Chapter Text
The Honmoon had never felt grief.
Not when its hunters died. Not when they were hurt. Not when they screamed and raged and cursed at it. Not even when they abandoned their chosen duties.
The Honmoon wasn’t human. That was something it had understood since it was created.
It understood their happiness and came to enjoy seeing them smile. It understood their hurt and pain. It had observed not only them but many millions of humans over the centuries. It understood most of their feelings and, over time, even began feeling some of them itself.
It didn’t understand grief.
Death was never truly a separation for the Honmoon. After the hunters died, they would go to their afterlife but still be connected to the Honmoon. They still visited it. They could communicate with it. Not with words, but through the bond that still connected them. The Honmoon and it’s hunters understood each other in ways they never had when the hunters were alive.
The Honmoon didn’t know grief.
It loved its hunters. It was even deeply protective of them. It wouldn't let Gwi-Ma influence them. It wouldn’t let him whisper his venomous words in their ears. The Honmoon was powerless against more physical threats like the demons its hunters needed to fight. Yet for every scratch inflicted upon its hunters, the journey back to Gwi-Ma’s realm became more painful.
It was a common misconception that the Honmoon chose its hunters. Not that it didn’t, but that wasn’t the whole story. To be a hunter there were two requirements: to have two soulmates and to choose the Honmoon as it chose them. The Honmoon didn’t tangle the souls of its hunters. No, soulmates existed long before it was created. It was rare to have one soulmate, to have two was even rarer.
When the time came to choose a new generation, the Honmoon guided its current hunters to the candidates. All three needed to make an informed decision and agree to the duty. If even one of them backed away, they wouldn’t be considered.
If the three girls agreed, they had to wait until they were of legal age. They could train, they could even back out. The day the three of them reached majority, a ceremony occurred. There, the Honmoon linked itself to the three souls. From that moment on there was no going back.
From the moment it was created, the Honmoon didn’t feel grief or regret.
It finally did.
It grieved as it linked itself to a soul who hadn’t yet fully settled in its body. The child’s cries became sniffles before she finally settled, soothed by the warmth the Honmoon made her feel. It cried because it had doomed a child to a life she hadn’t chosen.
It was the only way. They weren’t stopping despite its attempts. They continued walking forward despite it tugging at their ankles.
Grief makes people do unthinkable things.
The truth was the Honmoon loved the little nugget. It had loved her since it first felt her existence in her mother’s womb. It loved the child even if it only begrudgingly accepted the father. The baby and her father had created tension between its hunters, but they had solved it. Things had finally gotten better before the tragedy. The Honmoon loved hearing Miyeong talk to the child before and after she was born.
The Honmoon loved Rumi.
So, after Miyeong went to the other side. After the Honmoon helped the father break his chains from Gwi-Ma and follow Miyeong. He died protecting its hunter and their child after all. The two hunters that remained were consumed by grief.
Grief was a funny thing.
Rumi hadn't stopped crying. She wailed for a mother that was no longer there. Too little to understand the absence. The two women left to take care of her had tried everything.
They hadn’t slept since the incident.
At some point they started arguing. It was about something small. It escalated. Past hurts were aired. They blamed each other for the death of the third of their souls. They had blamed each other until they were interrupted by Rumi’s cries.
Grief latches into the most unforeseen things.
The two hunters suddenly stopped screaming at each other. Their eyes met. They agreed.
For the first time since the tragedy, they agreed.
The Honmoon didn’t understand why they looked at the crib.
It didn’t understand why their brows furrowed. Why their eyes filled with anger. Why their tears suddenly dried.
They called their weapons.
Their shine illuminated the room.
The Honmoon didn’t understand what was happening, just that they shouldn’t get close to the crib.
It couldn’t let them hurt the nugget.
It couldn’t let them do something they’d regret.
It wrapped strings around their ankles, tugging and desperately trying to stop their advance.
It was created to stop demons. It wasn’t made to stop hunters.
They were at the base of Rumi’s crib, the weapons raised when it made a desperate choice. It was the only choice.
It wrapped itself around Rumi’s soul and shone.
The hunters knew what that light meant.
The hunters gasped in horror. They understood what they had forced the Honmoon to do. They heard its grieving cries in their own souls.
One of the requirements wasn’t met, but the other one was.
Rumi was one of a few. She had two soulmates.
Three children had been doomed to become soldiers in a war they hadn’t chosen.