Hotaru
My ghost was lost to the grownup gallows
It’s true that nobody is perfect, but should she not expect herself to be if she’s a demigod now? Hotaru’s expectations for herself don’t have - never had - an upper limit and that’s most certainly the problem. Even when she does not impose those expectations realistically upon anyone else. Sunjata can probably tell from the way she struggles to keep eye contact that she is refraining from saying the words themselves, as if the sentiment isn’t already clear; but I’m different and I [u]should[u/] be perfect.
Her heart pulls with grief as it always does to hear how much he’d suffered as a child. Suffering that had never truly abated in the years that followed. Being pressed gently to his chest alleviates the sorrow just as it reminds her that he is here, he made it through somehow. Being reminded of his mother’s efforts drives his point home in many ways, but in others her frustration over imperfection only pulls harder in the other direction; why hadn’t his mother risked everything to try and save Sunjata from that fate?
Maybe that defies the point of softness he’s making, but this - all of this - isn’t the sort of revelation Ru can neatly complete in a single day.
Her breath leaves her sharply when he kisses her crown, arms coming to cling around his waist as his hands card gently through her hair. It melts the stress out of her body without her conscious decision as it always does. “None of you can replace me in the mom category, that’s true,” she murmurs, dredging up what remains of her humor to try and make his point stick in her own brain. “It’s still so strange to me. Being more of a mother than…anything else, really. A queen, a thief, a spy, a soldier. Power - specifically personal power - was the only currency of my world. Motherhood was never something to celebrate, just a biological function. And sometimes you were good at it, but it didn’t matter if you weren’t.” Reproduction was merely a machine meant to increase alliances or the ranks of an empire and being good at it only mattered in the smallest, most useless, and most private of ways. Hotaru’s arms tighten around him, bond reflecting the tentative yearning that she has always struggled to voice.
“But it was all I ever wanted to be.” Not that she’d ever stopped wanting to climb, but in a perfect world maybe a perfect balance between them would arise. “And now that I’m allowed to focus on that alone, I still can’t let go of this idea that I’m failing her by not being as strong as her other parents. Even when I won’t stop chasing that, it feels like the impossibility means more than what I currently can do for her.” It’s hard for her to word properly out loud, which is saying a lot considering Sunjata has usually been the one relying on the bond to make sense of what’s in his head to her. It’s hard to know I’m capable of protecting her, but not anymore than you. But…I guess being a last resort doesn’t change the fact I could, if the need arose.
Lifting her face from his chest, she looks up into his eyes with damp lashes and soft frown. “Nobody told me this kind of identity crisis would come after your kid’s already grown up.” Frankly she’d like a refund because this wasn’t the contract she signed.
Her heart pulls with grief as it always does to hear how much he’d suffered as a child. Suffering that had never truly abated in the years that followed. Being pressed gently to his chest alleviates the sorrow just as it reminds her that he is here, he made it through somehow. Being reminded of his mother’s efforts drives his point home in many ways, but in others her frustration over imperfection only pulls harder in the other direction; why hadn’t his mother risked everything to try and save Sunjata from that fate?
Maybe that defies the point of softness he’s making, but this - all of this - isn’t the sort of revelation Ru can neatly complete in a single day.
Her breath leaves her sharply when he kisses her crown, arms coming to cling around his waist as his hands card gently through her hair. It melts the stress out of her body without her conscious decision as it always does. “None of you can replace me in the mom category, that’s true,” she murmurs, dredging up what remains of her humor to try and make his point stick in her own brain. “It’s still so strange to me. Being more of a mother than…anything else, really. A queen, a thief, a spy, a soldier. Power - specifically personal power - was the only currency of my world. Motherhood was never something to celebrate, just a biological function. And sometimes you were good at it, but it didn’t matter if you weren’t.” Reproduction was merely a machine meant to increase alliances or the ranks of an empire and being good at it only mattered in the smallest, most useless, and most private of ways. Hotaru’s arms tighten around him, bond reflecting the tentative yearning that she has always struggled to voice.
“But it was all I ever wanted to be.” Not that she’d ever stopped wanting to climb, but in a perfect world maybe a perfect balance between them would arise. “And now that I’m allowed to focus on that alone, I still can’t let go of this idea that I’m failing her by not being as strong as her other parents. Even when I won’t stop chasing that, it feels like the impossibility means more than what I currently can do for her.” It’s hard for her to word properly out loud, which is saying a lot considering Sunjata has usually been the one relying on the bond to make sense of what’s in his head to her. It’s hard to know I’m capable of protecting her, but not anymore than you. But…I guess being a last resort doesn’t change the fact I could, if the need arose.
Lifting her face from his chest, she looks up into his eyes with damp lashes and soft frown. “Nobody told me this kind of identity crisis would come after your kid’s already grown up.” Frankly she’d like a refund because this wasn’t the contract she signed.
So I find my spirit in the bottle
