Chapter Text
Pray to your god, open your heart
Whatever you do, don't be afraid of the dark
Cover your eyes, the devil's inside
The Honmoon never wavers in its nebulous choices. When it chooses a new hunter to train, those who protect the honmoon must heed its call.
The song of the honmoon's flowing music leads the hunters to the forest just outside their hanok, skirting the edge of the training grounds. Odd. Usually the songs lead to civilization or at least some sign of humanity, to bring a new hunter into their fold. This time, the song is different.
The faint song of the honmoon hums in their ears as the hunters trek into the forest, careful in their steps so as to not disturb the surrounding wildlife.
They hear the cries of... A woman? A screeching, wailing, shrill sobbing sound, and then animalistic panting and yipping. Oh. That's no sobbing woman, that's a fox making those sounds. At least, that was their first assumption.
The hunters feel the honmoon song sour to a warning note as the fox shrieking turns into brief silence, and then growling. Demonic growling.
The hunters summon their weapons, the honmoon-formed blades casting a soft glow into the night. It is a moonless night, in a dense forest, so only their weapons and their shared oil lamp serves to light the way.
A pair of glowing golden-yellow eyes catches in the light, reflecting it back. The eyes raise up from a fox's height to a child's height as... A child's face becomes visible in the lamplight. Well, not quite a child, at least not a normal once.
The child is the one growling at them, a mud-caked little girl in a tattered dress with claws for nails and sharp teeth and foxlike ears protruding from her head. The trees around her are decorated with clawmarks - marking her territory.
Another pair of glowing eyes shines in the light, but the eyes shrink away and dart back into the darkness when the hunters press forward. They all hear the whine of the other set of eyes calling the girl back.
When the hunters step closer to the child, the second set of glowing eyes leaps forward into the light, revealing a demonic white fox with glowing eyes and numerous tails. The fox, growling and spitting and gnashing its teeth at the hunters. As if... To protect the little girl?
The little fox-eared girl growls in tandem with the fox, baring her teeth at the hunters. The fox wraps its tails around the girl's legs protectively.
A gumiho. This must be a gumiho and possibly one of its half-breed offspring. They know of legends of gumihos having half-human children, and other legends still that claim that this type of demon has a chance at redemption. That if they starve the demon of human flesh and human souls for long enough, the demonic flesh may shrivel away to reveal a human body.
That must be what the honmoon wants. What the song humming in their ears wants. This child, this dirty demonic little girl, got chosen for the next generation of hunters, as a test. If they can turn a demon into a human, then maybe there is hope non-lethal methods can work to fend them off.
Too busy mentally debating this conundrum set before them, the hunters flinch back when the gumiho fox leaps at them to attack. Though in the form of a fox, they all hear through its growl the distorted demonic voice of a woman, shouting 'stay away from my baby!'
Nonsense, demons don't care or love, they don't feel anything. That's what the hunters have been told from generation to generation to maintain the honmoon. They can't dare to let compassion color their view of these heartless monsters, this demon is clearly trying to trick them!
The hunters jump into action, working to fend off the gumiho and get the half-breed child safely away from the creature. There may not be hope for the demon, but perhaps there is hope they can save its half-breed child.
Of course, the halfling brat doesn't go down without a fight either. She screams, bites, claws, kicks, wriggles against them with all the fervor of a terrified cornered animal. She shouts 'Eomma!' when one of the hunters successfully lands a hit on the fox-demon, and the demon cries out in pain as it jumps away. It takes two of the hunters to restrain the child enough so that she can't claw or bite them anymore, and the third chases after the gumiho further into the forest.
The child is distressed, she thrashes in the hunter's arms screaming for her eomma.
"Silly girl, that demon doesn't care about you! We're here to save you! The honmoon chose you!"
Still she screeches out eomma, eomma, eomma, making the hunters' ears ring at the shrill tone. Each scream of her voice makes the honmoon tremble around them.
The third hunter loses track of the fox-demon in the darkness of the forest. Perhaps it teleported away, back to the demon king, the demons' cruel master.
It is not an easy task, getting a half-breed feral child back to the hanok. The petulant thing keeps yipping and whining for her mother, as if that fox-demon would ever care enough to see her again. All hunters know demons don't feel, don't love, don't care for anything but selfish gain and to sate their hunger.
When the child bites one of the hunters, that's when they decide leaving her unmuzzled was a bad idea.
They must tame this half-breed child if they want a hope of fulfilling their duty to the honmoon. It chose this girl, and it is up to them to raise her into the hunter the honmoon needs her to be.
They know the girl must be capable of some level of speech, given her wailing out for her eomma whenever she has the energy. Between sleep and hunger in the dark cellar room they've shackled her in, all she can do is cry and call for her mom and beg to be let out to see her again.
It hurts their hearts to hear a child crying, but they know their mission; the hunters steel their hearts to endure it, for it is for the good of the child that they starve the demon out of her.
The old texts have conflicting accounts on how long it takes to turn a half-breed human. Either a hundred days, or a thousand. The hunters count each day down with bated breath, in hopes the hundreth day would be the one.
One night of the hunter
One day I will get revenge
One night to remember
One day it'll all just end
A hundred days of a yipping, screaming, wailing, crying, insolent child using her dwindling demonic wiles to bewitch them into freeing her from the cellar. The walls and door are covered in claw marks by the time they open the door again. They wait until the hundreth day, waiting for the screaming to stop, for the child to stop crying and fall into silence.
When they finally unlock that door, they find an emaciated girl with a broken spirit. Her voice too hoarse to yell for her momma anymore. Her body too dehydrated to produce any more tears. Her eyes dull and unfocused in the darkness. The fox ears that they first saw on her head gone, the claws retracted, the fangs receded. If she were fully human, she would not have lasted a week locked alone inside that cellar.
By all appearances, it looks like they succeeded in their test. Starve the demon out of a half-breed, and now they are to make a hunter out of her.
The three hunters gather to bring the thin girl out of the cellar. She numbly shuffles after them, eyes downcast and wrists raw from the shackles they kept her in.
It's jarring when the hunters are nice to her for the first time. They crouch down to introduce themselves to her, to tell her she's been chosen by the honmoon, how it's such a great honor to be its protector.
They even ask if she has a name, or if they must choose a name for her.
The girl glances up at the three hunters with weary eyes, her voice cracking as she responds.
"My name is Celine. When can I see my eomma again?"
Honest to God, I will break your heart
Tear you to pieces and rip you apart