Hotaru
I'm made of dead man's money, you can see it in my smile
She waits, though it feels like a pain she's felt before - this frozen drip of time before the cut; like standing barefoot on glass, like hearing Flora's scream in the Citadel but not yet seeing what's caused it, like the hum of a taut wire just before it snapped and took Atlas' soul and part of hers with it. The unknown is the hardest part - because she doesn't believe him that it's okay.
Maybe Nate is somewhere in Mort's realm laying hands on both of them tonight, their memory so full of divinity and so utterly sacred that it is the only lie that can intervene without shattering them both. Her own heart stutters so hard she fears its rhythm won't recover, world shifting so suddenly beneath her feet that she's left blinking stupidly into Sunjata's clammy skin. "I - I didn't know," she utters, tongue thick and graceless. Her heart shudders under the weight of self-recrimination; her hands loosen from their death grip on Sunjata's shirt. Old, leviathan doubts creep up her skin like clinging lichen. Had Nate ever told her the date? Had she simply forgotten?
The weight of those insidious questions hold her tongue down, incapable of shaping words to voice doubts or contest the spontaneous confession. And because she loves him more than she's ever loved herself, she slaps a hand to the bleeding artery in her chest to hide it from sight as she offers comfort with the other; clearly his love for Nate, and therefore his hurt, is greater. She's never thought otherwise. She was only foolish to think they could grieve Nate together. "It's okay. I understand - of course I understand." Hotaru squeezes him with the waning strength left in her arms. "You don't need to be better right now. I'm - things are going to be okay." She can't let the lie off her lips that she's okay. She can't expect him to hold her weight when he can't hold his own. She can bear her own a while longer if it means sparing him that. And like the sound of the ocean dimming as one walks further away, she muffles her side of the Attuned bond bit by bit to make good on that sentiment here and now.
Pulling away enough to wipe her eyes (when did they begin to water?) she inhales a sharp breath and holds it, like it might somehow build in her lungs and buoy her a moment longer. "I'll grab a few things from home and - well, you don't need to rush, okay? Just...write me?" It comes out fragile and quiet, a scared hand reaching blindly through the dark. Her eyes try to find his, seeking reassurance as she musters a tremulous smile. "If you need to be alone, that's okay to choose it. But you aren't alone. Don't linger so long in it that you forget that." Don't linger so long you forget me.
Maybe Nate is somewhere in Mort's realm laying hands on both of them tonight, their memory so full of divinity and so utterly sacred that it is the only lie that can intervene without shattering them both. Her own heart stutters so hard she fears its rhythm won't recover, world shifting so suddenly beneath her feet that she's left blinking stupidly into Sunjata's clammy skin. "I - I didn't know," she utters, tongue thick and graceless. Her heart shudders under the weight of self-recrimination; her hands loosen from their death grip on Sunjata's shirt. Old, leviathan doubts creep up her skin like clinging lichen. Had Nate ever told her the date? Had she simply forgotten?
The weight of those insidious questions hold her tongue down, incapable of shaping words to voice doubts or contest the spontaneous confession. And because she loves him more than she's ever loved herself, she slaps a hand to the bleeding artery in her chest to hide it from sight as she offers comfort with the other; clearly his love for Nate, and therefore his hurt, is greater. She's never thought otherwise. She was only foolish to think they could grieve Nate together. "It's okay. I understand - of course I understand." Hotaru squeezes him with the waning strength left in her arms. "You don't need to be better right now. I'm - things are going to be okay." She can't let the lie off her lips that she's okay. She can't expect him to hold her weight when he can't hold his own. She can bear her own a while longer if it means sparing him that. And like the sound of the ocean dimming as one walks further away, she muffles her side of the Attuned bond bit by bit to make good on that sentiment here and now.
Pulling away enough to wipe her eyes (when did they begin to water?) she inhales a sharp breath and holds it, like it might somehow build in her lungs and buoy her a moment longer. "I'll grab a few things from home and - well, you don't need to rush, okay? Just...write me?" It comes out fragile and quiet, a scared hand reaching blindly through the dark. Her eyes try to find his, seeking reassurance as she musters a tremulous smile. "If you need to be alone, that's okay to choose it. But you aren't alone. Don't linger so long in it that you forget that." Don't linger so long you forget me.
Watch the fire rise, burning through my paper skin
