the ghost of all you’ve loved and lost

I can say with great certainty that I didn’t know what love was

Dawn has just broken when she steps through the portal and onto the sands of the Port. Though the sun is barely rising, the heat is omnipresent, and the first thing she does is divest herself of her layers to place inside her bag. Though she hadn’t wanted to reveal her pregnant belly at all (unaware that news had reached them, and that her secret was little more than a daydream now) the heat had forced her into her most temperate linen dress, which shaped gently around her navel. Temperature was difficult these days, a side-effect Hotaru had yet to experience with any of her prior pregnancies. As such her hair is lifted and tied above her nape, allowing the meager airflow to caress the skin there.

She’s terrified.

Not of retribution or judgment. Jail or banishment. Hotaru has faced both in her years, and they have never held her long. But she’s so scared of seeing them again. It’s why she’d asked Deimos to accompany her the last time - scared of what she might do, should their paths cross unexpectedly. Would she weep? Beg for them to take her back? Scream and cry, rail against them, ask them why they didn’t fight? Why they moved on so easily, after claiming they loved her equally when she knew it was a lie?

She still loves them. She thinks she always will. And that love gives them access to vulnerable parts of her she can’t defend. That’s what truly scares her. The fact that they have the power to hurt her in ways she can’t hurt them in return.

Still, she is no coward. She stands there, frozen in idyllic, picturesque form against the watercolor skies and the early morning waves. Waiting to be found.

until I knew what it was not
 

HOTARU

// it's not enough that you're wrestling yourself
but your friends talk shit while you're going through hell //

A letter from Morgan, expecting Hotaru in the morning. It’s late when it’s received, but these days Sunjata’s sleeping is hit or miss. Some days he sleeps like the dead, others? He can’t quite bring himself to rest, not even with the comfort and help of Nate. So he’s awake when the letter arrives, awake when he ensures that Kamaria is to be taken care of, before he and Nate set off for the portal in the wee hours of dawn, the hues of pinks and golds that glimmer through the break of morning clouds.

It’s a beautiful day, yet all Sunjata can feel is apprehension, sorrow, anger, hurt. And it’s there that he finds himself standing beside Nate, hands shoved in his pockets, the slight darkening of his skin where the bruises sit as they begin to fade away, and the quiet simmering pinpricks of betrayal through the Attuned that Nate would feel despite how he dampens it. Hotaru, too, would feel it given how unaware he is of her change.

And so it’s that which has him quietly strewing, hands in his pockets clenching into fists, swallowing against the burn in his throat. And when she steps through, pausing to be found, Sunjata finds himself stilling more. Perhaps he had assumed she simply wouldn’t show, perhaps he had hoped she would arrive with Deimos whom he’d banned from his shores. Perhaps he’d hoped that it would be far more frustration and rage and anger in the face of seeing her.

But instead? Instead it’s bitterness, betrayal, hurt grown tenfold as he scans her, spies a bump that is unhidden, on full display, and part of him wonders if it had been her effort to move on from their lives just as they had tried to move on themselves.

He steps forward, unable to keep the dragon plates from appearing along his shoulders, perhaps some semblance of trying to protect himself from her, to protect against getting caught in her orbit once more. His trust is flimsy nowadays, and the Flood can’t afford to continue making his mistakes. And so he is guarded, shielding himself in the ways he knows how, gaze dark as he moves toward her — unable to bring himself to touch her, wondering if Nate can bring himself to instead.

“We need to talk.” It comes out deep, hoarse, aching in the way his throat is still raw — pained even more by seeing the state of her. And if she’s come this far to see them, he hopes she’ll continue to follow them to their destination.

// you said it feels like you're swimming through mercury
and every night you think you're gonna die in your sleep //

SUNJATA

// It's not enough that I'm running on empty
I had to go and run out while I had you in the car with me //

It is one thing rehearse something in your thoughts, to let it consume your waking moments, to try and gauge and school your emotions. To play pretend. It’s easy to be neat, to feign something rational, to bury the white hot anger in the deepest pets of him and stifle it.

It is another thing entirely to be confronted by the moment. To have it actually happen, to have time to stew on it.

As the sun rises, and they make their way to the port, all Nate has summoned is anger, more than he’d thought he could feel. More than should be able to contain, really. He knows it spills over to Sunjata, just as he feels the slivers of betrayal sink into him from the attuned.

They stand shoulder to shoulder, Nate a hard line at Sunjata’s side. Pemota is a faint, glittery suggestion far behind them, close enough if she is needed, but knowing she is not wanted. As soon as Hotaru steps through the portal, he twitches, shifts on his feet, his gaze moving over her quickly. It shouldn’t be possible for his frown to grow more severe, but it does.

Stepping ahead of Sunjata, Nate let’s his shoulders drop a little bit, let’s his stance widen. Reaches into his pocket and grabs a cigarette and a light. Let’s the rough voice wash out around him while he flicks the match, lights the smoke, inhales. Postures with violence, so he can ignore the pain that twinges suddenly in his chest, that he knows his husband will feel as well.

“Y’gonna come nice?” He asks, softer than seems right. In a gesture that seems to almost pain him, Nate jerks his head behind them. He has his own reasons for not wanting his hands on her, if they can avoid it, great.

NATE

did goodbye mean letting go?

It hurts so much worse than she thought it ever possibly could. Atlas is not there to help tether her, to mitigate the emotional burden. There is only her, and what has that ever amounted to in the past? At first she confuses Sunjata's emotions for her own, so similar they must be, and her face turns slightly away in a twitching retreat when she realizes it's not. Attunement is still new to her, its abilities fledgling in her grasp, and Hotaru hates that it means she cannot fully hide herself from him if he cares enough to look. Grief, betrayal, regret - all of it upheld by an undercurrent of love so bittersweet it makes her teeth ache.

Part of her wants to rejoice over how worn and weary they look. She doesn't - or perhaps can't. Hotaru knows she looks the same, pregnancy making her wan instead of glowing in these rough early months. She faces them bravely all the same, quietly accepting their various forms of armor against her. As quiet and passive as they've likely ever seen her. There's no hiding her own aching hurt from Sunjata, but the least she can do is hide it from her face.

Both are given brief moments of eye contact. She can't bear anything longer. It reminds her of Frey, lounging on the rock wearing irises that belong to both of them, and how if it hadn't been for Remi's presence and the sexual allure of the deity it would have broken what little remains inside her. The sound of their voices echoing one after the other is another type of hurt. Exclusionary, unified. Aching all over with the way she craves to hear more despite how bitterly angry and hurt she is. As if her heart as ever listened. As if her desires have ever mattered.

"I'm not here to fight," she assures, voice soft and as devoid of emotion as she can make it, though that hold is tenuous at best. Stepping forward makes her knees feel like they'll give out, but they hold her upright no matter how everything else screams in rejection of the idea. Hovering outside of their boundaries which she allows herself to estimate much larger than others, she waits silently for them to show her the way to wherever it is they want to do this.

and did letting go mean forever?
 

HOTARU

// it's not enough that you're wrestling yourself
but your friends talk shit while you're going through hell //

The pregnancy is something Sunjata wasn’t aware of, and it only tacks onto his senses of betrayal and upset. But his gaze tears from her quickly in response to the readjustment from Nate, clinging to the sharp pieces of anger that feel like pinpricks after your arm has fallen asleep and it’s starting to wake up. There’s content in it, in that both of them feel the same, but his gaze only shifts because of the way Nate seems to move from standing beside him, shoulder to shoulder, to step ahead of him.

Sunjata doesn’t move, half protected by Nate – though whether it’s due to the Attuned’s feelings or the fear of what might happen, Sunjata isn’t sure. All he knows is he can’t dare to get close yet – he couldn’t make himself if he wanted to, the hard lines of his pain are swallowed largely behind a mask – a mask that Hotaru would likely be able to see the cracks in if she looked hard enough.

He supposes it’s a good thing they can barely look at one another.

Nate’s soft voice rises, something in him shifting in confusion, wondering how the voice could’ve been so soft when the sensation he feels burning the bond between them was so full of hurt. But he doesn’t ask, instead, letting his gaze flicker across Hotaru once more as she offers her own quiet answer. “Good.” Sunjata says instead of ‘oh, not this time?’ or ‘can we trust your word after everything?’ But there’s time. Time to ask those questions.

So he turns, sharply on his heel, gaze finding Pemota and clinging to the starwhal’s starlight as if it might soothe his jagged pieces. And he begins to guide them – toward the newly renovated jail, because he’s sure as hell not bringing them home where Kamaria is. He can’t bring her to the Slagveld or the Wren Society – both of them still broken and falling apart in places, and despite what Sunjata thinks of Hotaru and how deep the sense of betrayal hits him, he’s always known deep down that a child was innocent of their parent’s crimes.

It’s to the jail he heads, luckily not a long walk from the Port, but long enough to walk past the closed up Slagveld, burned and blackened in the light of dawn. Long enough to walk past the Wren Society in a similar state, with broken windows jagged and sharp points of the glass sitting in their frames.

They make it, Sunjata holding the door open for her and Nate to enter as well as Pemota if she wished to – Haai finally returning to his side to slip in along with them, and Sunjata nods to one of the rooms with a chair (an interview room, as much as one in Caido could be), and gestures for her to sit, to make herself comfortable. Something tells him they’ll be here a while.

// you said it feels like you're swimming through mercury
and every night you think you're gonna die in your sleep //

SUNJATA

// It's not enough that I'm running on empty
I had to go and run out while I had you in the car with me //

Nate’s voice is somehow even quieter when he sighs out a “Sure Ru.” at the same instant Sunjata speaks, his brows lifting and his gaze slipping to the side for a moment. She does step forward to follow them though, Nate’s eye not slipping from her again, not now with how close she is.

It takes until they reach the Slagveld for Nate to win the argument with himself, deciding he could grab Hotaru if they needed, if she tried to run. He thinks she knows better, thinks it has to mean something that she’s come of her own volition, thinks he doesn’t really give a shit what if it does or not. Anger blots out nearly everything else out, and what it misses is covered by an ache instead, pain he won’t accept.

The prison seems the best place for whatever they’re about to do, Nate following dutifully after his husband, even if he frowns at the room they enter, frowns harder when Pemota slips in after them, even if she does stick uncharacteristically to Sunjata. As soon as the door closes, Nate shifts, pacing back and forth until Sunjata has settled, his gaze trained on Hotaru.

“So.” He says, offering a chance that he doesn’t want to, a moment before he says anything to let her try and explain herself.

NATE

did goodbye mean letting go?

Much as she’d like to defend herself or perhaps snipe back, she doesn’t have the energy or desire to. She is simply tired. Aching and regretful. Distant and hurt. Looking at them makes the glass she feels trapped behind shatter into shards; so she doesn’t do it. There’s a benefit to the distant feeling, though she wouldn’t venture to call it numbness with how everything inside her still feels chafed raw. Like her soul has been rubbed down with a scouring pad.

Instead she follows in their wake, utterly silent. Eyes never straying from the path ahead even as they wind past the Slagveld. The jail is certainly new, and Hotaru can almost hear Deimos’ sharp warnings, but she can’t afford to let his worries become her own. Perhaps she should worry about her own glazed over emotions. Everything feels dreamlike though, and she doesn’t want to have to feel the hurt anymore.

She sits easily enough once they’ve entered a room, crossing her ankles because doing anything more is too much discomfort on her belly. Nate is the only one to speak - if a singular pointed word counts as speaking much of anything. Hotaru folds her hands in her lap, idly rubbing the linen between her fingertips to feel something. Anything. Her gaze is vacant between the two of them, staring at the wall - at least her head is not bowed. It’s the only middle ground Hotaru feels comfortable with.

“I didn’t set the fire.” Truth, if twisted perhaps. “I don’t even possess the magic to do so.” They know of her lightning, but even that scorches and warps instead of burns. That had been entirely Deimos’ power, masterful and unstoppable. “I told Deimos of the Advocates, yes. And I went to find him when I realized he might do something to it; I even ordered everyone out by using my own bracelet, though you would have to find them to confirm I did.” Truth again - nobody had been harmed, and Hotaru had seen to that by ordering everyone out. She’d stood alone in that moment in the Slagveld, Deimos concealed and overlooked. “I left Atlas to guard the door in case they tried to come back in.” Finally her expression cracks, a grief like a raging storm cresting on her featured, twisting them into gnarled, blackened crevices of pain. Hands fist the fabric in her lap, shoulders caving inward. They shake minutely, eyes squeezed shut as she fights her own increased emotional sensitivity to keep some sort of composure in front of them. She doesn’t want them to know how bad it hurts. Doesn’t want to see the proof of how little they fucking care. Deimos’ words had been hard enough to bear. Witnessing it firsthand will surely kill her.

“By time I found him the fire had already blocked the stairwell and I had to follow him out the window. And then somebody killed Atlas - so I tried to kill them in return.” That is the raw truth, unashamed of her response, and her eyes open slowly to stare at her white knuckles. “Was I angry and hurt when I was here? Yes. Did it occur to me to let it burn? Yes. But I have no magic that could have stopped it even if I wanted to.” No incantations and mastery over water or air. Only violence in the form of lightning from the heavens. “That is my statement.” Because if they want to treat this in an official capacity, Hotaru will do the same. Devoid of feeling. Tucked away in a shell where they can’t hurt her, where nobody can.

and did letting go mean forever?
 

HOTARU

// it's not enough that you're wrestling yourself
but your friends talk shit while you're going through hell //

Pemota sticks to him, as does Haai and he wonders if that’s because of his volatility or simply because Nate’s ensured he stays away from calming him. But they settle, Sunjata remains standing on the opposite side of the table, his gaze torn between watching her and tearing away, especially as the story begins.

He hates everything about this. The fact they have to do this in the first place. But Hotaru dives right in, Sunjata’s jaw working the entire time she speaks. But he tacks down some mental questions, waiting until she’s done, waiting until her statement is solidified – some part of him wishing he had written it down. Perhaps he’d gotten the parts that mattered in the end.

Her statement finishes and the Attuned is silent, despite the way his emotions sway from rage to sorrow like a whip – one that he’s incapable from stopping pour from him despite his stony face. “You told him where it was.” He begins, his voice sharp before he’s filtering her statement through his head, sucking in a sharp breath, stepping back as horns curl from his head, an arm folding across his chest while the other reaches up to run through his beard. “You don’t have to have fire magic to start fires, Hotaru. Lightning can. Did you forget I’ve been struck by it?” He snaps, his gaze landing back on her, as if he stares at her long enough, her face might answer his question before her words tried to. “So you expect us to believe that you arrived, demanded you needed the room to get everyone to leave, and then just… Found the fire?” He doesn’t believe her, not for a second, because there had been those that she'd scurried out from within the Guild, those that had watched from below as it went up in flame.

As for being angry and hurt? That’s one of the more confusing parts, and there’s a sharp pang of rage that sours him as he steps back toward the table, clawed hands placed on the wood as he leans against it. “I want to know why the fuck it had to happen in the first place.” His throat burns, evident in the slight tremble of his voice. “Deimos already came and threatened me for what I did to you. After you and Nate left. Kamaria was the only thing that stopped him from having his revenge. But he claimed that he and I would be fine if I stayed out of your shit.” There’s a slightly shaky inhale of breath, claws that dig into the wood of the table.

“And I did, Hotaru.” Her name tastes like poison on his tongue and he recoils from it, from the sudden blindsiding sorrow that’s paired with it. “You chose to leave!" His muscles tremble and he tries to tone himself down with another sharp inhale of breath. "We parted on good terms so I thought. I promised you my help if you ever needed it. And I tried to let you go.” His throat is still torn up, causing his voice to crack and break despite the amount of times he hates that it does.

He pushes off from the table, stepping back, folding his arms across his chest to gather some distance between them, to rub at his face again, words failing him as he retreats back into himself.

// you said it feels like you're swimming through mercury
and every night you think you're gonna die in your sleep //

SUNJATA

// It's not enough that I'm running on empty
I had to go and run out while I had you in the car with me //

Oh, he should have been the one to speak first. Nate can feel the tension in his jaw grow into an ache, everything Hotaru does irking at him. The delicate little way she seats herself, the hands folded neatly in her lap, the distant way she doesn’t look at either of them. He hates it, wants to snap and scream and accuse with everything he has. Wants to say, do things that he’s knows he’ll regret, because he knows it will relieve the throbbing tension in his chest.

But he listens instead. He’d offered the moment, like a fucking moron, he was going to be a big boy and deal with it. And seethe through every word that leaves Hotaru’s lips, Nate’s own mouth twisted in a poorly masked sneer.

It’s only when she comes to Atlas that Nate’s lets anything other than emotion flow through the bond, a whip rack of Bullshit snapping at Sunjata. He’s felt what Jack had, knows there had been nothing like grief plaguing her that night. Knows this is a show, like they can be manipulated with crocodile tears.

Sunjata speaks before he does, giving Nate the chance to reach into his pocket for another cigarette, then again for a match. He strikes it without looking away from Hotaru, lights his smoke slowly, so they can all bask in his magic.  “Seems pretty con-fuckin-venient that you thought he might do something right as he was gonna do it.” Nate shoves his words where they fit between Sunjata’s, an endless echo of rage and confusion mirrored between them. “You’re sayin’ he got around you somehow and set fire to the stairs behind your back?”

Pemota bumps her tail against Sunjata’s jaw, a less than gentle reminder to relax as claws press against the table. This is all new still. “This doesn’t feel like something the big guy would come up with on his own though.” Nate’s next complaint drawls out of him, his head tipping towards Sunjata without severing the burning stare levelled towards the hybrid. “He’s a fucking psycho, sure, but not like that.” He tacks his words bat the end of Sunjata’s, connected but not, the ascended not caring if it makes it harder on Hotaru to answer.

“And it seems like you’ve done fine without us.” A hand shoots out to gesture at her, Nate huffing a sound through his nose and sneering. “Remi’s excited about it. And I can’t imagine how Ronin must feel.” Sarcasm drips off his words, sharp enough to cut to bone. Sunjata will feel a deep throb of apology and regret for not having mentioned it before. It had seemed like a mercy then.

NATE

did goodbye mean letting go?

They snap like alligators in an infested pond, but it’s like watching through the thick panes of glass in an aquarium. Distant and meaningless. They can rage all they want, Hotaru has had a lifetime of practice hiding away inside herself before she had the power and ability to defend herself more properly. “Of course I knew - he spent every moment with me while we were on Torchline soil, exactly as I asked him to do. You think I didn’t notice the moment he disappeared?” More truth. Hotaru had been terrified of what might happen should she move through this place without his steadying presence. Though she refuses to look at them, Nate’s addition to the comment is still answered. “He didn’t have to ‘sneak past me’ when I didn’t suspect him by then. I’m not his keeper.” Only his best friend, and Deimos is no dog on a leash for her to eye and scrutinize the way they do to him. “I don’t expect you to believe anything but the worst,” she disagrees flatly, not even shrugging. Accepting of their anger and derision. “But you can ask those I sent out - I arrived alone. Deimos was already inside. Yes, because I told him - I’m not denying that mistake.”

The outburst of emotion slides past her like the muffled buzzing of bees. Deimos’ threats aren’t her own, and their attacks against him likely would only raise his brow. As much as she’d like to defend him instinctively, there’s no point in wasting her energy. This is purely political. Keep it that way. It’s the mantra that keeps her going. “You don’t think hearing about the Advocates would have pissed him off?” That he wouldn’t break his vow for that? Hotaru is surprised Deimos hasn’t burned the Kraai yet frankly. “Why should I have to be interrogated for motives of another person I tried to stop? Someone who has already given his admission to starting it to his own Warden no less?” And this is what baffles her. Are they simply too scared to confront Deimos himself? Or did they just bring her here under the guise of a trial only to hurl their abuse at her, blaming her alone for the fire because she’s some sort of monster? As if they hadn’t shattered her just as fully.

Until, of course, they decide to make things personal. Not that Hotaru didn’t expect it. She’d hoped, but they’d been feeble at best. Her jaw feathers beneath the creaking of her gritted teeth, trying to hold it together. “We left on good terms. Until I was told I was all but forgotten, that you were living up your lives euphorically without me in it, days after you tried to claim how important I was. How I wasn’t loved any less, that I wasn’t a fun side bit. Nothing but lies.” There is only the softest hiss to her words, teeth practically cracking as she fights for civility and composure. Until Nate. Her eyes are fire as they turn to him, the hands in her lap piercing into her palm, pinpricks staining her dress. “Funny how children seem to be byproducts of meeting Gods, huh? Only mine is a natural accident from the nature of my Attuning, and not from gambling other people’s lives.” It’s spat, her child a subject she cannot back down from. “If you think I would move on as easily as you two - and with a gay and married man no less - then you’re delusional. For all Remi’s excitement we’re certainly not in love.” Then she rips her gaze away and back to the wall, biting the edges of her tongue so the pain can bring some clarity. It stings to know Remi had told him, but it’s not like it makes much of a difference in how they’ll treat her.

and did letting go mean forever?
 

HOTARU

// it's not enough that you're wrestling yourself
but your friends talk shit while you're going through hell //

It’s a difficult tight rope to walk – one that has his shifts at war within him. The prey that want to simply hide away, to make it all go away in the face of the challenge versus the predators that want nothing more than to lash out, than to target the anger that brims under his skin. He’s already let it slip a few times, has already tried to retract a few times, tried to let himself calm down. “Of course I don’t believe you.” He says sharply. “Somehow you were there before the fire but also weren’t?”

But he needs a moment, a second to pause, Pemota’s tail bumping into him and being a physical reminder to step back, to retract, to gather himself again as he stares not at Hotaru but at the marks he’s left in the table, his arms folding across his chest, the claws pressing against the skin of his tattooed arms with just shy of the pressure needed to draw blood.

“Because regardless of what you think, Hotaru, you aren’t innocent in this.” He answers her gruffly, muffled as its grit between his teeth. But nothing, nothing of this holds a candle to what she says next.

Sunjata wonders if he’s ever felt anything like it – the blatant betrayal, the blatant lies that have been spun around and around him without his knowledge, dragging him deeper into what to believe just as he had when his father had been around, lurking behind every corner ready to strike. But he’s done letting people try and tell him what to believe. He’s done trying to fit himself somewhere in the middle when he knows that despite the things he’s done, he deserves to be able to trust himself at the end of the day.

Gods is he tired of being manipulated again and again.

It’s blinding and even he shies away from it as it pierces him, a sudden sharp pang of agony that bleeds like an open wound from his side of the bond. His wings flare out, knocking into a stack of papers off to the side, spilling them over into a small river on the desk adjacent to the one Hotaru sits at. “Who fucking said that?” It’s a sharp growl of demand in his tone, claws digging in tight as if he’s aiming to restrain himself. Which, truthfully, he is.

Otherwise he thinks he’ll do something he absolutely will regret.

“Who fucking said?!” He repeats, not caring or noticing if the iron on his tongue is real or if it’s a phantom of what he wishes was there. “Days after? Days? That’s fucking bullshit. Nate left not long after you. And I was alone for over a month.” He’s likely divulging too much information – if that voice of his father inside him has anything to say about it.

So he withdraws, wings trembling from where they flare, his gaze shifting into the slit pupils of his dragon shift as if he’s at war to prevent himself from fully shifting. “You know what, that doesn’t even fucking matter. You should know better, Hotaru. You who were a Queen who knows what it’s like to rule and keep on a face of normalcy even when it feels like your world is fucking ending. All to keep face and remain strong.” He sucks down a sharp breath, one that nearly has him whining as it slips against his raw throat.

It’s the most use it’s gotten in weeks.

But that? That paired with the realization of Remi being the father? Paired with getting his bargain thrown back into his face again and again as if he didn’t spend every moment thinking about it when he saw his daughter's face? Paired with Hotaru's Attunement? He doesn’t need to express the way he feels, for Haai curls around his feet to keep him rooted in place, growling with teeth bared right at Hotaru, while every single muscle in Sunjata’s body trembles in his attempt to keep him there.

And there’s that part of him that’s always been his father that pours his hurt and his rage in a whirlwind of a storm down the bond straight for Hotaru like an arrow, hoping it pierces the mark. And given that she’s attuned? Well, well. Among the flurry of agony and rage, his voice is deeper – accented thicker, heavier with the Korofi tones in this way, weaving and wrapping around the sensation he sends her way. How fucking dare you. He begins, swallowing against the blood in his mouth, his gaze snapping up to her face. So all this was, was you reacting over hurt feelings based off of lies, to show up and do nothing before or after Deimos started setting the fires? You don’t leash him but you couldn’t get him to stop?

// you said it feels like you're swimming through mercury
and every night you think you're gonna die in your sleep //

SUNJATA

// It's not enough that I'm running on empty
I had to go and run out while I had you in the car with me //

“Why the fuck should we believe you?” Nate sounds nearly as hoarse as Sunjata is, a fact that doesn’t stop him from screaming, leaning over the table just so he can rage more effectively in her face. “You’re a fucking liar!” Nothing thats come out of her mouth so far has made sense, has cracked through the haze of defensive anger swaddling Nate. “Deimos was already inside? How?! If you kicked everyone out after?”

Honestly, Nate could give a fuck about her words, about what she has to say about anything. “And who told him about the Advocates Hotaru? Who put the fucking idea in his head?” A hysterically angry laugh leaves Nate, his head thrown back as the sound scrapes out of him. “Yea, it sounds like you tried real fucking hard to stop him.” He steps around the table, coming close and then stopping, fists clenched at his side. “Does it look like we’re in fucking Halo? Are you talking to the fucking Warden? Deimos might be guilty, but you’re the fucking monster who put all this shit in motion.”

Nate can feel it, can feel himself getting to the point where thought simply stops, where it’s replaced by a trembling, uncontrollable rage. He draws back, straightening up and pulling on the smoke between his lips until it’s burnt down to the filter in some vain attempt to not do something he’ll regret. Stepping back, Nate turns his back to the hybrid, rubbing his mouth and taking the chance to look at Sunjata, his brows furrowed.

It’s almost enough for him to take a breath, to pull himself back together, except... they were living euphorically? He turns slowly, while Sunjata flares his wings. “Are you fucking delusional?” Right up until the last word his voice is a hiss, his fist coming down on the table to emphasize his last word with a crack, very nearly buckling the abused wood. “We talked. In the Climb. Days after. That was euphoric?” But no, this was never about them, was it? It was all about her, her hurt feelings. “Fuck you. Fuck you.”

Sunjata’s rage silences Nate, though his face stays twisted. He’d expected this, he’d already closed himself off to the hurt as much as he could. This was what people did, they hurt you, they reach in and they try to dirty things they have no right to. He knows that. But to feel his husbands reaction to it, to feel the pain there, it makes him tremble and quake like a child again.

“You did move on! We got left behind, and then you fucking come back in to drive a fuckin’ knife in you hypocritical, vindictive bitch!” He tries to swallow back the venom, tries to not let his bellowing words drown out Sunjata’s silent ones, but he can’t stop himself. “You got exactly what you wanted, and it didn’t matter who you fucking hurt. Doesn’t matter that you fucked us up, doesn’t matter that you might’ve fucked up a gay, married man’s relationship, you got your baby, and you got your revenge.” He claps sarcastically, the hand that had struck the table already blotted with silvery bruises. “Congratu-fuckin-lations.”

NATE

did goodbye mean letting go?

She grits her teeth, because there are only so many secrets she's willing to reveal. "Because he's capable of being invisible," she grinds out, eyes flinty where they stare at the wall. Refusing to explain how, to betray Deimos' abilities or items. They can both tell her she's at fault, but she hasn't once tried to claim she's innocent. There is nothing she is trying to avoid. "I know I'm not innocent, but I didn't 'plant' anything in his head. I was drunk when I told him. Ask the bartender who served us that night, I'd say, but clearly you don't care about the fucking truth. Only about making me the monster." Her breath is beginning to come fast and shallow, fury shaking her apart, and the blood only grows in the linen threads of her dress as her nails pierce deeper to keep her head above water. "You're twisting my words. If I wanted to pretend that I was innocent, you think I would have come here willingly at all? Alone? That I'd be owning up to any portion of it in the first place? You don't make any sense." If she had really wanted to seem innocent, she would have taken Morgan up on her willingness to go to bat for Hotaru, to force a trial overseen by both lands and rulers. Force them to reveal the flimsy nature of their witness. But no. She knew they were only going to rant and scream, so she'd decided to do this privately - airing dirty laundry isn't her style.

They both spit and howl after her words, and she stares resolutely forward, refusing to allow herself to shake with trauma and dark memories. They don't deserve her fear, her hurt. She has already given them everything she possibly could. There's nothing left here but hollow spaces and ice. "Who do you think?" It comes out flat. "Deimos did. And what reason did I have to doubt him?" He's her best friend, the man she's known a lifetime longer than either of the ones before her. Even if he had lied, it's nothing she can change now. "And evidently I meant the days after you chose Sunjata," she can't help but snap at Nate, even though the loudness of her voice is practically a whisper compared to their rage. Her composure and honesty is all she has left, though Hotaru isn't sure they deserve either at this point.

Composure that breaks as Sunjata forces his feelings down the bond like a knife, and Hotaru hisses like an angry cat, slamming down barriers between their minds in self defense. It hurts, and she hates that it hurts, because it's his own fault. And how dare he get to hurt when he has everything and she has nothing? "Do I look like I can fucking stop him? Seriously?" With offensive-based magic and a fourth of his size physically? Her only leverage is their history and friendship; any other idea is pathetically hilarious. Ripping her hands free of her dress she makes a wounded growling noise, half-feral and far from used to the instincts her shift has given her. "You wanna know how I fucking feel?!" The chair squeals in protest as she shifts on the spot, mountain lion form forcing it backwards because she knows she can't fight back when her own Attunement is still budding, bond still one-sided. A shrieking roar escapes her fanged maw, right at Sunjata, tail thrashing and claws gouging at stone. On the tail end of the noise is the endless, voidlike gravity of her emotions that she shoves right back down the bond.

A grief unlike anything they know firsthand, over Atlas. Because losing a loved one, a family member, it doesn't fucking compare to losing a soulmate. He can't deny her grief when it's staring him right in the face. Then the roiling turmoil of persistent love for them that she can't bleed out of herself, and hurt hurt hurt hurt, god it hurts, they never loved her and they moved on, to each other as she'd always feared. She didn't matter, it was all lies, and she'd believed it all over again after sharing everything with them and handing her weaknesses over on a silver platter. Loss, loneliness, and a disgust for herself so deep it seems like it grew with her in the womb. A disgust that she couldn't be what they wanted. All of it howling and sharp. An entire season worth of laying sleepless in her bed, missing them, while they reconciled and shared smiles and laughter to contrast her tears. And he will find no guilt, no shame, as he might cruelly expect. Only a heart far beyond broken; fragments ground repeatedly into smaller shards until they're nothing but dust.

Only when she begins to feel her threads of control unspool does she shift back to human form, tears sudden and fierce on her angrily twisted face, cheeks hot with temper as she quakes where she stands. Her eyes turn to Nate, burning cold. "I never wanted a baby with anyone but you!" it's screamed from a throat that's raw from restraining itself. "This is no gift, it's a fucking curse, you think I'd ever seek this out intentionally?" The latter half is lobbed accusingly at Sunjata, who knew exactly why Hotaru was so terrified to have kids again. Why she would have never done it with anyone but them, because she didn't trust anybody else nearly enough. "But you can paint me into some homewrecking bitch if that helps you sleep at night. Blame it all on me, when I didn't even set fire to the place, just so you don't have to suffer any fucking consequences or feel any guilt." Whirling back to Sunjata, breathing heavily, she wipes her bloody palms on her dress. "If you aren't willing to believe me, then I'm sure as hell not believing you when you say they were lies. Now are we done here, Governor?" The title is spit like something foul, and her hands ball at her sides as she forces her gaze away from them once more, trying to regain lost ground as she counts her heartbeats in her head.

and did letting go mean forever?
 

HOTARU

// it's not enough that you're wrestling yourself
but your friends talk shit while you're going through hell //

Nate’s points are validating to Sunjata, welcoming the interjections where they come in, drawing silent for his husband’s voice to fill the holes where he needs to breathe, where he needs to try and gather his head, where he needs to try and figure out how to pace himself. Already he’s tasting blood, already he’s letting it consume him in all the ways that terrify him and he can’t stop.

Invisibility from Deimos, however, is a feat that has a gear whirling in his mind – one that has him shoving it down on the backburner of his mind, because there’s so much more bullshit to wade through. “How does it feel to have your words twisted?” He snaps so hard his teeth clack together with the force of him shutting his jaw, bypassing much of it clearly for the fact that he can investigate it later. He only hopes the emotions that sour him don’t let him forget to. “I don’t know what games you play. All I know is I can’t trust you.” It was a two way street and he supposes Hotaru lost trust in them a long time ago in order for this to have happened.

It’s surprising even to himself that the fist on the table doesn’t make him flinch as it otherwise would have in this state.

The mention of Deimos telling her the lies is not surprising – not when it’s followed up with the fact that she seems to spit venom at Nate – chose ringing a sharp bell in his mind, one that has him recoiling before he explodes completely. You patronized me for making a choice for him and yet? Yet he’s not allowed to make his own in choosing me? He growls through the bond, his fury a wildfire uncontained – he can feel the way Nate’s side of the bond trembles and quakes.

And honestly? Nate’s right. She moved on. They both made their choices, and just because she didn’t like Nate’s choice didn’t mean that it had to come to this.

But his arrow hits the mark, he hears the way Hotaru hisses and burns while Nate’s voice carries, and Haai keeps Sunjata rooted to the spot – for the moment, of course. Because chairs are squealing across the floor and suddenly Hotaru’s a mountain lion and Sunjata has a few heartbeats of a moment to glare all of his pain and hurt at the feline form of their ex-wife. He trembles with his restraint before the first hints of her hurt lash out back at him, as if he doesn’t know what it’s like to lose a soulmate.

It has him twitching as he moves, grabbing the lantern at the first deluge of her emotions – Sunjata focusing as much as he can to try and keep the brunt of it to a minimum. I don’t know what it’s like? He hisses mentally, opening up a sliver to shout it back to her, dumping the lantern on the table and all it’s mangled and warped pieces. She would know. She should know.

And he steps back, because he needs the space – but it isn’t until he can’t focus on blocking her out more that the pain and hurt and the fact she thinks it was all a lie that burns and chafes against him. And he can’t handle it anymore – he shifts. His own feline form overtaking him, sharp teeth bared back at the mountain lion, a vibrating growl that slips from his throat, claws screeching against the stone of his feet.

His ears pin against his skull, haunches tensing, but he lets her lash out until he physically can’t anymore. There’s a snarl just after she mentions consequences and something overtakes Sunjata, something that he can’t stop. And gods he’s so lucky for Nate and Haai to be there to stop him – for Pemota to try and calm him that keeps him stuck and rooted in place, snarling and growling as if there wasn’t anything left in him except for his own repeatedly breaking heart. As if the wounds sustained to it weren’t already torn open enough as is.

Consequences!? He snarls. His blinding fury making him tremble and break, fracture and crumble. Consequences?? His voice cracks. She’s shifted back so he shifts back too, held back only by Nate. But the shift has the blood coating his mouth again, dipping into the corners of his lips, but he doesn’t care. The back of his plated hand comes to swipe at it, smearing the blood half along his cheek, sucking in a ragged breath. Acid flares in the back of his throat only burning the pain within it further, igniting more of it as he shatters again and again.

Why didn’t you fucking ask us?! He shouts down the bond, recalling a memory that’s dredged up from the moment he had told Hotaru and Nate of Kamaria and it stills him, it has him pushing off of Nate until his back is against the wall though he still keeps his eyes on her, brows pinching in all of his hurt. “You didn’t talk to us. You didn’t trust us.” He pauses only to spit the blood from his mouth, before he shakes his head.

He’s never been great with words, but gods does he try it here, his voice dying out on him in a whisper of strained nothing that he pairs with the attuned bond if only so it isn’t lost. “No, we’re not done here yet. What did you expect me to do? You wanted your space. You said this wouldn’t work. That you couldn’t make it work. You left.”

// you said it feels like you're swimming through mercury
and every night you think you're gonna die in your sleep //

SUNJATA