flora
Hotaru’s apologies land against her skin like rain against sun-warmed stone, and Flora feels them but cannot quite separate them from the overwhelming flood of relief that has already swept through her veins and drowned everything else. Tears sting her eyes without permission, blurring gold into molten light, but she hardly registers them beyond the way they make the world shimmer; what she feels instead is the fierce, undeniable solidity of arms around her, hands splayed against her back and cradling her head as though she is still small enough to lift from a cradle. It is one thing to read ink pressed into parchment that insists someone is alive, but it is another entirely to feel breath warm against her temple, to feel lips pressing frantic kisses into her skin, to be held in return with that familiar, immovable strength that has always felt like standing behind a fortress wall and knowing it will not fall.
Flora shakes her head against the Valkyrie's shoulder, curls brushing gold as though to physically dislodge the apology from the air between them, and finally pulls back just enough to see her face, hands sliding to either side of Hotaru’s waist as if letting go entirely might risk something unthinkable. The sight of her, truly her, not imagined or remembered but flushed and breathing and close enough to touch, wrenches a breath from Flora that escapes as a laugh and threatens to break apart into something far less composed; her aqua eyes sweep over familiar features as though cataloguing proof, as though committing each line to memory in case the world ever tries to take it again. "It wasn’t your fault," she says, breathless and earnest, the words tumbling over each other in their haste to exist, because she will not let guilt anchor itself here when relief is finally allowed to bloom. "You don’t have to apologize for dying, that’s not how this works," she adds with a helpless, self-deprecating laugh that wobbles at the edges, her thumb brushing unconsciously against the fabric at her mother’s waist.
She draws in a shaky breath and tries to gather herself, tries to smooth the tremor from her voice even as it clings stubbornly to the edges. "I honestly should have guessed," she continues, a small huff of disbelief escaping her as she tips her head slightly, curls slipping loose from whatever semblance of order they once had. "When Frey told me you were fine but I couldn’t channel you, that should have told me something, but I just—" she exhales through her nose, shaking her head at herself, the motion half rueful and half overwhelmed. "I got myself into such a panic, and Sunjata and Deimos didn’t know either, and I kept thinking that if no one could reach you then that meant something was wrong because Remi said you weren't in Mort's realm, and I couldn’t—" Her voice thins for a heartbeat, not from fragility but from the sheer force of everything she had imagined in those hours, and she presses her lips together briefly before continuing, more softly but no less firmly. "I couldn’t stand not knowing."
Flora shakes her head against the Valkyrie's shoulder, curls brushing gold as though to physically dislodge the apology from the air between them, and finally pulls back just enough to see her face, hands sliding to either side of Hotaru’s waist as if letting go entirely might risk something unthinkable. The sight of her, truly her, not imagined or remembered but flushed and breathing and close enough to touch, wrenches a breath from Flora that escapes as a laugh and threatens to break apart into something far less composed; her aqua eyes sweep over familiar features as though cataloguing proof, as though committing each line to memory in case the world ever tries to take it again. "It wasn’t your fault," she says, breathless and earnest, the words tumbling over each other in their haste to exist, because she will not let guilt anchor itself here when relief is finally allowed to bloom. "You don’t have to apologize for dying, that’s not how this works," she adds with a helpless, self-deprecating laugh that wobbles at the edges, her thumb brushing unconsciously against the fabric at her mother’s waist.
She draws in a shaky breath and tries to gather herself, tries to smooth the tremor from her voice even as it clings stubbornly to the edges. "I honestly should have guessed," she continues, a small huff of disbelief escaping her as she tips her head slightly, curls slipping loose from whatever semblance of order they once had. "When Frey told me you were fine but I couldn’t channel you, that should have told me something, but I just—" she exhales through her nose, shaking her head at herself, the motion half rueful and half overwhelmed. "I got myself into such a panic, and Sunjata and Deimos didn’t know either, and I kept thinking that if no one could reach you then that meant something was wrong because Remi said you weren't in Mort's realm, and I couldn’t—" Her voice thins for a heartbeat, not from fragility but from the sheer force of everything she had imagined in those hours, and she presses her lips together briefly before continuing, more softly but no less firmly. "I couldn’t stand not knowing."
what doesn't kill me makes
me want you more
me want you more
