Chapter Text
It was raining hard the night Celine lost her life.
She was still breathing despite it, but part of her soul had drowned in those scarlet tinted waters that bathed the roots of the ancient tree.
She remembers it vividly, more than the day she first felt the Honmoon. More than the day she met her missing parts. This day would be the one to sit at the back of her mind forever.
Its funny that when she wants to remember something, her brain decides otherwise. But this, *this* it keeps.
She had handled death with a cold proximity, an ally, never a friend. She had seen and experienced first hand how it felt when a heart stopped beating, so she foolishly thought this would be the same.
The storm was at its peak when her life took its last breath. Her skin clammy and cold, her complexion grey. Celine knew she was dead before she started pushing. So she did as she always would, welcomed the End with a stiff nod. And then it came.
Not with the usual set of tusks and sickly purple skin, no. Death came shaped like vermin. Wiggling between entrails and a body yet to stiffen. It came like filth, like maggots crawling into her soft flesh, looking for give. The mass of it small, nestled between unmoving legs and soaked grass, yowling like it dared to imitate her grief.
Celine held her breath, squared her shoulders, and picked it up. As if sensing its body enveloped, it ceased its sound. Celine should have pretended it was gone. It would have been easier to bury two bodies under the Old Tree and silently grieve. It would have brought her peace.
She didn’t deserve peace. So she looked down. With the rain muddling her vision, it almost looked like an infant.
———-
Rumi knew there was something rotten within her from the moment she was born, about ten years now.
While it does sound like exaggeration, or maybe self deprecation- both cannot be fully rebutted by her, not that she’d ever bother to- it is the truth. She felt it right as she came into existence, bloodied, gored, sliding out of the body of her first victim. Onto the arms of her second.
She knows this, though some part of her refuses to understand. Celine had explained with extreme detail how she was a mistake. Answered all her questions about her demon half, how it was filthy and made her undeserving of love and quite unnerving to look at when her patterns are exposed. So why does she still want to question it? She assumed it was the stubbornness of a demon.
She was not allowed to play with other children when she was younger. They were pure, impressionable. Rumi debates if children are simply too curious and would tell their parents about the sickening purple markings that bloomed under her skin like veins. But she had still longed to. Begged her guardian for just five minutes, just to say hi.
Celine had said no. And pulled her along.
Rumi was not allowed to show her marks to her soulmates bandmates. They haven’t shown up yet, but Celine had assured her it would corrupt them. They needed to hate demons, loathe them as her guardian did as to not traumatize them when they do their duty. They must not feel guilty when they scorch the earth of its pest. Rumi agreed, but part of her still longed to one day show herself to them.
——————
Celine brought it home. Cleaned it, fed it formula meant for babies. It had quietened down, so she left it in the couch and dragged her body to make herself some tea. It was still raining out, the thunder a roaring beast. She knew she would have to bury whatever was left of her life at some point. She sipped at her flavorless tea quietly instead.
She had forgotten to turn on the lights, the smell of ginseng and honey the only comfort in the cold, dark kitchen. Her eyes wondered to the rumbling clouds, letting herself fade into the sound. Jumping from her skin when a piercing pain stabbed at her spine violently, it arrived with a aggressive shiver. Celine sat up from her place on the tile floor, steadying her body with the marble counter. A invisible hand squeezing at her heart. *Fear*. She thought she had outgrown it.
Her instincts told her there was a presence in the house. Danger, it clawed at her senses. She shot up, the cup slipping from her sweat slicked hands. Shattering on the floor.
But the sound of breaking ceramic went ignored by a pressure so heavy it almost made Celine’s ear drums burst. She needed to get out the of here, needed to leave *now*. She stepped on shards on her way to the living room. Using the wall for balance as she dragged her body to the couch. She just needed to get to the door. It was but a few paces away. Her trembling hands summoned her sickle, she didn’t manage to register it- her vision blurred- until it ripped a gash on the soft fabric.
She had controlled her emotions through the worst moment of her existence. Ground her teeth and she not a single tear as her life was ripped from her clutching arms. But this…
This made her want to hurl.
The pressure rose. She lost footing, falling into cushions.
There.
What?
*It’s here*
what- what’s here?
***It has arrived*** something cooed.
Celine looked down for the second time tonight, expecting the see white fabric, maybe a throw pillow. Maybe the-
She locks eyes with *it*
And it stared back.
————-
Rumi knew for sure that Celine despised her.
It bothers her, deeply. It cuts to her ribs and attempts to get to her heart, piercing her lungs in the process.
Rumi is five when she first feels it. Celine was sick, and she was drinking a lot of tea, tea that smelled funny. Ging-song and honey? So Rumi wanted to bring her some more. She picked up one of her cups in the low cabinet, used the chair to get to the microwave, and made the tea exactly how Celine likes it. Two sugar cubes- the water hot like its boiling, which, ouch?- and a mint leaf for gar-ish. Gar-dish? To look pretty.
She carefully padded across the house. Turning on all the lights as the sun was setting because Celine is afraid of the dark.
She found her in her study. Writing something in the pretty pen she isn’t allowed to touch. The lights were off, though she thinks she doesn’t need the big light as the small one on the desk was lit.
She loves seeing Celine write. She writes a lot. She always looks happy when she does. Like- a sad sort of happy. Can you be sad and happy at the same time? Rumi thinks Celine is. Her handwriting is loopy and perfect, the scratch of the pen against paper is satisfying. The sun was gone. Her eyes are squinted slightly, where are her glasses? Celine needs them to read, the doctor had said. Her mouth purses. She looks like she is thinking hard. Rumi thinks she’s never seen anyone so beautiful. Would Celine mind if she asked what she was doing? She likes hearing her voice.
When Rumi comes back to herself, Celine is staring at her. Her eyes wide, her mouth open like a dying fish. Rumi saw a fish die once. It stared at her the entire time.
Celine drops her pretty pen, summoning her sickle.
Rumi offers up the cup, now cold.
Celine doesn’t react. So she walks closer. She puts it on the desk as Celine gets up, pointing the sickle at her neck from a few feet of distance.
Silently, Rumi goes to the light switch and turns it on, now breaking eye contact with Celine’s beautiful eyes.
The weapon in the woman’s hand de-materializes. And she reaches for the cup.
“Get out” she whispers. Before throwing it at the wall.
Rumi doesn’t go back to the study again.
————-
Celine is sure this thing will kill her. She bore through cleaning it up, feeding it again, bundling it up with blood-crusted cloth. She considered giving it clothes, but those belonged to her life’s child. She laid it on a mat on the floor. It did not shiver. Celine isn’t sure it knows it’s supposed to.
A least it has the decency to not pretend to be what it’s not.
Leaning on the crib in the other side of the room, she exhaled deeply. The pressure was still there, lighter now. She knew where it came from, at least.
Then it comes back with a vengeance. Gasping and almost falling to the ground, Celine seethes at it. Footsteps almost as loud as the storm outside as she crouches near it. Her head spins, her stomach pulses. But she locks eyes with it anyway. She is a hunter, she will not cower-
She promptly faints.
And when she opens her eyes, it’s there, staring at her. Blank expression like a rubber mask pulled too tight over a mannequin. Its eyes are too large, its mouth blue. It reaches fake hands towards her. Imitating a infant. Imitating her life’s child.
Celine throws up.
And never looks it in the eyes again.