Chapter Text
Monsters have existed since the very beginning, born from the first emotion of the first man. Born from the first cry of pain as a child exits the womb. Born from the first sparks of fearing the dark and all that lurked in it.
And with them were born the divine, casting their light to cut through the darkness where the demons lurked. Buried under layers of subconscious and conjured illusions.
Filled with songs that spoke of warmer days under the sun and full stomachs from plentiful harvests. Sparkling with starlight caught in falling beams of sunlight.
They evolved, shifted, and migrated across the world. Where there were humans, there were emotions that followed them. The monsters and the divine followed them, across the cultures.
People wove tales of the monsters, the dragons, the beasts in the woods. And with them came the guardians, the knights, the hunters who protected them.
With each new culture over the ages the names of the monsters and the divine changed. Monsters, beasts, gods, spirits.
In Korea, they became hunters. Hunting the cropping of demons that haunted their land. Born from the suffering through the cold long winters, often chillier thanks to the sea. From empty stomachs and failed harvests.
The divine hummed. Little nudges to remember the laughter by the fireplace. The snowmen and snow angels built with the sparkling snow. It called to all of its children. Singing its lullaby, soothing them in its embrace.
Some of its children sang back. Crooned its melody. Called it the Honmoon. In all of its shimmering iridescent lines, cast as a net that wove itself into each of its children.
It didn’t have a true conciseness, It simply existed, as the energy in all life, what gave them spark, what gave them souls. Connecting them to their core, of longing to be happy, to find joy, to be loved.
Not in the same way the monsters, the demons did. Not like the latest ruler of the demons, Gwi-Ma. Who thrived off the idea of ego. Of becoming a god. It knew of the pitfalls of calling oneself god. Of the hunger that could never be satisfied.
The Honmoon called to those who sang its melody.
It chose the brightest flames, the ones that drove back the darkness. Wove its net into red knots around them, binding them in patterns so complicated they could only be severed, never unraveled.
Each life burned like candles, so bright but snuffed out in short amounts of time. But the duty fell to the next, the light never going out through the night.
The fall of its blessed blades heralding the next flame.
The Saingeom. For the slayer of gods.
The Waldo. For the defenders of the gates.
And the Shin-Kal for the spirit that binds them.
The Honmoon took its chosen children's souls. Crushed them to dust, mixed their ashes until they couldn’t tell where one ended and one began. Blowing them like glass into new stronger polished vassals. Amplified its melody, and chose its voices to intertwine in the darkest of days.
It didn’t account for the embrace of harmony between its chosen and a rogue demon. Nore did it account for a child of the two.
The child was killed by the mother, barely grown to a blob of fat. The hunter knew instinctively that the child would bring untold change. Walking the line between the scales, shifting their weight, tipping the scales.
The next child was different, the mother slayed by one of the other hunters when she chose to side with the demons. The Honmoon watched its beloved child grieve, watched as she cut her soul from her chest and walked away.
She lived, alive as a mortal. Dead as a divine. The other hunter went mad, they’re shared soul existing in one body that should have been three.
It watched. It observed. It was especially selective of who to choose as its next choir. The half breed would be one of them, the one who didn’t know just how many knots she had wrapped around and through her.
Celine knelt in the thickening pool of blood, the earth beneath her knees damp and sticky, saturated with the remnants of a soul too beloved to lose.
The air reeked of iron and burnt ozone. Moonlight spilled through the shattered window in streaks, illuminating the ruin of her sister’s body. What was left of the woman who had once hummed her songs in summer and laughed so hard she cried during winter solstice rites.
Her sister’s head lay at a terrible angle, eyes glassy, mouth still parted in a final breath that never quite made it to air. A smear of blood painted her cheek like warpaint. Celine’s crescent blades, so often symbols of protection, were slick with that same blood, her own hands trembling around their hilts.
She was dirt-covered, bruised, and hollow-eyed. Each gash and grime-streak etched like a ledger of failures across her skin. Years of battle hadn’t broken her, but this moment might.
Clutching her sister's cold clammy hand, Celine sobbed, “Why? Why?! Why did you choose him…” her voice cracking in the silence. Her unspoken words echoing through her head.
Why? Why did you choose him over us? The ones always by your side. The ones who have seen your best and picked you up at your worst.
If only she had chosen them. Their unbroken bond, chosen by the Honmoon itself. She never would have been led to this moment.
Covered in her soul, her heart, her fated sister's blood as it dripped down her crescent blades where she had severed the very life thread that kept them together.
Severed her own soul in the act of killing her own sister. A price she had unwillingly played, shattering her into a mere slip of a mortal. Cast out by the divine.
The Honmoon still singing in her ears but she was unable to touch it, to interact with. Despite all the years she had spent wrapped up in its threads, all the years she had dedicated her life to it.
In the dirt lay her sister’s fallen shin-kal. The starlight that blessed the blades nowhere to be found, the metal as lifeless as the body she kneeled by.
She had been forgiven the moment she had sliced her sister's flesh. Her best friend's eyes heavy with unshed tears and a bond that ran deeper than any words could describe.
“Celine…Cece…please…take care of my most precious treasure…the house… promise me…you will protect her…”
Celine had nodded through her tears, through the scream clawing at her throat. But forgiveness was not the same as peace
Celine didn’t forgive herself. Not after she had committed the gravest offense. Not when she had stood before her remaining third, now half, holding her fallen soul fragment’s dull weapons.
Her remaining half turned her back on her. Her betrayal was too great to overlook. She had taken the shin-kal with her. Leaving her with nothing but a body and the heavy burden of knowing that it was all her fault.
Celine had buried her sister alone. Behind the old hunter’s house where their laughter once echoed through the walls. A place now cold, its hearth cold, its halls stripped of memory. A mausoleum masquerading as a home.
The dirt still stained her fingers. Trapped under her chipped fingernails.
A wail snapped her from her grief. A sound so out of place in such a desolate environment. Her hands found her weapons, already halfway drawn as she crept through the house with predatory steps. Avoiding the creaky floorboards they purposely left in for security.
The crying was coming from one of the bedrooms. Her sister's room.
She stepped inside.
It was an infant. Swaddled in a purple blanket that matched her hair and tucked away in a basket on the bedside table. Her tiny fists curled near her cherub cheeks and lips puckered mid wail.
Celine’s heart stopped. Frozen in place at the sight. The baby’s eyes flew open as if she could sense her presence. Familiar warm brown eyes stared back at her.
It was as if an ice bucket had been dropped over her head. Her sister's most precious treasure…it was undoubtedly this child. And there was only one person that she could have a child with.
That demon.
She still didn’t know which demon her best friend had lain with, but there was no such thing as a good demon. And he would be back, to find his lover dead, and child alone.
Staring at the sleeping child she lifted her crescent blades, the metal gleaming under the moonlight streaming from the window like polished bone. No longer full of starlight but still sharp enough to finish this task.
She paused, her reflection and the babe reflecting in the blades. The innocent child sleeping soundly without any sense of danger. Too young to sense danger. She didn’t know what she was. The abomination she was to the natural order.
Tightening her grip on her blades, Celine tensed, she should kill the babe. It was the right thing to do. The child was dangerous if allowed to grow up. Gwi-Ma would definitely send his henchmen to bring her back to him. Raised as a weapon against the hunters. She could never allow that to happen.
The baby wailed again. Hands waving around, grasping at a slip of paper she hadn’t noticed before. Lowering her blades, she hesitantly took the piece of paper from the baby’s hand with trembling fingers. Cooing softly to her, in an attempt to sooth her cries.
There was only one word on the slip, written in her sister's neat cursive.
Ryu Rumi.
The child’s name was Rumi.
Please…take care of her…protect her… she had made a promise. A promise she would be forever fulfilling, in a desperate attempt of appeasement.
But the child would bring suffering, a constant reminder of her own failings, her devastating choice. Yet, yet the child…, was a piece of her fallen sister. Her most adored treasure.
How could she kill a child?
The baby would become a weapon, for demons or the divine that was for certain. If she had to choose, she would create one that sang for the hunters.
She would become her own downfall once the Honmoon was sealed.
Yes. That’s what she would do. She would raise the babe. Teach her everything she would need to be the best hunter. And in the end, Celine sheathed her blades, she would do what needed to be done.
But until then, she picked up the child. No, Rumi. Held her close to her chest and felt her warmth. “You were hers,” she whispered, “and now you’re mine.”
A flicker along the Honmoon made her
A shiver, a creeping sensation crawled up her spine, the melody of the Honmoon started to chant. Weaving its strands around the girl, binding a new knot where her own had been severed.
The Honmoon agreed with her. That was confirmation enough.
She was sure that her remaining half sensed the new bond being formed. Knew that the new generation was being selected.
After they had failed.
After they had splintered under the weight of the lies and half truths.
The next generation of hunters would be different. They wouldn’t show their fears, not like they had. Celine would make sure they didn’t.
The child began to cry again, her wails ringing throughout the empty house. And the Honmoon…it shuddered, flashing a demon magenta. Already fragile from the death of two of its chosen.
Celine hugged the child closer to her chest. Fear crawling into her heart. The child had a grip over the Honmoon like she had never seen before.
The babes demon must never gain control.
If it did? She didn’t allow herself to consider the possibilities.
She would have to prepare. Do everything in her power to make sure that history didn’t repeat itself. As for Gwi-Ma, he would pay for what he did to her sister.