Chapter Text
The Honmoon wrapped around Rumi, threads reaching out to the other girl.
Unbidden, Rumi started to sing. An old song, a soul song and the girl answered in kind and Rumi knew, she knew but knowing and experiencing were never the same things.
Knowing that there was someone out there who was bound to her was not the the same as feeling that connection become real. As that warmth spread through her chest, as her heart started to beat in time to the other's.
Where before there'd been a distant, comforting warmth there was now something that was dizzying. Like a star come to life.
They moved together in a dance that set fire to her blood, in sync in a way that ran bone deep. Rumi was beaming and she couldn't wait to find their third but right now, right now she lost herself in this joy.
In the wake of the connection—as it still bloomed new and fresh between them though there was some distant, sharp ache Rumi didn't understand—the other girl shook herself. She was … pretty. Rumi had never really noticed people before, but she noticed her. From her sharp severe features to her pink hair and the intense look in her dark eyes, she noticed her. The Honmoon sang in her blood and her heart beat like a drum.
"I'm Rumi," Rumi whispered.
"God, I love that part…" The girl whispered, voice shaking. She let go of Rumi's hand and cupped her cheek, "I'm Mira."
What … what was happening? Why was Mira looking at her like she personally made the sun rise in the sky?
Was she supposed to want to kiss her partner? Oh, she wanted to, suddenly and intensely and with more feeling than she knew possible but she wanted to kiss Mira.
Rumi was losing herself in eyes that seemed to see right through her. As if they knew her, as if they knew every secret and every joy and every shame and Rumi forgot how to breathe.
And Rumi had been training since she was twelve, had been preparing since she was eight and at sixteen she was skilled and strong and could almost almost almost get a hit in on Celine but somehow between one heartbeat and the next, Mira had her pinned face first to the tree, her arms wrenched behind her back and her mouth against her ear, breath warm as she spoke.
"I know you have patterns and that's okay. You're a hunter, you're a person and you have my undying loyalty. You'll have Zoey's too when we find her, I promise you."
Rumi's eyes were wide and she remembered how to breathe only to hyperventilate. But Mira's grip was surprisingly strong and somehow, strangely, the Honmoon was whispering a tune as if it were resonating with her words.
Soothing. Reassuring.
Slowly, Mira released her, then stepped back. She held her hands held up, palms up, "I'm … sorry. I knew you'd panic and I needed you to not like, run."
Turning and staring at her, Rumi made a good impression of a fish, "How… what… how?!"
"The Honmoon told me," Mira said, raking her fingers through her hair. She suddenly looked tired, like she hadn't slept in weeks, "I know why you might want to hide it. But it's really, really okay."
"I'm not sure I'm ready to believe that," Rumi admitted. And yet she gravitated towards the taller girl, pushing up the short sleeve of her shirt, "You really know what this means?"
"A parent was a demon," Mira said, hand hovering over the patterns but not touching. At Rumi's nod, she lowered it and gently traced the lines. "Born this way. That's no crime. Nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, I think they're really pretty."
Rumi felt her skin warm up at that and thanked whatever deity was listening for sending her a literal angel.
She found her second angel a few months later in Zoey.
Mira was a talented dancer and choreographer in particular and singer in general. She picked up hunting demons disturbingly quickly and together they helped Zoey catch up to them both.
And for nine years they hunted. They hunted, they sang, they danced and performed. They kissed in secret and let their growing love strengthen their connection to the Honmoon and the fans.
For nine years they protected the Honmoon.
And then they destroyed it and built a new one because Mira could not be convinced that turning it Golden wouldn't kill Rumi. Rumi had trusted Mira with her life from the day they'd met so they'd come up with a different plan.
She had loved her for so long that she couldn't remember the day that her feelings had changed. Only that she loved Mira and she loved Zoey and they loved her with every fiber of their being and it was that love that built the new Honmoon.
It was bine years that she would consider something close to heaven.
Then the Honmoon warbled and blood splattered the pavement. Zoey went down and Rumi fell next to her, pain rippling through her chest.
Rumi grasped for Zoey's hand, Mira pulling them both against her. She'd never seen Mira look like this before, her face twisted into something agonized, her voice cracking, rising in desperation, "Please, not again. I can't lose them again. I can't—I can't — What do I have to do to change this?!"
The last few words were more like a plaintive scream and Mira wasn't talking to Rumi.
Rumi wasn't sure Mira was talking to anyone at all. And then she felt it. Felt when Zoey stopped breathing. Felt the tearing in her soul and heard her voice crying out echoed by Mira's.
The blood seemed to pump out of her so much faster after that.
"I'm sorry, jagiya." Rumi pressed a bloody palm to Mira's face as her vision faded.
Mira's wail rippled through Rumi and she heard her voice like a promise written in the Honmoon, echoing around her with a power that sank into her bones.
You will not take the stars from me!
And then everything went dark.
Mira had thought she'd freed herself of this torture. She really had. They'd sealed the Honmoon, they'd defeated Gwi-Ma!
They'd made a new one built out of love and trust and their very souls and they hadn't done that before.
But Mira was holding the lifeless bodies of her girls in her arms again and the Honmoon—this new, strange one that shone like an iridescent rainbow—wrapped around her mournfully. Maybe it was the mark of her own soul on it but it remembered the promise she'd demanded of it that night at the Idol Awards. The same promise she'd demanded on the train tracks that first time.
The same promise she demanded each and every time when it all came to ruin, the final note of their music echoing in her head.
She reached up with the hand coated in Zoey's blood and grasped the threads of the Honmoon. Then she did the same with Rumi's blood. And she pulled, "You will not take the stars from me! I'll save them, however long it takes!"
Even if it destroyed her.
Her voice caught on the threads of the Honmoon and it sang a low dirge in response as light erupted between Mira's fingers. Her heart felt like it was being ripped into ribbons, which was laughable because it was already made of tattered scraps.
How had Celine gone twenty-five years like this when a few minutes was unbearable to Mira?
Her vision went white and when she opened her eyes she was standing at the gates to the estate on Jeju Island. Her hands were bloodless, though there was dirt under her nails and her clothing had holes in it. Exactly the state she'd been in after running away from home and being drawn by the Honmoon to Rumi.
Exactly how it had been every single time she'd made that oath with the blood of her soul mates. Oaths were powerful things, she'd been told once. They could shake the very heavens.
Why couldn't an oath save two women?
For a moment, she stood there, looking up at the beautiful blue sky. Then she fell to her knees and dug her fingers into the dirt and swallowed her sobs.
Mira lost track of the time as she fought with her emotions. As she felt like she was losing herself. Losing who she was. And then she heard Rumi's voice, clear and beautiful, drifting on the wind and it was like she found herself again.
Mira could walk away. Could see if never meeting them might keep them alive. Or it could doom them and there was no life where Mira could walk away from that voice and the connection thrumming in her chest. Her heart ached for it.
It was the only way to heal what had just been broken. The only way she could heal each time, the only way she could remotely tolerate the holes in her chest was to find her girls and let it fill with what had been stolen from her.
So, selfish at her core, she pushed the gate open and walked up the path until she reached the tree and saw the girl there to whom one half of her soul belonged.
They sang and they danced and the bond snapped into place like it had never been gone. Mira wondered if Rumi ever felt the sharp pain of grief when that happened.
She knew this girl. She'd held her in her nightmares. She'd seen her at her lowest, and at her highest had made plans with her and with Zoey. So many plans that now only Mira remembered and mourned.
It took all her willpower not to kiss Rumi immediately, but she did get a hug out of her. This time, she didn't reveal she knew about Rumi's patterns right away. Mira tried to think about what went wrong last time. Making a new Honmoon had worked! Almost. Until demons had slipped through anyway and they'd been unprepared and lax in training.
Making the Honmoon golden was not an option. Never. Mira would never forget the sound of Rumi's screams.
So remake it again. But convince them they shouldn't slack off. Or find some way to prevent crossovers. Or maybe they hadn't actually killed Gwi-Ma. Mira didn't know, but she had time to figure it out.
There was always time to figure it out.
So she waited until they had Zoey and she waited until Celine gave them the lecture about patterns and how they always meant a demon was evil.
And then she struck.
"What if someone is born with patterns?" Mira asked. By now she had managed to bury the worst of the ache and the grief from her last go around. The bond had done much to restore her soul and time with Rumi and Zoey would take care of the rest.
Rumi's eyes widened almost comically and Celine actually looked shocked for a whole half a second, "The only way that would be remotely possible is if a demon were the father or mother."
"So it's possible?" Zoey asked, unknowingly offering Mira an assist, "You can fuck a demon??"
"Then it would be no different from being born gay, or trans, or autistic," Mira added, allowing herself the smug satisfaction of relishing the vein in Celine's forehead.
This was her sixth time. She knew a lot about all of them, had an understanding of the whys of everything that Rumi had been hiding. She wasn't even all that outraged at Celine anymore, but she always felt a petty joy at picking this apart, "Or your skin color."
Zoey bounced on her feet, "Or vitiligo! Vitiligo is so cool! And kinda pattern like?"
"Or that," Mira nodded. "So how could a person born with patterns, who never made a deal with Gwi-Ma, be evil? I mean, patterns are kind of pretty if you look at them objectively. Especially if they were on a cute girl or something."
Rumi shot a pleading look at Celine that instantly broke Mira's heart, but her heart had broken each time she'd learned about Rumi's patterns. It was always worth it though, for the way Rumi opened up. She felt a lot better about tugging on the threads that she knew would lead to the love she couldn't live without with that secret out in the open, too.
She always tugged on those threads, though a part of her feared that was why she kept losing them. Mira didn't know if she could give up that love, but could acknowledge she might need to.
Celine didn't look at Rumi, her eyes locked onto Mira, "Interesting line of questions, Mira. May I ask what brought this about?"
Usually Mira deflected, or lied about overhearing something like an argument. Today she simply told the truth, "Secrets have a way of getting people killed and the worst thing I can think of is losing either of them. I'd rather it be me."
Now Rumi's eyes were on her, wide and intense, "What? No! No one is dying."
Mira snorted, "We all die eventually, Princess, I just want to see what you look like when you're a silver vixen."
Rumi actually sputtered as Zoey started to giggle. It was adorable and Mira had to fight the urge to pull her over and kiss her. She just … she loved her so much it hurt and Zoey's giggling was a balm.
She really, really wanted to grow old with them. See Rumi get silver in her hair, explore how Zoey's body changed over time. And maybe she was leaking out a little too many emotions because both girls were blushing at her and she forced her intensity down a few notches.
That was another problem, it was increasingly hard to shield the way her love was like the heart of a star— a fire that could burn for eons. Mira wasn't sure how it was possible, but she fell in love harder each time.
Shrugging at Celine, she said in an echo of another Zoey, "Through the Honmoon all things are possible, so jot that down."
Zoey squealed out a howl of laughter.
"My father was a demon," Rumi blurted, pulling the shoulder of her shirt down to show them her patterns.
Gasping, Zoey grabbed onto her arm, "Mira's right! They're so pretty!"
Celine let out a heavy sigh, "I was just afraid—"
"That we'd attack her or hurt her, I get it. But she's our soulmate." Mira shook her head. She knew every argument by heart. She also knew that Celine always got behind them and Rumi once they got past this part. Almost as if not holding the secret was soothing to her too, "I get it, actually. I don't like it, but I get it. I don't think I'd ever attack her, though."
"Accidents could happen, her patterns appear in combat and you don't check yourself fast enough?"
Atop the train, the argumen— Mira shoved the memory away. It hadn't been her blade that had killed them, but she felt it might as well have been.
This time would be different.
And it was different. A good life. Full of love and music.
Just not different enough where it mattered most. Not when it mattered most.
Nor the time after that.
Or the time after that.
Or the time—
—Mira was exhausted. Tired right down to her soul. And the Honmoon wept.
It had been much more rough that last time. If she closed her eyes she could see the gash in her own chest, watch the way their blood had pooled together on the ground between them. Fearing she would die before she could make her oath, she hadn't given herself the chance to mourn that life, to hold her soul mates as the light went out in their eyes.
She remembered dipping her fingers in the pool and staining the Honmoon with the life force of three dying women. The same demand as always, the same desperation to not lose them. The same aching note as light flared between her fingers.
What if she was destined to be alone?
Trudging up the path to the tree, she let Rumi's voice guide her, same as it always had. While she wasn't always sure that she wasn't changing, Rumi's voice—and Zoey's when they found her— always seemed to help her find herself.
But Mira had no idea what she was going to do now. Maybe just sit down. Her body felt fine but her mind and her heart were … thin.
Maybe the problem was her.
Before she could let that thought guide her feet away, the song stopped. Rumi stared at her from her position, then recognition dawned in her eyes. She scrambled forward, leaping at Mira and screaming her name as tears trailed behind her. They tumbled to the ground, rolling a bit before Rumi pressed her lips to Mira's as their souls linked together and restored half of Mira's heart. When she pulled her head back, Mira understood.
It was written in her eyes. Rumi remembered.
And Mira broke on her; heavy, body wrenching sobs against Rumi's chest as the other girl held her and stroked her hair.
"How many times?" Rumi asked, some time after Mira's tears had stopped.
"I've lost count," Mira whispered. "Over a dozen. How many do you remember? This is the first time you have as far as I know."
Rumi made a sound in her throat, "Just… the last one. Okay ... Okay. We need to find Zoey."
For the first time in … how many years now? Decades? For the first time she could remember, Mira felt hope spark in her chest.