Aftermath

Sah

(Post-war, before timeskip)

Sah at his kitchen table, swirling the whiskey in his cup contemplatively. Deimos had mentioned that he'd spoken to Hotaru already, but the Valkyrie had yet to grace his door and it was making the Abandoned restless. He desperately wanted to check in on his friend but refused to rush her. Ru was grieving, and she deserved whatever space or time she needed.

Yet, Sah couldn't shake the worries from his mind. Or the slight jealousy that she'd gone to Deimos first. He was possessive and overprotective to a fault. At least he was self-aware of it to push the notion down and rationalize that of course she went to the Sword first. They'd known each other far longer.

For now, Sah would just brainstorm ways he could help Ru should she seek him out. Gods, he was worried about her.

I think there for I am,
But what if all I do is bleed?

glass tears on a porcelain face, scratching makeup perfectly made

Talyson had sought her out, unintentionally. Then Ru had sought out Deimos.

Then there was a long stretch of nothingness.

Taking Flora home to Torchline. Coping with the nothingness, the emptiness. Days that slide away from her like black sand in her fingertips, trickling through the holes the world has left in her until whatever was once inside her has leaked away to nothingness.

Only when the night gets bad - truly bad, bad by standards she has had to adjust in the wake of Enzo's death - does the Valkyrie slowly rise in the unlit corner of her home she finds herself in, like a hibernating beast awakening slowly, and venture out into the sunlight. She knows she cannot remain alone right now, or she is at risk of breaking every fragile promise made to her loved ones.

So she goes to find another.

The journey from her home to Sah's is short, and still she doesn't recall it when she tries, disoriented to find herself on his doorstep without any knowledge of how she got there. Her hand lifts, knuckles grazing the wood roughly - they're cold, and painfully red; did she not bring gloves? - only to rest there, silent, still curled in the imitation of a knock.

Sah

Although Sah's human ears couldn't hear the 'knock', Lilly's superior senses picked up on Hotaru's presence. The wolf shot up from where she'd been curled up at his feet. The motion startled Pad who had been sleeping with his head on her leg. Before her bonded could even question with was wrong, Lilly raced over to teh front door and began pawing at it urgently.

Without hesitation, Sah opened it up and froze. Taking one look at Hotaru he let out a pained whine at her expression "Ru." He reached out and pulled her into a tight hug, kicking the door closed behind her with his foot. Speak of the devil, or more accurately, a wounded angel.

The younger Abandoned couldn't think of any words that could have possibly made things better, so he simply held his packmate. Laying a kiss on her temple, he rubbed his cheek against hers, letting out a hopefully soothing rumbling noise.

I think there for I am,
But what if all I do is bleed?

glass tears on a porcelain face, scratching makeup perfectly made

Hotaru’s ears are human no longer, catlike senses acute, and the muscle in her cheek twitches with the decaying desire to smile at the sound of Lilly’s paws on the other side of the door. It accomplishes nothing visually; any ability to smile has been burned out of her.

The door opens with a rush of warmth, and she isn’t sure if it’s the heating of the house or Sah’s reaction. Talyson had held her on the frozen steps to her house, Deimos cradled in his lap before the hearth, and somehow they had both been different. While they’d both been ready and willing to provide her with the intimacy of their embrace, there had been no immediacy, allowing Hotaru to come to them. A different sort of kindness, one she would never be unappreciative of, but Sah’s immediate embrace the second he lays eyes on her breaks something inside her that dearly needed to be broken.

His affections are met with a sudden, painful reaction that even Hotaru couldn’t have anticipated. Stoicism and silence burn away like flash paper, leaving her scalded with the sudden forceful wake of emotion that sweeps her away as a hoarse, broken sob leaves her throat. Hands rising to cling to his back as the tears come fast and unexpected, each breath a heaving shudder of desperation. Words fall away as what few barriers that had remained shatter irreparably, leaving her bare and wounded.

Sah

To Sah, simply waiting for Hotaru to reach out to him had been maddening. It had been his way to give her space and to 'come to him' when she was ready. With her at his door, that was all the cue he needed. As she crumbled in his arms, he had no regrets about his reaction.

Her every sob stabbed through him, and the Wild Thunder simply held her closer. One arm around her waist kept her steady while the other came up to cup the back of her head with his palm. Sah let her soak his shirt in tears, rubbing her back in a soothing motion as he continuously let out small reassuring rumbles.

"I know Ru, I know." And he did. Perhaps better than some of their other packmates. He'd gone through a similar tragedy. The irony was that it had been Hotaru herself that had held him when he fell apart at the mere memory.

But now it was her turn, her pain exponentially worse in its recentness and in the fact that Enzo was not her first loss. There would be no miraculous return of him through a portal either. The pup was truly gone. And Sah hated that he couldn't save his packmate from the gut-wrenching agony that had been forced upon her.

I think there for I am,
But what if all I do is bleed?

glass tears on a porcelain face, scratching makeup perfectly made

He holds her tight enough to keep the seams together, though she isn't sure how. They are frayed and raw, just as she feels inside, and the stitches that once lined the edges are tattered and broken. Too many times the fabric has been mended, patched, stitched over. How long until the original is unrecognizable? Until it can be saved no longer, until even sentimentality cannot keep it around, because its limits of life have been reached?

He understands as best he can, and that's all Hotaru can ask for. Deimos may be her rock, her touchstone - eternal in friendship and brotherhood - but in this, he cannot relate. By the grace of the Gods, he never will. It is a pain she'd wish on nobody, not even her worst enemy.

She curls into Sah's chest in his entryway, until her tears make her eyes burn, her sobs tear her voice into soundlessness. The sun sinks behind the window's panes, and she darkens with it. He will hold her until it comes around again if he must, and Hotaru knows it. Just as she knows he will stay her hand if ever it reaches for her heart to try and stop its beating, if the void becomes too enticing in the wan hours of the night. He will keep her alive for a few hours more, and those hours will become days. Weeks. Until maybe life seems worth living again.

- Fin