She stirs brokenly among the fallen leaves, a reluctant fight to consciousness that stirs her body and flutters her eyelids. She does not want to be awake, to face the constant, never ending pain of her captivity. How long? She thinks dully, mind a haze as she lays there, refusing to open her eyes. Maybe if she just lays here...she can waste away. Maybe he will overlook her. Maybe she will be saved. But she has stopped trying to run. She can't, for how he has injured her legs so badly. I fought, she tries to tell herself, but she wonders if this crippling weakness had lay dormant within her all along. Had she been a child playing queen this whole time? No. I AM a queen. A Lady. I deserve my title. And she plants her teeth along that knowledge and lets it pull her free from her stillness, greeting the cruel, beautiful world with dull eyes. Dull, but not broken. Not yet. Maybe soon, but not today. Tingal will not give up so easily, and he would come for her again today. He always did, though his intervals were impossible to predict. 

The Lady shifted, groaning and whimpering her agony freely, knowing he is nowhere near. Not now. Her body hurts, and every twitch and inch she gains is accompanied by a pain that burns through her cells until she can nearly feel it in her soul. The crest of her neck, the sides of her face, her stomach, a fracture in her right foreleg, countless cuts and bruises that mottle her so deeply she can scarcely tell the original color of her skin. The blood dries to blackness and flakes off, but it is always replaced. Always. Her throat is hoarse from screams she would not let him hear, until the moment she could hold back no longer. The deepest cuts still bleed sluggishly, painting the soft white of her skin the same red she always turned in these colder seasons. Even as she sleeps she bleeds, and she wonders why that is not enough for him. 

She staggers uncertainly to her hooves, if only because she can fend off the worst of his attacks while standing. If she falls...he can crack her ribs, crush her face, her legs. He can kill her. Even though she knows he's keeping her there for the purpose of prolonged torture, that could change at any moment, especially with his mercurial moods. She won't take that chance. 

Hotaru stands there at the precipice of the world, the place rumored to be closest to the Gods, and begins to laugh. 

She laughs until her broken ribs ache, until she cannot physically stand it anymore. Then she stares off into the distance, her face drawn and quiet, wondering where Alice is. -ru. One pink ear twitches, but she dismisses it and stares vapidly into the distance. Tingal will return for her eventually, and she must conserve her energy to fend him off and keep her own injuries to a minimum. Hotaru had learned the first few days that running was useless, when it exhausted her and he could easily catch up to her in her wounded and broken state. It was better to stand and await him, to meet him with the gathered remnants of her strength and pride. 

But she was not broken. Hurt, and terrified, and haunted, yes. But not broken.

Ru? It is so faint, barely even a whisper, but Hotaru's head jolts around as if she's been electrocuted by her own magic. Holds her breath until her ribs ache, staring off into the distance as if it will beckon the familiar ghost of a voice back to her. Am I losing my mind already? How childish. Get yourself together, Hotaru. Sharply gnashing her teeth she pins her ears back and turns her face away, as if the direction matters. The minutes tick by, seen only by the way the shadows grow and shrink in different directions throughout the day. She has come to memorize this piece of land, for she knows she will either die upon it, or finally kill Tingal in one of their battles. It is already endeared to her, if only because of that. The fields would be Heavenly one way or another, though she'd sooner like to see Tingal in Hell than any celestial place of purity. 

RU!

This time it shatters through her head, still distant but real. Her breath leaves her in a sharp rush and she stumbles on her fractured leg, trying to find the direction of the voice. Not just a voice, but Alice. She begins to weep, knowing Alice was not close enough for her - or rather, whoever she had fetched - to see Hotaru in such a state. Her soulmate, returned to her at last. A beacon of hope, of solidarity, of rescue. The tears dry quickly if only for the panic that sets in. She has to find them, and now. There was no telling when Tingal would be back, and Hotaru could not guess who Alice had found. Whether this was a coming battle that they could win, with Hotaru so beaten. 

Alice! The Lady claws into the frail string of their bond, drawing on the spiritual and emotional strength that Alice eagerly pours into her. It is a phantom kind of bolster to her spirit, but she clings to it, stumbling in the direction she can feel Alice's soul emanating from. RU! It echoes again, louder, and Hotaru feels her heart quake with relief in her chest. This is not the end. But she shushes Alice nonetheless, too afraid of the hound howling instead of using their bond to speak. It's why she refuses to shout her name, too afraid it will draw Tingal's attention if he is anywhere close. Her name repeats over and over and over, closer each time, until Alice bursts from the undergrowth and she's there.

Alice knows not to touch, can feel the pain emanating from Hotaru, but the Lady buries her face in the fur of her bonded and quakes all over. She has no tears to shed, not when she is so joyous, so full of tentative hope. Who did you bring? And then she lifts her eyes.

OOC thingies here