HOTARU
How she ends up on the doorstep of the Ignatius household is questionable at best. It has been a turbulent two days since her graceless entrance to Caido, one filled with far too much emotion for the normally reserved woman. Quite similar to a marathon, really. There is only one person left on her list, one soul that seeks reclamation in her mind. She refuses to falter or doubt, to procrastinate, dawdle, dally her way to this last reunion. Though she doesn't regret seeking out Kiada in the morning after being found by Rexanna, a part of her does regret having missed out on seeing the man who had shaped so much of her life. It brings her here, in a fresh gown and with her eyes dry and face cleansed of old tears. There is a strength to her spine that had been missing the previous days, a sureness to her step and the set of her shoulders. She knows her place here now, no matter how tremulous, how tentative or ephemeral. Though her crown was absent and her goals wiped clean from the slate, Hotaru had family to return to here. A sister, a niece, a...
A friend? A mentor? A leader, a father, a brother-in-arms?
Deimos had been all that and more to the young girl she had been when first she had fallen beneath his shadow, his keen and patriarchal gaze. Little more than a babe, with bitter heart and sharp tongue, quicksilver gaze and aspiration guiding every step. Mischief-maker, negotiator, shadow-walker. She had risen at his heels, chasing his limelight, until at last she had stood equal to him. In title and name perhaps, and yet even at his side she looked to him for guidance, for self-assurance, for support. In a different manner as an adult perhaps, but he had been a beacon for her nonetheless until the day he died.
And it had been a death that rocked her, that left her bereft, a solitary queen over her domain. Reluctant to lift anyone up from the masses to rule beside her, for nobody could fill the void of his presence. Nobody could pace the resonating echo of his steps. Hotaru had not felt so young and lost in many a years by that time, secure in her ruling and her power, and yet his death had brought out the child in her.
To find out he was here and whole, alive, was like a shotgun blast of rocksalt to the gut. Reuniting with her sister and niece was different, because they had at least been alive the last time she had seen them. But Deimos? He had been ripped from her long before the destruction of their home. Hotaru had never in a million years expected to have him back, to be able to physically touch him, to speak to him in more than her dreams.
So though she is scared: of him turning her away, of not recognizing or remembering her, of his dismissal, disappointment, disenchantment...
The Valkyrie, the deposed Lady of the Basin, the displaced traveler of realms -
She lifts her hand and knocks.
you are the sun
you heal and
you burn
