HOTARU
It should be backwards that someone boring would give Hotaru wrinkles, but she also can't deny it. Not that she'll let Flora win sitting down - she blows quite the childish raspberry in response. Who needs words when you can do that?
Besides, the quiet that reigns as they hold one another is preferable. She may be just a letter away, but Hotaru will never feel that Flora is close enough; it can be hard not to give in to her desire to be overbearingly involved in her daughter's life. Having her in her arms is a comfort she cannot adequately describe and one she wants to cling to for as long as she can. "I love you too baby," she whispers, holding her as close as her body allows.
It makes it hard to let Flora move back for that very reason, but her arms do go a bit slack at the gut-punch question the Doubletake poses. There comes moments in a mother's life when she must decide between emotional vulnerability and protecting her child from the weight of her own demons; were it any other grief, any other loss, maybe she would have been inclined to the latter. Smiling sadly, Ru cups her daughter's beautiful, mud-smeared face. "Not always," she admits quietly in the emptiness of her spa, "and less so before your opening." Implied gratitude lives there for Flora having reminded her how to live again, marking a change in the Valkyrie's trajectory that she never could have anticipated. "But I think I'm starting to be."
Leaning forward, she kisses just between Flora's brows and lingers there a moment before tilting her own forehead against the Doubletake's. Eye contact is a little harder this way, but Ru couldn't care less. "Are you?" Gods know they must look a sad sight; two broken halves of twin units trying to find happiness that would never really fill those empty spaces.
Besides, the quiet that reigns as they hold one another is preferable. She may be just a letter away, but Hotaru will never feel that Flora is close enough; it can be hard not to give in to her desire to be overbearingly involved in her daughter's life. Having her in her arms is a comfort she cannot adequately describe and one she wants to cling to for as long as she can. "I love you too baby," she whispers, holding her as close as her body allows.
It makes it hard to let Flora move back for that very reason, but her arms do go a bit slack at the gut-punch question the Doubletake poses. There comes moments in a mother's life when she must decide between emotional vulnerability and protecting her child from the weight of her own demons; were it any other grief, any other loss, maybe she would have been inclined to the latter. Smiling sadly, Ru cups her daughter's beautiful, mud-smeared face. "Not always," she admits quietly in the emptiness of her spa, "and less so before your opening." Implied gratitude lives there for Flora having reminded her how to live again, marking a change in the Valkyrie's trajectory that she never could have anticipated. "But I think I'm starting to be."
Leaning forward, she kisses just between Flora's brows and lingers there a moment before tilting her own forehead against the Doubletake's. Eye contact is a little harder this way, but Ru couldn't care less. "Are you?" Gods know they must look a sad sight; two broken halves of twin units trying to find happiness that would never really fill those empty spaces.
Oh, drunken gods of slaughter
You know I've always been your favorite daughter
You know I've always been your favorite daughter
