They learned to read from religious texts, to write their letters in careful script, to tend plants and animals with gentle hands. They were taught that Ashara provided for all their needs, that the church was their sanctuary, that beyond its walls lay a dangerous world full of people who had forgotten the goddess's love.
The first crack in this perfect world came when they turned thirteen.
Jimin woke one morning to find Taehyung's pallet empty beside his. Panic fluttered in his chest until Sister Kanao found him searching the gardens, calling his friend's name.
"Taehyung is with Father Hyunsik," she said gently, her weathered hands settling on Jimin's shoulders. "He's presented as Alpha, child. He'll be moving to the Alpha dormitories now."
“I don’t understand.” Jimin stared at her, uncomprehending, “He seemed the same as always. ”
Sister Kanao guided him carefully through the church doors, “Ashara reveals our nature when the time is right. Each has their role in her grand design. Taehyung has been blessed with Alpha status. He’ll train with the other young Alphas now, learn to be strong and protect.”
“But what about me?” The words came out smaller than Jimin intended.
Sister Kanao’s smile was kind but distant. “Your time will come soon enough, little one. And when it does, Ashara will reveal your purpose too. Be glad for Taehyung. He can now serve Ashara as she intended.”
But Jimin was not glad. That evening, he sat alone at dinner for the first time in seven years, as long as he could remember. The barley soup tasted like nothing. The other children chatted around him, but their voices seemed to be very far away. When bedtime came, Taehyung’s empty pallet stretched between Jimin and the wall like a vast, cold ocean.
He saw Taehyung the next day during morning prayers, sitting with a group of older boys across the sanctuary. Taehyung’s hair had been cut short in the Alpha style, and he wore a simple leather band around his wrist, the mark of his presentation. When their eyes met, Taehyung smiled and raised his hand in a small wave.
Jimin waved back, but something felt different. There was a distance now that hadn't existed before, an invisible line drawn between them.
The separation felt unnatural, wrong in ways Jimin couldn't articulate. They had shared everything for seven years: every secret, every game, every quiet moment. Now Taehyung sat with the older boys during meals, worked in different sections of the garden, slept in a dormitory Jimin wasn't allowed to enter. When they passed each other in the corridors, Taehyung would nod politely, as if they were acquaintances rather than the closest of friends.
Two weeks later, Jimin's own presentation came.
He woke that morning feeling strange, flushed and dizzy, his skin too sensitive beneath his nightclothes. Sister Kanao took one look at him and nodded knowingly.
"Omega," she said, and her voice held a different kind of warmth than it had for Taehyung. "Ashara's most precious children. Come, little one. There are things you need to learn."
The Omega dormitory was smaller than the children's quarters, with only ten beds instead of twenty. The other residents were older, young men and women in their teens and early twenties, all moving with a careful, graceful quiet that Jimin would later learn was expected of their kind.
Sister Kanao introduced him to Sister Chae, a young woman barely out of her teens who would be his guide and teacher. She had kind eyes and gentle hands, and when she showed Jimin to his new bed, she whispered, "It's frightening at first, but you'll find your place. Ashara has a special love for Omegas."
That night, lying in his new bed surrounded by strangers, Jimin heard the sound that would haunt him for weeks: soft crying from the bed nearest the window. When he crept closer to investigate, he found a boy about his own age curled beneath his blankets, tears streaming down his face.
"What's wrong?" Jimin whispered.
The boy looked up with startled eyes. "I wasn't chosen," he said. "For service in the High Temple. The wagons came last week, and they took Seung and Jiyoung, but not me." His voice broke. "I thought... I thought Ashara might want me there. I've been preparing my whole life, but I'm not good enough."
Jimin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. "There will be other chances," he said, though he wasn't sure if this was true.
"No," the boy said with the certainty of despair. "They only choose once a year. I'll be too old by the time they come again. I'll spend my whole life here, in this small place, and never serve the Lamb directly."
The next morning, Jimin asked Sister Chae about it. They were in the small classroom attached to the Omega dormitory, learning about herbal remedies and household management, subjects the other children had never been taught.
"Why can't I talk to Taehyung anymore?" Jimin asked. "We used to do everything together."
Sister Chae's hands stilled over the bundle of lavender she was sorting. "Who told you that you couldn't talk to Taehyung?"
"No one, but..." Jimin struggled to put his feelings into words. "Everything's different now. We're separated. We can't play together or share meals or sleep in the same room. Why?"
"Because Ashara has ordained different paths for different natures," Sister Chae said carefully. "Alphas must learn strength and leadership. Omegas must learn gentleness and service. If we mingled freely, we might become... distracted."
"But we've been friends since we were children," Jimin protested. "How could that be wrong?"
Sister Chae set down her lavender and looked at him with something that might have been pity. "You're thinking like a child still, Jimin. But childhood is ending. You must learn to think as Ashara wills, with purpose, with understanding of your place in her design."
The words felt hollow, rehearsed, and for a reason Jimin couldn’t explain, they hurt him terribly. He wanted to argue, to demand better explanations, but something in Sister Chae's expression warned him against pushing further.
That afternoon, during their work in the herb gardens, Jimin saw Taehyung across the courtyard. He was with a group of Alpha trainees, carrying bundles of firewood that looked impossibly heavy. His arms had grown thicker in just the few weeks since his presentation, his shoulders broader. When he noticed Jimin watching, he started to raise his hand in greeting.
"Taehyung!" An older Alpha called sharply. "Eyes on your work. The Omegas have their own tasks to attend to."
Taehyung's hand dropped. His cheeks flushed red, but he turned back to his wood-carrying without another glance in Jimin's direction.
The shame on Taehyung's face cut deeper than any explanation about divine design. This wasn't about serving Ashara, this was about rules that divided them for reasons no one would properly explain.
That night, Jimin lay awake staring at the ceiling. The boy in the bed by the window was crying again, soft and muffled. In the distance, he could hear the Alpha trainees laughing around their evening fire, their voices deep and boisterous. He thought about Taehyung's embarrassed face, about the invisible walls that had sprung up between them overnight.
For the first time in his life, Jimin began to question not Ashara herself, but the rules that claimed to serve her will.
The questions only multiplied as the weeks passed. Why were Omegas taught to serve meals but never to hunt for food? Why did they learn to tend wounds but not to prevent them? Why were the dormitories separated when they still gathered together for Father Hyunsik's sermons, still sang the same hymns and offered prayers to the same goddess?
Father Hyunsik's sermons continued as they always had, though now Jimin sat with the Omegas while Taehyung sat with the Alphas. The priest spoke of Ashara's love for all her children, of the divine wisdom that guided their community, of the blessed harmony that came when everyone knew their place. But the words felt different now to Jimin’s teenage mind, filtered through new awareness of the rules that governed their separation.
During the Feast of Spring Renewal, when they prepared their annual offerings for the Lamb, Jimin found himself working extra carefully on his gift: a small wooden carving of Ashara's sacred lamb that he'd spent weeks perfecting with the tools Father Hyunsik had taught them to use. As he sanded the tiny figure smooth, he wondered what the real Lamb was like. Did he question these same rules? Or did he understand them in a way Jimin couldn’t yet?
"The Lamb sees all our hearts," Sister Chae said when she admired his carving. "He knows the love behind every offering."
But Jimin found himself wondering if the Lamb ever felt as lonely as he did, surrounded by rules and expectations instead of friends.
Sister Chae's answers grew shorter and more strained each time Jimin asked about the separation between presentations. Sister Kanao avoided his questions altogether. Even Father Hyunsik, when Jimin managed to corner him after evening prayers, would only pat his head and murmur about divine wisdom beyond mortal understanding.
But questions burned in Jimin like a fever. They followed him through his lessons in cooking and cleaning, through his training in herbal medicine and child-rearing. They whispered to him during morning prayers and evening meditations. They kept him awake at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering why a loving goddess would design a world that felt so much like a cage.
And sometimes, late at night when the dormitory was silent except for the sound of sleeping breaths, Jimin would hear other sounds drifting from the direction of the High Temple, a massive structure visible in the distance beyond the church grounds. Voices raised not in hymns but in cries. Sounds that might have been ritual or might have been something else entirely.
He asked Sister Chae about those sounds only once.
"The holy mysteries," she said quickly, not meeting his eyes. "Sacred rites you're too young to understand. The High Temple houses the Divine Sanctum, where the most sacred ceremonies take place. Don't listen for them, Jimin. It's not proper for anyone outside the High Temple to be curious about such things."
But Jimin was curious. He had always been curious. And now, for the first time in his life, that curiosity felt dangerous.
Jimin had never seen the Lamb, but he dreamed about him sometimes. In his dreams, the Lamb had kind eyes and gentle hands, and when Jimin asked him why the world had to be so divided, so full of invisible walls and unspoken rules, the Lamb would smile and give him answers that made sense. In his dreams, the Lamb understood what it felt like to be set apart, to carry expectations that felt too heavy for young shoulders.
But dreams, Jimin was learning, were very different from reality.
The bells continued to toll, their bronze voices carrying across the courtyard like a summons. Like a warning. Like a promise of mysteries yet to be revealed.
Jimin pulled his blanket closer and tried not to listen to the crying from the bed by the window. He tried not to think about Taehyung's embarrassed face or the walls growing higher between them every day.
He tried not to wonder what sounds would drift from the High Temple tonight, and whether the Lamb he dreamed about bore any resemblance to the reality that waited in the Divine Sanctum.
The bells fell silent. The dormitory settled into the deep quiet of sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness, in the space between dreams and reality, Jimin began to think that his childhood was not just ending, it was being deliberately, carefully, irrevocably taken away.