HOTARU
Morgan's smile is all the assurance she needs after revealing something she considers private. Not that that's particularly difficult considering her reticence to remove her variety of masks. But there's a kinship between them that eases away those concerns, and Hotaru's answering smile is unfettered and honest. "Ah, but then we'd have to find another place to hide away. I'm quite enjoying it being just the two of us." A tad forward maybe, but she eases the earnestness with a wink and a cheeky grin that she hides in her knee. "I might like that. Would you tie me up dear Captain?" It's easy to fall into banter with the Captain, to poke and prod the proverbial bear and enjoy each smile, laugh, and smirk she is rewarded with. Though the woman's stoicism is far from off-putting, there's a warmth to her that seems to exude from every freckle and pore when she loosens up. "Then consider it certain that you'll run into me again." The cold runs in her genes after all, and Halo has already ensnared her more than she'd anticipated.
Despite the time and distance from that wretched day, it still causes a subtle shiver to traipse down her spine as she recalls it. "As long as our land stood, we had our given Gods. Unfaltering, reliable. But portals are not just present here, they're a common but difficult piece of magic, usually only capable of being wielded on the power of a deity." Precisely what both Kaos in her land had been and what The Voice appears to be here. "It started small. Sickly creations, rampaging through our land. Parts of the environment dying entirely. They grew stronger, even as everyone banded together to slay them." A rare show of collective force from the Helovians. Something she once would have deemed impossible, and in the end it was all for naught. "But the leader was already in our midst, warping the minds of those who believed him when he offered gifts, power, all in return for allegiance." Kiada had fallen for such sweet words, and she knows the girl still holds that weight on her shoulders. "He grew his power, his following. And then he waged war, killing all who tried to oppose him with no more than a blink. He opened a portal to his own dying world that he meant to corral us into, in hopes of repairing it perhaps? Our Gods sacrificed themselves to keep it stable, to try and weaken him, and in the end our home was lost and the survivors were either scattered like I was, or landed in his sickly world." Perhaps it was better that she hadn't, but nothing will stop her from regretting not being there for her family. And the parallels to The Voice admittedly make her queasy, but her ties to Rexanna wage war against that feeling, keeping her locked in limbo.
over time
even the sharpest thorns
will become soft
