you are the best thing that's (n)ever been mine
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Online
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Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#1
HOTARU
Hotaru had not slept easy.

No matter how great her relief, her prayerful gratitude over her reunion with Rexanna, there had been so much change in the few feeble hours between arrival and sleep. It had left her mind in turmoil, haunting her as she tossed and turned on the spare bed she'd been granted, long blonde hair tangling and legs throwing the covers from her body time and again. Her dreams, when they deigned to come, were as vague and feverishly nightmare-filled as they had always been. Only now, there was so much more to lose. She feared waking up and discovering that everything was only a dream, or that she would be taken in yet another portal to be taken to a world where she knew nobody yet again. Losing what she had managed to gain in less than a day.

It had led to her getting up to creep to Rexanna's room, checking in on her periodically. Peering in through the darkness, hands gripping the wooden door frame, gazing upon her still form beneath the blankets. It had been a minor comfort, but she had not dared to share the bed as her heart longed. Later, perhaps. If they could not find a fitting abode for the displaced Valkyrie, perhaps she would break and ask for the comfort of her sister's cool skin against her own.

Rexanna's nocturnal lifestyle made it at least a little easier to rise at a modest daytime hour when sleep finally stopped coming to her entirely. There was no question what her next step would be, and both she and the Ascended woman knew it. Deimos would have to wait, there was nobody Hotaru wanted to see more than Kiada.

Just as wary as the night before, she had declined an escort to her niece's home. With verbal directions to guide her, the woman stepped out in the gown Rexanna had improved for her, hair in loose coils draped over the front of her shoulders. Nothing caught her eye or deviated her from her course, leading her straight and true to the Settlement. Until finally, her guide as true as it could be, she finds herself on the porch.

It takes all her strength and valor to lift one hand and knock upon the closed door. Heart in her throat, wondering if she wanted an answer or not. For a moment she considered turning around, convincing herself that Kiada was out for the day, but her feet remained stuck fast to the wood beneath. Awaiting her niece's arrival, and the recognition that she prayed would come with it. "Kiada?" her voice wobbled a little but rang true, hoping that the girl's name would bring her to the door at a swifter pace, let her know ahead of time that her guest knew her.
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
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Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#2
i wanted to be ruined —
a little more than i wanted
— to be loved
Darkness, darkness, darkness.

The light outside is blocked only by the curtains the Harpy keeps draped. She keeps it dark, cool, opening only to let the stuffy air out of the house, to look to Ru’in’s lantern and reminisce as she did every day, before taking her sickly self and sitting by the fireplace, trying to edge away the oil, the blight, the pain. It hadn’t done much, this day, and her mood was sour from it, a mix between tears and rages, the Harpy has finally settled, body wrapped up around Auni’s pale fur, fingers intertwined with the deer’s.

She had also managed to lose all her blankets in her fitful sleep, laying beside the fire. And she wakes to the knock on her door with a sudden jerk, dark hair a halo around her head as she lets her icy gaze focus on the ceiling, trying to remember where she was. Once that was done, the name came from a voice unfamiliar to her (was it? Or had it just been far too long?) And she manages to sit up from Auni, the Luxere helping her to stand, before she looks to the door, squinting slightly.

Kiada doesn’t know what to expect, for once. And she smooths the tank top of sorts she wears, scars on full display, a still healing wound on her shoulder edged with black. The large X on her neck, ringed and shadowed darker than normal – whether from sweat or the flickering light of the fire, she does not know. And she slowly, carefully, approaches the door – pausing only to grab the small decorated knife of flame and mountains Deimos had made her for her Cloister success.

Hiding it behind her back, she opens the door a crack, red ringed eyes looking out to see who it is.

She does not recognize at first, the blonde, the height, looking down to the woman – so small, a face so beautiful it almost hurts compared to Kiada’s own scar flecked flesh. “What is it?” Her words are sharp, untrustworthy, until her eyes narrow in on the woman’s face – and she sees –

– sees one grey, one green, jade and marble combined to make a beautiful set of eyes. She wonders if she’s dreaming, if she hadn’t woken from her fitful, restless sleep. Her arm opens the door further, expression softening in surprise, the other arm tosses the knife to the side as Auni presses into the door to hold it open as Kiada stands, rooted to the spot. She doesn’t know if she can speak, the tight knot in her throat tight and painful as her brows inch together and she bites back a sob.

She’s dreaming, she’s dreaming, she’s dreaming. “A... Gods... Auntie Ru...?” She manages to say between the trembling of her hands, the break of her body as she gasps, not believing it to be real. It can’t be, it wouldn’t be. It’s not possible.

But Ru’in hadn’t been possible, either, and the last she had seen her aunt had been the same – following her children into the warm embrace of a swift, destructive, teal and ebony death. The same magic that had coursed through her veins, her armor, her life. The very same that had given her the X on her neck, gouged deep and stark in contrast.
KIADA
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Online
Change author:
Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#3
HOTARU
In the hanging, breathless moments of waiting, Hotaru doesn't know exactly what it is she wants to see. Kiada whole and alive is all she can ask for, but a selfish part of her can't help but want more. She wants her niece to be healthy, happy, as radiant and confident in herself as Rexanna had been. She doesn't want to see that someone she loves so dearly - perhaps more than Rexanna herself - holds the weight of memories and scars that Hotaru does. It's an agony she cannot bear to see on someone that never should have experienced such tragedy at the age Kiada had when it all went to hell.

So tense and focused, Hotaru's skin shivers when her ears catch the sound of footsteps from within. And...not just footsteps, hooves perhaps? The sound is as familiar to her as breathing, or the pulse in her neck. They had been her own, once. A companion perhaps? Her mind races as the steps draw nearer, as the handle turns, the door cracking inward the smallest amount. Good girl, she praises internally even as her eyes lift - and lift higher, grudgingly - to finally gaze upon her niece's face.

Just as with her mother, the Valkyrie's gaze falls to the brilliant arctic eyes, red-rimmed and exhausted though they appear. Then her own eyes fall naturally to the dark scar on her niece's neck, dark with sweat and thickly scarred, and her heart aches. The sharpness of her tone is no deterrent, nor is the door barring her entry. Already Hotaru can feel the backs of her eyes pinch with tears, and a tremulous smile stretches her full lips.

"You've grown so much," is all she can think to say, well before the young woman before her catches up and recognizes her. Her voice is raw and weak, praying for Kiada to look in her eyes and see her. And she does, lifting and shattering Hotaru's heart in equal turns, the door swinging wide and choked words coming to grace her ears. In many ways it is similar to her reunion with Rexanna, and yet so different in others. To hear her title, the only one aside from Mother that she had ever felt fully worthy of, brings her own sob to tumble between her teeth. She tries to bite down on it, but it's a futile effort.

So instead she sweeps forward, careless of the height difference between them. No mere few inches could separate her from her niece. Hotaru would scale mountains, swim oceans, find the summit of the Gods itself if it meant holding her niece in her arms once more. Careful to avoid her scar she lifts her hands and pulls Kiada into her arms, burying her face in the unblemished arc of her pale neck. Only then do the tears flow, hot and quick from her cheeks to Kiada's skin.

"Oh sweetheart I have missed you so much," she sobs, clinging tight to the daughter Kiada had always been, no matter which womb she had come from.
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#4
i wanted to be ruined —
a little more than i wanted
— to be loved
The woman, before or as it registers in the Harpy’s mind, tells her she has grown. And her brows inch together in swift confusion as the pieces line up, as her hands and body shake and tremble further, as her mind struggles sluggishly to catch up. And when the recognition hits, it hits her to the bone — echoing and vibrating on every piece of her, broken and bogged down by the Blight. Her aunt, her family, they are returning to her.

But then she remembers she’s wasting away, and there’s a small amount of bitter sorrow that blends with the tears that rush forward again — as Hotaru rushes forward past the door to embrace her. The Valkyrie’s arms lift and embrace, and suddenly Kiada forgets all else, molding and melting into her arms as though they were from which she was made. Ru’in might have been all stone, brick walls, and quiet, he had still had a small amount of Hotaru within him, hidden deep beneath the surface. She can tell with the mismatched eyes, she can tell with the way they both held her like she’d break, and she trembles as she holds her aunt back tightly, face burying into the blond hair as tears slip from her as well.

She doesn’t know how long they hold each other, but she doesn’t care. She could die this way, wrapped up in her family, the ones she has chosen, not the ones she’s been given. “You are here.” She says aloud, cementing the fact that the Valkyrie is here, despite all the odds stacked against her. And she pulls away enough to let her tear stained eyes search Hotaru’s face once more — the overbearing of emotions causing the tops of her shoulders and arms to sprout feathers that appear eerily similar to Khairi’s.

There were times in the Rift when she had trialed and errored her ways through it, where she would ask herself what would the Valkyrie do — what would the Reaper do, to make her own decisions. And now, now she had them both — flame and fury and strength and shields. “I have missed you more than anything.” She says as she gasps for breath.
KIADA
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Online
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Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#5
HOTARU
There will be time later to inquire as to Kiada's state, the weight that pulls at her shoulders and drags her eyes down in exhaustion. For now there is only the feeling of the girl in her arms, folded as close as their bodies allow. So much closer than their old forms, a blessing she will not take for granted. Hotaru holds her close to her breast, one hand lifting to sift soothingly through dark hair, gently brushing away tangles and knots with delicate fingers. A motion meant to dulcify and console. She tilts Kiada further into her grasp, regretting that she is not tall enough to bring her niece's ear to her heart where it drums with life and love for the one in her arms. Proof of her life, of their connection.

It is easier to withhold her tears as Kiada's come forth to fill her radiant blues. From physical age alone they are much closer in years now than they had been, but Hotaru had been a mother and aunt to Kiada far longer. It was a mother's curse to hold her own emotions in the clasp of her ribs, to be the pillar her children need. Even so she tucks her tears into Kiada's cheek, the dark swath of her hair, breathing her in deep as if she could hold the child in her body where they could never be parted again. Where Kiada could never be hurt.

Days could have passed without notice as they slowly withdraw from one another. Reluctantly, of course. Their hands linger in the space born between, and Hotaru brushes the wetness from her cheeks with the back of one hand. Even so a smile pulls her face into the joy that she cannot stop feeling, washing over her in endless waves. As Kiada searches her face for whatever it is she needs to see, the Valkyrie lifts her palm to cup the young woman's cheek. Strokes a thumb over a sharp cheekbone, slowing over the purple shadows beneath her eye but resisting the urge to bring them up.

"I am here, I found you at last," she whispers back, her peripheral catching the emergence of feathers more than anything. She can't bear to look away from Kiada's face, memorizing it as she had Rexanna's. Seeing her soul reflected so plainly and perfectly from a foreign face is an oddity that the Valkyrie sweeps stubbornly past. The eyes, the heart, the spirit is the same. It is her Kiada standing in front of her, she has never been more sure. Her free hand comes to soothe down the feathers in a long sweep of a gentle palm, acknowledging them without shock or teasing to be found.

The tremulous, gasping words are a knife to her heart, twisting with the memory of every day that had passed since they had last seen one another. The pain is a flash of rictus on her face, pushed away just as swiftly so as to spare Kiada the sight. "I have missed you as well my little firebird," she chokes, unable to keep the emotion from her voice. "Not a day went by that I did not think of you, try to find you. But now I'm here, and I'm never leaving again," the woman vows, the ferocity of a mother wolf echoing in the lilt of her voice. The Gods themselves would have to strike her down personally if they sought to rip her from Kiada once more.
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#6
i wanted to be ruined —
a little more than i wanted
— to be loved
She looks so young, but she supposes it’s a similar thing to what happened to Deimos and her mother, upon their arrival into the land. She finds she doesn’t mind – because despite it all, it’s still her, with the same memories and feelings and thoughts, the same abilities of quick wit and fight that Kiada cherishes deep within her bones. And as Hotaru holds her tight, Kiada can’t help the gasp that leaves her, body trembling in the smaller woman’s arms.

Perhaps it hurts more to be able to look up into Hotaru’s gaze and see her missing pieces, perhaps it hurts because she is here and he is not, and gods how he would have loved to see his mother again. She finds herself biting down on her lip hard as she pulls away briefly from Hotaru, as the Valkyrie whispers back and feathers sprout along her shoulders. She wants to bury her face into Hotaru’s arms, to become small and tiny like the child she was before, to watch and learn from her favorite and only aunt.

Her heartbeat is a rapid thunder beneath her breast, and she looks into the woman’s face as Hotaru looks into her own too, and she can’t stop the tears that fall. Auni steps closer, now, inspecting the woman with a quiet sniff of interest, not finding her a threat for Kiada, finding that the woman must have been someone long gone and returned. And there’s a happiness that shifts between Luxere to person, that causes Kiada to smile when Hotaru calls her her firebird.

That’s what she was, and would be. Forever.

But the next comment hurts deep, and she lowers her face to Hotaru’s chest, to bury her face into the folds of the pale fabric of her dress, knowing that it’s a promise that cannot be kept. Because everyone leaves eventually. Everyone leaves her eventually, and she’s tentatively trying to grasp at the straws to keep near. But her hands tremble, and her words aren’t quite strong enough. Still, she appreciates the vow, eyes shuttering against her aunt before she realizes Auni has closed the door to give them some privacy, and she pulls back reluctantly (because she wants nothing more than to curl up in Hotaru’s arms and sleep her life away, tangled and curled up in the other woman’s pale arms) to search Hotaru’s face again.

I… I have a couch, that might be more comfortable…” She announces baldly, eyes shadowed and somewhat haunted, but still her at the idea. Some place more comfortable to ask about the traversing of where she had tried to find her. Because gods she’s been searching everywhere for them too. And subconsciously, she prays.

’You’re here, you’re back, you’re mine. Please don’t ever leave me again.’
KIADA
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Online
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Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#7
HOTARU
Even here, so recently reunited, Hotaru can see the pain that Kiada wears like chains. They drag her down beneath the turbulent waters, breathless and yearning helplessly for the stormy horizon, if only for the modicum of respite it offers. It hurts to see her struggling so clearly, in a way she never wore it in their homeland. Bare, plain, worn on her sleeve instead of concealed in her mind the way she and Rexanna always had. The Valkyrie regrets nothing more than that, that their lifestyle had led their children down that path of reticence and stealth simply because they could not always be so honest in public. It had taught them to hide what should never be hidden from family, and though Hotaru does not regret the strength it gave them, she does regret that they learned to hide it from their loved ones as well as the ones who would seek to harm them.

Here, in this land where softness is so much more prevalent, where war and ruin is a thing of  rarity instead of the start of a new week, she hopes that she can reverse the damage. Starting here, with her hands in Kiada's hair and her entire body offered up in support of the crumbling woman before her. A steady rock, a pillar of womanhood, a mother and aunt and sister as needed. Hotaru had years of experience fitting into different molds to match what was required, and she would welcome the task wholeheartedly if it helped her niece heal from the memories of their war-torn home and whatever new wounds had been inflicted upon her in this new land.

A quick glance is spared for her beloved's companion, a smile of pride and welcome, before her hand lifts to gently wipe the tears from Kiada's cheek. Her face is soft and motherly, understanding and free of judgment. More than anything else, Hotaru is and forever will be a safe place for the firebird. A home, a hiding place, a healing space. So when Kiada's face pinches with agony and dips towards her clavicle, Hotaru brings her in and lets her hide in space between her arms, against her breast where all children found their way back. Shushes her softly and nonsensically, running her hand over her hair. Hotaru doesn't know what to soothe, what to say, but words have little meaning here.

A grateful glance - for what it's worth, unsure of the creature's intellect here - is spared for the deerlike creature as the door is shut and privacy awarded. Smiles encouragingly at Kiada, her strangled words taken in quickly. "Of course dear," she says simply, wrapping her arm around Kiada's waist and guiding her confidently forward into the house. The outline of the couch is easy to spot even in the darkened room, and the Valkyrie eases her niece down upon its cushions before alighting beside her. She presses their sides together from knee to hip, keeping her arm around the firechild's back and tucking her in, encouraging her to lean into Hotaru's side. Regardless of size, Kiada will always be a child to her, and deserved to feel encased and protected.

Hotaru's free hand rises to gently turn Kiada's face to her, eyes sweeping over her beautiful countenance for a silent moment before smiling weakly. "I don't have words to describe how happy I am to see you, or how beautiful and strong you have grown to be." Though she'd never say it aloud for fear of upsetting the child, she is the spitting image of Rexanna. Beautiful and fair, with the Elephant King's strength to her spine and shape. Truly gorgeous, just as she had been in Helovia, and Hotaru had expected no less.

"No matter what I've missed, know that I am as proud of you as a mother could be for her child," she states firmly, gently wiggling her hand with Kiada's chin still in her palm, just like she would when Kiada was a foal and she would shake her gently by the mane like a wolfmother. She can sense the trepidation, the unease, the secrets that lie in Kiada's ribcage, and seeks to cut it off at the pass. "And whatever has transpired here, whether you share it with me or conceal it, I will love and care for you regardless. Do you understand me?" Here her voice hardens slightly, brow rising. It is of vital importance that Kiada understands how beloved she is to Hotaru. That the Valkyrie will burn this entire world down without a single care for who inhabits it if the firechild gives the word. Nothing could change her opinion of Kiada, nor diminish her love in any amount.
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#8
i wanted to be ruined —
a little more than i wanted
— to be loved
She breaks to reopen wounds and stitch them back up again, tears and sorrow and joy, wrapping around her and coiling like a spring. She is a dam about to break and she is so incredibly grateful for the guiding hand of her aunt that takes her to the couch, where she sits her down and sits beside her. And continues to touch, touch, touch, while Kiada bends and breaks further, over and over again. She tucks her in like a mother hen, beneath her wing where she should have been the entire time, smiling weakly, complimenting her, before the Harpy reaches up with the back of a hand to wipe away the tears that soak her pale, tired cheeks.

She doesn’t feel beautiful. She doesn’t feel strong. But she believes her anyway, because it’s Hotaru, and the Valkyrie would never lie to her. She knows it as much as she knows her own reflection, of the flame in her soul that devours and burns and leaves ashes in their wake. And the Valkyrie takes her head in her hands, observing, watching, commenting, telling her that she’s not alone. That Hotaru could have been the mother she deserved – and had Ru’in still lived, Hotaru would have been even more so.

It scrunches her face up again as Hotaru wiggles her chin just enough, a memory, a feeling, a barb to the heart of love and joy and innocence. But Kiada had never been innocent, she knows this. And she also knows that Kisamoa, Kaos, who had killed and murdered, had destroyed and taken, had been the one she vowed herself to. Had rescued. Had saved. And suffered for it. She wonders if the tone will change when Hotaru learns of this too, like Melita had.

She can’t bear to see the hatred in her bi-toned eyes.

But she cuts off the thoughts, instead replacing them with something else; perhaps darker, perhaps sadder, perhaps the two of them can break and emerge anew. “Yes.” She chokes, before she flings herself into Hotaru’s arms, every inch the child she had been once before – not the battle hardened warrior she had been molded to be. Her hand rests on Hotaru’s arm, her left hand with a ring made of bronze and foxes, and she wonders if Hotaru will notice.

She wonders if Hotaru will see the craftsmanship of her son’s work. And see what it means. But as much as she has tried to push the feeling away, of keeping the secret, she can’t – and she breaks and unleashes herself in the clutches of her aunt, shaking and trembling, sorrow and so much pain. “I was going to marry him, Ru.” She manages to gasp, perhaps hysterically, perhaps broken beyond repair.He was back and we were going to be happy, and things were going to be exactly how they should have been. And I lost him again.
KIADA
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Online
Change author:
Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#9
HOTARU
Kiada's silence is more telling of her emotional state than any words that could be running off her tongue. Hotaru does not press her as they move, offering herself as a shield for the girl to hide behind, a sword against her demons, a body to lean on and soak up comfort from. Even when they are seated she turns and curves her body to accept Kiada into her side, enveloping her as entirely as she can with her small form. She wishes she was born into this skin taller, mightier, so that she may carry the burdens of her loved ones and provide them shelter and security in her arms whenever they sought it. Instead she is left with this meager vessel, with which she stretches her limitations to provide the comfort Kiada so clearly needs.

The scrunch of Kiada's beautiful face in her hands softens Hotaru's in sympathy, in love wrought from pain and her own inability to take the weight off her niece's shoulders. But at least she gives her answer, an affirmative that Hotaru cannot wholeheartedly believe but will accept. Even just telling her as often as she can would hopefully be enough to instill the belief in her that what Hotaru said was true. Kiada had never doubted her as a child, perhaps that  would transfer over just enough for Hotaru to help build her back up again to the shining pillar of beauty and strength she deserved to be.

Hotaru welcomes the daughter she could have had into her arms as Kiada lunges forward, enveloping her entirely and holding on tight. No matter their size difference, she cannot be bowled over, feeling as if her spine is made of steel with which to prop up the firechild and keep her standing. And yet the rest of her is soft, inviting, letting Kiada cry into her. Her own eyes pinch and sting, but her tears do not fall. They only gather because it hurts to see the girl so distressed. One hand keeps Kiada close, the other rubs soothing circles over her back as she shushes and rocks her as if she was a tiny babe and not a grown woman. Would she ever truly be grown in Hotaru's eyes?

At first her words are nonsensical, a confusing waterfall of sound and discordant hiccuping that the Valkyrie has to parse through. A part of her begins to sink, knowing somehow in the back of her mind, but it is shoved violently back. "Hush, dear. Take a breath with me, okay?" Hotaru takes a deep, slow breath for Kiada to emulate as she thinks over the jumble presented to her. She knows...she does. The implications. Remembers Romina's rage at the closeness of Kiada and her son. Ru'in. But she can't bear the thought of him, remembering how she had watched wide-eyed and helpless as he had been slaughtered thoughtlessly before her eyes. How Thranduil had stopped her from her rightful revenge, from joining her son and daughter in the beyond. Still, she is a mother, and Kiada comes first. Her own breaking, her own shattering, will never happen in front of her children. So the Valkyrie summons all the considerable strength of soul she has to her name, and smooths Kiada's hair away from her face, tracing her fingers delicately across her sallow skin. "Who, love? Who were you going to marry?"
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#10
i wanted to be ruined —
a little more than i wanted
— to be loved
Thank the gods for Hotaru, in this moment, wrapping her up tightly like a mother would a child. And she hums and hiccups into the arms of her loved one, of the one that was her aunt for the longest, but could have been her mother in name too. She knows Hotaru would always be yet another motherly figure, but there was something different about it being assumed, and it being by an official agreement. She would have had that with Ru’in.

Would have.

Hotaru rubs soothing circles along the Harpy’s back, and she wonders if she can feel and see the wounds beneath those pale hands, too. The scarring from the bladed armor from the Rift, the scarring from the flames that turned real upon her induction to the horrible place of darkness and nightmares. But she manages to rush through the words before the tears take over again, soaking that beautiful pale ivory dress Hotaru wears, and suddenly Kiada is so so ashamed.

She shudders as she takes a breath with her, pulling back with red ringed, glassy eyes, as she looks to the Valkyrie with such terrible heartbreak that even Auni draws nearer, bumping Kiada’s knee with his soft nose, offering a pulse of a glow of the light off his antlers. Any attempt to help, but none works. She doesn’t realize she’s squeezing Hotaru’s arm as tightly as she is as the Valkyrie brushes the dark hair from her exhausted, distraught face.

Who were you going to marry?” It shatters her. Doesn’t she know? Does she have to say his name? It hurts, everything hurts, and she grits her teeth as she reaches up to bury her face in her hands – the glinting of a bronze ring on her ring finger headed with a fox, cast in the shadow of her dark hair while she tries to regain control, the blight making it more difficult as time goes on.

Ru’in.” She whispers at first, removing her hands from her face as they tremble and shake, and she fists them tightly into the ivory dress of Hotaru as she looks up with such sadness and heartbreak. “Ru’in asked me to marry him.
KIADA
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Online
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Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#11
HOTARU
Hotaru had never had the chance to cradle Kiada in the age she deserved to be, but she forms it in the shape of her arms now. she is not wood or stone, her foundations are not so mighty as that. She is merely a woman now, not even a Queen, only a wandering soul in a foreign plane. Yet her arms are stronger than any God she has ever faced, her heart purer in love than fresh snow. She is unbreakable because Kiada makes her so. Though it was never what they were to each other, they fit together in the same shapes of mother and daughter, and in that she finds a strength that will never falter or fail.

Tears soak into her dress, hot on her skin, and still she only murmurs her senseless comfort. There is room in her arms for all the pieces that shatter off Kiada. There is space in her palms for her weathered heart. Though Hotaru's body is small, the weight she is capable of carrying, the amount she can hold, only grows exponentially to fit what Kiada places upon her.

Only when she withdraws does Hotaru gaze into her eyes, the fractured blue of her gaze with a heartbreak the Valkyrie knows too well. It was never something she had wished upon Kiada. How much more had she failed in the time between their arrivals? She should have been here, a shield, a mentor to the young girl. Why? Why had they not brought her sooner? She could have spared this. Would have sacrificed herself so quickly to ensure Kiada did not suffer so deeply.

Her eyes flicker down to the bronze ring on Kiada's finger as she buries her face in her hands, and it's only another dagger to her heart. While Kiada cannot see, her own eyes fall closed, letting the agony of her confirmed suspicions crash over her. As unstoppable and fatal as a tsunami. Drowning in the ocean of her own sorrow and loss. But it is a loss that is not fresh for her, not as it is for Kiada. So when the name falls from her lips as if forcefully pulled free, Hotaru opens her eyes. There is a deep, aching void of sorrow in her beautiful eyes. Perhaps they are glassy, but tears do not fall free. Instead she brings her hand to Kiada, pulls her in by the nape and presses a firm kiss to her brow. It lingers for long moments, her own face fractured with agony.

She does not need to see your grief, not when her own is so fresh.

Pulling away, Hotaru gives a broken smile, understanding written all over her face. "He loved you," she says quietly, with the unshakable truth that only a mother could have regarding their child's innermost thoughts and feelings. "And he would never want to see your tears." Her palms rise to brush them away, cupping the red-stained face before her. "I...there are no words for the pain of losing him," she chokes, a single tear streaking down her own cheek, lips trembling with the force of a repeated loss she had never anticipated. And I wasn't here. I wasn't here. I wasn't here for either of them.

"But you listen to me, child." She ignores the tear as it drips off her cheek, gaze intent and offering her own strength. "No matter where he is, in this life or the next. No matter how little time you and I had with him, he is with us always." One hand drops to clutch the one with Kiada's ring, the bronze fox, and she runs a shaking fingertip across it without letting herself gaze upon it. "Ru'in was as selfless as any boy could be. He loved you so deeply, he would never have taken marrying you lightly. Do you understand me? Grieve him, mourn him, remember every moment you spent at his side. But you know, just as I do, that no matter how impossible it feels...he would want your joy, not your tears." Though her mouth curves into a smile, her own tears fall, silent and regal. In many ways Kiada had been so much closer to Ru'in than she, a loss she feels like a slow-burning fire in her breast that tucks smog into her throat and makes it hard to breathe. She would have been a perfect daughter, the first partner of one of her mated children. There is so much lost here, so much potential that would never see fruition, and it magnifies the grief tenfold.

Breaking, she draws Kiada back into her arms to conceal the tears as they hasten down her cheeks. But she is familiar with this grief, this loss. Has lost all of her children, her parents, her twin, her bonded. Her breaths are scarcely hitched, even as it feels as if her very soul is breaking apart. I should have been here to save him. To protect him. I'm his mother, I should have been the one to die. Why, out of everyone who deserved it so much more, was I the one to live? Hotaru rocks them gently on the couch, a small hitch of her breath the closest she can get to a sob. She cannot manage more. As a mother she will not let herself fall any farther, not when she has to keep Kiada afloat. "Life is cruel, that we survive past him," she says in a broken whisper. "But we do live. And we cannot squander that gift."
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#12
i wanted to be ruined —
a little more than i wanted
— to be loved
She knows it will hurt, and that dark tarred blighted part of her wants it to, wants it to hurt as much as it hurts her. Wants to inflict the pain she so desperately feels upon seeing her Aunt again. But she does nothing, swallowing down those shadowed, terrible thoughts, as Hotaru’s hand finds the nape of her neck and pulls her in to kiss her brow – a brow that smells like earth, with a sticky amount of sweat to it.

But Hotaru pulls away, and Kiada’s icy gaze, as distraught as it is, scans her face. She hears the words, but she doesn’t know if it hurts more knowing someone else had seen the love between them. She lets Hotaru wipe away her tears as she inhales a shaggy breath, a breath that she doesn’t know how to hold onto as it releases in a quick puff of a sigh through her nose as she leans into Hotaru’s touch. “We lost him twice.” She whispers, as though once wasn’t enough – as if twice seemed to be the charm.

Yet, she focuses in on Hotaru’s bi-toned eyes, despite how much it hurts, to listen when she speaks. And she lets Hotaru touch the ring on her finger, holding it gently while the words sink in and she tucks them in with the memories of the freckled boy who couldn’t speak well. She chews on her lower lip, gnawing it raw as she absorbs her words like a towel mopping up a spill of water. Slowly at first, then all at once. “I loved him so much, too.” She says, a silent vow that hurts to be uttered, but she finds it easier to let people know her feelings now.

After all, she had told Deimos she loved him, before he smashed the feeling in between his rough calloused hands. She didn’t regret it, though. Didn’t regret any of it.

Hotaru rocks them gently on the couch, and Kiada melts to her touch, as close as she can get. “Why wasn’t it me?” She asks, a similarly broken whisper. She could live, she had been living, but why why why when it could have been him?
KIADA
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Hotaru Kaito
the Valkyrie
Masseuse / Headmistress

Age: 33 | Height: 5'2 | Race: Demi-god | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: King's End
Level: 3 - Strg: 38 - Dext: 38 - Endr: 54 - Luck: 40 - Int:
Played by: Brit Online
Change author:
Posts: 2,241 | Total: 6,168
MP: 9427
#13
HOTARU
As Kiada pulls away, their eyes meet. There is a raw, endless agony shared between their gazes. Broken glass from the same stained window. A connection, an understanding, that Hotaru had never wanted to share with her niece. Especially not so deep of one, so harrowing a loss. But while her own loss is an agony that will never fade - a mother's love so much deeper in some ways than a partner's - she is much older than Kiada. Perhaps not physically any longer, but Hotaru remembers the years she has lived as if they were lived in this skin. She had lost so much more than Kiada, and she knows how to cope, how to live even when the appeal of joining all those she has lost in death is nearly too much to bear.

"The world is cruel in its unfairness," she says instead, voice worn and ragged. They had lost him twice and were expected to move on each time as if their entire world had not been shifted. Displaced. Broken. The only thing that matters now to the Valkyrie is helping her niece through this agony as much as she can. She's not so foolish as to expect her presence or her words to do anything miraculous, but as the old adage says, misery loves company. Grief is easier to bear when there are multiple shoulders at hand to lift it, and Hotaru will take as much of that weight as she can to lighten the load for Kiada.

There is nothing for her to say as Kiada chokes out her own love confession, one that should not have been uttered to Hotaru's ears. It should have been for Ru'in to hear, to rejoice in, and not the mother he left behind. Instead, she tightens her grip on Kiada, grief overflowing. "I wish you didn't have to know this pain," she whispers, voice choked. Hotaru had lost her lovers thrice over, it was a pain she knew well. But it never stopped hurting. The loss was just as grievous as every time before. Their lineages were cursed with the fatal flaw of love and loss. Rexanna and Hotaru both should never have become mothers if only to spare their daughters the fate of walking in the steps of their bearers.

"I have asked myself that every day that I've lived and they didn't," she admits, breath quickening with the desire to cry but tamping down on the tears that sting like fire in the backs of her eyes. She can still see Romina walking steadfast and fearless to her death, unable to live in a world without her twin. See Ru'in being destroyed without a single thought, barely more than a flex of power from the false god that had taken her entire world away. "But it's a question that will haunt you forever if you let it. The truth is that it wasn't us. And we have to live a life that would make them proud, make them happy." It was all that kept her going some days. Knowing her children, her parents, her lovers, would want to see her fight and win and find happiness again. She lived for them more than herself these days.
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Kiada Njovu-Reyes
Hollowed Grounds Registrar

Age: 30 | Height: 5’7 | Race: Ancient | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 18 - Dext: 16 - Endr: 29 - Luck: 17 - Int:
Played by: Skylark Offline
Change author:
Posts: 1,674 | Total: 13,495
MP: 2712
#14
i wanted to be ruined —
a little more than i wanted
— to be loved
The world is cruel in its unfairness.

The words repeat in her mind, over and over again, until she commits them to heart. Is it selfish to think that she’s endured such terrible loss over and over again that she knows nothing but a cruel world? With an opportunity for happiness, only to enjoy and grow attached, before leaving again. She remembers how distraught she had become after the mandatory draft had gone up under Zariah’s rule, and she had spotted both Amalia and Deimos’ names on the list. And she went home that night, wondering if these last few weeks she had with them would be the last.

Maybe she’s paranoid.

She numbly nods in agreement with her aunt when she mentions she wishes she never had to know this pain. She, too, wishes she’d never have to do it. But her heart, for all her flaws, is so large that she can’t help but to love and want to be loved in return. It seemed it never worked out that way, first with Ru’in, then with Rixen. Everyone left eventually, and she was left alone on her own, to pick up the pieces and continue on.

She reaches forward for her aunt, to bury herself into her, as the feathers disappear, trembling and shaking as they find their way back into her skin. Hotaru’s words calm the flurry of emotions within her, as terrible as it sounds, and she nods through a small hiccup, leaning back to wipe at her eyes, pressing the heels of her trembling hands into her black ringed gaze. She sits like this for a few moments, shaking and trembling, so unlike herself for a first impression for her aunt. She wishes she had been there for the Cloister, to see her almost win, to see the warrior she’s become. Not this sniveling child.

But at least Hotaru’s back, and it’s all she can ask for as she calms her breathing, feathers exchanged for golden fur that covers her scarred shoulders and dances up the side of her neck – black tuft ears perk from her own, and she inhales deeply to try and calm down as she looks back to her aunt. “How… How long have you been here?” She asks quietly, trying desperately to change the subject, lest she go in circles over and over again.
KIADA
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3


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