Chapter Text
Prologue
There are no secrets in the Drift.
It's connection. It's sharing. It's melding. It's opening oneself in complete totality to another, mind and heart and soul.
To Drift is to be vulnerable.
Despite the legacy of her mother, Rumi is not meant to Drift. The thought of opening herself like that terrifies her. Panic inducing.
Because of the legacy of her mother, she finds another way to help the world because that's who Rumi is. Drawn by duty and a need to help. So much like her mother that there are times that Celine can't look at her.
Rumi feels so alone.
Ryu Miyeong died in battle, torn from her Jaeger by a Category Three. Celine rarely talks about it — the scars as present on her mind as visible on her body. She could sing, once, but Rumi hasn't heard her sing since her mother died. Her voice had been beautiful, but the woman that raised her in Miyeong's shadow is a hollow shell with no music left in her soul.
You wanted a girl, she hears Celine talking to her mother once, when she was still trying to understand herself.
Rumi is not meant to Drift. To be so connected to someone that their death breaks her so utterly that she never sings again. Singing is how she helps the world. Music is her refuge. She refuses to fight in a Jaeger, but she can make the people forget their worries and their terror. It's how she meets Zoey and Mira.
They're perfect.
They simply can't be allowed to know she was born wrong.
A mistake.
Contradiction.
Celine accepts her and yet Celine doesn't accept all of her.
Contradictions that she cuts into her skin.
Hide herself. Present perfectly. Never let anyone know. Too much like her mother. Not enough like her mother. A girl yes, but a girl in all the wrong ways.
Screaming in her head at night, Rumi desperately wants someone to know.
Someones, two girls who look at her like she means something. Eventually, Rumi even starts to believe it.
They write songs, come up with choreography and despite her secret Rumi feels accepted. Rumi is not meant to Drift and yet she moves with Zoey and Mira as though they're already of one mind. The people love them. They become idols, beacons of hope as Kaiju and Jaeger clash in titanic struggle. They call themselves Huntr/x.
Rumi loves them, probably more than she should. Definitely more than she should.
Celine talks to her about the Rangers, but Rumi refuses to listen. She will not step foot in a Jaeger, she will not open herself to the terror of the Drift. How can she present perfectly if she can't hide? No one must know she's a mistake. Celine should know this better than anyone; there are no secrets in the Drift.
On her twentieth birthday she's at a memorial in Tokyo. It's simply a wall with pictures. Memories of the dead, of those taken by Kaiju. There's her mother smiling in front of her Jaeger, flanked by Celine and her sister. It's rare for three to pilot a Jaeger but despite being a Mark I, Breaker Dawn had been so agile it still boggles her mind when she watches video of them in action. Rumi remembers watching them in action for real. It's only been five years, but there are days where she can't remember her mother's voice.
Compared to a Mark IV like Nova Hyperion and its legendary Rangers, it was slow. And yet somehow they'd made it flow like water.
If only to herself, she admits to wanting to pilot. To being like her mother. Not for Celine, but for herself. Imagines what that must be like. The weight of a Jaeger colliding with a Kaiju. Mira or Zoey's voice in her head. Maybe both.
It has to be both.
Mira's arm slips around her and she leans into the embrace, resting her head on the other girl's shoulder. Zoey hugs her from the other side. Neither says anything, neither needs to; they're so in tune, so compatible with her that she knows, she knows what it means.
Rumi is not meant to Drift, least of all with either of the people most capable of destroying her.
Yet their presence is a comfort.
Yet she imagines standing in a Jaeger with them at her side.
Yet she imagines the three of them, hearts as one.
Yet she imagines letting them in and it terrifies and exhilarates her.
Both of their voices in her head. Both of their hands around her heart. Her throat.
"Rumi, girls."
Celine's voice draws her out of her thoughts, and as one they turn to her. Zoey is beaming - Celine is kind of a hero of hers, her exploits almost mythic. Rumi just smiles tiredly, though the expression quickly falls off at the look on Celine's face.
Haunted. She's shaking.
The news is bad.
"Who?" Rumi asks, knowing instinctively what's happened.
"Tacit Ronan and Nova Hyperion. In Incheon. The Kaiju is dead."
There are millions of people there, and it's way too close to Seoul for comfort. Rumi goes to her, hand on her shoulder, mind reeling from losing two Jaegers and from the memory of her mother's death.
Mira's voice is low, worried, "An Yuna? Pang So-Yi?"
"I don't know."
The Rangers of that Jaeger are Korean national heroes. Both Olympic level fencers — rivals to Rangers to rumored lovers — their Jaeger fought like a fencer. Rumi can't imagine them ever losing a battle. But then, who could have imagined Breaker Dawn falling? It's been happening more and more often. And two in one battle? Fear shoots through her gut.
As always, Celine controls herself. She sheds no tears though Rumi knows her well enough to see them in her eyes. Knows her well enough to see she's reliving that terrible moment when the people whose minds she was connected to died.
When Rumi had lost her mother. When Celine had lost her sister, and her lover.
Rumi had lost both of her mothers that day, even if one still walks like a living ghost.
There are no secrets in the Drift, but their defender has fallen.
Rumi works her jaw and nods, "Okay."
Rumi is not meant to Drift.
But she will have to.