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.
