If the sky should fall

Hotaru

Zeus has crafted you from clay and gold

Hotaru bides her time to ask Sunjata what has changed. She knows something has. Colors on his skin that peek out from his clothing at random moments, catching her eye before disappearing. The fact he has not told her about his visit to Frey, despite Ru knowing he'd been intending to do it without a blindfold this time and having supported him in that decision.

As they return from scouting the new location for their home, Hotaru slides her hand into his elbow and looks up at him, slowing their pace slightly as she arches a pale brow. "You never told me how your visit with Frey went, hart koning." There is no accusation there. Though there have been dark, anxious thoughts about it given the trauma of the night he went to Safrin and changed their lives forever, Hotaru has been making a conscious effort to overcome those reactions, to have faith and trust in the change they are cultivating collectively.

Gently squeezing his arm, she gives him an encouraging smile. "I didn't want to rush you, but I intend to visit them soon myself. I'd hate to bore them with questions." She doubts he asked after the current reign of terror of new plants, but it neatly conceals the fact that she's nervous that Frey may have asked something of him that he is reluctant to share with Hotaru.

Such a lovely, pretty hand to hold - if you had the time

// the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us
when we left this town, running from the blinding heat //

As far as he was concerned, the day so far had been a success. The plot for their house picked amongst the bustling and beautiful flowers of Meadowreach, marked with posts to come back to and start the process of turning the bare earth into their home. Of course, it’s something that will happen later, given the time of day, and not wanting to bore Hotaru with more gatherings of putting together a building before she lives here full time.

So the walk back is nice, the air ruffling his hair freely, the weight of nothing on his shoulders as she slips her arm into his and his head tilts down toward her with an easy smile, one that falters with the realization. “I’m sorry. I was trying to find a good time and then it just, slipped from my mind.” Which is partially true, given that he’d held onto it tight for a private moment, to relay the one speck of magic he hadn’t wanted.

But their steps slow to a stop and he turns to face her more fully, warm hands lifting to her cheeks to tilt her head up as he leans in for a soft apologetic kiss. “It went well. No surprise children.” He jests lightly even if the joke ends with a quiet sigh, unsure whether or not it was safe to joke about it yet or not. “Apparently with all the self reflection and work on King’s End and myself, I’ve earned a lot of rewards from them.” And he pauses, for the first time in her full sight his nervousness and excitement cracks across his scars in a clap of pale blue lightning. “Supposedly surpassing Remi and Ronin somehow.” His hands slip from her face to her shoulders, fingertips toying with the golden waves of her hair as his nervousness over one particular magic manifests in the navy blue feathers that sprout around his neck.

the flood

// of our disaster when we left this town
you can rely on me, i will always let you down //

Hotaru

Zeus has crafted you from clay and gold

The ease of her smile and the slight twitch of her cheek as it widens makes it clear she sees no reason for him to apologize. "You've had much on your mind as is, I understand." Creating a region, a council, a home - all while adjusting to their relationship, Hotaru moving, and the eternal fresh wellspring of drama that Caido always provides.

His hands are warm against her cheeks, and she leans onto her toes to meet him midway in a chaste kiss, admittedly comforted by it - and able to admit that. The joke, too, is a comfort even if it's dark in a humorous way. At least she is of a similar enough mind to actually laugh at it, eyes crinkling and rolling simultaneously. "Good, or I'll run out of heralds to worship," she jokes in return, though she doubts Frey would ever dream of such tactics of manipulation and entrapment as Safrin had.

The flash of lightning in his skin makes her eyes widen, chasing the surge of color visually before returning her gaze to his. Pride glints there in the mismatched colors of her irises, something vain and possessive at its roots. "In strength and abilities, I would assume. Though considering it's Frey, perhaps they also meant sexual prowess," she teases with a grin, hoping to put him at ease when his hesitation is so apparent. The blue of blooming feathers is sign enough of his trepidation, and with his hands already in her hair she mirrors him, one coming to rest over his heart. "I'm so proud of you, Sunny. You deserve it - all of it." The ability to protect himself as fully as anyone in Caido can, the acceptance and pride of his chosen god, even just the growth of being able to visit Frey with open eyes and a heart set on a path toward healing. "But there's something else, isn't there?" A gentle prompt, and she lets the bond open wider so he can feel her resting emotions and the calm, ready state of them; though she can't promise to have a certain reaction, she can show him that she's in a state of mind to talk through whatever it may be.

Such a lovely, pretty hand to hold - if you had the time

// the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us
when we left this town, running from the blinding heat //

She’s always understood, once they’d gotten the hang of the bond and what it meant for them, wondering if perhaps had they had that in the past it might have solved a few things. But that’s all history, now, and he watches her with a soft smile even as his anxieties take root, carefully cut off from the bond, a mask in a way that doesn’t let slip what he’s to reveal to her before he’s ready. At least the joke has landed exactly how he’d hoped, eliciting a soft laugh.

“I assume that as well, though they didn’t elaborate. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” He admits, accented voice deepening as his thoughts start to run away from him, even as he toys with the golden strands between his fingers, meeting her dual toned gaze.

His own crinkle with the start of his crows feet, hair littered with little tendrils of silver amongst the dark brown, opening up the bond a fraction to prove to her that his gratitude is there when he dips his chin slightly. “Thank you. It’s… Admittedly relieving.” He murmurs softly, closing off the bond again despite how he can feel her openness to talk about what the other thing is.

His jaw works slightly and he exhales a soft sigh, nodding, but he forces himself to meet her gaze, to not hide away as he always had done. “Surpassing them means that I’m also immortal now.” He pauses, letting that sink in before he says the catch. “Unless I drown.” A fitting immortality clause, he supposes.

the flood

// of our disaster when we left this town
you can rely on me, i will always let you down //

Hotaru

Zeus has crafted you from clay and gold

The silence from his side is not a slight, nor reason to be concerned. Hotaru offers her own readily precisely because of their past, and anything he chooses to share she knows will come when he is ready. His heart never betrays him in its rhythm, and his predisposition with her hair is far from a distraction, so she patiently waits for that moment to come.

Hotaru has considered hundreds of endings to Sunjata's visit to Frey, and yet the word immortal bowls her over all the same. It's likely a bad habit, but for a moment Hotaru holds her breath - it's the best way to wait out the deluge of emotional reactions cascading like toppling cards inside her chest. When she exhales, it's undeniably shaky, but the rest of her remains thankfully steady.

"That's..." she attempts to start, but words fail her immediately. Her own bond withers until it offers only faint glimpses, though she resists building a wall there, not wanting him to get the wrong impression out of all the feelings his admission has drawn out. She bites her lip, toying with it plainly in a way she would never let anyone else see. Though she is proud of him for meeting her eyes when telling her, Hotaru is the first to look away; down, at her hand on his heart, as she tries to grapple with the far-reaching consequences of this change. "Part of me is relieved, and grateful," she murmurs, starting slow and working her way through each emotion instead of trying to formulate a response all at once. "I know the refuge has its purpose, but it's a relief to know it's almost impossible to lose you if something goes wrong." And there is a deep sense of love and appreciation that he told her his weakness so readily, though perhaps it hasn't occurred to him to keep it a secret.

Slowly, her expression folds into something more sorrowful. "But...and I know it's selfish," she mutters, slightly ashamed, "but knowing that I will outlive you is painful. Knowing you will have to watch me age and wither and die makes me hurt for you." Alas, she is not selfless enough to consider leaving him now or in the future to spare him that sight. Her fingers curl slightly in his shirt. She watches the wrinkles spread out like fissures, and she wishes - uselessly - that such pacts with gods did not have ends like these. "And while I know we can't reunite with Nate, knowing I may wait forever to see you in Mort's realm hurts too. And that you would have to suffer the experience that hurts you most just to achieve that..." her head shakes slightly, frown deepening. Envisioning Sunjata drowning at all makes her feel sick to her stomach after all he has been through. If one day, hundreds or thousands of years from now, he wants to rest with Mort, he will have to suffer those painful memories as the last of his life? It feels cruel and unfair, and it only heaps misery on the Valkyrie because of it.

Such a lovely, pretty hand to hold - if you had the time

// the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us
when we left this town, running from the blinding heat //

She withers. And from forcing himself to watch her, he gets to see first hand the way she holds her breath, the way she exhales it slowly and shakily, and his jaw works harder, chewing at the inside of his cheek even as he keeps his fingers moving in her gilded hair as a distraction for himself that he desperately needs, instead of the cigarettes from a pack burning in his pocket. She looks away first, though, and he exhales his own quiet sigh, relieved to no longer have to hold her gaze while everything seems to stand still around them as he focuses so intensely on the small amount of feeling from her side of the bond, trying so hard to glean what it is she’s thinking.

And honestly? It’s all the same he has.

He nods, a quiet “yeah,” exhaled out on a breath, watching as his beautiful rose begins to sag and wither, sorrow overtaking her features in ways that hurt him now let alone the idea of it coming to pass. Her admission of it, of him outliving her settles like a heavy weight in his stomach, churning uncomfortably in the waters of their future and what this now means. But the fact that it makes her hurt for him only adds to his love of her, even in the face of such a feat that others would be rejoicing with. But between the two of them, they’ve already dealt with so much, he’s already lost so much.

A heavy sigh leaves him again as she wrinkles the fabric of his shirt, her comment of Nate hurting in a particularly strong way that sparks the lightning strike of his scars, visible now in the actual lightning strike scars that run by her face, lighting up the marriage scar in his hand where he can see, he withers too. His side of the bond opens up, not entirely, but enough to allow her into his thoughts to prove to her that it wasn’t what he wanted. “I never wanted to be immortal.” Prone to the self harm that he is, at least. Having an out was the only relief he had of knowing that he’d likely outlive his lovers.

It had been hard enough with Nate, had taken him years to come back from it, and even then he hadn’t come back the same. What would the third do to him? “I guess it’s sort of poetic.” He admits, though all the teasing playfulness of the irony is completely gone, left behind a dull quiet of exhaustion and quiet simmering frustration. “My father will get what he wanted after all.” He can’t refrain now, even with her standing in his arms, to withdraw and reach for that burning pack of cigarettes in his pocket, slipping one out and placing it between his lips, lighting it with a match that he conveniently douses with a flick of a wrist of water magic. “I’m sorry.” He says around the smoky inhale, though whether he means over his immortality, or his inability to quit just yet.

the flood

// of our disaster when we left this town
you can rely on me, i will always let you down //

Hotaru

Zeus has crafted you from clay and gold

Were she not so dedicated to being honest with him, she might have considered hiding it away. Accepted the news with a wooden smile and feigned excitement. Though it hurts to let him see, and hurts more to see him wilt alongside her until they are two lone flowers reaching for one another in the absence of sunlight, it's something she can't conceive of hiding from him anymore. In some ways, Sunjata's magic ensures the same; the vivid color across his skin at the mention of Nate is clearer to her than anything in the bond might show. Though she does frown all the more at the lack of control he has over it - at least he can choose what she might feel through the bond. He doesn't deserve more vulnerability.

He might feel that through the bond, the wisps of regret and resignation as she watches the color disappear. Beneath it lies the ache of Nate's memory, something she always tries to hide. It feels presumptuous and unfair to measure her grief against Sunjata's, no matter how she'd never stopped loving Nate. To know she will see neither of them on the other side is devastating.

She can tell as he opens the bond that he doesn't want this, and she lets her shriveled side open wider to express understanding and empathy. She feels helpless as she watches him light a cigarette, his father's face a mocking memory in her mind's eye as something like anger and injustice swells between her ribs. "Fuck him," she spits, because anger is at least a productive emotion, even if her lips wobble and betray her. "Right now, it's a comfort - a shield. Whatever pain may come, it's in the future for us. We will face it together if and when it comes." Even if it will be hard not to think about it every moment for the next few days. Knowing their luck and Caido's ways, she can't ignore the notion that she'll be the one taken too early, that it may happen sooner than expected. At least they can be grateful that he is safe from that fate.

Expression softening as he apologizes, Hotaru slides her hand up his chest to cup the back of his neck. Smoking is far from her favorite thing, sure, but she can't deny him what works for his nerves. Instead of responding to his apology, she holds his gaze for a long moment. "If fate treats us kindly - if the perfect time ever comes - I will drown with you. I won't leave you alone to it. I promise." No matter if she is old and he is young, or if they simply are too brokenhearted to want to live another day. Whatever their futures might have in store for them, if she is alive when the time comes, she'll hold his hand as they both go under.

Such a lovely, pretty hand to hold - if you had the time

// the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us
when we left this town, running from the blinding heat //

It burns in a way that he can’t place, though he never really can when it comes to the sinking sensation. A fire starts somewhere in the voided pit of his memories and thoughts, places he ignores until they rouse him from his sleep time and time again. And Nate, well, he’s so succinctly hidden these days that Sunjata tries his hardest to not let the memories burn at the surface, trying to follow Frey’s advice to live.

Even if it hurt every second. Even if he still isn’t entirely over it. Even if he thinks he never will.

The cigarette is lit precisely as he feels her understanding and empathy, the snarled out fuck him eliciting a surprise, another flicker of light along each scar, this time with the addition of the one on his neck beneath the inky tattoo that had been put there to try and cover it. It gives him pause enough to watch her, the smoke lingering in tendrils around his face, trying his best to not get swept under the waves of emotion that ripple between the two of them on the surface.

Her hand slides up his chest to the back of his neck, into the short hair there, while Sunjata takes another drag of the smoke, exhaling slowly through his nose as to not blow it in her face, jaw loosening its tension slightly while his gaze meets hers, as his side of the bond is open for her words and emotions to caress the splintered wounds. And it isn’t at all what he expects, evident in the crease between his brows, pinching as the realization sinks in.

The cigarette finds a home in between his fingers and he reaches forward to cup her face again. “I love you.” He whispers softly – voice slightly hoarse from the smoke. He leans forward then, capturing her lips in a short kiss, as if proving it just as much with his body language as he does through the bond, an overwhelming sense of gratitude and a hint of relief, even as he pulls away to press another kiss to her forehead. “But you know I could never ask that of you.” He says quietly, as appealing as the thought is, as ironic as it was when they’d met after the war ended and learned of the casualties in that salty, Torchline sea, he could never allow himself to be so selfish.

the flood

// of our disaster when we left this town
you can rely on me, i will always let you down //

Hotaru

Zeus has crafted you from clay and gold

It's a pain she shares, though hers is convoluted and filled with words never said, closure never received. It's also one she tries to keep as far from his awareness as possible because she knows how even the reminder of Enzo can bring her to her knees. It's not so different with Nate, but it's a more respectful comparison with Enzo, and she hates to remind him of it at all were it not for the honesty she keeps a white-knuckled grip on.

It's that honesty that beats like a heart under her words, lending conviction and chasing any doubt to the far corners of the earth. Smoke lingers, but he alone is clear in her eyes, and as he cups her face she stands with her feet solid on the earth below; unshakeable, dauntless, certain. Even the sweetness of his kiss - his gratitude - cannot distract her. And if even that cannot, then his objections have no hope of accomplishing it.

"You never would," she agrees, and there is a glint in her eyes that makes it clear she won't be budged on this. "Which is why it's a good thing I'm not asking your permission." The hand at his neck tightens slightly, and her free hand rises to cover his own on her cheek as her eyes flicker between both of his. "I know the odds of an ending that peaceful are low. I know I might not be here when the time comes for you to face that moment." Gods willing she will, but Hotaru is too much of a realist for such hopeful thinking. "But if I am? Even you can't stop me from going down with you." Her heart thrums with lightning, veins hot with the wild force of her conviction. "I love you," she echoes, because she will never not say it back, "and I won't let you face those demons alone. Not again." Never again. She had been useless, helpless, the day he and Shaju had gone over the cliff into the ocean. Mort will have to take her first before she stands by, impotent and passive, and watches her beloved suffer a second time.

Hand tightening over his, she offers a sorrowful smile. "You can't change my mind. Not on this, hart koning." Her smile goes lopsided in a way more befitting the Flood. "I only wish Frey had chosen any other weakness." It seems her visit to the deity's shrine will be more emotionally complex than she initially expected.

Such a lovely, pretty hand to hold - if you had the time

// the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us
when we left this town, running from the blinding heat //

He withdraws from the kiss to scan her face, to see that glimmer of steadfast choices made before his eyes. His stomach churns again, the bond quieting while she tightens her hand at his neck, scarred lips forming a soft frown. But before he can work out the words he wants to say, she continues, doubling down on her decision to go with him when the time comes – unless, of course, it’s a similar thing to what happened between he and Nate, were he to be called away and leave her behind.

It's a thought still so fresh that he cowers internally from it, doesn’t voice it, doesn’t even let the blip of the route his mind has taken come to the surface. But this isn’t an argument that he wants to have today, not when such new and beautiful things were coming, not when their house was just over the hills of flowers, ready to be built for a future that should in theory last longer. Even if he knows realistically that the chances of her going before him were far higher than his own.

He withdraws somewhat more, to return to the cigarette between his fingers, flicking the ash into the air off to the side with a soft little “alright,” unsure what else to say in the face of her decision. At least, until her smile shifts lopsidedly and speaks on Frey and he shakes his head slightly. “I don’t think Frey makes the choices in that.” He admits, tone shifting from so weary into uncertainty. “I think in my case it’s tied in with the magic I have. I can control water, so what are the chances that I’d be able to drown in it?” Likely if he were incapacitated, but, it wouldn’t be like that day on Torchline’s hills where he’d launched himself over the edge with his father.

He'd be able to control it, a king of the sea, wielding the very thing that could be his permanent demise.

“Fairly rare, right? Something would have to go terribly wrong for it to be the thing that takes me out consciously.” He poses the question curiously, steel eyes returning to her face as he drags from the cigarette again.

the flood

// of our disaster when we left this town
you can rely on me, i will always let you down //

Hotaru

Zeus has crafted you from clay and gold

She doesn’t anticipate his glowing appreciation or approval, but something is clearly distracting him down a path she can’t follow, and Hotaru lightly bites her tongue where he can’t see to refrain from trying to pry. It is likely to be only sentiment in nature; Hotaru has always striven for further and further strength, but she’s aware the likelihood of her own death is unfortunately much higher. It causes her own chest to wither and close up, close him out, because she has too many complex feelings about it. After the loss of Enzo she had longed for it. Prayed. Now, she wants to focus on living; it’s unfair to her that now she has to remember her own mortality so unexpectedly.

As Sunjata returns to his cigarette, Ru quietly retrieves her hands and tilts her head in mild concession to the defense he gives. “Exactly why we should try to focus on the positives.” Not her territory by far, but her gratitude for his nearly ironclad safety is palpable so long as she doesn’t consider the topic too deeply. She summons a smile, pulls on threads of playfulness that she doesn’t really feel but maybe if she reaches for it it will come more naturally. “You couldn’t have picked a better region then; surrounded by more water than most. Though maybe you should put a giant bubble over one area and sink it under the ocean like the Mer,” she jests, envisioning some sort of Atlantean globe with more defenses than most of Caido.

Such a lovely, pretty hand to hold - if you had the time

// the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us
when we left this town, running from the blinding heat //

He can see the way she wants to ask what’s distracted him so thoroughly, but he’s ever more grateful when the question doesn’t break the gap between them. Instead, it turns into something he can mull over, later, when it’s dark and quiet and he can’t sleep as so often were the case. Granted, he gets more sleep than he had before, especially when she’s beside him in the bed. But for the time being with her drifting back and forth to Halo, the times she’s absent are the hardest nights.

The nicotine is a boon that soothes the tension in his muscles, the smoke wafting in long dark tendrils as it’s inhaled, exhaled in a plume carried by the light breeze away from them. “And training.” He supplements to her thoughts on focusing on the positives – until her playfulness (that he can see isn’t fully there, but that she’s trying, so he meets her halfway with a crooked smile of his own) reaches him and he snorts. “I don’t need to be surrounded by water.” He murmurs, in case she’d forgotten that he doesn’t draw on the elements around him, hand lifting to conjure the water from essentially thin air, letting the thin stream spin around in the air like a ribbon, glinting the light from the outdoors against it like glitter.

But she mentions the bubble, and he figures since he’s told her the news of Frey, he can show her, too. “You mean something like this?” He asks, letting the water grow and mold into a swirling bubble that encapsulates them, a shield to ward away any incoming attacks and that allows for the both of them to remain within the cool water safely.

the flood

// of our disaster when we left this town
you can rely on me, i will always let you down //

Hotaru

Zeus has crafted you from clay and gold

Hotaru laughs, a quiet thing still, and makes an x with her hands in a distinct gesture of denial. “Oh, no. I get plenty of training, but I’m nowhere on your level now so you better be thinking of some dramatic montage of you working out by the shoreline.” Ru bolsters their growing efforts at lightheartedness, having grown comfortable with admitting her comparable weakness when held up against demigods and their ilk. Anyone else, well…she doubts she’ll stop vying for personal power anytime soon.

She hadn’t forgotten, but it doesn’t mean she can’t appreciate his showiness with a fond smile. “You’re not thinking big enough, Sunny. The showmanship, the drama!” Ru gestures with her arms, invoking a sense of magnitude and volume. “Giant waves and typhoons! The intimidation factor,” she emphasizes with a wink and a smile. He isn’t lacking in intimidation at all, but that’s part of the fun of invoking these playful exaggerations.

Of course he has to one up her little vision board, though Hotaru can’t be too mad about it when his magic is such a delight to behold. The water feels like a tickle of energy against her skin as it swells past them to envelop them both, and Ru spins slowly on the spot to observe the dome with bright eyes. Turning over her shoulder as she spins back toward him, Ru grins. “Exactly like this. Impenetrable defenses really.” Yet it’s clear by the softness surrounding her grin that she’s proud of him, impressed by his new abilities and control. Not that she’ll say it again or he’s going to get a big head.

Such a lovely, pretty hand to hold - if you had the time

// the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us
when we left this town, running from the blinding heat //

A hum of a laugh is surrounded by a cloud of smoke, a playful roll of his eyes as he lets the hard conversations disperse, favoring this attempt they both have to try and make the air lighter. “I never said training with you.” He points out, knowing full well that he surpassed most these days, which is why he tends to train with others in a way that benefits them more than he does himself. “But I suppose if a dramatic montage where you can watch my muscles work can be done.” He flashes her a wink.

The fond smile she offers and the dramatics of the image she paints into his head has him finishing off the cigarette, amusement clear in his face and painting the bond in swaths of softer comfort. “I’m relatively confident my scars do the intimidation enough. I’m like a walking hazard to the people of Stormbreak.” His lips quirk in an amused twist, of course, before he’s stepping closer to her to show her the magic as it surrounds them in a shield.

She spins and he watches her, even while the magic swirls the water around them, clear that his eyes still remain only for her even if this part of his set of abilities were still so new to him. “Do you want to see more?” He asks curiously, fully content to lay out everything that he can to her so she can see everything he’s working with, and perhaps (probably) offer plenty more great advice for how he can use it.

the flood

// of our disaster when we left this town
you can rely on me, i will always let you down //