As strong as the seas are stormy.</style>
They stand like opposing directions, north and south, inescapably magnetic but just as inescapably destructive. Nothing passes their lips for many long moments, the caress of their eyes the only acceptable contact after so long apart. Time that had created questions, doubts, that kept them from moving any closer. But he was familiar to her, she knew his body intimately, if only because she had once found it to be a challenge to push and press and touch. To force herself into his hollow points, sink into his pores, until he could not be rid of her. Too late had she realized that he had been corrupting her as surely as she had been corrupting him, and there had been no route remaining for her swift escape. What had started as a challenge, a parry of dominion, had turned against Hotaru. Her own seductions had ensnared her, leaving her as emotionally invested as she was with Ashamin, no matter how the logical side of her brain hissed folly and foolishness. Threatening the fall of her throne and her pride, her dignity.
But he has already happened across her when all of that is stripped, leaving her bare and hurting, without her children or her absent mate to warm or soothe the jagged edges of her lonely soul. And here he stands, as broken as when she had first confessed to him, and her mind cries with sorrow. Can you only love me when you are broken? Can you only stand to see the truth in my eyes when you can blame your reactions on your physical state?Hotaru wants to lunge forward and shake him, scream at him, but instead she just. Stands there. Watching him watch her. Waiting for someone to make the next move, because she doesn't even feel the earth beneath her feet anymore. She's floating in the void of confusion and abstract that he always draws her into.
Golden ears slide backwards towards his crest, and he steals the breath from her lungs in one fell swoop, even as her words peter out and die. Tell me what to say. What to do. I have never been able to read you, Thranduil. What do you want from me? But she can't unglue her tongue from her teeth to beg him verbally, and instead her liquid, haunted eyes ask it of him in its place. And he answers her.
“Why do you always speak so much and yet so little?”
The Valkyrie involuntarily flinches, soft robe shuffling against her skin with the subtle movement. Alice whines softly where she has retreated to the back of the cavern, hardly audible. This is not something she can interfere with, if she even knew where to start. Hotaru's gaze drops away from his penetrating stare, still feeling as if there is not enough air in her lungs. Where is her power, here? Her command? She has struggled and bled for every ounce of control in her small hands, and yet...whenever he is around, it's like nothing but smoke, and she's left trying to catch the evasive wisps in desperation. She is a powerful Queen until he comes upon her, and then she is nothing but a trembling woman, wanting the weight of his arms around her waist, his lips trustingly laid against her throat. Hotaru despises her own reaction to him, even if she cannot deny the sincerity of it. He takes her from her title and turns her into a damsel, which is surely why he is always the eternal winner of these encounters. She can scarcely even think in his presence, much less defend herself against him. Backed into her cavern, her sacred space that has been abandoned by her beloved children, she feels small and frightened by the frustrated rumble of his words, unsure what he means by them.
Her body speaks louder than any of her words could, and Thranduil knows that even if Hotaru doesn't. She has fought to conquer her silver tongue, but she has never learned to fully seclude herself from the reactions of her body, her expressive eyes. As his croaking voice continues she lifts her eyes to him, genuine confusion crinkling her brow.
"These aren't injuries I can heal," she says softly, hesitantly, faltering in each syllable. What does he mean, that only Hotaru can heal this? Sure, she had adopted knowledge of herbs after her first daughter's near-death, but she was no healer. This was no realm open to her, and yet instead of seeking a doctor he had walked all the way through the Basin - Gods, Deimos is going to kill him - to find her. But why? Did he blame her for his wounds? Was that why he had returned? To exact vengeance in the pounds of her flesh for defending her from Tingal?
Dawn-blessed frame jolts in surprise as he swiftly comes upon her, skittering backwards a step only to realize she has nowhere to go, and for a moment tenses, expecting retribution. Her heart skips wildly in her chest, but she does not close her eyes. He deserves that, if nothing else. For her to be privy to the harm she has caused him with her own fear and stupidity. But his looming frame, so much taller and larger than her own, envelopes her with a desperate sort of tenderness she had not been expecting with his misleading words. For a moment she is stiff beneath him, but then she shudders like a plucked string and falls into him, cape billowing around her as she digs herself into him. Desperate, digging her stained fingers into the solidity of his earthen soul, begging him to stop leaving her.
Hot tears sting behind her eyes, and she fears allowing them forth into the world, and shuts her lids against them. Deceiving herself a few moments longer. Pretending he does not still unfairly have his talons in her crippled heart, pretending she is not betraying Ashamin by holding him like this. Betraying herself, after all he had said and done to her. All the wounds he'd left on the heart she'd offered to him, terrified to do so and justified in her fears. But she can't help it, damn it. She can't help the way his scent crawls into her nares, reminding her of late nights and early mornings at his side. She can't help the soft cascade of fabric on her slim frame, a gift he'd perhaps unwillingly given her as he aided in her escape. She can't help the spark in her belly as his large frame dwarfs her, giving her a place to hide, a place to find shelter. Hotaru's breath leaves her shakily, feeling a twin point of heat on her chest that is momentarily ignored for how the world seems to be falling apart around her because of her own weakness and sentimental heart. Mother, can you ever forgive me?
"I love you, Hotaru."
The world froze over like a glacier cutting through still water. Ice coated her limbs and bones, creeping tendrils of frost caressing the edges of her heart as her mind fell into blackness. Alice started up a thready, weak growl that fell into a broken whimper, the only noise that seemed to matter in the silent echo of the cave. Hotaru's breath did not even make sound, for how her world had stopped spinning altogether. How was she supposed to respond? When he had cast her feelings aside so many times, when he had spit in her face and taunted her with her own weakness? And she had loved him even then, even when he hurt her, even when he had won. Even when he had won the right to say that he was the only person to hold that strength and domination over her. Even Ashamin...the Clovenheart had always been her equal, in regards to her heart.
"If this is your revenge for...for..." Hotaru's throat closes, her voice strangled and stricken, a child's whimper underlining the mustered attempt at fury she tries to project towards him. "Do not be so cruel as to lie to me now," she choked, and hot tears at last spilled from ivory lashes to further stain his bloodied hide. Yet still, she selfishly remained in his embrace, if only to delude herself a few minutes longer. "Not after all you've said and done. Not after all I've given you, my heart included. Don't do this to me now, Thranduil. I beg of you." And Hotaru had never begged anyone in her life.
Do not promise me your love only to rip it from me once more. This heart can take no more.
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