HOTARU
At first, with the snow in her eyes and the creature's pale coat, Hotaru is unsure what lies before her. And then, as if everything has suddenly held its breath in the distance between them, there is clarity. Hotaru stares into the cracked mirror before her, and stumbles, stricken by this phantom of her past. This wraith that haunts her every step. Her own shadow, given form and fury, torn from her body in some macabre mockery of Peter Pan. Hotaru stares into the eyes that she sees in the mirror every morning, and in that moment she can taste every emotion roiling off the unicorn in the snow.There is no hesitating, no time for indecision, no allowances given to fall to her knees and scream and scream and scream at the unfairness of it all. At the reminder of all she has lost, all that this wounded soul before her carries, for their burdens are the same. But Hotaru has walked through Hell's grasping fingers and come out unchained, her legs will not falter now.
She still never looks away from those hellfire eyes. Eyes so like her own that well with tears that stream down ice chilled cheeks, even as a grimace of fury and indignation twists her beautiful face into a harpy's facade. The space between them does not seem to exist, eaten up by her sprinting gait even as her magic - one they share, one she has finally reclaimed after a year of work - calls upon the heavens above. Lightning screeches across the sky, summoned and commanded, striking down towards the vultures that circle above...above...
Herself. Mother and child, for there is a shadow at that pale flank that she has seen from every angle of her own eyes.
A mother never forgets.
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
