tell me, can you let it go?

MAEA

The deer was decidedly stuck. Maea crouched down by the cluster of trees that crowded the speck of solid land she had found, and watched the creature impassively. Vines or perhaps water-lily stalks had tangled into its antlers, and it kept struggling to raise the head above the water surface. How it had survived this long she couldn't understand - not until she spotted flaps of skin flaring by the side of its neck, like slashes of shocking pink that did not belong in this rotted and fetid landscape.

For a time, the pale-skinned woman simply sat there. Watched, and contemplated while an unnatural stillness settled over her. Breathless and without blinking, her gaze had a distant look to it as if beholding something other than the creature. What brought about the change was difficult to say; one moment she simply hovered there. The next, she slipped into the murky water and began to wade towards the creature.

"Easy," she soothed as it began to struggle with more vigor. "I only want to help you. Come now, stay still."

Trembling, the musk-deer did stop moving for a moment. Carefully, slowly as only one with unnatural movements might achieve, Maea reached for the vines. A dagger appeared in one hand, and while speaking soft nonsense to the animal, she began to carve into the tethers.

"We are not that different, you and I," she told those fear-glazed eyes. "I am stuck too, in many ways. But others help me, and I will help you, and maybe some day soon we can begin to move on again, don't you think? Just be still, and patient, and let me do what I can. Easy, now, beautiful..."

Lost in a world full of non-believers
Searching for smoke in a still water pond

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

Hotaru

nothing's fair in love and war

It is not often Hotaru loses her prey. Far more infrequently does she lose prey she has already injured. Though she may be a creature of power and violence, she takes no pleasure in sadism - especially when enacted against creatures that have no capacity for morality or ideals like innocence. Still, though vexed and punitive in her own mind for her mistakes, the Valkyrie does not abandon the hunt. Condemning the deer to a slow death is not something she will abide.

When at last the trail warms, Hotaru is surprised by what she finds. A woman thought previously dead, a vision of pale skin and ivory hair, hushing the deer with a quiet tone Hotaru has not heard in…years. The letter she had received is still held precious in her home, retrieved on occasion to be gently held and reread. This is not the first time someone has risen from the presumed dead. But Hotaru knows exactly how it came to be; Kiada’s example has already set a precedence.

Shifting from thick tawny pelt to golden skin in one fluid movement, the Valkyrie steps into the swamp without a moment of hesitation, water and muck already beginning to cling to her bare legs. Drawn more by the woman and her soft voice than the prey she had been tracking.

“How deep are the wounds I left?” she says quietly, the blood that had transferred to her delicate hands cool with time spoiled out between the moment of violence and the time of reunion. “It may be kinder to kill it, depending.” And if Maea turns, she will see that - quite at odds with the words being spoken - Hotaru’s face is a rictus of emotion at seeing the ghost before her. Hope, grief, regret, trepidation. All too intertwined and entangled to make heads or tails of.

MAEA

The musk-deer noticed the approached of the woman-predator before Maea did. It suddenly bucked and strained under her hands and she was forced to back away to avoid the sharp tines and stomping feet. Turning to see who the newcomer was, the dagger dropped from its ready position, and the girl's pale eyes widened in slow recognition.

"... Hotaru?" Her own expression was one of distance, reserve, wariness; a deep current of uncertainty that saw her gnawing on the inside of her lip. Her gaze darted to the woman's face, to the blood-stained hands, and back to the dual-colored eyes that had caused her so much fascination once. A long time ago, now. Lifetimes had passed since then.

The mention of a wound made her turn back to the deer. She had not noticed it before, and it took a while even now to spot the place in the creature's flank where the water gained a tint of red. Slowly seeping, steadily growing. Maea had to move around to the other side to get a proper look, and her face fell when the full extent became apparent.

"Fairly extensive," she murmured in reply, the tension of her mouth a reluctant frown. "You did this?" The deer had stopped moving again; whether from exhaustion on resignation she couldn't tell. "Why?"

Lost in a world full of non-believers
Searching for smoke in a still water pond

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

Hotaru

nothing's fair in love and war

As the ghost turns and bares her face, Hotaru’s breath leaves her in a stuttering exhale. Lungs ache as they try to relearn how to function in the face of such an enormous revelation. “Maea,” she murmurs in echo, less of a questioning tone than the voice that speaks her own name. Once it had been uttered, there was no denying the woman’s presence, ensuring she is no mirage concocted from the Valkyrie’s memories. The cold water of the swamp makes her shiver, skin pebbling, but she can’t bear to take her eyes from Maea.

It seems the other woman doesn’t have the same problem. There is something accusatory in her tone as the evidence of her attack is discovered. Hotaru can’t find it in herself to feel regret. It is her nature, and has been long before she was ever granted the shape that did this damage. She is a harbinger of death. There is no space for regret or self-consciousness in the caverns of her construction.

“We all must eat,” Hotaru says simply, tone mild and betraying nothing of the turmoil more visible behind her eyes. Pausing, more entranced by the woman than the prey - even if it means the creature suffers longer for Hotaru’s selfishness - blonde hair cascades over one shoulder as she tilts her head. Examining. “Well. Not all of us. Does it bother you?” And if so, is it a new moral quandary now that Maea has no need for physical sustenance?

MAEA

Neither a pacifist nor a vegetarian, and still very much a believer that death had its place, still Maea couldn't keep the soft frown from furrowing her brows as she looked at the struggling creature before her. Some emotional connection had tied its situation to her own, and it seemed heartless - deeply personal - to imagine it put down. Out of its misery, as if it was somehow beyond healing. Beyond hope.

"I just didn't think you were the sloppy kind of hunter," she muttered, refusing to look at Hotaru. "If you're going to do it, then just - just get it over with." Pale hands stroked the trembling back of the musk-deer, drawing lines of regret in the soft waterlogged fur. For a moment she lingered, reluctance a silent scream manifested in those thin shoulders; then she disappeared. A rush of air gasped in a rush to fill the vacated space -

- and on the small atoll of built up vegetation a branch snapped under Maea's boot when she reappeared. Arms tucked close around herself, and with the back turned against the scene.

Death was inevitable. It would come for everyone, without fail. Maybe if she kept repeating that mantra to herself, this would not hurt so much.

Lost in a world full of non-believers
Searching for smoke in a still water pond

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

Hotaru

nothing's fair in love and war

Sloppy. It makes her frown slightly, ego pained by such a declaration, and the walls around her heart bow inwards to tighten the space inside against emotion she didn’t anticipate feeling. Ones she doesn’t want to examine. “Even a proficient hunter cannot anticipate every outcome. Didn’t you learn that yourself?” She winces as the last sentence slips between her teeth, unbidden and poisonous, but manages to reign in the outward reaction of regret until it is merely a tightening in the corner of her eyes.

Her disappearing act should perhaps be more surprising, but Hotaru has seen Wessex do so time and time again. The disorientation does not linger. Stepping closer to the deer herself now that Maea has decided she is done with the scene, Hotaru’s expression softens now that there is no audience to perceive it. “I have no magic to heal it even if I wanted to.” It is plainly said, but there is some shadowed part of her that picks the words for the sake of achieving some sort of forgiveness for an act she doesn’t truly regret. Instead she sheds her outer coat before letting her wings overtake her, plucking the garment from the shallows to fly it over and drape it over the deer’s head. It startles hard at first, but then the darkness tricks its mind and it goes utterly still and docile. Midair she shifts again, and the mountain lion descends hard upon the creature’s nape - angling powerful jaws for the vulnerable jugular to end the deer’s suffering swiftly.

MAEA

No part of her wanted to witness what followed. Maea neither turned nor glanced over the shoulder, but the sounds still painted all too vivid images in her mind. Cloth sliding from skin, wind whispering over wings, a sudden silence followed by the squeal of the deer as something crashed down upon it. There was a mighty splash of water, the kicking of feet that gradually, softly, abated.

And when silence was the only thing that remained, she had to wonder if she too would share that animal's fate. What manner of predator would look at her with pitiless eyes and decide that it was time for a meal? What guise would it take, what lovely or terrible face might be the last thing she recalled before the darkness rose to claim her once more?

A shudder wracked her, and she tightened the grip about herself. As if she might hold the fractured pieces of her own identity together with just her hands. Why she even lingered was more than she knew; the residual sting of Hotaru's words certainly didn't invite to it.

It was just... that look on the woman's face. Whatever could she have been hoping for?

Lost in a world full of non-believers
Searching for smoke in a still water pond

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

Hotaru

nothing's fair in love and war

Golden skin replaces equally golden fur. She is left kneeling in the brackish water, blood beginning to loosen and slough off her hands as she gently pets the deer’s neck as its heart stops fully. “Thank you,” she murmurs to it, sincere and practiced but feeling performative now with Maea hovering on the shoreline. Why she didn’t leave is beyond Hotaru, but it leaves her in a bind now. She must begin skinning and quartering the animal quickly, and she can’t leave it in the tainted waters - but the ghost on the shore had already found the death itself hard to bear. What will she think of the grisly reality of what must come next?

Ru doesn’t have another choice. To let it sit would mean to invite it to spoil, and she will not let its body go to waste after what she has already done to it. Dragging the deer through the shallows to the shore is easy enough even on her own, but she leaves a bit of space between herself and Maea. Words stuck, clogged, in her throat. Questions, pleas. Sitting on her shins before the deer’s warm body, her eyes are unfocused and unseeing, envisioning the woman instead of simply turning to look upon her where she stands. It’s easier that way somehow.

“I kept your letter,” she says softly instead. Her hand doesn’t shake as it retrieves her hunting knife. It wants to. She can feel the desire to tremor quaking in her forearm, but the Valkyrie has seen and weathered too much to be truly shaken by things like this. Perhaps she is simply too jaded these days to do more than let the emotions run through her and leave her hollowed out.

MAEA

Maea had been a hunter too, at one point. She had learned the necessity of it, and found ways to live with the way light faded from small pleading eyes. Her hands had been as stained with blood as anyone's, and in far worse ways. She had no right to judge Hotaru for making this kill - and most of her did not. It was just...

Entirely sentimental.

Without the need for breath, the sigh served a different purpose entirely. An attempt to draw out tension that came and went entirely on sentiment, and which lowered the slender shoulders a fraction. Enough to let the arms come down, and for her to turn and look at Hotaru when the woman spoke up. Addressing her, not the deer, this time.

Her gaze averted from the blood and gore, and focused only on the pale blonde hair and mismatched eyes. Better that way. She could pretend she never cared enough to try and save that creature.

"It's been years," she pointed out, puzzled but not unkind. "Why hold on to something like that?" Maea couldn't even recall the contents of the letter. What had she said? Had she asked for anything - it was completely gone.

Lost in a world full of non-believers
Searching for smoke in a still water pond

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

Hotaru

nothing's fair in love and war

Maea’s gaze, even it deigns to meet hers, is arresting. It had been the first time, and time has not dulled it since. Even death could not, it seems. They are a pair, the two of them, with their strange eyes and strange hearts that leave them utter anomalies in this world that has no space meant for them. Ru holds it for a long moment before the warm blood on her hands distracts her, and she utilizes the deer further - as a distraction this time, a reason to keep her eyes averted and her expression partially concealed by long blonde hair that has grown too long with lack of proper trims.

Why indeed?

There had only been a sparse handful of words on that piece of parchment. Transcribed by a different hand. There should have been no sentiment to keep it lingering in her possession, and yet it had endured. So why?

Ru had foolishly assumed she’d never have to examine the reasoning. Maea was dead after all, and would never know or think to ask. But a combination of Caido’s cruel humor and her own loose tongue has suddenly forced her to come to terms with things best left buried.

“I don’t know,” she admits softly, knife carving easily through sinew and muscle, well-honed and familiar. “Perhaps I saw you as a foretelling of my own ending with Sunjata and saw a kinship there. Maybe it was sentiment, grief. I couldn’t tell you properly.” And she’s trying. Oh how she always tries. Yet doomed to eternally fall short. “But that day in the bar…my interest in you was genuine. You said maybe in another life…” trailing off, unsure if Maea even remembers her own words - the veritable footnote Hotaru is sure she was compared to others - Ru purses her lips slightly. The jerk of her blade on the next slice is far from graceful, and she frowns down at her own hands as if blaming them for acting alone.

“‘If you ever want company, I'd be happy to come along.’ Thafs what you told me then. And I found I wished you had, so that I may have spared you your fate somehow.” But that was nothing more than girlish dreaming, a distant fondness for a girl she’d once tried to woo without success, and then had replaced in equal measure - only to be broken in the same way by the same man.

MAEA

She found a tree for herself, a scrawny and withered thing that could barely support her weight, and leaned against it. Hands behind her back, pressing against the bark. The physical sensation became an anchor as memories rose like a storm surge, threatening to sweep her away. The Flood always had that effect on her, even when she pretended that it was all in the past.

Would it ever truly be, though? That kind of storm, that kind of love... it was the kind that etched marks  to the very bone, changing you forever. What would she be now, if she had stopped to look more closely at those two-toned eyes, and forgotten all about oceans, whiskey and tobacco smoke?

"I wish I learned more from that wedding," she replied softly. "I was there, in the audience. I saw you kiss him. Saw the mess he made of things, and I should have known that it was not what I wanted for myself. For a while I did resist it. But..." Her eyes dropped to the ground, where they engrossed themselves in the scrutiny of mud-soaked boots and the water-logged fabric of her clothes. Dark and tattered, all rough wool and leather - such a far cry from the delicate white linens she had once been partial to. A reflection of the jagged person she had become on the inside.

"But," she continued, "somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that he needed me. He kept coming back, and... when he did, I thought that what he offered was love." She dragged a hand through the white hair, shuddering at the memory of how it had felt to have someone else do the same. "Maybe it was, in his own way, but... not the sort I wanted. That's why it didn't work." The reason for their row, the split, the aching hole in her chest that she sought to fill with something, anything. Desperately enough to run headlong into danger, just to prove that she was someone without him.

She never realized that it would affect so many. Her death. In the grand scheme of things... wasn't it terribly insignificant?

"I should have gone with you," she admitted. "Maybe if I had, I would still be alive. Not... this. Whatever this is." Ghost, specter, haunted doll cursed with too many emotions - whatever it was, she never felt she could make a claim to be truly alive.

Lost in a world full of non-believers
Searching for smoke in a still water pond

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

Hotaru

nothing's fair in love and war

There’s a strange dichotomy between the two of them then. The younger woman musing on love and heartbreak, and the older carving into the carcass of a beast felled by her own hand. Hotaru isn’t poetic enough to draw allusions and metaphors from the contrast, but she can feel it like a hysterical laugh creeping up her airways only to be choked back to silence on the battlefield of her tongue.

Maea may feel she can speak freely of these times, of this man, but Hotaru cannot say the same. Her own vulnerability is hard-won, and already Maea has earned more of it than many others. What Ru went through, how she felt…that is for only her and her empty bed to know, these days.

It doesn’t mean she can’t listen at least. Bearing witness to Maea’s losses, numerous as they are, as if holding a silent vigil will in any way ease the burden from the woman’s shoulders. It’s laughable.

She does it anyway.

The admission seems sincere, but Ru’s lopsided, closed-mouth smile is a dagger turned inward. “Maybe.” But what if’s are just words, and none of them can turn back the clock. Lifting her eyes, she seeks out the only hint of color in Maea’s face as she rocks back onto her shins, hands pausing bloody and thoughtful in her lap. Head tilting in a golden cascade of consideration. “‘This’ is merely a vessel. Changed, yes, but in the same way I was changed when Frey Attuned me. Am I not still Hotaru because I have claws and magic both now?” The self hatred is unexpected, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. Turning back to her kill, wondering if she’s being too presumptuous in assuming how Maea might feel about her Ascension, the Valkyrie quarters the meat slowly. “Did you come back for him?” Because if Ru had died before everything - the fire, the fallout - she can’t say she wouldn’t do the same.

MAEA

While she understood the sentiment, Maea still shook her head. "It's not the same. You became more when you Attuned. I returned with less. My magic is gone, and I feel... hollow. Maybe it's just everything catching up at once, but... I don't think so." Not entirely. The aching part where companion and magic should have been was like a missing limb, and the pain a similar kind of shock to reaching for a glass of water and realizing that your hand was gone. Not to mention that Hotaru had earned the acceptance of a god, while Maea at best had traded one for another. A downgrade, too, since she remained unconvinced of the Voice's eventual virtues.

A smile slashed across her face at the question, bitter and cruel and full of wicked amusement directed entirely at herself. A scornful laugh at her own personal brand of stupid.
"Yes," she answered. Too truthful - there was no need to pretend otherwise. Lying to herself and others... it was so boring. "Of course I tried to tell both him and myself that it wasn't the reason, but... it was. I'm sure you can imagine the shock when I realized that he had gleefully moved on in the year or so that I was gone."

She kicked at a tussock of grass, silvery green and sharp-edged in the faint night light. It was more than pathetic, really. Reckless and dangerous was more like it.

"At least I'm not staying for his sake. It's slow, but... I think I'm actually starting to move on." Hesitant, reluctant, like a mechanized fawn on trembling legs - she was learning to stand up again. Betting on a wholly different kind of love to tide her over, until she could learn to love herself.

Lost in a world full of non-believers
Searching for smoke in a still water pond

BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3

Hotaru

nothing's fair in love and war

The rebuttal seems well-practiced, if misguided, and Hotaru peers through the curtain of her hair with a neutral expression. Thinking. Does she care enough to offer a hand down to the woman in the mire? Can she see past her own bias against The Voice? Well, yes. She is irrevocably tied to Nate and Wessex, for better or worse, past and present. Kiada, too, though the girl has all but abandoned the Valkyrie in the wake of her death and resurrection. But what use are her words to Maea? Are they anything more than acquaintances, despite the trailing ribbon-ends of emotion between them?

“Did you come back less, or was the slate merely wiped clean? There is always a trade to be made. Do you value your magic more, or a life that - with so much ahead of it - can earn it back? Will you look backward or forward?” It is spoken softly, just as neutral as her pretty face that bows back towards the deer’s carcass to allow Maea a chance to consider the words. “If I gave up when I lost my magic, the Goddess who gave me everything, my entire home world when I was brought here, I would never have been reunited with my family that made it out.” Maea had lost Ludo’s favor, but at least the deity still lived. “If I had given up when my children were murdered at the same time I lost all of that, I never would have had the children I was blessed with here.” Sitting back, she ties her hair back, annoyed with how it gets in her face. Blood stains the pale golden strands freely. Turning to look at Maea, she quirks a small smile. “I’m not the one to speak to about moving on from loss or feeling hollow. Either you move forward, or you do not. My words don’t matter in the grand scheme of your new life.” Grasping her knife, she returns to the deer, as if she’d never spoken at all.

“And isn’t that freeing, you think? To finally live for yourself, instead of someone who wouldn’t devote themselves to you?” Pausing, she looks up, hands buried in the deer’s entrails. Eyes sharp and strange. “I think it is.” And she’s still learning, herself, but it’s a lesson that becomes easier with time.

But she has said enough. More than. Presumptuous woman, as always, a voice that sounds like hers and her mothers simultaneously tsks in her head. “Good. He has found his happiness. It’s time you found yours, no?”