HOTARU
Here, in the haven of their shared pain, the turmoil is less like a tsunami and more akin to choppy waters. Keeping each other afloat as they bleed the poison free of their veins, lest it consume them from the inside. She is both surprised and touched by his trust in her, the freedom of his voice and the memories he shares. He pours more alcohol for the both of them, and she obligingly sips at her own. Being out of control is not her manner of grief, of coping. It only worsens things for her personally. But this, too, is a shared act. A compromise. The liquid burns her throat, warming behind her breastbone in a way the fire cannot achieve. It helps her through the aching chill of her memories, the ice that stabs at her insides as she recalls every loss, every death, every heartbreak. She is no wordsmith, no laureate, can't put to words the depth and darkness of her grief, but she tries. If only to expel the darkness from her soul, to even the ground between them in terms of secrets and pasts shared. And when she spirals, dragged down by the memories of Arya bleeding out into the snow, her own cursed helplessness, he is the preserver in the storm. His hand extends, and she grips to it as if he can pull her from the storm with the weight of his palm. Two broken things sharing their remaining pillars of strength, keeping one another from crumbling. His hand is calloused beneath hers, swallows the size of her own, and though Hotaru knows he's hurting she can't help but be relieved that right now he is her shelter. Her reminder that she is not there anymore, even if Arya is lost to her here she had lived from that day. She can't possibly scry his thoughts on children, on devotion, but his silence helps bear her aloft over the chasm of her darkest days.
The name of her land, her home, is the only word that breaks the initial silence. Lifting her gaze from where the firelight plays against glass and wood, she smiles weakly. "I see its legacy precedes it." Infamy would be more accurate. For all of the wonders and joys, it had hurt so many in the end that the disastrous end overshadowed all the previous good. And even in the early days there was so much loss. So much darkness. And she can see it in him when he speaks, quiet and measured, expressing a kinship to the day she had lost everything.
"I know now that living is what he would have wanted. But even in this moment, if I could have that vengeance, I would take it. As I'm sure you would as well." Hollow gaze seeks his out, squeezing his hand gently. Apologies, regrets, none of them will spare Sunjata or Hotaru from what has already happened. The burden of watching a loved one die and being unable to exact revenge, or to join them in the afterlife. His own words rise on a gentle tide behind hers, and she smiles back, chuckles softly at his bitter compliment. "Many years of practice, and motherhood I suppose. You become very, very good at hiding dark things from children." Not something he is likely to understand firsthand without progeny of his own, but a universal truth for many. That children did not deserve to be subjected to such horrors, to seeing their parents fall apart.
And again comes his history, in greater depth, and the tables turn once more. Hotaru listens just as attentively, appreciating the time it allows her to settle her emotions and bury the memories a little deeper after bringing them to light for the first time in years. Even as she aches in turn for him as he spins his childhood out before her, the rawness of his expression softening her own as she gently runs her fingertips over his wrist. A silent communication. I'm here, you can hang onto me. We will pull each other through this.
Even before he confirms it, she knows he was the one who came out triumphant, who sacrificed it all - humanity included - just for the sake of survival. His continued presence before her is proof enough of that. But she doesn't let her expression change at all, because this revelation in no way changes his esteem in her eyes. His desire to undermine it all, to turn the tides, is what makes him the man he is. Though his duplicitous nature is questionable considering how endearingly obvious he'd been to Lusea and her father, it doesn't prompt a smile. Not when it's followed by such a close-hitting topic of contemplating ending his own life. And she knows then, that she will have to tell her own tale. Because she can't simply let him think he is the only one to have felt that moment of weakness. Can't bear to keep that truth from him if it means he isn't alone.
But not now. Now, she listens. Soaks in the details of his turn against his father's forces, of coming to Lusea's side, and the devastating end to their doomed romance. An ending only made further bitter with Lusea's untimely end here in Caido. Lifting her free hand, she hesitates to translate her attempted motion, and touches the very end of the scar on his neck. Eyes soft, touch gentle before she withdraws. "It doesn't mean we can't pick up a new hand," she murmurs. "I'm no optimist, but like I said, there are so many worlds out there. Second, third, fourth chances. I'd rather try to be happy, to live rebelliously, to rage against fate and her cruelty than die meek and miserable." Here there is the ember, the one that keeps her moving, the one that forces her back from the ledge they'd both stood upon when she gazes down and sees nothing but air.
"If I'm bold enough to say so, Lusea would say the same thing. She knew what rebelling would earn her in that moment, and did so anyway. She died true to herself. One of the few meaningful things we can do in the face of the reaper." Sighing, she withdraws her hand from his to grab her glass, sips slowly and robotically as she considers her own childhood. "It doesn't make her loss easier, then or now. But I think she - much like my own family - would sooner kick your ass for grieving forever instead of honoring her memory and trying to be happy in spite of her loss. No matter how long it takes or how many times you have to try." Because grief of that magnitude is an ongoing process. One that has no real end game or goal. But the waves slow, decrease in size, even if the tide never really stops.
"My parents were forbidden to be together, because of their races. It didn't stop them, but it meant that I never really met my father. My mother raised my twin sister and I in a small band of assassins, thieves, mercenaries...Raeden, my sister, was beautiful. Radiant. Confident. And I was...well, not." Here she laughs bitterly, recalling how she had once been, how very different she'd been as a young girl before the world had torn her apart. "I stood on that same ledge twice in my life. When I first left that little band, I had nowhere to go. My mother barely gave me a second look, dismissed me in front of everyone. I fled with my first friend, the first to ever see me and find me beautiful. But I was no more than a child, and he wanted children, wanted to keep me wholly to himself." Despite all she has told him, she can't bear to say his name. The true monster of her nightmares, the one that haunts her forevermore. Her arms come to wrap around herself. "When I denied him, he disappeared. But he returned years later, completely changed. Psychotic, sadistic, demented...he kidnapped me, tortured and raped me for weeks. Saying that I was a temptress, a whore, that I deserved that kind of love from him." Gritting her teeth she forcibly lowers her arms, refuses to display her weakness even here. Not with this, not when the memory of his breath on her neck, his teeth in her throat, seems to whisper at her from the flickering shadows.
"In my darkest moment I nearly killed myself. Anything to beat him, to take away the one thing he wanted. To end my own suffering. It was selfish. I still had my children at home, my kingdom, my people...and yet all I could think was how I had never truly changed from that little girl he'd stolen away. Still just as weak and foolish. Living a lie, a charade of confidence and power." A single tear drips off her lashes to kiss her cheek, and she rubs it away with a scowl. What a ridiculous thing to cry about after everything she has shared. Her own insecurities about her self-worth. "Thranduil saved me that night, before I could do it. But when he arrived, the first thing he said was that I looked terrible. That it wouldn't do at all. And for a moment, even with freedom there in front of me, I regretted not doing it." She attempts to laugh, but it comes out broken, and she cuts it off immediately.
"The second time was when I didn't make it through the portal with my family. When I landed alone and lost in a completely different place. After weeks of searching, I held a dagger to my throat," here she lifts a hand, presses her middle finger to the soft indent between her collarbones, gaze distant as she recalls the tip of the blade kissing her skin. After a long moment frozen, her fingers fall away. "I couldn't do it then either. I'm glad that I didn't, that I found my family here, what remains of it. Sometimes it hurts so bad that I can scarcely get out of bed, when I remember these things." Finally Hotaru reaches across the table, reconnects, brushes her fingers against his knuckles.
"We only get so much time. So many chances. Lusea got more time with you than she would have in the beginning, and that means something. Her loss doesn't erase those days. It hurts like hell, but you know what we have to do?" Her eyes lift to meet his, hand gripping his palm. "We have to get up. Out of that bed. If not for ourselves, then for them, whether they're here looking over us or earning their second chance somewhere we can't reach." It is what she would have wanted for Ru'in, for Arya, for Romina, for Casca and even Thranduil. That if they lost her, they would continue on, would find joy and peace. That Thranduil would love again even after the hurt she had inflicted with her loss. And if she wanted that for them, she tries to think that they would want the same for her in return.
I am a breathtaking mosaic
of all the battles I've won
of all the battles I've won
