They are a laughing matter, a cosmic joke - she wrapped in dawnlight and stardust with a heart black and twisted, he cloaked in snow and tar with gold shining stubbornly through the cracks of his painted bodice. Beauty and the beast...ah but which is which? Her petals are shedding themselves, stripping away to show him the darkness of her soul, the pit of blackness and bad that was put there with sadistic love by her mother before her. She had railed against the ways of her dam, her twin with her head full of ego and lies, only to find that when she gazed upon her reflection that she had come to exceed them both in wickedness and cruelty. Hotaru did not deserve his kindness, hardly deserved to even stand in his presence as he looked upon her with kind eyes and patient soul. It should scorch her, should make her skin crawl as the vile beast within her rejected the light of his soul. Instead she found herself swaying towards it, hooves stumbling as she turned to face him, shuddering breaths and diamonds clinging to her lashes. A beautiful sort of destruction. It should hurt her, for her darkness to have light shone upon it, but instead she found herself craving all that he could offer her. As if she'd never been touched, never been loved. Had she? 

Maybe once upon a time, when she was still untainted and allowed to be loved. Capable of being loved. But even that had turned against her, clothed in venomous words and starving fangs that shredded apart what good was left inside her. If ever there had been. Maybe it had been a ruse, something to trick and deceive her so that she would look back upon her life and wonder when she'd changed. Only to realize that she'd been rotten to the core all along. 

She is held stuck in his tale, the snow beginning to fall outside the cavern as if in tribute to his words, as if he had called them to the earth with words alone like some misunderstood, rapturous prophet. And in her mind's eye she saw it, a great swan struck beneath an arc of blue, exploding into feathers that fell to rising mountains. Her spirit ripped apart and thrown to the cosmos but changing the world for the better, creating such a massive change with the otherwise simplistic passing of her life. Though consciously Hotaru could not understand why she felt such kinship to the mighty bird, her heart felt a little less raw with his passionate eulogy for the mighty beast. 

Whatever emotion he spoke with stabbed into her soul with so much force that she stared wide eyed and breathless at him as he reached into the darkness of her mind and plucked forth her deepest, most ingrained fear. 

"Do you really think, that if some stray bolt sought you out, this herd wouldn't be there to catch you? Who cares if you are a mare? Do you really think someone wouldn't rise up to hold you steady in the cradle of a mountain?"

And though she had never let the tale pass her lips, had shoved it into the recesses of her memories, she found her tongue unglued and sudden words springing to her lips. "I have burned the hearts out of stronger men than you, Ashamin." And her eyes were moist and wild with her own self-hatred, because she was a study in contrast and conflict, both embracing and detesting the parts of herself that could so easily tangle up and break a soul. A heart. A mind. "I was born to a she-devil with no visible morals and a demon twisted crimson in these pale lands. I told myself, never. I will never follow in her footsteps." She swayed closer towards him, eyes never leaving his face, something desperate and dangerous on her pretty face. "I thought I was capable of good. I thought I could use the gifts she had given me, what came natural to me, and still preserve the light inside my soul. I thought I could separate the taint that I had been born with from what little purity I had left." Like Ophelia had. But the Forsaken should have known that Hotaru was no worthy successor, for she had never been able to control the spread of her own darkness. Her hoofsteps are loud in her ears and she shudders to a halt, graceless and jolting as if she isn't sure which part of her body should stop first. 

"I was so wrong." It's an old wind that passes through her lips, aching and dusty with ancient hurt. 

"I have never loved nor been loved by anyone aside my daughter. I have manipulated, mangled, and destroyed. I have united and broken apart empires. I have single-handedly initiated invasions without blinking an eye. I have used others for leverage, have whispered lies and false promises into their ears only to rip them apart for the sake of this family. I have built this herd into something untouchable using those blackened gifts that I never wanted, but I did it out of love," she cried woundedly, tears creasing against he cheeks. "I thought...I thought maybe I could be good, somehow, by being bad as well. I do not deserve mountains that rise to catch me. I do not deserve faith or understanding. I do not deserve this conflict that I still feel, to stand here before you and not deserve your loyalty, but to want it!" It surged up, louder and louder, until she was screaming. 

The silence that ensued nearly shattered her. When was the last time she was so honest? A hiccup wrecked its way through and out of her throat in the echo of her self-hatred. "I can't...I can't understand myself. I can't even word it right to make you understand. I love my power, the power I have over others. But I...I also resent it. But I did it all out of love, Ashamin, doesn't that mean something?" Her eyes were wet and conflicted as they lifted to the stallion before her, wondering if he'd run screaming out of the cave to share her wicked past with the family that still had not accepted her. The one she loved so deeply it hurt. "How can I stop when I don't want to? When it achieves so much? How can I feel so disgusted by myself, but also proud that I have protected my family?"

And so Hotaru shook her crown, long pearly horn dancing in the firelight, rejecting the faith he had for her. Rejecting his tales of deserving birds who were loved enough to have mountains rise from solid ground to meet their falling forms, and inspire tears across the world as her feathers rained like snow from the sky. "My love is unrequited, for they see only the actions, not the intent. Not the conflict I feel, sick love and disgust for myself. I am unworthy of mountains, I am not even worthy of molehills. But I would live a thousand seasons bearing this cross and seeing the mistrust of my own people than let this family fall."