[SWE] The Feast of Bells - 318PC

Hotaru

I know that I should have told you that I would die
Just to hold you

The Valkyrie doesn't stray so much as a centimeter from Sunjata as they arrive arm-in-arm. Though her expression and demeanor betray nothing, as in control and faintly superior as Hotaru routinely would appear in public, there are raw pieces just below the surface that keep her firmly rooted to her fiance for the strength his presence provides. There are too many familiar faces - her daughter, who she desperately needs to talk to - and she can't bear to see half of them right now. Call her selfish, but she doesn't care to try for any of their sakes. She isn't ready yet. Doesn't care if they want answers, because she can't give them right now.

Setting down the sauce she'd made to go along with Sunjata's steaks, the bowl is blessedly out of her hand by the time he warns her. Because - human as she is - her eyes automatically do the opposite of what he warns for a moment, halting somewhere near Ronin's chest as trust kicks in on the heels of instinct. No, she objects weakly, though it's the equivalent of a pitiful plea to the universe at large and far from a true response to her beloved. A refuting of a truth she can already infer from his warning. Not Ronin. Not after they'd finally both been freed. Surely?

So look she does, though she's prepared enough by Sunjata's forethought that her reaction is reduced to a brief spasm of her expression when the horrors emerge over a face she hasn't seen since the dimly lit interior of a houseboat. Too many terrifying layers, some of them void-shadows and some of them far too real, that her eyes skitter away sharply after hardly a moment. Breath suddenly shallow and arm tighter around Sunjata's than she remembers it being half a second ago, she follows numbly as the Flood turns them away. "Yeah," she echoes hollowly, skin suddenly clammy all over. "Lots of good food at least." It's a weak attempt at normalcy for them to hide beneath should anyone look too hard at them.

And if I just had my shit together I could be with you
But I'm too high on paranoia