HOTARU
A sly foxlike grin pulls at Hotaru's full lips, narrowing her gaze on Bastien like a viper. "You could certainly make a clan if you feel so undermined," she purrs, flicking her gaze slowly and deliberately to Rexanna, sliding up and down her body before turning back to raise an eyebrow tauntingly at Bastien. She feels more confident making the comment with the knowledge Rexanna had imparted, that children were not so out of reach in their inorganic bodies as they had thought. Though she had her reservations about Rexanna jumping back into motherhood, it seemed she had at least found a better ending in love with the man before her. "Though I've heard practicing is all the rage," she says daintily, mirth in her eyes at odds with the prim way the words are spoken. He seems a decent fellow, kind and happy in a way that she is not accustomed to. Not that she intends to trust him so swiftly, Hotaru was certainly not the type no matter how charming and appealing to the eye the man may be. She'd respect her sister's choice, but she'd just as soon ram a dagger into his spinal cord and twist if Rexanna merely said the word.
Ah, such is love.
For a moment she merely sits and appraises them with a warmth to her features that feels both natural and foreign with how long it had been since she'd felt comfortable enough to let her defenses down. Listens to their banter, the former queen feels a coil of secondhand happiness at the discussion of joining households. It is echoed by a bitterness, a tang of loss like blood on the back of her tongue. She swallows it down and keeps her smile affixed properly in place. Rexanna was the most likely to see through such a facade, and she cannot falter now in front of this stranger.
There is distraction in time, her mismatched eyes falling to Rexanna as the woman steps to touch her arm, her words delivering a blow that sweeps her breath from her lungs more effectively than the news of Deimos had. "Kiada?" she croaks pathetically, trying desperately to maintain her composure in front of Bastien. Her hands shake at her sides, and she fists them into her dress to stop their betrayal. Where Deimos had been a mentor, friend, leader...Kiada had been so much more. Hotaru had been there at her birth, had seen her first wobbly steps, had shared her warmth and side when the little mistress needed a place to rest. She had been present in long-limbed piles of children, her own included, in the safety of her own cavern. Hotaru had been Auntie Ru to Kiada since her first words had come to her mouth, she had loved her. As intensely as she had loved her own children.
It is almost impossible to stop her tears from falling, though her eyes are surely glassy. She turns her chin from the pair, too proud to be seen at her weakest. "Why is she not here?" she chokes, bitter suspicion kept from her vocals but not from her mind. Rexanna's departure, her abandonment of Kiada, was not something Hotaru would so easily forget. "Is she well? Does she...does she remember me?" Her voice finally cracks beneath the question, unable to bear the thought that she might not remember in the way Hotaru did. Even if she remembered in the dreamlike way Rexanna did, at least it would be something.
it's our nature, we destroy
it's the constant of our kind
no matter the color of blood, man will always fall
