Hotaru
Tonight, you look so lovely
It's your eyes that define me
"It does," she assures with warm pride emanating in tone and smile, "my falcon form was my second shift, myself." Not quite so noble as an eagle, but that is a reflection on the Valkyrie's more lawless spirit. For a son of the Sentinel could she have expected anything less? It's your eyes that define me
He leaves her with her thoughts as he makes his offering. Not that the additional time provides any answers or organization to the mess in her head, but she can't put off the heavy truths he seeks to impart forever.
The precipice of her cheeks twitch, fitful, restless, as she weathers each point he makes; betrayals of her instinctual disagreement and defensiveness. She can't stop herself from crossing her arms, hands pressing in around her ribs to hold herself while simultaneously symbolically barring Noah.
"I would have waited for him until my immortality was stripped away," she whispers, rain settling on her lips only to be dislodged by how they tremble. It says everything without having to speak the words; did that mean they loved each other differently? How meaningful was that difference? When did trauma and old wounds stop being explanations and start becoming incompatibilities? She stiffens her mouth and forges onward. "But that's my choice. One he doesn't have to mirror for us to be together. We already had agreements about other sexual partners, our Frey duties...our hearts..." she thinks of Sunjata's withered heart sitting in the soft lining of the box in her pocket dimension, as safe as she could possibly keep it - and she falters.
He'd given his heart to her - how, then, had it died? Why? Was the act of giving it to her not enough? How was she to know that there would be stipulations? That there was an expiration on something that seemed so final, so monumental in its totality? And if his heart had come with those strings attached, was the physical embodiment of the entirety of his love always based on conditionality?
There are no answers to any of those questions, but they ache without reprieve. Ru's arms tighten around herself as her eyes flick away from Noah's toward Frey's shrine just past his shoulder. Anything for a moment of reprieve from his all-seeing gaze. "Sure, maybe the fact that I would wait and he couldn't means he loves me differently. Or...loves me a little less." It feels like swallowing fire to even say it, but she must. Maybe if she admits some of the harder parts, Noah will understand why this isn't as wrong as he thinks it is. "But that doesn't mean he doesn't love me. If I'm willing to accept that we are different in this area, what is the harm?" And is that harm hers to own, or one that Noah feels on her behalf? In which case, is there harm occurring at all if she accepts it with open eyes and open arms? "Love can be negotiation too - we all have to find a way to make two different sets of expectations and boundaries meet when we fall in love. The concession I'm making is the validation of my own hurt. I'm just doing it preemptively."
But she isn't really answering Noah's questions, and Hotaru is keenly aware of that even as dread settles in her stomach at the prospect of doing so. She bites her lip until it darkens under the abuse. It feels like he's trying to corner her, and she hates that she knows he isn't. Knows her instinct to lash out and assert dominance somehow is an admission unto itself.
"But no. He hasn't put me first." Meek. Devastated. Reluctant to be spoken at all. "Not really. At least not until he gave me his heart physically. But doesn't that mean something?" And how many times had he been given the chance to put her first anyway? Still, the small part of her that has always quietly accepted that he loved Nate more than her aches anew - as if she needs the reminder of her past insecurities. It stings enough to stoke a fire that burns up her throat and past her teeth before she can stop it, eyes snapping with a lick of flame as they find Noah's.
"Explanations aside, what do you expect awaits me in terms of my heart if I see things the way you do?" The challenge is false fuel, temporary and ephemeral, but it's enough to supply a fragile edge to her eyes that is mirrored in the stubborn but trembling line of her jaw. "There is nowhere for my love to go, even if it wouldn't make me a hypocrite not to wait. I'm an immortal demigod of Sex Frey, Noah. I'm already a woman who's hard to love before all that - so why wouldn't I sacrifice fairness if it means the man I love comes back to me? If it means sparing me from a fate of being alone in love?"
To be a Frey demigod is to be driven by your desires - and Hotaru desires, above all else, to be loved. To never be alone again.
Would you withhold any sacrifice, healthy be damned, if it meant actualizing your greatest dream?
Would you really?
