Hotaru
I'm made of dead man's money, you can see it in my smile
Torchline's late fall sun warms Hotaru's scalp and shoulders nearly oppressively as she stands in the under layer that lives beneath her Halo garb, and though sweat slowly gathers on her skin she does not feel the heat that creates it.
Flora has returned to Torchline, to the house she'd once shared with her brother, and with her goes the Valkyrie's heart. Hotaru is left standing empty-handed and empty-eyed on the beach, out of place and out of time. She doesn't recall how she ended up here, or what drove her towards the ocean; unlike Sunjata, she has no inherent call to it, nor the element that gives it presence. She only knows that, though Flora will never be too far for Hotaru to reach, she is gone - living with Enzo's ghost instead of with her mother.
Ru can't resent her for it. Loves the girl too much, obviously, but she also recalls the dark days after Raeden disappeared. The darker ones when Helovia collapsed. To lose a win is nearly as bad as to lose a child - perhaps more. Hotaru can't tell the differences between the agonies anymore.
It is easier to live in a haze than the hell her life has become. Even as her eyes listlessly cast sideways across the sand and find a familiar figure, there is no change to her empty expression. Not even surprise at herself as her feet shuffle into motion once more, bringing her to Sunjata's side over a stretch of time she has already forgotten. She kicks her shoes off and drops gracelessly beside him, bare feet stretching into the cold shallows in the vain hopes of numbing out the rest of her body. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the news of Nate's death had reached her ears, and she is nearly ashamed of how she can't remember her own reaction. There is simply too much grief to make heads or tails of the sources.
"What the fuck do we do now?" she whispers, empty gaze staring out across the ocean, the blinding light of the sun bouncing off the water enough to burn shadows into her retinas. She still doesn't blink.
Flora has returned to Torchline, to the house she'd once shared with her brother, and with her goes the Valkyrie's heart. Hotaru is left standing empty-handed and empty-eyed on the beach, out of place and out of time. She doesn't recall how she ended up here, or what drove her towards the ocean; unlike Sunjata, she has no inherent call to it, nor the element that gives it presence. She only knows that, though Flora will never be too far for Hotaru to reach, she is gone - living with Enzo's ghost instead of with her mother.
Ru can't resent her for it. Loves the girl too much, obviously, but she also recalls the dark days after Raeden disappeared. The darker ones when Helovia collapsed. To lose a win is nearly as bad as to lose a child - perhaps more. Hotaru can't tell the differences between the agonies anymore.
It is easier to live in a haze than the hell her life has become. Even as her eyes listlessly cast sideways across the sand and find a familiar figure, there is no change to her empty expression. Not even surprise at herself as her feet shuffle into motion once more, bringing her to Sunjata's side over a stretch of time she has already forgotten. She kicks her shoes off and drops gracelessly beside him, bare feet stretching into the cold shallows in the vain hopes of numbing out the rest of her body. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the news of Nate's death had reached her ears, and she is nearly ashamed of how she can't remember her own reaction. There is simply too much grief to make heads or tails of the sources.
"What the fuck do we do now?" she whispers, empty gaze staring out across the ocean, the blinding light of the sun bouncing off the water enough to burn shadows into her retinas. She still doesn't blink.
Watch the fire rise, burning through my paper skin
