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Rumi admits that her patterns aren’t the only thing she’s been hiding from Zoey and Mira. Rumi has been in love with the two hunters since she first set her eyes on them so many years ago. Back when they were new to the world of demons and demon hunters, when their innocence was still in tact and their biggest worries in life were small in comparison to their current woes. When the honmoon was still intact and they were training so hard, every day; an immense challenge as they mastered and honed in on their individual skills.
As every day passed, Rumi fell harder and harder for the hunters. She loved them in every way, with her entire being, both hunter and demon. She adored the way they worked together as a unit, as a group, as a family.
Rumi had never had much of a family, her dad unknown, her mother devastatingly taken away far too soon in her young life. She never had that familial support, never that guidance a young Rumi so desperately craved. And yet, Rumi had never felt so supported in her life until she found Zoey and Mira. They supported her unconditionally and without restraint, relentless in their adoration for their leader.
Rumi, since she understood what her patterns meant, had always wanted to be honest with Zoey and Mira. Wanted to share a part of herself that was so integral to the makeup of her being. Wanted to not have to lie to two people who were also quickly becoming an integral part of her.
Yet, when she approached Celine, the person who had been as close to a mother as Rumi could ever need, to ask if she could at least tell the two girls she was getting so close and attached to, she was told no. That she could never ever tell them about her patterns, about her father. That she must keep them covered, must keep herself under control and to reign in her emotions. That they wouldn’t understand, that they would be scared and they wouldn't want anything to do with her anymore other than destroy what they were taught and trained to hate.
Rumi was heartbroken, to say the very least. She had to hide, to lie, to the only two people she had ever wanted to truly be herself with. This alone was enough to bruise her heart and mind, but there was another hidden truth she was holding inside. Walking side by side with the strong rules and adamant no’s from Celine about Rumi telling the girls about her patterned body, she was also forced into hiding her ever growing love for the girls as well.
Rumi believed, that if she couldn’t share her patterns with the Zoey and Mira, she wouldn’t dare try and share her heart with them too. It wasn’t fair, to them or her. It wasn’t fair to demand their trust or their love, when she was hiding herself from them everyday. She couldn’t ask that of them, there was no fairness in that. There was also no fairness in having to hide it either.
But the pressures of both hiding her demon side and fitting into society norms have kept her silenced in her love for the two. She feels as if she can never tell them one secret without the other coming out and destroying what she has with them now. She would rather have them in any way she can under the impression that if she told them they would reject her, for loving them in that way and also for being part demon.
She is so ashamed of her patterns, both her physical demon patterns and also her hidden feelings. In a way they work in tandem together, a constant cast of shame over her. Never truly being able to be herself with the people she should and wants to trust the most.
This takes a much larger toll on her than anyone could ever see her dealing with. The strong leader, the powerful hunter, powerhouse vocalist. Torn to pieces internally over a constant fear of being her true self. Forever putting on a face to keep her patterns to herself. Constantly bringing everyone else up around her whilst simultaneously tearing herself down inside for things as simple as existing and loving.
Feeling empowered and furthering the strengthening honmoon together. It starts off just as they rehearsed, every detail mapped out to the millisecond, moves sharpened by weeks of never ending preparation and practice. Suddenly the song changes halfway through. ‘Golden’ ends and you could hear a pin drop in the stadium. Then a beat comes back, but it’s not the song anyone was expecting to play.
‘Takedown’ starts to ring out of the stadiums speakers. Rumi is just as shocked as the audience, but for a completely different reason. She’s confused as to why the girls are straying from the original performance. Straying from what they talked about and prepared for. A chill runs through Rumi’s body, her patterns pulse underneath her jacket, they begin to scream against her skin. She tries to understand. Tries to see what the girls plan might be. But this wasn’t going to help the honmoon, the mission. But mostly, selfishly, this wasn’t going to help her.
She didn’t want these lyrics put into the world. They were too personal, too much, too close to the truth. But the world doesn’t stop spinning just because Rumi wants it to, it doesn’t stop no matter how desperately she needs it to. Zoey and Mira start to sing, and Rumi can’t help but fall in line.
Hoping the others knew what they were doing. She puts her full trust in the girls for this one second, she didn’t have any reason not to. They wouldn’t hurt her for nothing, right?
Yet as soon as the first verse falls out into the stadium, Rumi knows something is different. Knows, this is wrong, Zoey and Mira take the harsh words that Rumi had written and they seemingly drill them into Rumi’s soul. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
As soon as the first lyrics spill out of Zoey and Mira’s mouths, Rumi falls into the muscle memory of the choreography and tries to play along, if she can just make it through the performance everything will be fine. They can get off stage and talk it out like they have any other time before.
‘So sweet, so easy on the eyes, but hideous on the inside
Whole life spreading lies, but you can't hide, baby, nice try.’
Rumi feels her heart fall into the deep of her stomach as she truly comprehends and feels the impact of the lyrics that she herself wrote, being performed by the very people she tried to keep the meaning of them from.
She has spent her entire life spreading lies, the lies she was forced to say, forced to live in. Celine always told her to conceal her patterns, conceal all the bad, only present the good. Rumi tried, truly and wholeheartedly tried to present only the good, to be good. But what good was left when all Rumi was at her core, was what she and the others were taught to hate. To kill, to keep hidden from the world. What good was left to present when even something that should have been celebrated and supported, had to be hidden away out of bone deep fear that it would end everything Rumi held close and dear to her already fragile heart.
Something as simple as love, and loving someone, so far out of reach as it settles into pain that Rumi holds on her shoulders, holds in her heart. It settles uncomfortably alongside her patterns, as something that she would never dare to show to the world, to show to Mira and Zoey. It lives and breathes side by side with her demon side, something Rumi believes to be ugly, to be the physical embodiment of sin.
The next verse starts before Rumi has fully comprehended the first, she looks around as the girls start to circle her. Something has changed, the air has gotten sharper, angrier. She can feel the venom of the words being sung, can feel the sting of the bites it takes out of her soul.
Mira and Zoey start to sing to her, not to the crowd. Rumi can’t understand what is happening, why are they looking at her like that? Like they knew. Like they knew what Rumi had tried to keep so hidden, so concealed, they knew and they hated her for it.
The lyrics had turned into weapons, slicing through her like physical pain. The two people she loved more than anything in this world, looking at her now like she was dirt on their boots they wanted to clean themselves of.
The next lines ring out as they start to circle Rumi, piercing through the tense atmosphere of the stadium, piercing through Rumi’s body with no care of the damage it had caused.
'Cause I see your real face and it's ugly as sin
Time to put you in your place 'cause you're rotten within
When your patterns start to show, It makes the hatrеd wanna grow out of my veins’
It is her, her face that they see, ugly in its sin. Ugly in its patterns, ugly in its hidden truth. Ugly in the way she feels like her heart is being torn out of her body and pulled into small, damaged pieces. Ugly as it is littered over the ground in front of her for the entire world to see. No longer kept inside where she could keep it safe, warm and protected.
Ugly in the way the girls start to get closer to Rumi as they smile, not the normal smiles she is used to seeing on the two. Not the smiles that can make her feel so safe and protected in her love. Not the smiles that heal all her internal wounds and make her feel strong. No, these are smiles that cut, that cause damage, not heal.
They are sharp, inhuman, like they knew what they were doing to her. They knew what the words meant, and they hated her for it.
Mira and Zoey move close to Rumi as they start to pull at her clothes, trying to pull off her jacket. Her armour. Her protection against the feared judgment of her best friends, being torn apart by the very people she so badly has wanted to be truthful around. She wanted them to know, to share herself with the people she wanted to spend her life with, but not like this. Never like this. Not in front of thousands of people, not in the spotlight, not without her in control.
‘A demon with no feelings, don't deserve to live, it's so obvious’
Rumi struggles against the two as they pull off her jacket, she feels the fight immediately drain out of her as it comes off. Now completely exposed to the cold air of the stadium, she can feel every movement of the air that dances against her now bare arms.
With her patterns now exposed, on show for everyone. Rumi’s breathing begins to quicken and her lungs start to ache with the sheer amount of effort it is taking to stay upright. She can’t even begin to think about the fans in the audience right now. Her only focus is on the fact that Zoey and Mira see them.
They see her, for who she truly is, no carefully crafted facade, no cover ups. Just her, exposed to the most important people in her world. She had dreamed of this moment, of how many different ways it could go, it had tortured her mind, body and soul for years. She would have nightmares over how they would react, shunning her, hating her, killing her? All she wanted was acceptance, acceptance for who she was by the people she loved the most.
She feels her worst nightmares coming to life as Zoey and Mira come closer to her, not with open arms, acceptance and love as she so desperately wanted and needed. But with sharp eyes, fixed faces and hurtful words spitting out from their mouths. Venom dripping off of every syllable.
They come closer to Rumi, close enough that only she can hear the poison. “We see what you are” Mira says, and Rumi feels the first cut against her skin. Words cutting her open like a knife. “You’re a demon” Zoey says. Another slash against her skin is felt. Tearing her open, bleeding out for them all to see. “A mistake, you have been since the day you were born” They say this together, as one. Joining forces to drill home the knife that has now cut Rumi all over. She’s broken and bruised, torn into tiny little pieces as the words repeat over and over again in her mind.
This is what she was afraid of, what she had been running from since she first understood what her patterns were. And then what she ran from further when she understood what her heart wanted. It was exactly how Celine said it would be. She never could have prepared herself though truly as all her worst nightmares come to life around her.
Zoey and Mira hate her, she’s a mistake, a demon, sin. These words echo in her mind like a broken record. Her breathing now is so out of control she isn’t even aware of what else is happening around her. Only focused on the ringing in her ears and the overwhelming fear dancing heavily in her being.
Rumi does the only thing she believes that’s left to do, run. Run fast and far, as far away as her trembling legs can take her. Far away from her crumbling world, to somewhere she can try to breathe again. She stumbles off of the stage now, leaving who she believes are Zoey and Mira alone.
A million thoughts and feelings are tearing Rumi apart inside as she finds herself in the hallways off of the main stage. Struggling to comprehend if the last 5 minutes of her life were truly real or some nightmare that she so desperately wants to wake up from. As Rumi starts to try and control her breathing she looks up when she hears her name being called in the distance.
”Rumi?” The real Zoey and Mira are standing across from Rumi now, stunned into silence and confusion as they see their leader; friend. They’ve never seen Rumi in this kind of state before, pain and suffering emanating from her terrified stance a few steps away from them.
“What?” Rumi says in a hushed tone, confused as to why the girls are now standing in front of her, when not a minute ago they were on stage with her telling her how much they hated her. “How are you here?” She manages to squeak out, “You were just on stage?” Realisation hits Rumi like a truck at high speed on a highway. She feels it hit her so intensely she struggles to stay on two feet.
“That wasn’t you?” Relief runs through Rumi as she realises that the girls on stage were not the same as the girls standing in front of her now. These were the real Zoey and Mira, not the demons from before who said all those horrible things.
“Oh thank goodness” Rumi chokes out. She takes a tentative step towards them to share her relief with the two people she needed the most right now. As Rumi takes her step forward, Zoey and Mira take a visible step backwards. This causes Rumi to freeze in place, feet stapled into the ground, unmoving.
Relief quickly turns to panic as Rumi sees the girls faces truly for the first time. Confusion and fear is written all over them. If you were to look deeper you would even find pain in their expressions. Pain at what they see in front of them, the person they trust and love. So broken and exposed, and.. a demon.
Rumi’s patterns are so visible now, all the emotional turmoil she had been through in the last 10 minutes showing over her body like a mood ring. Ugly, Rumi thinks to herself, disgusting and repulsive. That’s how she sees herself in the mirror everyday, that’s how the girls must think of her now.
As the girls step away from Rumi, she feels all of her worst nightmares come to fruition. They hate her, everything about her. Everything Celine said would happen, is happening right in front of her eyes. The girls look heartbroken, although Rumi isn’t seeing much of anything right now truly, her eyes welling up so much with unshed tears that it’s near impossible to even see Zoey and Mira in front of her.
Yet, despite all that. All Rumi wants, all she needs, is them to look at her like they used to. Before her she was exposed. So she steps forward again, practically tripping on air as she stumbles forward another step towards the girls.
Once again, Zoey and Mira take just as big of a step backwards as Rumi does forwards. A twisted game, one side desperately pushing ahead and one side desperately pulling away. That one step backwards from the girls feels as far away as the sun, when all she craves is the warm light on her cold skin.
Rumi speaks again, voice sounding as broken as she’s beginning to feel ; “These were supposed to be gone. You were never supposed to see!”
“You were hiding this from us this whole time?” Mira says, in a much quieter, much more damaged tone than she usually holds.
“No, I have a plan to erase them. Jinu was supposed to…” Rumi responds quickly, too quickly. That’s not what she was meant to say right now, she didn’t mean to bring him up right now. But her mouth is working quicker than her brain can keep up with, emotions smashing into her like a rogue wave in an overflowing ocean of feelings.
“Jinu? You're working with him?” Zoey whispers, seemingly not trusting her voice to not shake if she were to speak any louder. Hurt emanating off of every syllable that falls into the raging river of space that continues to build between Zoey, Mira and Rumi.
“No. No! No! I was using him to fix all this! To fix me! So we could all do our duty! So we could all be strong. Be together.” Rumi gains some momentum in her voice as she says this. Sure in the words she speaks, she just wanted to be fixed. Fixed so she could continue her work as a Huntrix’s leader, fixed so she could start trying to communicate her deep feelings for the others.
“How could we be together if we can't tell your lies from your truths, Rumi?” Zoey cries out, voice no longer a whisper but so much more broken in it’s volume. Tears start to fall from her welled up eyes. Rumi thinks she’s never seen anything more hauntingly beautiful.
“I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true.” Mira says, almost to herself. Her own personal traumas surfacing. The known feeling of not being enough and nothing being permanent, emanating from every word.
“Mira, no! Didn't you see? See the gold? We're so close!” Rumi’s voice begins to raise, getting louder as her feelings spill out of their tight confines. She feels herself losing control of the tight leash she usually has on her emotions.
“No! Don't leave! Don't leave! I can still FIX IT!!” As Rumi shouts, a pulse of her patterns releases in a wave. Her demon side truly coming to the surface now. She can feel the anger and frustration at everything begin to release in a physical form now. Sees the glow of her patterns reflect in the oceans of Zoey and Miras’s eyes. They take an even larger step back now.
Tears begin to flow unrestrained from Zoey’s eyes. Even Mira, the usually collected and stoic individual, has begun to get choked up. Mira has her arm in front of Zoey now, an unmoving shield of protection. Mira begins to raise her glave, slowly and with none of the typical gusto she usually has when she raises her weapon.
Zoey chokes up further when she realises what Mira is doing, unsure on whether to join her and summon her knives, or to continue to try and get an explanation from Rumi. She’s so unsure, but she’s also scared. Scared of the Rumi that she sees in front of her now. Nothing like the soft and caring Rumi she’s seen a million times before, and everything like the demons she’s been raised and trained to kill.
In the end, the fear wins out. Zoey raises her knives in defence, ready for an attack.
Rumi realises something in this moment. She has lost them, lost them to the exact thing she was trying to save them from.
They see her sin, they see her ugly. She tries to find words to explain, explain why she was working with Jinu. Why she had lied to them for so many years. Why she couldn’t tell them the truth, how she was protecting them.
But all words fall short and weapons are raised. Rumi sees no way out of this.
‘A demon with no feelings, don't deserve to live,”
Of course, Rumi thinks to herself.
She takes the final step forward, leaves no time for the Zoey or Mira to take any more steps backwards. She moves towards the tip of Mira’s blade.
It’s so obvious.