How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?
The Valkyrie wakes up in the Draig holding a dragon on her chest, blinking stupidly at sun that shines through thick leaves which appear to be cradling the unexpected pair on all sides. Something sick and uncertain tightens in her chest, and she rips through the odd bud around her with nails that sharpen without conscious thought - at least that hasn't changed too. Yet, despite her urgency, she carries the dragon in one arm as she emerges. Not quite ready to admit that she knows why she can't leave it behind.
Frey is a welcome face on the other side - as much of a face as Frey can have, though to Hotaru it has been just the one for many years now - but the heat of summer is not. Hotaru remembers standing on this cliffside in the cold of darker and quieter seasons, remembers the dragon in her arms and pain and blood and dark. Not afternoon heat and sun-baked stone. There are many questions to ask, but only one that matters enough to emerge first: how long?
Nearly two seasons now, Frey tells her. It's what sticks - more than the explanation, or the confirmation of the importance of the dragon slumbering heavy in her arms. Dread settles in Hotaru's stomach and does not budge. Not for the entire journey back to King's End. Death had never been something she shied away from even before Frey granted her immortality. Perhaps naively, she had assumed it would never pose a threat in her life again after reaching that goal.
She was wrong. And things tend to burn to the ground when Hotaru is wrong.
- - -
There is no pull to go anywhere but home. There's no promise that Sunjata will be there, but it's the first place that makes sense to try and find him, and finding him is all that matters. The dragon (she cannot yet bear to call it hers) had awoken over the too-long journey down from the Draig, but even after countless hours it has not gone far. It now curls around her shoulders, silent and watchful. Quiet and concealed even in the ways Hotaru is privy to, perhaps in deference to the Valkyrie's riotous mental state. She doesn't want to think about the creature, or the reason she can feel it at all. Doesn't want it to be anything other than an it yet. At least not until she has found Sunjata.
"Sunjata? Sunny?" It's a strained, desperate call as she throws open the front door, Attuned bond stretching like a wide net in the vain hopes of snagging against his so that she might know he's near. The door is left flung open as she runs through the first floor, disheveled and still bearing the extremely dark, old stains of blood down the front of her blouse. The dragon's first hello to her, despite the way its snout lingers near that same golden throat, tempered now and incapable of that same sort of harm.
Frey is a welcome face on the other side - as much of a face as Frey can have, though to Hotaru it has been just the one for many years now - but the heat of summer is not. Hotaru remembers standing on this cliffside in the cold of darker and quieter seasons, remembers the dragon in her arms and pain and blood and dark. Not afternoon heat and sun-baked stone. There are many questions to ask, but only one that matters enough to emerge first: how long?
Nearly two seasons now, Frey tells her. It's what sticks - more than the explanation, or the confirmation of the importance of the dragon slumbering heavy in her arms. Dread settles in Hotaru's stomach and does not budge. Not for the entire journey back to King's End. Death had never been something she shied away from even before Frey granted her immortality. Perhaps naively, she had assumed it would never pose a threat in her life again after reaching that goal.
She was wrong. And things tend to burn to the ground when Hotaru is wrong.
- - -
There is no pull to go anywhere but home. There's no promise that Sunjata will be there, but it's the first place that makes sense to try and find him, and finding him is all that matters. The dragon (she cannot yet bear to call it hers) had awoken over the too-long journey down from the Draig, but even after countless hours it has not gone far. It now curls around her shoulders, silent and watchful. Quiet and concealed even in the ways Hotaru is privy to, perhaps in deference to the Valkyrie's riotous mental state. She doesn't want to think about the creature, or the reason she can feel it at all. Doesn't want it to be anything other than an it yet. At least not until she has found Sunjata.
"Sunjata? Sunny?" It's a strained, desperate call as she throws open the front door, Attuned bond stretching like a wide net in the vain hopes of snagging against his so that she might know he's near. The door is left flung open as she runs through the first floor, disheveled and still bearing the extremely dark, old stains of blood down the front of her blouse. The dragon's first hello to her, despite the way its snout lingers near that same golden throat, tempered now and incapable of that same sort of harm.
HOTARU
