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

For all its petulance and aggravation, mom being the last thing she hears from Flora before she succumbs is a bandage for the wound still bleeding inside her chest. It gives her certainty where her spirit falters, reluctant to harm her child's deceptively delicate heart.

"I love you," she whispers into Flora's hair. In a moment of weakness she lingers there, clutching her daughter close. Then she straightens, hair shortening and features shifting until they mimic Remi. Perhaps she might have chosen Jack if she knew what the man looked like, but this will suffice. Hotaru doesn't intend to go far. She doesn't have the available necessities to do so even if she wants to.

Compulsion is a funny thing you see. It can account for coin you don't have, liberties and trust you never earned. It doesn't take long to secure a modest houseboat - what's one more in the ranks of those 'Remi' owns? - and set out onto the waters beyond the coast. Just close enough to see Torchline on the horizon, but far enough away that the duo are easily overlooked as a passing vessel.

She tucks Flora into the bed on the lower deck the same way she used to when the Doubletake was a toddler; blankets tucked in beneath her ankles, arms free (moooommm I can't breathe if they're not out!), hair pulled to the side to sweep over the pillows. She takes her daughter's compass and any other item she can find, though handling the parchment makes her fingers tremble. (Mom that's my diary leave it alone!) Ru leaves only so long as to hide them where Flora won't be able to reach them. Then she returns to curl up in the scant space left in the bed, body curving around Flora's like a mother cat's. 

Only then does she cry; great, heaving sobs of relief smattered with godly names and broken expressions of gratitude.

- Fin

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