There is something lurking unspoken between them, and Hotaru wonders why she does this. Why she bears the barbs of his words, when she knows she’s not as strong as she likes to think she is. She can’t handle them, not really. Is loving him just another way of hurting myself further? Was her self-hatred so deep that she would willingly pursue somebody that would love her only the most basic, primordial, painful ways? That he would come and run for her, protect and defend her, all the while cinching the collar tighter in anger. Because he wanted to singe his own mark into her flesh, cause her pain on his own terms, see her broken by his own blows. You’re no better than him, Hotaru thought hatefully, glad she could not see his face, for she would surely end up ruining her own chances of salvation if she could. Tingal, Thranduil…where did the differences lie?
 
Why did she love him? It was a possessive sort of love, and she hated herself even more for it. All we do is hurt each other. But we’d rather hurt one another than let anyone else hurt us…I don’t think that’s what love is. But Hotaru deserved no other kind of love. This violent, broken love was the only kind she could hold in her bloodstained hands without feeling remorse. Even if she doubted every second whether he loved her, or saw her as something to remain glittering and shiny in his possession. Some sort of trophy. Because it was a way to win. To triumph over her, by owning her, by tying barbwire around her heart and gleefully tugging her along.
 
She could force her own possession upon him, desperate and uncalculated, but it would never be what she wanted. Just some last bid attempt to put them on equal ground, because she’d rather love him bleeding than not be loved at all.
 
He takes her upon himself, and she stares blankly at the disembodied face beside her. It is her face that stares back at her, and for a moment, even with her own gloated vanity (a sham, a farce, for she would never stop being that knobby-kneed ugly filly from the forest) she is surprised by her own beauty. And she realizes with a sick twist of her gut, something that feels like the beginning of an onslaught of hysterical crying, that she looks like her mother.
 
The soft feel of fabric upon her hide is a distraction, and it shields her from the awareness of the fact that she does not deserved that dished face, those expressive eyes. It smells like Thranduil, and her girlish heart leaps in her chest unbidden, because fuck it but she loves him. In such a horrible, twisted, demented, unhealthy way. And she wishes that they weren’t both so twisted, that she didn’t strangle, choke, and chain the real parts of herself down into the bowels of her flawless façade. Because she would never be able to admit that what she wanted was what her mother had once had. Soft, loving touches. Stolen moments. True, visceral love, whispered into skin. Shared scents, shared lives. Romance. Grandeur. But that was what Ru wanted. The entity that had been Ru was supposed to be long dead, the corpse that fertilized the growth of the Queen that had become Hotaru. Those flaws had been the cracks in the concrete that gave way to the rebirth of the Lady of the Basin, and only crumbled stones were supposed to remain as any proof that she’d once been so despicable. But Thranduil could never give her that, would never deign to give her that. She hadn’t known she’d wanted it, so blind was she to her own desires, until Ashamin and Mesec had treated her as if she were made of glass. As if she deserved to be treated like she was something precious, not whipped and cajoled with violent words and domineering actions. But she loved him because she deserved it, and because only two individuals as specifically broken as the pair of them could ever come together in any semblance of wholeness.
 
Instead she tugs the cloak closer with her teeth, higher on her withers, and stares dead-eyed and unfeeling into her own bi-colored orbs. She thinks that maybe she should say something, a witty quip or sarcastic comment. Something to prove to him, to herself, that she was still on equal ground with him. But he demanded her, “go”, and it seemed so horribly profound. Go, because she was unwanted. Go, because she was not worthy of his affection or attention. Go, so he could clean the mess that she had started.
 
Alice had returned with her tiara clasped between ivory teeth, but her hell-black eyes expressed the resounding pain she felt from her mistress’ side of the bond.
 
Everyone I’ve ever loved left me first, she thinks, and Alice whines. Maybe I should turn the tables.
 
So she walked off, as quickly as she could manage with the state her body was in, clasped in Thranduil’s scent and with Alice hurrying beside her. To freedom, though the meaning of it had changed for her now. Thranduil didn’t even know that while Tingal had worked day and night to break her, to feast upon her, to kill her, the Laurelin had been the one to deliver the final, fatal blow. 

OOC thingies here