my tears ricochet

And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves
You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same

"George, stop."

Somehow, at last, something got through to him. Not very well, granted, since he was still heavily under the effects of the dream cacti spines, and for a brief moment, he stops struggling - long enough, at least to lose his weapons. The monster was intelligent, then, or at least enough so to know to rid him of his many daggers: not just the two held in his hands, but also the hidden ones up his sleeves, tucked into his boots, even the one built into his belt buckle, until he was metaphorically stripped and naked in the snow.

But why would Hotaru tell him to stop? She was in danger - they all were! Couldn't she see that? Wasn't she in trouble? Hadn't she been screaming?

The creature swam in front of his eyes, another shadow coming up beside it - the monster he'd wounded, or so it seemed, by the way it limped into view. For a brief moment, in the background, he thought he saw Hotaru's golden hair, and he snarled a response, his gaze flicking, almost panicked, between the two monsters that held him captive. "Hotaru, run!"

And then he was struggling again, determined to do whatever he had to do to save her. He forgot, for the moment, that she was perfectly capable of protecting herself, that she was perhaps better equipped than he to deal with the monsters that held him in their clutches. He was too busy realizing that he had, perhaps, gotten himself into a situation that he couldn't get out of. He was going to die here.

But while he was weaponless, he was hardly defenseless, and somewhere in the dismal realization that he likely wasn't making it out alive, he realized that the monster had left him one thing: a knitting needle. So with all the strength left in him, he yanked the needle out and thrust it, point-first, towards the monster holding him, trying to pierce it through its unprotected neck.

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed
You turned into your worst fears

George

i've got this feeling, and i've got this shovel
between me and you you're in a lot of trouble

It's a fair question to ask, but her voice through the bond comes out small and wounded; No, I don't. This isn't the George she knows, but she has only met him a few times. The stoked embers of betrayal burn in her throat, and anger comes forth like a wall to protect herself from having to feel the hurt. She kneels near them, subsiding, unwilling to take this into her own hands when she can barely look at George's face.

Her hands tingle with the start of her healing magic at the same moment George screams for her to run, slamming her back into the moment as she snaps her head up in alarm. It is a cliche perhaps, to say that it all happens so fast, because Ru only sees the sharp glint of a weapon as it goes for Sunjata's throat - and by then she's already moving, lunging for them with a warning halfway up her throat.

In some sick way, this is a foil of her relationship to both men. Here in the moment, she is given two choices, two men to choose between - and the fact of the matter is that it's laughable to say there was ever a choice in the first place. She chooses Sunjata. She will always choose Sunjata.

She sees the tip of the needle plunge into the side of Sunjata's throat, dark blood spraying out, and a strangled scream like the shriek of a hunting cat pierces through her own in an equally agonizing way. One hand shoves down hard on George's elbow as she comes down from her frantic lunge, shoving it back against his body and jerking the needle free of Sunjata's skin so it can't go any deeper.

The other summons the full force of her lightning to her palm. There is no hesitation, no guilt, only the thunderous rage of her beloved having been hurt, of his life now being at risk. Hand wreathed in the shrieking crackle of electricity, Hotaru slams it down over George's heart, and at that moment any affection there was between them is little more than smoke - she aims to kill.

because it's not murder if i bury you alive

HOTARU

don't try to follow me, i would hold you down if i could make you the enemy,

It’s almost laughable, how George’s frantic call is to tell Hotaru to run. To run from what? him? That certainly can’t be the case if the stranger knew anything about him. And that’s about the time he realizes something else might be at play, that there had to be another reason for the man he has pinned and stripped of his typical weaponry to be so concerned with the Valkyrie’s survivability.

The snow continues to fall in a quiet drizzle despite the sharp tang of iron in the air, the scent that makes his draconic shift even more possessive and attentive to Hotaru all while letting his guard down for her while he keeps George pinned down the best he can. So much so, that he’s only partially shifted his scales up his neck. Something’s wrong. He sends to Hotaru immediately, precisely about the time that the silver knitting needle makes an appearance, and does succeed in sinking in between the plates of his armored throat.

It isn’t a bad wound — he’s had worse — but ruby coats George’s skin in a quick flash the second Hotaru rips the needle from his throat, Sunjata recoiling and digging his hands in for control over keeping George to the ground. “You motherfucker,” Sunjata hisses, head tilting immediately to try and keep the wound from tearing further, gritting his sharp, fanged teeth.

And when he looks back after the recoil of her ripping the metal from his neck, it’s just in time to see that glimmer of lightning, one that makes his own scars itch as she aims it at his heart, and the Flood sits there, panting and bleeding and stunned, his steel gaze lifting to the Valkyrie, speechless.

the flood

i would  let   you     d    o    w    n

totally sniped from odd ilu

And so the battleships will sink beneath the waves
You had to kill me, but it killed you just the same

His knitting needle, not quite sharp, but not quite blunt either, succeeded in piercing the monster's neck, and in the haze of the dream cacti spine that heralded his demise, George felt a sharp sense of relief that he had managed to slay the creature threatening Hotaru and the rest of the House of Midnight. At least, that was what the nightmarish hallucination would have him believe. We all know that the monster - Sunjata - was indeed not dead, but his swear translated in George's drugged mind into the death throes of the monster he'd so valiantly fought on Hotaru's behalf.

For a brief, blessed moment, he looked up to see Hotaru's face, her golden hair shrouding her pretty face like a halo. She was paler than he'd have liked, and she had blood coming from somewhere, but she was blessedly alive.

And then there was nothing but pain as an electric shock coursed through him. His body arced, stiff and seizing from the electricity, flailing about in the snow beneath Sunjata's bulk, a horrendous scream tearing from his throat -

And then there was only darkness.

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed
You turned into your worst fears

George

i've got this feeling, and i've got this shovel
between me and you you're in a lot of trouble

The wrongness persists, and it's clear even Sunjata feels it, but it does nothing to stay her hand. Morality to Ru has always been a dark and aimless thing, guided by her fickle heart more than concrete opinions. Maybe George could have been healed. Maybe they could have held him, quarantined or jailed him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Hotaru will not risk Sunjata's life on a maybe.

George's scream blessedly doesn't register past the pounding of blood in her ears and every animal in her veins demanding the threat to her mate be removed in its entirety. It may haunt her later, but as the sheen of life leaves his eyes, Hotaru holds his gaze as her shoulders heave with exertion and the swift onset of panic and rage. Only when she turns her eyes to Sunajta, gaze wild and sharp, does humanity return - and only because he's staring at her, stunned.

Horrified?

Her stomach drops, and her bloodied hand reaches for him shakily before halting, uncertain suddenly of her welcome. But even if he is sickened by what she has done, she won't ask for permission to heal him; already her magic reaches for him, swiftly knitting up the injury dripping blood down his neck before she even considers turning it on herself. All the while she stares at him, at a loss. George lays lifeless beneath Sunjata, beneath her hand which still sits upon the thief's chest. "I - he tried to kill you," she murmurs, because to Hotaru that's all the motive she could have ever needed.

because it's not murder if i bury you alive

HOTARU

don't try to follow me, i would hold you down if i could make you the enemy,

Oh no, it isn’t that Sunjata’s horrified. It’s anything but that.

Because so much has happened all at once that he rarely had the moment to process it between pinning the stranger – not stranger, named George, the George that Sunjata’s only partially familiar with from Hotaru – to the confusion that seems to swarm from the man, the warning uttered out, Sunjata’s own warning that something isn’t right, to the sharp sinking pain of a needle sunk between the thick dark plates that interlock up his neck like a turtleneck, to the warm blood he can both smell in the soft falling snow and feel as it finds channels in the scarring of his draconic plates and pours down, to the buzzing itch and tremor that her lightning magic sparks in him unbeknownst to him at the time.

There’s a part of him later that will realize that George would have had to try much harder to kill him. People have done worse and he’s survived it. But through the bond as he stares at Hotaru, as he sees that sharp and wild ferocity that Hotaru holds before it melts into something terrified that he might think she’d gone too far. And even still, she heals him, leaving the blood to dry against his skin, the little wound leaving a pale scar behind.

But this was self-defense, wasn’t it?

He pulls back, wings flared and hands leaving George’s shoulders if only to reach for Hotaru the second her shakiness reaches him, the murmured quiet hitting his ears. He grabs her, pulls her in and away from George, pushing himself up to his feet with her in his arms, wings wrapping around her to take her away from the lifeless body that remains in the darkness. He doesn’t go far – obviously they have to deal with the body – but it’s close enough to try and get her closer to the House of Midnight for its warmth while also keeping George’s body in sight. “He tried but didn’t succeed.” A brief pause before he continues. “Thank you.” He murmurs to her gently, as if it would alleviate any of her fears, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he gets her to stand on her own, if only so that he can inspect the wounds to her arm and to her side, the blood that pours from it and his side of the bond that’s open and burning with possessiveness and relief that she’s alive, and the unbridled fury that she’s been hurt under his watch.

the flood

i would  let   you     d    o    w    n

totally sniped from odd ilu

i've got this feeling, and i've got this shovel
between me and you you're in a lot of trouble

Her magic is not yet strong enough to leave him without a scar, and though the blood conceals it, staring at where she knows it to be is easier to bear than risking looking into Sunjata's eyes and seeing rejection there. Hotaru is not the type to feel guilty for taking a life, but she is still so terrified of being abandoned. What if she has ruined it all already? What if this is it? She has killed the only man she could see herself falling for, and now she will lose the other she'd finally been given another chance with?

The shaking worsens with the tumult of her emotions, and her magic feels as far away as the snow on her skin and the blood upon it. If she doesn't heal herself, will Sunjata stay a moment longer? Can she stand to manipulate him that way for her own benefit? Her fingers touch against her stab wound, free of magic and making her wince, choking down a whimper that comes out thick with emotion she can't get ahead of.

Sunjata takes it all away in a mere moment, pulling her away from George and simultaneously into him where she sinks deeper instantly, hands rising to cling desperately to whatever she can get in her grasp. Wherever he takes her doesn't matter so long as he keeps her in his arms. Perhaps she should feel more rattled over having killed a man as opposed to losing Sunjata, but she doesn't. Nothing is worse than that.

Standing is a painful experience, but his soft rumbling tone - still deep and gravelly with his half-shift - keeps her captivated and distracted from the hurt. The kiss upon her cheek is contrastingly warm, and she startles upon realizing she is cold. Why? Shouldn't her blessing still be in effect? Together they look down at the wound on her side, and Ru realizes it might be shock or perhaps blood loss. Belatedly she realizes her own side of the bond has been wide open, likely because of said effects, and that her terror and need for him to keep her close has been splashed across the bond like the blood on her skin. "You came," she says dumbly, brain still desperately trying to catch up and bond thrumming with gratitude and love that still can't overshadow the fear and confusion beneath. Magic helps knit up the worst of her stab wound, but the cut on her arm remains, and she will surely scar as well. Her first real scar in Caido. "Thank you," she whispers in parallel to his own thanks, and it encompasses every little thing she can think to thank him for.

Thank you for coming when I called for you. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for staying, for not judging me, for not hating me.

Thank you.

- Fin

because it's not murder if i bury you alive

HOTARU

Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.