Darling please, just give us some time, and I swear we'll be alright
Two simple words, and yet they hold depths and magnitudes that she can read as easily as flowing script from an ink pen. The timbre of his voice resonates like the snowfalls that devastate their desired pathways down towering mountains, and she is swept away in the cascade of it, all the happier for how it envelopes her in such intrinsic memories. Reluctant though she is to part from him, there are better places than here to depart from their vambraces, to bare their flesh. Such a multitude of unworthy, distrusted eyes, and none she would want gazing upon such intimate decomposition.
But he does not truly leave her, his hand enveloping her own to steer her forth into the depths of the barracks, callouses brushing rough and familiar against her own scarred fingers. A firm squeeze is the only distraction she allows herself as she trails behind him, quickening her pace to account for the vast differences in their height. Atlas follows behind at a more sedate pace, and though he is still young his frame already is imposing, and he must duck his proudly lofted head to fit through the doorway Deimos leads them to. Zuriel is a familiar figure, though Atlas merely gives an inquisitive huff of his nares as he beds down a respectable distance away.
Hotaru descends into her given chair swiftly, crowding it closer like a moth seeking firelight, but it is not the flames in the hearth that draw her. Here in the privacy of this secluded room, she allows herself to examine him, heterochromic stare flickering over the dark smudges of his eyes, the more pronounced lines in his skin that speak of stress and burden. All the same his gruff admission of being Warden inspires a slightly teasing lilt of her lips, shared amusement and despair over returning to such titles unspoken. When he turns the question against her she pauses, swallowing down the enormity of her feelings that cling to such a concise answer. "Torchline, for LongNight. The sickness...I don't recall anything but wandering off. I woke in the Wilds, and Atlas carried me home, only a day before the darkness came." Her own features crumple slightly, far more vulnerable with him than even her beloveds. "Nate left to fight the monsters in the Grounds. Sunjata was attacked, his father returned and kidnapped Nate, and then Sunjata fought him to the death in return for Nate." It spills out so easily, no fluff or further unraveling required, and yet the burden is visible on her shoulders with how they cave inward.
All the same, his ghosts are not hidden from her own eye, and though he will surely have more questions about her explanation Hotaru will not let him hide behind his own fortress walls. "I've missed so much. What's happened?" How are you? It remains unsaid, though she lays a gentle hand upon his forearm, both to prompt and encourage, but also to settle the itch under her skin that cries out for the physicality she has been robbed of for so long.
But he does not truly leave her, his hand enveloping her own to steer her forth into the depths of the barracks, callouses brushing rough and familiar against her own scarred fingers. A firm squeeze is the only distraction she allows herself as she trails behind him, quickening her pace to account for the vast differences in their height. Atlas follows behind at a more sedate pace, and though he is still young his frame already is imposing, and he must duck his proudly lofted head to fit through the doorway Deimos leads them to. Zuriel is a familiar figure, though Atlas merely gives an inquisitive huff of his nares as he beds down a respectable distance away.
Hotaru descends into her given chair swiftly, crowding it closer like a moth seeking firelight, but it is not the flames in the hearth that draw her. Here in the privacy of this secluded room, she allows herself to examine him, heterochromic stare flickering over the dark smudges of his eyes, the more pronounced lines in his skin that speak of stress and burden. All the same his gruff admission of being Warden inspires a slightly teasing lilt of her lips, shared amusement and despair over returning to such titles unspoken. When he turns the question against her she pauses, swallowing down the enormity of her feelings that cling to such a concise answer. "Torchline, for LongNight. The sickness...I don't recall anything but wandering off. I woke in the Wilds, and Atlas carried me home, only a day before the darkness came." Her own features crumple slightly, far more vulnerable with him than even her beloveds. "Nate left to fight the monsters in the Grounds. Sunjata was attacked, his father returned and kidnapped Nate, and then Sunjata fought him to the death in return for Nate." It spills out so easily, no fluff or further unraveling required, and yet the burden is visible on her shoulders with how they cave inward.
All the same, his ghosts are not hidden from her own eye, and though he will surely have more questions about her explanation Hotaru will not let him hide behind his own fortress walls. "I've missed so much. What's happened?" How are you? It remains unsaid, though she lays a gentle hand upon his forearm, both to prompt and encourage, but also to settle the itch under her skin that cries out for the physicality she has been robbed of for so long.
HOTARU
