Hotaru
I'm made of dead man's money, you can see it in my smile
"Third time's the charm as they say." But her voice is hushed, and the afterimages of the sun on the water is the only blinder that keeps her from having to see his face, because it would surely break her if she did right now.
It's the first time she has been even remotely close to the ability to say 'fuck it'. Flora is the last hurdle, the final thread around her pinky, so easy to break if she desires. "I'm the one that's cursed," she answers softly after some deliberation on his question. "If I go first...maybe she'll finally be free. Maybe she won't die like all her siblings." Maybe Ru just needs to stop being selfish for once in her goddamned life, a life that is already her second lived. A chance she never should have gotten. All her life she has taken, stolen, climbed and climbed and scraped and kicked down every other person she could find to stand on top of. Maybe finally, finally conceding is all it will take to free Flora from her fate.
Their pain goes in cycling circles, and he is next to bow beneath the weight of it. She can't save him or spare him from it. It's a pain she can't hope to feel at the level he does, but she feels it regardless. "You did everything you could." It's a hollow comfort, but Nate had made his choice the day he became The Voice's demigod instead of merely one of her strongest. "If we had no hearts, we could say with certainty that you saved more lives, that the scales are tipped towards life entirely because of your efforts. But we - us, always us - we lose in the end. No matter how hard we try." And she is so very tired of losing. She knows he is, too.
It's the first time she has been even remotely close to the ability to say 'fuck it'. Flora is the last hurdle, the final thread around her pinky, so easy to break if she desires. "I'm the one that's cursed," she answers softly after some deliberation on his question. "If I go first...maybe she'll finally be free. Maybe she won't die like all her siblings." Maybe Ru just needs to stop being selfish for once in her goddamned life, a life that is already her second lived. A chance she never should have gotten. All her life she has taken, stolen, climbed and climbed and scraped and kicked down every other person she could find to stand on top of. Maybe finally, finally conceding is all it will take to free Flora from her fate.
Their pain goes in cycling circles, and he is next to bow beneath the weight of it. She can't save him or spare him from it. It's a pain she can't hope to feel at the level he does, but she feels it regardless. "You did everything you could." It's a hollow comfort, but Nate had made his choice the day he became The Voice's demigod instead of merely one of her strongest. "If we had no hearts, we could say with certainty that you saved more lives, that the scales are tipped towards life entirely because of your efforts. But we - us, always us - we lose in the end. No matter how hard we try." And she is so very tired of losing. She knows he is, too.
Watch the fire rise, burning through my paper skin
