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While filming, towards the end of the sequence, Rumi makes a really amateurish misstep, something someone of her talent and experience level doesn't normally do.

Bobby: Cut! Rumi, you ok?

Rumi: Yeah! Yeah, I'm good! Sorry!

Mira: *pats her shoulder* It's fine. Do you need a break?

Rumi: No, no, no, it's fine! Let's just reshoot!

They start the dance over and Rumi's dancing is flawless, until the very end when she trips over nothing. Bobby calls for another cut and demands someone get his girls water.

Mira: *concerned* Rumi, what's going on? Are you sure you're ok?

Rumi: I'm fine, I promise! Just give me a minute and we can start reshooting.

Bobby: Well, you were perfect up until that. I think if we use the right angles, we can just have you two go through the last bit so we don't have to reshoot everything-

Rumi: Nononononono! I don't- it's fine! I don't want it to look stilted, let's just reshoot it all!

Mira: Rumi, that's-

Then it dawns on her.

Mira: ...Rumi.

Rumi: Yeah?

Mira: Are you doing this on purpose?

Rumi: Wha-

Mira: Are you messing up on purpose cause you like me throwing you around like this?

Rumi: WHA- pfft! NO! Why would I- *sweating*

It sounds insane at first, but the three of them were still at it even in old age. Mira still sometimes wakes up and feels the need to put the collar on. It makes her feel safe and loved, like there’s someone who wants her and will take care of her. Like she’s owned.

But those someones are both dead now. One day, she wakes up, gets the urge, and puts it on, only to realize she’s playing with nobody. There’s no one to call her “pretty puppy” or tug on her collar or give her pets anymore.

It’s stupid, she thinks, this shouldn’t be affecting me. It’s just kink. It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.

But it does.

After all, does a sub stop being a sub now that her dommes are dead? Does her subspace simply cease to exist? Does she not still experience subdrop when the reality of her needs not being met really hits her?

She puts away the collar. She doesn’t put it back on again.

She tries to, but she can’t ignore the ache of those days. Without an owner to claim her as theirs, she feels like she’s back to her days as a stray on the streets. Back when she was unloved. A runaway who had to scrounge for scraps. A scary looking guard dog who let nobody in because she was too scared to be burned again.

They owned her, Rumi and Zoey, before they even became her “owners”. They made her feel safe and wanted and nurtured and loved years before those particular dynamics were ever discussed and developed.

They were her world.

And they were gone.

She rubs her throat until it’s raw.

Can you blame her, then, that she should jump at the chance to have them back in that capacity, too?

Never mind that the leash dangles onto the floor uselessly. Never mind that she’s panting at the empty air. Never mind that the ferocity that Rumi fucked her with is replaced by her violently rocking backwards and forwards on her knees. Never mind that when she lies back with Zoey between her legs, she barely moves at all.

It’s not about the sex. It’s about the voices praising her, the comfort of the collar around her throat, their eyes looking at her with love and lust and possession.

(And, of course, the ghost versions of them pick up the slack from their hallucination counterparts. They can actually fuck her, they can actually touch her. They tug on her leash and collar and tell her how pretty she is and how good of a puppy she is for them. They only mourn that they can’t make a game of playing around the entirety of the grounds of their home like they used to now that the kids are here.

(it’s one of many things she tries to distract herself with before her brain creates imposters to do it more reliably.)

when, after she’s finally finished paining almost every wall in their home with them, they don’t glow like hers did, she breaks down crying and begs her children to remove them all.

once they finish doing so, they bring a slice of cake to their mother’s room, where she’s locked herself away. they bring two more out to their mama and mom’s grave, and sing their mama a happy birthday. because she may be gone, but she’s still their mama.

at home, mira lies in bed, and sobs out a song of her own to the vast emptiness in her bed.

(months from now, she’ll fill the emptiness with her own visions. a few weeks after that, her real wives will take their place, spirits though they may be.

but then rumi stays there for another few seconds and mira’s like “oh my god?!”

and then she KEEPS staying down there and mira goes “get off her?!”

and after like a solid minute of her being down there mira asks “is she fucking ALIVE”

and zoey, who’s been quiet this whole time because she’s so blissed out, answers “yeah 🥴”

“how do you know?!”

“because her fucking tongue has been licking my cock and i could feel her sniffing my pubes the whole time she’s been down there 😵‍💫”

when rumi does eventually get up, mira shakes her by the shoulders and yells at her. “THAT WAS SO HOT BUT ALSO WHAT THE FUCK DONT DO THAT AGAIN I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUFFOCATING ON HER COCK!”

and rumi is like “ah but what a way to go. choking on my alpha’s cock. 😌”

It’s not enough of a resemblance to make it hard for her to ever look at herself in the mirror or see herself in photos.

But sometimes…

Sometimes, when she’s had a day of not feeling like she’s enough alpha, like she’s a runt, she’ll look at herself and see every feature of hers that came from her father, and hear his voice in the back of her head, raging at her, calling her slurs, calling her pathetic and weak, a disappointment.

She can’t turn the light off fast enough on those nights.

And sometimes, when she acts too much like a traditional alpha, aggressive and possessive, she’ll look at herself, see those same features, and hear her father’s voice again. Only this time, he’ll be praising her, telling her about how she’s finally growing into a real alpha, how she’s finally taking what’s hers.

(She’d only heard him talk to her like that a few times. Whenever she would wrestle something away from her cousins, all larger than her, all betas or omegas, and growl at them. She’s pretty sure he considers it payback; all of his brothers were alphas, and now he was the only one with an alpha child, one could growl others into submission if she wanted, who had demonstrated that on the children of the very people he hated most.

Besides her, of course.)

On those nights, she almost puts her fist through the mirror.

it starts off with a video that (at the time of making the edit) is consider ancient by most people. on a red carpet interview, mira is asked “how is that the members of huntrix manage look so good?” on “look” and “so” it cuts away to footage of rumi and zoey respectfully from the same red carpet event, before cutting back to mira on “good”. a lot of mira’s answer to the question (which involves discussion of the many privileges that the three of them have access to that allows them to look a certain way) is cut out, with the only part of her answer that is kept in is her saying, “…certainly good genetics play a part…”