my held breath fills the room with blood
hurting in ways I can't describe
“I had seen them, but I missed it with…everything.” Things Seren already knew, but it was a better response than whatever she was currently feeling in her chest at the warning. Gods, her babe would barely be two years old if all went well. Or what passed as well when faced with war. It was better than nothing, and she knew that, but it was a shadow that she knew would be tied to her own moving forward. She did not fear death, murder, war. But she was scared of the choices she would have to make, what she would have to sacrifice. Everything she stood to lose - so much more, now, than ever before.
It is not only a Seren who is shaken as she points out the various uses, but Hotaru cannot - will not - falter in front of the girl. What she’d seen when saying goodbye to Atlas was already enough of a weight. So when the girl’s voice wobbles and her eyes cloy with tears, Hotaru does what any mother would - she pushes away her own feelings, and opens her arms to console the young woman.
A singular arm wraps around narrow shoulders, rocking the both of them slightly where they kneel in the snow. “Of course I will. I would be happy to.” Something with stained glass, beads, wire. Beautiful and memorable, to commemorate a small, short life. “As stronger creatures and predators in our own rights, it is our duty to make their deaths as painless as possible. But their energy becomes ours - it never really dies.” If they had souls, those were cosmic, and went onward to the gods. But their energy, their life-giving force? That passed onward eternally in its own cycle.
It is not only a Seren who is shaken as she points out the various uses, but Hotaru cannot - will not - falter in front of the girl. What she’d seen when saying goodbye to Atlas was already enough of a weight. So when the girl’s voice wobbles and her eyes cloy with tears, Hotaru does what any mother would - she pushes away her own feelings, and opens her arms to console the young woman.
A singular arm wraps around narrow shoulders, rocking the both of them slightly where they kneel in the snow. “Of course I will. I would be happy to.” Something with stained glass, beads, wire. Beautiful and memorable, to commemorate a small, short life. “As stronger creatures and predators in our own rights, it is our duty to make their deaths as painless as possible. But their energy becomes ours - it never really dies.” If they had souls, those were cosmic, and went onward to the gods. But their energy, their life-giving force? That passed onward eternally in its own cycle.
my heart bends and breaks
so many, many times
HOTARU
