Hotaru
i'm still here but all is lost
The honesty digs claws into her heart, tender and broken as it is. Does she not still love Nate too? How many should she expect to lose between now and the quiet of a war won or lost? What, to her, would she even consider as winning or losing? “Hopefully longer than I had with -” her throat chokes the name from her tongue, and Ru isn’t sure if it’s grief or that part of her that keeps standing up and loving on, forcing Hotaru past all manner of pain and loss. And while it’s a cold comfort, it’s true; Sunjata has had Nate longer than she ever had Wessex, or even the two of them, and will continue to have him for longer. It doesn’t mean he won’t still lose him.
A small huff of a laugh leaves her, his attempts at buoying her mood reluctantly succeeding. “I think I have a bit further to dig before I can reach that level. But shouldn’t you be trying to be happy in these last moments anyway?” What has happened? She wants to ask, but can only imply it in her words, wondering what she has missed that could cause him to be similarly morose.
As he loosens his grip, she conflictingly stops pulling away, uncertain what she really wants. What she needs. “I always fight,” she murmurs, turning to face him. The smile doesn’t reach her eyes either, and in that they are the same. “Whatever war is to be waged, it seems unlikely to spread beyond the Draig, but humans aren’t the only monsters that may take advantage of thinned defenses; I can’t take my strength from Halo’s frontlines, and I know it.” She has no need to exaggerate her own power. She may not be a demigod, but she is a formidable fighter with plenty of war experience. Even if Ru felt she could stay away somehow, it would be selfish to remove herself from the game.
