Chapter Text
Rumi was a very inquisitive child and, more often than not, Celine found it endearing. It was only natural for a child to want to learn about the world- in fact, all children do is learn, grow, and ask questions about learning and growing- and most of Rumi’s questions were relatively easy for Celine to answer so long as she had an encyclopedia or Google at her disposal. But, when Rumi was twelve years old, she asked a question that Celine feared she would never be able to answer.
They had finished with Rumi’s training exercises for the day, and Celine and Rumi were just beginning their walk across the compound from the massive tree and open fields where Rumi sparred and ran laps to the little house that Celine had called home since the day the Honmoon chose her. Rumi had been oddly quiet that day, but Celine didn’t think much of it. Rumi was curious, but that hadn't always meant talkative, and would often spend hours without speaking a word but would launch into a philosophical or theoretical rant the moment Celine asked what was on her mind. Celine could rarely understand her tangents, but appreciated them, regardless. Rumi was just a deep thinker, and her silence was rarely cause for concern.
Celine was just about to ask Rumi what she wanted for supper that evening when Rumi broke through the silence that had settled over them, a silence that Celine had thought was peaceful. Rumi’s voice was soft and polite, but her tone was fragile and hesitant, as if the question had forced its way up from her chest against her will.
“Celine, what if I disappear with my patterns?” She asked.
Celine quite literally stopped in her tracks, shock rushing over her like a bucket of ice water.
“What?” She whispered, turning to look at Rumi.
Rumi stopped as well, but her eyes didn’t meet Celine’s. She kept her gaze firmly on the grass at her feet and held her arms frozen at her sides, hands balled up into fists so tight that her nails must have pressed little halfmoon indentations into her palms.
“When we turn the Honmoon golden…” Rumi said, wrapping her arms over her chest as if it might prevent her little heart from bursting through her ribcage. “You said my patterns would disappear, and that all demons will be stuck with Gwi-Ma forever. That they won’t be able to hurt humans ever again.” Rumi paused and took a deep, shaky breath. “Does that include me? Do I have to be trapped with Gwi-Ma forever, too?” Rumi’s gaze flicked upwards and, for just a second, Celine could see tears welling in Rumi’s soft brown eyes.
Mi-Yeong’s eyes.
“I…” Celine started, but she had no idea what to say. “I don’t know, Rumi. I’m sorry.” Rumi finally raised her head, and looked Celine in the eye. A soft, sad smile worked its way across her lips.
“That’s okay, I was just wondering.” Rumi started walking towards the house again, but paused after her third step, and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, though her gaze never left the ground. “I’ll still do it, though. Even if I have to … you know, disappear.” And, as if she hadn’t just distorted Celine’s entire worldview with a few simple words, Rumi kept on walking.
Rumi didn’t broach the subject again for the rest of the night, and tried instead to recreate any of the normal dinner conversations that she and Celine held on any other ordinary night. She asked about the book Celine was reading, asked about her schoolwork for the rest of the week, and asked about Celine’s most recent hunt. Celine answered each question as she usually would, and asked a few in turn, but her mind remained in the field outside.
Celine didn’t sleep well that night and, more than once, she found herself wandering down the hall to Rumi’s bedroom, and cracking the door open just enough to make sure Rumi was still there, still sound asleep, and still safe. She hadn’t felt the need to check on Rumi like that in years- Rumi was a pre-teen after all, and had exhibited all of the normal independence and maturity that came with her age (according to Celine’s many parenting books)- but Celine just couldn’t shake the fear that Rumi might vaporize into nothingness if Celine looked away for so much as a moment.
Celine had never even considered the possibility that Rumi might disappear alongside her patterns once she turned the Honmoon golden, and Rumi’s theory was unfortunately plausible. What was Celine supposed to tell her beyond the fact that she just didn’t know? Did they both have to just accept the possibility that both of their lives’ work might end with Rumi trapped in another realm to suffer for the rest of time? And, most importantly to Celine, why was Rumi so okay with that? She had said she would “still do it,” as if resigning herself to an eternity of misery and pain was just Rumi’s way of taking one for the team.
A part of Celine knew that she should just accept the possibility and move forward as if it didn’t exist, and that same part of her rationalized that Rumi was just one person and, while this sacrifice would be great, what was one little girl when weighed against all of humanity?
But why did it have to be her little girl? Why did mankind’s slaughtered sacrificial lamb have to be the sweet, intelligent, funny, and curious child that Celine had raised from infancy? And, again, why was Rumi okay with being that slaughtered lamb?
Celine found herself alternating between pacing the hallways and sobbing in her bed until she passed out in the early hours of the morning. When she eventually fell asleep, she dreamed of an alternate reality, one where she still woke up to Mi-Yeong every morning, and where Rumi wasn’t just Mi-Yeong’s daughter for Celine to raise in her stead. In this reality, Rumi was their daughter, and Celine and Mi-Yeong could raise and love and cherish her together, and Rumi could grow up and learn and become the hunter she was meant to be with the mother she deserved at her side. Most importantly, this alternate reality let Rumi live her life as a normal human girl, without any of the half-demon confusion that Celine couldn’t fix, and Celine never had to watch her little girl sacrifice herself to solve a problem that she never started.
When Celine woke the next morning, she promised herself that she would be able to answer this question when the time was right and that, while she could not answer Rumi now, she would be able to the next time Rumi broached the topic.
She thanked the heavens daily that Rumi had never asked her that again.