I swear I couldn't love you more than I do today
and yet I know I will tomorrow
and yet I know I will tomorrow
This is a perfect moment of gratitude for Flora's lack of Attunement, or she would have discovered far greater depths to Hotaru's allusions to violence than the Valkyrie's brevity imparted. She might have cultivated those thoughts if Flora had answered in any other way - any of the ways Ru had expected, which would have heaped greater fault onto Asta or Danta - but this? This is an answer she couldn't have predicted.
Hotaru slides her hands down Flora's arms to her wrists in one swift motion. Her fingers brush blindly over knuckles so familiar she can read them like braille, coaxing fingers to intertwine so she can squeeze them tightly. She envelopes Flora from behind like a brooding bird perched over its young, golden hair melding indistinguishably with Flora's as she embraces her.
"Oh, Flora..." where did my little girl go? The pain of crushes and flings is a hurt much easier for a mother to soothe than this raw, aimless yearning. "You deserve that kind of love. It's the strongest thing I've known, and to know it yourself is all I've ever wanted for you." Ru's hands tighten over Flora's as if by the strength of her grip she might force the world to produce it for her daughter here and now. "But you know its power can go both ways." Love of that magnitude can grant the ability to win wars, cheat death, and alter history - but it can so easily destroy its creator with that same awesome might. Flora has seen it firsthand and is far from unaware, but - "That means the pain of searching for it and finding nothing, or believing it has arrived and being wrong, is far greater than casual dating or flings."
Hotaru presses a butterfly kiss to the baby hairs at Flora's nape and murmurs, "It will always hurt, because to love like that you must make yourself vulnerable. Pain is always greater when you don't brace - but love can't get in if you do." Flora doesn't need the conclusions drawn for her. Hotaru's baby is brighter than any star Caido can parade past in vain competition. "So what matters more to you where you are now - to love, or to be free of pain?"
Hotaru slides her hands down Flora's arms to her wrists in one swift motion. Her fingers brush blindly over knuckles so familiar she can read them like braille, coaxing fingers to intertwine so she can squeeze them tightly. She envelopes Flora from behind like a brooding bird perched over its young, golden hair melding indistinguishably with Flora's as she embraces her.
"Oh, Flora..." where did my little girl go? The pain of crushes and flings is a hurt much easier for a mother to soothe than this raw, aimless yearning. "You deserve that kind of love. It's the strongest thing I've known, and to know it yourself is all I've ever wanted for you." Ru's hands tighten over Flora's as if by the strength of her grip she might force the world to produce it for her daughter here and now. "But you know its power can go both ways." Love of that magnitude can grant the ability to win wars, cheat death, and alter history - but it can so easily destroy its creator with that same awesome might. Flora has seen it firsthand and is far from unaware, but - "That means the pain of searching for it and finding nothing, or believing it has arrived and being wrong, is far greater than casual dating or flings."
Hotaru presses a butterfly kiss to the baby hairs at Flora's nape and murmurs, "It will always hurt, because to love like that you must make yourself vulnerable. Pain is always greater when you don't brace - but love can't get in if you do." Flora doesn't need the conclusions drawn for her. Hotaru's baby is brighter than any star Caido can parade past in vain competition. "So what matters more to you where you are now - to love, or to be free of pain?"
Ru
