So in my headcanons, Gwi-ma's realm is just this place that's eternally stagnant. No wind, no rain, no cold, no warmth. Just eternally dark gloom.
And I'm thinking of hound!Rumi seeing snow for the first time. How in the weeks leading up to it, master Celine had been getting her thick jackets and gloves and hats and boots. And she gets so warm wearing it all and she doesn't know why Celine is bothering, her (also new) jackets have been fine keeping the cold out?
And then one morning, she wakes up and outside is frozen over and she's waking up Celine because clearly something bad happened (she forgets that she's supposed to knock on Celine's door and that she's not supposed to wander).
And Celine laughs a little and says it's just snow, it's something that happens sometimes up here. And does she want to go outside and play in it?
(Hound!Rumi learns to love winter despite the cold. Wrapped in scarves and hats and jackets and gloves, she feels safer leaving the hanok with Celine; meeting people and seeing new places.)
(Celine absolutely took hound!Rumi to one of those ice festivals where they build entire buildings from ice)
Summary: due to @cyanacity‘s hound AU, I figured I may as well practice writing Anti and his home of sorts.
Tags: @pumpkin-demon (cause you like Anti and gore ;)
Warnings: Blood, hunting, human hunting, terror, packs, gore
I’m serious about the gore, one scene is really intense so please don’t read if you cannot handle a lot of gore or blood
It was dark out. The moon was in its crescent form, just coming back from being a new moon and giving off a very faint blue glow over the forest. It was so faint that, to a normal person, there was no light.
But he wasn’t normal now was he?
The brown-haired male walked through the kennels, collecting his best hunters and ignoring the other dogs. His black T-shirt was stained with blood, both his and others, new and old. It was just how he was.
There were hundreds of dogs in these kennels. All sorts of breeds ranging from medium-sized to large, to the size of a small horse. They specialized in all sorts of things. But right now, he needed hunters.
The hounds barked and jumped around, their bodies ready to run and their mouths watering.
You see, when a hunt goes well, the hunting hounds get real food. Meat like beef, steak, maybe even dinner scraps were all different types of food that could be offered. Otherwise, they’d get bones that were already stripped of a lot of meat.
Not only this, but hounds who failed to find their targets...well, let’s just say that number 135 was never heard from again.
___________
“Calm down ya rats,” the sharp-toothed male growls, making the hounds go still and quiet, their ears perked as they listened to what their master told them.
“Hunt down this scent, ‘n tear them limb from limb. If I find you and they’re still alive, or recognizable, yer all gettin’ whipped.”
The hounds flinched but otherwise didn’t react. They knew better. The dogs perked up when they saw the fabric, knowing that they would get to hunt soon. They sniffed the faded blue material, making sure they could remember what it was before looking out towards the woods, their eyes more than used to the darkness, and more than ready for their jobs.
“Find him,” Anti growls, dropping the fabric, watching as the hounds darted from their spots, running into the woods. Some barked, some howled, and some were quiet. Those were the new hunters. They didn’t know what their limits were so they obeyed every command to a T.
The murderer watched as his dogs ran off, growling when he felt that someone was close.
“Ya know that yer pushin’ it with comin’ ‘round so often right,” he questioned, already pissed off by this ‘person’.
“Why do you think I keep coming back,” they respond. The darkly dressed male turned to see a black cat with unnaturally golden eyes.
“The ‘ell do ya want?”
“Nothing really. I just wanted to tell you something,” the cat purrs, stretching before jumping up onto an old fence post. They curled their tail around their legs before looking up at Anti, the tip of their tail flicking and they seemed to smirk somehow.
“Your hounds are getting stronger. You and I both know this...and we both know that this will not last~ Your kingdom will come crashing down~ That hero may fail at first~ But she’ll find a way to stop you and your hounds. After all~ the story always has a happy ending~”
With that, the black cat jumped off the fence and disappeared into the dark grass around them. The glitch growled before shaking his head.
That cat doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about. That hero was going to fail. Besides, Jackie was a guy. And there were no females who would want to save people like this. They’re too busy with their own lives. Everyone wants to be a hero until it’s actually time to be one.
_______________
A loud howl cut through the mostly quiet woods, scaring the man into running faster. He panted heavily as he ran, not caring if he broke branches and lead the hounds to him. He had to run. That was all he knew or cared about.
The hounds ran faster, some moving to run in front of the blond-haired male, others to run beside him, and the rest behind. As soon as the man saw the dogs in front of him, he knew it was too late.
The brown-eyed man panted as he skids to a halt, trembling as he looked around at the starving looking hounds.
”N-nice doggies,” he whimpered, holding his hands out, whimpering when the dogs licked their chops.
Not good.
The man let out a scream of pain when one of the dogs from the back bit into his leg, easily tearing the muscle off the bone and tearing it out of his skin and body completely.
As soon as the scent of blood made it to the hounds’ noses, they lunged. The ones in front of the man lept to him, tearing into his stomach, another tore at his throat, cutting off his scream of pain and making him choke on his own blood. The man gurgled as he fell to his knees, then stomach, dead.
The dogs didn’t flinch when they felt blood coat their fur. In fact, it seemed to encourage them. The hounds continued tearing into the young man’s skin, muscle, and even bones. Their powerful jaws snapping bones as though it were nothing.
When the man fell to the ground, the dogs went even more wild, the pack moving to completely surround the body, ripping into it, tearing flesh apart, splitting bones, and tearing muscle to shreds.
A few of the older hunters growled at the younger ones, making them stop for a moment before turning the body onto its back and let the pack resume their shredding. They lunged for the stomach, tearing it even farther and pulling out yards of intestines, ripping out the stomach and its contents while others went for the face.
The dogs that went for the face broke off the man’s jaw, spraying blood on themselves, then managed to break the man’s skull, tearing the broken parts off, destroying the man’s face and making it impossible to recognize him.
Anti would be proud.
_______________
After a few minutes, the murderer walked through his pack of dogs, ordering them to back away while he looked the other male over.
The dogs had done a good job today. None had actually eaten anything, the parts were just torn to shreds and in pieces. Not actually eaten. The hounds knew to behave.
____________
The small pack went home, the glitch letting the few humans take care of his hounds and give them proper food. It had been a while since they had proper meals, and because of this, they’d have to be fed away from the others. Sure they were well trained, and technically were humans once before, but that didn’t mean they’d always behave when starving.
Today was a good hunt. Tomorrow’s hunt would be much easier, Jake was an athlete, that’s why Anti needed his best hunters. Tomorrow was just some random kid picked up from the street. Any dog could hunt that.
Tomorrow’s reward was going to be a lot less satisfying than today’s.
That was the life of Anti’s hounds. He’d find them on the streets, determine their worth, change them, then get them trained. After that, it was up to them to keep themselves in shape.
This was supposed to be about the hound!Rumi AU and guilt. And turned into...whatever this is. Enjoy!
For this specific AU, it's important to me that they never really find out if Miyeong was actually Rumi's mom and they just have to live in that uncertainty
With Celine carrying both the guilt of seeing Rumi grow and recover when Miyeong couldn't *and* the guilt of using Miyeong as an excuse to keep a demon kid alive when, if she were a better hunter, she would have no problem killing a demon (any demon)
(She still makes the trip to Miyeong's grave every week; hers is the cleanest tombstone in the graveyard and has been for a decade and more. But more and more the cleaning is done in silence.)
(What was there to even say to Miyeong, what little of her lingered in this world?)
(I don't know if Rumi is your child? I'm sorry I stopped looking for your daughter?)
(I hope you can forgive me for replacing your daughter with a demon, Celine imagines herself saying. She looked too much like a child and I'm weak.)
Meanwhile Rumi visits the headstone maybe once every few weeks and usually only because it's been a bad day where everything just feels like too much (the graveyard is quiet and her feet take her up the winding path to Ryu Miyeong's grave out of habit)
She calls Ryu Miyeong her mother but it doesn't mean she feels a connection towards her. As far as the demons were concerned, her parentage didn't matter nearly as much as the fact that she was the King's half-trained mutt.
(Too valuable to kill, not precious enough to handle gently; she'd overheard her handler say even the most pedigreed hound in the royal kennels was worthless until it had been broken into obedience)
In the early days, when Rumi was new to being a person (she still thinks she's not very good at being a person but at least she doesn't think of herself as a dog anymore, most days) she hadn't known what to do with being cared for (especially when she was being a bad dog)
Celine had stayed and hadn't given up on her. Even after the early days and those days had been bad. *She* had been bad (Celine had the scars as proof)
Rumi thinks what she feels towards Celine is what other kids feel towards their mothers
So she's *grateful* that Miyeong is dead and graves can't speak
("Are you kidding me?" Rumi imagines Miyeong saying. "That can't be my daughter. That thing isn't even a demon. It's barely a person. Throw it back and keep looking, Celine.")
(In her nightmares, she's kneeling under the tree again; the honmoon wrapped tight around her body like chains.)
(And her Celine is kneeling next to her and her fingers are gliding gently across her face and she's tilting her head and she's baring her neck and--)
("Just do it, Celine," Miyeong is whispering into Celine's ear. "My real daughter is waiting for us.")
(In her dreams, the honmoon tightens around her neck. She can't even beg for her life.)
(It's a small mercy that she always wakes before Celine can form her sword and draw it across her throat.)
Rumi thinks a good person probably wouldn't be grateful their maybe mother is dead
