I could take all that you love, I could be death from above
Hotaru falls silent, and though the rage still prickles like hot coals under her skin, the embers do nothing more than burn her tongue as she bites down upon it. This isn't her war. These aren't her patrons. This particular betrayal is one that only hurts because of how much she loves Nate. A pain by association. But just as she had forbidden Deimos from taking a pound of flesh from Sunjata when he'd married Phoebe, she knows this is a wound she can't take vengeance for on his behalf. "You didn't even give us a chance to try," she says quietly. Just as he'd done when he'd asked her to go to Halo while he dealt with his father, and see how well that had worked out. "You didn't talk to us. Trust us." Simply made decisions, called it love, and didn't care about the havoc it wreaked.
Nate's hand comes to cradle her, and she turns into it, burying her face in his neck and squeezing her eyes shut as if that can somehow bring her clarity. The tears that don't fall cling to her lashes and smear against his skin. Hotaru clings to her anger, because she can already feel the hollowness closing in, and with that comes an apathy that she can't afford. When that happens, she historically makes decisions that only hurt all the more.
She moves easily with Nate as he pulls them to the ground, legs pulling in and curling up into his embrace. They can sling their own words for a moment. Here, she curls around her stomach, the emptiness there that aches and reminds her that it could have been her child. In more than name, without having to compete with a literal goddess for the title of mother. That dream had been so close, and just as she'd brushed it with her fingertips it had turned to ash. She'd been devoted to keeping them safe this time, protecting them from the war by using her own middle ground between her husbands' sides to try and divert attention away. That has all been stolen. Sunjata's quiet question pulls at her attention, and Hotaru genuinely doesn't know how to respond. Forgiveness is not in her nature, and she has already forgiven him so much. But if she asks him to leave, and Nate wants him to stay, what then?
Instead of answering she shrinks in Nate's arms, arm wrapping around his torso to bring him closer. "I can't make that decision," she tells him in a whisper against his skin, ignoring Sunjata for a moment. "I don't...I'm not a good person, I don't forgive the way you do." She isn't saying this is irreparably broken, can't do that when her mental state is so shaken up, but it's clear in the unspoken words between that it will have to be Nate's call. That she is here for him. Won't abandon him to the hard conversation if he decides he wants to try, but will support him if he asks Sunjata to go. Because Hotaru has always been too loyal to those few who love her for all her flaws, and though she'd sooner demand Sunjata leave for her own sake, she will forsake that potential easing of her pain for Nate.
Nate's hand comes to cradle her, and she turns into it, burying her face in his neck and squeezing her eyes shut as if that can somehow bring her clarity. The tears that don't fall cling to her lashes and smear against his skin. Hotaru clings to her anger, because she can already feel the hollowness closing in, and with that comes an apathy that she can't afford. When that happens, she historically makes decisions that only hurt all the more.
She moves easily with Nate as he pulls them to the ground, legs pulling in and curling up into his embrace. They can sling their own words for a moment. Here, she curls around her stomach, the emptiness there that aches and reminds her that it could have been her child. In more than name, without having to compete with a literal goddess for the title of mother. That dream had been so close, and just as she'd brushed it with her fingertips it had turned to ash. She'd been devoted to keeping them safe this time, protecting them from the war by using her own middle ground between her husbands' sides to try and divert attention away. That has all been stolen. Sunjata's quiet question pulls at her attention, and Hotaru genuinely doesn't know how to respond. Forgiveness is not in her nature, and she has already forgiven him so much. But if she asks him to leave, and Nate wants him to stay, what then?
Instead of answering she shrinks in Nate's arms, arm wrapping around his torso to bring him closer. "I can't make that decision," she tells him in a whisper against his skin, ignoring Sunjata for a moment. "I don't...I'm not a good person, I don't forgive the way you do." She isn't saying this is irreparably broken, can't do that when her mental state is so shaken up, but it's clear in the unspoken words between that it will have to be Nate's call. That she is here for him. Won't abandon him to the hard conversation if he decides he wants to try, but will support him if he asks Sunjata to go. Because Hotaru has always been too loyal to those few who love her for all her flaws, and though she'd sooner demand Sunjata leave for her own sake, she will forsake that potential easing of her pain for Nate.
HOTARU
