Help me remember the face I forget

You stood by me patiently waiting and broken

She recovers mostly alone. Faint scratches on paper ask the relevant people for time, apologies and considerations obscured by empty parchment. The gravity of what needs to be done and said is not suitable for letters - but first she has to come to terms with...everything.

She failed to approach Frey's shrine in Halo more times than she cared to count. The weight of her confusion and the slow-poison trickle of hurt that stems from it too volatile to release. Certainly not without discussing it with her fiance either.

So when it became too much to bear - the silence of her own mind, the questions she couldn't answer on her own, the Tundra's drama which hadn't cared to wait for her adjustment period - she finally went home. Uncertain whether she'd come to any worthwhile conclusions but at least capable of concealing now the reaction she has when she passes by any reflective surface. It's an incomplete patch-job, but a better alternative than repeating history by tangling with a herald when you feel cornered and hopeless. Not that Frey would damn her the way Safrin had Sunjata...right?

The house feels both too large and too small from the moment she enters. Like a child awaiting punishment, she paces between the back door and the dining table, uncertain whether the weight of this reunion will be easier to bear somehow if the environment is different. Her bare feet on the wooden floors make scant noise, but it helps her feel less alone if she closes her eyes. Hotaru had thought that's what would help her come to terms with all of this, but now it presses on her lungs harder and harder every moment she weathers it.

So deeply in love with every face that I've shown

Hotaru

// make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face
there are lessons to be learned, consequences for all the stupid things i say //

He’d been called away before he could even see her – so quickly since leaving Frey’s shrine and arriving on the shores of Torchline, to spending hours getting to Halo and back. He hadn’t checked in. Part of that was because he was terrified of what he’d find – whether she’d blame him or despise him for it, for not making room for her or explain what the problem was.

Even if they both know it was unlikely she would have listened in her state.

Ah, and he’d lied to her when it came to why he couldn’t be around her. Lied about it being because of Nate’s birthday and not because she had eyes sunk into her temples and forehead, a crown of teeth that stuck out of otherwise beautiful cheekbones.

So coming home is bittersweet. It’s apprehension and anxiety, dread and hope, an odd cocktail he isn’t used to dealing with these days. But he knows she’s here. He knows, because as he opens the door and steps in, Petronella tells him – a squeaky, crunchy roar betraying his arrival before he has any time to prep. Ah, and because the jacket he’d left draped on the back of the couch was no longer in the same place it was. All signs. All things of which prove to him that she’s here. It also proves to him that he can’t hide any longer.

“Ru?” He calls out into the quiet home where she’s been haunting for gods know how long. Don’t – don’t look at me when you come to me, just follow my voice. It’ll be easier for both of us. Comes the deeper accented, pleading tone as he drifts further in, eyes focused on the wood floors as he kicks off his boots and shrugs out of his coat.

SUNJATA

You stood by me patiently waiting and broken

The changes to the house are minimal; idle cleaning from restless hands, closed curtains, covered mirrors. She waits, crumpled papers slowly filling the wastebasket in their bedroom, never finishing what few words still come to her. When he does return it's with minimal fanfare - yet her heart races immediately to finally hear his breathing and the weight of his boots. She spins away from the sink and is halfway across the kitchen before his warning slows her advance, hints of wisdom that imply a greater suffering she's yet to experience ensuring she heeds it despite every fiber of her being crying out to close the gap between them.

Sunny, is a faint whisper, more sentiment than sound even in the metaphysical pathway of the bond. Eyes riveted to the floor, she makes it to the entryway. Hands outstretch the moment she sees the edge of his socks - domestic and mundane to the point of hysterical humor. It feels agonizing to force her head down, to know him in any way but his face, his eyes, the familiar slant of his lips. Her hands find fabric and sink in like claws, dragging herself into him even if it's against his back or side. However she can touch him, just to know she can.

"I don't..." her throat swells and clogs immediately, burning up her tongue and stinging at her eyes. I don't know what to say. Where to start. I just - please, tell me I still have you. Tears swell immediately, hands trembling with how hard she grips his shirt. Everything else feels lost to her, damned by her own decision, but she can't lose him.

So deeply in love with every face that I've shown

Hotaru

// make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face
there are lessons to be learned, consequences for all the stupid things i say //

He too must hold his breath, lest he lose it with the way her footsteps — light and careful — shift from a rush to a slow approach. His eyes remain trained down until he can see her bare feet approach, letting the quiet relief try to outweigh the anxiety and stress budding in his stomach that he keeps very carefully out of the attuned bond. It’s stilted, of course, but as she reaches him, she’ll find him more than accepting of her touch, even if his eyes are closing the second she latches on.

A breath stutters out of him as he winds his arms around her tightly, tucking her in against him and pressing her into the bulk of his chest, his scent overwhelming her senses in all the ways he can’t verbally share more than his voice that he’s him. I know, liefde. I know. He breathes through the attuned bond because it’s easier, because she can feel his emotion beneath it, can feel what he’s saying as much as hear.

You have me as long as I have you. He vows, the unsteadiness in his tone already taking root as he presses his cheek to her golden crown, one arm lifting to cradle the back of her head against him. I… I lied to you. In Jack Tar. I just – I couldn’t look at you when you were infected and it was the only thing I could think of that wouldn’t… hurt you at the time. I’m so sorry, Ru.

SUNJATA

Gently sloping hills rise and fall, but the wind carries a thin whisper that sets your teeth on edge. You pause, listening as something rustles through tall grass. It’s too deliberate to be the breeze, yet when you call out, not a soul answers.

---

This does not count as a Random Event for levelling or MP. There will be no further admin/re intervention.

You stood by me patiently waiting and broken

The moment his arms wrap around her, the strength of their embrace immediate after the hesitation of closed eyes and uncertainty, Hotaru shoves her face into his chest and holds him with arms that shake with how hard they press. Each stuttering breath brings his scent - his scent, which never changed for her after Frey’s blessing, because Sunjata alone has always been what she most desires - deeper into her lungs where it soothes the fear of illusion away.

Liefde cracks a sound out of her on her next exhale that is too sharp to be a sob, a keening note of pained relief. Always. Always, you have me. But Hotaru had feared - still fears - that he won’t want that after everything. No matter whether she’d been in control or not. Whether she’d been stopped. So it’s equally ludicrous that he seems to be afraid of her judgment, and her head shakes violently, hair mussing up between them as her fingertips dig into his spine like she can rip the guilt out from his vertebrae.

No, don’t be sorry. It would have hurt worse to know I made you see more of it. Sure they can’t look at each other even now, but temporary measures and slow exposure are easier to weather than undoing a trauma that great. Nate…I understand why you used them. It hurt to think I didn’t belong, she admits, though that vulnerability is still acid on her tongue even with Sunjata, but nothing else would have worked. I love them - I love you - too much. Ru hiccups a laugh and digs her wet face into Sunjata’s shirt. Maybe it was their way of looking out for us. I don’t know - I just…it’s okay. It’s too hard to think of anything more explanatory or graceful with her head how it is. She just needs him to know that in totality, there’s no blame in her heart. Not for him at least.

So deeply in love with every face that I've shown

Hotaru

// make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face
there are lessons to be learned, consequences for all the stupid things i say //

It’s apprehension from both sides that meld together in this painful, awkward reunion – but as the seconds pass and he feels the warmth of her and her frame against him, her head tucked into the bulk of his chest, Sunjata can’t help but to word vomit everything out. They still have each other, she forgives him, with all kinds of what ifs and possibilities that he’s far too exhausted to think about right now. His jaw works, muscles feathering before he releases a too tight breath, letting it relax in his shoulders and his chest, loosening that attuned bond that glimmers with relief and love that he knows she needs.

“You do.. Belong. With me. You’re mine just as I’m yours.” He says aloud, to cement the fact that despite the strange sensation that’s overcome the house in a low breeze drifting through, he hasn’t once ever thought otherwise. He’s hers, until she decides otherwise.

And it’s that statement that has him twisting, keeping his gaze averted from her just enough to feel her fingers as they dig into his spine and as he shifts to pick her up from standing on the floor as if she weighs nothing, pressing her in against him to tuck her head in against his tattooed neck so he can drift further into the house – to their soft couch, because he wants nothing more than to just lay with her and love her and prove to her that statement over and over again. “And I’m not going to let the Family ruin us anymore. I promise.”

SUNJATA

You stood by me patiently waiting and broken

Everything seems to want to work against them, the slow crawl of unease that whispers outside the front door, the shadows of void that prevent them from seeing each other plain, but this time around they aren’t so easily shaken from their vows. She knows what life is like without him, and she’s learned from the revelation of those years - that she can lose everything else, but she can’t lose him.

The love she feel from him is a streaming ribbon that she gathers in greedy hands and shoves into her own chest. He can do whatever he wants, demand any kind of reparations, so long as that assurance holds true. It’s why she goes willing and easy into his embrace, arms readjusting to wrap around his shoulders and bury one hand in the soft edges of hair at the nape of his neck. “It was nothing you did,” she murmurs, pressed into his shoulder. Grief and shame sit heavy in her heart but stand like dancing shadows in the bond, scared to be seen. Reluctant to do more than avail him of his own misplaced guilt lest it steals this moment of tenderness she desperately needs. As they settle on the couch she curls evermore around him, legs tucked beneath his arm sideways in his lap. Anything to be closer, to languish in love she isn’t sure she deserves right now.

So deeply in love with every face that I've shown

Hotaru

// make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face
there are lessons to be learned, consequences for all the stupid things i say //

Holding her close and up against him, Sunjata steps over to the couch and settles in such a way that they don’t have to view each other’s faces, but still opts for enough he can drop plenty of kisses to the crown of her golden head, to let his arms lift and stroke her tearstained cheeks, reaching for the blanket knitted that has sat on the back of the couch to wind them in as he can see the flicker of snow begin to fall outside of their windows.

“You weren’t yourself either…” He says softly, a way for her to quit blaming herself so steadfast. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there.” Comes his admission – feeling in part responsible for her going and finding Flora and kidnapping her. “But we’ll do better.. We always are together, aren’t we?” He asks, closing his eyes and nosing his way to press a peppering of kisses to her forehead and her cheeks, his breath warm and smoky (he’d picked up the habit again, it’s been a stressful time). “I love you.” He murmurs softly, muffled by the way his lips press to the bridge of her nose, finally letting the relief swell through him that she didn't blame him for any of it, all that anxiety and stress leeching from his bones in waves.

SUNJATA

You stood by me patiently waiting and broken

She can’t see him but she can feel him, the tender swipe of his fingers over her cheeks, the way he tucks the blanket into the crevices of their joined bodies, the wandering trail of kisses over her hair and brow. She returns it measure by measure; kisses upon his collarbone, bicep, and bottom of his jaw whenever each portion nears.

Hotaru’s stomach pinches with self-conscious dismay at his easy absolution. It simmers there, needing to hear him say he loves her more than she needs to tell him the truth. At least for now.

“I love you too,” she whispers, face tilted up into his kisses, closed eyes making every other sense stronger. The smoke on his breath, the lingering hint of winter chill on his shirt, the scruffier length of his stubble. She sits in the moment as long as she can. Counts the minutes by his heartbeat. Considers over and over taking this easy out he has unwittingly given her, a door left ajar but its use entirely dependent on her own moral resolve. Something the Valkyrie has never cared to foster.

It’s not morality that pries her lips apart in the end, but honesty. Hiding things has only ever broken them apart.

“I…I was myself. At first.” A hushed confession, eyes shut tight for strength now instead of defense. “I asked for it. I thought - if we were on the same side this time, it would be better.” One less thing to mimic the last war. One more link in the chain that would keep them together. “And Frey said it was nothing to be concerned about.” But those words had come from Sunjata secondhand, and she had trusted them, because she trusts him. So which part was wrong? Trusting her fiancé, or her herald? Why did good intentions have to lead to the most painful mistakes? “It’s not the same. It was my fault. And Flora died and I didn’t even blame them.” So how can he still love her? How can he hold her, kiss her, when she walked into this with open eyes? The only other lesson to be learned is to not trust in him or Frey. How is that better? So it must be her own body on the pyre.

So deeply in love with every face that I've shown

Hotaru

// make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face
there are lessons to be learned, consequences for all the stupid things i say //

He has given her a door – unknowingly, because he didn’t know that she’d sought out the Family. And it’s that bombshell that awaits in ways that he cannot even fathom the idea that she could do anything wrong. It was always him. He always fucked up, time and time again. So it’s with that stalwart resolution that Sunjata makes his vow, warmth as strong as the summer sun flickering through the bond to have her back, even if this is how they have to handle things for the moment.

And then comes her honesty.

It’s hushed, slow, and the realization slowly starts to curl in like smoke toward an open window. There’s a touch of apprehension there, a low rumble of a sound that’s akin to a nod given that she can’t see him and he can’t see her. But there is the unmistakable tension in his jaw to hear the decision she’d made because he’d justified it from Frey.

Because Frey hadn’t been worried at the time. Concerned only to the point where something went wrong, but that was nature wasn’t it? Evolving?

Ah, and then there’s the infection, the brutal pill to swallow that has him exhaling the held breath slowly, measured, and gods if Sunjata isn’t cunning when he needs to be. If he isn’t strong when he needs to be. His hands lift, shifting so that she can press her back to the back of the couch, hands lifting to cup her cheeks as he pulls away and steels himself. He opens his eyes, finding nothing but her radiating beauty, even if it was sad – yet when he blinks there’s the shadow there he only flinches from with the hitch of his breath. He stares at her, because he has to.

“You only chose to do it because of me, Ru. To be on that same side. And Frey was more concerned I think about seeing what might happen. I… saw them before I came home.” He admits, blinking again and stuttering to see the flicker in her face, but persevering. “And regardless of how you were infected, you were. And you would do anything to protect your children. You thought you were doing the right thing. I understand.” He pauses, thumbs tracing the lines of her cheekbones.

“You don’t have to look at me if you don’t want to. But I’m looking. And I see you, beneath it all. I see your hurt and your love, and given time? I think she’ll understand.” He murmurs softly, stroking her cheeks more, forcing himself to look at her for as long as he can.

SUNJATA

You stood by me patiently waiting and broken

The only relief to be had in the darkness behind her eyelids is the familiarity of this; reading Sunjata through actions and emotions, not the pinch of his expression or faltering attempts at words. It’s how they’ve made it this far. Still, she jerks and clings tighter when he moves, abandonment a black hole opening in her stomach that makes her reach for anything that might keep her from tumbling into it. She wants to believe she’ll always let him walk away if he chooses to, but she isn’t sure anymore. Had she not stolen Flora’s will away in an instant? What greater lengths is she capable of going in the name of love?

But then his hands are on her face and she isn’t alone in the dark anymore. Sharpened breaths stutter and slow before they can reach panicked heights, calmed by the tether of his touch. The gold of her lashes twitch and flutter with the instinctive urge to open - only to clench tighter, denying herself. It’s not grotesque desecration she’s scared to see in his face if she opens her eyes. Horrors she can withstand. Shades and illusions? They can’t touch her in a way that matters.

But there are ways to break the Valkyrie yet. Ways she’s avoided empowering someone with her entire life - until her children, until him. Sunjata has never needed her physical heart to hold this sort of power over her. It was always his to wield, for better or worse. Just as she’d told him the day he handed over his own. If she opens her eyes it won’t be extra teeth or gaping holes for eyes that will sever the last thread of resilience in her chest. It will be disgust. Contempt. Hatred. Apathy. Seeing his heart turn away from her will silence her own in the same moment. So even as he begins to speak, Hotaru doesn’t dare to open her eyes.

Since the war they have learned a new language to communicate with. One that was tailored to his needs and weaknesses, because words so often come out wrong for the Flood. But when she needs him - when she doesn’t have the strength to meet him halfway this time - he moves mountains to reach her. Tears spill out from closed eyes, lips parting in slackened shock with every declaration. Her hands rise unsteady and blind to wrap tentatively around his wrists, lips trembling and chin wobbling. “But I’m looking. And I see you.”

Her eyes open immediately, and though she flinches at first to see the brief appearance of melted flesh and singed bone on a face other than her own, it’s gone in the next moment, leaving only her beloved. The stern set of his brow conveying his sincerity is the foundation for the love and acceptance hung in every other corner of his expression. And though she doesn’t dare to blink for so many reasons, she cries harder - ugly and unaltered, because it clearly won’t scare him away.

“I love you,” she sobs, because it says everything and more. Thank you. I don’t deserve you. Please forgive me. Know I did it all for you. Know I would do it again if it kept us together. Please forgive me for that too.

Her hands move from his wrists to his face to mirror his hold. It’s hard not to blink beneath the volume of her tears. Every time she does she twitches subtly in his grasp, but she never looks away. “Anything, Sunjata. Anything for you. I’m sorry - I’m so sorry.” It remains an unfinished apology as she heaves for breath, willfully breaking so the poison of everything she’s felt since opening her eyes in the springs can finally bleed dry. If she’d known it would hurt him or Flora she never would have done it. Never. But she can’t be sorry for trusting him, not when that trust has been so hard won. She won’t let the Family break that, won’t let herself be convinced it’s somehow safer to doubt the man she loves. So gods damn her but she’d do it all over again. There is no darkness she won’t follow him into if he asks it of her.

So deeply in love with every face that I've shown

Hotaru

// make sure you kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the face
there are lessons to be learned, consequences for all the stupid things i say //

It seems even more important that he’d given her his heart, with the infection and how it ran rampant through him. And it brings him a comfort he doesn’t even realize half the time, to know that he was hers so ultimately that nothing could prevent him from loving her. Even if, eventually, she didn’t love him back. But for the moment? He forgives her. He sees her. He knows her flaws and faults just as she knows his.

And he loves her still.

“I love you too.” He says, both vocally and through the attuned bond, pushing through all of that love through the bond for her so that he can prove it to her in other ways. Her hands release his wrists and cups his cheeks and jaw, and Sunjata peers down at her, focusing on the portions of her that remain herself, even when the flickers wish to make him flinch.

And so, it’s when she opens her gaze and meets his shadowed steel, he meets her dual toned gaze with as much adoration as she does him, taking note of the subtle flinches that match his own. And yet, he still stares. “I know, Ru. I know.” He whispers softly, the panes of his face twisting slightly with the frown that blossoms to see her hurting so raw, but he knows her better than most. She needs this. And he can’t fix it.

But he can endure it with her. Be there for her. Love her despite it.

His hand lifts to thread through her blonde, gentle and careful fingers brushing against her scalp, his affection in his movements and body language. “We’re okay. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.” He repeats, in case she needs it, his voice soft and gentle and soothing.

SUNJATA

You stood by me patiently waiting and broken

If there is any pain or horror at the sight of nightmarish echoes on his ever-beloved features, it's a pain that can't possibly reach her through the impenetrable wall he builds with the strength of his love for her. She unfurls inside this haven he creates for her, unblinking and scarcely breathing. He doesn't need to forgive her for willfully drinking Dahlia's poison, not even with love as an excuse, but he does. Frankly, Hotaru doesn't care for anyone else's forgiveness anyway.

She drowns in the cool shades of his irises, the spasmodic hitch of her chest soothing with every passing second she's granted to see him at last. Normally she would close her eyes and lean into the feeling of his fingers sifting through her hair, but she doesn't dare to blink lest the shadows return to distort and taint her view of him.

Her hands rise and gently brush over his cheeks, stubble rasping at her palms. Her fingertips trace carefully over his cheekbones and up around the ridge of his brow, careful not to obstruct his eyes. His love is a blanket of snow that muffles everything, softening the frayed edges inside until she is placid and limp in his arms. "Okay," she whispers. If he says they're okay, then they're okay. He is all that matters in the world right now, perhaps ever - and thus every word that comes off his lips is definitive, inviolable. "Just...just stay." Something he's already promised, but she means here. Ru doesn't want to think of a world any further than the one between his arms, even if it vies for their attention. The cracks in her chest will only find closure beneath his hands. If it takes days of staying intertwined on this couch to achieve that then so be it. The rest of the world can wait until Sunjata's love has fixed her fully.

So deeply in love with every face that I've shown

Hotaru