Tina's Courageous Journey Home

"Are you sure you want to do this?" The old woman asked me, she had been pushing the cart in front of her for hours now, with me walking next to her. She looked over at me and smiled.

I looked up at her and smiled back, "Yes," I told her, "I'm sure."

She sighed and continued pushing the heavy cart in front of us, I looked around us and realized we were quite far away from the city now. Trees surrounded us, but here and there I saw people walking on the path leading to their own houses. We took a left turn as we walked, away from most of the city, past a few small cottages among the trees. After a while she stopped in front of one of those cottages, it was larger than the others and seemed like more care went into maintaining it. I looked up at it and could see that a window was open on the second floor.

"Is it him?" I asked her, she nodded at me.

"Yes," she told me, "it's him."

"And he lives alone?" I wanted to make sure he didn't have any servants living with him or anything like that.

The woman laughed at my question and stretched out her hand towards the house; "He lives alone here," she assured me, "He has never married."

I turned to look at what she was pointing at but all I could see were trees behind me; "Why?" I asked her curiously.

She looked thoughtful for a moment before answering me: "Many reasons, some say he just doesn't like women that much... Others say he loved another woman but she left him after he did something stupid." She smiled at me as if trying to reassure me that everything would work out fine.

I nodded and pulled my hood down over my eyes again before taking another deep breath; the time had come for me to fulfill my mission... Inside that cottage was Prince Jeon Hae-Seung and I had to get him tonight; somehow. He was an elusive man who always stayed inside his house despite being invited frequently by many noblemen for feasts or other gatherings. They said he enjoyed staying home because he didn't like crowds but they were wrong... He stayed inside because he couldn't leave his house until a certain task was done; a task only I could do for him.