Hotaru
nothing's fair in love and war
The micro-expressions that he unwittingly lets slip makes up for all the drama, pouting, and dug in heels that it took to get him here. Hotaru is positively high on the sense of being right. It lends a smugness to her closed-lipped smile that she doesn't bother burying. Beneath it simmers a happiness that she is reluctant to examine too closely lest it dissipate like fog beneath early morning sun. No, right now she just wants to enjoy watching Deimos relax, forget all her worries and heartache and merely exist for a moment. With both their heads tilted back, their smiles are better concealed, but the acoustics of the room makes it easy to hear him when he speaks. A twisted, exaggerated pout molds over her own lips, tilting her head right-way up to angle her distaste at him. "What a waste to have them there. No no no. I have to have them." And what she wants, she gets. By force of might if not nature. Hot springs in a volcanic climate? Boring. Wasteful. Hot springs in the tundra? Magnificent. Groundbreaking.
Also nostalgic and self-indulgent on her part, but Deimos certainly already knows that.
His muttered response has a giggle eeking out between her lips, like a bubbling popping, unexpected and far too sweetly sincere for her liking. She is proud of this place she has made, the good she is doing. Not that her notions of grandeur and destruction ever fully disappear of course, but she is as tied to the idea of helping people as firmly as Deimos. She merely orchestrates it in a different way these days. Starting small, baby steps in the wake of her ripped and shredded ties.
Distracted as she is, there is absolutely no measure of defense against the veritable wave of mud that is hurled more than splashed at her. It splatters against her shoulders and neck, half her cheek and exposed throat, and a strangled shout of surprise rings against the walls as her arms jerk in a belated response that the mud itself slows to an impotent jerk. "Deimos!" she squawks, offense offset by her dumbfounded laughter. Sitting upright, she grabs a handful of the mud herself, flinging it his way without a moment more of hesitation, eyes glinting in foxlike slants. Hotaru may not have mastery over the elements the way he does, but at least she has a good throwing arm.
