The Goddess turns to her, and Hotaru stares into her ancient eyes and feels nothing but a tempest of emotion inside her tiny breast. She is small, insignificant. Who is she to say that the Goddess was wrong? She is mortal. She is nothing. But...

No. She may be mortal, she may be small and frail beneath the cosmos and the endless, vast space of time the Goddess inhabited, but she was not nothing. She was not powerless. She was something, wasn't she? A compilation of memories, of people she'd touched and moved by as she existed on the earth. She was something. And if mortals had helped to kill a god...

"You can do this, Ru-ru. No problemo. You got yourself up there, right? You can get down." Her throat clogged as Raeden's voice echoed from some distant, faded past. It was an entirely different context, but it resounded in her heart and mind. Her twin, the one she'd hated for so long, the last living blood of her family. The one who'd disappeared. Her heart quivered with the old memory, faded and sepia toned as it was in her head. Memories of the rare moments her mother's face would light up with pride, or her reunion with her father in the Basin. Of Arya and Raeru looking up at her, awed and proud, as she ascended to the title of Lady. 

She had done so much. She didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve this! And her ears were thick with blood and the pounding of her heart, which beat staccato on her ribs as her lungs grasped for air uselessly. Stuck, frozen, as the wolf began its prowl from the darkness and others began to move forth to choose a side. Caught in the middle, tied to her herd and her promises, her loyalties and her duties. Crimson droplets, intertwined lovers, deadened eyes and a companion's last cry.

A tear slipped down her cheek and she stood unmoving even as her magic took form for the first time, another hurricane joining with Vitani's, but this one with invisible shards that would rend and rip apart the flesh of those unsuspecting. Alice stood by her side, faithful guardian, and the pair watched as the hurricane grew and grew, ripping up earth and destabilizing as Hotaru's emotions ran wild. But instead of aiming for the wolf, as Vitani had, her magic sought to simply join with Vitani's and amplify, regardless of direction. And the tears ran hot and fast down her cheeks, eyes blank and deadened. Why did she feel this way? Why did she feel such pain for a family she had sworn never to love, never to forgive? 

Who was she supposed to choose? How could she let the wolf overtake Helovia, the land she loved, but by throwing away her morals by choosing the Goddess? But without the Goddess, the balance would fall...and she was right, this was part of Helovia now, and these vagabonds Helovians. How could she choose? How could she dare to take her vengeance now, when doing so could doom Helovia?

So she didn't. 

Her hurricane left her control, she and Alice turned as a pair, synchronized, and sprinted towards the wolf. Her electricity budded beneath her skin and went shooting off the closer she got, aiming for the face to try and stun and burn, the loud bang as it went off hopefully painfully loud in the wolf god's ears - if he were anything like a normal wolf.

Alice snarled, her teeth dripping poison, and lunged for the flank of the god, Hotaru right beside her attempting to jam her horn through the thin membrane of flesh. Everything blurred through tears, a remind of her conflict and her loss. 

For Raeden. For mother and father. Because I won't lose this land, but I don't know if I can forgive you. If I will ever understand why you took them from me when I gave you everything.