Hotaru
My head's a burial ground of your memory
While grateful that Kiada has no injuries to tend to, Hotaru is overcome anew with the sense of uselessness that has plagued her ever since she'd awoken in the Wilds. It's a horrible feeling, one that grates and burns and churns in her belly at every turn. At every choice to exclude her or hide her away, every missed inside moment, every reminder that she is not so powerful as she once was. Every time she is mistaken as merely another player on the chessboard, a friend or acquaintance and not a lover. The spiral is so sudden and consuming that the only way she can force herself out of it is by digging her teeth into the inside of her cheek until the flesh gives way, copper flooding across her tongue in acrid waves. "I won't be long if I can help it," she promises softly instead, swallowing down the blood so that Kiada doesn't see it on her teeth as she brushes the dark hair off her niece's forehead and leans up to press a gentle kiss there. Perhaps the girl will not feel it, but it will not stop Hotaru from doing it. "Let him know. I will find him, he can't hide from me for long." The joke pulls her lips at the corners, trying to embrace this moment while she can, knowing the minutes are falling away already and that she will have to watch Kiada walk away once more. Without her. "I love you, my ember. Be swift, the sun will rise soon. I will find you again." A promise she will see through no matter the consequences.
But first, there is business to be taken care of here in Torchline.
- FIN
