Even in all her efforts, she’s wounded. She’s nothing more than a scared, cornered animal. She’s not the Lady she tries to be, she cannot summon the elegance and restraint of her station. She does not feel worthy of her title, but it has no place here anyways. Not here on the edge of the world she’s always known, horribly alone, horribly young. They are both mere children playing in the big leagues, and Hotaru wonders once more why Ophelia ever thought she was ready for this. Maybe she had played the game too well, too convincingly. Tingal had broken apart every piece of armor she’d managed to clasp around herself, and Ampere had swooped down to feast upon the raw and aching parts left visible beneath the shattered façade. It wasn’t fair. But Hotaru had never played any fair games, and it was perhaps time that it came back to bite her. She went to her defeat quietly, for she’d never held any illusions of winning this battle. She had gone into it knowing she would lose, but she could not accept her name being slandered – Ampere would not be able to say that Hotaru had backed down from this fight, even when she was as close to dead as a living thing could be.
 
That was enough.
 
So when the lightning falls upon her she doesn't try to avoid it. There was nothing left for her to give. And as she stumbles upon the impact her hoof slips in the snow and the resounding snap of her foreleg sounds like a death knoll in her ears. Everything hurts all at once, an all-encompassing inferno that threatens to consume her entirely. Hotaru falls into it screaming, as her skin blisters where the armor kept contact and her body folds beneath the weight of her broken limb. Alice’s howl reaches screeching, demonic levels that were more befitting her hellhound nature than any wolf could produce, abandoning Ampere immediately in favor of her bonded. Hotaru’s face was wet with tears within moments, the armor retreating to leave her blistered skin untouched. She leans immediately against her sister, her entire body shaking with the pain.
 
I’m going to die here, she thought quietly, and Alice set up a long, grief-struck howl. It went on endlessly, and Hotaru sagged against her. “It’s okay, Alice,” she gasps pitifully with her thick tongue, vision swimming beneath pain and tears. The hound makes an awful, pained noise. No, no, no, Alice cries in her head, seemingly incapable of remaining silent with this terror in her heart. But Hotaru lifts her head weakly towards Ampere, hearing words and only vaguely sorting through them for meaning.
 
“You’re right,” she says quietly, trying to focus her black-spotted vision, voice hoarse and broken from her screaming. “It does free her from me. But she stays anyway.” Alice snarls hatefully at the blue, and while Hotaru may forgive her for the sake of her herd if nothing else, the bitch never would. Her hatred would run eternal, and she would envision the blue’s demise for the rest of her years. “Her life isn’t mine. But we are bound anyways. She fights with me, not for me. If you had a child –" her voice breaks here, a telling sign, one she’s too exhausted to conceal because all she can imagine is Arya’s face when she hears of her mother’s death “- would you not run to them on the battlefield to save them? You throw yourself at their adversary out of love, not because they have any command over you.” She silences Alice’s snarls by pressing the side of her face into the fur of her neck, tries to draw strength in what she sees as her last moments. Because she couldn’t get home on a broken leg, and she knew she would die here.
 
“I would prove it to you. I will, if you want to experiment on those you do not understand. If we meet again Ampere…you may silence our bond willingly, you may ask Alice any question that I will translate. I have loved a companion not my own, you know I have,” for Ampere had been there when Hotaru had been grieving, when Stella and Phaedra had paid the price for her greed, and another tear slips down her cheek. “But I won’t apologize for our bond.” Instead she tips her head, lets the crown fall to the snow. “You’ve won it. And I forgive you. Now please, leave.” And her voice breaks in her tears even as she begs, glancing away. She doesn’t want Ampere to see her like this, not when she can taste death on her tongue. Tingal may have broken her, but Ampere had at least been kind enough to end it.

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Blu, thank you for giving me not only the first finished challenge I've ever had, but for giving me such a great thread and opportunity to develop her <3 this was the most fun I've had in a long time!


Hotaru gives up the armor willingly!

Defense: {1/1}
Words: {799/800}