Having nothing to do is an odd sort of burden all of its own. She had grown so used to constant tasks to accomplish, the life of a Lady and a monarch, that when the dust settled...she was left with empty wandering hands and a lack of surety as to what her purpose was. Her daughters had seemed to hide away from her, or disappearing entirely into the snow and slush. Hotaru did not often let herself consider it, too aware of the fact that if she focused upon it she would crumble just a little bit more. Raeden, at least, had returned to her. Quieting, if not silencing, the haunting ghosts of her family. She had not failed them all, at least. Or so it seemed. 

Hotaru was young, for all she'd accomplished. But also for all that she had done. Some of it kept her up at night. Some of it she only let herself remember in the powerless grips of her nightmares. She was a bloodied fallen angel, taking up the devil's sword but wanting power only over the realm she belonged to. She took no sides, felled those on either side of the line she walked, and tried to quell the guilt she felt in the old and aching shards of her once-self. Hotaru had hated that child, with the scared eyes and the sensitive soul. Mesec had reintroduced her to that part of herself, in a light that made it a little less frightening. But she still could not face the demons in the dark, some nights. Nobody else needed to know her weakness, not when she was so aware of her own shortcomings. 

Sometimes, the demons couldn't be put back into the box. 

Something foul prickles at the nape of her neck and she whirls, the wind working against her but the sensation. Her instincts are screaming WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! But she doesn't know why until she spins, heart dropping into her stomach at the first glimpse of stripes and orange. For a half second she prays to her Goddess - the only one she can believe in, trust - that it's Saffron. The tigress had garnered the same reaction when they'd first met, too many ghosts and ghouls in the form of her flesh, the stripes on her hide. But he's larger, fouler, more dangerous than Saffron could ever hope to be. He steps towards her and the thick gravelly purr of his voice sends her bones shaking.

RU?! It screams across her synapses like lightning but she can't move, her limbs deadlocked and breath so shallow and short it seems to coalesce and rot inside her lungs. Do you believe in the boogeyman? She does, because he's standing right there. He was always real, she just hadn't let herself remember that. And she can't move and she can't remember the last time she felt this afraid, and Alice is a dim but exploding light in the back of her head, terror mounting between the two of them as Hotaru remains unresponsive. Her legs trip beneath her as she tries to circle to keep up with his pacing, but he dwarfs her. Always had. Tries to find her tongue, her courage, as he snarls and snaps and licks his twisted teeth. "Still vying after what you couldn't get, huh?" she snaps back, but she knows he can smell her fear. Locks herself down regardless. She's not going down without a fight, she is so much more than he will ever be. He can hurt her but he won't break her, not anymore. Or at least, she tries to tell herself that. 

He lunges for her, and she staggers back, a dying gasp strangled in her throat as she feels fire burn down the length of her slim shoulder and down her left leg as she jerks away. It hurts, all his weight and mass and anger, but she bares her teeth like the demon she is and lunges for him with gaping maw and flashing eyes. Seeks his jugular with her minuscule height, because she may be small but she is MIGHTY. She has brought herds crumbling to their knees, and men alongside them. She has conquered, she has bled and suffered for her triumphs. She has fallen to no beast, and it will not start today. 

RU!! And she can sense Alice getting closer, grabs onto their bond and yanks as hard as she can until she can feel with a phantom ache of her own knees the way Alice physically trips and falters. RUN! she screams even as she's backing away, eyes like dual fires and adjusting her weight off her leg. But he's still moving, a solid wall of half-fur and insidiousness, and she grits her teeth against a scream as his abnormal teeth rip and rend against her ribs. Shoves away violently, kicking at his hind joints, wants to see him crippled. Wants to see him stagger and fall, Goliath to her David. 

His threat tears into her ears and she can feel the filly inside herself quivering, crying out with fear and twisted, mortified love for this beast she'd once let herself fall for. But love is fragile and weak, and she had ripped it from her heart mercilessly, with blunted fingernails and a level of ferocity only the dying and desperate can achieve. Is this all my fault? But she has to focus, has to think, move on her feet as she always has. Alice is trying to keep moving, run back towards Hotaru and this showdown that is going to turn even more bloody and violent in the span of a few seconds. But Hotaru grinds her teeth, digs her essence into their bond and fills it with as much command as she can muster. LEAVE! Feels as much as hears inside her soul Alice's cry of denial, the agony she feels at not being able to save, help, protect. The confusion, wondering why, why, why is she being sent away? But Alice is everything beautiful and pure left in Hotaru's world, can't see that snuffed out by Tingal's venom and violence. To live without half of her soul would be to not live at all.

Even in her stubborn refusal, Hotaru can feel the sentiment returned in Alice. So she amends her statement, gives Alice something to focus on, to hunt. Find somebody, tell them, and then their link dissolves as Hotaru whirls to face Tingal with as much hatred as she can swell up onto her pretty face. "Bite me," she snarls, aware of the irony of the statement. This giant beast before a fragile, breakable queen. Lunges forward towards him anyways, aware of her impending defeat but letting it sweep her away. Maybe someone would care enough to find her. Maybe there would be nothing left to find.