and i’m doing my best

But imagine gumiho Celine who was taken from her family, mentors who hunted every gumiho who came close to the property until the skulk moved on, loathed to abandon their lost kit but finding it too dangerous to stay.

Her mother being the only gumiho to stay behind. Learning the habits of the hunters, hoping to be able to steal back her kit when the chance came.

But it never did.

She saw her kit slowly lose herself. Transforming less until she stopped entirely. Wearing her human face until it was just her face. Learning to be a hunter until eventually, the wildness left her entirely and she smelled like city and rubber and steel.

Celine grows up being taught that her purpose was to be useful. Her worth came from what she could give back to humanity and the hunters. That, even though she had been unfortunate enough to be born a demon, she had been given an opportunity to do some good. And with it, the hope that she would be human in the next life.

Post-movie, Huntr/x discovers that Celine is a gumiho (maybe she's a sad sack and can't find it in herself to maintain her human form or maybe she feels like such a horrible demon that she reverts to her fox form) and Rumi gets it in her head that she's going to find out what happened to Celine's family.

Celine said that the previous hunters killed all the gumiho in the area but gumiho are supposed to be sly, shifty, sneaky demons and Rumi is convinced that the hunters couldn't have killed *all* of them.

Second, the girls are about to be attacked by a gumiho. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Her kit is starting to embrace her gumiho side again but whenever the hunters come around she reverts back. Clearly it’s their fault.

Oh combining your addition with @secondtolastrow 's addition 👀

Mother-fox knows that something has shifted in the hunter's den.

The scent of fox, strong and musky, grows stronger by the day ever since her grand-kit's scream split the sky open. And in the days since, watching from behind the treeline, where she has learned from years of watching is safe, she sees glimpses of a white fox behind the glass panes.

Thin, in fur and in body. Shoulders slumped, ears pinned back. Her kit had spent days in the window sill overlooking the front gate, looking so still that had it not been for the fog gathering on the cold glass, Mother-fox would have thought her kit dead.

She had not perked up until her own kit returned along with the short hunter and the pink-haired hunter.

(She had still not seen her kit leave the hunter's den.)

(Her kit had left the window.

She didn't know if her kit was still alive.)

So when the hunters had started to leave scraps of liver in the woods, when they had started to invade her territory; Her teeth ached to bite down. She wanted to shred flesh, feel warm blood spurt from their necks and drink deep.

It’s screaming for its child

She hears Mira and Zoey waking up, tries to gesture at them not to do something stupid even while she can’t take her eyes off the slavering maw in front of her

She takes a deep breath. “Are you talking about Celine? Can you—can you help her?”

The fox snarls, paces, disbelieving. “You want to help her?”

(Out of the corner of Rumi’s eyes, she catches Mira and Zoey exchanging a glance. The moment of understanding that passes between them)

reasons for this:

basically TvTropes breaks down stories mechanically, using a perspective that’s not…ABOUT mechanics. Another way I like to put it, is that it’s an inductive, instead of deductive, approach to analyzing storytelling.

like in a literature or writing class you’re learning the elements that are part of the basic functioning of a story, so, character, plot, setting, et cetera. You’re learning the things that make a story a story, and why. Like, you learn what setting is, what defines it, and work from there to what makes it effective, and the range of ways it can be effective.

here’s the thing, though: everyone has some intuitive understanding of how stories work. if we didn’t, we couldn’t…understand stories.

TvTropes’s approach is bottom-up instead of top-down: instead of trying to exhaustively explore the broad, general elements of story, it identifies very small, specific elements, and explores the absolute shit out of how they fit, what they do, where they go, how they work.

Every TvTropes article is basically, “Here is a piece of a story that is part of many different stories. You have probably seen it before, but if not, here is a list of stories that use it, where it is, and what it’s doing in those stories. Here are some things it does. Here is why it is functionally different than other, similar story pieces. Here is some background on its origins and how audiences respond to it.”

all of this is BRILLIANT for a lot of reasons. one of the major ones is that the site has long lists of media that utilizes any given trope, ranging from classic literature to cartoons to video games to advertisements. the Iliad and Adventure Time ARE different things, but they are MADE OF the same stuff. And being able to study dozens of examples of a trope in action teaches you to see the common thread in what the trope does and why its specific characteristics let it do that

I love TvTropes because a great, renowned work of literature and a shitty, derivative YA novel will appear on the same list, because they’re Made Of The Same Stuff. And breaking down that mental barrier between them is good on its own for developing a mechanical understanding of storytelling.

But also? I think one of the biggest blessings of TvTropes’s commitment to cataloguing examples of tropes regardless of their “merit” or literary value or whatever…is that we get to see the full range of effectiveness or ineffectiveness of storytelling tools. Like, this is how you see what makes one book good and another book crappy. Tropes are Tools, and when you observe how a master craftsman uses a tool vs. a novice, you can break down not only what the tool is most effective for but how it is best used.

In fact? There are trope pages devoted to what happens when storytelling tools just unilaterally fail. e.g. Narm is when creators intend something to be frightening, but audiences find it hilarious instead.

On that note, TvTropes is also great in that its analysis of stories is very grounded in authors, audiences, and culture; it’s not solely focused on in-story elements. A lot of the trope pages are categories for audience responses to tropes, or for real-world occurrences that affected the storytelling, or just the human failings that creep into storytelling and affect it, like Early Installment Weirdness. There are categories for censorship-driven storytelling decisions. There are “lineages” of tropes that show how storytelling has changed over time, and how audience responses change as culture changes. Tropes like Draco in Leather Pants or Narm are catalogued because the audience reaction to a story is as much a part of that story—the story of that story?—as the “canon.”

please note that yes many of these are concepts that exist elsewhere and a few are even taught in fiction writing classes but TvTropes just does an amazing job at displaying the range of things that can be done with them

legitimately so much of the terminology I use to talk about storytelling, and even think about it in my own head, i learned about from TvTropes

Willing Suspension of Disbelief

Watsonian vs. Doylist

Trope Tropes, for all the ways tropes are used, deconstructed, subverted, and played with.

The Oldest Ones in the Book, which is basically my favorite thing on the entire Internet

Punk Punk, for -punk subgenres

Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness, Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism

The Weird Al Effect is a fun one

Chekhov’s Gun, Chekhov’s Boomerang, Chekhov’s Skill, and further variations

Law of Conservation of Detail

Law of Conservation of Normality

Anthropic Principle

Word of God, Death of the Author

Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness

Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness

Genre Savvy

Flashbacks and Chronology breaks down all the ways you can handle chronology in storytelling

Show, Don’t Tell is a very good breakdown of what is showing, what is telling, and how both can be used effectively.

Lampshade Hanging

Noodle Incident is just fun imo

Genre Title Grab Bag

Fridge Horror

Rule of Cool, and also Cool of Rule

The Smurfette Principle

The Hays Code - not a trope but a very good breakdown of how the Hays Code affected storytelling in film

For anyone just arriving: Celine swapped places with her evil, abusive AU counterpart, and has been attempting to fix things for Rumi’s counterpart, Sarang. Her endgame plan is to get Huntrix through debut and then a murder-suicide of herself and her counterpart. While the girls have been bonding, Sarang just got to experience her first panic attack, and isn’t doing great. Also, the two universes are in contact via Derpy.

And part of the problem is that Zoey is the problem she is currently trying to solve. Sarang flinches from them and has PTSD flashbacks because they were the ones to hurt her, and now they're the only ones who can even try to help her because she still looks like a fucking demon and so therapy is completely and utterly out of the picture. Every resource Zoey has looked at emphasized getting the victim away from their abuser and Zoey can't do that because she is the abuser and Sarang was kept so ignorant of the world that there is no way she can survive without them anytime soon.

Obviously, they've stopped with their previous behavior and they can try and support Sarang as she learns how to be a person, and remind her that she's a person when she forgets. But there's only so much they can do when it's likely that their very presence feeds into her triggers.

...Her triggers. That's one way that Zoey can help. She can make a new notebook, keep track of what triggers Sarang (bullet point one: any sort of violence directed towards her by them, no matter how playful or harmless), record what works and what doesn't to bring her out of her flashbacks. Zoey can be scientific about it, can help give Sarang tools manage the consequences of the damage she herself caused.

The outline of a plan, something to do to help, makes Zoey feel like there is ground underneath her feet again. Makes her feel like she can be something beyond the monster that caused this damage in the first place.

Mira returns with the muzzle shortly. There is a desperate relief on Sarang's face as she reaches for it and Zoey is keenly aware that she has been deliberately conditioned into needing the damn thing to feel secure. It's the most obvious symbol of what has been done to her remaining - even after she's left the kennel, she still wears part of her cage.

The corner of Celine's mouth twitches downward as she watches Sarang buckle the muzzle on. "Sarang, your room is a safe space for you to rest and recover whenever you need it," she says. "You can always return here, for whatever reason, no matter what you are doing before. Likewise, you can always leave it whenever you wish - it is not and will never be a cage."

She rests her hands on Mira and Zoey's shoulders, and gently guides them out of the room. "Come, girls. Let's give her some space. Sarang, we'll be in the living room. Feel free to come join us, when you feel comfortable doing so."

She has gotten so many more soft things since everything changed, of course—hotel room blankets and new clothes and even the feeling of her own hair and skin, once Celine explained to her how to use the toiletries like a person, including the conditioner and lotion.

The fabric of Zoey’s turtle feels a little like one of the hotel blankets, the one that was not a duvet, and a little like the skin on Sarang’s cheeks, where the hair is very thin and soft, and nothing like either. She doesn’t have good words for it.

And Zoey just… gave it to her. Claws and all. And then left it with her.

Real turtles do not have fur. They are reptiles, with shells made of bone covered in keratin. Sarang knows this because Zoey has said it, because Zoey loves turtles.

Sarang holds it again, close to her chest, and presses her face into it. The stuffed animal squishes against her muzzle, safely away from her teeth.

Of course you are broken.

Sarang, ungrateful creature that she is, still feels awful, no matter that Celine promised they would fix her.

She feels restless and sick, and she doesn’t want to stay still but she doesn’t want to go anywhere, and definitely not to eat, where she will have to take her muzzle off.

She kicks at the sheets and then feels worse, hurrying to right then again before anyone sees, checking that no damage has been done.

“Everything is fine,” she tells the turtle. “I put the bed back how it should be.”

And that feels nice, so she keeps telling the turtle things.

This is how the dresser is. This is her window. This is her carpet—the fur-fabric is much thicker than his, but not nearly as soft, and no, she does not know the word, but she doesn’t think people say that carpets have fur.

When she has introduced the turtle to her whole room, she feels much better.

“I hope you will remember me when you go back to Zoey’s room,” she says, even though she knows the turtle will not, because it is not alive.

As Mira is processing all this (and if there is a part of her that's afraid of the demon lurking behind her unprotected back, there is also a much louder part of her that is preening that Sarang chose her to hide behind), the cause of the furor enters the room. The tiger plods gamely along, bird perched on its head.

"Oh, hi, Tiger-ssi!" Zoey bounds up to him and gently divests him of the plastic baggie containing the note from their alternate universe counterparts. Missive delivered, the tiger wanders over to a sunbeam and plops himself down.

As Zoey opens the letter there is a tink as something small slips out of it. Mira, who has repositioned herself so that she is still between Sarang and the tiger's new location in the room, can only get a clear view of it once Zoey has bent over and picked it up. It's a USB drive.

Zoey finishes opening the letter and scans it. "Okay, so. It looks like alternate-me and alternate Mira had a LOT to say about musical and fashion trends from now until 2026, so they've compiled all that information on the flash drive, along with samples of their songs and choreography."

"I don't think we should be copying their music," says Mira, uncomfortable with the idea.

"You won't be able to," says Celine. "Almost all of Huntrix's songs were written for Rumi's vocal range as the main vocalist. Also, since you'll be entering industry within a typical company you won't have much control over your lyrics and choreography, at least at first."

"Yeah, uh," Zoey says, "that's also what they said. Rumi being the main vocalist, I mean. They suggested that Sarang sing background vocals or harmonies or something.

"By the way, Sarang, they said that they love that name for you!"

Mira is aware, suddenly, of the heat of Sarang's body as she huddles up behind her, the gentle puffs of her breath on the exposed skin of Mira's shoulder, exposed as it is by her fashionable asymmetrically cut shirt. She feels as well as hears Sarang's pleased hum.

"For Rumi's medical information, she says she cannot get blood transfusions for some reason? She doesn't remember exactly why. Presumably it's demon related?"

"She has RH null blood," says Celine. "Or at least, that's what the doctors told me. She's also allergic to several chemicals commonly found in antiperspirants, which limits which brands she can use." She levels a look at Mira and then at Zoey. "If you have questions about Ru--Sarang's medical condition, you can ask me. I was the one taking her to the appointments."

Mira and Zoey exchange sheepish glances. Sarang, still curled up behind Mira, is spared the full weight of Celine's Gaze of Mild Disappointment.

"Also! We asked about Rumi's patterns fading," Zoey says, a bit rushed to move off the topic, and Celine freezes. "And she says they faded when she accepted them as a part of herself and stopped feeling ashamed? Um. Hm. She spends a whole paragraph talking about how demonhood is intrinsically tied to shame. I don't remember any of this any of the Hunter documents?"

It doesn't make much sense to Mira. Demons kill people, and none of the demons that Mira has ever fought so far has seemed particularly ashamed of that. Except Sarang, who hasn't killed anyone (except Miyeong maybe?) and definitely feels shame about being a demon. Half-demon. Whatever. But that means that the only good demon Mira has ever met is the one who is ashamed of it, which sounds like the exact opposite of what Rumi's talking about.

She looks over to Celine for guidance, but all the blood has drained from her face and she looks as if she has seen a ghost. Zoey notices as well, and as she opens her mouth to ask--something, Mira will never know--Celine's arm darts out lightning quick and grabs the letter. Zoey yelps and tries desperately to hang on to it, but Celine meets her eyes with a stare so intense and expression so distraught that Zoey lets go.

Instead, she finds her own name first:

It’s my fault. I did something to hurt Celine pretty badly a few months ago.

Her vision blurs, a breath choking in her throat.

The very idea that Rumi would blame herself—

Her stomach lurches. She bites her tongue, hard, just like she’s seventeen again, and it holds back the nausea.

She keeps looking, trying her best to ignore—

I did something to hurt Celine pretty badly a few months ago. I don’t know what kind of mental state she’s in, but if she’s letting you see that she’s hurting, then it’s not good. I definitely wouldn’t tell her she doesn’t care about you again.

(‘Definitely’ is underlined.)

They need to be free to be honest; Celine doesn’t know why Rumi would say such a thing—is Celine being manipulative even from another world?

Finally, she finds it.

Rumi’s careful handwriting describing how a demon is controlled by their shame—how their belief that they are wrong and bad only makes them worse, whether directly (a demon resigned to their selfishness will hurt others unrepentantly) or indirectly (I would’ve done anything to keep Mira and Zoey from finding out—and I did)—but by recognizing that they are, like anyone else, a collection of both good and bad and capable of choice (In my case, choosing to embrace the truth rather than hiding) they can be…

You can take possession of your own soul once more, Rumi writes.

Because Celine had stolen it from her for all those years, buried it away under all of the shame she taught.

“Celine?”

Something brushes against her, and Celine jumps backwards, arm jerking up to block an incoming blow.

She stares at Mira. At Sarang, who didn’t make it all the way over, huddled in the open space and eyeing the tiger so fearfully.

“You’re crying,” Mira says, quietly.

She wonders if it's just part of the experience of parenting, of family. Zoey had hurt her mother (and her father, though he didn't discuss it; had just been relieved to hand her off to Celine). Mira's parents had hurt her. Their Celine wasn't family to Sarang but had abused her horribly. The Celine in front of them had tried to parent the half-demon and Rumi had apparently hurt her quite badly, for Celine to be crying.

(A part of Zoey wants to know what Rumi even did, to shake their stoic mentor so severely. Another part does not want to sit through an adult detailing all the ways their child has hurt them, she has had too much of that already, she cringes at the very thought of Celine doing that to her, to Rumi. (But then again, their Celine has done so so so much worse to Sarang. Orders of magnitude worse. So.))

But Celine doesn't seem like she's about to start explaining how Rumi ruined her life. She's taking deep, even, deliberate breaths and blinking rapidly. (And a shameful part of Zoey is glad. They can just. Move on! Move past it. Maybe stop taking letters from their alternate selves because they somehow always manage to make things worse!)

As Mira pulls the letter out of Celine's loose grip and starts furiously speed-reading it, Sarang cautiously approaches Celine. She holds out Logger-nim with both of her hands.

"That's very sweet of you, nae sarang," says Celine, only slightly wetly, "but Zoey gave him to you."

"I talked to him, and it made me feel better," Sarang says, and Zoey is so so glad that her idea - her stab in the dark at providing emotional comfort - worked. "I don't need him anymore. You could, um, maybe you can try, uh. I just thought..."

Zoey can't see Sarang's face from this angle, just the back of her head, but presumably something in her expression drives Celine to reach out and take Logger-nim. She looks awkward, standing there holding him like she doesn't know what to do with him, and it'd almost be funny except for the fact that she was just crying and that's just inherently distressing.

"What the hell did Rumi do!?" exclaims Mira, and Sarang flinches. "Not you," Mira hurriedly clarifies, "the other world's Rumi."

"Nothing," says Celine. "She did nothing but her best."

(And Zoey is glad, so glad that Celine isn't jumping to lay the blame on her daughter but also--)

"Rumi certainly seems to think that she hurt you somehow," says Mira, and Sarang whips her head around to stare at her.

Celine shakes her head. "I don't know why she's blaming herself for that night, but what happened between us was not her fault."

"What did happen?" presses Mira.

A hint of steel enters Celine's expression. "It's not relevant to you girls. There's no risk of it happening here."

Mira opens her mouth, but stops when Sarang takes a deep breath.

And then it’s gone, morphing into pain, into sympathy, into careful weight as she sets the turtle aside and gently puts her hands on Sarang’s biceps, running her thumbs over the skin there soothingly in spite of the tears still stuck on her face.

“Nae sarang, it’s more complicated than that,” she says.

(Mira… does not like the sound of any of this. It’s got her on edge, like she’s a dog and someone just forced their hand the wrong way through her fur. Something is wrong between Celine and the other Rumi, and Celine is lying to them about it. Again.)

“People hurt each other all the time,” Celine says. “Even when they don’t mean to. I hurt you.”

Sarang scowls. “N—“

“Just this morning,” Celine continues, steamrolling right over her, giving her a knowing, maternal look, and Mira doesn’t like it.

“So?” she asks.

Celine’s gaze jerks to her.

“So, what, you can’t be trusted around Sarang and you have to go back?” She throws out a hand, gesturing to Zoey, the words suddenly flowing out of her, unstoppable. “What happened to living with the consequences of our actions? Why do you get held to a different standard? If you don’t want to be around us, then—“

“That is not what I mean,” Celine snaps.

“Then just say it!” Mira snarls, and suddenly she realizes that she’s on the edge of shouting and her heart it beating out of her chest and she can’t—

She takes a ragged breath. Her eyes feel too wide. Stupid, she always does this, fucking—she always loses control of herself.

Sarang is shaking. And Zoey—Zoey hates it when people start yelling, because her mom—

Stupid.

“Some people don’t change,” Celine says, quiet, broken. “Some things you don’t fix. I have failed enough, as a guardian and… and as a Hunter, to know that sometimes, the answer is to cut a corruption out at the root.”

Oh.

Right.

Of course.

Of course Celine’s just been waiting to go back to her own world. Of course. Mira could never—she doesn’t deserve a family. A future.

"No!" Celine's eyes are wide and her face twists with the force of her denial, and Sarang is relieved, she is, she knew it, but still. It was the same face, saying the same words, about corruption and cutting it out of the world, and Sarang knows that corruption means -- it means the taint inside of her, it's what Gwi Ma does to humans, it's what makes demons.

"No, Sarang, no, she's--" Mira angrily shoves her hair out of her face. "She's talking about us."

"She's gonna cut you!?"

"No!!" Celine nearly shouts, and Sarang cringes. It's reflex -- if Master was raising her voice then things were bad -- and Celine is not Master but they sound the same. Celine reaches an arm out towards her but then pulls it back and shrinks away. "Mira, this is not about you."

"What's this about then?" Mira spits. "You're talking about... about 'corruption' and we're the ones here with Sarang's blood on our hands. We're part of why she can't even play dodgeball, and you have your versions of us to go back to, better--"

"The responsibility for your actions is mine," interrupts Celine. "Everything that happened in this house is my fault. You were children, trusting the guidance of your elder. The responsibility does not lie with you, but with me."

"What are you talking about!? Your fault!? You showed up two weeks ago! You're not our seonsaengnim."

There is a touch on Sarang's upper arm and she flinches. Zoey pulls back her hand for a moment, and then grabs Sarang's hand and pulls her gently but insistently out of the room. Once they are in the hall, Zoey slides the door to the living room closed and shoots Sarang a wan smile.

"I thought you might wanna get out of there."

"Celine's not going to cut Mira, is she?" Sarang worries. She can still here them, through the walls.

Zoey shakes her head. "No. Celine never--" she cuts off, cringes. "Not with us. Our Celine never hurt us outside of sparring, and I don't think this Celine would either."

In that case... "I don't understand," Sarang says. "Who is she going to cut?"

“She and I are far closer than you’d like to think,” Celine answers, with a wavering sort of steel.

She recoils. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

(Somewhere, distantly, she notes that Zoey and Sarang have left the room. That’s good. That awful, because Mira has scared them off, just like she always does.)

Celine looks at her flatly. “What do you think it means?”

And Mira—fuck, Mira hates that. She’s been the idiot kept in the dark too many fucking times. “Just tell me!”

“She asked me to kill her!” Celine all but shouts. “Rumi got on her knees and told me to kill her like the demon she was because she knew—“And she stops. Blinks against the tears, looking far smaller than she should. “—she knew that I had never been able to love her right. That I have never loved anyone right.”

Mira stares.

Celine shakes, turning away from her, hiding her face, fingertips sliding over the new note. In a whisper, she adds, “I took her soul.”

Finally, stupidly, slowly, Mira asks, “But… Rumi’s… alive?”

Celine nods, sniffling.

Which means… “So you didn’t try to kill her.”

“No!”

Mira looks at Celine. Celine looks at Mira. Mira is pretty sure that Celine has not just figured out that this automatically makes her less shitty than their Celine, at least, and probably Mira herself too.

“That automatically makes you less shitty than our Celine,” she points out.

“Language,” Celine says, which means she’s probably coming back to herself.

“That automatically makes you less bad than our Celine,” Mira corrects.

Bc like. There are fics where Rumi is raised to see herself as less than human and more of a weapon, or perhaps something to be sacrificed, that otherwise tend very close to canon (or might reflect the author’s reading of canon)

And main!Huntrix start off thinking “wow younger Celine is kind of in a not-great mood. We should be kinda gentle with her, this must be a really stressful situation”

Except it’s targeted. At Rumi. She needs to talk to Rumi alone. She needs to find out what’s happened to the Honmoon, what’s happened with their music, yes it’s… good… that they have such a strong relationship and haven’t hurt her but what is she doing with her patterns visible?

And Rumi knows she should be nice, Celine’s just freaking out, she’s always been a control freak, she just wants to make sure Rumi is okay, but—fuck, after everything? For this to be their first real talk?

She’s snapping right back at Celine

And like, Rumi and Celine have definitely argued before (Rumi did used to be a teenager and Mira can attest to the screaming matches Rumi used to get into with Celine. Never very often but on occasions, it did happen.)

"How dare you speak to me like this" is expected.

It’s every one of Rumi’s worst nightmares, spoken out loud.

(Mira might not have been wrong when she called Rumi, "a little dramatic" when they were kids.)

Having been raised by Celine her entire life, Rumi knows what Celine is going to do next;

Celine is going to make some excuse about how she, "must be more stressed than she thought" which would be as close to, "I'm sorry, I was wrong" as she would get.

And then Celine would leave in as dignified a manner as she could while Rumi bristles in irritation behind her.

And the next time Celine came over, she would come with so many tupperware containers filled with all of Rumi's favorite dishes that Rumi would be unable to resist opening the door.

Celine would fill their empty-but-for-takeout refrigerator with her cooking and Rumi would look on with fond annoyance that would (mostly) melt away when Celine slings an arm around her and pulls her close to kiss her on the forehead.

That's how this is supposed to go.

Which leaves Rumi flatfooted and off guard when, instead of what Celine is supposed to do, Celine instead crosses her arms and nods as though Rumi had actually apologized.

But she is trying so, so hard not to say that thing that she knows will hurt Celine (Are you regretting not lopping my head off when you had the chance?), because she knows that impulse just means she’s scared, so she throws her hands up and walks out, instead.

And Celine was the one who taught her to walk away—maybe not with that kind of huff, but she’d insistently chipped away at Rumi’s childish temper tantrums, who else would’ve?

And yet, somehow, Celine is the one following her down the hall with a sharp “Excuse you? I wasn’t done speaking.”

///

@zoloteh-volossya Not interrupting!

I feel like it would be creepy, to some degree, but it also wouldn’t be clearly established—it would be everything Rumi has wanted to hear from Celine, has hoped was true about Celine, has imagined was there between them because maybe, maybe if she were good enough then Celine would want her. And love her

Old Celine looks at her with those sad eyes and she tries to say, “I love you,” again, and Rumi thinks

Maybe she died. Like she was supposed to. Maybe she died like a good Hunter would, and that’s why Celine is looking at her this way.

It would be nice, she thinks, to die for Mira and Zoey.