polytrix sideblog

New hope AU:

I think these are dragon!Min-ji and fox!Celine prime days Guardian form before, yknow. The death of their third Guardian.

Currently: While Celine has dragged Miyeong off for a walk in the garden—that’s going surprisingly well, odd comments about her height aside—Minji, Mira, and Zoey have helped Rumi down from her little PTSD moment, and started getting on the same page about all of the events that led up to the hospital fire.

I got the motivation to write so here we are. Also this is a reupload because there was some continuity error. Also changed/addded some things

(This is a reference to this)

The last thing Miyeong remembered was falling through a tear.

They had just barely gotten home to their Jamsil unit after finishing performing their title track, Light of My World at the International Idol Awards and, by some miracle, be the first to ever win its Best New Group award despite only having debuted months ago, when they felt it.

Hyeonjeong groaned, sprawled out on her bunk bed, halfway through changing into her pajamas. “Noooooo. We just got home—”

Celine had looked nearly dead—head nodding off as she brushed her teeth—when the lines of pink spread above them like tides. Her eyes hardened and her back straightened (“like a Jindo” as she and Hyeonjeong once teased their maknae for the way she looked whenever she sensed demons nearby. The offended look she gave them for comparing her to a dog made them snicker harder). She spat into the sink. “Big one. Maybe three blocks north.”

Miyeong felt herself sigh as she set their award down on the coffee table. "I haven't even changed out of my dress yet."

After a very quick change for them, they were scaling the apartment complex from the 3rd floor to the top in hurriedly thrown-on coats and beanies. The streets were quieter this time of night, but they weren’t risking getting hit by cars or creeps, so leaping from roof to roof it was

They found the tear in the middle of a fenced grassy space, and from it swarms of demons poured in like blood from a wound—red, blue, white, and purple, small and large, all covered in the same jagged patterns.

“That’s more than usual,” Hyeonjeong whistled, already reaching for the Honmoon.

"Not more than the ones that interrupted Park-seonsaengnim's birthday," Miyeong hummed.

"Let's just make this quick, I really want to go to bed." Celine sighed.

"Aww, not even gonna drink with your unnies?" Hyeonjeong grinned.

Celine stared. "I'm seventeen."

"So? Miyeong's eighteen and she's still drinking with me."

"Miyeong-unnie would help you catch a bird with your bare hands if you wanted to, for fun."

"Mhm, I would."

"Right, right, I forgot. You're a stickler for rules and a bore."

"And that's why I'm the leader, wait what–you know, what, we can argue later."

Miyeong shakes her head. Her girls are so silly. She glided her fingers upon the honmoon’s surface, joining in as Celine starts singing the beginning of a song and their voices blend into a harmony. The Honmoon hummed with them, and threads of light wove themselves into a gakgung in her left hand, its gung-dae around her waist filled with endless arrows.

The demons took notice of them. Finally. She picked an arrow between her fingers and casually nocked it, aiming at a particularly large, ugly red dokkaebi. From the corner of her eye, she saw her girls with their own weapons at the ready. Celine looked at her and Hyeonjeong with a smirk.

“Let’s kill these guys.”

The massacre began with an arrow sailing like a shooting star, burying itself deep in the dokkaebi’s head, knocking it onto its back and making it crumble like dried earth.

Celine and Hyeonjeong jumped into the fray, with Hyeonjeong swinging wide arcs, killing demons that dared get too close, while Celine snuck from behind, her ssanggeom slashing at the monsters distracted by Hyeonjeong.

“Three on your right!” Miyeong called from above, picking off the demons one by one, covering where her girls could not see, and in return Celine and Hyeonjeong stopped the demons making their way to the building where Miyeong stood.

“Got them!” Celine shouted back, her blades flashing.

They made quick work of them—the demons had interrupted their drinking game before it even got started; after all, they ought to pay up somehow. Soon there were only about ten of the things left

“Almost done,” Hyeonjeong said, crushing a blue demon under her heel. “Then we can actually—”

She was just about to take another shot at a jeosung saja trying to climb the fence when she heard the telltale sound of a rip—silent to human ears but like the shrill screams of a thousand crying in agony to hers—and with it, the scalding heat of Gwi-ma’s realm, just inches behind her. Miyeong quickly turned, but a hundred thin emaciated arms grabbed at her legs with stone-like grips and started dragging her down, making her fall on her back with a yelp.

“Celine! Hyeonjeong-ah!”

“Unnie!” She heard Celine’s scream, high and terrified.

“Hold on! We’re coming!” Hyeonjeong’s voice, closer, desperate.

But she knew there was no time to wait. Her left hand dug into the concrete even as her nails bent and hurt, to stall as long as she could until Celine and Hyeonjeong could help her. She grabbed one of her spilled arrows and started stabbing whatever she could see, but it never seemed to end. When one arm disappeared into smoke, another came to take its place, dragging her closer and closer into Gwi-ma’s clutches.

“Miyeong!” That was Celine again, closer now but not close enough.

The Honmoon slid around her arm as if to keep her in place, but even it was not enough, and Miyeong heard herself scream as she fell into the underworld.

For a few minutes, Miyeong waited. Waited for the fall to come, to feel the burning cold of the underworld’s realm, to hear Gwi-ma’s triumphant howls. But instead, grass tickled her face and the wind whispered to her as if it was gently asking her to wake up. Miyeong reluctantly opened her eyes and found herself face to face with the clear night sky and its many stars, the moon gazing back at her. She sat up, hissing as her left leg burned when she tried to stand.

"Ah! Ow..." She was about to roll up the leg of her jean to find the fabric torn to shreds and beneath it, scratches marring her leg, numerous and bleeding.

Behind her, a door slid open and warm white light engulfed her back.

“Miyeong?”

“Celine?” Miyeong turned, a breath of relief ready at her throat, but her smile faltered at the person she saw.

This person looked like Celine, but it wasn’t the 17-year-old maknae whose face she’d last seen filled with fear minutes ago. This girl...this woman was older. Much older. Gray blended with black in her wavy hair. Even from where Miyeong sat, she could see the lines around the crevices of her eyes and in the space between her eyebrows where she had often warned Celine she’d get wrinkles if she kept thinking too hard.

The woman’s face went through a series of emotions—shock, recognition, then something dark and terrible. “No,” she whispered. “You’re not—you can’t be—”

Miyeong blinked once, and suddenly she felt herself being pushed down onto the dirt, a blade pressed too close to her nape, and a growl in her ear.

“Why do you wear her face?”

And all Miyeong could think was "Even now, she still acts like a Jindo"

"What?"

"Ah, I said that out loud, didn't I?"

Currently: Rumi, Mira, and Zoey have had the sanctuary of Celine’s (and now once again Rumi’s) home broken by the arrival of reporter Miyeong and her unwilling partner, Minji. Before Miyeong could start asking questions about the mystery of Rumi, Mira’s abduction, or the death of Mira’s brother, they received news of a fire at Minji’s hospital—the same one the girls had been treated at.

But there is definitely something off.

Rumi swallows nervously, picking up the broom, and Zoey… Zoey thinks about how they met. About how Rumi told them to leave her in Hell. About how casually, even now, she throws out self-deprecation.

She makes a quick pivot.

“Give it to me straight,” she says. Flashes a crooked smile. “Or queer, or whatever kind of unlabeled you’re into. How’d you end up with an order of worshippers all these centuries later?”

Rumi’s anxiety fades in favor of a flush as she mumbles, “I never wanted worshippers.”

“C’mon—“ Zoey gestures to her. “—with all that going on? I’d fall down at your altar any day.”

The cheesiness works wonders. Rumi laughs, loosening. “Fair lady, I am but a homely servant in your presence.”

(Maybe, some small part of Zoey thinks, all those over-earnest compliments have just been exactly this. It’s not like anyone’s ever flirted with her as anything more than a joke.)

The new quiet is… easier.

Rumi rolls back on her heels, and sighs, glancing down the hall. “I only ever wanted to help people. If I was given power, strength, that meant I ought use it to defend the weak, didn’t it? If I had a home, why should I give it up to some mainlander cousin of my father’s who had no sense of our community? And why should I not share it with those whose homes were not safe to them?”

“Last night…” Zoey bites her lip, hoping she hasn’t interrupted the flow. “Last night, you said you’d known more monsters like Mira’s family.”

Rumi nods. “I often met women who gave similar accounts of their husbands, or children of their parents. Widows, as well, who had been taught they were not to support themselves without a husband and were not to remarry. It was only later that Gwi-Ma came to the island.”

“One woman social services,” Zoey says, struck with a terrible kind of feeling that gets deep, deep into her. Oh, she’s down bad.

Rumi’s blush returns with a vengeance. “I was not alone! I could not have done anything without Chaeyoung, or Hana, or Eunjae, or Jin—“

Her lips flatten. She looks away.

Zoey doesn’t know what to say here. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s always so bad at this part, never enough.

She reaches out and takes Rumi’s free hand, the one not holding the broom. “You’re not alone.”

Currently: Huntrix have escaped the horrors to explore a market with Celine. Meanwhile, reporter!Miyeong and her unwilling partner Third are tracking the world’s worst missing persons case

Currently: Huntrix have escaped the horrors to explore a market with Celine. Meanwhile, reporter!Miyeong and her unwilling partner Third are tracking the world’s worst missing persons case

Zoey laughs at her. “Sure can! That’s what they’re for!”

Mira can see the breath moving in Rumi’s chest. She looks so… affected. She turns her intense gaze to Zoey. “How?” she asks. “When? Here? Now?”

Zoey stops laughing. She just nods. 

Mira can’t take it anymore; she takes Rumi’s hand. “Come on,” she tells her. “Here and now.” She grabs the record Rumi had been fingering and pulls her to the front of the shop.

Rumi’s hand is trembling in hers, just slightly. It’s the very same hand that had turned her brother from a man to a thing, but—she gets it. 

It’s music.

“Can we hear a sample?” Mira asks the clerk, holding out the record. It’s a foreign ska band, of all things. That’s cool. They can try a bit of everything.

The bright and peppy sounds of trumpet fill the small shop. Mira can see the moment Rumi’s eyes light up. She turns to look at Mira, eyebrows raised with surprised delight. She squeezes Mira’s hand to the rhythm, just slightly. Her feet start tapping, seemingly unconsciously.

Mira leads her in a simple maneuver, and Rumi follows easily. The shop is narrow, and full of racks. Mira coaches Rumi through a simple dance, mindful of their surroundings, knees bent, and back and forth.

When the song is done, Rumi is no longer trembling. She is grinning ear to ear, though.

“It is groovy,” she says with complete solemnity.

Mira keeps having to fight for her fucking life with these girls. Where the fuck did she learn that word? The moment Mira’s jaw is free she is just going to laugh and never fucking stop. 

Zoey is doing plenty of laughing for her, though. “Me next!” she announces, and tears through the store to grab the next candidate.

She immediately rushes back over to Rumi and Mira and grabs both their hands as the electric guitars start. Within 30 seconds all three of them are jumping and singing badly along to classic punk rock. 

Rumi looks exhilarated. She’s trying her hardest to match their garbled singing, a beat too late and significantly more incomprehensible, the foreign English words a mere suggestion.

As the notes fade she looks directly at Zoey, then at Mira, and says smugly, “You were better.”

Mira has to look away. But Zoey, probably still buoyed by the energy of the music, laughs delightedly, and surges up, and presses a kiss to Rumi’s cheek.

All three of them freeze in tandem.

Zoey stammers, “Sorry, I—”

Next to her, Zoey is as red as the tomatoes they'd purchased that morning; despite the confusion of colors mottling Mira's face she spots a similar hue simmering beneath the purples and greenish-browns.

Something tells Rumi it is not from the exertion of jumping.

She clenches the hem of her modern shirt, twisting the fabric in her hands in spite of a dim concern that it might tear (it was the most acceptable offering in the store they went to, but considering how the standards for tailoring had apparently dimished with the centuries that was not saying much).

It is horrible and disgusting of her, to react in such a way to Zoey's- Zoey's kiss. She had been trying so hard, ever since she slipped and reacted so poorly to Zoey's fingers brushing against her skin the night before, to keep those...urges down, wrested into submission like the most vicious of foes.

Because that's what they were, a foe. One as foul and vile as Gwi-Ma that must be stopped before it could destroy all that was good and pure in the world.

And there was nothing better or purer than them, how they had welcomed Rumi despite knowing what she is, and now- now they were mortified. Ashamed to be in her presence. Perhaps rightfully disgusted.

Now she was going to ruin what she had with them because she couldn't contain her demonic urges when Zoey kissed-

Wait. She blinks. Zoey had kissed her. Zoey had made that damning move. Why-

Celine is back, handing the person behind the counter a record with an eye-crinkling smile, and more music is playing chasing the thought aside.

She gasps, grabbing Mira and Zoey's hands on instinct.

This music...it prances from the music-playing machine like a new spring colt, bright and ecstatic and so full of pep she doesn't know how anyone can resist bouncing along.

And unlike the other records that they played, she can understand the words- or, well, most of the words- singing from this one.

Mira smirks over at Celine from where she's bouncing at Rumi's side. "Let me guess. 'This is what we listened to back in my day when music was good.'"

Celine just rolls her eyes as she nods along with what is clearly a familiar melody to her, the smile staying in place. "There is plenty of modern music I enjoy, Mira."

"But you chose this."

"...Yes, I chose this."

"It's a good pick!" Zoey beams. "Ooh! We should play Rumi some modern kpop next!"

Mira lets go of Rumi's hand and runs through a quick step sequence, adapted to the confines of the space but still impressively intricate. Zoey's quick to follow along, and after a moment Rumi gives it a try.

It's strange, moving her body in this way; nothing like the dances she's used to. But it feels...good. Right. The steps, the beat...

Mira and Zoey’s both include ones that Rumi-nim had hesitated over, of course, presented as nonchalantly as they were capable of.

Celine… very casually pulls a handful of CDs out from the rack next to the cashier, not at all having spent time trying to find something that they might enjoy.

(Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring for Mira, who had a ballerina’s arms when she turned. Nineties bubblegum pop for Zoey, since she mentioned liking Fin.K.L. Some metal band and an old folk singer and some American jazz and—

Whatever she hoped Rumi-nim might like.)

They’re half-asleep by the time she parks outside the supermarket, following her in together.

Rumi-nim’s eyes are wide as she takes everything in, utterly astounded. Zoey starts gently tugging her along by the hand to make sure she keeps up. Eventually, as Celine picks up a package of beef, she asks, “…Where does it come from?”

Mira sighs, and grimaces, bracing her jaw. “Depends. Stuff like this, it’s usually not too far in between the farm and the shelf. Part of what you pay for is someone else doing the butchering, but part of what they pay for is someone else doing the raising, and so on.”

Despite their earlier sleepiness, they have a fairly coherent discussion of supply chains and labor relations and fair pay as Celine moves them through the store.

“Oh, wait!” Zoey yelps, bringing them to a halt. She looks rather embarrassed when Celine turns, as if she hadn’t expected that to work. “I, uh—can we get some Bacchus-F? It’s kinda the only thing that lets me kick on study mode.”

Celine… is not surprised to be asked for an energy drink. She is, however, pleased that Zoey is willing to ask her for things. “Of course.”

She’s even more pleased when, as they pause to buy soap (the rest of the bath products were already picked up at the pharmacy, but bar soap is far cheaper here), Mira disappears for a minute only to return with a thing of concealer, dropping it in the cart like she expects to be told to put it back.

It takes Celine a moment to realize that her face looks like someone to a baseball bat to it and connect the dots, wishing she’d considered that earlier.

And, yes, that is a moment spent looking directly at Mira.

Sure, the place is pretty and, yeah, it looks like a good place to take a vacation. However, after spending two hours of her life getting laughed at by locals she was not inclined to think favorably of the island.

So Miyeong compromises.

Rumi of Jeju was, legendarily speaking, the daughter of a yangban man seduced by a demon—some stories called her a gumiho, though most didn’t bother to specify, and a few even claimed her mother to have been a ghost.

Her father raised her indulgently, which she repaid by killing him and stealing his land when she reached adulthood. As if that weren’t enough, she began a crusade across the whole island of Jeju, killing men and driving women mad.

Ultimately, her father’s younger brothers came together to end her, some versions saying by killing her, others by imprisonment, and a few—to Miyeong’s special disgust—by tricking her into marrying a promising young magistrate.

Miyeong doesn’t find any great sources on where it all was supposed to have happened, but in spite of her more… esoteric… theories, she’s no folklorist.

Now, finding who owns what land? That’s a matter of public record. And she knows the shaman traveling in the car and that a shaman is apparently living on Rumi’s land. That’s a job for a journalist.

So, curled up in the motel room bed and picking away at the takeout Minji provided, Miyeong gets to work.

///

The hanok looks strange, approaching it from outside. It does not look like Rumi’s home.

As they grow closer, though, she can see that despite the ways it has changed—the gravel path, the new buildings, the glass windows—there are things that have remained. The structure of the purlins is that her father chose, the colors of the paint are the same ones young Dasom had chosen by splattering them against the wall.

(The toddler is now long-dead. But Rumi is coming to terms with such things.)

(If she tells herself often enough, then it will be so.)

(What did Jinu say, when he came home without her?

He always liked to sing for the children, to sneak flowers out from behind their ears even as his own sister, too old to be charmed by such things, rolled her eyes.

and zoey just making fun of her and posting a picture of a shrine for Mira's forehead.

zoey: lol

mira: shut up, they literally begged you to go back to your bangs because your forehead was too big

zoey: *gasps* betrayal!

Thus far: college student Zoey, unwilling cultist Mira, and ancient hero Rumi were involved in a few summoning and a trip to hell before ending up with a minute to breathe at Rumi’s ancestral/shaman!Celine’s current home. Meanwhile, reporter Ryu Miyeong is attempting to untangle the mess left behind them.

She keeps her head tipped back, tracing them as she trails after Celine to the garbage cans kept around the back, shivering slightly. There's the Big Dipper, so the rest of Ursa Major should be there, and Ursa Minor-

"Careful!"

Zoey slams on her brakes moments before walking into a flowerbed and murdering some innocent carnations. She winces, shoulders pulling up sheepishly. Second time in as many minutes almost crashing into something in the shaman's house; that had to be a record even for her. She can hear her parents and teachers and, well, everyone back home now:

"Focus, Zoey."

"Pay attention, Zoey."

"Hey, space cadet! You coming back to Earth any time soon?"

She just couldn't get it right, could she? Blundering around the shaman's house, talking Rumi and Mira's ears off, being her overwhelming too-much self. That Gwi-Ma character was right; she was-

"Zoey."

She jumps at the feel of Celine's hand on her shoulder, pulling her back to the yard and moonlight.

"Sorry!" Zoey squeaks, hurriedly backing away from the flowerbed. "I'd- um, promise I'm not usually like this but, well, honesty's the best policy, right?"

Celine...doesn't roll her eyes. Or scold. Or...any of the usual reactions. Just offers a small smile. "Thank you for the honesty, Zoey, but it's alright. You've had a difficult couple of days."

"Don't I know it," Zoey huffs, falling into step alongside her. She kicks at a pebble. "Being a blood sacrifice, watching a guy get murdered, then that whole Gwi-Ma thing...honestly not sure which was the worst."

She purses her lips, mentally weighing- just for the fun of it (morbid though it is) those experiences against each other. They all, objectively, sucked, but...

She thinks back to that voice in her head, amplifying every horrible thought she's ever heard or had about herself, and shudders. Yup. We have a winner.

Celine hums, and when Zoey glances her way she's staring steadily- but not unkindly- at her, like she's reading her thoughts. "Gwi-Ma deals in lies. Whatever he said to you, it’s not true.”

Zoey chuckles, the sound falling flat in the dark. She wishes she could disagree, but, well. Being too much but still falling short? Being worthless? Not belonging anywhere? “I mean, it’s nothing I hadn’t heard before: being ‘too much’ is kinda the story of my life. And no offense, you've only known me for, like, a day."

"Perhaps." Celine motions her around a corner where the trash bin is waiting. “But it's a day where you went to great lengths to bring back Rumi-nim. And I've seen how you've been with Mira. They’re both lucky to have you.”

Zoey ducks her chin, trying and failing not to think about how Mira had looked at her from the doorway when she caught her rambling, or how Rumi had honest-to-God whimpered at her touch.

They really did seem like they…actually liked spending time with her. But it would change; it always did. In a couple of days they’d see what everyone else did. Probably sooner considering how she hadn’t been taking-

Oh, shit!

“Zoey?” Celine turned from the can as Zoey groaned and slapped a hand across her face. “Is something-“

“Fuck’s sake, Ryu, will you stop saying that?” Park snaps.

Miyeong spreads her hands apologetically, sitting up in the driver’s seat of the parked car. “Look, I had the cops hang up on me three times, okay? It’s a reality check.”

Park huffs, but seems to concede, flicking a dismissive hand.

They sit in silence for a moment. Miyeong wonders where Park’s mind is going—surely not the same places as her own, the list of question upon question about where the rest of Jaeho’s family was, what the weird symbols drawn around his body all meant, why any of this had happened.

“Is that what I’m here for?” Park asks at last. “Another set of eyes?”

Miyeong swallows. “Before I say this, I need to remind you that I’m not planning to write a story anymore. I’m just—all I want is to see who we can find. This is just the two of us and some really extenuating circumstances.”

“You want me to break patient privacy laws,” Park says, flatly.

Miyeong offers her a smile, unable to flinch from it but not quite stupid enough to say it out loud.

Park stares at her in silence for a long moment, and then gets out of the car to circle around it, pacing several furious laps. She stops, looking at the Kang house, and then takes another.

Through it all, Miyeong just… sits there. It’s not like there’s really anywhere else for Park to go, after all. It’s not like she really wants to be asking this of her, either.

Park opens the shotgun door again. She sits down. She says, “I swear to God if you’re recording this—“

“I’m not,” Miyeong says.

And then Park tells her about Zoey, who’d been drugged and restrained and whose address they could probably get from Billing, and the far stranger woman who had accompanied her and Mira.

Instead, Miyeong does what she can do without even turning on the car, and starts looking for the right Choi Zoey’s social media. Eventually, she finds the right woman, she thinks.

Just a kid, really, studying here in the city.

Since Park looks like the wrong end of a double-shift Miyeong decides to ignore the pointed remark. "Look." She taps back to Zoey's main page and pulls up some other posts, one after another. "She typically posts several times a day and leaves comments on other people's posts. But ever since the night in question..."

She pulls up the most recent post again. It shows Zoey slumped over a desk covered in books and pouting with the caption "Weekends in med school suck boooooooooo."

"Radio silence," Miyeong said, shaking her phone a little for emphasis.

Park snorts. "Recovering med student here: I have a theory."

Miyeong huffs. "Something tells me this Choi Zoey would at least post one update even if it was finals week."

Something like concern flickers across Park’s face before she settles back in her seat. “You obviously didn't go to med school."

Park, Miyeong decides as she turns the key in the ignition, was lucky she was such a tolerant and forgiving person. And desperately in need of a partner on this. "You said the woman she was with was strange. Elaborate?"

Park nods, not bothering to suppress a yawn. "Dressed like some Joseon LARPer; pretty accurate costume, except for the tattoos. Really committed to the bit, too. Acted like she didn't know what anything was. Heard a nurse say if they didn't know any better they'd thought she'd have never seen a lightbulb before."

Miyeong's ears perked.

Stories, she had learned over the years, were like halfway put-together puzzles; collections of images that seem related in some way or other but you just can't figure out how they fit together until you find that one piece that proves key and causes everything to click into place.

Something told her that this girl- this Joseon LARPer- was the key to cracking what happened to Zoey and the Kangs.

"Got anything else on her?" Miyeong asked as she turned onto the main road.

Park drums her fingers on the door. "She didn't talk much." The rhythm of her fingers slows, thoughtful, grave. "...One of the nurses said they think someone told her not to."

A cold, cold rivulet of dread trickled down Miyeong's spine. She wasn't on a crime beat, but she knew people who were, and she'd read their reports of the darkest corners of the city.

Hopefully this girl wasn't in danger...

---

Rumi could not remember the last time she felt so at peace.

True, her side and back still ached, and the floor she was camped out on was a far cry from a proper bed (which she would cede to Mira and her repaired-but-still-broken jaw). And...her heart was still heavy with thoughts of Jinu and how- how unworthy she was of all the kindness she's been shown in this new and confusing era.

But the room is filled with Zoey's snores and Mira's even breathing, sounds like the summer wind in the reeds.

And though she is disgusting and despicable for doing so, in the privacy of her mind she lets herself sink into them and travel back to the pond in the mountains behind her home, rimmed with singing reeds and a shade tree whose fluttering leaves had played accompaniment for her gayageum.

But she was a problem solver: promises that first thing in the morning they could see about getting her prescription transferred to a local pharmacy for pickup, coupled with a hot shower, had proven sufficiently calming. Now she was back in the bedroom with Mira and Rumi-nim, sleeping peacefully, and Celine could think.

Sitting heavily on her bed she shoved a hand through her hair, sighing deeply.

She should probably call her secretary in the morning, let him know she was taking an impromptu extended stay on Jeju and to not expect her in Seoul for the next few days. While it was, technically, Rumi-nim's house and Mira and Zoey, she was sure, were more than capable of helping her navigate the twenty-first century, she just...wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. That their needs were met. That there weren't any lingering vestiges of Gwi-Ma or other evils that needed a mudang's intervention.

She grimaced at that latter thought. Rumi-nim, preserve us from-

Completely unbidden, an image of Rumi-nim staring with incomprehension at undergarments popped into her head, derailing her habitual prayer.

Who would have thought the return of the great Rumi-nim would be so...complicated?

Not that she had regrets; it was an honor to be in her presence and she was so polite and thoughtful, how could one begrudge her anything? The same was true for Mira and Zoey.

And all three had been through so much...she just- wanted to make sure they were alright.

So, yes; not going back to Seoul for the foreseeable future. Just a quick trip into town for Zoey's meds. And some meal replacement shakes for Mira. And, now that she was thinking about it, she would need more groceries if she was going to be feeding four people (how much did half-demon deities eat?). Not to mention clothes for the girls, more painkillers, an extra roll of bandages-

But by the time they return from the Kang household, she’s hit her post-shift crash and become far too paranoid to leave Ryu alone—to be left alone—so there she sleeps.

It’s a nice couch, at least.

She wakes up and rolls over, nearly swinging her legs into Ryu’s head before she notices the ridiculous woman has fallen asleep sitting upright on the floor, back against the couch.

Which is… something.

Minji tries not to think too much of it as she slides around her.

She needs coffee before her brain will work. And preferably alcohol before she tries to force yesterday into focus.

Ryu’s bathroom isn’t hard to find, nor is her kitchen hard to navigate once Minji is done there. She not sure if Ryu will wake up, but she still gets out a second mug for coffee either way.

As her brain wakes up, she studies the army of sticky notes and printed off sources arranged surprisingly neatly on Ryu’s floor. There’s a section for some light stalking of Choi Zoey, another that appears to be a rough outline of the Kangs’ business dealings, and a third where it looks like Ryu was trying to figure out the weird chalk markings from the murder scene.

The last section is tasks and unanswered questions:

Who is Joseon LARPer?

Get transcript of 119 call—talk to paramedics/caller/witnesses.

Call Haneul about license plate of Kang car

Minji stares at the last one for a while, wondering exactly how many people Ryu has talked into crimes before her.

//

Rumi has always found physicians to be curious creatures, maddening in their ways—always so insistent on the relationship between the mind and the body, on the need to know things about her in order to treat her properly.

The physicain Zoey is dealing on the phone with appears to be maddening in another way entirely.

“Okay,” she says, “but I’m on Jeju. Which is why I’m trying to get my prescription filled out here. So I can’t really come in.”

From the look on her face, the fool does not suddenly understand.

Rumi considers offering to speak with him—or… not, she supposes, as men do not appear to dominate all such occupations any longer—before recalling that her name no longer carries any weight and her voice no longer knows the words to use.

She is useless.

“What if I made an appointment with a doctor here?” Zoey asks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

And Rumi can do nothing.

What reason has she, if she is not to help those in need of help?

Even if she has spent so many years being told that she was wrong, was a creature of disorder and disharmony, was a fool to take on others’ private problems rather than dealing with her own house, Rumi has always had something she could do.

She looks down at her hands, the bindings weaving over and around them.

"So do you normally sleep like a horse or...?"

She should say something smart back, perhaps about how Park had drooled all over her very nice couch while she slept, but said drooler is passing her a cup of coffee and she needs it.

Thus far: college student Zoey got kidnapped by cultists and watched unwilling cult member Mira get beaten in her defense before they awakened not so ancient, not so evil Rumi. While the three made it out that night, Mira was abducted by her brother when Zoey and Rumi briefly left her alone, leading to Gwi-Ma being summoned and taking Rumi into his realm. Mira and Zoey have recruited shaman Celine to help them fix the situation.

So far: college student Zoey got kidnapped by cultists and watched unwilling cult member Mira get beaten in her defense before they awakened not so ancient, not so evil Rumi. While the three made it out and to the hospital that night, Mira was taken back by her family when Zoey and Rumi briefly left her alone. Now, though, Rumi seems to have found a trail…

Mira swings her bare heel, tries to kick his fucking skull in. He catches her leg easily with a laugh and ties it down too.

“What? You don’t think she’d have been more bearable with a broken jaw, Mimi?”

How could she have ever doubted whether or not she wants him dead? It feels like this is punishment for her private hesitation.

Her brother leans closer, and there’s nothing at all she can do to take advantage of that. He forces a loop in her restraints and hooks them above her head. “Say, ‘go fuck yourself, asshole’ if you don’t agree,” he tells her sweetly.

She tries. She really does. If ever there was a time she would truly give anything, anything to tell her brother to go fuck himself, it’s now.

She gets nothing but a dizzying surge of pain and more hot, humiliating tears she can’t even wipe away for her trouble.

“Aw, I knew you’d agree. Look at us. The picture of filial harmony. Dad would’ve been proud.” The bastard reaches out to wipe the tears for her, and she can’t even bite his fucking hand.

He’s still monologuing as he walks away. Misogynistic fucking hypocrite. “He made a lot of mistakes, our dear old dad. Imagine trying to release an ancient evil and getting a legendary hero instead. Em-barrassing!”

Mira spares a brief moment imagining Rumi’s face at being called a legendary hero. Motherfucker. She’d have loved to see that.

“No worries, I’ve got a better idea for round two. Not such a useless humanities degree now, is it?”

She cannot believe she’s going to die at the hands of this fucking loser. That degree was bought with Daddy’s fucking money.

“Now this guy, he’s the real deal. Apparently he’s the one that little stripey girly of yours had beef with way back when. King of Demons, All Consuming Flame Made Manifest, all kinds of fun nicknames like that.”

He crouches down to smooth out the uneven edges of one of the intricate lines he’d drawn all around the ancient fireplace, and steps back.

Of course, the part where that reveals Mira tied up in the living room with one of the cult creeps standing over her and some unpleasantly glowing writing on the floor kind of puts a damper on that vibe.

Mira thrashes at the sight of them, trying and failing to say something, while cult boy freezes for a moment and then starts reading faster, flicking the lighter in his hand with more urgency. Zoey, like a sensible civilian, hops herself down to let Rumi do her thing.

Rumi, unlike a sensible hero, stands there and growls. “Stop this. Now. You will have no other warnings.”

Cult boy doesn’t stop shit. He doesn’t even break his ritual reading to reply, his words coming faster: “All Consuming Flame Made Manifest, Gwi-Ma, Creator of Shadow, I give an offering unto ye.”

Which is when Rumi finally, finally strides across the room and hits him in the face.

His head snaps back with a sickening crack.

But the sick purple glow rising from the runes in the floor doesn’t fade. And his voice doesn’t stop. It—it doesn’t even sound like he’s reading anymore. It’s something else. “Come into this world, Father of Ten Thousand Shames, a doorway is made.”

Rumi hits him again. Mira makes a sick sound at the sight of the mass of bloody flesh formerly known as cult boy’s face. Zoey scrambles for something, anyway to do so that she doesn’t look.

She stumbles across the floor and to her knees, scrubbing at the binding. Nothing happens.

Cult boy flicks the lighter. It finally catches.

Rumi snarls, “Your evil will not return to this realm.”

And Zoey spits on the floor and scrubs some more and—

Magenta flares through her vision like a fucking flashbang. She thinks she hears someone screaming.

She thinks maybe it’s her.

Because the bang part? The bang is every wretched little insecurity she’s ever had punching her in the throat, clawing at her chest, clawing awful grooves on the shape of her mind. Too much not enough freak nobody has ever wanted you once they’ve seen what you’re really like.

And then silence.

Zoey blinks down at the mussed chalk beneath her hands, waiting for the spots to fade. Waiting for the feeling of slime clinging to her back teeth to fade.

Rumi touches her restraints, and Mira flinches.

She immediately wants to apologize. But Rumi beats her to it.

“A thousand apologies, my lady, but this must be done,” Rumi says as she releases Mira from her bonds, eyes downcast. “I truly regret causing you pain.”

But she didn’t, of course, it was only her stupid fucking brother, who just had to—to live up to their father’s expectations, to leave her alone in her room night after night, to go and fucking die.

She grips her numb and aching wrists, and Rumi’s strong hands cover hers. She lets herself lean into the touch.

A deep, booming laughter fills the room, fills her chest, fills her head. “Did you think it enough, to silence my summoner? He was but a vessel.” 

Rumi seizes like she’s been shocked. Mira can see her muscles straining. But her grip is still gentle.

“I thank you for releasing my welcome gift,” says the reverberating voice. “I do prefer them to come willingly. And I see you’ve brought another.”

Rumi takes an audible, trembling breath in front of her. It’s disconcerting, seeing her so shaken.

And the thought strikes her, pervasive, overwhelming, debilitatingly familiar: Look how useless you are. An eternal liability. You are just like your family. Did you think you were better? You’re worse. They had each other, and you have no one. What are you even living for? 

“No,” Rumi is telling her firmly. Mira can see that she’s gripping her arms, but she can’t quite feel it. It seems removed, irrelevant. What does it matter? “It is not true,” Rumi says. “Whatever you are hearing. Whatever you are feeling. Know yourself, as I know you.”

What about her is worthy of being known? Nothing, nothing.

Isn’t it?

“You are valued. You are cared for. I care for you.” Something, something is happening around them. Noises, motion, impact. “Hrrgh!” Rumi growls. “I wish I had more time. Please, know!” And the distant warmth of Rumi’s touch leaves her.

Know… She knows enough. She knows her family had been hurting people, she’s always known. She did nothing, because she is nothing. She should join them in nothingness. But then—

A sob.

Rumi is gone.

She hopes.

And then it’s back into the city—this time, at least, by car.

Zoey drives, judiciously ignoring the speed limit in favor of finding Rumi. She’s not sure she really should be, but Mira gave her the keys with an expectant look and she already—fuck, she already lost Rumi after letting her physically carry her. She’s not making Mira drive, no matter how much her feet hurt or the fact that she hasn’t taken her meds today or what.

(Wouldn’t it be kinder to everyone if you just stopped? Stopped overwhelming them, stopped failing them, stopped being such a problem?)

(Zoey tries her best to ignore the voice, still stuck in the back of her head.)

“I only know the one shaman,” she says. “And, I mean, she just, like… did a reading for me and some classmates one time and scared the shit out of us. I dunno if this is really gonna be any help.”

Mira scowls at her, and reaches across the gear shift to squeeze Zoey’s hand.

“Sorry,” Zoey says, the fingers of her free hand tapping at the wheel. “I—I shouldn’t be talking like this, I mean, pity party, table for one! You’ve had a much shittier twenty-four hours.”

Mira huffs, like Zoey isn’t getting it.

Zoey winces. She never does, does she? “Sorry! I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it, I just kinda start rambling and never know when to shut my mouth, and, well, you can’t really do it for me so it’s gonna be a real problem today I think.”

Mira groans this time, because Zoey’s still on the wrong track.

(Wouldn’t it be easier?)

Grumpily, she retrieves her phone and starts tapping away at it. After a minute or so, the flat, computerized voice of text-to-speech says, “You need to be nicer to yourself. This isn’t a competition.”

…And Zoey’s such a mess that now Mira’s comforting her. Great.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sorry.”

Then she starts studying the GPS so she won’t say anything stupider.

There aren’t any parking spots open near the shaman’s place, so Zoey uses all of the skill taught to her in both Burbank and Seoul and stops the car right under the No Parking sign, throwing on the hazards.

Who cares if they tow it? It’s not her car, and she’s got places to be.

“Welcome to Sunlight,” Zoey says, and turns off the car.

Also, the shaman has an administrative assistant, which Mira also hadn’t been expecting.

“Pretty pretty please,” Zoey is begging said assistant. “It’s a real supernatural emergency, I’m so serious about this. Like, she is gonna regret missing out on this… opportunity.”

“Mudang-nim has requested not to be disturbed this evening,” the assistant insists politely.

Zoey makes a face that could fell the greatest warrior. Mira knows from personal experience. “Could you maybe just tell her it’s Zoey? From class 3-C? And you could tell her she was right? Bosses love hearing that, right?”

The assistant clearly is not completely unaffected—he is just human, after all—but he seems to be holding strong. He’s just starting to give another probable polite refusal when the shaman’s door swings open.

“Zoey? I thought I’d heard your voice. Please, come in.”

Despite her earlier pleas, Zoey seems a little shocked to be so easily remembered. She shoots Mira a slack jawed look, to which Mira offers only a raised eyebrow and a subtle ‘get it together’ shoulder roll. Zoey nods. They follow the shaman inside.

The shaman is as surprisingly tasteful as her office, in an understated but well-tailored suit that flatters her silhouette. Somewhat disappointingly, her personal office has no ugly carpets either.

“Please, sit,” she says in her calm yet musical voice. “How may I help you?”

This is the lady who scared baby high school Zoey?

But Zoey does seem quite nervous. “Okay, so, remember how you’d told me back then that I’d find myself in a situation I can’t escape on my own, and the fate of many things you refused to elaborate on depended on the outcome? Well, you were right, I was kidnapped, by a cult, who tried to awaken some ancient evil, I guess, but they accidentally busted out an ancient hero instead, and she was super nice, but a bit confused and maybe lonely, and she saved us, but then the cultists kidnapped Mira—hi, this is Mira, she can’t speak right now—and they tried to release the ancient evil anyway, and the hero tried to fight it, or it attacked her or something—it was kind of confusing, and I was, uh—preoccupied—but Rumi defeated it, I think, and then she—disappeared.” Zoey takes a deep breath.

Celine circles around her desk to open—oh, okay, she’s opening the fucking safe.

She removes a lacquered wooden box, and from the box a scroll. It unrolls across her desk into a beautiful ink wash portrait of… Rumi.

Mira hiccups over a gasp, and Zoey clutches her arm tightly in solidarity, staring. There she is with her long purple braid, bright golden eyes staring back at them, a sword leveled at an invisible enemy.

(Though, she notes, none of the tattoos that wove all across her skin.)

“Yeah,” Zoey croaks, feeling something unwind out of her, a thread searching and not finding Rumi, real Rumi, there to catch the other end. “Yeah, her.”

It was really stupid of her to expect the terrifying shaman would be any less terrifying on second go-round.

“Sit,” Celine says again, this time a command. “Why is Mira unable to speak right now, a binding?”

“Oh, no, uh, well—“

As Zoey stumbles to try to get it out, Mira simply resorts to baring her teeth, showing the wires.

“Ah.” Celine’s lips thin and she nods in understanding. “That, I cannot help with. From the beginning then, every detail. Mira, write down anything you think might be relevant.”

“Sorry,” Zoey says, unable to just listen, always unable to just get something done when her brain’s flying off somewhere. She gestures helplessly at the scroll on the desk. “I just—why? Why do have… How do you know… Rumi?”

But Mira huffs in agreement, and Celine doesn’t seem to mind having a useless idiot on her hands.

She softens a little, looking down at the scroll. “I became a mudang when I was seventeen years old. I’m seseummu, just Ike my teacher was, and her teacher before her—I’m sure there have been kangshinmu somewhere in the mix, but our lineage has largely been taught to those who were chosen and trusted, not those who earned it by inheritance.”

(Zoey thinks that seventeen sounds very young, all things considered. She manages to keep her mouth shut.)

“It is an order of sorts, a sacred oath which each teaches to the next generation.” She gestures to Rumi. “To watch for her. To care for her home. To do as she would have done, and care for those around us who did not have power, fighting off the dark and flame.”

Zoey looks at Mira and finds her looking back with the smallest of smiles, clearly knowing that Rumi would go bright red and stutter out something about how she “merely had a duty” if she got the chance to hear Celine’s speech, their ridiculous hero.

“Yeah,” she says. “Sounds like Rumi.”

“Tell me about her?” Celine asks, and this time it is softer, gentler, almost searching. How couldn’t it be, when she’s devoted her whole life to this?

Anyway, Mira's not surprised she's the sort to not leave any details out, even though Bobby and Ji-Hoon being in the entertainment industry and the name of the nurse who attended her have no bearing on what brought them to Celine's office.

But Celine doesn't mind, just sits there at her desk, hands resting on her knee, and nodding along; every now and then her lips quirk in something like a smile when she mentions that Rumi liked (no, 'likes,' she's not dead, Mira refuses to accept that) apple juice and was 'weird about seams.'

It's...nice, the way she listens. Mira's parents weren't ever like that, and from what Zoey said in the car and the way she spends the first few minutes of her telling pausing and glancing at Celine like she expects to be told to hurry up and get to the point, she has a hunch hers weren't either.

(Why would anyone have wanted to listen to you? What would you have said of consequence? You never were good enough for them anyway)

She focuses harder on Zoey.

"And he'd drawn all these marks on the floor," Zoey continues, having reached Mira's recently-trashed parlor, "just like the ones in the cave- whoops, forgot to mention those earlier, in my defense I was coming off some pretty heavy stuff and-"

"What sort of marks?" Celine sits straighter in her chair the placid demeanor sharpening as she narrows her eyes.

"Um, like...not really hangul, but something like..." Zoey waves her hands around and Mira shoves the notepad and pen Celine had given her in them. Lightning fast, Zoey whips out a sketch of a handful of the marks Mira remembered her parents drawing on the cavern floor. She's good; Mira knows she couldn't have done half as good a likeness.

She turns the notepad towards Celine. "This?"

Celine leans over her desk to get a closer look, then stands abruptly. "And I presume he recited an incantation?"

"Yeah!" Zoey nods at a speed that has Mira's neck twinging. "And then there was this light- legit thought I was getting flashbanged- and-"

"You heard a voice."

It's not a question. Mira stiffens. Next to her, Zoey freezes. That seems to be all the confirmation Celine needs of...something.

She produces a key from the air and slots it in to a drawer in her desk, pulling out an oilskin pouch that looks horribly out of place in the sleek, modern office. She undoes the leather thong tying it shut and opens it; Mira can't describe it, but it seems like the room grows darker even as the sunlight continues to filter through the blinds.

"That was Gwi-Ma," she says, pulling a piece of vellum from the little pouch.

Recognition clicks in Mira's mind and she grabs back the notepad. My brother mentioned some fire-lord Gwi-Ma. He was trying to summon him.

Rumi recites her improvised mantra as insistently as she can, like it might build a wall around her. As if by acknowledging the fact, she can keep it from impacting her.

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

Jinu snickers at her. “Shit, Rumi, I thought you were smarter than that.”

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

(She knows it isn’t him. That this is merely an illusion, using his face and whatever remnants of the soul Gwi-Ma has long since consumed that the demon can still draw upon. She has seen enough wraiths to know it isn’t him.)

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

“Well, not smarter, but at least more creative. Where’s that famous poetry, huh?” he asks.

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

Fingers draw up, up, up—and claws slice their way down.

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place. Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place. Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

“My dear friend drips her life out in moments,” Jinu says.

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

“—I sing for—“

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

“—and she sings back, nonetheless.”

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

(The problem, now, is that he sounds like Jinu. Not like any of the people who have spoken to her since the binding was broken. He sounds like Jinu, her beloved friend.)

“I know you have heard me,” he says, teasingly. Affectionately.

Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

“Rumi,” he sighs. “All I ask… Is it so much that you would sing with me once more?”

Gwi-Ma’s realm is—

Rumi screams.

She needs to make sure the cult is fully exterminated and no longer able to kidnap innocent young scholars like Zoey. She needs to make sure Mira has someone to guard her until her jaw is whole.

She needs to make sure they don't fall to Gwi-Ma like JInu had.

"You know, I gotta say those bindings? It's a good look on you."

Rumi sets her jaw as she continues marching through the thoroughly unpleasant place, keeping her eyes trained straight ahead instead of drifting towards the illusion of Jinu drifting beside her.

Gwi-Ma is baiting her. He wants her to speak to the wraith, engage with it, let it get in her head and worm its way down to her soul so despair can take root.

So she doesn't. Even though it's...hard.

"They really scream 'I'm a failure,' but in an eloquent way. "

He always knew how to raise her up, but also bristle her hackles.

The illusion of Jinu swoops to pluck a withered dandelion from the ground, stem turning black and brittle at his touch; he watches it crumble to ash and drift away on an invisible wind. "Too bad your little friends up there had to see them. Can't imagine what they thought."

Rumi tastes blood as she bites the inside of her cheek hard. She has to stay silent; she has to ignore; she has to get back to Mira and Zoey.

She cannot fail them, too. Unless...she already has.

What if Gw-Ma is already in their ears, sinking the viper's fangs into their souls?

She marches faster.

Not-Jinu lists his brows and she mentally curses Gwi-Ma for having infused this wraith with Jinu's knowledge of her tells. "You didn't tell them?"

Rumi tenses her neck before she can shake her head in reply. She glances upward, scanning the void serving as a sky for- she's not sure, a way out? A distraction? The stars?

"Why not?"

March march march; Gwi-Ma's realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

"Ah...I see."

She misses the stars...she's just gotten here and she already misses the stars.

Jinu's breath is merciless winter in her ear. "You're ashamed."

It’s… bad. The body formerly known as Mira’s brother has started to smell. It makes her feel disgusting to hide out in the hall.

(Didn’t you always hate the way he wouldn’t look when you were hurting?)

She just stands there. She wants to puke, but she can’t puke, or she’ll choke on it, which is why you’re supposed to carry wire cutters, she’s pretty sure, but she doesn’t even know because her fucking brother kidnapped her from the hospital before she could get any care instructions.

Her brother. Who is dead. Who will never do anything like that again. Who will never do anything again.

Like her father. Who is dead. Like probably most of everyone she knows.

Fuck, Mira’s face hurts. The ice and ibuprofen barely did anything and they’re already starting to wear off.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, face hurting, feeling something that isn’t grief so much as—absence, of all these awful people who she has known her entire life. It doesn’t hurt, or at least she doesn’t want it to. But her face does.

Eventually, the shaman shows up, and looks at her with something oddly gentle in her face, makes Mira want to scream at her, and walks her to the kitchen.

Zoey is making smoothies. So Mira can—

(You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve any of it.)

Mira doesn’t say no, even if she can’t force it down. She takes the ice cold glass in both hands and holds it as they walk back out, Zoey’s apology for not being able to find her a sillier straw landing like a rock in her gut.

She tries to smile. It’s okay. Her face hurts.

She sits shotgun, even though the shaman is even taller than her. She holds the glass in both hands.

When was the last time she ate?

“It appears,” the shaman explains, leaning forward between the seats, “that Gwi-Ma has taken Rumi to his realm and retreated after her—likely wanting to make certain that she will not be able to rally a resistance against him a second time.”

There’s a certain way she says ‘Rumi’. It fits careful in her mouth, a holy unfamiliarity. Mira wants to tell her about how Rumi smiles, goofy and too wide on her mouth. She wants to tell her how Rumi looks at people, like they matter immeasurably.

“So how do we get her back?” Zoey asks.

Mira’s fingers twitch against the glass. That’s an assumption, isn’t it?

“We would have to find a way to bring her to the gate,” the shaman says, slowly. “An anchor of some kind—something for her soul to want to hold onto.”

Mira can’t help herself this time. She looks, sick-feeling, back at the house. At the room her brother is a pulverized and stinking corpse in.

“No!” the shaman says hurriedly. “Mira, the gate isn’t physically tied to one place. I only needed to see the markings. What we’ll do to close it won’t be there.”

The relief is shameful. She bobs her head in thanks and can’t look anyone in the eyes.

What would it have mattered if it were? Would she have really let her family keep hurting people, even now that they were dead and she didn’t have a single excuse left?

“So, the way you’re talking, I’m guessing you know how to do the gate thing but—“ Zoey pauses, not judgmental, just hesitant as she gestures between herself and Mira. “—we have to figure out how to get Rumi there?”

No—Gwi-Ma’s realm is a thoroughly unpleasant place.

A miscalculation. Claws rake across her back again.

This is the paradox of this place: the more present she is, the truer she will make it, and the harder it will be to escape. But if she does not—if she allows this shadow of her dearest friend to kill her—she will remain here nonetheless.

“Finally getting it, are you?” says Jinu, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “You were always a little—”

Rumi slams into him, ramming her shoulder into his abdomen. She grabs his arm and hip into the motion and throws him over her back. He lands on the hard-packed earth with a thump. “Slow?” she finishes for him.

Jinu’s eyes flash. He sweeps a leg, but she’s wise to his tricks. She jumps over it, landing directly into a spin kick. It catches the side of his head, and he’s down again. She grabs him by his shirt—embroidered by his own hand—and slams him into the ground. Again. Again.

The air is dry. She feels it scrape her throat as she breathes. She feels the cracks in the ground through the flimsy material covering her knees. A drop of blood is traveling an unpleasant path down her arm and to the crease of her elbow. The body beneath her hands yields easily to the violence of her will, as they always do.

Jinu-not-Jinu stares up at her, silent, wheezing. He does not ask her to sing. He does not belittle her technique. He does not grin and cackle. He is no longer her beloved friend, but only a vanquished foe, and it feels good. It feels right. She feels powerful, as is her birthright.

No, no, no—Gwi-Ma’s realm is an unpleasant—Gwi-Ma’s realm is thoroughly—Gwi-Ma—

She lets go of the embroidered shirt and stumbles back, scrabbling across the dry, dusty ground.

another collection of sketches! trying to figure them all out still

+single shots of the bigger ones (gay ppl real)

Zoey—normal college student, doesn’t believe in demons, does believe in Bigfoot, mixed on aliens—gets kidnapped by a cult. This is, as one might expect, distressing. Traumatizing even

It is still dark, or at least as dark as it ever gets in the city, lights spilling in through the giant windows.