I could take all that you love, I could be death from above
The joy is so short-lived, a flame snuffed out before it has even rightfully caught onto the wick, and Hotaru hates to see it drain from her husband's face. There is a terrible storm brewing, she can feel it. She has controlled them, been in their placid eye, for too long to not sense one coming. Hotaru just isn't certain if it will be one of her own making. If this is something she's even capable of controlling. She doesn't think so, not as Nate lets her drift away, the singular presence that could have grounded her now missing and leaving her adrift in her own lightning.
Each stuttered word and strained breath raises her hackles further. Pathetic, a voice in her head that sounds like her mother spits, and Hotaru preens up in agreement. He cannot even put words to his betrayal, and it's willpower alone that keeps her from grinding her teeth to dust as he drags out every syllable in some misguided attempt to - what, stall?
The first dagger is one that wounds her on Nate's behalf. Words bubble up like acid in her throat, scalding and hateful, but there isn't even time to let them free before the second one is sliding between her ribs.
"My child with Safrin."
Hotaru has had her heart broken many times before. Sunjata already has penned his name into that list. Should it surprise her that he has done it again? Betrayed her mere hours after vowing he would keep any child of theirs safe, even from his own Goddess whose powers he considered to be a last resort? Should it still hurt that he went back on every assurance and agreement, every understanding word he spoke when she explained how direly she needed their children to be out of the path of the war? It had been a line in the sand gouged by desperate hands. Hotaru has lost so many of her children to war. He knew this intimately, and yet within hours had willingly signed up another for the same fate. This is more than her he has failed. The poor child to be born of this agreement, one that may no longer even work, is now destined to be dragged into the ugliest parts of the coming nightmare. There are so many feelings to follow, cascading like rocks in a landslide; that he has chosen to intentionally stand against Nate, that his foolhardy bargain has now signed him up to the inevitability of trying to kill people like their husband without even the benefit of Nate's survival at the end. It is like hearing the death knell come for her own child once more, and Hotaru simply...can't.
Perhaps they have made her too soft. Maybe she has shown her belly too many times, made them forget that she is iron and scale and bloodied bone, no soft mistress to be kept at home to entertain them. Maybe it was herself that had lulled away, softening sharp words and blunting finely-honed edged. Whatever the cause, as that fleece is pulled back to reveal the wolf's fur beneath, it feels like freedom. Like shackles unfolding from her wrists, allowing her to raise a hand that would have never struck against a loved one before. And all at once there is a clarity in her rage. The eye of the storm. So it was to be hers after all.
Her hand moves to her waist, where the dagger Sunjata had given her always hangs. A gift of apology now tainted forever. Her hand grips the hilt, her bloodied palm smearing over the beautiful metal, and in one motion she rips it free and springs for Sunjata.
Lightning coats her skin as she shoves her free palm up towards his chin, hoping to slam his teeth together and daze him, and like a striking snake she aims the dagger for his thigh to try and plunge it in. He had asked her to use it on him once, had thrown it back in her face that she hadn't taken the opportunity he'd presented that day. Well, she may be late to that particular invite, but Hotaru intends to deliver now. All the while she snarls, hair lifting as she vainly hopes that her lightning will find some gap in his armor if the knife does not. "FUCK YOU!" It roars through her chest like thunder, lightning crackling and shrieking in a cloud around her. And for once the girl who had always cried when anger took her under does not feel a single tear in her eye. In fact, if the dagger has met its mark, she hopes to twist it, to make him feel a minuscule amount of the pain he has inflicted on her in mere moments.
Each stuttered word and strained breath raises her hackles further. Pathetic, a voice in her head that sounds like her mother spits, and Hotaru preens up in agreement. He cannot even put words to his betrayal, and it's willpower alone that keeps her from grinding her teeth to dust as he drags out every syllable in some misguided attempt to - what, stall?
The first dagger is one that wounds her on Nate's behalf. Words bubble up like acid in her throat, scalding and hateful, but there isn't even time to let them free before the second one is sliding between her ribs.
"My child with Safrin."
Hotaru has had her heart broken many times before. Sunjata already has penned his name into that list. Should it surprise her that he has done it again? Betrayed her mere hours after vowing he would keep any child of theirs safe, even from his own Goddess whose powers he considered to be a last resort? Should it still hurt that he went back on every assurance and agreement, every understanding word he spoke when she explained how direly she needed their children to be out of the path of the war? It had been a line in the sand gouged by desperate hands. Hotaru has lost so many of her children to war. He knew this intimately, and yet within hours had willingly signed up another for the same fate. This is more than her he has failed. The poor child to be born of this agreement, one that may no longer even work, is now destined to be dragged into the ugliest parts of the coming nightmare. There are so many feelings to follow, cascading like rocks in a landslide; that he has chosen to intentionally stand against Nate, that his foolhardy bargain has now signed him up to the inevitability of trying to kill people like their husband without even the benefit of Nate's survival at the end. It is like hearing the death knell come for her own child once more, and Hotaru simply...can't.
Perhaps they have made her too soft. Maybe she has shown her belly too many times, made them forget that she is iron and scale and bloodied bone, no soft mistress to be kept at home to entertain them. Maybe it was herself that had lulled away, softening sharp words and blunting finely-honed edged. Whatever the cause, as that fleece is pulled back to reveal the wolf's fur beneath, it feels like freedom. Like shackles unfolding from her wrists, allowing her to raise a hand that would have never struck against a loved one before. And all at once there is a clarity in her rage. The eye of the storm. So it was to be hers after all.
Her hand moves to her waist, where the dagger Sunjata had given her always hangs. A gift of apology now tainted forever. Her hand grips the hilt, her bloodied palm smearing over the beautiful metal, and in one motion she rips it free and springs for Sunjata.
Lightning coats her skin as she shoves her free palm up towards his chin, hoping to slam his teeth together and daze him, and like a striking snake she aims the dagger for his thigh to try and plunge it in. He had asked her to use it on him once, had thrown it back in her face that she hadn't taken the opportunity he'd presented that day. Well, she may be late to that particular invite, but Hotaru intends to deliver now. All the while she snarls, hair lifting as she vainly hopes that her lightning will find some gap in his armor if the knife does not. "FUCK YOU!" It roars through her chest like thunder, lightning crackling and shrieking in a cloud around her. And for once the girl who had always cried when anger took her under does not feel a single tear in her eye. In fact, if the dagger has met its mark, she hopes to twist it, to make him feel a minuscule amount of the pain he has inflicted on her in mere moments.
HOTARU
