Hotaru
i'm still here but all is lost
It’s a comfort, and she knows that is how it’s intended to be, but she tucks her face against his arm and can’t help the bitter smile that she hides into it, the creases of pain around her eyes. The mountain lion makes a soft unhappy sound, and Ru resumes her petting to appease it. “You still have Nate. I do not. That sort of love…you and I both know it doesn’t come around more than once or twice.” She has accepted that those bridges are burned forever, but she can’t help how she aches, taking his words entirely wrong until the burn only spreads throughout her veins, poisoning her. Unaware of how he scans her, she blinks away idle tears, frowning slightly to feel them gathering. Hadn’t felt them form in the first place. “I am not entirely unhappy alone. But I can’t keep losing people over and over.” Can’t keep revealing the inner depths of herself only to have them gutted, pulled through her skin agonizingly by the very hands she’d held and entrusted to hold her heart. Shaking her head slightly she lifts her hand, and lets the cougar up, commanding it quietly to go. She watches it, and tries not to feel despondent; it isn’t her companion, never could compare, but the loneliness aches. Even with Sunjata there wrapped around her, it aches. Neither of them are hers, and Ru has only ever wanted something - someone - of her own. Something forever. Shaking herself a little - and perhaps leaning just a touch away from Sunjata, running away from that pain - Ru summons a flawless chagrined grin. “But I sound woefully despondent, don’t I? I just wanted a moment to grieve I suppose.” Implying she is grieving only Wessex, and not the barren ache that hasn’t left her bones since she read the woman’s letter. “I apologize for interrupting your day, I hadn’t intended to. Truly I didn’t think you’d be here, despite knowing you built it.” Wrapping her words up like a present, she winds down the interaction intentionally, choosing each word with intent to make it appear she was recovering from her melancholy sufficiently in order to convince him he could let her leave without concern.
