Darling please, just give us some time, and I swear we'll be alright
For all her awake and alertness, she is still clothed in her robe, and it’s a relief that it’s Morgan at the door in some ways. It’s certainly not a very professional appearance. Then again, these aren’t business hours, as apparent by Morgan’s convoluted answer. Hotaru sips her tea while the woman sits in the opposite chair, feeling peculiarly ill in a way she can’t pin to nerves. The tea at least seems to help in that aspect.
“I’d heard. There was another at the same time - the Wren Society. I...I didn’t know...but he only set the one?” Her voice wavers, confusion clear in the furrow of her golden brow as she sets her cup down in order to brush her fingertips over her lips. A mystery that still stumps her, and which she draws on to lend sincerity to her disturbed expression.
As for Sunjata, that is not a reaction she has to fake. Her skin pales, going white around the nose and mouth as she instinctively tightens her robe around herself, body language closed off and hurt. Ru is silent for a long moment, clearly reluctant. “If I must,” she finally whispers, and reaches for her cup anew though she doesn’t drink from it. Merely holding it, leeching the supportive warmth. “I will try to be concise about the emotional bits,” she affords with a tight smile that’s more of a grimace.
“We were quite close before we were ever together. I told him things nobody but Deimos had ever been privy to before, and he shared the same. We had...confessed, of sorts. And then days later his marriage announcement to a young girl was on the Notice Board. I attended, and kissed him - a petty, hurtful moment for the both of us, though neither party seemed particularly inclined to be married at all. She had her own suitor present as well.” Truly Hotaru had been surprised when Phoebe had not gone off with the man in that moment. In some ways it would have spared all of them pain if she had. “Then he came to me and gave me a gift, alongside his apologies. But he stayed with her all the same, even in our shared misery.” Her long fingers tighten around the cup, grimacing as she takes a slow sip from it. Such old memories that still hurt, and they are not even the worst. “When they divorced I thought...but then he was with another, twice over. In that time I met Nate, and Nate met Sunjata, and they fell in love while I...” fell in love with both of them. Her eyes squeeze shut.
A shaky breath is taken before she can continue. “Then it was the three of us, for some time. Until the sickness came and I was lost to them for seasons. When I returned, Sunjata’s father had been tormenting him, and he tried to get me to leave and visit Deimos here while he took care of it - he did not trust my abilities, and saw me as a weakness he couldn’t risk having. But we didn’t know he’d kidnapped and tortured Nate, and so he issued a challenge before I ever left to stay with Deimos as he’d asked.” And then her husband had been whisked away from her after Sunjata had been pulled over the cliff, and she’d been left standing alone, having been torn from both of them all over again. “Sunjata won his challenge, but disappeared over the cliff with his father. He returned home days later, and we...we...” Her emotions rise in an uncontrolled swell, and her mind blared red alarms all over when it escapes her perfectly trained grasp to end in a broken noise. What the hell is happening to her? One shaking hand rises to cover her face for a moment, refusing to let Morgan see her so clearly until she can get a grip on her own reaction.
“I had many children before Caido. I lost them - all of them - in varying horrific ways. My only son made it here before me, and died a season before my arrival.” It is spoken from beneath her hand, raw and vulnerable, information she has shared with only one man who hadn’t been there to live it alongside her. “Only Sunjata knew of this outside of Deimos and Kiada. He knew how important motherhood was to me, and how scared I was of it. But he had never wanted kids, and I respected that.” Until Nate. Nate who also wanted children. And apparently his desires had been enough to sway Sunjata where her own could not. “He told me Nate wanted them, and that he felt he was ready. We planned a little - Nate being Ascended, we knew we’d have to seek out a God if he were to have a biological child with me. And I made Sunjata swear we would not ask Safrin - because of her hatred of Nate, and her attachment to Sunjata. He agreed, and said the price would be too high.” Ru’s hand drops, and her eyes are red, vessels broken in the whites from restraining unexpected tears as she sips listlessly at the remnants in her cup. “That same night he went to her. She placed a tattoo on his chest, a living one that we now fear she can spy through, and he bargained Nate’s survival in the war for a child. With her.” Her smile is full of teeth, eyes bruised and haunted as they finally turn to Morgan. “And that same night Nate became a Demigod of The Voice, and that agreement was nullified.”
Her cup clinks when it touches the saucer on the table between them, empty and abandoned. She curls into her chair, legs coming up onto the cushion. “I left him first. Tried to convince Nate to be with me, and he left me for Sunjata instead. I came home to Halo, and straight to Deimos.” And that is that. The end of the story - or the one that Morgan needs to hear. “We went to Torchline together, as a vacation of sorts. I couldn’t bear to go alone but I had promised to help rebuild a friend’s business. Then I visited Frey, and came back.” Her shoulder shrugs listlessly, and her expression is lost and unmoored as it lifts to Morgan’s face. Laid bare - conveniently and intentionally so. A necessary sacrifice of her privacy.
“I’d heard. There was another at the same time - the Wren Society. I...I didn’t know...but he only set the one?” Her voice wavers, confusion clear in the furrow of her golden brow as she sets her cup down in order to brush her fingertips over her lips. A mystery that still stumps her, and which she draws on to lend sincerity to her disturbed expression.
As for Sunjata, that is not a reaction she has to fake. Her skin pales, going white around the nose and mouth as she instinctively tightens her robe around herself, body language closed off and hurt. Ru is silent for a long moment, clearly reluctant. “If I must,” she finally whispers, and reaches for her cup anew though she doesn’t drink from it. Merely holding it, leeching the supportive warmth. “I will try to be concise about the emotional bits,” she affords with a tight smile that’s more of a grimace.
“We were quite close before we were ever together. I told him things nobody but Deimos had ever been privy to before, and he shared the same. We had...confessed, of sorts. And then days later his marriage announcement to a young girl was on the Notice Board. I attended, and kissed him - a petty, hurtful moment for the both of us, though neither party seemed particularly inclined to be married at all. She had her own suitor present as well.” Truly Hotaru had been surprised when Phoebe had not gone off with the man in that moment. In some ways it would have spared all of them pain if she had. “Then he came to me and gave me a gift, alongside his apologies. But he stayed with her all the same, even in our shared misery.” Her long fingers tighten around the cup, grimacing as she takes a slow sip from it. Such old memories that still hurt, and they are not even the worst. “When they divorced I thought...but then he was with another, twice over. In that time I met Nate, and Nate met Sunjata, and they fell in love while I...” fell in love with both of them. Her eyes squeeze shut.
A shaky breath is taken before she can continue. “Then it was the three of us, for some time. Until the sickness came and I was lost to them for seasons. When I returned, Sunjata’s father had been tormenting him, and he tried to get me to leave and visit Deimos here while he took care of it - he did not trust my abilities, and saw me as a weakness he couldn’t risk having. But we didn’t know he’d kidnapped and tortured Nate, and so he issued a challenge before I ever left to stay with Deimos as he’d asked.” And then her husband had been whisked away from her after Sunjata had been pulled over the cliff, and she’d been left standing alone, having been torn from both of them all over again. “Sunjata won his challenge, but disappeared over the cliff with his father. He returned home days later, and we...we...” Her emotions rise in an uncontrolled swell, and her mind blared red alarms all over when it escapes her perfectly trained grasp to end in a broken noise. What the hell is happening to her? One shaking hand rises to cover her face for a moment, refusing to let Morgan see her so clearly until she can get a grip on her own reaction.
“I had many children before Caido. I lost them - all of them - in varying horrific ways. My only son made it here before me, and died a season before my arrival.” It is spoken from beneath her hand, raw and vulnerable, information she has shared with only one man who hadn’t been there to live it alongside her. “Only Sunjata knew of this outside of Deimos and Kiada. He knew how important motherhood was to me, and how scared I was of it. But he had never wanted kids, and I respected that.” Until Nate. Nate who also wanted children. And apparently his desires had been enough to sway Sunjata where her own could not. “He told me Nate wanted them, and that he felt he was ready. We planned a little - Nate being Ascended, we knew we’d have to seek out a God if he were to have a biological child with me. And I made Sunjata swear we would not ask Safrin - because of her hatred of Nate, and her attachment to Sunjata. He agreed, and said the price would be too high.” Ru’s hand drops, and her eyes are red, vessels broken in the whites from restraining unexpected tears as she sips listlessly at the remnants in her cup. “That same night he went to her. She placed a tattoo on his chest, a living one that we now fear she can spy through, and he bargained Nate’s survival in the war for a child. With her.” Her smile is full of teeth, eyes bruised and haunted as they finally turn to Morgan. “And that same night Nate became a Demigod of The Voice, and that agreement was nullified.”
Her cup clinks when it touches the saucer on the table between them, empty and abandoned. She curls into her chair, legs coming up onto the cushion. “I left him first. Tried to convince Nate to be with me, and he left me for Sunjata instead. I came home to Halo, and straight to Deimos.” And that is that. The end of the story - or the one that Morgan needs to hear. “We went to Torchline together, as a vacation of sorts. I couldn’t bear to go alone but I had promised to help rebuild a friend’s business. Then I visited Frey, and came back.” Her shoulder shrugs listlessly, and her expression is lost and unmoored as it lifts to Morgan’s face. Laid bare - conveniently and intentionally so. A necessary sacrifice of her privacy.
HOTARU
