Months slowly passed away, and Anya blossomed with Hoseok.

She never knew she could experience such happiness. She never knew could experience so much love.

Everyday of her life started with a smile even before she opened her eyes for everyday, she would wake up in his arms. Even in his sleep, Hoseok clutched her to himself tightly. Sometimes her head would be resting on his shoulder, her arms around his torso, their legs entwined as he held her. Sometimes she would find herself enveloped by his body from the back.

His scent ingrained itself in her skin, his husky sleepy voice, her most cherished sound in the world.

Never would he simply allow her to leave.

"Should I not be offering myself to my Goddess in the morning?" he would playfully tease her as he would play with her body, his hands caressing her curves as he rained kisses down her neck.

Anya would giggle, "Gazelle or Goddess? Both are too extreme General!"

"Hmmm." He hummed as he would use those clever fingers to incite her lust, "both seems appropriate for you."

He loved making her moan when he would make lazy love to her.

When she would complain about his marks, he would lazily smile while kissing her deeply, "I'll mark you for the world to see. They'll know you belong to me."

Her General was very possessive. But it was a possessiveness that she loved. He was hers.

The days would pass with her helping him with the accounts, him accompanying her as she made the medicines.

Times when she would be busy, he would talk to Nana or teach Tang in front of her. Or take her to the small house where he trained with his men.

Later, he would chase after her, dragging her to the arena, teaching her how to use the dagger he had given. Most of those times, he would love to inappropriately hold her close rather than teach.

"All you are teaching me is how to hug my enemy!" she would exclaim.

Innocently, he would calmly reply, "You are a novice. In this stage, its natural you cant avoid me. Practice to get better-"

"Do you train your soldiers by hugging them?"

In a move too fast for her to notice, Hoseok tripped her, then scooped her up, pressing a lingering soft kiss on her mouth, "No, that treatment is only for the woman I love."

Hoseok had had a swing made on the sturdy branches of the Ginkgo tree, where every evening he would push her, talking to her about anything he fancied, treasuring the time where only the two of them would be present.

Nana, the maids would smile, admiring the sight of the stone faced elegant General, watching with softened eyes as he pushed the delicate beauty on the swing, cherishing the sounds of her laughter.

No one would ever disturb them. Since little Tang was the only male allowed in the section where Anya resided, this side of the General was never witnessed even by his men.

Sometimes, they would take walks along the spread gardens, taking in the beautiful sky filled with chirping birds.

"I am fortunate you chose that day to come and collect your herbs." Hoseok said one day on one such walks, "A day later, and I would be dead."

"Don't!" Anya had stooped him. Smiling, Hoseok had taken her hands to place a kiss on them, "The thought of death does not bother me. The thought of missing to know you does. I cannot imagine a time, where you are alive, but I am not there to protect you, touch you."

Amused, Anya had spun around him, "Then does that mean I can take it that you will follow me in the next life as well?"

"You need to ask?"

"Oh?" Anya asked mischievously, "What if to get me, in your next life, you have to give up all your prestige? Your wealth? Your status?"

Hoseok went ahead to catch her, but she laughed and bound away from him. Feeling a lightness in his heart on seeing her shining eyes and ethereal smile, he replied, "Then I'll give it up. You'll eventually give me all of those anyways, won't you?"

Anya stopped, then puffed her chest, making her voice lofty, "So that means the next life, I get the duty of protecting you? Saving you?"

"Wont you?" Hoseok asked with a smile.

"No chance General." Anya dodged him as he approached, "I'll leave you to live a miserable fate."

"Alas, what a cruel beauty I fell in love with." Hoseok then gave chase, the cold hearted General running after the laughing maiden, who danced to the wind, her skirts swishing, long hair flew with the breeze. Her merry sound making all around her glance up to see the General scooping her up in his arms and spinning her around.

Around them, the servants closed their eyes and made a wish, "May they always remain in such happiness till the day they die."

Many times, Hoseok took her out to the town Market. At first she had been shy, feeling a little odd talking to people without her veil, but the townsfolk had been extremely welcoming, making her feel at ease.

During those times, Anya would explore to her hearts content, often dragging her General with her, flitting from one stall to another. She would be in thrall of pretty new things, curious about things she never saw and excited on seeing something she wanted to purchase.

The tall and regally dressed General with his hair tied up with a leather band would follow behind her, accompanying her, sharing her joy.

Somehow, all the things she looked at, would be waiting for her back home.

Somehow, anyone who would be rude to her, would never be encountered again.

The favourite time for her General would be when he took her to ride his horse with him. He loved have her sit before him, when he could embrace her and feel her heart racing at the speed.

"You don't fear me anymore, right?" he asked her once he took her out in the night.

"Sometimes I do."

"Why?" he asked with a prickling hurt. As the days had gone by, he had understood that he hated her nursing fear of him. It hurt.

Anya had enjoyed the chilly breeze in her hair, while the warm solid body behind held her protectively. She took her time before answering, "For all the happiness you have showered me with, there are parts of you that you still hide."

Hoseok had said nothing, not surprised that despite his efforts of hiding his actions, she knew it anyway. That was simply who she was, someone, who understood him more than he himself could.

"Maybe, I am not matured enough, wise enough to handle those bits which you feel the need to hide."

Hoseok had vehemently denied, "Something that is not good, will need to be changed. It is not your fault for wanting it. Its mine for not being able to withstand the change, Gazelle."

Anya had smiled, "General, which do you think is better? Life or death?"

Hoseok had stopped the horse near a small cliff. The view of the night was spectacularly captivating. With the night sky dazzling with stars, the moonlight fell on the trees and the two figures sitting atop a horse, making it look like a painting come to life.

"Life." He quietly replied.

"Yes. Life is preferred. Who in their right mind would choose death?" Anya then snuggled deeper in him. immediately, Hoseok's arm closed tighter around her, sheltering her against the wind, "So answer this, between Life and Death, which is more normal?"

"Both are."

"Why? Is Life not preferred? Is death ever liked by anyone? Then should death not be considered abnormal?"

"Not being liked by majority cannot make something abnormal. Disliked or not, it is an established fact of life. One who is born, must die." He replied in a calm voice, even as he rested his head in the crook of her neck.

Anya smiled a little and looked up at the sky, "Precisely General. Do you not draw similarities?"

When Hoseok did not move, Anya continued, "This world cannot be made by all things that are good. What I am striving to gain a knowledge of, is accepting something which may be different from the set customs of good and evil. That simply exists, if it does so, then its existence itself signifies its individuality. Should we try to change something just because it does not fit the neat box of labels we like?"

Hoseok whispered in her ears, "No one thinks the way you do Gazelle."

Moving her head a little to the side, she kissed his lips lightly, "You keep reminding me that I am yours. Does anyone need to think this way other than me, for you?"

"No." his whisper held his emotions, his bounding love for the girl who taught him what love actually meant. He inhaled shakily, "Earlier, the slightest bit of my temper being disbalanced made me react strongly Anya. You asked me what my line at innocence was. I had none. I never stopped, I never thought. I had no purpose."

A kiss to the skin below her ear, "After you, I settled down. As long as no one approaches you, I will never cause any harm. You are my innocence Gazelle, you are my reason of existence. If you are beside me, my darkness calms down."

Anya closed her eyes, the fulfilment of her joy making a question come into her mind.

"The only thing that makes a haze of red descend in my eyes, making me feel like the destruction of the world around me is a need," his voice held a note of deadly danger, "is the thought of you belonging or loving someone else."

Anya flicked his forehead at that, "If you ever commit a crime like that in your human life, your soul will no longer remain pure. Because that, is what the line separating dark from evil constitutes of."

Anya turned her head around, making the horse below her shift a little, as she said in a serious tone, "Promise to never cross that line Hoseok. Because once your soul gets corrupted, lives will not matter even if we get a chance at meeting each other. I will never be able to love or protect that which has crossed over to evil."

Anya herself felt a profound truth in the words she spoke, feeling as though it was a truth, from another world, that she carried with her.

Hoseok looked deep in her eyes, then solemnly promised, "As long as you are unharmed, I promise to never walk that path."

That night, when Hoseok satiated his hunger along with her, making her rise to the cliff and fall down hard, Anya lay beneath his naked body as she pondered the question that had come to her mind.

When Hoseok kissed her lazily, gathering her in his arms, sliding his legs between hers, protectively caging her in his possessive hold as sleep claimed him, the question in her mind crystallised.

If she suddenly got such unaltered, pure happiness in her life without any obstacles, the kind which other people spend their whole lives chasing, was it a gift given to her? Or was it just an illusion, a mercy before the coming agony?

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