"Follow Your Bliss"

" Cute koala 🐨" // © Shahzad Ahmad

I think it's the first time I draw them like this, although it's difficult to draw kisses...

This sketch is incredible. Perfect moment to capture. 10/10 for the artist.

Link to post

Rewatched Raya and have forgotten how much I love her!!

Currently: the gang are still road tripping to the siege of Seoul—but the party has split after a magic sparring session for the newbies to practice exorcism left Rumi injured by the backlash, with Mira leading the non-Rumi and Celine faction in asking “why the fuck didn’t you tell us that would hurt her?”

And things have only gotten worse with Mira’s realization that she was the only one to actually hurt Rumi.

When the other woman finally does speak, it's just to say that she's found a hotel and texted the others the pin, and then "Left, at the light." Celine turns the car with a nod. She hopes, distantly, that Miyeong-ssi isn't uncomfortable— she's not fidgeting, this time, at least— but can't quite bring herself to ask.

Actually, what Miyeong-ssi is, is blunt, and Celine really should have expected it a few roads later when she says, abrupt, "You're very in your head."

It almost makes Celine smile, in spite of herself, but all she offers in return is a reserved, "I have a lot to think about."

"Tell me. Things usually make more sense when you say them out loud. Take a right two streets up," Miyeong-ssi adds, absently.

And honestly, the better part of Celine wants to take her up on it. Miyeong-ssi has proven easy to talk to, and sensible when she actually wants to be, and Celine would love to think she could lessen the burden of the tangling nest of knots in her head.

But the idea of putting any of it into words that make a shred of sense feels almost absurd. Where could she even start?

The great Rumi-nim, maybe, the root and reason of five centuries of mudang who have forgotten or never knew that she was half a demon, all along. That she was burdened to wield one of the most cruel and terrifying powers a shaman can be called to fight. That Celine had watched four people who she is responsible for, who she is meant to protect, succumb to that power in front of her, under hands she was taught to know as the peak of righteousness.

Perhaps that even if everyone at the table had severed her as hard as Mira had, Celine knows Rumi-nim would have thought little of it, would not have been distressed by simple pain, that there was no such pain regardless, and yet with every moment of their practice something had been making her more and more distraught. That Celine can guess at five explanations that might fit and none that she can do a thing whatsoever about.

Or, of course, the argument. The compounding mistakes, one after another: forgetting Mira and Zoey's civilian perspective; not realizing that the potential danger of exorcism might not be self-evident; failing to diffuse the situation; failing to fully divert Mira's anger in the aftermath. The way that Celine's cascading negligence has hurt all three of them so badly, has driven a wedge between Rumi-nim and her strongest support.

Guilt and shame are the left hand of Gwi-Ma, she tries to remind herself. It's about as effective as it ever is.

"Right lane, up here," says Miyeong-ssi, gentle and patient.

"...I've never had students, before." Celine checks her blind spot and merges, and catches on Miyeong-ssi's eyes, brown like dark leather, before pulling her gaze back to the road. "It's a virtue, in my order. Rumi-nim was known to be a great teacher, and we're encouraged to… 'plant knowledge wherever it might bloom', is the mantra."

"That's kind of sweet," says Miyeong-ssi, like she means it.

“I am trying to understand, but I—” Rumi stumbles. “I am not a horse, easily frightened and unsettled by unexpected pain. I am an experienced warrior. Such brief discomfort is nothing to me. I’d gladly take it again.”

“Maybe it’s not about you!” Mira snaps. “For once!”

Rumi flinches. 

Fuck. Fuck. Mira didn’t mean to snap. She keeps doing this.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and controlled through her nose. This needs to be fucking said. She needs to fucking say it.

“I was thirteen,” she starts, quiet and careful, looking out the window. She doesn't want to see their faces. But the abrupt hush is palpable nonetheless. “The first time they used me in a ritual. They figured I was old enough, I guess. Before that, they'd just leave me locked in my room. I'd thought that was the worst thing in the world, back then. I couldn't imagine anything could be…”

The voice chokes off in her throat. 

A hand settles on her thigh, a warm, reassuring weight. Zoey. Zoey’s warm, reassuring hand.

Mira breathes. 

“But of course it could. That was stupid of me.” Mira clicks her tongue impatiently. “I still remember the first time that I… They gave me something to read, and it was difficult, the words didn't make sense. I was so focused on getting all the sounds right, I didn't even notice until the lamb had already,” she takes a gasping breath, “already exploded.”

They’d passed by a farm a few kilometers back, clearly visible through the car window. No sheep, though. Only cows. Much bigger animal, the cow. So much more blood in it.

“I didn't throw that shirt out for years. The blood stains had set in after the first wash. They thought it was funny.”

Zoey’s hand spasms against her thigh.

“By ‘they’, I mean my evil fucking blood cultist family,” Mira grits out. “In case that wasn't clear.”

“Yes,” says Rumi, unusually subdued. “It was clear.”

Mira scoffs. “Was it? Great! I'm so glad that was clear.”

She can hear Rumi shift uncomfortably in her seat. 

She hazards a glance. Rumi's hand is clenched, and she's frowning intensely. 

“I—” Rumi cuts herself off. Starts up again. “It is a flaw of my character, that I often fail to see others with clarity. I know it. I wish I—I’d like to—”

Her nails drive grooves in the material of her pants, her knuckles white. Mira feels a familiar twinge in her chest. 

She turns toward Rumi. “Okay,” she says. “I get it. I'll be clear, then. I've been made to hurt others. A lot. I didn't fully understand what was happening and I was not able to stop it. It made me feel—Fuck.” She sucks in a wheezy breath. 

Zoey crowds closer, so now their knees are pressed together, and she takes Mira’s hand, and she squeezes. Her elbow is a hard unyielding angle against Mira’s side.

“Thanks,” Mira mutters. “It made me feel—bad. If you ever make me do that again, to you, or anyone else, I'm done. Got it?”

Rumi is—hungry, and cruel, and viciously curling with corruption.

But she wants to say yes. She wants to say it without any of the caveats that spring to mind. She wants to remake the world itself until she will never, ever have to see Mira suffer again.

She shifts her gaze to Zoey, stuck in between them. “This is your issue as well? That you were not… offered full understanding of the possibility of harm?”

And Zoey, still pressed against Mira’s side, nods.

“I had not meant to deceive you,” Rumi says, and this part, at least, is one of the easiest vows she has ever had to make. “I shall endeavor in the utmost not to do so again.”

“Thank God,” Minji-nim sighs in the front seat, which would almost break the tension. It makes Zoey laugh, certainly.

Mira takes a shuddering breath. Her fingers lock around the seatbelt where it crosses her chest, knuckles going white, and then she releases with a small shake. “Okay. Good. I’m glad you—get it. Thank you.”

Rumi hates herself.

“However,” she says, fixing her gaze out the window past them, watching the world pass at dizzying speed, “I cannot promise that you will not be put in a position where it is necessary to harm me again.”

Silence.

Rumi barrels forward. It is her favorite tactic, after all: engage aggressively until the enemy is defeated.

The sickness boiling at the back of her throat does not matter.

“I am not good, Mira. One of my feet lies in the realms infernal, and it seeks always to change my path. It is mere—“

“So what?” Mira says.

Rumi is startled enough to turn her gaze, and find Mira with her brows furrowed and face awkwardly set to keep her jaw loose.

“It’s not the darkness that covers up the stars,” Zoey whisper-shouts, her own anger barely suppressed by a veil of gentleness.

Rumi cringes, thinking of the song that had brought her back to herself. “I am not saying—that does not deny the risk—“

Zoey can feel Rumi and Mira flinch at her volume, and she can see Minji-nim wince in the rearview mirror, but honestly? She doesn't care.

Ever since Mira blew up at Rumi and Celine before storming off on the ferry she has been trying and trying and trying to be what they needed: a sounding board for flaming tirades, a smiling face to ease the burn that lingers after, a comforting hand on a knee during trauma-inducing stories about exploding baby animals (which- yikes, good thing she was recruited to help Celine with the dead chicken and not Mira, it's never a good time for war flashbacks), and just- everything!

She got ice!

And now- despite everything- Rumi still wasn't getting it, Mira was still angry, and Zoey- and Zoey-

And Zoey still felt like she did before the divorce. When she couldn't stop the fighting, and when no one noticed- or cared to notice- how she was hurting too.

But she can't fucking take it anymore!

She jabs a finger at Rumi, the back of her braid thumping against the window as she startles back. "Do not- I repeat do not!- keep talking about yourself like that!"

"Like what?" Rumi asks, neck bending in an elegant curve as she tilts her head, genuinely confused.

Zoey growls. How can she be so dense? And still hot? "Like you're some dog carrying rabies that's about to go all Cujo on us!" And you know what? She doesn't care if Rumi doesn't get that reference, let her figure it out! "We get it, you're a half demon, we sang the heavy metal song to pull you out of hell! But that doesn't change the fact that we like you!"

Surprise blazes across Rumi's face. Zoey really should have seen that coming.

"Perhaps so," Rumi says, quietly, turning her face to the window, like what she's saying is a done deal. "But it does not change what I am. You cannot change my past, my father succumbing to the temptation of a demon."

Zoey clenches her hands in her lap before she starts literally tearing her hair out. Really should've seen that coming too. "Well I don't fucking care! And neither does Mira! And I really doubt Minji-nim does!"

"Minji-nim doesn't," from the driver's seat.

"So maybe, if you won't be kind to your own sake, think about what you're doing to the rest of us! To Mira and- and me!"

Her eyes are burning and she dashes a hand across them, sniffing harshly, waiting.

Waiting for Rumi to be her parents and not care.

Waiting for Rumi to be better and say she did.

Waiting…to see if she was going to lose this, too.

Rumi's quiet, then:

"There are…things, that can happen in battle." The rumble of the car over the road nearly swallows her words. "Terrible things. Things that would make the mighty weep. When demons are involved, it is worse. I do not answer to Gwi-Ma, he is not privy to my thoughts, he does now own my soul, he cannot control me as he would a person or a full demon, but…" she pauses, and in the almost-silence Zoey can hear clashing swords and agonized screams and shadows darkening souls.

Mira's hand grips hers, and Zoey leans back into her.

"But there are still ways."

The car grows cold.

Celine casts a quick, offended look in her direction.

“Sorry,” she repeats, trying to keep the laugh from her voice. “I just… Celine-ssi, you’ve known them for all of a week—less, for Rumi, and even less for Minji and I—and you’re already counting yourself out?”

Celine keeps her expression mostly impassive, eyes fixed on the road, but she can’t stop herself from blushing (a soft, pretty pink that Miyeong should not be thinking about right now). “I am merely considering my actions moving forward.”

…As it turns out, their dignified shaman has a ridiculous side to her, too. Miyeong kind of loves it.

Miyeong shakes her head, leaning back against the seat. “Look, do I not like that we were hurting Rumi without you two telling us that? Sure. But you clearly didn’t lie to us on purpose, and now you know to communicate more in the future. It’s not as bad as all that.”

Celine nods, slowly. Her right hand drifts from the steering wheel and her left hand slides down it, closer to the casual posture she’d adopted later in the first leg of their trip.

Score one for the chill approach!

“It is not good to enter battle without unity, especially spiritual warfare,” she says, at length.

…So maybe not.

“Minji works in an ER,” Miyeong points out. “She’s an expert in idiots. Even if Mira and Rumi can’t communicate, she’ll get through, I promise.”

“Yes, but I—“ Celine purses her lips and flushes again, shaking her head. “I’m sure she will. Did we remember to give her the protein shakes?”

“Yeah,” Miyeong says.

Yes, but I should’ve.

It makes sense, when she thinks about it: Celine has spent at least two decades in this order of hers, and the literal founder of the thing—or… spiritual founder? Inspiration? Diety? Honestly, Miyeong isn’t sure—turns up out of the blue and turns out to be some college kid with too much heart and not enough self-worth.

Miyeong would be a little insecure about herself too.

The question is just how to address it without making it weird.

It's probably an insane response to an honestly pretty condescending statement, but Miyeong-ssi means no harm, and she's just so ridiculous. So utterly unconcerned with how she's perceived, so willing to make a spectacle of herself if she thinks it will help anyone else feel better, so willing to say the wrong thing as many times as needed to get to the right one.

Celine corrals her grin and looks over at the other woman, and finds her staring at Celine, stunned, a pretty flush high on her cheeks, embarrassment tinting her ears red, and Celine's grin is back just as quickly at the sight.

"Alright, then," she says, because she can't help teasing if that's going to be the result. "What necessary jobs am I doing?"

"I— you— hmph." Miyeong-ssi tilts her chin up and turns away in Celine's periphery. "You have the credit card, obviously. Walking wallet. Very important."

It's a tease of her own, but it's also a reminder of yet another practicality, and Celine sobers a little. "Might as well go ahead and book the rooms for tonight, speaking of my credit card. If we break for more than twenty minutes in Cheonan we won't get in until nine."

"Ugh, mobile websites always suck for booking," says Miyeong-ssi, but she pulls the hotel back up obligingly. "How many rooms? Two is cheaper…"

"Just get three doubles," Celine says. "The order has money to spare, and I'm not putting any two of Rumi-nim and her friends in the same room. If we're going to be facing wraiths tomorrow I want them actually sleeping."

Miyeong-ssi makes a little chuff of amusement. "Good point."

There's a moment of quiet, as she types, and Celine lets herself enjoy the landscape, green and gold around them as they roll steadily north.

"Three doubles booked to Jang Celine." The little confirmation bloop rings out of Miyeong-ssi's phone, and then she adds, slyly, "Money to spare, eh?"

Celine rolls her eyes, but she smiles, too (a combination which is becoming a habit, around Miyeong-ssi). "To spare, not to spend frivolously. But yes, otherworldly advice has as much economic use as it does material. We've made a few key investments, over the years."

"Elegant and rich. I don't suppose your order has an opening for a kept woman? Sit around, tell dumb stories, tell you you're all very pretty, live in luxury, that sort of thing?"

"I'll be sure to bring it up at the next regional meet-up," Celine says, dryly. Ridiculous. She's an absolutely ridiculous woman.

It’s not as gentle as she could be, but the work they do isn’t gentle, either. Sometimes they just need to have someone remind them that everyone has days from hell, and all of the people who just caused theirs are having one too.

Rumi’s issue is that she is, quite frankly, both cursed and special, and probably literal enough to miss the point anyway.

So Minji decides not to come at it so directly.

“Well,” she says, “I know more ways to kill you than you can possibly think of, and I’m incredibly vulnerable to a wraith right now.”

And then she turns the radio up to pretend it’s drowning out Rumi’s choking.

She can still hear the argument resuming in the backseat, starting with Rumi’s “That’s different!” but it gives her something to do to prevent her from intervening too much, and presents them with the idea that they have to figure this out, since she’s getting tired of their nonsense.

Deceptive? A bit. Effective? She hopes.

“Oh, so you get to be offended by people you care about talking shit about themselves?” Mira bites back. “Sure, it’s different that I can read the binding on your face and Zoey could just punch it, but both are true, Rumi!”

“And neither one is less likely to happen than you hurting us, so you can just stop,” Zoey finishes. “Unless you really don’t trust us.”

“Of course I trust you,” Rumi says, with genuine offense, and Minji thinks that she’s finally on the right track.

The static of the radio blares loud, suddenly, drowning out the old pop song the host was just trying to call a “classic” (Minji can admit the nineties were thirty years ago, thank you very much) as they get farther away from wherever they’re broadcasting.

(Honestly, Minji’s just following the other car. If she loses gem, she’ll be utterly and completely lost.)

It’s quiet when she finally finishes retuning and turning down the radio—staticky as shit, still, out her e in the middle of nowhere, but almost comprehensible.

She risks a glance backwards via the rearview mirror. Mira and Rumi are holding hands over Zoey’s lap (while Rumi stares out the window, bright red, possibly slightly trapped), and Zoey looks pleased rather than pained about the situation.

Minji turns the static down a little more. “Didn’t I give you the aux?”

4 year old me: why must we do this

Fantastic old woman in the leopard print coat: "Why yes, my tooth IS real silver! Nobody ever asks me that. Do you like cats?"

Currently: the gang are still road tripping to the siege of Seoul—but the party has split after a magic sparring session for the newbies to practice exorcism left Rumi injured by the backlash, with Mira leading the non-Rumi and Celine faction in asking “why the fuck didn’t you tell us that would hurt her?”

And things have only gotten worse with Mira’s realization that she was the only one to actually hurt Rumi.

When the other woman finally does speak, it's just to say that she's found a hotel and texted the others the pin, and then "Left, at the light." Celine turns the car with a nod. She hopes, distantly, that Miyeong-ssi isn't uncomfortable— she's not fidgeting, this time, at least— but can't quite bring herself to ask.

Actually, what Miyeong-ssi is, is blunt, and Celine really should have expected it a few roads later when she says, abrupt, "You're very in your head."

It almost makes Celine smile, in spite of herself, but all she offers in return is a reserved, "I have a lot to think about."

"Tell me. Things usually make more sense when you say them out loud. Take a right two streets up," Miyeong-ssi adds, absently.

And honestly, the better part of Celine wants to take her up on it. Miyeong-ssi has proven easy to talk to, and sensible when she actually wants to be, and Celine would love to think she could lessen the burden of the tangling nest of knots in her head.

But the idea of putting any of it into words that make a shred of sense feels almost absurd. Where could she even start?

The great Rumi-nim, maybe, the root and reason of five centuries of mudang who have forgotten or never knew that she was half a demon, all along. That she was burdened to wield one of the most cruel and terrifying powers a shaman can be called to fight. That Celine had watched four people who she is responsible for, who she is meant to protect, succumb to that power in front of her, under hands she was taught to know as the peak of righteousness.

Perhaps that even if everyone at the table had severed her as hard as Mira had, Celine knows Rumi-nim would have thought little of it, would not have been distressed by simple pain, that there was no such pain regardless, and yet with every moment of their practice something had been making her more and more distraught. That Celine can guess at five explanations that might fit and none that she can do a thing whatsoever about.

Or, of course, the argument. The compounding mistakes, one after another: forgetting Mira and Zoey's civilian perspective; not realizing that the potential danger of exorcism might not be self-evident; failing to diffuse the situation; failing to fully divert Mira's anger in the aftermath. The way that Celine's cascading negligence has hurt all three of them so badly, has driven a wedge between Rumi-nim and her strongest support.

Guilt and shame are the left hand of Gwi-Ma, she tries to remind herself. It's about as effective as it ever is.

"Right lane, up here," says Miyeong-ssi, gentle and patient.

"...I've never had students, before." Celine checks her blind spot and merges, and catches on Miyeong-ssi's eyes, brown like dark leather, before pulling her gaze back to the road. "It's a virtue, in my order. Rumi-nim was known to be a great teacher, and we're encouraged to… 'plant knowledge wherever it might bloom', is the mantra."

"That's kind of sweet," says Miyeong-ssi, like she means it.

“I am trying to understand, but I—” Rumi stumbles. “I am not a horse, easily frightened and unsettled by unexpected pain. I am an experienced warrior. Such brief discomfort is nothing to me. I’d gladly take it again.”

“Maybe it’s not about you!” Mira snaps. “For once!”

Rumi flinches. 

Fuck. Fuck. Mira didn’t mean to snap. She keeps doing this.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and controlled through her nose. This needs to be fucking said. She needs to fucking say it.

“I was thirteen,” she starts, quiet and careful, looking out the window. She doesn't want to see their faces. But the abrupt hush is palpable nonetheless. “The first time they used me in a ritual. They figured I was old enough, I guess. Before that, they'd just leave me locked in my room. I'd thought that was the worst thing in the world, back then. I couldn't imagine anything could be…”

The voice chokes off in her throat. 

A hand settles on her thigh, a warm, reassuring weight. Zoey. Zoey’s warm, reassuring hand.

Mira breathes. 

“But of course it could. That was stupid of me.” Mira clicks her tongue impatiently. “I still remember the first time that I… They gave me something to read, and it was difficult, the words didn't make sense. I was so focused on getting all the sounds right, I didn't even notice until the lamb had already,” she takes a gasping breath, “already exploded.”

They’d passed by a farm a few kilometers back, clearly visible through the car window. No sheep, though. Only cows. Much bigger animal, the cow. So much more blood in it.

“I didn't throw that shirt out for years. The blood stains had set in after the first wash. They thought it was funny.”

Zoey’s hand spasms against her thigh.

“By ‘they’, I mean my evil fucking blood cultist family,” Mira grits out. “In case that wasn't clear.”

“Yes,” says Rumi, unusually subdued. “It was clear.”

Mira scoffs. “Was it? Great! I'm so glad that was clear.”

She can hear Rumi shift uncomfortably in her seat. 

She hazards a glance. Rumi's hand is clenched, and she's frowning intensely. 

“I—” Rumi cuts herself off. Starts up again. “It is a flaw of my character, that I often fail to see others with clarity. I know it. I wish I—I’d like to—”

Her nails drive grooves in the material of her pants, her knuckles white. Mira feels a familiar twinge in her chest. 

She turns toward Rumi. “Okay,” she says. “I get it. I'll be clear, then. I've been made to hurt others. A lot. I didn't fully understand what was happening and I was not able to stop it. It made me feel—Fuck.” She sucks in a wheezy breath. 

Zoey crowds closer, so now their knees are pressed together, and she takes Mira’s hand, and she squeezes. Her elbow is a hard unyielding angle against Mira’s side.

“Thanks,” Mira mutters. “It made me feel—bad. If you ever make me do that again, to you, or anyone else, I'm done. Got it?”

Rumi is—hungry, and cruel, and viciously curling with corruption.

But she wants to say yes. She wants to say it without any of the caveats that spring to mind. She wants to remake the world itself until she will never, ever have to see Mira suffer again.

She shifts her gaze to Zoey, stuck in between them. “This is your issue as well? That you were not… offered full understanding of the possibility of harm?”

And Zoey, still pressed against Mira’s side, nods.

“I had not meant to deceive you,” Rumi says, and this part, at least, is one of the easiest vows she has ever had to make. “I shall endeavor in the utmost not to do so again.”

“Thank God,” Minji-nim sighs in the front seat, which would almost break the tension. It makes Zoey laugh, certainly.

Mira takes a shuddering breath. Her fingers lock around the seatbelt where it crosses her chest, knuckles going white, and then she releases with a small shake. “Okay. Good. I’m glad you—get it. Thank you.”

Rumi hates herself.

“However,” she says, fixing her gaze out the window past them, watching the world pass at dizzying speed, “I cannot promise that you will not be put in a position where it is necessary to harm me again.”

Silence.

Rumi barrels forward. It is her favorite tactic, after all: engage aggressively until the enemy is defeated.

The sickness boiling at the back of her throat does not matter.

“I am not good, Mira. One of my feet lies in the realms infernal, and it seeks always to change my path. It is mere—“

“So what?” Mira says.

Rumi is startled enough to turn her gaze, and find Mira with her brows furrowed and face awkwardly set to keep her jaw loose.

“It’s not the darkness that covers up the stars,” Zoey whisper-shouts, her own anger barely suppressed by a veil of gentleness.

Rumi cringes, thinking of the song that had brought her back to herself. “I am not saying—that does not deny the risk—“

Zoey can feel Rumi and Mira flinch at her volume, and she can see Minji-nim wince in the rearview mirror, but honestly? She doesn't care.

Ever since Mira blew up at Rumi and Celine before storming off on the ferry she has been trying and trying and trying to be what they needed: a sounding board for flaming tirades, a smiling face to ease the burn that lingers after, a comforting hand on a knee during trauma-inducing stories about exploding baby animals (which- yikes, good thing she was recruited to help Celine with the dead chicken and not Mira, it's never a good time for war flashbacks), and just- everything!

She got ice!

And now- despite everything- Rumi still wasn't getting it, Mira was still angry, and Zoey- and Zoey-

And Zoey still felt like she did before the divorce. When she couldn't stop the fighting, and when no one noticed- or cared to notice- how she was hurting too.

But she can't fucking take it anymore!

She jabs a finger at Rumi, the back of her braid thumping against the window as she startles back. "Do not- I repeat do not!- keep talking about yourself like that!"

"Like what?" Rumi asks, neck bending in an elegant curve as she tilts her head, genuinely confused.

Zoey growls. How can she be so dense? And still hot? "Like you're some dog carrying rabies that's about to go all Cujo on us!" And you know what? She doesn't care if Rumi doesn't get that reference, let her figure it out! "We get it, you're a half demon, we sang the heavy metal song to pull you out of hell! But that doesn't change the fact that we like you!"

Surprise blazes across Rumi's face. Zoey really should have seen that coming.

"Perhaps so," Rumi says, quietly, turning her face to the window, like what she's saying is a done deal. "But it does not change what I am. You cannot change my past, my father succumbing to the temptation of a demon."

Zoey clenches her hands in her lap before she starts literally tearing her hair out. Really should've seen that coming too. "Well I don't fucking care! And neither does Mira! And I really doubt Minji-nim does!"

"Minji-nim doesn't," from the driver's seat.

"So maybe, if you won't be kind to your own sake, think about what you're doing to the rest of us! To Mira and- and me!"

Her eyes are burning and she dashes a hand across them, sniffing harshly, waiting.

Waiting for Rumi to be her parents and not care.

Waiting for Rumi to be better and say she did.

Waiting…to see if she was going to lose this, too.

Rumi's quiet, then:

"There are…things, that can happen in battle." The rumble of the car over the road nearly swallows her words. "Terrible things. Things that would make the mighty weep. When demons are involved, it is worse. I do not answer to Gwi-Ma, he is not privy to my thoughts, he does now own my soul, he cannot control me as he would a person or a full demon, but…" she pauses, and in the almost-silence Zoey can hear clashing swords and agonized screams and shadows darkening souls.

Mira's hand grips hers, and Zoey leans back into her.

"But there are still ways."

The car grows cold.

Celine casts a quick, offended look in her direction.

“Sorry,” she repeats, trying to keep the laugh from her voice. “I just… Celine-ssi, you’ve known them for all of a week—less, for Rumi, and even less for Minji and I—and you’re already counting yourself out?”

Celine keeps her expression mostly impassive, eyes fixed on the road, but she can’t stop herself from blushing (a soft, pretty pink that Miyeong should not be thinking about right now). “I am merely considering my actions moving forward.”

…As it turns out, their dignified shaman has a ridiculous side to her, too. Miyeong kind of loves it.

Miyeong shakes her head, leaning back against the seat. “Look, do I not like that we were hurting Rumi without you two telling us that? Sure. But you clearly didn’t lie to us on purpose, and now you know to communicate more in the future. It’s not as bad as all that.”

Celine nods, slowly. Her right hand drifts from the steering wheel and her left hand slides down it, closer to the casual posture she’d adopted later in the first leg of their trip.

Score one for the chill approach!

“It is not good to enter battle without unity, especially spiritual warfare,” she says, at length.

…So maybe not.

“Minji works in an ER,” Miyeong points out. “She’s an expert in idiots. Even if Mira and Rumi can’t communicate, she’ll get through, I promise.”

“Yes, but I—“ Celine purses her lips and flushes again, shaking her head. “I’m sure she will. Did we remember to give her the protein shakes?”

“Yeah,” Miyeong says.

Yes, but I should’ve.

It makes sense, when she thinks about it: Celine has spent at least two decades in this order of hers, and the literal founder of the thing—or… spiritual founder? Inspiration? Diety? Honestly, Miyeong isn’t sure—turns up out of the blue and turns out to be some college kid with too much heart and not enough self-worth.

Miyeong would be a little insecure about herself too.

The question is just how to address it without making it weird.

It's probably an insane response to an honestly pretty condescending statement, but Miyeong-ssi means no harm, and she's just so ridiculous. So utterly unconcerned with how she's perceived, so willing to make a spectacle of herself if she thinks it will help anyone else feel better, so willing to say the wrong thing as many times as needed to get to the right one.

Celine corrals her grin and looks over at the other woman, and finds her staring at Celine, stunned, a pretty flush high on her cheeks, embarrassment tinting her ears red, and Celine's grin is back just as quickly at the sight.

"Alright, then," she says, because she can't help teasing if that's going to be the result. "What necessary jobs am I doing?"

"I— you— hmph." Miyeong-ssi tilts her chin up and turns away in Celine's periphery. "You have the credit card, obviously. Walking wallet. Very important."

It's a tease of her own, but it's also a reminder of yet another practicality, and Celine sobers a little. "Might as well go ahead and book the rooms for tonight, speaking of my credit card. If we break for more than twenty minutes in Cheonan we won't get in until nine."

"Ugh, mobile websites always suck for booking," says Miyeong-ssi, but she pulls the hotel back up obligingly. "How many rooms? Two is cheaper…"

"Just get three doubles," Celine says. "The order has money to spare, and I'm not putting any two of Rumi-nim and her friends in the same room. If we're going to be facing wraiths tomorrow I want them actually sleeping."

Miyeong-ssi makes a little chuff of amusement. "Good point."

There's a moment of quiet, as she types, and Celine lets herself enjoy the landscape, green and gold around them as they roll steadily north.

"Three doubles booked to Jang Celine." The little confirmation bloop rings out of Miyeong-ssi's phone, and then she adds, slyly, "Money to spare, eh?"

Celine rolls her eyes, but she smiles, too (a combination which is becoming a habit, around Miyeong-ssi). "To spare, not to spend frivolously. But yes, otherworldly advice has as much economic use as it does material. We've made a few key investments, over the years."

"Elegant and rich. I don't suppose your order has an opening for a kept woman? Sit around, tell dumb stories, tell you you're all very pretty, live in luxury, that sort of thing?"

"I'll be sure to bring it up at the next regional meet-up," Celine says, dryly. Ridiculous. She's an absolutely ridiculous woman.