Canvas
Prompt: Reunite the princess with her lost love
Main Characters:
Mysumi: Princess, Kyrinae
Kianu: Nobleman, Kyrinae
Mysumi, princess of the Kyrinae, awoke one morning to the tug of a prophetic vision pulling her toward her art studio. When she arrived, her gaze fell onto the easel in the center of the paint-covered room. On it rested a blank canvas waiting to be filled.
When Hahna gave her a vision to paint, Mysumi never needed ink. With only a dip of water, Hahna provided the color, all she had to do was guide the brush.
Deep blues and dark greens graced the once-white page, transforming into a familiar hill at the edge of the Kyrinae’s land during the cusp of dawn.
Mysumi’s mind began to fill with memories she had made atop that very hill. Memories she made…with him.
The boy had stood there for nearly an hour, staring off into the distance with his hands behind his back, still as stone.
Mysumi had wondered what he could be thinking about with such intensity that he stayed so stagnant for so long. Whatever it was, she was thankful for it, because it gave her time to finish her sketch of him.
She had already been there, sitting beneath the berry blossom tree when he had arrived. He placed his hands behind his back and took in the fresh air of the afternoon. He hadn’t noticed her, but she noticed him.
Unable to resist, Mysumi flipped her already-open sketchbook to the next clean page and began to draw. She was thankful for her sharp memory, as she expected him to move long before she could even finish the outline.
But he didn’t, from outline to base frame to shading and details, her current muse never moved an inch. The next thing Mysumi knew, she was done. Taking one last quizzical look in his direction, she closed her sketchbook and got up to head home.
“Have you finished?” he called out to her.
Mysumi froze, her head whipping toward him, eyes wide. “You…you knew I was drawing you?”
“Why else would I stand here for as long as I have?”
He glanced her way, and Mysumi’s breath hitched. His eyes were like two perfect almonds, his nose as small as a button, and his lips the shape of a heart and the color of one too.
“May I see?” he asked.
Mysumi struggled for words as she stared into his eyes. She hadn’t even realized he approached her until he spoke again.
“Your drawing,” he explained. “May I see?”
“Uh…Of course,” Trying to gain some semblance of composure, Mysumi flipped open her sketchbook and held it out.
She expected him to take it from her hands, but instead, he moved to stand beside her and leaned forward, his profile now inches from hers. His lips parted into an awed smile.
“This is amazing,” he said. “You made me look far better than I actually do.”
“I just draw what I see,” Mysumi said without thinking.
He glanced at her, and she quickly turned her gaze toward the grass, trying to hide the crimson creeping up into her face.
“My name’s Kianu,” he said.
Her fair cheeks reddened even more. “…Mysumi.”
Mysumi painted the berry blossom tree, replicating every single detail in its foliage and bark. The deep green leaves were accented by budding berry blossoms just beginning to shimmer.
She tried her best to stave off the memory of the first time she saw those blossoms bloom with him.
She failed.
“Hurry!” Mysumi had said, pulling Kianu along by the hand. “We don’t want to miss it!”
Mysumi had looked back at him with a smile. She continued to drag him up the hill until they had reached the tree at the top, its flower buds still enclosed.
Mysumi took a deep breath and sighed in relief. “We made it in time.”
Though there were berry blossom trees throughout the land, they both wanted their first blooming together to be where it all began.
Kianu took a deep breath, then another, and another. Mysumi looked back to find him doubled over, his hands on his knees. For his build, he was sorely out of shape. She smiled softly before placing one hand on his back. “Are you alright?”
He took one last inhale before standing up straight with his head tilted toward the heavens, then bringing it back down as he exhaled. “I am now.”
With her one hand still on his back, she rested the other on his chest for support. Kianu looked down at her, a soft, dimpled smile filling his face. As the setting sun made its descent and its rays graced his beautiful brown eyes, she watched enraptured as they began to shine brighter and brighter blue.
Beneath her touch, Mysumi felt his heart quicken in pace. Hers followed suit.
He began leaning forward at the same time Mysumi glanced to the side and saw the buds beginning to swell. Her eyes went wide as she pointed toward the tree. “Kianu, look!”
Kianu followed her gaze. Mysumi ran closer and watched with elation as the berry blossoms bloomed.
Found only in the land of the Kyrine, the blue-hued berry blossom was a symbol of life, love, and new beginnings to all who lived in the region. It bloomed for two-thirds of the year, and the moment they did, the petals shimmered. It was a delicate yet powerful testament to their beautiful beginning and long-lasting lifespan.
“This is one of my favorite moments of the year,” Mysumi said.
“My mother once told me if the berry blossoms bloom while a man and woman stand beneath its branches their love will last a lifetime,” Kianu said.
He came from behind and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “I hope she’s right.”
Tears formed in Mysumi’s eyes. That moment once brought joy to her heart every time it came to mind. Now, it only brought sorrow to her soul.
At the edge of the canvas, on the grass beneath the tree, Mysumi painted a shadow. There was no way to tell who the shadow belonged to, only that the sun was beginning to rise behind them.
The ache in her heart worsened as she remembered the last times she stood in that very spot and the events that led to it.
“Father, please! Don’t do this!”
“I have to, my daughter. There can be no exceptions.”
Mysumi had been on her knees in front of the former DeJin—the ruler of the Kyrinae—with tears streaming down her face.
The former DeJin had been unable to look at his daughter as she had knelt before his throne, begging him to cancel the decree.
“I am of age,” Mysumi stated. “Allow us to marry and he should be safe.”
“Not even then, for only the Crown Prince as heir to the throne is exempt. Had you been a boy, even you would be forced to go.”
“Father!”
The DeJin’s eyes were full of sadness and remorse. “The war front in the Land of Jadon has worsened. If we do not retaliate with everything we have, we will lose much more than a mere war. I am sorry, Mysumi, but every able-bodied male sixteen and over must join the fight. I will not go back on my word.”
After leaving her father’s presence, Mysumi ran to the hills as fast as she could, praying Kianu would be there. The tears in her eyes rendered her unable to see even a foot ahead. She relied on muscle memory to get her to the top of the hill, and the scent of the berry blossoms to tell her she had arrived.
“Kianu!”
Kianu, standing beneath the tree turned toward her.
She barreled into him, burying her face in his chest as she bunched the back of his shirt between her shaky hands.
He stroked her hair, his fingers combing through her long dark tresses.
“Don’t go,” Mysumi begged. “Please don’t go.”
“You and I both know I don’t have a choice.”
His voice was quiet and steady, but his body trembled in fear. Mysumi held onto him tighter.
Eventually, she pulled away, just enough to look at him. He stood before her in their lineage’s dark blue military garb, with the Kyrinae Crest on his shoulders and six silver buttons running down both sides of the front.
The tears filled her eyes once more, and Kianu wiped them away with his thumbs.
“I give you my word, Mysumi,” He cupped her face in his hands and pressed his forehead against hers. “I will come home.”
Mysumi grabbed his forearms. “I will be waiting right here when you do.”
Two months later, the war ended and the remaining men returned.
Kianu was not among them, yet Mysumi still stood on the hill and waited, day and night until the berry blossoms began to fall.
A single tear fell onto the corner of the prophetic painting, right in the center of the shadow. Mysumi buried her face in her hands and sobbed, letting her held-back tears flow freely for the first time in three years.
Mysumi stood in her studio examining the prophetic painting as she had every day for the past seven days. Normally, she was able to decipher quickly what the Lord showed her, but not this time.
All she could think of was a dead man who, had it not been for her faith, would have taken her heart to the grave with him.
There was a knock at the door, and Mysumi glanced over her shoulder to find Mysuko—her brother and the current DeJin—peering at her from the doorway.
“What are you still doing awake?” he asked. “The moon has already begun its descent.”
Mysumi bowed as he entered the room. “I could ask you the same thing.” She stood up straight and looked him in the eye. “The nightmares again?”
Mysuko’s only response was a slow exhale. He looked to the canvas behind her. “Is this one a prophecy?”
She followed his gaze. “It is. How could you tell?”
“The colors are more vibrant, in a way no mere paint would be able to produce.”
He went up toward it, his hands cupped behind his back. “What does it mean?”
“For once…I’m not sure.”
Mysuko pointed to the blooming tree. “This is the tree on the hill a few miles west, yes?”
“The very same.”
“That tree hasn’t bloomed in the last few years. I suppose you were right in insisting we keep it standing.” He glanced over to his younger sister. “Though I had been looking forward to that table we were going to make with its wood.”
His quip prompted Mysumi to lightly shove him in the shoulder, a reaction that got the faintest smiles out of both of them.
Mysuko’s gaze flickered to the corner of the canvas, he reached out and touched the tear stain in the shadow. Mysumi closed her eyes, she had hoped he wouldn’t notice, as the way it had seeped into the canvas made it look like it was part of the painting itself.
“You still think of him?” Mysuko asked.
“Every day,” Mysumi admitted.
Mysuko turned to her, but she did not meet his eye.
“In a few months, I will be nineteen,” she said. “The age he was when he…”
Mysumi trailed off. Mysuko placed his hand on her shoulder and the two of them stood in silence.
Loud footsteps came from the hall, and a royal guard rushed into the studio. “Jeonha!” he said, bowing. “There is an emergency meeting. You must be in attendance.”
Mysuko sighed. “It’s the middle of the night. Can it not wait?”
“It cannot.” The guard replied. “Three missing soldiers have just returned home.”
Mysuko walked beside the guard toward the throne room, and Mysumi followed right behind them. Her mind reeling with dozens of questions, and her heart raced with a hope she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in a very long time.
Mysuko threw open the back doors, announcing his presence, and all the advisors who had been called in at such a late hour bowed.
He made his way up the stairs toward his throne while Mysumi went to her seat on the floor by his left hand. As she knelt on the cushion, it took everything in her to stay calm while she stared ahead.
“Bring them in,” Mysuko commanded.
The front doors were opened and three Kyrinae men in tattered military clothing came into the throne room.
They each knelt before the DeJin and bowed. “Jeonha,” they said in unison. “Long may you reign.”
“Arise,” Mysuko said.
Mysumi took a sharp breath as the three soldiers stood to their feet and raised their heads.
None were Kianu.
Mysuko glanced toward his younger sister, whose heart began to break all over again.
“It has been three years since the end of the war,” Mysuko said to the soldiers. “What happened?”
“During the battle, we were knocked into the caverns that separate the land of Kyrin from the land of Jadon.” One of them said.
“How could you all have survived such a fall?” An advisor asked.
The soldier turned his head toward him. “Only Hahna Himself could have saved us.”
Murmering began amongst the advisors. Mysuko raised his hand to silence them.
“After struggling for what felt like weeks,” the second soldier began. “We made it to the top, where we found ourselves no longer in the Land of Jadon, nor the Land of Kyrin, but instead at the base of the Prism.”
Gasps came from everyone. The Prism was the highest peak of all of Adon, an island surrounded by four of the five main lands. It is believed to be where Hahna created the Original Twelve Adonites, as well as the central point where each of the lands broke apart into the masses they are now.
According to the Holy Scrolls, The Prism was once a place of light, where Hahna dwelled with the Original Twelve, but ever since the first sin, it became a place of darkness, where many unfortunate Adonites have met their end.
“Before we had a chance to even consider a way out, a dark presence approached us,” the first soldier continued. “We saw a creature with pale, cracked skin that oozed with an inky substance. Their soulless eyes were like the blackest pits of tar, an endless abyss that was eagerly awaiting to swallow us whole.”
“What did you do?” Mysuko asked.
“There was nothing we could do,” the second said. “With a screeching sound of laughter, the creature lunged at us, and the world went dark.”
Silence filled the throne room. Since the beginning of the Eras, there had been whisperings of what truly dwelled on the Prism. Many have said it was Ion—the enemy of Hahna—and its forces that now inhabited there. Others believed it was the spirit of Imanuel, the first Adonite to ever taste the sting of death, but no one knew for sure. All they did know was that most Adonites who stepped foot on the Prism’s isle never returned. Yet here were three who supposedly did.
“When we came to,” the first said. “We were home. On the edge of our people’s land in the middle of the night, surrounded by mixed-heritage Kyrinae just outside the Burroughs. They told us the war with the Jadonan had ended long ago, and three years had passed since the other soldiers came home.
“Three years gone in the blink of an eye?” one of the head advisors said. “Your Majesty, their story sounds like a far-fetched attempt to explain them shirking their duty as soldiers and fleeing from the front lines.”
Before Mysuko even had a chance to respond, the three soldiers knelt before him once again. “Jeonha,” they said in unison. “Please hear our words.”
“We made a vow to fight for the prosperity of our people.” the first said. “We never would have defied your father’s orders.”
“We would die before we bring disgrace upon the Kyrinae lineage,” the second said. “I understand how this may sound, but the words we speak this day are true.”
A lower advisor looked from the soldiers to the DeJin. “Your Majesty, no one truly knows what lurks on the Prism, nor what those things may do. Who’s to say they aren’t speaking the truth?”
“Who’s to say they are?” the pessimistic advisor said.
“Believe us, Jeonha,” the first soldier pleaded. “We beg of you.”
Mysuko glanced at his sister, while Mysumi stared at the three soldiers before them. They were disheveled, disgruntled, and exhausted. The third soldier who had yet to say a word looked to be only sixteen, the youngest age he could have been drafted at three years ago. Had they been merely hiding out, he should have been older than he looked now. It didn’t make sense, but if this boy did fight in the war then whatever happened on the Prism would have stopped him from aging.
“You,” Mysumi said, motioning to the third soldier.
He looked up at the princess, his eyes wide with fear.
“What do the Jadonan soldiers wear on the battlefield?”
Mysumi could see him shaking. “They…they wear green padded vests, adorned with golden seams and embroidery on the sleeves.”
“And on their heads?”
“S-Scarves.” He stuttered. “Plain head scarves.”
Mysumi’s eyes widened, and the room erupted in murmurs once again.
The Jadonan military’s scarves were no longer plain, but embroidered, and now worn underneath helmets. Additions to their attire that were added only one year ago.
These soldiers were telling the truth.
Mysumi looked up at her brother, and his expression said he believed the same thing.
“Guards,” Mysuko said. “Take these men to the visitor wing, and be sure they receive food, lodging, and medical attention as soon as possible.”
“Ye, Jeonha”
As the meeting was adjourned, the guards led the three soldiers out.
Mysuko turned to his sister. “Are you alright?”
Mysumi shook her head. Though she was thankful that three more of their people had miraculously found their way home, she couldn’t help the sadness she felt at the fact one of them couldn’t have been Kianu.
“You should get some rest,” Mysuko said to her. “It’s nearly sunrise.”
Mysumi blinked away tears before she turned to make her way toward the exit.
“Jeonha!”
Mysuko turned to see the sixteen-year-old soldier reenter the room and kneel before him.
“Forgive me, for I was afraid to speak previously,” he said. “But there is another who was with us. He went through the same ordeal.”
“A fourth soldier?” Mysuko asked. “Where is he now?”
“He ran toward the hills before the rest of us decided to make our way to the palace.”
Mysumi’s heart felt like it stopped. She turned around and faced the young soldier. “Did…Did you say…the hills?”
“Yes, princess, the hills,” the soldier repeated. “There’s someone there he needs to meet.”
The early morning wind dried out Mysumi’s wide-open eyes as she ran as fast as her feet would take her.
A voice in her mind told her it wasn’t true, that it was just a coincidence. That the fourth soldier wasn’t him.
But the Spirit in her heart told her it was.
So Mysumi kept running, to the place he said he’d return to. To the place where she had promised to wait.
In the distance, she saw it: the berry blossom tree.
When she neared, she saw its buds were closed, as they had been since the day the flowers fell two and a half years ago, From her view there seemed to be nothing…and no one else around.
It took everything in her not to fall to her knees as she let out a sob.
“Kianu…” she whispered.
A tear fell from her eye and onto the grass, right in the center of her shadow.
Furrowing her brows in recognition, she looked behind her to find the sun just beginning to rise.
There was a gust of wind, then something glimmering caught her attention from above, Mysumi turned her gaze upward and saw the once-dormant flower buds begin to bloom.
The prophecy.
Leaves rustled, and out from behind the tree came a man in a torn blue military outfit, with hair longer than she remembered, almond eyes tired and worn, and heart-shaped lips that mouthed her name.
“Mysumi.”
Without a word, Mysumi threw herself into Kianu’s arms.
Kianu held her as if he had no intention of ever letting go.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For making you wait so long.”
Mysumi shook her head as she looked into his eyes. “It’s okay,” She rested her forehead against his as tears of joy streamed down her face. “You’re home.”