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Mira pushed.
When apathetic or irritated, she prodded sometimes, eager to spark a reaction, batting words to an engaged opponent like a string to a cat.
People thought she was blunt and aggressive because she didn't care, but in fact, quite the opposite was true. Anyone who'd bother to look - to really look - would find that Mira was actually an open book. She never pretended to be anything other than what she was. It's not her fault people misinterpreted her intentions.
Which made the people who did understand that much more precious to her.
That list was about four people long, and she spent about 90% of her time with three of them, anyway.
It was precisely because of that slim number that Mira would push when she cared; especially when she cared. She'd learned the hard way how important it was to hold onto the people you had.
How precious they were.
How easily they could be taken away.
But she also learned early on that it wasn't a tactic that would work well on Rumi.
They had talked about it before, her and Zoey. Over late night take-out, reaching over to pinch some food from the others' containers, mouths stuffed yet still trying to talk over each other, the movements familiar like an old favorite dance number. Conversation went in a dozen different directions and often they'd end up on the couch, braiding each others' hair, venting frustrations and confessing quietly how much it hurt to watch Rumi retreat into places further and further away. How powerless they felt to coax her out.
They each had their own approach: Zoey, filled with warm words and soft eyes, filling spaces Rumi's silence refused to fill; Mira, with just as much care and concern, but less willingness to play along, leaving Rumi's gaps stand in stark contrast instead of smoothing them over.
They would keep talking about it: in quick, murmured bits of conversation when Rumi was otherwise occupied; in worried wordless glances while Rumi was too focused on the lies tumbling through the cracks in her teeth to notice.
It had gotten too much for Mira to bear once, and she'd pushed. It had been a long time ago when she had tried and failed spectacularly. Carried the guilt for weeks as the scratches faded to almost nothing. But the claws that had lead to that still sliced Mira open long after the bandages had gone away.
But this time, she pushed more than she should have. Things had spiraled out of control lately - it seemed like Rumi was spiraling out of control and that scared Mira more than anything. As desperately as Mira and Zoey wanted Rumi to let go, seeing it happen like this, like Rumi was falling apart instead of unwinding on her own terms, was terrifying. So yeah. She was too angry to see it until it was too late. Until Rumi's fear had snapped back with an anger all its own. It was sharp. And it had teeth.
"Not everything is about your insecurities, Mira!"
She felt it as a slap across the face. A slap across the face would have been kinder. They had been trained to pull weapons from starlight, but Mira had always known words to cut deeper than any blade. Actions and gestures too, were weapons of their own: the whistle of air pulling through a sharp nose paired with a furrowed, disappointed brow; corners of lips tugging into a near-invisible frown; the way Rumi would tug on the corners of her sleeves more; the way she started hesitating in battle (the average person wouldn't notice at all, but Mira could see the questions pressing behind Rumi's eyes and the doubt that settled like a knot between her shoulders); how she bit her lip uncertainly lately when writing lyrics; the way her smiles stopped reaching her eyes.
Between Rumi's words and the way she'd been acting lately, Mira knew something was off.
Because yeah, it was about her insecurities. But they'd yet to steer her wrong. They were a survival instinct - they had helped make Mira who she was. And who she was is a badass evil-fighting machine. Her insecurities had gotten her to Celine's doorstep, Zoey's arms, and Rumi's…
No matter how close they were, it somehow seemed like there was something tucked away. That still, after all these years, after all the blood and sweat, something was being kept from her. And when it was starting to affect them? Affect the team? That was something that was harder to bear. Their lives depended on it. The lives of other people depended on it. And that was a risk Mira swore she would never take lightly. Not again. Not when her silence and inaction had already cost her everything once before.
She could bear it.
Zoey too, bless her, could. Mira knew Zoey was stronger than she would ever give herself credit for, which Mira thinks is stupid, because Zoey's one of the strongest people she knows. Obviously. Zoey could bear the weight of a thousand silences if she thought it was the right move to support and love someone she cared for.
But Mira? Mira knew that sometimes silence had consequences. Ones you can't take back. She'd bled with the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, a sharp tongue could have stopped a sharper blade.
So Mira pushed.
She pushed through the unyielding stone that is Rumi's deflection and silence.
Until suddenly it pushed back and she couldn't help but snap, "If you're with us, prove it." Which was an incredibly stupid thing to say, Mira knew. Prove it. As if Rumi hadn't been proving it since the day she was old enough to stand. As if Rumi hadn't inherited a mantle she bore with a stoic dignity even though Mira and Zoey could see the weight of it press on her shoulders until it seemed like her smile would shatter.
Mira knew that Rumi, more than anyone, was a Hunter, born and raised.
Wood cracked in the air like sharp claps of thunder. Mira's feet drew arches through the dirt as she shifted her weight to the left, keeping her focus in front and pulled back.
Rumi circled, staff held forward, waiting.
Zoey's usual cheering was clamped down. Her bottom lip was caught beneath her teeth as she watched tensely from the sidelines, having been knocked out of the ring a few minutes prior. Celine's hands were clasped loosely behind her back as she observed the sparring match.
It'd been five months.
Five months of a grueling training schedule that left Mira too tired to read more than a handful of paragraphs at night before she passed out, often turning off the light hours later without realizing she'd fallen asleep at all. A near-constant ache began as stiffness in the morning and hardened into soreness by nightfall. Demons and demos waited for no one as they practiced vocal drills, harmonies, weapons and balance training, dance, martial arts, and industry reviews.
Mira had started to hate the taste of honey with how much they put in their tea to soothe their throats after long hours singing. Zoey lamented that that a single bee only produced 1/12 a teaspoon of honey in their lives and here they were just chugging it down without a care in the world. She frowned looking at the rest of her drink as if trying to apologize to bees directly, and forced another swallow with a grimace. Rumi, of course, barely winced - more so in solidarity, Mira guessed, than any real disgust - as she downed the rest of her cup.
It'd been five long months, and the ghost of honey lingered in her mouth as Mira gritted her teeth and faced her opponent. She could use a win, really, is what it was.
Because despite everything that happened in the last five months, she was still finding it hard to feel like she truly fit in. Zoey was easy. Rumi, less so, but not out of anything malicious, but rather Mira could see how much Rumi was holding back with them. How ahead of them she was. How could she not be? Shed had years to train. And Celine? Well. She may have been a Sunlight Sister, but all Mira cared about was that she was the first person to look at Mira like she meant something. Like she was wanted. That she had purpose and belonging. How could Mira say no to that? How could Mira live up to that? Prove that it hadn't been some cosmic mistake that a gruff loner was part of something. Part of a whole, a team, a sisterhood, a….
Part of everything. Because that's what it felt like - everything.
Suddenly, all her feelings had somewhere to go. Somewhere productive instead of souring within her and roiling back up with anger and spite. Here, her love was channeled into something appreciated. Something reciprocated, instead of criticized and dismissed. Here there were two hearts that held her own like it was precious. And when one cried out, two others answered and welcomed her home.
So yeah. Mira pushed.
Pushed herself to meet the challenge.
Except she still kept meeting the unyielding wall that was Rumi. It had been five months and neither Zoey or her had been able to best the other girl in combat. And yeah, okay, it had only been five months, but Mira knew how to read people. She'd been fluent in body language since she could read books. Dance was a language all its own, a dialect in conversation with movement. Fighting was no different, just another tongue she had yet to learn. Mira knew dance. So the fact that five months had passed and Rumi had still managed to mask herself, yielding Mira nothing, was maddening, to say the least. Rumi gave nothing away that wasn't intentional and calculated. And that was part of the problem. No matter how closely Mira watched, she could never break through.
She'd nursed bruised shins and twisted muscles as time after time Rumi quite literally swept the floor with her. That damned stick always flipped Mira upside down or put her off balance enough to meet the ground with a grunt and frustrated groan.
Rumi was good. They knew this going into it. She'd apologized for it ahead of time, assuring them they would catch up in time, that there was nothing to be ashamed about, having had started her journey so much earlier than they did.
And still.
So Mira pushed.
It was working, though. She pressed forward with a double series of swings and Rumi shifted her feet backwards to meet Mira's staff with her own, arms stiff with tension. Mira smirked and spun around, treating the staff as if it were a longer weapon and feints, pulling Rumi into closer range. With a burst of speed, Mira angled her staff to press Rumi's down and using the leverage, lunged forward using her foot to hook around Rumi's ankle and yanked, throwing her off her feet. Rumi's back hit the ground with a low oomph, legs flipping gracelessly in the air like a chicken. Zoey's gasp followed by laughter and cheers were audible from the edge of the ring. Mira couldn't help the wild grin that erupted and was thrilled to see a matching one blossom on Rumi's face after the initial shock ebbed. Their chests heaved but the breathlessness came from a deeper exhilaration: an unlocking.
Mira extended her arm and Rumi reached up to grasp her hand. Mira yanked Rumi up as Zoey slams into them, arms encircling them both as she squealed in excitement. Rumi's eyes closed as she threw her head back in a laugh that sounded like unabashed joy and Mira lit up because the smile that Rumi gave her was real and felt like she was being let in on a secret she didn't even know was being kept from her.
It felt like fireworks. The Honmoon undulated contentedly.
For the first time since arriving, Mira felt confident. And she couldn't wait to see what they'd do together.
The shower had long grown cold. Mira'd been hugging her knees for so long they'd gone numb and it had nothing to do with the water soaking her clothes or the way she'd shivered so hard her teeth chattered. Or how her hands keep trembling.
Sirens still reverberated in her eardrums, somewhere underneath the dull buzzing that seemed to have taken residence in her brain. The ambulance lights were burned into the backs of her eyelids, searing over a view that she knew she would never ever forget as long as she lived.
She'd walked through the doorway hundreds of times over the years.
"Attached at the hip, those two." Or, "Practically sisters," people would say, and Mira and Yoojin would grin wildly, pleased that others recognized what they already knew, deep in their bones.
She'd walked through the doorway hundreds of times, but never had to push it open before.
Mira pushed and-
She was fourteen, she wasn't supposed to find-
She was fourteen, she wasn't supposed to-
Mira choked as another sob wrecked through her thin frame, water sliding down the line of her nose and dripping down past her lips. Tears were indistinguishable from water, but it didn't matter. Neither would cleanse her of her sins. Mira hugged her knees tighter, and cried.
Yoojin's house had always felt like the home she never had. Her parents closer than her own. They treated her as family, like the one she had always wanted. And she couldn't stop-
And this is how she repaid them - in blood and pain and if Mira could have switched places and taken the pain instead, she would have done it in a heartbeat.
After that night she never went back. Didn't dare stain their halls with her shame and failure no matter how much she ached for it. They were like sisters and-
She didn't get to have a family. She didn't deserve one.
A scream pierced the air.
Mira jolted up, chest heaving, eyes wide in the dark.
It was quiet. Her room was untouched. Mira's heart still pounded.
She still heard Rumi's scream echoing from the nightmare.
Mira kicked the sheets off in a harried flurry, as if her skin blistered beneath it.
She kept seeing it: the stage; the lights shattering above and flickering like fire underneath Rumi's skin.
Except this time Mira's on the stage next to her. It was Mira moving through the choreography; it was Mira shoving Rumi like a rag doll toward Zoey; it was Mira stalking around Rumi like a predator, Rumi trembling, shaking like prey, looking back at her absolutely terrified; it was Mira clawing at Rumi's shoulders, tearing the jacket off and leaving her bare bare bare; it was Mira pushing her forward into the crowd like a pig for slaughter.
She wasn't there. It wasn't her. Mira knew that. But she'd seen the footage - and there'd been plenty of it, despite PR effort, from every angle. Mira knew it wasn't really her on that stage.
But it might as well have been.
Because Mira still stepped back; still pushed Zoey to stand with her; still pushed Rumi to run, toward an aching, desperate choice that wasn't a choice at all, pushed her to Celine and -
Mira exhaled a shaky breath and ran her hands over her face. It was quiet. But Mira still heard Rumi's screams as if they were her own.
There's not much sleep on nights like these.
It seemed there was a lot of that going on, Mira mused, as she padded out to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and saw the light already on with two figures at the countertop. Zoey and Rumi were hunched over looking at some video on Zoey's phone. They're laughing quietly even though exhaustion painted watercolor bruises under their eyes.
"Can't sleep either?" Mira asked as she made her presence known.
Rumi looked back at her over her shoulder and gave a soft, fond look. Hey, it said, there you are. "Just trauma bonding," she said instead.
Mira must have looked surprised because Rumi huffed a laugh. "That's what Zoey said, at least." Later, was the unspoken promise. Mira accepted silently as she slid a mug out from the cabinet.
Zoey looked up and immediately brightened. "Mira! Rumi and I were just going down a rabbit hole of videos of that lady doing the bird dances."
Mira's eyebrow quirked up. "Bird dances?"
"It's not as weird as it sounds," Rumi alleged and angled the phone so Mira could see.
It only took approximately six seconds for Mira to snort. "Yeah, that's about as weird as I expected it to be."
Zoey took her phone back from Rumi and started tapping excitedly. "She does this whole series with a hydraulic press, its hilarious."
"Zoey, that sounds pretty weird, even for you."
Abruptly stopping what she's doing, Zoey looked up at Mira with big, wide eyes. "What," Mira asked flatly. Zoey's eyes somehow grew wider. "Zoey, no, I know that look."
Rumi looked back and forth between them, confused.
"Zoey, no." Mira's scared of very few things, but when Zoey gets an idea and has that look on her face, Mira knew to brace herself.
"What does-"
"Zoey wants me to do a video like that-" she gestured to the phone where a woman dressed in multiple shades of green clothing thrusted her chest in and out "-and be a chicken or a fucking tractor or whatever it is she's doing."
Rumi blinked and snapped her mouth shut. "How on earth did you get all that from-"
"Because she begged me do something similar like a year ago and I told her then like I'm telling her now, no," Mira punctuated with an accusatory finger toward Zoey.
Rumi actually pouts but Zoey leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "Don't worry, I still have the video."
Mira loved her she really did but, "ZOEY! You told me you deleted it!"
The accused bit her lip and looked the picture of innocence when she replied, "I maaay have lied."
"You'll show me later, right?" Rumi whispered back, to which Zoey nodded vigorously in affirmation. "Oh yeah, totally."
"I hate you both."
She didn't.
She did, however, end up making the video.
("Now that's trauma bonding," Zoey exclaimed later at 3:43 am, triumphant, when her finger pressed the stop button on the recording. Mira had three layers of feather boas wrapped around her head, was wearing a makeshift scarf out of a flannel and blue sunglasses to look like some crane or whatever doing a mating dance that Zoey found.
She couldn't find it in herself to disagree.)
It ended up becoming her most popular post on social media.
It had happened so fast.
They'd been fighting demons for about four months at that point, Celine having finally signed off on them to take solo missions without her. The first few times out had been a mixture of apprehension and excitement that now yielded to a slick sense of thrill and confidence with their independence. Celine had been right - they were ready to fight as a team.
Which is why it was so frustrating that Rumi somehow still insisted on operating otherwise.
Mira didn't even think Rumi was aware she was doing it, which somehow made it worse.
Once again, Mira and Zoey had emerged from a cloud of burnt pink starlight only to find the remaining demons already dispatched.
Mira sliced through a torso that disintegrated only to see Rumi ricocheting off of a parking garage like it was a trampoline and run off on the rooftop towards an incoming swarm of demons. "RUMI!" her and Zoey shouted in tandem but their voices fell short of the distance. One glance toward each other is all it took for Zoey and Mira to quickly try to catch up. Zoey somersaulted into the air and bounced off Mira's gok-do that was embedded into the wall and used it as a launching pad toward higher ground. Mira jumped, grabbed the body of the staff and used her body weight to swing up to meet Zoey on the roof as they gave chase.
"Rumi, stop!" they called out again as they got closer, but she either still didn't hear or was ignoring them. Neither option was particularly appealing. The hole was one of the largest they'd ever seen - the Honmoon seemed to sizzle where the edges of the tear stretched. Demons kept pouring out and Rumi's sword was a beacon in the darkness as she cut through beast after beast.
It pissed Mira off.
Swinging her gok-do in a low sweep, she swore that if Rumi didn't stop running ahead into danger, she was going to kill her herself before a demon got the chance to. A shin-kal whizzed past her ear and landed in a demon's side as Zoey refilled her blades.
"Stop running off on your own, Rumi!" Mira grunted between words as she defended against a trio of encroaching demons.
"There's no time, Mira," Rumi retorted tersely, and oh, if she hadn't already been holding a weapon and actively killing things, Mira would have lost it.
"Then make time because you're making it worse," And she meant it, because her and Zoey were working harder to keep up when Rumi kept getting further away.
They were trying to get to her but everything seemed to slow when Rumi, busy slicing through a pair of demons didn't see one crawling out from an overhang behind her. In a desperate move, Mira tried to lunge forward and place herself between Rumi and the demon but her stomach lurched when she realized she wouldn't get there in time.
Flying from out of fucking nowhere, Zoey met the demon's attack with the edge of a shin-kal but the blade only blocked one arm and the demon's other claw continued it's arch downward, slicing into Zoey's leg. She cried out, the remaining shin-kals disappearing back into the Honmoon, and landed heavily on the ground.
"ZOEY!" Mira wasn't sure which one of them screamed, but as if they shared one body, in two seconds her and Rumi snapped into coordinated action. Mira slammed the butt of her gok-do into the ground while Rumi's saingeom emitted a beam of starlight like electricity and the remaining demons practically exploded.
With almost inhuman speed, Mira ran to Zoey and skidded on her knees the last few feet, not even feeling the ground tearing up her knees. For her part, Zoey had barely moved and rolled from side to side clutching her thigh with both hands. Her face was twisted in pain and though her eyes were squeezed shut, she managed to grit out, "I'm okay."
Blood welled between her fingers clenched around her leg and Mira was already tearing off her sleeve to make a tourniquet. "No, you're not." Zoey grunted as Mira yanked the fabric as tight as it would go. "Rumi," Mira barked as she worked, "Gimme something, we need another layer and my sleeves are short." She finished tying the knot and held her hand out behind her. When nothing fell into it, she turned to see Rumi, frozen in place, saingeom still gripped tight in a guard position. Her knuckles were white and she was staring unblinking at the ground near Zoey. "Rumi," Mira didn't have time for this. Zoey didn't have time for this.
Something in her tone must have broken through because Rumi blinked as if she hadn't just been a statue for thirty crucial seconds and snapped into action. She tore at her pant leg and ripped it off like it was on fire and hurriedly handed it to Mira who tied it on top of the first strip. The pant fabric was a thicker material and Mira breathed out a sigh of relief when the blood seemed to finally slow. She gently slid her hand underneath Zoey's head and cradled it off the ground. "Hey," she said shakily, "It's okay. You're okay."
It was the first time any of them had been injured like this in a real fight and Zoey's usual brightness was muted. Dimmed. She was shaken but kept nodding as if reassuring herself. "You're okay," Mira repeated, sliding her hand down to grip Zoey's in her own. "We got you, Zo."
"I texted Celine," Rumi said. "She'll get the infirmary ready for when we get back." Her saingeom had been returned to the Honmoon but everything in Rumi's posture was still coiled as if the fight hadn't already ended. Zoey just nodded, eyelids fluttering in relief, and let her head fall back heavily into Mira's hand as she exhaled slowly.
It ended up being fine. Well, not fine, but not terrible. While the claw marks were deep, they didn't cleave to the muscle and after layering sutures through the tissue, there hadn't been any serious damage. Zoey pouted at being benched for a while so it could heal properly but knew arguing was futile and accepted her recuperation role with dramatic solemnity, eager to catch up on whatever weird TV shows she'd missed over the past few months.
What ended up being not fine was Rumi.
Immediately things got weird.
She started to pull away, distant even when present in a way that reminded Mira of when they had all first met. She had forgotten how high Rumi's walls were at the beginning. How impenetrable they could be. How much she hated being on the outside of them again.
Her and Zoey let it it go for two days before deciding enough was enough. They found her at the training ground where she'd been practicing drills to the point of exhaustion.
Rumi was so focused she didn't notice them approach. Despite hobbling, Zoey tossed a shin-kal through the gaps in Rumi's stance and it thunked into a tree past the edge of the circle before disappearing a moment later. Rumi snapped her head toward where the knife came from and Mira tried not to dwell too much on the fact that when Rumi finally saw them, her entire body tensed for a fraction of a second before settling in a more relaxed stance. But Mira and Zoey knew her well enough to know there was nothing relaxed about Rumi at that moment. She was still as taut as a bowstring.
Mira was over this whole lone hero thing. She did not have the patience to wait multiple weeks for Rumi to go through an entire lifecycle of guilt. "Can you stop beating yourself up for like five minutes and chill?"
If anything, Rumi merely bristled at the words and seemed to take renewed interest in the practice staff. "I'm busy," she said flatly, still pointedly not making eye contact.
Mira huffed, "Yeah, we know." Zoey shot her a look that said 'could you please take it down a notch, we're not trying to make it worse.' Mira rolled her eyes before continuing because fine, she had a point. She tried again, with less bite. "We know you've been doing this since before you could, like, walk, but Rumi, you gotta stop doing your own thing."
Rumi's brow furrowed and her grip tightened, looking as if she wanted to personally murder the air in front of her. "I'm not 'doing my own thing'," she retorted, "I'm fighting."
Zoey shuffled, shifting weight off of one crutch. "Yeah, that's kind of the whole problem. Sometimes it feels like you're fighting us." It was Mira's turn to shoot a look conveying betrayal as Zoey's words definitely sounded worse than Mira's had. Zoey shrugged with an innocent 'What?' gesture.
"We're supposed to protect each other," Zoey continued, "And we can't do that if you're running ahead all the time."
A chink in Rumi's armor as she slumped just the tiniest bit. "I just-" She looked pained. "I am better at this because I've been doing it for so long and I don't want you guys to get hurt." The admission was quiet.
And stupid, frankly, because, "Rumi, that's kind of what we signed up for." Mira could see Zoey nod in agreement in her peripheral vision. "We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we agreed to learn to hunt demons for a living. And also be pop stars as kind of a side-gig."
It was hard to stay mad at Rumi when she looked so dejected. "Seriously though," Mira tried to ignore how Rumi flinched when she touched her shoulder. It was barely a wince and made something cold slither low in Mira's belly, but she let that go in favor of the bigger picture. "No more running off into danger without us. We're supposed to be a team. So let us be one, alright? Or else what the hell has all of this-" she gestured around the training yard "-been for."
Zoey's hand slid up Rumi's back and the remaining tension finally released. "Yeah. I know you've been doing this for a long time already, but you don't have to do it yourself anymore. I mean, I know Celine was there and she's still really fit and capable, but she's still, like, old." Mira squinted and Zoey got back on track. "My point is, we're here now. Let us help. Plus, we're not going to get better if you keep killing all the demons on your own."
Rumi accepted the logic and finally stopped barging ahead like a lone idiot, taking their words to heart. But she'd doubled down on more tandem fighting techniques. They trained with each others' weapons until they felt comfortable trading blades, until their fingers felt at home wrapped around hilts or throwing knives like cards. Team acrobatics were added alongside choreography practice until fighting together felt more natural than fighting separately. Mira had to give it to Rumi - she may have over-corrected, but the effort paid off in dividends.
From then on, they fought together, and it was invigorating. Their motions were fluid, pouring in and out of each other's movements without thought or effort. Spinning around each other, using another's position to leap into new momentum, literally bouncing off of each other, their weapons sang in tune with the Honmoon vibrating around them; it became as natural as breathing.
It had worked.
Until it hadn't.
Until Rumi took off down the bathhouse hallway leaving Mira and Zoey to contend with demons that were appearing faster than could be sliced down.
Until Rumi ran so far ahead of them on the train cars and faced a tidal wave of demons so large even she seemed lost.
Until Mira, hours later, having showered and angrily stabbed at some food without even being actually hungry, finally caved. She and Zoey had come to a quiet agreement that since Rumi was standing so solidly in the way, they had no choice but to wash around her. Like a river flowing around a rock, they met again in the middle on the other side.
It's okay, Rumi. Mira remembered the way those marks had marred Zoey's leg for weeks. We agree. She remembered, so she stopped pushing and yielded. It's not the song that's going to connect all our fans.
Until, of course, it all came apart.
It can't even connect us.
A solitary voice reverberated through the dark and pierced the fog.
Mira blinked.
She found herself in an ocean of people, pink and red bleeding all around. The air felt thick and unyielding, somehow sickly sweet.
Mira didn't know how she had gotten there.
She didn't remember much of anything after the devastation that unraveled backstage, row after row of the beautiful stitching that comprised the tapestry of HUNTR/X collecting in a graceless heap on the floor - discarded, disconnected, alone.
She remembered pieces of herself coming apart alongside the Honmoon, disappearing into a deep, dark devouring emptiness, like paper being tossed onto a pyre, into flames that licked hungrily.
Come, the voice had cooed, cloying and soft, I'll keep you safe.
And so Mira had willingly walked into it, through the gaping hole inside herself and the desperate need to fill it, an otherwordly drive pulling her forward until there was nothing of her left.
Until something else pulled back.
A single note, long and low and high and haunting all at the same time.
And suddenly, Mira remembered.
A first awkward meeting and tentative handshake but how something rumbled through them, something alive and humming and pleased. Despite not fully understanding, they knew enough to feel something right. Something like home.
A pot of tea left warming with a favorite mug nearby, just because. Just in case.
Their bodies forming a haphazard triangle that dangled over couches and onto floors wherever they had collapsed after training, all three of them flopping their feet in the others' laps in unison for a massage circle.
Late night giggles and more take-out than any three people could reasonably eat in one sitting.
Trying to wrestle control of the radio and falling out of their beach chairs, Zoey's hat dangling valiantly on one ear, Rumi's sunglasses getting tangled in her braid so badly they had to untie the whole thing to get them out, Mira laughing so hard lemonade came out her nose.
Standing on stage, hands clasped tight together after their first show, the souls of their fans shimmering and intertwining with their own, uniting and strengthening the Honmoon.
The memories came in flashes of bright blue until all she could see were Rumi and Zoey and Zoey and Rumi and RumiandZoeyandRumiandZoey and RumiZoeyRumiZoey-
It was as if she had awoken from a spell, bursting forth from being held underwater and suddenly remembered how to breathe again. Mira sucked in a great glow of breath that filled every crack, every crevice, every broken part until it shone like burnished gold.
Slowly her body turned toward the thread that tugged from the middle of her chest.
An ocean of bodies stood between her and the bright light that rippled vibrato at the other end of the stadium.
And oh, how Mira ached. All of the pain and guilt, the misery that had never quite let go, all the shame. None of it felt wrong any more, because it was part of her. It made her whole. Had brought her to this moment, to her family. Her girls were calling her home.
Rumi pulled, and Mira's body moved without thought, weaving through the enthralled mass of people with an urgent, desperate need to be closer. She could feel the cool heat of Zoey far away on the opposite side of the stadium with an equal quivering need to sew themselves back together.
There was a naked hopeful disbelief on Mira's face; she ached with the miracle of yet another second chance. She'd be damned if she didn't protect the precious gift the universe had given her.
Rumi sang and Mira could hear it - pain and hope, but most palpably, love echoing and crying out in the darkness. It was an apology. An anthem. It was Rumi, barer and braver than Mira had ever seen her.
They drew together and nothing, no force on earth would stop them. With a flick of Mira's wrist, the Honmoon granted her her weapon - relief as her fingers tightened around the shaft, that the Honmoon still found her worthy of wielding it, still chose her, still counted her as its' own.
Rumi called and Mira answered.
She would not fail her again.
"Guys?" Mira called out, a crease of irritation between her eyebrows as she yanked open another door. She turned back around, unsatisfied, "Where are you? Ugh, these hallways all look the same."
They're in…actually, Mira forgot where they were, only that it was some obnoxiously big corporate park with a seemingly endless amount of identical-looking floors. They were visiting Laos for a board retreat event with HUNTR/X making a specially requested appearance. Mira had taken advantage of a block between meetings to respond to some emails and scheduling for upcoming brand photo shoots. But she had finished that ten minutes ago and here she was, still wandering the halls like an idiot.
Almost back to the elevator bay, a section opened up and split off to the left. Mira considered which direction to go but was abruptly yanked into an empty room. Irritation gave way to surprise and she yelped.
"There you are," Zoey practically purred as she slid her hands up Mira's chest to rest on her shoulders. "We've been looking for you everywhere."
Mira tried to be grumpy about it, she really did, and had her mouth open for a retort. But then Rumi appeared on the left and tugged her inside by the necklace, angling Mira's head to face her. "Shut up," Rumi said, and Mira didn't know whether it's directed at Zoey or herself. "There's only fifteen more minutes before the next workshop begins."
Oh, Mira thought, Rumi sounds hungry. A wicked smile curled on the edge of Mira's lips but then Rumi crashed her mouth into hers and with Zoey's tongue dancing up her neck, Mira didn't think much of anything anymore as she was pulled the rest of the way into the room, door slamming shut behind her.