Hotaru
the horrors you've seen do not define who you are
The Gods themselves could not have kept Hotaru rooted to the ground the moment Nate’s letter arrived at last, telling her where to find him. Somewhere in her home that parchment lies abandoned on the ground, if anyone cared to determine where she left in such a hurry. Hotaru has never spared a moment to be thankful for the various expressions of her soul before, but she does so now, grateful for the speed her wings allow her as she leaves the Greatwood behind her. It may seem stupid. Girlish, brainless, emotional. Call it whatever you like, this senseless flight of hers, but it doesn’t matter that they have no ties to each other anymore. It doesn’t matter how they ended things, or what history lies between them.
He had been dead. And nobody told her.
She feels sick with the volatile mixture of wrath, guilt, and despair that roils like thunder in her stomach. Cinched around it all is a choking relief that makes every breath come hot and tight. She had lost him and hadn’t even known it, and that is unforgivable, but he is back. The Voice’s promise of eternal life had held true, and she could cry until the rivers flooded the woods around her with her gratitude for that.
She shifts before she even fully meets the ground the moment she spies him from above, feet hitting the ground so hard the roots below know the fury of her presence and spread word of her far and wide. Her legs eat the earth like giants from fairytales, and her hand is proprietary and contorted with pain as she grabs her former lover and pulls him into her desperate embrace. Choked to silence with the enormity of her emotion, tongue knotted and incapable of translating it all. Each breath comes on a heaving waver that shakes her, hand bunching the back of his jacket as she paradoxically clings and holds him protectively in her embrace. “I didn’t know,” she chokes, blinded by sudden tears that have the gall to appear now instead of earlier when she could’ve hidden them. “I didn’t - nobody told me. Fuck, fuck,” she strains, and rips herself away all at once lest she linger too long. Wiping her eyes roughly, furious and embarrassed. “What happened?” she asks down to the earth, and wonders if she should make it answer too, because somebody must take responsibility. Unable or unwilling to meet his eyes until her own are dry.
