Give us all the storybook told me - the faith and the glory, till my kingdom comes

Hotaru paced forward just as surely as Ashamin, a paralleled dance. She would not press any closer than he deigned to move forth himself, but she would match him for every step and inch consumed between them. She was unaware of what was really going on with his magic, if for the faint tingle and the echo in her ears that sounded so surely like a heart, but whose she could not tell. Her own was faster for fear for him, but she was lulled by the way his eyes slipped closed and his breath puffed sweetly against her own velveteen muzzle. He was familiar to her in ways no others had accomplished. Hotaru wanted so badly to confess that to him, but was unsure of how to go about it. She didn't even know what she felt for him, much less how to convey it properly without fumbling all over herself and destroying the exact precious threads that lay between their entangled hearts. 

It didn't matter what, anyway. Whatever he asked of her, she would grant. 

"I need you to hurt me." Except that. Her soul and her body recoiled in tandem, rearing back and staring at him with blown eyes and slack lips, ears falling to the wayside in her immediate instinctive denial of his request. Before she could even conjure an answer, stumble her way through a question, he was forging forward with more words. Her magic? It sizzled lovingly in her blood as if knowing he was speaking of it, called forth by his enchanting voice. Whatever fears she had he tried to soothe by saying he had herbs and remedies, things with which to heal himself with. It didn't matter to Hotaru that he could heal himself, for he thrust himself headlong into countless spars with the Basin inhabitants. What mattered was that the burns and lacerations he would have to heal would be caused by her.

He backed away from her and she stumbled after him, eyes begging him not to make her do this because her mouth and throat still refused to work on her behalf. But his desperation resonated inside of her. It was an expression she knew, one that she had experienced as well. What have you done, Ashamin? Her eyes glistened with unwanted tears, ones she would have killed herself to conceal were she in anyone else's presence. Ashamin had already seen her at her weakest, there was nothing left for him to mock her for. But she needed one thing before she did this for him, and she surged forward to wrap her neck around his withers and squeeze him tight, her chest shuddering with locked-down moans of denial and agony. Why would you ask this of me? When you are my only friend?

"Forgive me," she whispered, her voice breaking in the middle. Until she retreated, knowing she would need the space to keep herself out of the line of fire and let the magic have the room it needed to manifest. She could not even afford to close her eyes, because accuracy was necessary for both of her magical abilities. She would have to watch as she injured the one man she had relearned how to trust, her only friend and confidant. Swallowing unevenly she summoned her electric magic, feeling the air grow tense and hot and watching as, from nothingness, a white-blue ball spiraled and flailed into being. Tendrils of electricity seemed to thrust themselves from the core, and she sent it flying towards him. It popped loudly, more of a bang, almost deafening as the electricity was sent screaming forth towards his skin to burn and shock. The sound concealed her singular sob, and Hotaru was already building up the winds of the smallest scale storm she could conjure, wondering if quick succession would somehow make it hurt less. 

The winds unsettled her, for she was far closer to it this time than when she'd been practicing on the mountain range a few minutes ago. Her hooves scrabbled at loose gravel and snow as it tore its way towards Ashamin, and she let her grip on it dissolve as it hit the halfway point. It was decomposing by the time it enveloped the Haruspex, the winds less fierce but the invisible blades just as vengeful as they sought to cut into his skin. Hotaru ripped her control completely away, commanding it to cease, and it spiraled upwards and broke apart into errant wind. Her tears were thick on her cheeks, but blessedly silent. And she let them form all over again, another ball rushing on his other side to explode with a sizzling bang, the storm summoned once more from the half-dead remnants of the previous one, racing towards him to cut into his skin as surely as it was cutting into her soul to do this to him. And when she thrust it out of being, she felt as if her own wounds were deeper, in the end.

The Lady rushed to him, Alice at her side, to check on the damage. "How bad is it? Should I get Enna?" It was all she could think to say, but it babbled free wetly from her lips, eyes glossy with her own self-hatred. It mattered little that she had granted his wish, not when it involved hurting him so.