HOTARU
There is much that Hotaru has lost over the years. When the Rift had opened and her world had ended in every other way but physically, she had been sure in ways she never has before that her life was over. That there was no way to rebuild, to forgive, to move on. Not from the death of a child. The death of a world, of a place that had raised her from cradle to kingdom. Over time, as she was separated from her other living children and her lover, as she was thrust again and again into worlds that were not her own with faces that crumpled with pity and distrust, she had begun to heal. No, heal was not the proper word. The gaping wound had scarred over time. Numbed and knotted, so grotesquely visible and unavoidable that it brought ghostlike pains whenever it was brushed over, even though the nerves were long severed. But when she had finally made it here, when she had looked up and seen Rexanna's soul reflecting outward in her familiar eyes, something had settled. The scorched earth of a forest leads to new growth, and as she runs her hands across Deimos' face, smiling like the world has given her the greatest gift for all her suffering, she can feel the first leaves of new life emerging from the ruin of her soul. Here is the foundation she needs. Here is the strength, the core, the bedrock that she needs to lean on in order to build once more.
His whisper brings her back. The deep rasp of his voice different with these new vocals, but just as familiar to her as the sound of snowfall in the spring. Both eyes are damp with recollection of that fateful night, and Hotaru cannot even hope to understand what dying had been like for him. What revival was like. "Then we'll make the best of our hellos," she vows in her trembling, wavering voice, summoning a smile past her tears. There will not be a day that goes by where she does not cherish him for his life, for the simplicity of his continued existence. Perhaps in that way, if the time comes again where goodbyes cannot be said, it will be easier to grieve. To know that he was aware of her unquestionable love for him to the end. It's not a thought she revels in, the idea of him leaving her again, but they are both realists. It is why he does not promise what he cannot rightfully keep.
He lowers her delicately to the ground, her feet finding powder and ice once more, where they belong. She follows him like he is the North Star and she a lost and faithful wanderer. Coming home to him, to wherever he will guide her. Hotaru places a hand upon his arm in silent understanding of his answer to her inquiry, knowing they will not receive something as glorious as a break no matter where they go. There is only the current moment, and she follow him through the opening of his door, huffing an amused laugh as her eyes adjust to the light inside and spot the weapons strewn upon the walls. Typical of the man, and amusing for its predictability.
Fellow names, kin and family, fall from his lips. She turns and smiles beatifically at him, a warmth to her eyes that has been missing for so long. "Rexanna was the one that found me cursing and lost at the Spire," she admits with a laugh. "I sought out Kiada yesterday. I..." here her voice breaks, lip quivering with a pain she had not been able to show her niece, a brokenness that a child does not deserve to shoulder. "She told me about Ru'in," is admitted softly, strained and broken, and she lifts a hand to her face to conceal her ragged breath inward, forcing back the tears before turning a more subdued smile back to Deimos. "But it's a gift enough to have you all here." Far more than she felt she would ever deserve again.
you are the sun
you heal and
you burn
