just us girls

Hotaru

I'm as calm as a baby lamb
always being led

The employee that Dahlia sends scurrying is thick-tongued and wide-eyed when he finds her; Hotaru touches his shoulder with a warm smile and no shame as she compels her way toward deescalation. "Calm down. I will go meet her - just keep my friend here company, okay?" Winking at the patron she'd been entertaining, Hotaru excuses herself calmly and winds her way back to reception to finally meet Dahlia for herself.

In contrast to Dahlia's dark palette, Hotaru is all golden hues. Her skin is warmed by the gossamer ivory of her dress, gold dangling daintily from her ears. At their tails, diamonds cast lovely refracted rainbows by the light of her own hair. Dahlia is gorgeous and compelling in person - Remi's portrait had not done enough - but her gravitas is what has the curious cat in Ru sitting up and taking notice. The Valkyrie has managed to avoid the lesson at the end of that old adage for so many years. Why quail now?

"I'm flattered you wanted to see me instead of Sunjata," she titters with genuine - if misplaced - satisfaction in her smile, extending a hand for Dahlia to do with as she wishes. "I assume you'll want a room regardless of whether you're seeking business or pleasure?" Call it blind faith or true love, but Frey and Sunjata insist Dahlia is only as malevolent as any other invasive species, so Hotaru is more inclined to be curious than petrified over a moment alone with the Reaper.

I'm as blue as blood
before the blood runs red