ashes to ashes

Aurelia

They can't keep her away from Hotaru for very long. She's the Arbiter, after all. It's her job to oversee this sort of thing, to enact judgement as it should be enacted. Of course, this is all a whole hell of a lot more complicated than any of that. A lot more personal, too, it seems. So Aurelia does her best to pull all of her own loose pieces together. Now would be a terrible time to fall apart, and she expects Hotaru will not be too keen on this visit.

She stands outside of the jailhouse with Sunjata for a few minutes, talking with him quietly so as not to be heard but for the murmur of their voices. He'll be there, a silhouette in the dark, waiting and listening, ready to interfere if something should go wrong.

Aurelia doesn't know if something will or won't, but she's not too arrogant or ignorant to think that Hotaru being in custody makes them all safe. The woman might be dangerous, but she isn't working alone. They know this.

Turning from the governor, Aurelia opens the door and steps through the entryway. Her footsteps are steady and slow as she moves across the stone floor. In these moments, there's silence but for the sound of burning torches on the walls. With a gaze that's dark and almost black from the lighting, she observes the woman who lays in a fetal position in the cell. She kneels down, the daggers along her hips glinting in the light of the flames like bared teeth.

"Did you think you'd seen the last of me? Hotaru."

standing in the ashes of who I used to be

Honey, these arms that once held you are ready to fight

It's a mistake to linger outside her cell, feminine tones hushed and indistinct. Hotaru's nails pierce the pillow in her grasp, stare unblinking and cold. Oh, she knows exactly who it is. It's an easy conclusion. Seren had told Deimos who had relayed it to Hotaru that the woman who had killed Atlas - who had narrowly escaped death at her own hand, the bitch - was the Arbiter of Torchline. If Sunjata refused to be impartial before, why would he stop now? Why not bring in the Arbiter, despite her involvement that night? It is the lingering at the entrance that saves Aurelia from a hand of lightning straight to her heart. It awards Hotaru a chance to simmer, to compartmentalize. There are heavier things weighing in the balance right now, and the cretin isn't worth the extra energy and drama.

Oh, but when the girl enters. Hotaru could laugh for the cliche she tries to employ, confident where she does not deserve to be with how Hotaru had nearly ended her miserable life with a thought.

Turning slowly onto her back to regard the stranger, Hotaru's eyes are icy chips even as her smile is cruel and sharp. "I see my name precedes me. Shame yours doesn't, sweetheart. Even greater shame you lived to make me learn it at all." Sitting up, she spins her legs, shamelessly entering Aurelia's personal space with a dark smirk. "Put your pitiful teeth away darling, before I burn them out of your head. Again." Her own are revealed in a feline snarl, and the static in the room rises in easy display of power that cuts away a moment later as Hotaru stands gracefully and moves to the chair they'd left in her room for such interrogations. She takes it, leaving the Arbiter to find her own damn spot.

"Ask your questions, murderer." The smooth venom of her words is almost kind, delivered on composed queenly vocals as her wrists twists in demand for the woman to continue this pathetic farce.

HOTARU

Aurelia

Aurelia's elbows rest against her knees as Hotaru turns to look at her, and that coldness in her eyes receives nothing more than an unimpressed blink. Where Hotaru could needle away at Sunjata and Nate's wits, plucking at their strings - whether it were to no avail - Aurelia feels nothing for the snake that lies curled up in her cell. Nothing but a strong urge to cut its head from its spine.

Anger builds in her chest just at the sight of Hotaru, the emotion manifesting in a subtle inhale. Teeth? I would rip you apart with my bare hands, Aurelia wants to say, and the words linger on her lips with a fierceness that has them twitching.

"You know my name," she corrects quietly.

For Aurelia, Hotaru is no longer simply Hotaru. She is a manifestation of everything wrong with the world, and if you'd like to narrow it down... she's a manifestation of the one that took Aurelia's father's life. In a way, this makes Hotaru all the more powerful, because without that emphasis... she would seem so very shallow. Unimportant but for the fact that she has a clearcut agenda for destructive vengeance. No, Hotaru is just another snake in the pit. It's the pit itself that is the problem.

Her words mean little, their merits garbled and strangled by Aurelia's conviction even as she hurls them at her with ill-placed confidence. Aurelia moves to stand too, though her motions lack the distinct need to overcompensate for a lowly position.

She's unfettered by the accusation. She is a murderer, it's true, regardless of what she wishes she were instead. She takes a seat afterwards, breathes in quietly, and stares across at Hotaru. "I appreciate your cooperation," she states.

"I'm not going to ask you to start from the beginning. I've read your statement already. So... we'll take a closer look at what happened, but first..." her jaw works a bit harder as she mulls over something. Then, she continues, "in your statement, you said that you came to Torchline with Deimos. You both got drunk at the Hanged Man, where you told him of the Devil's Advocates and what they were, who was in charge of them, so on. He left shortly after, and then you realized where he must have gone. And you rushed to stop him. Does this all sound correct?" She pauses to give Hotaru a chance to answer and add anything on as she saw fit.

"So what is Deimos to you? A friend? Family? What's the... history between you two, if you don't mind my asking?"

standing in the ashes of who I used to be

Honey, these arms that once held you are ready to fight

A blonde brow rises, looking the woman up and down slowly. "Well, don't leave me hanging then. Suspense only goes so far." Because Hotaru doesn't forget a face. It's part of who she is, who she was; a thief, a spy, cunning and powerful. Faces must be remembered if you are to know where all your pawns are on the board.

At least there is no more delay. Her temper is already on a hair trigger, and only her vows and plans for the future keep the lightning at bay. Though as the woman begins speaking, Hotaru can't help the twitch in the corner of her lips. Her relationship with Deimos? Really?

A hum of confirmation is Ru's only reply, waiting for the real question that follows after which prompts a soft laugh. "You aren't entitled to our history," she states plainly, crossing her legs. "Friend, family, yes. Even that does not cover in totality. I've lived nearly a lifetime at his side and his back, and he at mine. His battles and burdens are mine, and the same in reverse." Precisely why he'd burned the Advocates. Sunjata knows this, or at least she thought he did - it's clear much of what she revealed to him didn't stick, considering all he has thrown away or back in her face.

HOTARU

Aurelia

Aurelia doesn't care to explain who she is, to a point where it feels like there's an invisible wall between Hotaru and that answer, which Aurelia doesn't feel like taking down. So she lets the words suspend in the air, lost to the mix of their actions and words. If Hotaru wants to press further about it, she can, but Aurelia's not certain if she wants to say her name just yet.

Entitlement isn't exactly what Aurelia would call what she's feeling but, she makes no remark about that comment as she pulls out her notebook and jots down Hotaru's words. Word. For. Word.

Looking up from it once she's finished, which is fairly quick given that Hotaru hadn't said much, her gaze narrows slightly in both consideration and curiosity. "So, feel free to correct me as I go, if I am wrong. You're very close. I take it there's little that one of you keeps from the other, sharing burdens and all that," she summarizes, swallowing the tension down. With furrowed brows, she tilts her head a bit to one side. "Then, you must have known Deimos' feelings towards Sunjata before all of this. And he must have known that you were upset about Sunjata and Nate..." She turns the pen over in her hand a few times, trailing off, giving Hotaru room to correct the errors if there were any.

"When you.. told him about the Devil's Advocates. What did you think telling him about that was going to accomplish?"

standing in the ashes of who I used to be