ready, step

So when the heavy hand of death is here to take me away

I'll be the solid grip of time

“I am glad you agreed to come with me.” Noah’s voice carried low beneath the steady patter of rain. It was a strange, unseasonable rain that veiled Torchline’s riot of color in a silver haze. Even here, in a place known for its heat and indulgent sun, the sky wept in a cool, persistent drizzle. It slicked the colorful, volcanic stone underfoot, deepening the reds and violets of the rock until they gleamed like fresh wounds. Steam still coiled from the sea where geysers ruptured the surface. Now the plumes tangled with falling rain, turning the coastline into something half-dreamed and shifting.

He walked beside Hotaru, broad shoulders damp, blond hair plastered back by the drizzle. ”How are you doing?” The last time he had seen her, he had left her at Flora’s door with too much unsaid and too much understood. Noah drew in a breath heavy with salt and sulfur and wet earth. Torchline was meant to be bright, brazen, alive. 

Today it felt subdued, even as the shrine rose in the distance.”I brought an offering for Frey,” his glacier eyes moved sidelong to look at her, ”I just wanted to say thank you for all they’d done for Marcus while I was here. Not to call them down or anything…” He trailed off, unsure of how Hotaru felt before her herald at this point in time, aware the history that followed them both into the rain.

forever holding my stay

Hotaru

Tonight, you look so lovely
It's your eyes that define me

The omnipresent golden glow of her body illuminates the haze formed by the rain in an odd reverse-shadow that is perfectly at home amidst the wash of colors that make up the Rainbow Road. She steps carefully over the slick stones, a woman with strong feelings about falling and the inherent gracelessness it conveys. Noah's closeness is a safety net should it happen; steady as a rock inside and out, she can surely catch herself by grabbing onto any part of him if the need arises. Not that she needs an excuse to hover near him. It's a closeness she doesn't have to consciously consider - aside from the change of gait, of course. Two of her steps is easily one of his. Luckily as a demigod she does not tire quickly.

"I am glad to come," she assures, marveling for a moment when no mist appears with her words. Halo and even King's End had been far colder even as early as Leafchange. For all the time she spent in Torchline years ago, she's been away long enough that it's novel upon return.

The question is loaded, though they both know that. She considers her response long enough for him to speak further as the shrine rises before them on the rainy horizon. So she responds to his final words first.

"You've brought the perfect person then," she jokes lightly. Her smiles are small these days, her eyes quiet and pallid, but she is not as broken as she had been the first time she lost Nate and Sunjata. Cutting through a scar into flesh below still bleeds you out, but the surface tissue is already dead. One less layer to feel the pain with. "What did they do for Marcus? I'm sorry I haven't been around as much for him as I wanted." At least not recently, due to being dead and all. Something she still hasn't quite processed. Andraste's mind nudges at her own, checking in, from where she prowls ahead, alternating between stalking and gliding short distances. Hotaru assures her wordlessly that she is fine, and the dragonling mulls it over, clearly debating her sincerity before returning to her prey-less hunt.

"I'm...surviving." Not quite living, but better than he'd found her. "Being with Flora and Enzo is likely the reason I'm as stable as I am right now." As a father, she doesn't have to explain why. "I'm not sure what to feel. What I am entitled to feel, rather. Normally I would not be so unconfident, but giving into my emotions ruined everything the first time we parted ways." So many lives were altered, not just hers, or Sunjata's, or Nate's. She regrets that. Regrets so much that it has made her skittish and reluctant to allow herself to explore feelings of anger, resentment, or betrayal. All things he can skim through the bond without her needing to put it all to words.

"I feel like I don't know myself anymore. I was so prepared for domesticity - or as close as two Frey demigods can get - and overnight it vanished." Time hadn't passed for her the way it had for everyone she'd left behind. Tucking soaked golden strands behind her ear, Ru stares ahead and feels her lips tremble with unclear emotion. "That sort of softness is contingent upon a partner to share it with, someone who makes you soft. But it also means without that, I'm realizing I have - had? - no purpose of my own." Something the Hotaru of the past would have been horrified of, but Caido was not Helovia. She'd been excited at the prospect of being happy enough for the first time in her life to actually be that soft. Now she can't call herself that. Vulnerable, maybe, but not soft. Not if she's alone. "And all I can do is wait for him to give me some sort of sign. Which doesn't feel good either." It's a clunky phrase, far from her preferred elegant speech, but her stomach twists uncomfortably and forces brevity and simplicity. It's not like she'd know what to call it anyway with how muddled and sometimes forbidden her emotions are right now.

So when the heavy hand of death is here to take me away

I'll be the solid grip of time

The rain did not let up while she spoke, despite the golden luminescence of her. It traced the sharp line of Noah’s jaw and gathered in the hollow of his throat, slid down broad shoulders that had learned to carry too much and call it strength. The shrine loomed nearer, long-left offerings bright against dark stone, fruit split and dripping despite the rain. Frey’s presence lingered in the air. ”When he aged up, Frey made Marcus a hybrid. It was about a year ago.” He said as he walked beside her, a steady presence against the slick riot of Torchline’s stone, glacier eyes fixed ahead though he felt every tremor in her through the bond. He didn’t take offense to Hotaru’s absence from his children. He felt confident in her love for them — confident that, if necessary, she would move the same mountains as she would for her own children. He knew, too, that demigodhood asked different things from you than other things in life did, and that alongside that she had moved to King’s End to try and start something new and beautiful for herself. Noah had respected that, though part of him regretted letting her go with such open hands.

“I know that place.” He assured her, voice shaped by rain and restraint. “Where you don’t know what you’re allowed to feel. Where it seems safer to feel nothing at all than risk burning everything down again.” He had done that once. He had watched it happen. Knew Hotaru had done it too, literally, once (at least). Steam curled upward from the sea in ghostly spirals, mingling with the drizzle until horizon and water blurred into something indistinct. “You are entitled to whatever rises in you,” he continued, “whether its anger. Grief. Even hope.” He let his glacier gaze sweep towards her, analyzing for her outward expressions that might give him further insight to her deep feelings of it all.

“When I came back after being dead on the tundra when the dragon killed Cordelia, and at first when Vi discharged me, I thought everything that had defined me was gone. Hunter. Husband. Demigod.” His jaw tightened, a fickle feathering of it. “I thought if those things were stripped away, there would be nothing left underneath.” The bond carried the truth of it, raw and unpolished. “But there was — is.” He slowed slightly so she would not have to match his longer stride so precisely, an unconscious accommodation. “You are not purposeless without him. Your only purpose is not with him, or for him. You are not only what someone else draws from you.” His eyes lifted toward the shrine, rain caught in pale lashes. “You are a mother. A demigod. A woman who has died and returned and still stands.” Times over again, not just this. Hotaru was a phoenix, remade in flame and glory and gore and grief and power.

He paused, feet stopping completely on the colorful stones pattered with rain. ”Do you want to wait for him?”

forever holding my stay

Hotaru

Tonight, you look so lovely
It's your eyes that define me

Delighted surprise twists between them through the subtle golden aura hugging the two of them, though she ensures she turns her head to show her smile readily. Sunjata often - had? Gods she doesn’t know what tenses to use anymore - relied more on the bond than words, especially after they committed to trying again. Hotaru had tried to learn to do the same, while also vowing to control her tongue into more sincere shapes and preemptive vulnerability than she was naturally familiar with. It has made her different. She hopes in a good way, but she isn’t sure lately.

“That’s an incredible gift. I was delighted to be a hybrid through Frey. I hope he is happy with the change.” Perhaps she will reach out to spend time with him. Try to make amends for her absence. The quiet understanding in Noah’s soul is a low, musical note that soothes the guilt and fear of being misunderstood, easing them out of her body and out into the rain.

She can’t let go of the rest as easily. His support and validation of her feelings is a sweet and noble thing, but it feels too much of both of those things for someone like her. But she listens through the immediacy of her denial, because Noah does understand. Down to so many details, he has shared this burden. His separation from Cordelia had been different - final - but he’s no stranger to the entangled intricacies of the rest. Ru hadn’t really thought of that before. Though, to be fair, she wasn’t in a place where she could think much at all when he found her. Now, it’s a companionable comfort that has her brushing their elbows together when she steps a little closer.

“Since when were you so wise?” The teasing is half-hearted in her own musing tone. A weak deflection as his words settle deep and stir the sediment in her chest. The shrine grows as if from the ground, and Hotaru exhales slowly through her nose as she tries to find an answer that isn’t lip service.

“Being angry, or betrayed…I don’t feel I can allow myself to be those things. Not without implying - ugh,” a graceless noise of frustration escapes her, sharp and unnatural, unbefitting. Yet it’s all she can manage, with how twisted her stomach is over the impossibility of wording what she has to say in a way that isn’t shameful when spoken aloud. Hotaru can’t look at him when she spits it out. “If I feel that, if I make any of it about me, introduce any other hurdles or demand reparations of my own - he might be angrier. He might not come back.” It’s little more than a whisper by the end. A childish confession of guilt uttered while standing in a parent’s looming shadow. But Noah does not loom, not in that sort of way, even when he suddenly stops, bringing her with him by proxy.

“Despite that, I don’t know if I want to wait, either. I have been thinking that my life, at least, will not. Simply because I once had to say ‘cannot’, and that shames me.” It hasn’t shamed her when they’d been together, ecstatic to be domestic and aimless, but alone? Alone, she is rife with embarrassment. “To not wait for him - romantically - would make me a hypocrite, wouldn’t it? Though I suppose there’s no mystery or uncertainty to our break up now, compared to my death.” But she feels bound, compelled to crawl over coals and wait in the mire of uncertainty until he makes his own decision. And because of that, she cannot allow herself to feel or to be angry.

So when the heavy hand of death is here to take me away

I'll be the solid grip of time

”He thinks its wonderful, as do I. His first shift is a white-tailed eagle, if that gives you any look into who he is growing into.” He said as he stepped toward the shrine, boots careful on the slick volcanic stone, flashing her a grin. Noah had known eagles of many varieties to symbolize strength, courage, and freedom, and that felt befitting for a young man finding his way in the great wide world of Caido. ”The wisdom? Must have been one of the things from Vi I got to keep.” He winked, nose wrinkling some with his jest back towards her. Ahead, Frey’s altar was as indulgent as ever, with flowers overgrown and unapologetic, petals bruised open by the rain, older offerings collapsing sweetly into rot. Life devouring life. Desire unashamed of its hunger.

He knelt without ceremony. From the leather wrap at his belt he drew the offering: the last of the ripe summer fruits he had been able to find before the season turned. Their skins were sun-warmed gold and blushing red, imperfect, fragrant even in the rain. Carefully, he set them among the others. After sending a prayer towards the dual deity, Noah stood to look at the Valkyrie again.

Glacier eyes held her now—not hard, not unkind. Just unwavering. “Ru,” he said with weight to her name, ”if the only reason you silence your anger is to keep him from leaving, then he is not choosing you freely.” The words were not cruel, but he knew they may hurt regardless. “You are not introducing hurdles by having feelings.” His jaw tightened faintly. “You are asking to be met.” Steam burst from the sea below, a hollow roar filling the space between them before fading again into the hush of rain. “Love that survives only when you carve pieces off of yourself is not love. It is negotiation. That’s true for you, and for Sunjata. If he has to live like that to be loved by you, then that is not love at all.”

He stepped closer, close enough that he barely had to raise his voice above a whisper even with the rain and the wind and the waves in the distance. The bond carried no judgment, but concern. And, unashamed and bright, something protective. Rain gathered on his lashes again. He did not blink it away. “You are allowed to live while he decides,” Noah said firmly. “You are allowed to feel angry. Betrayed. Hopeful. All of it. None of those things will summon him faster, or drive him away, if what binds you is real.”

He glanced briefly toward the fruit resting at Frey’s shrine. It killed him to think that Hotaru was making herself smaller in the hope that Sunjata would return to fill the space. She was so much more than that. Noah’s face twisted with concern. ”Would it truly make you a hypocrite? Has Sunjata ever truly waited for you? Made you his first choice?” Noah knew there were intricacies to their relationship he couldn’t know, didn’t understand. It had been that way with he and Cordelia — decisions the Shrike made to turn her to the One Shot, decisions that had been Noah’s and not her’s in all truth and reality. Even with all the ways he disliked the Flood for his past actions and decisions, he had come to an even neutrality with him since his reuniting with the Valkyrie. He had to have some grace, somewhere, and the understanding that he didn’t know everything was the only thing that fueled the grace.

forever holding my stay

Hotaru

Tonight, you look so lovely
It's your eyes that define me

"It does," she assures with warm pride emanating in tone and smile, "my falcon form was my second shift, myself." Not quite so noble as an eagle, but that is a reflection on the Valkyrie's more lawless spirit. For a son of the Sentinel could she have expected anything less?

He leaves her with her thoughts as he makes his offering. Not that the additional time provides any answers or organization to the mess in her head, but she can't put off the heavy truths he seeks to impart forever.

The precipice of her cheeks twitch, fitful, restless, as she weathers each point he makes; betrayals of her instinctual disagreement and defensiveness. She can't stop herself from crossing her arms, hands pressing in around her ribs to hold herself while simultaneously symbolically barring Noah.

"I would have waited for him until my immortality was stripped away," she whispers, rain settling on her lips only to be dislodged by how they tremble. It says everything without having to speak the words; did that mean they loved each other differently? How meaningful was that difference? When did trauma and old wounds stop being explanations and start becoming incompatibilities? She stiffens her mouth and forges onward. "But that's my choice. One he doesn't have to mirror for us to be together. We already had agreements about other sexual partners, our Frey duties...our hearts..." she thinks of Sunjata's withered heart sitting in the soft lining of the box in her pocket dimension, as safe as she could possibly keep it - and she falters.

He'd given his heart to her - how, then, had it died? Why? Was the act of giving it to her not enough? How was she to know that there would be stipulations? That there was an expiration on something that seemed so final, so monumental in its totality? And if his heart had come with those strings attached, was the physical embodiment of the entirety of his love always based on conditionality?

There are no answers to any of those questions, but they ache without reprieve. Ru's arms tighten around herself as her eyes flick away from Noah's toward Frey's shrine just past his shoulder. Anything for a moment of reprieve from his all-seeing gaze. "Sure, maybe the fact that I would wait and he couldn't means he loves me differently. Or...loves me a little less." It feels like swallowing fire to even say it, but she must. Maybe if she admits some of the harder parts, Noah will understand why this isn't as wrong as he thinks it is. "But that doesn't mean he doesn't love me. If I'm willing to accept that we are different in this area, what is the harm?" And is that harm hers to own, or one that Noah feels on her behalf? In which case, is there harm occurring at all if she accepts it with open eyes and open arms? "Love can be negotiation too - we all have to find a way to make two different sets of expectations and boundaries meet when we fall in love. The concession I'm making is the validation of my own hurt. I'm just doing it preemptively."

But she isn't really answering Noah's questions, and Hotaru is keenly aware of that even as dread settles in her stomach at the prospect of doing so. She bites her lip until it darkens under the abuse. It feels like he's trying to corner her, and she hates that she knows he isn't. Knows her instinct to lash out and assert dominance somehow is an admission unto itself.

"But no. He hasn't put me first." Meek. Devastated. Reluctant to be spoken at all. "Not really. At least not until he gave me his heart physically. But doesn't that mean something?" And how many times had he been given the chance to put her first anyway? Still, the small part of her that has always quietly accepted that he loved Nate more than her aches anew - as if she needs the reminder of her past insecurities. It stings enough to stoke a fire that burns up her throat and past her teeth before she can stop it, eyes snapping with a lick of flame as they find Noah's.

"Explanations aside, what do you expect awaits me in terms of my heart if I see things the way you do?" The challenge is false fuel, temporary and ephemeral, but it's enough to supply a fragile edge to her eyes that is mirrored in the stubborn but trembling line of her jaw. "There is nowhere for my love to go, even if it wouldn't make me a hypocrite not to wait. I'm an immortal demigod of Sex Frey, Noah. I'm already a woman who's hard to love before all that - so why wouldn't I sacrifice fairness if it means the man I love comes back to me? If it means sparing me from a fate of being alone in love?"

To be a Frey demigod is to be driven by your desires - and Hotaru desires, above all else, to be loved. To never be alone again.

Would you withhold any sacrifice, healthy be damned, if it meant actualizing your greatest dream?

Would you really?

So when the heavy hand of death is here to take me away

I'll be the solid grip of time

Rain swept sideways across the shrine, thin and sharp, hissing where it struck the warm stone. Somewhere beyond the rocks the sea heaved and groaned, and another streak of lightning tore open the sky, bleaching the world pale before thunder screamed across the horizon again. Noah did not move while she spoke. He watched her fold into herself, arms tightening around her ribs like someone bracing against a cold only she could feel. The sight pulled at something stubborn and protective in his chest. He wanted to reach across the distance and hold her.

“It means something.” He said quietly. His glacier gaze drifted briefly to the shrine and the fruit he had laid there, rain beading on their skins while Frey’s altar thrummed with life and rot alike. “Giving you his heart like that was not a small thing.” He looked back to her, steady and searching rather than judging. “But something meaning a lot doesn’t always mean it’s enough.” His voice stayed gentle, the words chosen with care as though he were stepping across thin ice with a surging, raging arctic sea below. A slow breath left him and put his eyes to hers, unwavering.

“You asked what I think waits for your heart if you start seeing this differently,” he continued, “truth is, I don’t know.” Lightning flashed again across the distant sea and for a moment the shrine glowed in stark white relief. “But I do remember something you once told me. You said Sunjata wasn’t the man you considered to be your true love of your life. You said you believed people could love, lose, and love again.” The rain softened to a whisper between them as he held her gaze. “I believed you when you said that.”

He stepped a little closer, not trying to crowd her, but near enough that his presence was solid in the storm. The attuned bond carried the quiet sincerity behind his words. Being afraid of ending up alone isn’t the same thing as loving someone, Ru, and cutting off pieces of yourself to keep someone from leaving, that doesn’t guarantee they’ll stay. His jaw flexed faintly, the concern on his face unguarded. You deserve someone who chooses you without needing you to bleed for it. Even if that someone isn’t Sunjata. While Noah believed, too, that love required sacrifice, that was sacrifice on both ends that made both parties better — not less.

forever holding my stay

Hotaru

I miss the days when stars were saintly
They sang to me in ways innately

The quiet recognition of her admittedly antagonistic questioning settles her, taking the wind from already tattered sails. The fight she is waging is not against him. Unfortunately, she isn't sure who - or what - she is fighting. Is there even a fight to be had when she's been stripped of proactive options by Sunjata?

Lightning illuminates the shrine and sends light scattering across every wet, reflective surface, highlighting the apex of Noah's cheek and outlining the broadness of his shoulders in there-and-gone backlighting that makes him seem larger and stronger than he already is. It feels poetic; Hotaru's oldest and most integral elemental magic bringing them out of shadow for a single moment, half-blinded but temporarily able to see one another clearer as well.

Her own words on his tongue makes her hackles fall further, deflating and curling in on herself with a look both pained and contemplative.

"I believed it too," she admits softly beneath the hazy white-noise of rain. Can she say she still does? Or does she believe herself above it, exempt, as she does so many other things?

Noah need not fear crowding her. As he steps closer she closes the distance and lays her forehead against his collarbone - the highest she can reach - with a pathetic thump. Arms still wrapped around herself, but taking physical comfort how she can. Purpose is so hard to find here. Adapting to Caido's ways hasn't been easy for me, so being alone is a worse fate in my eyes than it used to be. All the things that used to define her - thief, queen, mother, spy - are unwelcome and unbefitting of Caido. She'd been hoping for motherhood once more, but that too is lost now. But he doesn't want me to wait. So it doesn't matter, does it? Being angry, being a hypocrite, being alone... All she can do is choose whether to take Sunjata at his word and try to move on while also attempting to remain open to the idea of getting back together without letting it impair her (which seems like an impossible balancing act).

All that stops her is her own loyalty. How ironic. Unwanted or unneeded as it may be, how can she remain open to loving him again without restricting how much of her heart she gives to someone else in the interim? I'm my own hostage, while he's free to work on himself, even if it may be at the expense of his heart and ability to love. And she can't look to the Heartless to be any clearer than he already has been.

But my ghost was lost to the grownup gallows
So I find my spirit in the bottle

So when the heavy hand of death is here to take me away

I'll be the solid grip of time

Although he wished not to crowd her, to make her feel like prey backed into a corner, her movements didn't surpruse him. He rarely ever was caught off guard by her touch. Noah went still as her forehead settled against his collarbone, the quiet weight of it landing heavier than any of the words they had exchanged in the rain. Water slid down the back of his neck and soaked into his coat, but he hardly noticed it. His arms lifted and wrapped around her without hesitation, not restraining, not claiming, simply there. Solid. Sentinel. The storm rolled somewhere out over the sea, thunder dragging across the horizon like a long breath, and Noah looked down at the crown of her damp gold hair with a tightening in his chest that felt equal parts protective and deeply sad. He leaned enough to press a kiss to the top of her Frey-illuminated crown.

“You aren’t a hostage,” he whispered against her hair, voice low and meant only for the space between them rather than the storm surrounding them. His thumb shifted faintly against her back as he spoke, grounding himself as much as offering comfort. Noah’s jaw flexed slightly as he considered his next words, careful not to push harder than she could bear but unwilling to abandon the truth he believed she deserved to hear. The attuned bond carried all the weight of what Noah could and couldn't say. His hand shifted briefly to her shoulder before easing again, running down her back in a long and comforting stroke. “You’re not trapped unless you convince yourself you are,” he said gently, the words meant as reassurance rather than argument. “and you don’t have to solve the rest of it tonight.” He breathed in deep, letting it not only fill his lungs but give her stability as she rested aginst his chest.

The rain shifted from soft, continuos drizzling to covering them in silver sheets, each drop striking stone and sea with sharp insistence, until the world seemed stitched together by water alone. The sky hung low and swollen. Then lightning split it open. For a heartbeat the world went bone-white and exposed, every edge sharpened, every wave crest frozen mid-snarl. The strike was not silent brilliance but violence, a jagged artery of light ripping across the heavens. In its wake, the thunder did not simply boom. It screamed. The sound tore across the sky with a feral, splitting howl, rolling from horizon to horizon like the bellow of some colossal beast woken too soon.

Glacier eyes looked down at her where she leaned against him, rain threading through her golden hair and soaking into the fabric stretched across his chest, and something deep in him ached at the vulnerability she allowed him to see. The Valkyrie had always carried herself like flame and steel; seeing her like this pulled at the part of him that knew exactly what it felt like to lose the shape of your life overnight. Even though this had not been the first time he had seen her vulnerable, and a deep part of him hoped he would be trusted enough to see the depths of her again, it still ached.

“Ru,” he murmured, voice low and roughened by both the storm and the feeling behind it. “When Vi turned me back into an Attuned, when he dismissed me as his demigod, it felt like someone had hollowed out the center of who I was. For years that purpose had been everything—my duty, my identity. And suddenly it was gone.” He breathed out again, lowering his cheek to rest against her head despite the rain that poured over them now. It took time to realize that losing a purpose doesn’t mean you’ve lost your worth. It just means the shape of your life is changing. His jaw tightened faintly, but his voice stayed gentle. You’re not alone in that feeling. And you won’t be alone here, Ru—not ever.

forever holding my stay

Hotaru

I miss the days when stars were saintly
They sang to me in ways innately

He runs warm, even beneath the growing intensity of rain. It spreads through her forehead and cheek as she turns her head to press more comfortably against him, pouring deeper into her bones when his arms come up to enclose her between them. Noah's warmth keeps the growing cold at bay, soothing pebbled flesh and rouged cheeks. It's not the first time he has sheltered her; physically, emotionally, differentiation means nothing when each instance has been profound. How can she not find comfort and safety in her vulnerability when he has never failed to provide safe haven?

Beneath her cheek, the hide-leather of his coat grows damp from the deluge. If warmer droplets aid the effort where she rests against his chest, they are the silent, inconspicuous type, eased away as quickly as they come by the comforting glide of his hand across her back and the barely-there kiss against her crown.

"You can hardly solve the unknown anyway," she laments, perhaps a touch bitterly, almost petulantly as if scorned by the absence of a tangible path forward. Even so, she has no remaining energy in the pursuit of arguing a point she has been gently but firmly turned away from. If there was ever a debate in their exchange, it's one she did not win. This time, she can admit defeat without begrudging him the triumph - losing has put her on a better path, though no easier than the one she'd been walking before.

Her heart aches empathetically at the reminder of the loss and punishment he'd suffered, as it always does. How can she not take his words to heart when he really does know how she feels, has already walked in her shoes? Perhaps the company and loyalty he offers is not the kind her heart aches for; still, he offers it. It exists.

Ru's hands slowly pull away from her sides, arms untangling and reaching around Noah instead to return his embrace. "I must have missed the part where you shared how to get through it. I'm assuming it's not good news?" The sardonic tone is half-swallowed by his chest, but the bond ensures it's not fully lost. Waiting is not in Hotaru's nature - if she could force time to pass in order to heal faster, she would. In the end, she knows he doesn't have an answer, just like telling a single friend that 'someone will come along'. Building a purpose from spite and impatience is one thing, but the heart is another matter. One she wishes she had any sort of guidance for. But while Noah can give her many things and stitch many of her wounds, he can't answer a question every broken-hearted fool has asked; what more can I do but wait?

But my ghost was lost to the grownup gallows
So I find my spirit in the bottle

So when the heavy hand of death is here to take me away

I'll be the solid grip of time

Noah felt her arms come around him, felt the shift in her as she quietly and deliberately chose to lean into something, into him, instead of bracing against it. It settled in his chest like a slow, steady fire. Not the wild blaze Hotaru carried in her bones, but something enduring like banked up coals. He tightened his hold around her to answer in kind. The storm raged around them like a living thing, screaming and lashing, but within the circle of his arms there was solid safety. Not peace, not truly, but there was something more honest. Like standing in the eye of it and knowing the winds would come again, but they wouldn't always knock you down.

He released a sharp-edged breath from his lungs. He blinked away rain from his lashes. While he had remained a gentle waypoitn for her, a strong tower unmoved by the winds and unyielding to the raging, churning waters, something softened within the bond. There wasn’t a moment. His thumb moved against her back again, a slow, absent motion, like tracing a map he had walked too many times. It was more like learning to walk again after something broke. He continued, the words deliberate, shaped with care. Every step felt wrong at first, like I was wearing someone else’s life instead of my own. But he trusted Vi through it, and knew the mercy in the god's actions, and held onto that with both hands.

Lightning split the sky again, bright enough to turn the rain into falling glass around them. “But it didn’t stay like that forever. It changed slowly. So slowly I didn’t notice it at first. The pain didn’t vanish...it just settled." Lost its teeth. Stopped snarling. "I fathered. I hunted, I worked on regional quests, I built a shrine for Safrin and Vi..." He tried to pull back a curtain for her, to give her a glimpse of all she could do.

He shifted slightly, though she remained tucked against him. “You don’t stop waiting all at once,” he added, honesty threading through his tone like a scar that never quite faded, "you just start living in the spaces between it. And those spaces get bigger, little by little, until one day you realize you’re not holding your breath anymore.” His hand stilled against her back, grounding, certain. “It’s not good news, but it’s not hopeless either.” Even through pain, even on the hard days (which Noah had plenty of, where his feet didn't even want to touch the floorboards of the lodge), there was hope. Noah would be her lighthouse when she needed reminding, when her ship crashed against the waves and the lightning struck and she was sure she was going to hit the rocks and sink, sink, sink -- he would be there.

"Have you talked to Deimos?"

forever holding my stay

Hotaru

I miss the days when stars were saintly
They sang to me in ways innately

The intensity of the squall turns their quiet, melancholy embrace into a peaceful eye that promises a brief moment of rest. A safe space to hear hard truths, to build up broken pieces free of prying, judgmental eyes. Noah holds her - treats her - softly. More, sometimes, than even Deimos - though there is far more history there, of course, moments Deimos was privy to that inform his knowledge of her inherent resilience. Ru believes Noah knows that resilience exists, it simply doesn't stop him from offering her a soft place to land.

Just because she can survive the fall doesn't mean Noah lets it happen. It's a kindness she doesn't deserve, but one she needs now more than ever.

Time heals, is the bitter truth. He tells it to her in kinder, better ways, but in the end it's a pill one must swallow regardless. The steady fanning of his thumb against her back is passage of time, the breath she takes against his chest is too. The Valkyrie cannot die; time, of all things, is something she has in excess. "Good but not hopeless...I'll take it," is the contemplative, tired murmur that warms the space between them on the swell of her breath. "I've been thinking that this is as close to a fresh start as I'll ever have. I don't know what to do with it yet, how I'll make the Frey pieces fit with the Ru pieces and the Mom pieces...but it's easier to put them together on a clear canvas, right?" Building a puzzle around obstructions leads to a perpetually unfinished project. But nobody knows her now. Nobody remains who recalls past wrongs or sins committed. For all the loss Caido ensures, this may be the one positive side - a fresh start when least expected.

As he pulls away just slightly, her warmed cheek goes cold with the absence, prompting her to look into his eyes to admit the truth with a chagrined downturn of her lips. "No. I made sure to send word I was alive, but I haven't left Wildering House since you brought me there. Until today, obviously." Days have slipped past like sand in an hourglass. It will come to be something she regrets, if she does not already, somewhere beneath the tangled hurt and numb. But if there is one thing Hotaru can count on, it's that she will find her way back to Deimos. It's only a matter of time. When it happens, she hopes he will forgive her for her delay - and for betting her heart on Sunjata a second time against his wishes.

But my ghost was lost to the grownup gallows
So I find my spirit in the bottle

So when the heavy hand of death is here to take me away

I'll be the solid grip of time

Noah felt the subtle shift when she pulled back just enough to meet his eyes, the loss of her warmth against his chest like the sudden absence of a fire. The rain filled that space quickly and insistently, but he didn’t move away. His hands remained steady on her, anchoring without holding too tightly, understanding that she needed both—something to lean into, and the freedom to step back when she had to.

Her words settled into him, slow and thoughtful, like stones sinking beneath the surface of deep water. “A clear canvas can be a gift.” he said after a moment, voice shaped by quiet consideration. He knew the other side of it too. How it could feel too open, too vast—like standing in a field after a storm had torn everything down, with nothing left to guide you and no path already worn in. His thumb brushed once more along her arm, slower now, grounding, as the thought settled heavily in his chest. It didn’t mean she was lost. Just that she would have to choose where the path went next.

"You get to hold the paintbrush now." His gaze softened slightly, though there was still something firm beneath it—something rooted and unyielding in the way he cared. He knew she was trying to separate herself into pieces—Frey, Ru, mother—as if they had ever truly been distinct. But they weren’t. They had always been her, woven together whether she could see the pattern or not. It only felt fractured now because she was looking at it from a place of loss, trying to make sense of something that had never needed to be taken apart to begin with.

At her admission about Deimos, Noah nodded with understanding edged with a hint of concern. He exhaled slowly, breath warm even in the rain. He wanted to say that he thought the warden would understand, in his own way, but he couldn't force the words. "You should go to him soon." Was all he managed.

Lightning flickered again, softer this time, illuminating the rain in a muted shimmer. Noah cleared his throat, eyes lifting to the grey sky before coming back to Hotaru's mismatched gaze. "Do you want to hunt? Put your mind on something else for a while?" He asked, although he felt he already knew the answer. When she gave it, together they went.

FIN

forever holding my stay