Hotaru
Only a drink and a half in, Hotaru is sober enough for the flags to go up in her head, telling her urgently that we are not nearly drunk enough for this conversation. Or maybe not sober enough even now. Because she isn't expecting the way everything inside her burns. Fire down her throat hotter than any liquor could hope to compete with, until it's razing her insides to ash. Then there's the bile that rises in contrast, because she doesn't know which hurt is more painful. That Maeve had slept with her ex-husband after everything she knew, or that Sunjata had found comfort in another woman's arms.
Her hand shakes terribly as she lowers her glass to the table, and she knows even in his impaired state that there will be no hiding that from Sunjata. Still, she clasps her hands in her lap moments after, where he can't see the way her knuckles go white with strain as she threads her fingers together beneath the table. "No. I didn't know." Her voice is measured, and very, very quiet. Staring into the liquid in her glass like it holds the secrets to the known universe. Or maybe just the answer to the only question she cares to ask: why?
Of course she hadn't heard the rumors, given she'd been exiled from Torchline, and then of course everything that had happened after had taken up far more attention. She'd not even met Edmund yet for Gods sakes. "That was...kind. Of her. To offer." The words are stilted, and still so very soft. You aren't going to cry, she tells herself, unsure whether it's cajoling or a command. You're not. Not over him, for something you did, and not over her when you were never anything to begin with. Sucking in a slow breath she gives a tiny shake of her shoulders and pulls at her composure with all her might to bear turning to meet his gaze and give a tiny, shaky smile.
"I thought she was with Locke, considering...Edmund. But perhaps they were more open." Or had she been with Locke when she'd been in Hotaru's bed? And would it have mattered? Open relationships worked for everyone but Ru it seemed, and she would have had - and still has - no ground to stand on.
Her hand shakes terribly as she lowers her glass to the table, and she knows even in his impaired state that there will be no hiding that from Sunjata. Still, she clasps her hands in her lap moments after, where he can't see the way her knuckles go white with strain as she threads her fingers together beneath the table. "No. I didn't know." Her voice is measured, and very, very quiet. Staring into the liquid in her glass like it holds the secrets to the known universe. Or maybe just the answer to the only question she cares to ask: why?
Of course she hadn't heard the rumors, given she'd been exiled from Torchline, and then of course everything that had happened after had taken up far more attention. She'd not even met Edmund yet for Gods sakes. "That was...kind. Of her. To offer." The words are stilted, and still so very soft. You aren't going to cry, she tells herself, unsure whether it's cajoling or a command. You're not. Not over him, for something you did, and not over her when you were never anything to begin with. Sucking in a slow breath she gives a tiny shake of her shoulders and pulls at her composure with all her might to bear turning to meet his gaze and give a tiny, shaky smile.
"I thought she was with Locke, considering...Edmund. But perhaps they were more open." Or had she been with Locke when she'd been in Hotaru's bed? And would it have mattered? Open relationships worked for everyone but Ru it seemed, and she would have had - and still has - no ground to stand on.
But I am just a broken machine
And I do things that I don't really mean
And I do things that I don't really mean
