she's the kind of girl you can never please
Wherever her mind is, Alys' strong and unrelenting grip brings Hotaru back down to earth, and her own hand reflexively squeezes back in a desperate bid for something she can't name. Companionship? Help? Whatever it is, Alys' touch is like pressure on the wound, staunching the bloodflow of her hurt and vulnerability. Unaware that her own belief was a similar balm to Alys; she wouldn't have understood such cynicism anyway. How could someone doubt when faced with such a reading? One that reveals insecurities, secrets, and trials that Hotaru has told fewer souls than could be marked on her fingers? Her free hand moves towards the cards as they are flipped and named in Alys' quiet, almost hypnotic tone. Fingertips alight gently on the very edge of the Hanged Man card. The imagery is only barely more tolerable than Alys' intense gaze with how raw Hotaru feels.
"It's the only way to know that you're alive."
"Sometimes I do not wish to be," she confesses in a whisper. The next inhale shudders in her lungs. Hotaru has never perceived herself as particularly brave. Powerful, yes, and clever enough to leverage situations in her favor. But being confident did not make her brave, and that was what was required if she was to make any sort of progress. She would have to be courageous enough to open herself to being hurt again. To living again instead of merely surviving. She had thought she was getting better at it after speaking with Enzo, but with the mirror forcibly up against her face she can admit that her attempts have been halfhearted at best.
Perhaps the bravery has to start here and now.
Hotaru lifts her gaze to Alys sitting across the table, and her hand squeezes again. "Does it ever intimidate you? Seeing into peoples pasts and futures, seeing their pain but not quite comprehending its history?" The comfort that Alys is offering Hotaru is not a characteristic she would have expected from the woman, so how can she carry the weight of so many strangers? Maybe she is still being cowardly for not talking about the cards or the reading just yet, but she can sense the words are slowly coalescing into something coherent in her throat. They just need a bit more time.
Hotaru
