Hotaru
Delicately folded inside the jacket, Hotaru’s elegant script clearly spells out Nate’s name on the front of the envelope. Inside is a letter, if he chooses to read it in that moment.
Nate -
I believe this is my last and only chance to say the things I haven’t been able to since I walked away in The Climb. I don’t expect anything from this letter or from you. No changes, or reconciliation, or forgiveness of any sort. It’s not my intention to hurt you any more than I have, but you deserve to have some form of closure, or understanding. At least I hope this will bring something like it.
I did burn the Advocates. Had I not been pregnant, I would have seen no need to lie. Lying and manipulating the story wasn’t something you deserved, nor even Sunjata, for all I have fewer regrets there. But there is nothing I wouldn’t do to ensure the health of my child, regardless of the circumstances of their creation, and I regret…well. Everything, it seems. Too much to write.
For so long I accepted that it was a product of my own involvement, the fact that nobody ever seemed to stay. So I couldn’t let myself feel angry once the dust had settled. Why be angry when it was clearly some fault in me, something lacking, that caused Sunjata to betray me and his promise hours after making it? So though I left on good terms, as was so frequently pointed out to me, I truly didn’t. I was angry. I was so angry and hurt and betrayed. All the more because he, unlike you, knew how intimately that betrayal would destroy me. As if orchestrated to confirm my every fear and anxiety, which I had bared to him and only him. I was so angry that even with all his expressed regret, he walked away with everything I didn’t - you, and Kamaria, and Safrin’s devotion. Aside from me, which he clearly didn’t care about in my eyes with how he moved one, what had he really lost? I had been left before, but never in such a way that killed every confidence I had in the love I had held. And I grieved you both, even in the midst of that anger, until there was nothing good left in me. Only the darkest parts that no longer were tempered by the goodness you both inspired in me.
But I was never betrayed by you. You made your choice in Sunjata, and it killed me to respect it. To see that once again, there was some lacking in me that could not keep you at my side. Either of you. When I met Kamaria in the market I even thought that maybe -
Here there are even, thick score marks that conceal the following words of which there are a fair amount, but clearly too much had been written to start the letter over.
At the end of it, what I’m trying to say is it was never you I wanted to hurt. I was drunk and in pain, and I wanted Sunjata to lose something even a fraction as precious as I did that night. I wasn’t aware of Peter and Adam living there - and the Slagveld was never my target. But an inactive guild? An assumed empty building? At the time it felt the safest thing to ruin. It was a testament to a memory I didn’t want to recall - the first time he ever took me to bed was the same night he put that guild bracelet on my wrist.
Does it excuse what I did? No. Suppose I should have simply broken a nose if I felt the need to take my anger out, but the thought of hurting either of you physically more than I had that night still makes me ill even now. Pathetic, really. Clearly this hurt you far more regardless.
Even with all that, I was the one that walked away having lost everything all over again. That was my punishment for my anger. I’ve accepted that. It feels a bitter irony, to have had everything taken when I finally indulged in anger instead of acceptance. Maybe I wanted you to fight for me, to miss me. I’m not sure anymore what I wanted then.
Mostly just for the pain to stop.
But to have hurt you by association is a burden I will have to carry, because it was never my intention.
I love you, both of you, even when I shouldn’t. Even when I’ve lost the right to. Even when I was sitting there, subjected to all your hurt and hatred, all I wanted was to start over. I had only brought Deimos to Torchline in the first place because I feared what I would do the moment I laid eyes upon you both again - and I know now that I was right to do so, because even in that moment, when you hated me more than you ever had before, I would have done anything to belong at your sides again.
But I’ve accepted that in the end, I was never as necessary in the structure we had. I don’t doubt you loved me, both of you. It would be a disservice to claim you didn’t because you proved it every day. But whether it’s my own doubt or truth, I don’t think I’ll ever believe it was more than you loved each other.
It made it all the easier to drown my sorrows in ways you’ve both done in the past - in bodies, instead of drinks. I certainly never intended anything that happened with Remi. Perhaps it was merely one last punishment for my actions. I regret it, even if I can’t regret being a mother again. But when I gazed upon Frey, it was still only you and Sunjata I saw in their face.
I don’t want to know how long it will remain that way.
Here the handwriting has grown shaky. There is no dampness, but a few curious wrinkles that suggest there once had been. When the writing returns, it is composed once more.
I didn’t set the Wren Society fire, nor did Deimos. You don’t have to believe me. It’s not my place but I have been keeping an ear for any leads on who might have. It’s the least I can do. All I can do, really.
There’s nothing else I can do but move forward. I won’t pretend to believe that moving on is an option.
I pray this jacket, for all its memories, will keep you safe when I cannot.
Love,
Hotaru
Nate -
I believe this is my last and only chance to say the things I haven’t been able to since I walked away in The Climb. I don’t expect anything from this letter or from you. No changes, or reconciliation, or forgiveness of any sort. It’s not my intention to hurt you any more than I have, but you deserve to have some form of closure, or understanding. At least I hope this will bring something like it.
I did burn the Advocates. Had I not been pregnant, I would have seen no need to lie. Lying and manipulating the story wasn’t something you deserved, nor even Sunjata, for all I have fewer regrets there. But there is nothing I wouldn’t do to ensure the health of my child, regardless of the circumstances of their creation, and I regret…well. Everything, it seems. Too much to write.
For so long I accepted that it was a product of my own involvement, the fact that nobody ever seemed to stay. So I couldn’t let myself feel angry once the dust had settled. Why be angry when it was clearly some fault in me, something lacking, that caused Sunjata to betray me and his promise hours after making it? So though I left on good terms, as was so frequently pointed out to me, I truly didn’t. I was angry. I was so angry and hurt and betrayed. All the more because he, unlike you, knew how intimately that betrayal would destroy me. As if orchestrated to confirm my every fear and anxiety, which I had bared to him and only him. I was so angry that even with all his expressed regret, he walked away with everything I didn’t - you, and Kamaria, and Safrin’s devotion. Aside from me, which he clearly didn’t care about in my eyes with how he moved one, what had he really lost? I had been left before, but never in such a way that killed every confidence I had in the love I had held. And I grieved you both, even in the midst of that anger, until there was nothing good left in me. Only the darkest parts that no longer were tempered by the goodness you both inspired in me.
But I was never betrayed by you. You made your choice in Sunjata, and it killed me to respect it. To see that once again, there was some lacking in me that could not keep you at my side. Either of you. When I met Kamaria in the market I even thought that maybe -
Here there are even, thick score marks that conceal the following words of which there are a fair amount, but clearly too much had been written to start the letter over.
At the end of it, what I’m trying to say is it was never you I wanted to hurt. I was drunk and in pain, and I wanted Sunjata to lose something even a fraction as precious as I did that night. I wasn’t aware of Peter and Adam living there - and the Slagveld was never my target. But an inactive guild? An assumed empty building? At the time it felt the safest thing to ruin. It was a testament to a memory I didn’t want to recall - the first time he ever took me to bed was the same night he put that guild bracelet on my wrist.
Does it excuse what I did? No. Suppose I should have simply broken a nose if I felt the need to take my anger out, but the thought of hurting either of you physically more than I had that night still makes me ill even now. Pathetic, really. Clearly this hurt you far more regardless.
Even with all that, I was the one that walked away having lost everything all over again. That was my punishment for my anger. I’ve accepted that. It feels a bitter irony, to have had everything taken when I finally indulged in anger instead of acceptance. Maybe I wanted you to fight for me, to miss me. I’m not sure anymore what I wanted then.
Mostly just for the pain to stop.
But to have hurt you by association is a burden I will have to carry, because it was never my intention.
I love you, both of you, even when I shouldn’t. Even when I’ve lost the right to. Even when I was sitting there, subjected to all your hurt and hatred, all I wanted was to start over. I had only brought Deimos to Torchline in the first place because I feared what I would do the moment I laid eyes upon you both again - and I know now that I was right to do so, because even in that moment, when you hated me more than you ever had before, I would have done anything to belong at your sides again.
But I’ve accepted that in the end, I was never as necessary in the structure we had. I don’t doubt you loved me, both of you. It would be a disservice to claim you didn’t because you proved it every day. But whether it’s my own doubt or truth, I don’t think I’ll ever believe it was more than you loved each other.
It made it all the easier to drown my sorrows in ways you’ve both done in the past - in bodies, instead of drinks. I certainly never intended anything that happened with Remi. Perhaps it was merely one last punishment for my actions. I regret it, even if I can’t regret being a mother again. But when I gazed upon Frey, it was still only you and Sunjata I saw in their face.
I don’t want to know how long it will remain that way.
Here the handwriting has grown shaky. There is no dampness, but a few curious wrinkles that suggest there once had been. When the writing returns, it is composed once more.
I didn’t set the Wren Society fire, nor did Deimos. You don’t have to believe me. It’s not my place but I have been keeping an ear for any leads on who might have. It’s the least I can do. All I can do, really.
There’s nothing else I can do but move forward. I won’t pretend to believe that moving on is an option.
I pray this jacket, for all its memories, will keep you safe when I cannot.
Love,
Hotaru
