Chapter Text
A small Rumi sits before a gravestone, tiny face already too stern and too sad for her age. Celine sits behind her, humming quietly and braiding her hair, silent tears streaming down her face.
(She’s four and her first concrete memory she can recall is mourning her mother’s death and celebrating her birthday. It becomes a core memory.)
—
Rumi is sixteen and tired. Training is done for the day and she sits in the estates garden, back straight as she picks at the callous’ on her hands.
She can hear the car pulling into the driveway, the slam of the trunk and low murmurs. Eventually, Celine and a tall girl with dyed pink hair come into view and—
oh
(Her soul reaches out, stretching and yearning, the honmoon sparkling as if saying ‘you’re not alone anymore’.)
(She doesn’t know it yet but Mira’s soul is reaching out too, pulling and crying in relief for having found someone that will love unconditionally.)
”Rumi, this is Mira. Mira, meet Rumi.” Celine introduces, watching carefully. Above them, the honmoon shimmers and glows in satisfaction, already tugging Celine away.
(‘Zoey,’ it whispers, ‘Zoey. Rumi and Mira and Zoey.’)
Rumi stands, bows, awkward smile faltering under Mira’s unimpressed eyes.
”Nice to meet you or whatever.” Mira’s voice is low, flat, but under that (she’s fifteen and clenching shaking hands as her parents glare down at her, behind them is her brother, his disapproval loud. Her freshly dyed hair is still wet and soaking her black shirt. She doesn’t get dinner. She wakes up to a lady talking to her parents and being told to pack her bags. She’s promised a family on the drive to the estate along with a duty she was chosen for.)
”I like your hair,” Rumi offers instead of awkward greetings that might not land. It gets her a surprised look and a shaky breath, guarded brown eyes softening slightly.
She offers to help with Mira’s bags and is refused but the offer of a tour is happily accepted.
—
Rumi is still sixteen and Mira freshly turned sixteen when they meet Zoey.
She’s loud and bubbly, the polar opposite of Mira and Rumi, one too angry and one too quiet.
But-
(Their souls reach out, crying in joy as they see the bubbly girl for the first time.
and it takes Rumi a moment to realize, Mira and Zoey are her soul and her body trembles.)
Celine is tired but amused, watches them startle as they get swept up in a mini tornado but happily lean into the whirlwind.
(Zoey is fifteen and caught between worlds. Between being Korean and American and not enough and too much and being in one house and in the other. Fights the tears as people who she thought were friends push her away and fights with her mom about moving out of the country. The new school is already full of people who don’t like her but she gets pulled out of class and meets Celine from the Sunlight Sisters who promises family and a duty she was chosen for.)
(Her soul reaches out, bursting with joy at the warmth that caresses it, at feeling the immediate acceptance and love, unconditional and free.)
—
Rumi is nineteen, Mira turning nineteen, and Zoey is eighteen when they release their first single. It’s poppy and punchy and heavy with bass.
”It’s edgy,” Mira says, Zoey nodding in the background. They’re looking at Rumi with eager eyes, Rumi wavering before sighing her agreement. Rumi goes to Celine and gets it approved, the recording happening in record time. After two weeks of the chorus being dropped and teased, it finally gets released.
How It’s Done gets over a hundred thousand views in the first day. In a week, it’s trending on all social media apps.
It’s the perfect song that kicks off their career after all the build up and talk shows and Celine makes them run with it.
—
“I can still fix it!” It’s twisted as it echoes in the dark, the honmoon quivering and rippling magenta. Mira and Zoey instinctively step back. Rumi freezes, a cold calm suddenly falling over her.
She watches as Mira summons her woldo, Zoey following suit with her shin-kal. They tremble, Mira hiding it better behind her snarl. Zoey cries, something small and broken.
Rumi takes them in, watches how they press closer for support. Her clawed hand digs into her side, her teeth grinding together as she feels her gums tear for the fangs pushing through.
(Later, when she’s running to Celine, she’ll spit out eight teeth. Later, she’ll look into the mirror and see more demon than human.)
The honmoon gives a warning rumble, even as it is in the process of dying. And Rumi thinks of Jinu and Celine and of the years of lies and the two girls looking at her like they don’t know her at all. Like a random face in the crowd.
”It’s funny,” Rumi says, voice void of any emotion. “I don’t know if Celine had a plan for this or one if my patterns never left.”
Mira lowers the woldo, betrayal screaming across her face. “She knew?”
”Of course she knew.” And Rumi’s face hardens in a way they’ve never seen, shadows falling across her face so only the golden eye can be seen.
They blink and she’s gone.
The honmoon wails its grief as Rumi disappears into a puff of magenta.
—
Celine’s private lessons are brutal, they always have been but now there is a sense of urgency.
Rumi quickly rolls back to her feet only to be knocked back down again and again. She’s more bruise than skin, more knots than smooth muscle.
”Be faster, Rumi!” It’s an order and she gets back up. Celine doesn’t let her straighten to her full height before she’s lunging forward again. The dodges are messy, Rumi struggling to not trip over her feet as she blinks sweat from her eyes.
She’s blocks when she can and ducks and weaves when she can’t. Celine strikes out faster and faster and Rumi is gasping for air and looking for an opening.
There isn’t one. There never is.
The hit is sharp and painful, the howl of pain choked between gritted teeth. As Rumi writhes on the ground, Celine stares impassively.
”You need to be better, Rumi. The demons won’t let you take a breather or wait for you to get up.” Celine sighs. “You are the leader, the protector, you watch where Mira and Zoey can’t. If you can’t defend yourself, how will you defend them?”
She gives Rumi another minute, watches the spasms go through her right shoulder and arm.
”We go again.” She ignores the pleading, exhausted eyes. Ignores the pain in her chest, the disappointed trill of the honmoon. Rumi is still on the ground and irritation bleeds through everything else.
”I said again!” She swings her practice weapon before Rumi can even sit up.
—
The honmoon is falling apart, the sacred tree oddly still despite the breeze. Rumi can see the kneeling silhouette, runs her tongue over her new fangs.
(On the run to Celine, to safety and answers, she gags on the sudden taste of blood and feeling something loose on her tongue. She spits and hears and sees the perfectly white and human teeth clatter to the ground, barely registers the way her tongue is cut and bleeding from the new fangs.
She turns to a nearby car, eyes still stuck on the teeth on the ground before looking at her reflection and bares her teeth. Eight fangs, four on the top and four on the bottom.
”Better to tear your throat out.” She jokes around a sudden sob, not reacting to the way the fangs catch on her lips and split them open. She starts running faster.)
Celine twirls around, weapon drawn. She freezes. Looks at the patterns glowing and throbbing with magenta light.
“Rumi?”
”I ran out of time.” Rumi’s voice echoes, a low rumble of a growl hidden in the spaces between each word. “They know that this is what I am.”
Celine steps forward, dropping her weapon. She opens her mouth but Rumi continues.
”You knew from the moment I was born that I was a mistake.” She summons her saingeom and kneels, holding it out as an offering. “Do what you should have done a long time ago.”
”Rumi, Rumi we’ll tell them it was a lie!” Celine tosses the saingeom away, grabs Rumi by the shoulders to shake her but it’s suddenly like trying to shake an immovable object.
She pulls back to look at Rumi and startles at the violent anger on her face.
”Lies are what got us here!” It’s a rabid snarl and a violent shove. Celine barely stays on her feet. Suddenly Rumi is taller, looking down at her. “Lies don’t solve anything, they just grow and grow until they’re too big to manage and hide.”
Rumi pulls in a deep breath and looks at the fracturing and failing honmoon. “If this is what I was sworn to protect, then I’m glad to see it gone.”
Celine reaches out but Rumi is already gone, following the last desperate breath of the honmoon telling her where to go.
The saingeom still glows on the ground before blinking out of existence with the honmoon’s dying breath.