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Celine never signed up for this. She had done everything right, followed all the rules, kept the proper distinction between black and white, right and wrong, good and evil. It was what she had been taught, what compelled her with a sense of purpose, and what held the fragile world around her together.
It all fell apart anyway.
Sometimes it was the gentle but relentless patter of rain and hum of wind which eroded a mountain over time. The change was too slow to be noticed, too patient to be jarring. Other times, change came in a moment of cataclysmic shifts and instantaneous collapse. At the end of the day, it was all the same result. The firm, unyielding mountain lay in a crumbled heap and the foundations she thought immutable stone were collapsed into piles of sand.
Sand was, after all, only rocks reduced into tiny, more malleable pieces. Yet it remained, in essence, the same.
Or so she told herself, after her world collapsed around her and that tiny baby was placed in her arms for good.
That morning, Celine had woken intending to work on a new song before going to the market. The call from the hospital reorganized her schedule. She put her song aside and market list in her bag. That evening, she came home with a newborn baby who was entirely under her care.
Celine learned of the child’s existence at the same moment she lost her fellow hunter, her sister-at-arms, her dearest friend. Mi-yeong clung to Celine's hand while her strength waned and her soul evaporated.
"Please... please... take care of my daughter,” she whispered between gasping breaths.
"I promise," Celine said, knowing there was no other answer she could possibly give. Their sisterhood was closer than blood, deeper than water, stronger than a mountain. Forged in spirit, heart, soul, mind, and art, Celine, Ha-yoon, and Mi-yeong had come together in the sacred duty of guarding and protecting the very world around them. Through tears and laughter, blood and sweat, sleepless nights and thankless days they had toiled as inseparable sisters-at-arms. In the end, Celine had no choice but to agree to Mi-yeong’s final request.
In the days and months leading up to that moment, there had been choices—so many choices—and so few of them fell into Celine's hands.
It was Ha-yoon who discovered the truth of it first… but some truths are too dangerous to be spoken.
A whirlwind romance swept Mi-yeong along in a whirlpool that swallowed her whole. Celine only met the man once, for less than five minutes, but it was enough to know he was all wrong. Especially since Mi-yeong had kept it a secret. She had not spoken a word of it; kept it mired in shadow and lies.
What is she ashamed of? Celine had wondered to herself.
“I am afraid for you,” Celine had spoken aloud in a moment of uncharacteristic honesty and vulnerability.
Faults and fears must never be seen. Celine knew it was her openness and vulnerability that drove the Sunlight Sisters apart. If she had kept her fears to herself, maybe she could have prevented all that followed. By bringing her fears into the light and giving them voice, she succeeded in tearing their sisterhood apart.
The ensuing argument saw the dissolution of the Sunlight Sisters and Mi-yeong vanished into the night. Ha-yoon returned home to take care of her ailing father, leaving Celine on her own.
Celine hoped it would prove a short conflict, a temporary breach that time and experience would repair. Afterall, no conflict had overcome their friendship in the past, so why would this time be any different? Mi-yeong would come to her senses, realize the man was no good, and return to them.
Yet, days turned into months with no reunion, no resolution, no reaching out.
Days turned into months without the harmony of their shared songs.
Celine’s heart and home echoed with the reverberating emptiness.
Then, one day, a nurse contacted her and told her to come quickly. When she entered that sterile, comfort less hospital room she found a new mother lay dying in her bed.
When Celine's eyes met those of Mi-yeong's, it took all her strength and composure not to gasp or weep or turn away. What had the interim months been filled with that would leave her sister so drained of health and life and spirit?
"We have done all we can, but the birth was complicated, she was already too weak, too thin...,” the doctor told her. “I am afraid she has very little time left.”
"Celine... I am sorry...," was all Mi-yeong managed before the nurse returned with the tiny bundle in her arms.
Celine was crushed with an overwhelming sense of her own failure to protect and care for her friend. Celine had been powerless to keep her sister from that man— the one who was noticeably absent now, the one who came and seduced and destroyed. She had not been able to turn her sister from the path she chose nor help her see the consequences of those decisions in time to save her.
Celine must bear Miyeong’s shame the rest of her life. They were not Celine's actions, but was that not the way of a family? Shame was shared by all, even if guilt belonged only to one.
In a moment, Celine lost Mi-yeong and gained an infant. The child was born under the weight of her mother's shame, without the honor or name of a father. She was a child that never should have existed. Rumi’s birth blurred the edges of black and white and brought Celine's entire world into question.
The days that followed were full of darkness for Celine. She grieved her sister and yet death was neither kind nor sympathetic. It was not enough to weigh her down with debilitating grief, but death was also accompanied by the endless tasks of ceremony and burial. It fell to Celine to organize all, even while she sought insights of anyone she knew on how to appease Rumi's constant cries or gain reprieve from the child's need to be held.
She had made a promise. It was a promise she regretted often, but she had made it, and she would do her duty.
If there had been family, other people involved, it might have been easier. If Celine had known or been prepared at all, maybe she might have managed better. Celine had never taken care of a child. She had no siblings and her cousins were all far older. It was something she and Mi-yeong had shared. Their loneliness had driven them into a tighter sisterhood than Ha-yoon, who, as one of twelve had her own cup of sisterhood already filled without them.
Performing songs and battling demons could not be done with a toddler on her hip. Her hands and ankles were tied together and she struggled to maintain both her celebrity life and her duty as a hunter. She was forced to change, to shift, to adapt.
She would simply raise her charge in the same way she had been raised and treat her as she had been treated. It must be enough; it would have to be enough.
Oh, she loved Rumi. She was a sweet, dear little creature- curious, compliant, eager to please, eager to learn. And she carried the unmistakable voice and spiritual weight of a potential hunter.
Celine loved Rumi... but she hated the circumstances surrounding her existence. She hated the man who stole her friend away, despised him for causing her death, for leaving her and Rumi, and leaving Celine to pick up the pieces.
However, Rumi must never know this. She must never know Celine's struggles, her bitter loneliness, her griefs, her fears. They must never be seen. The entire world, the fates of all she cared about and loved, were on her delicate shoulders and if she failed, many would suffer.
It was the day Ha-yoon came to meet Rumi that the first pattern appeared. Until then, Rumi appeared normal, skin unmarred, entirely her mother's child.
"She is the daughter of that man," Celine spat in disdain, while they drank tea together.
Ha-yoon had commiserated with her over that worthless man. The man they neither knew nor wished to. That man who was the origin of first Mi-yeong's and then Rumi’s shame. They spoke passionately and with tears of both grief and anger, all while the young child toddled between them.
That was the day the first glaring mark of shame appeared on the child's shoulder.
It was the day Celine discovered the terrible truth: she was raising the daughter of a demon. What else would explain those terrible and too-familiar marks?
Celine's world was black and white, clearly delineated, simple. Whatever did not fit must remain unacknowledged, hidden away. She did her best to do as she had been taught.
The marks must be hidden— as closely as the shame of her birth.
The patterns grew along with Rumi.
No skin creams hid the marks. No treatments lessened their glow.
Each time she asked about her parents, each time she was told not to ask some questions. The more Celine told her to cover them, the more they spread. As they crept farther and farther across Rumi’s delicate complexion, Celine’s fears grew. She did all she could to hide her own panic.
Only certain members of humanity had the gift to see beyond the physical veil and into the spiritual realities undergirding everything. Sometimes, certain humans were born with the ability to see into the spirit realm. Sometimes, certain gifted people acquired the skill with experience and effort. To most, the reality of the demonic and the battle for souls was entirely invisible— like the wind and tide and pull of gravity— it was a force that determined and influenced their daily lives, but they often did not recognize its power... or their danger.
Most would not see beyond the shadows to the spirits that crept there or recognize the dark voice whispering in their ears as originating outside of themselves. A few might feel the pinprick of irrational fear, the unsettledness of things being not quite right when interacting with demons. Some might note the invisible taste of power and authority in the air around the hunter. Overall, though, most people were too caught up in the very present and physical tasks of daily life to notice the spiritual realities around them.
Most would never see Rumi's patterns or the delicate strands of the Honmoon. However, the ignorance of the majority could not guarantee Rumi’s safety. Who else might see and recognize those patterns? Would those in darkness see her marks and come to claim Rumi as their own, stealing all that remained of Mi-yeong? Would another hunter see and end her in a misplaced desire to do good?
The patterns were dangerous and thus must be hidden at all times.
Celine could not understand it.
How could one with the marks of a demon bear the power to bind and repel darkness as a hunter? Yet Rumi did.
Rumi walked and talked and sang in power.
Just as her mother had done.
Just as Celine had done.
Rumi was brilliant and fierce. She was as gifted in voice as in the slaying of demons. She worked hard, loved harder, and did all Celine asked of her.
Celine had fought so desperately to take on the mantle of three people. After Ha-yoon joined Mi-yeong in the grave, Celine was the only remaining hunter. She was left to do the work of three entirely alone.
She trained Rumi in all she knew and then took on Mira and Zoey. Celine was no longer the sole hunter and the protection of their people was shared. She was proud of her young trio and they gifted her more hope than she had claimed as her own for many long years.
Yet, on that day Rumi stood before her at the shrine, patterns glowing from head-to-toe, her posture hunched and her eyes inhuman, Celine knew she had failed. No matter how she had fought and worked, no matter all her efforts, her greatest fears were embodied anyway. She watched as the Honmoon crumbled all around her.
It was worse than losing Mi-yeong. It was the collapse of the mountain she had built herself and all that remained were piles of sand, tiny shards of all she had known and clung to and believed in.
She had done all she could, and it was never enough.
She had failed.
She watched as Rumi's voice echoed off the hills and mountaintops, glaring in its dissonance, writhing with destructive energy.
The voice of this woman before her had the power to remake the entire world for good. However, power always has two sides. It was the voice of hunters which created the Honmoon. Celine was late to learn it was the voice of hunters which could also destroy it.
In the days that followed, Celine was forced to reconsider everything she had known all over again.
The Honmoon was sealed. They had achieved all they had worked and fought so long for. Yet Rumi's marks remained. Celine had promised herself- and Rumi- that they were temporary. Not a bone deep, irreparable part of her. Unknowingly, Celine had deceived them both.
"Why couldn’t you love all of me?" Rumi had cried, during that terrible day by the shrine.
After all was healed and fixed and freed, Rumi's patterns remained. They shone with the silver light of the souls which forged the Honmoon, those gifts of shared spiritual light and essence. They shone with light rather than shame.
Celine knew Rumi was right.
"Just because they are not seen does not mean they are not there. Truth is more powerful than darkness. Lies cannot be overcome with hiding them away but with driving them out," Rumi told her one day.
The days that followed caused Celine to wonder. How many of the marks of shame on Rumi were caused by Celine’s own hand? Had it been her own fears and faults manifested onto the soul of the child she raised rather than the genetic inheritance of her father?
Her voice had been the first to cast Rumi's father as a demon. And Rumi had believed her.
Celine's voice carried weight, carried power. Power always had two sides. Her voice wrought more damage than her sword ever could. Her words, her songs, her presence carried a weight and an influence more than other people.
She had never realized it could be used for evil as much as good. Yet Celine had never stopped to consider how a sword could just as easily be wielded to protect as to destroy. It was her pride, Celine realized, her reluctance to let go of control, her fears of loss and powerlessness that she had allowed to cause harm. If she had spoken other words, sung other songs, would Rumi's patterns have ever spread? Was it Celine's power and not Rumi's father's which bound the child in her shame?
Now, all was healed... and Rumi stood freed of shame but still marked.
Celine knew she had her own patterns, hidden within herself, still glowing red with fear and lies and shame.
"Celine?"
"Yes, Rumi?"
“If my voice could be used to strengthen or destroy the Honmoon, does that mean that Jinu's could as well?"
Celine blinked once, entirely frozen in place. Rumi did not stop for an answer. She kept speaking. "Could Jinu have been redeemed and used for good?"
Celine remained silent for a time. She knew the question ran deeper than the fate of Jinu. It delved deep into Rumi's own heart and place of belonging. It unearthed Celine's own faults and fears and failings.
Could Celine's greatest mistakes be healed? Could her own failings be redeemed?
At one point in her life, she would have answered that Jinu was meant only for destruction and destined for evil.
But that was not true. While Celine could not approve of the loss of life he enabled with his actions, he also sacrificed himself and helped Rumi overcome their shared enemy. He was mired in shame and tormented by his sins, but he also helped Rumi overcome her own. His lies enabled Rumi to step into her truth. Jinu could not fit into Celine’s carefully constructed idea of the world.
Any more than Rumi's father could.
For that man had played a role in Rumi's existence and Rumi was the best thing to ever happen to Celine. She could admit that now. She could not entirely hate the man or regret his existence, as she had in the past. No, she loved Rumi and to love her well meant to accept ALL parts of her.
Thus, Celine carefully spoke her answer to Rumi’s question. "Yes, Rumi. I do believe Jinu could be redeemed. His voice, his soul, his life and death could be used for good or evil. It was his actions which bound him, not his essence. He made mistakes and some wrong decisions, but he was not a mistake in and of himself."
Rumi looked at her carefully, her beautiful eyes overflowing with conflicting emotions.
"That is not what you taught me, before."
Celine inhaled deeply and looked down at her hands. Every instinct screamed at her to hold her defenses, to cover up her own shame, to hide away from Rumi's penetrating gaze so she would not be seen for the truth of her own failings.
Yet this moment was one that would never return. It would be lived once and never again. Walls were both for protection and imprisonment and to keep people out as much as keep them in. It was the great challenge of the elders to learn from their children and admit to their own faults.
She thought of the day that first glaring crack appeared on Rumi's small arm, the first day a shadow shone in her innocent eyes, the first day she considered herself a mistake.
"I did not teach you as well as I ought, then, and I am afraid I still have more to learn,” Celine answered.
Rumi's eyes grew wide and bright, her lips trembled. She nodded once in understanding.
Then, Celine ran a hand along to short sleeves of Rumi's dress, her fingers playing with a ruffle.
"This is lovely," Celine whispered, knowing it was a dress that she would have never chosen or permitted, one which allowed the many glistening patterns to unashamedly be seen. "Did you choose it?"
"I did. Mira insisted we go shopping, but this one I picked out."
"You chose well."
Rumi gave her a small smile, but she held her head higher.
There was still a generation of mistakes and disappointments and cracks and crevices between them, but it was a start.
It was too soon for some words, not soon enough for others, but it was a step in the right direction.
For the first time, Celine knew herself and the power she wielded and she would use her voice with more care.
Sometimes, healing occurred in a single cataclysmic moment, an overnight shift that impacted every day that followed. Sometimes healing happened as slowly as the shifting of winter to spring or the carving path of a river through a canyon.
Celine looked down on the tiny little bundle of fingers and eyes and nose and blankets in her arms. This one she had been prepared for. She had anticipated the arrival of this new life eagerly and the child arrived just when she was expected. Celine gaped in awe at the perfectly miniature features sleeping quietly in her arms.
"She looks exactly like her mother. She is beautiful. Simply perfect,” Celine said.
Rumi cast Celine and the baby a warm, affectionate smile and leaned over to kiss both on the forehead.
How Celine had writhed and fought against holding that infant Rumi in her arms! How she had struggled with that unexpected responsibility and her own part in it. If she were to go back in time, she would exhort the younger version of herself to treasure every moment and cherish each day. She sighed deeply and moved to take in that sweet scent of the newly born.
Oh, she had failed in so many ways and yet here they were now. Sometimes, it was not her work on stage or wielding a sword in shadows which had the greatest impact but the long and thankless work off stage that no one saw.
Already, the hunt was being made for the next generation of hunters. Maybe Rumi's daughter had been born with the gift. Maybe not. Sometimes the gift traversed family lines and sometimes it appeared in the places least expected.
Sometimes, after the rocks had been reduced to sand and the mountain cast into the heart of the sea, all that was left for Celine was to kneel on the beach and remember how small a creature she was. Sand could be pressed down into rock again. It could be melted into fragile, beautiful glass. A mountain could grow back and stand tall again— never quite the same as before, but beautiful and majestic in its own right. If she let the fires of her failure forge it all into glass, she could finally see through it all and find the beauty, the divine purpose, the larger image that she had been too obtuse to see before.
Celine was one of many generations of hunters who fought darkness with light, fought for good in a world bent on evil. She was one generation of women among an innumerable number of generations seeking to establish the next. It was the hope of a mother to see her daughter surpass her in all ways. It was the hope of the elders to see the young grow beyond them. It was in the hands of each successive generation to guard what was precious, pass on what was important, and fight back against the darkness so that all would know what it was to live and walk in the power of light.
The End