feifiefofum - i smell the stench of a mortal man

The sound of meowing 🐾

10,000 notes - well executed crowd pleaser

1,000 notes - cult classic

100 notes - uncompromising avant-garde art for those of discerning taste

10 notes - misunderstood genius that the culture is not yet ready for

So to recap: Healer Han was being intentionally cryptic when he said "I know just the tonics you need" and after trying one, Rumi's body goes full demon mode. She unknowingly reveals her secret to Mira and Zoey when she doesn't realize she's transformed overnight, and had to make a hasty teleportation-fueled retreat to Jeju when they mistook her for a demon pretending to be Rumi. Now, everything has come to a head after Mira and Zoey made a beeline for Celine after not being able to contact her and they've just managed to ward off a particularly bad demon attack on the compound.

Mira and Celine end up alone, and Mira calls out Celine on her choices to force Rumi to hide. Celine has a scathing rebuttal locked and loaded.

-- -- --

"I would never hurt Rumi," Mira snarled, offended Celine would even ask such a question of her.

"And the multiple times you've raised your gok-do at her just today?" Celine replied coolly.

"The first time I didn't know it was her," Mira fired back, "If I had known, I never would have-"

"And what about just now? You knew it was her then."

"Will you hurt my daughter the next time you see her?"

Rumi shook her head of the voice as she fully slipped into the bathroom, refusing to focus on Mira's lack of immediate response to Celine's question.

It didn't matter what the answer was, in the end.

Images of the gok-do pointed at her, flying at her, caused her to shiver involuntarily.

She walked towards the bathroom counter where the first aid kit was always stashed. Demonic features appeared in the corner of her eye, causing her to startle.

Just a mirror. A mirror with a demon reflected in it. The demonic eye trailed over the creature before her, covered in another demon's ichor and graveyard dirt smudged with it across her patterned and purple skin. her whole bottom half of her face was smeared in it, clearly from having ripped the demon apart with her own fangs and claws.

No wonder they all summoned weapons against her. She was disgusting.

She turned on the tap real quick, trying to use the sink's hand towel and the stream of water to wipe away the most prevalent of the blood. She didn't want to scare them any more than she had. She needed them to at least let her stay until she could confirm Zoey was okay.

Satisfied with the subpar cleaning, she reached for the kit, only to freeze. If she grabbed it and accidentally teleported again, that would leave Zoey without medical supplies at the ready. She couldn't risk that. Not after already delaying it by taking them to a graveyard first.

“Are you playing hockey with the med kit?”

Rumi kept her gaze down, staring at the box, “I’m trying to make sure I don’t teleport away with the med supplies.”

“And your solution to that problem was pushing the box with a broom?” Mira asked.

“Better than the plunger.”

“I prefer this option.” Zoey chuckled, “Reminds me of when we played soccer with a chunk of ice during that huge winter storm last year.”

The memory caused a fond chuckle to bubble out of Rumi and Mira. They remembered that too. They remembered how there had been a planned concert but a horrible blizzard forced them to cancel. Unfortunately, no one told them the concert was cancelled—Bobby was sick and his replacement sucked—until they got to the venue and ended up stuck in a nearby hotel. To pass time, the three began kicking around a chunk of ice they found although the majority of the time was spent falling on their butts and into snow banks.

Mira and Rumi halted their laughter when they realized they were laughing together. Rumi shuffled away from Mira just a bit as the words from before and Mira’s hesitation at Celine’s question echoed in her mind.

“….I really like your tail, Rumi.”

“You don’t have to lie, Zoey.” Rumi spat, sounding crueler than she had intended, “I know it’s disgusting.”

“It’s not disgusting and since when are you so confident in knowing what I like and dislike. You didn’t even know I used to have a crush on Celine until three years ago.” More laughter bubbled out of Rumi and Mira.

“How did you not know that, Rumi?”

“I don’t know! I just thought she’d have a normal American crush like Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber or someone who didn’t raise me!”

“But Celine is so hot!” Zoey whined.

“No! No! I can’t hear this again!” Rumi threw her hands over her demon ears, more playing than anything else, but the moment her hands made contact with her ears, her eyes widened. Rushing past Mira, Rumi went to the nearest mirror she could find and pulled her hair back.

Her ears were normal.

Laughter.

"Ok ok! Hurry hard! Hard!"

...Also not what she was expecting.

When she rounded the corner, she was met with an odd sight, indeed. Rumi had the broom and was currently frantically sweeping backward through the living room, keeping ahead of the med kit that Mira had slid along the smooth hardwood floor. Zoey was watching on from the couch, shouting instructions to "hurry hard" as the med kit slid to a stop on the far side.

"Why...are you curling the med kit?" she asked, staring at the scene somewhat dumbfounded after, well...everything.

The girls snapped to attention, Rumi dropping the broom and standing up straight with her hands at her side, the same smile she usually had when caught doing something ridiculous on her face. Mira shot to her feet and mimicked Rumi's pose, minus the toothy smile. Zoey couldn't exactly stand up, but she still turned to stare at Celine.

That's when Celine noticed that Rumi's claws had gone away. And her fangs had reduced to slightly abnormally long eye teeth.

"Making her laugh helps!" Zoey sputtered before Celine could voice her observation, "Hockey wasn't going to work as one on one so we switched to curling."

"...Ok," Celine replied slowly, turning to the others while pointing at Zoey. "Has she been treated?"

Rumi nodded. "Looked over and patched up. Nothing's broken, thankfully," she stated dutifully.

The exchange was almost...normal, despite Rumi's tail swishing anxiously behind her.

Celine could tell, even without the tail, that Rumi was waiting for her to ruin this. For her to insist on talking, to scold them, to bring up the countless ways they had all screwed up in the last 24 hours. And Celine knew they would have to deal with that sooner rather than later. But she was also not heartless, and she was not a fool. For the first time since they all arrived at her home on Jeju, they've been acting like themselves. Goofy and playful and carefree.

And the lightness seemed to be helping Rumi, no golden Honmoon required.

And perhaps the scratches on her living room floor will be worth it.

"You will need something to mark the house," she noted, allowing a smile to form on her face as she watched relief flood Rumi's.

It's the fourth year of the full-scale invasion and the twelfth year of Russia's war against Ukraine as a whole. Thousands of statements saying – "We are deeply concerned". Thousands more saying – "We must stand united".

And yet, when it comes to allowing Russian soldiers into Europe, the deciding factor is the money they bring as tourists. Some countries are literally worried about losing tourism revenue, regardless of where that money comes from.

People were outraged when the Olympic Committee argued that sport should be a "second chance" for people, regardless of what they had done during the war.

But Europe is effectively doing the same thing through tourism.

So in Europe, it's entirely possible for a Ukrainian refugee — a mother with her child, for example — to run into the very person who killed her relatives, committed sexual violence against civilians, took part in torture, or committed other war crimes, simply because he came there for a vacation.

This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:

ActionAid India

SEEDS India

GlobalGiving

unless it’s itself enough

to get haters, so