Chapter Text
It's not that Rumi is suicidal, because that would mean that she wants to die, and wanting is a thing saved for those who deserve it. Wanting is intrinsic to the fabric of existence. A bird wants to fly to nest, a fish wants to swim to breathe, a wolf wants to hunt to eat. The act of wanting is the act of living, and Rumi is not alive in any way that matters.
Rumi is not suicidal and it does not matter if she can want, because she is destined to die.
She has known it in her bones, down to her marrow, since she was small; since the first time she met Celine's eyes and found them full of pity and some other emotion she still has no name for. Rumi has known it like a whisper at the base of her skull the way she feels the electricity of freshly-realized demons, has seen the reality of it reflected in Celine's indirect gaze. Celine pulls her sleeves down on a hot day to cover the deadly promise of her skin, because they both know that death will find Rumi eventually — and it will find her far sooner than her peers.
So, she does not want. She settles for something just to the side of it, duty or destiny or obligation, and she trains, and she becomes a weapon. She bends herself around the fabric of the world, never quite in it, never quite outside it, and she watches the creatures around her give and want and find, and she convinces herself that she is not like them.
It works.
Mostly.
She's careless in battle, in those first years, when she is alone. She keeps herself alive, or whatever approximation demons are capable of, but only because she must. Celine tells her how she will be one of three, eventually, and they will need her, and while Rumi doesn't fully understand it, she knows that something deep in her bones sings with the idea of belonging. She has a responsibility to this world that she was born half-of and half-outside, and maybe she cannot want but she can choose, and she chooses to protect it.
Celine brings her Mira, angry and venomous, spiteful sometimes, mean often, and maybe Rumi cannot want but she can feel its opposite, and she does not want Mira.
Not-wanting teeters dangerously close to desire, though. Rumi throws herself into battle and training, until Mira steps in alongside her, and when Rumi pins her for the sixth time in a day and Mira, exhausted and panting, stares up at her, she feels something.
When Mira blows in Rumi's face and sticks her tongue out, something inside Rumi pulls.
Rumi isn't cruel, isn't mean, isn't venomous like Mira on her worst days, but she is cold. She prioritizes duty over all else —because what else is there for her, if not duty?— and Mira struggles to keep up at first. Rumi has prepared for this all her life, and Mira is a bitter teenager plucked out of obscurity... until she starts matching Rumi beat for beat, blow for blow, pins Rumi, smirks down at her, goes on patrol with her, sings with her.
Dances with her, eventually.
Rumi is master of the sparring room and field, but Mira shines in the studio, wields movement like a weapon, and slowly, slowly, she untwists from her viper's coil. Drapes herself over furniture and suns herself like a cat and sometimes, rarely, grins at Rumi behind Celine's back during lectures. Before long, it feels as though Rumi's attention magnetizes to the shine of Mira's hair or the glow on her skin under the moon.
It's a distraction that Rumi cannot afford. When she tries to distance herself, however, she discovers that there is only so much distance to be gained from a piece of herself.
Celine brings them Zoey.
Terrified, shy, Zoey, who does not speak for the first three days she's in the house, and Rumi doesn't understand how to pull her out of her shell because she doesn't understand anything, but Mira — Mira knows. She sees Rumi staring at Zoey, trying to piece together how best to coax her forward, and Mira asks her what the weirdest thing she's ever researched was, and Zoey brightens. Mira makes her feel welcome and Celine is softer with both Zoey and Mira. Rumi is familiar with the the gnawing loneliness in her chest, but refuses to name it for what it truly is.
At least they have each other.
Rumi stops, one foot ahead of the other, partway down the hall after another harrowing night where it's just her and Mira, because Zoey isn't ready yet. But Mira excused herself when they returned and left Rumi to her own devices. It shouldn't bother her —it was always going to be like this— but the thought lingers even as she readies herself for bed.
Of course they'll have each other. That is good and normal and right, because people are supposed to want companionship, they are supposed to want community, and even Celine seems relieved to have someone around who is normal.
It's good for them to have each other.
Rumi buries herself in practice both lethal and lyrical, takes herself on solo hunts again, vents her frustration into the empty night and the demons on the other end of her blade. She tries not to see her own face in them, because it will end like this for her too, one day, and she knows that, but just once she'd like to think of something else.
Celine is waiting for her on the third night.
Rumi has learned from the best and she is quiet, quiet, but Celine has raised Rumi herself and knows her too well. When Rumi slips through her own open window in the dead of night, she's only half-surprised to find Celine there, hands folded in her lap, in the chair that Celine used to rock her to sleep in.
Celine doesn't come to her bedroom often, anymore. Rumi no longer needs midnight check-ins or glasses of water. She no longer begs for bedtime stories, and when there are nightmares, she buries them in herself and turns over in hopes of getting back to sleep — but she's been restless, and Celine's discerning, sharp gaze has caught her failings again.
"You're up late," Rumi says, because the silence carries unbearable judgment.
She knows better than to remove her jacket, knows better than to start tending her wounds where Celine can see the marks on her skin. There is dried blood under her sleeves, and she is tired and confused and she wants to crash for however many hours her own head will allow.
The way that Celine moves is striking, gliding more than walking. Rumi understands why she captivated entire audiences, why she can captivate them even now. What she does not understand is why Celine approaches her at all. Why she makes a soft tsk sound, devoid of malice but disapproving nonetheless, and gestures to Rumi's jacket.
Silence is not synonymous with lack of communication, and Rumi has never needed Celine to speak in order to obey.
"You didn't take Mira?" she asks as Rumi shrugs her coat off, then her hoodie, until her arms are bare, the markings curling up her shoulders on full display. Celine waves her toward her bed and the edge of it dips when she sits beside Rumi, one of many first-aid kits in hand.
"No," Rumi says, quietly. There's no point in lying.
Celine works in silence for a bit, dabbing the deep gashes and scrapes with alcohol and pressing bandages to them. For the deeper ones, she asks for Rumi's arm and wraps her in gauze.
It's been a long, long time since she touched Rumi at all. The fact that she's had to injure herself for it does not go unnoticed. Celine gestures for her to turn, so that she can see Rumi's opposite arm, and Rumi obeys without question.
"I can tend my own wounds, you know."
Celine is unreadable and fastidious. She secures another wrap around Rumi's wrist. "I know that you can," she says, as she moves up Rumi's arm to a deeper gash, directly over her markings. With this one, her gaze flickers, just long enough to patch up her flesh, never lingering over the violet that marks her as other. "It's dangerous, being out there alone. You have Mira now, and you'll have Zoey soon."
Rumi hears the unsaid part, anyway; you are supposed to lead. And you cannot lead if you distance yourself.
"I know," she says.
Celine's hands do not waver, but she is, perhaps, a bit swifter with her next actions. "Their learning is important. As is your safety."
For the honmoon is the unspoken end of that sentence. Rumi, herself, does not matter. But the honmoon is sacred, necessary. Weak, too, because it has gone so long with just one hunter, and even the best hunter is not enough to reinforce it alone.
"I know."
"You are their leader," Celine says as she finishes, sitting back to examine Rumi, with all her wounds covered again, unseen but still burning with the sting of sanitization. "And their teacher and guide." She pauses, fingertips ghosting over Rumi's shoulder, where the bulk of her markings have concentrated themselves. Not touching, just hovering. "It's important that you work together. Do you understand?"
The honmoon needs a trio, and Rumi does it no favors by going off on her own.
Ever obedient, Rumi bows her head. She swallows the argument at the tip of her tongue, the demand in her throat that would scream and shout if she let it, that claims she is not made for this. It's an honor to be chosen by the honmoon, but Rumi never chose it herself, and the crown bestowed on her does not fit. It's crooked, as she is, but Celine would understand none of this and Rumi doesn't even understand it, herself.
She bows her head and nods, apologizes without looking up, because she knows the disappointment in Celine's eyes too well by now and doesn't need to see it again.
Celine murmurs something that she doesn't quite catch, asks her to get some rest. When she squeezes Rumi's shoulder, it is over the fabric of her undershirt.
Zoey laughs easier now. Louder. Talks more, mostly to Mira, who gives her the time and appreciation she desires. She still goes quiet when Rumi enters the room, initially, and her eyes still dart nervously to Rumi's when she's talked at length, but Rumi is nothing if not polite and respectful. Maybe she doesn't indulge Zoey the way Mira does, but she spends time with them, works with them. Teaches them, accepts Celine's criticism when she dissects Rumi's form and speech and sound.
And maybe there is a seed of hurt when Mira and Zoey wander off to the courtyard together after sparring or practice or dinner, and Rumi may not be made to want, but she is a demon, and demons are made for pain.
She sneaks out again, by herself, and she comes home with new scars. When she goes to Celine to patch her up in the middle of the night, Celine does not reprimand her. She does not say anything at all.
"You have to be nicer to her."
Mira hisses it during practice, Rumi pinned beneath her, brows drawn and jaw taut and the shaft of her spear pressed against Rumi's throat, Rumi's sword just out of reach of her fingers. She doesn't want it, not really. She's grown accustomed to the heat of Mira's body, the pressure against her skin, and familiarity breeds something that might be called fondness in anyone else.
Her words, however, bring only confusion. And Rumi does not like confusion, because confusion brings with it fumbling and resentment. She is good at pretending, but not so much at interacting, and all she can manage in return is a soft, "Huh?"
"Come on." Mira pushes the shaft of her spear into Rumi's flesh, and Rumi thinks, fleetingly, that this would be a fine death. "Zoey. You have to be nicer."
And now she is truly, utterly baffled. "I am nice?"
She accepts Zoey's presence, she interacts with her, she teaches her. She tells her when she's messed up and she hums her agreement when Zoey presents her with lyrics that flow well. And she minds her own damn business, as Mira should, because Rumi is not meant for connection and it's kinder not to let Zoey get attached to her like she has with Mira.
"No, you aren't." Mira's spear slides off her neck. She misses it, a little. The pressure was nice. "You're cold."
"We're teammates."
Mira groans and rubs her temple, then presses her thumb and finger to the bridge of her nose and sits back, weight heavy on Rumi's abdomen. She could stay here forever, probably. "She wants you to like her."
"I like her fine—"
"Not from her point of view." There is a pause. Something unspoken in the silence, something Mira isn't quite ready to say to her face. Good. She shouldn't trust Rumi. Neither of them should. "And I know you want to connect with her, too."
A lot of replies come to the edge of her tongue, form in her mouth and die. Mira doesn't know her, doesn't understand her, can't possibly know her inner workings, and most of all, Mira does not know that she isn't a thing that wants. She is a thing that acts, protects, chooses, but never wants.
"Listen," she continues, rolling her eyes and flipping one long ponytail out of her face. "I get it. I know it's hard. I know reaching out feels scary, and you're the big tough leader or whatever, but just—"
She huffs, frustrated, and seems to realize at that moment that she's been sitting on Rumi for longer than normal. When she stands, she offers her hand to Rumi.
For the first time in her life, Rumi chooses something that does not rely on fate or duty or destiny, and she takes Mira's hand.
"Just think about it. Okay?"
Mira squeezes her hand once, maybe in reassurance, and tucks her spear into its portal dimension —Rumi still doesn't really know where their weapons go, when they aren't in use— and she leaves Rumi standing in the middle of the empty room.
She tells herself that the honmoon requires harmony for best results, and even if she will never be in true harmony with this world that hates and fears her, she decides to try anyway. What sort of hunter would she be if she gave anything less than her all?
And she does. She's softer with Zoey. She forces compliments past her lips and they aren't fake, but they feel like chewing glass, because she has never known how to be kind or soft. She knows platitudes and masks and apathy, and this new sort of interaction feels wrong.
But Zoey responds well. She brightens and greets Rumi excitedly, and Rumi learns to look forward to her upbeat attitude. She learns how to smile a little easier and let Zoey up when she stumbles, and she's a damn good fighter and dancer and lyricist but she struggles to believe those things. The honmoon needs her to believe, though, and Rumi is a vessel for its will, and so she learns how to be reassuring.
She might be stretching the meaning of duty. She can't bring herself to care.
The go for their first group hunt a year after Zoey's arrival, and they are a well-oiled machine. Mira's spear doubles as a leverage point, and Rumi is the cover for their blind spot, and Zoey is so, so fast. Rumi fights the way she always has, reckless and bold and brash — but it isn't the same. It's fluid and harmonic, and it feels as if she's found a piece of herself that she hadn't known she was missing.
She trails behind them on the way home, and as they walk up the driveway —Zoey chattering at length about something obscure and Mira's eyes glued to her with that soft, fond smile Rumi sometimes catches her wearing— she feels such a sharp pull that it steals her breath for an instant.
She stops walking and Zoey and Mira hear the moment her feet stop moving and turn back to look at her, hands still intertwined, curious, concerned — for her. Rumi fights everything inside her screaming to run, and she's not even sure where but she wants to move, because god, oh god, oh fuck.
Rumi wants.
She spends the next day in bed, pretending she's sick like a child, because she can't face them.
Rumi's marks keep spreading and her sleeves get longer and she shows less skin, and she tries her hardest to maintain distance with the girls, but she fails. She fails time and time again, because Mira's sharpness is soft with her and soft with Zoey, and Zoey is so exuberant and excited to interact with her, and Rumi wants and Rumi is drowning.
She compromises and bargains with herself. She cannot be a thing that wants, because if she wants this — a peaceful night where Mira picks up a psychology book and Zoey watches endless two-minute animal videos and Rumi feels the way that her heart warms at the sight of them…
If she wants anything at all, she doesn't know if she'll be able to bear losing it.
Because she will. Eventually.
Celine believes the honmoon will get rid of her marks. Maybe the childish part of her believes it, too — but she knows the odds. She knows what she is. She knows that she is demon before all else and that she has sworn to protect the world from them, and there is not a future for her where there are no demons. And, worse, if she is truly honest with herself… there is not a reality she can imagine where she would not put Zoey and Mira above the greater good. It's a betrayal to everything she stands for, everything she was raised to be, but she knows in the deepest, cavernous recesses of her heart, that it is the truth.
Zoey is humming under her breath, scribbling away in one of her many notebooks now, and wordlessly hands it to Rumi when she's done, eyes bright, smile brighter.
She's so beautiful.
They're both so beautiful.
I lived two lives, tried to play both sides
But I couldn't find my own place
Her blood runs cold. She couldn't possibly know— how did she find out? Was Rumi's been so careful, declined so many offers to go to bathhouses and rivers because the risk of them finding out was just too great, and—
"Finally figured mine out!" Zoey says, and then taps the two above them. "And I'm thinking this for you, but obviously, y'know, we can change them if you want."
Given the throne, I didn't know how to believe
I was the queen that I'm meant to be
She isn't sure what reaction she's supposed to have, but it definitely shouldn't be tears.
"Woah, woah, woah!" Mira's voice, alarmed, across the room but coming closer, and Rumi is crying like she's never cried before, and it's embarrassing not just because it's her but because it shouldn't be possible, and demons don't cry, do they?
She forgets, sometimes, that she is half human.
"Okay, um, maybe not that, I didn't — uh — I'll rework the lyrics—"
Rumi shakes her head, takes a shaky, watery breath and offers Zoey an equally watery, probably unconvincing smile. She doesn't look at Mira directly, but she catches her in the corner of her eye, her hand covering Rumi's as she studies her. There is recognition in her gaze and the way she handles Rumi so gently when she wraps her arm around her, tugs Rumi into her side.
Zoey reaches for her notebook. Rumi snatches it to her chest possessively, hoarding it like the scrap of beauty it is, and Zoey's eyes go wide. She holds her hands up, lets Rumi keep the notebook —for now— and flops down beside her instead, all loose limbs and relaxation.
She isn't sure when she started letting her guard down like this, or when she started accepting their touch so easily, but it feels so… so natural. Easy, like they've always been destined for this. They trust her and Rumi, god help her, would trust them with her life. Not her marks —never her marks, because she couldn't bear to see their faces, see the betrayal, and it does sting— but everything else? Everything she is, was, or could be — it belongs to them.
Mira picks up the tune Zoey started, the hum of it vibrating against Rumi's back, and Zoey snuggles in next to her, and Rumi wants.
She fights more carefully. Minimizes the damage she takes, because they worry and fret so much when she comes home with the most gashes out of all of them, and she still expects to die first, but she can prolong it. Just a little. Just long enough to soak up the sunlight that is Mira and Zoey.
Rumi wants, and she does not get to possess.
It was always going to end like this. She knows that, but it doesn't fix the crack in her heart as she stares down the end of Mira's spear. It doesn't fix the way that a primal part of her screams for understanding and comparrion, or prevent the howling despair when she looks into eyes she has cherished and finds only fear.
Worst of all, she can't blame them for their response, because Rumi is afraid of herself, too.
The horrible truth is that Rumi has always been a creature that wants. She can be nothing else. People are built to want and plead and beg for companionship, understanding, love. A human knows what it means to want, but a demon? Oh, a demon knows what it means to yearn. Desperation and desire are baked into the atoms that created her, printed on her skin like tattoos, like promises, like contracts.
Rumi is nothing but wanting, made to hold desire like a vessel, left empty to degrade over the years only because a thing that demands with such ferocity is a thing that destroys, and Rumi does not understand how to stop once she's started.
She understands, though, that she is not wanted here in turn. She sees it in the reflection of shining weapons in their eyes, sees the betrayal and that she is everything they've sworn to destroy, and she understands. She wants, she wants, she needs, but they are more important to her than she has ever been to herself.
She runs, finally, like she has craved for so long.
She doesn't know how she gets to Celine; she just knows that the feral part of her craves the embrace of a mother who has never known her, and if not that, then the love of the woman who raised her. Rumi should not want, but she is tired of pretending she hasn't torn herself apart clawing for a shred of acceptance.
But Celine struggled to accept her even at her best, and now Rumi has turned herself into something that even she cannot recognize. It's no wonder that, when Rumi's scream echoes across the honmoon, Celine's eyes go wide, and she holds her hands out like she's trying to soothe a wild animal.
This is the kindest fate for Rumi. She drops to her knees, ducks her head, and holds out her sword.
Rumi is a thing that wants, and she wants to die.
Celine doesn't kill her, the coward.
There was something desperate in her eyes, but when has she looked any other way? Celine is the last of her group, the last of her soul, and the worst of it is that Rumi understands why she is the way she is, because she has seen the pain in Celine's eyes when she speaks of Rumi's mother. Maybe that's why she couldn't do it; maybe she couldn't live with herself if she killed the last remnants of Mi-Yeong with her own hand.
She could go back to Mira and Zoey. Force their hands. Surely, surely if she attacked them, they would defend themselves. She is a liability, a threat; too wild for the comfort of a home and too tame to unsheathe her claws, and surely, it would be merciful to them all to eliminate her.
But... no, she cannot force their hands any more than she could force herself to hurt them. She wants to be angry with them. She wishes she could be. She is furious at Jinu for betraying her and the honmoon for making her at all, because if she were never born, she would never have felt this aching, clawing yearning. She wouldn't have to feel the way that the honmoon quakes and trembles under the weight of its suffering, wouldn't feel the way that the lights blink out with each new soul brought to heel by Gwi-Ma.
She wouldn't feel the crushing loneliness when Mira gives up the idea of being accepted, or the damning weight of wrongness in Zoey's heart.
Rumi is a thing that wants, but she cannot want, so she chooses.
It's a last-ditch effort, a final plea, and it may not work at all — but she has nothing left to give but herself. She was always destined to die before them. What difference does it make if she dies a true demon?
The maw of Gwi-Ma is scorching, burning, deathly hot. Rumi thinks she screams as she is rent apart, as she comes apart at the seams, as the very essence of her is torn apart and swallowed whole and taken as a bargain. Rumi has only herself to offer, but the soul of a hunter is worth the millions she will save, and it's worth far less than Zoey and Mira, and Gwi-Ma finds it fair enough.
Oh, but the honmoon does not. The honmoon has its own opinions and thoughts and feelings, and if it cannot keep her in entirety, then it will keep what it can.
Rumi is selfish enough to let it.
The stadium is dark and the audience is confused when Mira and Zoey make it to the stage, just as the tear spits Rumi out before it closes.
She is unmarked, and she is alive, and they're hauling her into their arms and hugging her so aggressively that they worry they might break her. Zoey is babbling apologies into her neck and Mira into her hair when they realize, finally, that she is limp. Her eyes are empty. She won't look at them.
And she is wrong.