Hotaru
My head's a burial ground of your memory
She has no way of knowing what her absence has done to her twin stars. The past is naught but a convoluted fog, easily swept into the corners of her mind. Even with the proof of the passage of time staring her in the face, Hotaru doesn't linger on it. Avoidance is the name of the game. Whatever has transpired is nothing compared to the burning drive to find Sunjata and Nate. To find them safe. Not lost beneath the ashes and charred wood of a home that had just begun to grow on her. She can't waste time figuring out what she has missed, not when every moment alone further threatens the loss of the only happiness she has found in this wretched place. Atlas hears them first, ears far keener than hers will ever be. His majestic crown swivels to the horizon, and the vague impression that comes across the bond is all Hotaru needs to spin on her bare heels and find them with her eyes. They're immediately recognizable to her, distance nothing to the familiarity that lies within her heart. Heedless of her crudely bandaged leg, she runs to meet them, heart rabbiting in her chest. Whatever hesitancy beleaguers them does not have its hooks in her, and she throws her arms around each neck, reaching high and trusting that they will catch her as they always have.
"Nate, Jata," she breathes in hoarse tones of salvation, as if incapable of saying anything else. Sunjata's words - more than just her name, which sounds so sweet coming from Nate's lips - register a little slow, but she pulls back enough to fix him with a scowl and the furrow of blonde brows. "Am I - of course I'm real!" Indignant and confused all at once. But to the more pressing matter - "But our house apparently isn't, what the fuck happened?" Turning her head over her shoulder towards Atlas, larger than any of them remember, she slowly returns her gaze to Sunjata and Nate's faces. A rare wave of vulnerability overtakes her heterochromic eyes, something like fear flickering in the corners. "What happened?" Because clearly it needs to be said again with more gravity, the soft warble of her voice revealing how uncertain she feels. Grasping at smoke that clings to her vacant memories, all while her hands grip tight to both men, terrified of disappearing again.
