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
