gravity's a palm pushing down your head

Hotaru

I know they'll be coming to find me soon
But I fear I'm getting used to being held by you

It’s an echo of a tone from much younger days. Days filled with twin pairs of pounding feet, towering silent trees, and little else. But now there is only one pair of feet, and Hotaru can’t listen for their passage anymore with how the sand beneath them swallows everything. It swallowed her son - how much longer until it swallows her daughter too? 

Flora’s face is gaunt and bruised but beneath those lurid colors lies the bone structure of what is undeniably a woman. Yet Hotaru looks upon it, impetuous denial ringing in her ears, and sees only the fragile babe red-faced and squalling she’d once cradled against her chest. And there is nothing she will not do to keep her safe. 

It’s a cruel irony then that here and now, changed as she is, Hotaru does not see any of the supposed defenses Torchline has as safety.

“You can and you will.” Her voice rings like iron struck, fingertips curling slightly inward to steer Flora to look into her eyes. Hotaru has ever been the giving and permissive parent, eternally swayed by the idea of preserving her children’s happiness. Not anymore. “Your fathers will go where you go. Your friends believe you are dead. You are safer now than you’ve ever been by being invisible - and I will not have you so far away again.” Her breaths shudder, ragged from an exhaustive flight. Or perhaps from the depth of emotion that stares out like yawning pits in the shadowed, unblinking stare she wields. A tempest scarcely restrained by the threads of her own snapping control. “Where are your things? A boat is too public, we need your compass or magic.” Her hand drops from Flora’s cheek to her shoulder, briefly casting her gaze around the empty beach with a cutting slant to her eyes. Good, still empty. Though she’ll be having words with Remi over the fact Flora was out here alone in the first place.

I used to sing about being free
Oh, baby, look what you've done to me