Hotaru
I know that I should have told you that I would die
Just to hold you
Hotaru positively blossoms beneath Alys' approval, and it's not until she feels herself doing it that she realizes she has so badly needed it after she and Deimos had come as close to fighting as they ever do over the news. Though Alys does not have access to the bond the way Ru does, she'll undoubtedly see it in Ru's face, unguarded as it is when only the seer is in her presence. "Thank you," she practically purrs. "I can't thank you enough for your reading having helped get me there. I didn't realize how hurt I was until the moment it began to ease." Because that's the best way Hotaru could define it - hurting. A wound, an ache. Nothing so simple on the surface as calling it loneliness. She had been bleeding out internally and hadn't even known it, attributing everything to Enzo's loss when the wounds had been much deeper, much older. Just to hold you
The offer has Hotaru touching their shoulders together companionably, careful not to nudge lest she ruin a pencil stroke as Alys draws. "If you could intercept any mail or visitors and direct them to King's End? I think I'll be going early and setting up for a week or two." Unaware that it would then be Alys to unwittingly send George to the House of Midnight, Ru begins to make her list in earnest. "As for supplies, I am trying to pack light while bringing the things that mean the most to me. I always have a hard time staying inside during LongNight." Her shifts always call out, urging her to find open sky and open fields, or the tangle of leafless branches. "For years, the item I could not live without was Sunjata's old shirt, even long after his scent faded. But now I have as many as I could want." Though she keeps that shirt even now, occasionally commanding Sunjata to wear it again before she leaves. It will still remain her favorite, but she only needs it when she's not at his side. "Now...now, I think it is Enzo's old stuffed animal," she confesses softly, the realization inspiring her to write it slowly in the journal. "And the invisibility ribbon Wessex gave me before she died." Whether Alys recognizes either of the names she has just shared will come to be known, but her friend is surely astute enough to hear the quiet love and grief in her voice, revealing exactly what Wessex had once meant to her.
And if I just had my shit together I could be with you
But I'm too high on paranoia
But I'm too high on paranoia
