Hotaru
She doesn’t go back.
What is there to go back to? She’d told Remi she’d return when she was better, but Hotaru is terrified that there’s nothing to fix. That this is simply how she feels now, against all reason and historical proof.
She misses the twins. She’s grateful they’re gone. She’s a mess, and she knows it - and so she writes to Phoebe, and roosts in the trees as a bird, hiding away from the burn of human emotions. From Deimos, who doesn’t abandon her but seems just as helpless as to explain why she’s feeling this way.
Today she cannot hide cloaked in feathers. Hotaru has had no need to set up a camp or base with her Attuned shifts, but she needs to be human to be recognizable for when Phoebe arrives. She sits listlessly on a grassy knoll, a small fire at her side, hoping the smoke trail will attract the eyes of the woman whenever she arrives. Time slips away senselessly. Hotaru curls her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and letting her cheek rest on one bony knee. Hotaru knows she is losing weight, has been since the twins were born. It’s not that she feels ill, but she has no interest in food, no drive to seek it out.
There’s something wrong with her. She knows it. But it’s just out of reach, and she knows nothing of the medical field that could help assuage her fears.
What is there to go back to? She’d told Remi she’d return when she was better, but Hotaru is terrified that there’s nothing to fix. That this is simply how she feels now, against all reason and historical proof.
She misses the twins. She’s grateful they’re gone. She’s a mess, and she knows it - and so she writes to Phoebe, and roosts in the trees as a bird, hiding away from the burn of human emotions. From Deimos, who doesn’t abandon her but seems just as helpless as to explain why she’s feeling this way.
Today she cannot hide cloaked in feathers. Hotaru has had no need to set up a camp or base with her Attuned shifts, but she needs to be human to be recognizable for when Phoebe arrives. She sits listlessly on a grassy knoll, a small fire at her side, hoping the smoke trail will attract the eyes of the woman whenever she arrives. Time slips away senselessly. Hotaru curls her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs and letting her cheek rest on one bony knee. Hotaru knows she is losing weight, has been since the twins were born. It’s not that she feels ill, but she has no interest in food, no drive to seek it out.
There’s something wrong with her. She knows it. But it’s just out of reach, and she knows nothing of the medical field that could help assuage her fears.
I'm ready to hope, swing me out of the low
Wide awake in the glow, I can't do it alone
Wide awake in the glow, I can't do it alone
