I am a quiet god
and my hunger
is cavernous

Needless to say, by the time Alice had ascertained Romina's safety and returned to the Valkyrie's side, she hadn't been happy. What ensued was best left to the privacy of their own minds, especially considering how...verbose each could be, to put it politely.

Alice made her stance quite clear - no matter the positives the Edge may hold, temporary or otherwise, it did not balance out the rest. The lack of family, the raw edges of Rexanna's soon to be constant presence, the betrayal of the one herd and land she'd always devoted herself to. Still, Hotaru could not help but recall a conversation she'd held with the Goddess long ago, young and swollen with fire and eclipsing moons.

"Your queen? And yet you continue to live under the rule of my brother, yielding your allegiance to the Reaper and the Gildedblade."

She had been unable to summon appropriate responses, but her heart had beat wildly to know that the Goddess had a sly hand in the Edge's decisions. That she was not so far removed as the Lord of Time, appearing only in thunderous cracks of lightning with a sour face and terse, mocking words. Hotaru had never coincided well with the Spark, their personalities at odds. Hotaru was a child of darkness and smoke, born from a mother cursed by her Goddess during birth, to later die at her hand. Perhaps this really wasn't the greatest betrayal, to reside in a different herdland. She'd already betrayed her parents as much as she could have, to still worship the Goddess that had killed them.

Her thoughts occupy her the entirety of the trip, skin vibrating with excitement and dread. Strung tight, a clothesline wrapped too tight around creaking posts. Sweat drenches, knees shake, but she marches with a stalwart stubbornness to the east. To the cliffs and the mists she had never seen the insides of. The one herdland that had not seen her hooves beyond its borders.

So when they arrive, mists parting lazily to reveal wicked spears and a towering door with the phases of the moon lovingly inscribed upon the front, Hotaru does not fear. The trepidation that lingers in her heart is born of weakness, flawed mortal that she is. But her faith is unwavering in her Goddess, no matter how long she had been gone or for what reasons.

Alice presses against her weak legs, hell black eyes staring from a pale face.

I am your courage.

Hotaru smiles and warmth washes through their bond, carrying her tired body onward through the metal arches.

Yes. And I am your faith.

Rexanna's voice is soft, but it grates against her ears, which hold their position through will alone. Don't speak to me so patronizingly, she wants to spit, with enough venom to cripple and wound, to linger in the woman's bloodstream for weeks in agonizing reminder of how she'd crossed the Valkyrie. Anger was easier to hold onto, to cup in her bloodied hands, than forgiveness. Than the tattered remains of friendship, of love, that Hotaru kept in her back pocket.

Instead the vixen cuts her gaze sharply away from the marble-faced maiden, and though she cannot help how she leans close to Thranduil for the sake of conserving energy, there is something vaguely possessive and defensive about the way she positions herself close to the soft spots of him. This may be the land of her Goddess, but Hotaru did not fool herself into thinking she was so favored as to be saved by any celestial forces should the welcoming party not be so...welcoming. Any who wished to take aim at her mate's past - one she held deep, vicious pride in, for his cloaked life and curling, rapturously dangerous tongue - would have to spear through her first.

From the mists comes a woman, golden and foreign, with a tongue like woven linen and the heady cologne of desert flowers. Hotaru heaves herself higher, crown rising and face settling into a smooth, glasslike countenance. Past the exhaustion and the burden of motherhood, until she is the missing Lady she has never ceased being, simply...displaced.

But she had returned.

"I am the Valkyrie," she says with soft, winsome tones. The glint of her eyes discerning, curious, scientific. The expression around it pleasant, carefully crafted to distract from the windows to her soul. "But you may call me Hotaru." For a moment she lets her gaze slide to Thranduil, allowing him his own grandiose introductions. But her patience - her strength - is sapping faster than the length this conversation will surely draw out to be.

"We have come seeking a home. Are there any leaders who can grant us their blessing? I'm afraid the foals are eager to see their new home," she grunts softly, strangling the sound in her throat with a pleasant, slightly too-sharp smile. Now. Get somebody here now or I'm going to give birth to these fucking kids right on your doorsteps, you pleasant assholes. Alice snickers at her side, and Hotaru wishes she had the strength to aim a snap of her heel towards the bitch.

Hotaru had withstood kidnapping, death, battle, and more. It seemed impending birth was one of the few things to rattle her beautiful mask. But she didn't care, because she was going to give birth right then and there, standing and all, if they didn't just speed things up.

So much for a homecoming.