HANEUL
GENDER: Female
SPECIES: Spirit
AGE: 431
SEXUALITY: Pansexual
OCCUPATION: Singer at The Mind’s Eye.
DISTRICT: The Shipyard
BACKGROUND:
Her story begins in the Joseon Dynasty.
She does not remember who she was as a human. Often, she wonders if she was ever human at all. She does not know if she had a family, but thinks she must have had one to have died where she did. Sometimes, she recalls bits and pieces, of laughter and women who guided her through life. She remembers she loved to sing to the children of their village, to have them sit around her or her by their bedside at night. That she would adore watching as her voice soothed them to rest when they worried so much if their male family members would return. Though her past is a blur to her, she remembers the exact moment she died. It is forever imprinted in her memory, a nightmare she can never unsee.
It had been a siege on her village in the night. There had been warriors, exhausted and driven mad by endless fighting and starvation. They took from her village with no mercy, killing all who tried to stop them. Many of the men were gone, off fighting like these soldiers had, leaving no real protection for the women and children. Haneul had been one of the last to die, bleeding onto one of the soldier’s fallen swords as she passed. Becoming a dokkaebi or goblin spirit, she hunted down the men who had torn their village apart in revenge. She went through her new immortal life with humans, living alongside them without detection. She would use her powers as a spirit to haunt those that she deemed undeserving and to help those she deemed worthy of a good life. As a dokkaebi, she found herself having a purpose she did not have in her previous life, if she could remember having much purpose at all. As a spirit, she could help those in ways she could never as a human.
Though she had this newfound purpose, her existence had been lonely. Helping humans live their lives while she floated through the world alone. Leaving her homeland to roam the world, she was growing discontent with it all, with having to hide from the humans, only seen when she wanted them to see her, the woman roaming in all black with a sword. Until whispers in the winds told her of a place where many supernatural creatures roamed; Vievecor City. There she found a place to rest, to stay, a job to love, and an impending war to fight.
To sing at the Mind’s Eye was easy. Much of her life as a human is unknown to her, only coming to her like flashes of photographs and film, but one thing she remembers was her singing. The Haneul of the past loved to sing to the children, to hold their hands as she sang them lore in uplifting tones. She can recall how soft their hair was, sometimes, when she would push it from foreheads as she sang them to sleep in a way meant to soothe and calm. Singing had been her comfort then, her way to help in more than just the physical like the other women while the men were away. After she had died and she began to roam the earth, lore of her began in her homeland; the dokkaebi and her sorrow song. A melancholy melody that would not dissipate with happiness and warmth, but end with more a haunting fade.
At the Mind’s Eye, she can pretend to be normal. No one knows her true past as a dokkaebi, so those who know her as a spirit only know what she has given them. The humans here are easily mesmerised by her voice, by the way she moves as if the earth has no tether on her. She is a woman of mystery here, with a voice that feels like velvet to the ears. The humans have no idea what they are seeing, what surrounds them in the day and the night. All they know is the Mind’s Eye has lively, unique people and a singer to enjoy. The true danger of it all is blind to them. It brings a smile to her face every time she grabs the microphone between pale fingers and announces herself, welcoming them for the evening. Telling them to stay safe out there.
As if they really could, most days.
PERSONALITY: Mischievous, clever, judgemental, sarcastic, warm
CHARACTER TYPE: Original
BLOG: @littledokkaebi
