Dark eyes gazed upon her, but she offered only an obscure smile to the Reaper's silent inquiries. He would grow fond of her yet, and she was intrigued by him as well. Perhaps her sense of pack and loyalty had infiltrated her too deeply, desiring a bond with the other Alpha she led with. His touch did not scald or draw from her the essence of her life, and she knew with his docile reaction - not that she'd ever allow him to hear such a word from her mouth in description of him - that she would soon do so again. But he was not the man that held her attention, and she had fallen into the obscure depths of Ashamin's eyes as she always did. And she hated herself for it, for the way her lips trembled and her mask cracked along the edges, revealing weaknesses she could not bear to recognize in the mirror. He brought out the remaining humanity in her, and she cringed away from it, from the thought that she still had something precious left for the world to destroy. And destroy it would, for she was never safe from the tempestuous fates and their cruel mockery of life's joys. He reflected the few battered good things she had left in her possession, he among them, and she could only see all the different ways that they would be crushed and taken from her. 

That he could be taken from her. If he had not been already, by swollen sides and friendly faces that did not go icy and regal beneath the curious eyes of others. As she strode from the tent, Alice hurrying to her side, she could feel it. Feel the small, withheld smile betwixt her lips, as if she had not just stood beside the sun and dared to touch it. As if her entire world did not quake when she drew near him, because he represented all that she had once understood but had forsaken. And she had forsaken them for good reason, Hotaru desperately tried to remind herself. He had no right to enter her life and worm his way into her graces - she could not say her heart, could not call it what it was because she'd never be able to make it out of this tent, she would turn and throw herself before him and everything would be over. He had no right to tote his wholeness before her, experiencing emotions she'd frozen and burned out of herself so long ago. To tempt her with the idea that maybe she could nurture those barren fields, restore herself and her emotional capacities. Because it would make her weak, and while she may have been able to be convinced before her ascension, she could not afford it now. If not for her own sake, then for the herd's. 

But his voice still has that unfair magnetic pull to it, and she wonders if anyone notices how her steps hurry as she hears her voice on his tongue, that soft baritone that makes her think of things like hope and new beginnings that she has never deserved and never will. Alice keeps careful pace with her, her own opinion silenced, and Hotaru could not help but let her gait quicken as she finally fell indistinct on the horizon away from the tent. They could not see her, nor label her evasion as a retreat, and so she let herself find speed if only for a moment. Deeper into the evergreens, their boughs brushing cold and ticklish against her sides. If they were to do this, if he were to chase her...

She had always been the one to chase. She had chased Thranduil, was still chasing eternally after his fading form. Phaedra had chased Tolio to the ends of the earth until at last he admitted defeat and did not attempt to evade her love. Hotaru had grown up with the belief that the woman was the one to hold both the power and the pressure, and yet here she was, fleeing from Ashamin. It was like a surrender all of its own, for he made her nervous, and not the rightful way around. She wanted so badly to speak to her mother, to ask for wisdom, for advice. But instead she slowed, she paused, and Hotaru tried not to recognize the way her heart both ached and beat like hummingbird wings inside her chest. You love Thranduil, she agonized, and didn't let herself ponder why she had to tell herself that in this moment.

But if he did pursue her...if he cared enough to come, then...she turned and faced him. Her muzzle still stupidly painted, clasped between the hugging branches of the evergreens, more child than queen. 

"You should return to them. It was your orchestration after all," she pointed out, trying to maintain her regal and detached air, trying not to notice the quiver of her voice that was far too prominent to make her words believable. And she prayed he would have mercy on her. 

OOC thingies here