Whatever came from the joining of the two hardened warriors would be a prince or princess regardless of blood or rank, and Hotaru would raise them as one regardless of Deodat's presence. She appreciated his words, and found him shining in a far more handsomely light at the fact he did not promise anything he could not keep, and did not swear undying love or loyalty. She knew there was a reason she liked the lug. "You're a good stag, Deodat. Thank you." There is a playfulness to her lyrics that turn the serious words into the same banter they were accustomed to. Hotaru likely would never seek a relationship with him, but friendship, camaraderie? Definitely. He was the sort she would love to acquaint herself with, if only because his soul echoed hers so well. No, the she-wolf would not find love for many seasons more.

The world shifts with the entrance of Illynx, and though wisdom deigns she lower her crown she does not; part of her desires to, an instinct unforgotten, but she fights between the line of submission and arrogance in how she desires to be seen. But whatever tension unseen between the two women is shaken and dissolved, and soon they are conversing in glinting eyes and curling lips like smoke over burning fields. Oh yes, they are of the same breed, both insidious and silver-tongued with the prettiest of falsely crafted smiles and the sharpest of blood-drenched daggers perched in fingers meant to be kissed adoringly. This is a woman Hotaru would seek tutelage from, would emulate and guard with her life. This was a woman she could follow.

Their male companion seems to disappear, and for the first moment since discovering the life growing inside of her, Hotaru regrets appearing pregnant before the powerful woman. Hotaru was graceful, deadly, a rosened panther with well-trained claws, but such poise could not be transferred visibly with the swell of her child rendering her so useless on the battlefield. Even without the full capability of her body showing, everything is there for Illynx to behold in her pale roaned face, though it is a game for Hotaru. She will reveal all Illynx desires, so long as the woman works for it to a degree. And oh the secrets she holds.

To know her goddam is vanished strikes a chord of sorrow into her heart. Her own father had not attended her birthing, yet Faelene had been present to see her gulp her first breaths, in a time when she was pure and just as full of worth as her twin who would usurp her with good looks and charming words in their mother's eyes. Further tragedy was revealed in the near-death of Faelene's child, and the budding mother inside her clenched until it was assured that the foal had made it. From there the news gleamed brighter and brighter, for the title of her godsire was as second nature to her as his given name. The FrostHeart still lived, the proud stallion her father served so faithfully. No longer did he rule the cliffs and snowy hills, but Hotaru did not serve dying ghosts. No, she would find bigger and better things, and gazing upon the gilded goddess opposite her eyes she felt her lips curl; or maybe she already had.

"I'm afraid looking will be my only pleasure," she assured, tone light but with a seeping darkness curling like acrid smoke beneath a silver lining. Men. The Corporal at her side was one of the few who could escape her wrath on that battlefield. All her life men had ripped and ruined, wreaked havoc and shattered any gleaming future she could have grasped. Her father was a deserter whom she'd never met but in glimpses from her mother's flanks. Tingal as well, only to return with disgust in his eyes and childishly insultive words upon his tongue, desiring the blood of a child unborn that did not come from his loins. Hotaru hated men. "I'm a little hard to impress at times," she ended lightly, even as her eyes crackled with electricity to come when not in the vicinity of the often easily insulted pridefulness of men. She would raise her foal to own everyone and everything, to never bow head nor hoof to any mare or stallion who sought to control or own them. Deodat was perhaps the first stallion she had not desired to gut with her horn. Was that a Basin trait? If so then she could certainly be swayed.

Instead she is given a mission, one that she doubts she can achieve with her foal in her belly, but a sick grin full of promise spreads on her pale lips. "Consider them yours, my Lady," she swore, tone light and pleasant as if conversing over the beauty of the hilltop instead of compacting an oath to bring the heads of the Regime to the golden hooves of the Basin ruler. "I suppose this is...welcome home?" Crown tilts slow and innocent to the side, smile turning sugared even as eyes conveyed the gratitude at having been not only accepted but taken seriously. Illynx had won many points in Hotaru's little black book of secrets and grudges, allies and foes. She had a feeling they would get along splendidly.