Dark eyes bore into her body as she wanders from the depths of the steaming, bubbling water. He is a mystery to her, and yet she knows that when the hounds rise from their satanic coils to pursue them across this frozen wasteland they command, Deimos will fight bloody and damned right beside her. Even when his physicality is absent, she can feel him, a solid presence at her back. A promise of kinship and power, a silent, protective shield. He is the oak that shelters and fosters growth, and she the tenacious, beautiful vines that slowly wound their way across his structure. And while his branches are barren and his trunk scarred and burned with age and horror, he stands stalwart against the howling winds. And between the two of them, they create shade and safety for those who huddle beneath the might of their construction. A haven from the buffeting winds, an obstruction that exists solely for the purpose of cultivating family and kin. There is something tight and tortured in the corners of his eyes, a weariness she only knows the beginning of. Wonders how much he has lost, how many broken dreams and festering wounds he has struggled through to get where he stands before her now. 

Though his voice rumbles solid and concise, Hotaru did not achieve her rank for her stunningly good looks. A weary smile tries to form itself into something more playful, some type of smirk, but she simply does not have the energy to try and create a charade for her comrade. Her eyes betray her, soft and understanding. The lies they weave for themselves have far fewer holes and far stronger threads than those that spring to tongue for others. Whether he will accept the intrusion she is planning is yet to be seen, but in her own melancholy reflection, she is inspired to be there for the stoic king. Perhaps he was as lonely as she once had been, standing in the Steppe with no family at her side and only the lost memory of her father's name carrying her north-bound. 

His dark eyes fostered sympathy and curiosity in her tired heart, and perhaps the mother in her yearned to protect the battered, hidden parts of this man she looked up to. 

"No you're not," she says quietly, softly, as if it will somehow soften the blow of her honesty. She cared about the truth behind those three words, wondered how many had sought to discover the reality of Deimos' emotions. Hotaru could not blame the likely pitifully few numbers. She had once believed him incapable of emotion, herself. But you know the idiom about assumptions...

Hotaru couldn't fathom why he'd wandered to her. Was it a misplaced sense of loyalty? Duty? Was she just another on a list of those to tend to and reassure, simply because it was their job as Lord and Lady? Did he worry, somewhere in his hidden heart, about her injuries? Hotaru recalled his dark, stormy gaze. Vitriol and violence, promising to rend and ruin whoever had called her blood to her skin. But Hotaru had held her tongue. Not because she did not trust Deimos to hold true to that silent promise, but because she had feared he would. And Hotaru could not risk their alliance with the Throat simply because she had stolen a piece of armor in her youth, and was too injured to keep up with Ampere's demands to liberate it from her body. She would rather lie and leave him confused, potentially hurt by her silence, than doom the herd that lay trusting and willing at their feet. 

Perhaps in time she would tell him. Perhaps even today, with how he quietly questioned after her own state of mind. Body? How deep did his worry run? How sincere were his stilted questions?

"Magic may erase all signs of any wound, but sometimes I ache as if I can still feel where they used to lie." It is spoken surprisingly quietly, perhaps because she is offering to him a piece of solitude and secrecy, honesty that is hard to come by from the sharp-tongued vixen. And though she fears that honesty, so deeply she wonders if it shows on her face despite her carefully controlled expression, she is moved to speaking nonetheless. Because she may be the vines that wrap around his sturdy branches, but he is the one that supports and centers. And nobody seems to appreciate him for that. So her tongue runs away from her, truth spilling out of her like a yolk running from a cracked egg. 

"I did not keep the truth from you out of distrust, Deimos. I trust you with my life." And it's a terrifying thing, that notion. Ashamin may have slowly convinced her to hand him the battered heart she held in her possession, but it did not hold quite the same value as the trust she placed in Deimos. Rightfully or wrongly placed, only time would tell. But Hotaru meant it with a fierceness that must show, if only in the frightened corners of the shadows of her eyes. She hadn't told him because the Basin came first, and because she couldn't bear the reminder of her own weakness, the demon of her nightmares, nor the golden who had saved her. Maybe in some deep, dark crevice of her heart, Hotaru had withheld the information so that Deimos would not think less of her for succumbing to the monster of her past. For being weak. Not worthy of her title, which he had given her. 

A soft shudder rocks her sides as she exhales, mismatched eyes straying upwards to try and gauge the Reaper's reaction. "Maybe I'm not fine either. But maybe we can be not-fine together." A wry smile twisted at her lips, feeling tired all the way to her bones and marveling at her own loose tongue. She just wanted so badly to reach him, to foster trust between them. To fix what had gone so wrong when Thranduil had completed their triumvirate. Hotaru was not a light-filled being, she could not chase away the monsters in the dark for Deimos. But perhaps she could keep him company in the shadows.

I'm not a girl, I'm storm with skin