Chapter Text
In a glorious glow, morning came. Bathing Celine’s large expanse of property with it’s generous shine, the sun rose to wake the world.
But someone was already awake, not in need of the golden alarm clock.
Someone that had been waiting for the first ray of light since the last had faded last night. Someone who had been waiting for today like how the sky waits for a rainbow to paint it after rain had met sun. Someone with naturally violet coloured hair and patterns hidden beneath her silk pyjamas.
Someone given the beautifully simple name of Rumi by a loving mother who wasn’t gifted enough time to be loving or a mother.
“Only six?” she sighed wearily, hovering her phone above her face with a stiff hand before dropping it beside her with a huff. What she was waiting for was expected to happen at 10AM, not now. So, she had four hours to kill. Deciding that if she lay awake in this bed any longer, she might turn to a wooden plank and miss 10AM completely.
With a huff of exasperation, she stretched her limbs and rolled out of bed, her feet finding the familiar rug and sinking into it as she stood. Smacking her lips together in slow claps as a yawn trailed through them, she began her usual morning routine – usual meaning constant, it’s been unchanged since she was 7 and she plans to keep it that way.
Firstly, she brushed her teeth with a specifically mild flavoured toothpaste because everything else tastes too spicy on her judgemental tongue. Secondly, she washed her face with a scentless hydrating cream then splashed water on her face 3 times. Always 3 times. A sense of calm cleansed her uneasiness and a peaceful expression settled on her face. After leaving the bathroom, she headed to her wardrobe that was tucked patiently in the corner of her spotless bedroom.
That peace was slowly wrinkled and discarded from her face as she opened the doors and saw what was inside.
It was nothing surprising, just her clothes. Her clothes that most notably shared one thing in common – they were covering.
Joggers, leggings and jeans – no shorts.
Jumpers, hoodies and long-sleeved tops – no vests or crop tops.
The sight made the secret streaks littered across her body writhe shamefully beneath her sleepwear as she held herself for a moment, her hands instinctively crossing paths as they slid to her shoulders in a self-soothing embrace. This was a habit that formed when her patterns had expanded over her and Celine refrained from touching her.
The older woman’s hand that used to caress her with already hesitant, regretful love began hovering like she was a flame. Then it wasn’t long before any physical affection became a distant memory.
So, young and neglected emotionally from her only parental figure, Rumi had started to hug herself in moments of overwhelm. Moments that came often yet fleeting, weaving through her walls of determined composure, and always accompanied by the words that haunted her. Most beings with demonic blood were controlled by the sly, gravelly taunts of Gwi-Ma. But a different voice echoed distressfully in her head.
Celine. Her reluctant fiduciary, her firm instructor.
The woman who had raised her but always treated her with mentorship instead of motherliness.
Her voice was so clear in the hunter-in-training’s head that she flinched, fearing that the older woman was somehow behind her, speaking into her ears. “When the Honmoon is sealed, all demons will be gone from this world. And so will your patterns.” Instead of reassuringly cradling the little girl that had just asked if she too would be killed by hunters, Celine had simply reminded her of her duty.
A duty that shouldn’t have weighed on such little shoulders.
Following the memory like salt in a wound, the most stinging of the retired performer’s lessons reared its ugly head.
“Our faults and fears must never be seen.”
The not so discrete subtext of the words weighed on the hybrid’s weary heart – she must hide, she mustn’t reveal the mistake of her birth for it would only ruin things more than her existence already did.
That phrase had a chokehold on her since early youth, and it grips her still as a 15-year-old. Celine had never physically harmed her but sometimes her words cut deeper than any strike could, and Rumi doesn’t even think she meant them to – which makes it worse. Unsurprisingly, Celine had little awareness or care for the fragility of juvenility. She’d never wanted children – the thought made her stomach twist like a demon was toying with it.
But a demon wasn’t playing with her insides, it was playing with her best friend’s.
A demon – something hardly even alive, never mind human – not only sleeping with a Sunlight Sister but reproducing with her! She didn’t even know how it was possible but specifics like that hardly mattered when she was left with a dead Mi-yeong and a half demon baby. The retired performer had been entirely unprepared to raise someone, so she did what she knew, what she understood, and she rejected what she didn’t.
The semi monstrous girl didn’t receive motherliness, she received mentorship. Learning to fight at the age she should’ve learned to ride a bike or play baseball. To Celine, Rumi was Mi-yeong’s daughter. She was the offspring of a beast. She was a future hunter destined to turn the Honmoon golden.
But she was never ever a child.
All these thoughts floated around Rumi’s brain like rain clouds as she undressed, folding her pyjamas neatly and placing them on her neatly made bed. When she had showered earlier in her routine, she covered the mirror with her towel as she always did and now, as she turned back to the wardrobe, her eyes were already on the floor, avoiding the mirror that hung on the door.
After years upon years of being told that the patterns across her body were not a part of her but the imprints of all things evil, she couldn’t look at herself bare anymore.
“Our faults and fears must never be seen.” She recited numbly; the words etched into every weakness she hid, carved invisibly along her markings that were thrumming with deep indigo as they were robotically hidden by her outfit for the day, expressing the shame and misery that clawed at her heart no matter how much she tried to ignore it.
And she did try, she always did.
But Celine had taught her that some feelings cling to you like fog on a road, inconvenient and bothersome. Taught her that she mustn’t get lost in that fog but instead push through it like a true hunter. Taught her that the Golden Honmoon was her priority, not her wellbeing.
So, even in the privacy of her own bedroom, Rumi suppressed her emotions. She released herself from the pitiful one person embrace and decided that she needed to clear her head, that these feelings were inconvenient and bothersome.
Resorting to her usual and only release of emotions, she quickly finished her routine and headed outside to the combat patio.