a day once dawned

Hotaru Once upon a time, years before now, laid out on a spiral of a hard-won journey between the two, Hotaru would have shifted nervously at Deimos' lack of response. She had been young and untested beneath his gaze once, newly joined and with a ferocity that had taken years to become tempered to a fine point. Nothing but dull brutality and a drive for brilliance. Taking and taking and presenting all her hard-won items, prisoners, and secrets to her regents. Deimos had been the one to appoint her to a higher purpose, a lead among her kind of people - shadow walkers, gilded tongues, all manner of sneaks and sleuths. In those days his stoicism had been intimidating to the young girl she'd once been. Before she had been elevated to a sovereign of her own right by his side, she had not understood his need for silence, for pensiveness. Now it is as familiar to her as he is. An old friend, a blanket that settles around her shoulders and lets her relax. Hotaru has always relied on words, on distractions and manipulations. There has never been a need with Deimos, and she sips her tea quietly, content in the warmth that suffuses their silences. When he does speak, it only deepens her musings, and she hums softly around the lip of her teacup. Reluctant to answer too swiftly now that he has presented the idea to her. Formless, vague ideas now cast beneath scrutinizing light as his inquiry needles at her desire for details. For machinations and plots. His smirk is like a harmony to her chorus, a perfectly paired sound that prompts her own in parallel. Dual, devious demons. "I suppose it depends on what we think of the rulers there. I certainly don't miss a lot about those days of leading, but I'll not have them impede us either." So much land, much considered inhospitable. What in the world could they want with it? Ah, but if they try to close their Citadel to her, to her people, she will tear their kingdom down brick by brick until each stone rests in her own power. "You know I'm no philanthropist, but making it more hospitable with what we have here in the Grounds would only benefit us in the end." And it reminds her of the Auroras, of coming up with a thousand different ways to keep her citizens warm, fed, and safe. Textiles, hunting troupes, magical sentries. They will simply have to start from the ground and build once more, insinuate themselves until they are as much a part of Halo as those born in those deep snows.