Hotaru
I'm made of dead man's money, you can see it in my smile
His arms are steel, but they have never caged her without reason she has learned. So she subsides against all odds, trusting and complicit. Maybe it's the way she sees the world now, Dahlia's kiss and the peace it brought, but the question is a simple one to answer. Simpler still to revel in the way her manufactured certainty equally protects her from the agony of a reality where intervention could have been an option at all. There is no pain to be felt if there is nowhere she could have failed in those dire moments, the last Flora had.
"I should have convinced her to stop trying to fight the spread earlier. Shown her it's not dangerous, and that it's meaningless." It will happen regardless, whether Flora and her compatriots fight it or not. Her brow wrinkles with distress, mouth parting to say more - that there's still time to do so, that she hopes to try so that Flora might win her way back to the Family's good graces where she will also have more power and leverage - only it's then that Sunjata pulls away enough for her to glimpse his eyes. The shock of his tattoos flaring and exploding is like a bolt through her, heart ratcheting back into panicked rates. "Sunny?!" But it's a muffled interjection with how he crushes her back to his chest. Hotaru's hands grip at his shirt, mind racing to make connections with so little context. He hadn't looked at her earlier - why? Her stomach sinks, skin cold.
"What happened? Who - who?" Who is hurt? Why can't you face me to tell me? "I'm here, it's okay," she rushes to comfort even as her throat thickens with fear. His silence a wraith that haunts her, a prelude to misery and heartbreak that she can't break the mental connection of even with all they've done to repair those wounds. It is a scar she can't remove, even if the hurt has bled away.
"I should have convinced her to stop trying to fight the spread earlier. Shown her it's not dangerous, and that it's meaningless." It will happen regardless, whether Flora and her compatriots fight it or not. Her brow wrinkles with distress, mouth parting to say more - that there's still time to do so, that she hopes to try so that Flora might win her way back to the Family's good graces where she will also have more power and leverage - only it's then that Sunjata pulls away enough for her to glimpse his eyes. The shock of his tattoos flaring and exploding is like a bolt through her, heart ratcheting back into panicked rates. "Sunny?!" But it's a muffled interjection with how he crushes her back to his chest. Hotaru's hands grip at his shirt, mind racing to make connections with so little context. He hadn't looked at her earlier - why? Her stomach sinks, skin cold.
"What happened? Who - who?" Who is hurt? Why can't you face me to tell me? "I'm here, it's okay," she rushes to comfort even as her throat thickens with fear. His silence a wraith that haunts her, a prelude to misery and heartbreak that she can't break the mental connection of even with all they've done to repair those wounds. It is a scar she can't remove, even if the hurt has bled away.
Watch the fire rise, burning through my paper skin
