HOTARU
It is as if her spirit doesn't know which body to reside within. A tug of war between what was and what is. In the maelstrom there is the focus of lightning, electricity dancing in the heavens at her every beck and call, as familiar to her as breathing. And in the space between where mastery and skill reign supreme, there her gaze falls to the dark shape that her mirror image guards with a ferocity she has hosted in her own veins.With every heartbeat - Romina - with every pounding recoil of heel against ice - Romina - with every breath that swells and swells beyond the limits of her lungs - Romina. There is only her daughter. There is only the enchanting golden gaze that peers from an upturned face, a brow she has kissed too few times. A daughter lost too soon, too sudden, in a flash of there-and-gone that had torn her world apart. Even knowing that it can't be true in some recessed part of her brain, it is swallowed whole by the desperation she feels. A hand outstretched, grasping and pleading, willing to give up everything in this one chaotic moment if only to return her child to her side.
The whiplash of realization, of discerning differences between dappled forms, is enough to drive an inhuman cry of grief from her throat. There is nobody here to hear it, to judge her for her weakness. Nobody but herself and the dying shade that stands like Cerberus guarding the fields of Asphodel. Hotaru can feel the rot and decay that clings to her other form. Opponent, truly, for as they lock gazes - emerald fires raging, neither willing to abate with this one little soul at stake - Hotaru knows only one will walk away from this.
Is it mercy? To end her pain, to take up the care of the child huddled at her side. Is it revenge? Against herself, the one who had failed, who had been foolish and weak and useless in those final moments. Is it love? The kind of sacrificial love that will rend her own heart to pieces, knowing how it feels to embrace the void and leave behind something so precious.
Hotaru doesn't know. But she lifts her dagger from her hip, bares her teeth at the dying mother before her, and lunges. Redirecting her lightning to dance upon her blade, bracing for the fight she knows will come. The mighty, well-matched clash. But she must be triumphant. For the sake of that spindly foal in the snow, she must end this sad defender's life.
i'm the little lightning girl
living electricity
a lightning bolt in human form
