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Blood cult au part nineteen (first, most recent, masterpost)
Currently: the wraiths are dead (mostly), and Rumi didn’t even kill Bobby in the process—many thanks to Zoey, who’s formally decided to drop out of med school and join Celine’s shamanic order. That said, Minji and Miyeong need a hospital, and Mira needs a little more than that.
Mira can feel it. The parts that are the wraith, rattling around inside her. Her wrists still hurt and something keeps telling her how easy it would be to just—take a little more.
Or maybe that’s her. She opened that door, didn’t she?
She watches, useless, as Minji starts palpating Miyeong’s knee, because if she touched—
Footsteps break into her thoughts, and she looks. Celine is back, with Rumi. No Zoey or Bobby though.
Rumi’s eyes go wide and she bolts across the room so fast that she blurs, suddenly kneeling by Mira, taking Mira’s ugly, tainted hands in her own. “Oh… what happened?”
“I… I fucked up,” Mira says, and she finds that she’s suddenly on the edge of tears, with Rumi—fucking Rumi!—holding her so gently.
“We will make this right,” Rumi promises, looking at her with that intent stare of hers, and Mira hates her for how kind she is, in spite of—of everything. Of all of it.
“Yeah,” she says, and it comes out choked with the edge of tears. “Maybe start with Miyeong’s knee?”
Rumi drowns, confused, and spins. “Miyeong-nim! Minji-nim, can I assist you? Are you well?”
Minji does something that might’ve otherwise been a huff of laughter, but largely comes out pained. “If you can carry her out of here, that would help a hell of a lot.”
“Of course,” Rumi says, and she is so unhesitating and so guilty and Mira just—gives up. She loves her, and it’s doomed, but whatever. She does.
Celine finally finishes walking over as Rumi shuffles over to Minji and Miyeong, telling them calmly, “Zoey has taken our friend Bobby-ssi to clean his apartment. She’ll meet us at the door.”
“Is this an ambulance emergency?” Rumi asks, looking around as her hands hover nervously at Miyeong’s side. “Or are we to transport Miyeong-nim ourselves?”
Miyeong giggles, clearly going out of her mind with pain. “Sorry! Sorry, just—fuck, I’m about to cry so—gotta laugh.”
“Why would I take offense?” Rumi replies, gracious as ever.
Minji sighs. “Normally I’d call one, but in between you and Mira, I think we’d have some unpleasant questions to answer. Now, c’mon, you’re gonna have to be careful not to jostle her knee while we move, okay?”
Miyeong insists they go to different hospitals, "for opsec purposes, don't argue with me I'm in too much pain," and so they end up splitting into pairs. Celine and Miyeong make their way to St Mary's, Rumi stays with Minji at the university hospital just to be safe, and Zoey and Mira go back to the apartment once they drop Minji off, to get Mira cleaned up and put all of the "obvious shaman stuff" away and collect a change of clothes for Miyeong.
Celine isn't exactly surprised when the nurse asks Miyeong about patient privacy and she waves her hand, dismissive, and says "It's fine, she can hear whatever," but the trust warms her, anyway. Miyeong looks a little surprised when Celine wraps their fingers together after a particularly unhappy wince, but she holds on, and Celine texts Minji and Zoey one-handed and tracks the opiates kicking in by the intervals between the painful tightening of her grip.
There's a wait for X-rays, another wait for surgery, and as Miyeong's pain slowly subsides, Celine updates her on Minji — no concussion, her tongue needs stitches, she'll be able to come visit by the time Miyeong is out of surgery if Miyeong doesn't think that's an opsec problem too — and Mira, whose cleansing may require all four of them or retrieving a few things from Celine's office, but shouldn't be any more of an issue than Miyeong's surgery.
Miyeong is clearly relieved to hear both, but remains pensive, and Celine eventually prods, gently. "Worried about your knee?"
"... Yeonggi wasn't there."
"... ah."
"We can— wraiths do their routines from life, right? When they're not doing anything else? We can find him, I can find him, but I don't know..."
She trails off, and Celine waits. The chair isn't all that comfortable, and her arm's at a bit of an awkward angle, but she will wait a hundred years for Miyeong, if that's what Miyeong needs.
But what Miyeong says, eventually, is, "The wraith that Mira killed was a photographer from my magazine."
Minji has, many times, seen a patient’s loved ones being far more distressed than the patient themself. Thankfully, Rumi isn’t having a tearful breakdown at her bedside.
She is, however, silently staring and vibrating with energy as the doctor explains what he’s doing, such that Minji decides against reminding the idiot that she’s a nurse, and does in fact know what local anesthetics and absorbable sutures are.
(Doctors.)
Minji updates Celine (and Miyeong) and Zoey (and Mira) whenever she has a spare moment—it won’t be long, but it will be an annoying month or two of soft foods.
Discharge instructions taken, Minji levers herself up off the bed, trying not to roll her eyes at Rumi’s nervous hands, waiting to catch her—concussion or no, she isn’t exactly in perfect form.
To her surprise, though, the door is opening again. “Minji?”
Minji feels a pit open up in her chest as she recognizes the woman at the door. Hyeonsuk moved over to work at the university three years back, but that didn’t mean—
“Minji,” Hyeonsuk breathes, rushing in. “It is you.”
Rumi gets in the way before Hyeonsuk can go for a hug. She just stands, solid, silent, a wall in human form and she looks at Minji. Hyeonsuk makes a startled sound.
“It’s okay,” Minji manages, even if the words come out slurred around the anesthetic’s influence on her tongue. “She’s… my friend.”
Maybe the only one Minji has left.
She looks at Hyeonsuk, not quite in the eyes, unable to manage that over the horrible guilt. “My niece. She’s protective, since…”
(Accurately, she supposes, fitting Rumi into her family tree, a first cousin once removed might make more sense—Misuk-imonim will be so happy to have gotten another grandchild, she’s sure.)
Rumi bows heavily in apology as she steps back. “I did not mean to cause trouble.”
“No, no,” Hyeonsuk says. “I just—I saw your name and I needed to see if—we thought you were dead, Minji.”
Minji doesn’t know what to say to that. There is no good answer.
I should’ve been there is almost as bad as We killed the things that did it. She and I and a wondrous mudang and an American and a witch. I think Miyeong might’ve gotten one, I’m not sure. We killed them.
She doesn’t think either truth will calm her, anyway.
Finally, slowly, her body skips ahead of her turtle-brain and asks, “We?”
Mira cradles the pot in her hands like a lifeline. The mugwort had worn off a little while ago and a moving car is not the best place for shaman rituals.
It’s fine.
If she focuses enough, she can map out the blotchy brushstrokes that comprise each sunflower dotted along the sky blue ceramic. She traces each petal with her finger, it gives her hands something to do other than shake. It gives her mind something to do other than think. It gives the wraith—
Seven. There are seven sunflowers on this pot. Bobby had given Zoey this pot. Zoey had trusted Mira with this pot. I am Mira.
An unwelcome yet familiar sensation graces her fingertips. It slithers up her arms like a pair of eels and it pools itself in her gut like a heavy stone.
Mira’s eyes refocus, she looks down at the pot in her lap. Ash, she’s smeared ash all over Zoey’s pot. Her wrists burn anew.
I am Mira and I ruin everything, the wraith she thinks. Something hot builds up behind her eyes as the scent of ash works its way through her system. She screws her eyes shut. Ice claws its way up her throat. For one horrific moment she wonders if her neck has been reopened.
Warm fingers brush against her bicep, chipping at the ice.
“Did you know kangaroos can’t go backwards?!” Zoey blurts.
Mira twists in the front seat to look at her incredulously. Zoey has her eyes fixed on the road, hands at ten-and-two, an expression of utter mortification on her face.
“They can’t?” Mira asks as the ice in her throat rapidly thaws. Satisfaction and warmth kindle in Mira’s chest as Zoey’s mortification falls away.
“Nope!” Zoey says, her fingers tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel. (Mira absently notes that it’s one of her ‘happy rhythms.’) “It’s mainly because of the tail.”
“Huh!”
“Pretty cool, right?”
“Sick,” Mira agrees. “Do you have any more cool animal facts?”
Zoey’s eyes sparkle and the rest of the drive passes in the whirl of an impromptu lecture on the nature of turtle shells. Mira lets the wraith drown under the sound of Zoey’s voice and the sparkle in her eyes.
Zoey believes I can keep this pot safe. That is why she gave it to me. She trusts me.
Idly Mira examines the pot again. The ash streaks have only made the yellow of the flowers stand out all the brighter.
It won’t be too hard to clean, with a little water, a clean cloth and some determination.
Maybe she hasn’t ruined it after all.
Minji can’t stop herself from shaking and twitching in rhythm as she gets them out of the hospital, her joy and her guilt warring within her until they force her body to move with their energy.
“Imonim,” Rumi says softly, touching her arm.
The title doesn’t quite add up until she turns to see Hyeonsuk approaching them, a jacket on over her scrubs and a bag over her shoulder, smiling tearfully as she talks into her phone. “Yeah, yeah, Sieun, she’s right here, I’ve got her, here—“
Minji takes the phone, and finds herself unable to breathe. Sieun. Sieun, her best friend, her Sieun. Dead Sieun.
There’s a ragged sound from the other end. Then: “Minji?”
“Hello,” Minji says, because that is what you say when you answer the phone, and a boulder like her will always follow its path.
(Sieun. Her best friend. Alive Sieun.)
“Minji,” Sieun gasps, “Minji, babe, I thought—you didn’t—what the hell? Where have you been?”
Minji stands, feeling so much as to be numb and silent, until Hyeonsuk takes her arm and starts to lead her and Rumi towards her car.
It shocks an answer from her, it seems. “Miyeong’s.”
Sieun laughs, wild and hysterical, and Minji smiles on autopilot, because Sieun’s reactions have long been her guide when she’s lost. And yet…
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I should’ve been there.”
Sieun deserves her honesty. Sieun can always take her honesty.
Hyeonsuk misses a step, and Minji nearly walks into her back. Oh. They’re at the car.
Rumi frowns heavily, some unreadable emotion underneath it as she reaches down to where Minji has, without noticing, dug her nails in and takes her hand, squeezing in slow, rhythmic pulses.
“…Please,” Sieun says, “tell me that you mean after. Because, Minji, the only damn thing keeping me together this last month is the fact that I might get to have this conversation. Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry for finally figuring things out with Miyeong instead of—instead of—instead of dying of smoke inhalation.”
Minji cannot answer her. Sieun deserves her honesty.
Sieun takes a sharp breath. She lets it out, controlled, and takes another. “Okay. So when Hyeonsuk gets you here, I’m going to hug you. And neither of us are going to feel guilty for surviving.”
Minji squeezes back in time with Rumi’s rhythm, trying desperately to anchor herself as she stares at Hyeonsuk’s car.
“I have lost too many people to lose you too,” she says. “Don’t you dare say no, Minji. Don’t you dare.”
“Okay,” Minji says. “Miyeong’s in surgery right now. I should leave a message, though.”
There’s a long beat. And then, again: “What the hell, Minji?”
Celine's voice is neutral, mild, when she asks, "Someone you knew well?"
Miyeong's not entirely sure how to answer that. She wouldn't have talked to Jeremy outside of work; they didn't have much in common, didn't like to spend their free time the same way. But they were friendly enough on the job, were always able to hold a conversation, knew how to get each other the angles or access they needed without having to ask.
"… well enough that I would have said he was a decent person," she finally says, because that's the real problem, isn't it? "He said— maybe it was stupid, but I asked him, during the fight, what deal he made. He said it was to protect him from bullies. Does that mean university? Grade school? Can a— how can a dumb kid make a deal with Gwi-Ma, how is that—"
Celine's thumb traces along the back of Miyeong's knuckles, a soothing, wordless acknowledgment. "A contract with the demon king can be broken, while one still lives. It isn't easy, or entirely safe for the advocate, but if your friend had regretted a path chosen in foolish adolescence, he could have stepped off it as an adult."
"How… could he not have? How could—"
Maybe it's the opiates or the adrenaline crash or maybe it's just Celine, sitting there with her hand wrapped around Miyeong's with all the patience in the world and not a single shred of judgement, but somehow, for once, it feels easy to say.
"I know bad people," Miyeong admits, picking at a bit of fuzz on the pilled-up fleece blanket the last nurse gave her, "from way too close up. I've done the whole dance, the makeup and the excuses and the giving up friends, I know what it looks like when nothing is as important to someone as himself. And I don't know, maybe Jeremy had some secret dark side, but Yeonggi— I know what Minji has probably said about him, and I won't pretend he didn't make some bad choices, but he wasn't evil, Celine. He wasn't the kind of person who sees 'summon a demon to the world to torture everyone forever' and shouts 'hey, sign me up!'"
Celine takes a moment, picking her words with extra care even by Celine standards, and says, "Gwi-Ma is a deceiver. Very few start their service to him with a clear vision of the end. But it doesn't take a particularly cruel man, either, to stay there, even once the end is all too visible. To justify only a little more cruelty, when you've come so far, when it's only happening to someone else." Her thumb soothes over Miyeong's knuckles again. "You could put it in psychology terms; sunk cost fallacy, moral acclimation. But in my order we simply say that every bad choice is practice for the next."
"… I don't think I care for that adage," admits Miyeong. "I've made a lot of bad choices of my own."
Celine just smiles at her, unjustifiably, impossibly fond. "The inverse is no less accurate; every good choice is practice, too. Which would you consider sheltering us, the last few weeks? Walking into deadly danger for the sake of friends? Choosing Minji?"
Miyeong has never been so thankful in her life to see an orderly as the one who walks in on the heels of Celine's question, readying her bed to wheel her off to surgery and sparing her any need to respond.
The car ride to the abode of Minji-nim’s friend includes several conversations, none of which Rumi truly engages in.
First, Minji-nim avoids explaining exactly how she found herself injured, and why she did not mention Miyeong-nim before. Then, Minji-nim calls upon the honored shaman, giving her a summary of the situation.
Third, Hyeonsuk-nim attempts to ask Rumi about herself. It is embarrassing to be so rude, but Rumi does not answer most of her questions in any way, the memory of Zoey’s warning regarding hospital workers and involuntary psych holds haunting her most fearfully.
However, once Minji-nim hangs up the phone, she takes over, making apologies for Rumi and inquiring at length about the nature of her friend’s survival, likely to prevent herself from having to once more avoid the question of where she had been and what she had been doing.
The building that Hyeonsuk-nim brings them to is not unlike the one they had recently left, down to the color of the carpets inside, and it sets a shudder up Rumi’s spine. She wishes for her sword, and then feels ill at the idea of touching the blade she had so nearly misused just hours before.
“Sieun’s still pretty much bed-bound,” Hyeonsuk-nim tells them, as they stand in the whirring cage of the elevator, “and Junyeong had this work trip that he just couldn’t avoid—“
She and Minji-nim share a look of disgust.
“—so her sister’s been staying over, fair warning, but she sleeps like the dead, so…”
Minji-nim frowns. “Eunyeong and I get along okay. Why would I be worried about her? Did I offend her sometime?”
“No, no, she’s just so…” Hyeonsuk-nim makes an incomprehensible gesture.
Minji-nim nods like she understands, though Rumi suspects they are both equally lost.
Hyeonsuk-nim retrieves a key from her bag, letting them into the darkened apartment. It, at least, is nothing like Bobby’s—there is not a hint of hoarfrost, none if the inescapable taint of a wraith’s presence. Rumi relaxes as she crosses the threshold, allowing Minji-nim to follow her.
Hyeonsuk-nim gives them an odd look, but thankfully does not comment.
I nearly let her die tonight, Rumi thinks of saying. I have already failed her, and by extension you and the woman we are here for. Would you have preferred to learn of her death by the wretched corpse left behind?
She knows this would only create distress, but the guilty pleas fill her throat nonetheless.
“Shoe rack is there,” Hyeonsuk-nim says, pointing to their left as she slips her own off her feet.
There is only one light lit in the apartment, creeping in from down the hall, but the gray filtering in through a window in the kitchen is enough to see by as they follow suit and make their way back.
The light turns out to be a lamp, glowing from beside the bed of a woman who, within the first five seconds of Rumi seeing her, goes from nervous anticipation to even more incandescent than even the sun.
“Sieun,” Minji-nim says, choked. She takes two steps forward and then stops, her hands rotating back and forth in nervous flicks of the wrist as she looks over the blankets.
“Hug. Now,” Sieun-nim demands, though she only lifts one arm.
Minji-nim still approaches slowly, careful to seat herself properly on the bedding before she leans in. Yet the moment they are embracing, she still collapses into her friend.
Rumi feels an awful surge of jealousy, and forces her gaze away as she battles down the infernal feeling. She has done enough tonight; her disgusting impulses will not ruin this beautiful moment.
(Her best friend came back, the nasty little voice protests. Ours has his face used to torture us. It’s not fair!)
(We deserve it, she snarls back, viciously squashing it down.)
Sieun-nim cups Minji-nim’s jaw as they finally draw apart, earning a hiss despite the tenderness of her touch. “You bit your tongue, huh?”
The first order of business once they get back to Miyeong's apartment is to get Mira's curse— infection? parasite? possession? Mira makes a very unhappy face at those last two and says "curse" very definitively— under control.
Celine had said something to Mira about "Min's Binding" and told Zoey her job was mostly support, to keep the essence of the wraith as separate as possible from Mira while she did most of the work of actually locking it down herself, so Zoey warms up some leftover enchiladas while Mira sets up a ritual circle and pages around in one of the Evil Books in preparation. (Zoey wouldn't have expected Celine to know by name, or ask Mira to perform, rituals from one of the Evil Books, but apparently there's a lot of perfectly normal occult wizard stuff in there too, which Mira had said was "just like business school, really," and not elaborated.)
It's not a cure, of course. That will have to wait until the actual shaman is available, which will have to wait until either Miyeong can leave the hospital, or Rumi can take her guard shift, or all wraiths are accounted for. But it will reduce the symptoms, and make it safe for Mira to sleep as long as it lasts. Zoey sets a phone alarm for five hours; Mira thinks the protection will be good for at least six, but Zoey's not taking chances with Mira's soul. (Which means she probably won't get more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep, because she also still has to shower, and Zoey still has to go back to the hospital to bring Miyeong and probably Celine something to change into tomorrow morning and they're not supposed to go places in less than pairs so Mira will have to come, but sometimes that's just how patient care goes, and they can do the ritual again and crash again after, the bad guys are crippled, they've got time.)
"Celine texted," Mira reports, when Zoey brings her her plate. "Minji met some old friends, I guess? Someone who survived the fire. She went home with them, her and Rumi won't be back tonight."
"Huh."
"Yeah. Just us tonight, looks like. We could… probably split the beds, sleep alone for once." She looks down at her bloodied, black-streaked arms, as she says it.
"… we should probably still share, I think? In case the binding goes wrong, or something, fails early, I'd know right away and we could deal with it."
"… yeah, okay," says Mira, barely bothering to try to hide her relief. "That makes sense."
Zoey grins, and starts setting up her own little tray of tools. "Oh! Speaking of! I did something kind of crazy?" Mira doesn't say anything, just tilts her head and gives Zoey a small, encouraging smile, so Zoey admits in a rush, "I asked Celine if I could be her apprentice and she said yes so I guess I'm officially dropping out of med school and my mom is going to kill me approximately ten types of dead and my dad will find at least two more? But I finally figured out what Suspicion-ssi meant and it just felt right and I don't know, like me and Celine said there's some kind of sorta formal ceremony we still have to do but we might as well call this my first day anyway and you know how hard she can be to read but I think I kind of surprised her in, like, a good surprise way—"
"Zoey," says Mira, warm. "Take a breath." She reaches out to squeeze Zoey's hand. "That's really cool, I'm really happy for you."
"Yeah," Zoey breathes. "Yeah. Me too."
She looks down at Mira's poor arms, and her own impending fight with her parents feels a little petty, suddenly.
"… have you thought about what you want to do? After all this?"
Mira laughs, small and humorless and mean. "Take over the conglomerate and burn it to the ground?"
She shakes her head, and shrugs like she's trying to knock the whole Kang legacy off her shoulders with one exhausted, angry movement.
"No, I don't know. I was supposed to do business undergrad into law school, so I could help Jaeho run the company, or whatever. I guess I didn't actually hate the legal stuff, though. My family mostly cared about the ways to get away with shit, but there's a lot you can do to help people, too. And it's sort of… I don't know. Satisfying, when you find the right words to say and suddenly things go the way you want. Like magic," she looks down, again. "Without the side effects."
"Hey, you could do family law," says Zoey, "Celine's order helps people get away from bad marriages and parents and stuff, right? We could keep working together."
"Let's just get through the night," says Mira, but she's smiling for real, now, broad and loose and less tension in her frame than Zoey's seen since the party. "… but, yeah. That sounds… I'll think about it."
"my great grandmother who survived 3 wars and raised 10 children by herself while working in a factory watching me go to therapy because my parents yelled at me" ok but your great grandmother was also miserable. maybe your great grandmother would be happy you try your best to not be miserable
A detail I find really interesting about Chell, GLaDOS, and Wheatley's first confrontation in Portal 2 is when Wheatley starts gloating about taking over the facility. "I did this! Tiny little Wheatley did this!"
And GLaDOS interjects like, "You didn't do this. She did all the work!"
I find that interjection fascinating because. Like.
GLaDOS doesn't actually know anything about what happened behind the scenes. She lost track of Chell and Wheatley after Wheatley opened up a wall panel and they bolted off together into the facility's inner workings. She doesn't see them again until Chell falls for her fake door trap, at which point GLaDOS is unpleasantly surprised to discover that Chell's disabled the turrets and neurotoxin in the meantime.
She has no evidentiary foundation to base that accusation on.
This is also before GLaDOS recognizes Wheatley as the Dumbass Core, so it's not based on an assessment of him.
The only explanation it leaves is that it's based on her assessment of Chell. Despite GLaDOS's enmity towards Chell, the one thing she rarely goes after Chell for is her intelligence.
When she does, it's an admission of her high standards for Chell; Like when the fake door trap works and GLaDOS concedes, "I didn't actually think that would work. I already built a much better, smarter trap up ahead for when this one fails." That's a backhanded insult. It's calling her dumb, but in a disappointed way rather than an affirming way.
Chell tests very well. Between the two games, GLaDOS has developed a strong understanding of Chell's aptitude for critical thinking and problem-solving in stressful situations.
And so she takes it on faith, just from what she knows of Chell, that Wheatley is stealing Chell's credit.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Thinking about the Dasom AU again for no particular reason;
Suppose Celine comes in for her various prenatal appointments and keeps running into the same woman, let's call her... idk Eunae, who's doing PT at the clinic next door. She's a first responder or Search & Rescue or some other dramatic thing but she's having to transition to desk work due to injury and age, and she and Celine start to kind of bond over this shared understanding of having been on the front lines and having to leave, having a hard time connecting to people because the job comes first, etc etc (which is. very confusing for Eunae when she finds out this is a popstar-turned-CEO and not some badass international disaster relief operative). And Celine is usually pretty good at just being lonely, but she's hormonal and a little freaked out right now and her daughter is being extremely weird about this pregnancy thing and so she lets herself make a friend, and they get dinner sometimes and hang out and talk and Zoemira are very happy that there's someone dragging her out of the house once Dasom is born and making sure she's not just drowning in New Mother, and then one day Eunae kisses her and she realizes wait those were dates!?
Rumi is totally chill about this development and extremely happy for Celine and doesn't know why Celine keeps asking her if she's okay with it like there's some reason she wouldn't be. Miyeong has never even been a person to her, Celine is not replacing her with some new woman who somehow voids Celine's connection and/or obligation to Rumi any more than she is replacing Rumi who was never actually her daughter with Dasom. This is all completely fine.
(Bonus funny if this is maybe how the penny drops for Rumi on the stepdad of it all. "No of course I don't think she's trying to replace Miyeong that doesn't even make sense it's not like she and Miyeong were a thing--")
Aww, yeah, that's such a good addition! Because the little sister world is a really lonely one for Celine - and you're right, she's normally fine with being lonely by herself, but Rumi has also recently made it clear how much she feels Celine failed her so is Celine really going to repeat her mistakes with this baby?
When Miyeong was pregnant with Rumi, Celine was there to hear all her excitement to meet the baby and her worries if something seemed unusual. Celine was there to help Miyeong assemble the crib and read through the specifications of different car seats to make sure Miyeong felt confident her baby would be safe; Celine was there to listen to Miyeong talk excitedly about the baby names she was thinking about and to hear her cry over her fear that Miyeong wouldn't know how to protect her. One of the memories Celine holds closest to her heart was during Miyeong's pregnancy, when Celine braided her hair and Miyeong sat between her legs, idly stroking her bump and talking softly to the baby.
Dasom doesn't have any of that.
It isn't just that Celine is alone. She has been alone for a very long time; she was alone when she took Rumi home after Miyeong's death and stayed that way through Rumi's first word, first steps, first fever bad enough to go to hospital. Every joy and fear of parenting Rumi, Celine faced alone.
(Part of her worries that if Rumi sees her behaving differently with Dasom, it will only make things worse.)
But Celine is also older, and while that has certain benefits in that she has more money, a stable career, no need to be on the frontlines hunting demons and run back home for bedtime, it also means that the pregnancy itself has the potential to become more complicated. And Celine does not have a peer group of new mothers she can turn to, because she's older than them and she's already raised a child.
So I figure that maybe Celine meets Eunae fairly early in her pregnancy, at a time when she isn't showing (or if she is then Celine is still able to hide it with loose-fitting clothing), and they become casual acquaintances as they bump into one another at the cafe next door and start talking about their careers.
And obviously Eunae isn't going to pry about the nature of her appointments, and Celine who is not exactly forthcoming doesn't mention the fact she's pregnant either.
But then Celine feels the baby move for the first time.
And she can't tell Rumi, who is already withdrawing from her at any mention of the baby, and she doesn't have any living friends it would be appropriate to mention it to, and maybe it's not a milestone that should particularly matter - not when the only parents Celine really speaks to outside of work are all older than her and remember her hauling Rumi through the market on her hip, and they know that she has raised a baby before.
But Celine has never been pregnant before. She's never felt this before, the physical proof that her baby is growing safely inside of her, and the sense of surprise and awe that evokes. And Eunae is sort of her friend, in that they meet regularly enough and commiserate over how awful a career of paperwork and people management is compared to what they were doing to help people, so Celine works up the courage - ridiculous, that she should feel shy mentioning this when she's performed in front of 50,000 people, but everything about this situation is faintly ridiculous - and drops it into conversation with Eunae.
Eunae doesn't know anything about Miyeong and Rumi and the mix of guilt and fear that sometimes clouds Celine's view of the baby. She's just someone who talks about Dasom as a happy thing, and Celine hadn't realised how much she needed that - permission to be happy about her own daughter.
It's Eunae's influence that means Celine stops trying to play the ascète and actually chooses baby things that she likes, not just choosing the most functional because that's the easiest to justify. Celine looks through the baby clothes in the department store and chooses one with a print she likes, or a dress that she already knows will be impractical and easily messed-up but looks pretty. Dasom deserves to have pretty things, too, things that exist to say that Celine is happy to meet her.
(The first time she tries to look at baby clothes, she finds a pair of newborn socks for sale and slips her finger and thumb inside. They're so small. Her baby will be that small. When Rumi was that size, Miyeong was still alive to hold her.)
(That's the first time Eunae sees Celine tear up.)
As the pregnancy progresses, Rumi learns that Celine has made a new friend and is probably very grateful - they don't live near the hanok, and Celine's age means that the pregnancy itself is high-risk and Rumi might have her own anxieties about whether Miyeong giving birth to her was related to Miyeong's death, so knowing that there is someone else around to check that Celine is still alive and be her point of contact in case something happens is actually very reassuring.
Does Rumi initially believe that Eunae is probably an older retired woman that Celine has just met in the market? Absolutely she does, because all of Celine's social circle consists of people from work or some of the halmeonis who still remember when Celine, Miyeong and Thirdlight were teenagers. The revelation that Celine is talking to someone her own age - actually her own age, not just the line Rumi used to draw between 'adult' and 'kid' so Celine belonged to one category and Rumi, Mira and Zoey the other - is probably more shocking than the eventual romance. Celine has peers?!
Celine, of course, has no idea that Eunae has any sort of feelings about her. In fact, one of the things she has probably worried over privately (and felt guilty over feeling it and decided never to mention it to anyone...) is that the whole experience of being pregnant is uncomfortable. Not just physically, although the nausea and aches and other symptoms are something she has to deal with alone. But it also brings things to the surface - memories of Miyeong and Rumi, for one, and a feeling of profound unease that her body is not her own, that it is being changed in ways that are visible to everyone around her. That she is no longer as strong or as sure-footed or as able to use her swords as she once was.
That she is getting fat.
It's vain and ridiculous and she hates herself for feeling it, but that - the sense that her body is not her own, and the constant cycle of appointments and measurements and the way her abdomen keeps getting larger - brings up memories she thought she'd set aside of her trainee days, weekly weigh-ins, eating ice cubes before their comeback, their trainer pinching the skin around her waist to see if she's acceptable.
And none of that should bother her now. She didn't think Miyeong looked any less beautiful while she carried Rumi, after all, and she knows that her body is doing an important job - caring for her baby, the first Hunter to be born under the new Honmoon, making sure Dasom grows safely and healthily.
But sometimes she just feels so out of control, like her body doesn't even belong to her any more, and this whole other layer of no longer being attractive is just one too many things to deal with, and Celine can't imagine anyone looking at her now and wanting her. And that's fine. That isn't in the cards for her, apparently. She was too busy raising Rumi and looking after the Honmoon when she was younger, and now that the girls are established and Celine was maybe beginning to consider that she could dip her toe into the dating world for the first time, the Honmoon gave her another child to look after in the form of Dasom. Celine will love the baby, will look after the baby, will see that the baby learns everything she needs to know in order to be a good Hunter, and she quietly puts those daydreams of sharing her mornings with another adult to one side. It isn't meant to be.
So when Eunae does tell Celine she's attracted to her, Celine cannot make those words fit neatly in her understanding - not just of their friendship but of how Celine moves through the world.
Rumi, meanwhile, just kicked Mira's bedroom door open and greeted her with: "DOES CELINE THINK I'M HOMOPHOBIC?! IS THAT WHY SHE THOUGHT I WOULD BE WEIRD ABOUT THIS?! I can't believe her!"
Any couple that wants to make their relationship serious have to have an understanding about kids, obviously, but it's all kinds of extra urgent and impactful in this case. If Eunae is hitting up a pregnant lady for a long-term relationship, she's signing up to be Mom 2 from basically the start, and Celine has to decide a bunch of things very quickly: does she actually want this for itself or is she being swayed by the desire to not have to raise Dasom alone? Is this someone she can raise a kid with, who she trusts to agree with her about discipline and bedtimes and schooling? Even more, is this someone she can raise a Hunter with, someone who's going to be able to understand and keep up with the demands, there? Is Eunae going to look at this and go "my kid has been chosen for something heroic and sacred and important, and I'm scared for her but very proud," or is she going to say "no I will not be raising a child soldier"?
Several of which are questions that she probably can't confidently answer without reading Eunae in on the Hunter thing, of course, which she may feel obligated to touch base with Huntr/x on, first, and then she has to deal with all of their opinions on all that, too.
(If Eunae has never had kids, that does help Celine's position, since she's going to be the voice of experience, but in the long run it will still have to be a partnership, she's still going to have to trust that this is someone who can have independent authority over her daughter.)
The dynamic changes if they're friends for a longer time and Celine and Dasom are firmly established as their own unit before Eunae makes a move ("you.... want me?!??" "Have for about six years now, thanks for noticing" sort of thing), but the longer they go without the Hunter Reveal the more dramatic it becomes, the more it impacts their own relationship, and the more Celine is able to stabilize herself, adapt to the awkward new normal with Rumi and Dasom, and start pushing Eunae back out of any real level of intimacy in favor of the same "loves dearly but refuses to rely on or be vulnerable with in any way" that she uses on her kids.
(Of course, that could be the catalyst for Eunae finally forcing the issue - "if you won't let me be anything I might as well admit that I always wanted more." Or she could always just get attacked by demons. Can't go wrong with a bad guy attack, absolutely classic drama-filled way to bring a civilian into the Masquerade, and would definitely give them an excuse to change the way they see each other.)
Blood cult au part nineteen (first, most recent, masterpost)
Currently: the wraiths are dead (mostly), and Rumi didn’t even kill Bobby in the process—many thanks to Zoey, who’s formally decided to drop out of med school and join Celine’s shamanic order. That said, Minji and Miyeong need a hospital, and Mira needs a little more than that.
Mira can feel it. The parts that are the wraith, rattling around inside her. Her wrists still hurt and something keeps telling her how easy it would be to just—take a little more.
Or maybe that’s her. She opened that door, didn’t she?
She watches, useless, as Minji starts palpating Miyeong’s knee, because if she touched—
Footsteps break into her thoughts, and she looks. Celine is back, with Rumi. No Zoey or Bobby though.
Rumi’s eyes go wide and she bolts across the room so fast that she blurs, suddenly kneeling by Mira, taking Mira’s ugly, tainted hands in her own. “Oh… what happened?”
“I… I fucked up,” Mira says, and she finds that she’s suddenly on the edge of tears, with Rumi—fucking Rumi!—holding her so gently.
“We will make this right,” Rumi promises, looking at her with that intent stare of hers, and Mira hates her for how kind she is, in spite of—of everything. Of all of it.
“Yeah,” she says, and it comes out choked with the edge of tears. “Maybe start with Miyeong’s knee?”
Rumi drowns, confused, and spins. “Miyeong-nim! Minji-nim, can I assist you? Are you well?”
Minji does something that might’ve otherwise been a huff of laughter, but largely comes out pained. “If you can carry her out of here, that would help a hell of a lot.”
“Of course,” Rumi says, and she is so unhesitating and so guilty and Mira just—gives up. She loves her, and it’s doomed, but whatever. She does.
Celine finally finishes walking over as Rumi shuffles over to Minji and Miyeong, telling them calmly, “Zoey has taken our friend Bobby-ssi to clean his apartment. She’ll meet us at the door.”
“Is this an ambulance emergency?” Rumi asks, looking around as her hands hover nervously at Miyeong’s side. “Or are we to transport Miyeong-nim ourselves?”
Miyeong giggles, clearly going out of her mind with pain. “Sorry! Sorry, just—fuck, I’m about to cry so—gotta laugh.”
“Why would I take offense?” Rumi replies, gracious as ever.
Minji sighs. “Normally I’d call one, but in between you and Mira, I think we’d have some unpleasant questions to answer. Now, c’mon, you’re gonna have to be careful not to jostle her knee while we move, okay?”
Miyeong insists they go to different hospitals, "for opsec purposes, don't argue with me I'm in too much pain," and so they end up splitting into pairs. Celine and Miyeong make their way to St Mary's, Rumi stays with Minji at the university hospital just to be safe, and Zoey and Mira go back to the apartment once they drop Minji off, to get Mira cleaned up and put all of the "obvious shaman stuff" away and collect a change of clothes for Miyeong.
Celine isn't exactly surprised when the nurse asks Miyeong about patient privacy and she waves her hand, dismissive, and says "It's fine, she can hear whatever," but the trust warms her, anyway. Miyeong looks a little surprised when Celine wraps their fingers together after a particularly unhappy wince, but she holds on, and Celine texts Minji and Zoey one-handed and tracks the opiates kicking in by the intervals between the painful tightening of her grip.
There's a wait for X-rays, another wait for surgery, and as Miyeong's pain slowly subsides, Celine updates her on Minji — no concussion, her tongue needs stitches, she'll be able to come visit by the time Miyeong is out of surgery if Miyeong doesn't think that's an opsec problem too — and Mira, whose cleansing may require all four of them or retrieving a few things from Celine's office, but shouldn't be any more of an issue than Miyeong's surgery.
Miyeong is clearly relieved to hear both, but remains pensive, and Celine eventually prods, gently. "Worried about your knee?"
"... Yeonggi wasn't there."
"... ah."
"We can— wraiths do their routines from life, right? When they're not doing anything else? We can find him, I can find him, but I don't know..."
She trails off, and Celine waits. The chair isn't all that comfortable, and her arm's at a bit of an awkward angle, but she will wait a hundred years for Miyeong, if that's what Miyeong needs.
But what Miyeong says, eventually, is, "The wraith that Mira killed was a photographer from my magazine."
Minji has, many times, seen a patient’s loved ones being far more distressed than the patient themself. Thankfully, Rumi isn’t having a tearful breakdown at her bedside.
She is, however, silently staring and vibrating with energy as the doctor explains what he’s doing, such that Minji decides against reminding the idiot that she’s a nurse, and does in fact know what local anesthetics and absorbable sutures are.
(Doctors.)
Minji updates Celine (and Miyeong) and Zoey (and Mira) whenever she has a spare moment—it won’t be long, but it will be an annoying month or two of soft foods.
Discharge instructions taken, Minji levers herself up off the bed, trying not to roll her eyes at Rumi’s nervous hands, waiting to catch her—concussion or no, she isn’t exactly in perfect form.
To her surprise, though, the door is opening again. “Minji?”
Minji feels a pit open up in her chest as she recognizes the woman at the door. Hyeonsuk moved over to work at the university three years back, but that didn’t mean—
“Minji,” Hyeonsuk breathes, rushing in. “It is you.”
Rumi gets in the way before Hyeonsuk can go for a hug. She just stands, solid, silent, a wall in human form and she looks at Minji. Hyeonsuk makes a startled sound.
“It’s okay,” Minji manages, even if the words come out slurred around the anesthetic’s influence on her tongue. “She’s… my friend.”
Maybe the only one Minji has left.
She looks at Hyeonsuk, not quite in the eyes, unable to manage that over the horrible guilt. “My niece. She’s protective, since…”
(Accurately, she supposes, fitting Rumi into her family tree, a first cousin once removed might make more sense—Misuk-imonim will be so happy to have gotten another grandchild, she’s sure.)
Rumi bows heavily in apology as she steps back. “I did not mean to cause trouble.”
“No, no,” Hyeonsuk says. “I just—I saw your name and I needed to see if—we thought you were dead, Minji.”
Minji doesn’t know what to say to that. There is no good answer.
I should’ve been there is almost as bad as We killed the things that did it. She and I and a wondrous mudang and an American and a witch. I think Miyeong might’ve gotten one, I’m not sure. We killed them.
She doesn’t think either truth will calm her, anyway.
Finally, slowly, her body skips ahead of her turtle-brain and asks, “We?”
Mira cradles the pot in her hands like a lifeline. The mugwort had worn off a little while ago and a moving car is not the best place for shaman rituals.
It’s fine.
If she focuses enough, she can map out the blotchy brushstrokes that comprise each sunflower dotted along the sky blue ceramic. She traces each petal with her finger, it gives her hands something to do other than shake. It gives her mind something to do other than think. It gives the wraith—
Seven. There are seven sunflowers on this pot. Bobby had given Zoey this pot. Zoey had trusted Mira with this pot. I am Mira.
An unwelcome yet familiar sensation graces her fingertips. It slithers up her arms like a pair of eels and it pools itself in her gut like a heavy stone.
Mira’s eyes refocus, she looks down at the pot in her lap. Ash, she’s smeared ash all over Zoey’s pot. Her wrists burn anew.
I am Mira and I ruin everything, the wraith she thinks. Something hot builds up behind her eyes as the scent of ash works its way through her system. She screws her eyes shut. Ice claws its way up her throat. For one horrific moment she wonders if her neck has been reopened.
Warm fingers brush against her bicep, chipping at the ice.
“Did you know kangaroos can’t go backwards?!” Zoey blurts.
Mira twists in the front seat to look at her incredulously. Zoey has her eyes fixed on the road, hands at ten-and-two, an expression of utter mortification on her face.
“They can’t?” Mira asks as the ice in her throat rapidly thaws. Satisfaction and warmth kindle in Mira’s chest as Zoey’s mortification falls away.
“Nope!” Zoey says, her fingers tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel. (Mira absently notes that it’s one of her ‘happy rhythms.’) “It’s mainly because of the tail.”
“Huh!”
“Pretty cool, right?”
“Sick,” Mira agrees. “Do you have any more cool animal facts?”
Zoey’s eyes sparkle and the rest of the drive passes in the whirl of an impromptu lecture on the nature of turtle shells. Mira lets the wraith drown under the sound of Zoey’s voice and the sparkle in her eyes.
Zoey believes I can keep this pot safe. That is why she gave it to me. She trusts me.
Idly Mira examines the pot again. The ash streaks have only made the yellow of the flowers stand out all the brighter.
It won’t be too hard to clean, with a little water, a clean cloth and some determination.
Maybe she hasn’t ruined it after all.
Minji can’t stop herself from shaking and twitching in rhythm as she gets them out of the hospital, her joy and her guilt warring within her until they force her body to move with their energy.
“Imonim,” Rumi says softly, touching her arm.
The title doesn’t quite add up until she turns to see Hyeonsuk approaching them, a jacket on over her scrubs and a bag over her shoulder, smiling tearfully as she talks into her phone. “Yeah, yeah, Sieun, she’s right here, I’ve got her, here—“
Minji takes the phone, and finds herself unable to breathe. Sieun. Sieun, her best friend, her Sieun. Dead Sieun.
There’s a ragged sound from the other end. Then: “Minji?”
“Hello,” Minji says, because that is what you say when you answer the phone, and a boulder like her will always follow its path.
(Sieun. Her best friend. Alive Sieun.)
“Minji,” Sieun gasps, “Minji, babe, I thought—you didn’t—what the hell? Where have you been?”
Minji stands, feeling so much as to be numb and silent, until Hyeonsuk takes her arm and starts to lead her and Rumi towards her car.
It shocks an answer from her, it seems. “Miyeong’s.”
Sieun laughs, wild and hysterical, and Minji smiles on autopilot, because Sieun’s reactions have long been her guide when she’s lost. And yet…
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I should’ve been there.”
Sieun deserves her honesty. Sieun can always take her honesty.
Hyeonsuk misses a step, and Minji nearly walks into her back. Oh. They’re at the car.
Rumi frowns heavily, some unreadable emotion underneath it as she reaches down to where Minji has, without noticing, dug her nails in and takes her hand, squeezing in slow, rhythmic pulses.
“…Please,” Sieun says, “tell me that you mean after. Because, Minji, the only damn thing keeping me together this last month is the fact that I might get to have this conversation. Don’t you dare tell me you’re sorry for finally figuring things out with Miyeong instead of—instead of—instead of dying of smoke inhalation.”
Minji cannot answer her. Sieun deserves her honesty.
Sieun takes a sharp breath. She lets it out, controlled, and takes another. “Okay. So when Hyeonsuk gets you here, I’m going to hug you. And neither of us are going to feel guilty for surviving.”
Minji squeezes back in time with Rumi’s rhythm, trying desperately to anchor herself as she stares at Hyeonsuk’s car.
“I have lost too many people to lose you too,” she says. “Don’t you dare say no, Minji. Don’t you dare.”
“Okay,” Minji says. “Miyeong’s in surgery right now. I should leave a message, though.”
There’s a long beat. And then, again: “What the hell, Minji?”
Celine's voice is neutral, mild, when she asks, "Someone you knew well?"
Miyeong's not entirely sure how to answer that. She wouldn't have talked to Jeremy outside of work; they didn't have much in common, didn't like to spend their free time the same way. But they were friendly enough on the job, were always able to hold a conversation, knew how to get each other the angles or access they needed without having to ask.
"… well enough that I would have said he was a decent person," she finally says, because that's the real problem, isn't it? "He said— maybe it was stupid, but I asked him, during the fight, what deal he made. He said it was to protect him from bullies. Does that mean university? Grade school? Can a— how can a dumb kid make a deal with Gwi-Ma, how is that—"
Celine's thumb traces along the back of Miyeong's knuckles, a soothing, wordless acknowledgment. "A contract with the demon king can be broken, while one still lives. It isn't easy, or entirely safe for the advocate, but if your friend had regretted a path chosen in foolish adolescence, he could have stepped off it as an adult."
"How… could he not have? How could—"
Maybe it's the opiates or the adrenaline crash or maybe it's just Celine, sitting there with her hand wrapped around Miyeong's with all the patience in the world and not a single shred of judgement, but somehow, for once, it feels easy to say.
"I know bad people," Miyeong admits, picking at a bit of fuzz on the pilled-up fleece blanket the last nurse gave her, "from way too close up. I've done the whole dance, the makeup and the excuses and the giving up friends, I know what it looks like when nothing is as important to someone as himself. And I don't know, maybe Jeremy had some secret dark side, but Yeonggi— I know what Minji has probably said about him, and I won't pretend he didn't make some bad choices, but he wasn't evil, Celine. He wasn't the kind of person who sees 'summon a demon to the world to torture everyone forever' and shouts 'hey, sign me up!'"
Celine takes a moment, picking her words with extra care even by Celine standards, and says, "Gwi-Ma is a deceiver. Very few start their service to him with a clear vision of the end. But it doesn't take a particularly cruel man, either, to stay there, even once the end is all too visible. To justify only a little more cruelty, when you've come so far, when it's only happening to someone else." Her thumb soothes over Miyeong's knuckles again. "You could put it in psychology terms; sunk cost fallacy, moral acclimation. But in my order we simply say that every bad choice is practice for the next."
"… I don't think I care for that adage," admits Miyeong. "I've made a lot of bad choices of my own."
Celine just smiles at her, unjustifiably, impossibly fond. "The inverse is no less accurate; every good choice is practice, too. Which would you consider sheltering us, the last few weeks? Walking into deadly danger for the sake of friends? Choosing Minji?"
Miyeong has never been so thankful in her life to see an orderly as the one who walks in on the heels of Celine's question, readying her bed to wheel her off to surgery and sparing her any need to respond.
i wonder if it’s time for a cultural reappraisal of rob liefeld’s art. maybe we were all just too quick to judge a guy for daring to have a unique stylized take that focused on exaggeration and action. *actually looks at some of his art again* jesus CHRIST never mind
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The Silmarillion is a book that fills me with many emotions, but the only part that makes me feel anger -not tragic grief at the narrative, but real anger- is the ending where the Lord of the Rings is summarized in three paragraphs.
It makes me feel anger because it gives a comparison for just how summarized the rest of the Silmarillion is. The entire fall of the Noldor, written in a way that condenses Frodo and Sam’s whole journey to “alone with his servant he passed through peril and darkness and came at last in Sauron’s despite even to Mount Doom”.
What else did Tolkien imagine over five hundred years of history that didn’t make it into any of his notes? What did he not imagine that still must have occurred? Who are the Boromirs and the Eowyns and the Bilbos of the first age? What witch-kings did they slay and what quests did they begin? What were the riddles and the detours and the love stories?
Its all been forgotten. No one knows anymore, and it’s likely that no one ever did. Not even Professor Tolkien.
Why do kiwis have such massive fucking eggs “it’s because they are related to ostriches and-“ yeah ok but like why didn’t they evolve smaller eggs if I was in charge I would do that shit pronto. Thoughts?
their big eggs are actually that size for a similar reason to human babies having massive heads!! being bigger at birth can be important.
kiwi are trying SO HARD to become mammals. fur-like feathers, whisker-like feathers, little beady eyes, nocturnal, great sense of smell.... that's basically a mammal!! they're well suited for life on the forest floor.
their big eggs work alongside these adaptations to give them a leg up in the bird world. their young hatch already feathered! they're precocial, which means they're born with the ability to open their eyes and move around. like foals.
big egg = more powerful offspring from the get-go. babies don't need to spend precious time vulnerable while they develop on the ground when they've already done all that in the egg!
(unfortunately, with the introduction of mammals to aotearoa, these adaptations are a little less useful...)
They look like one of the downsides of emerging from an egg fully formed is how aware you are off just having come out on egg.
First minute alive, already dealing with some fucking experience.
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