She stirs brokenly among the fallen leaves, a reluctant fight to consciousness that stirs her body and flutters her eyelids. She does not want to be awake, to face the constant, never ending pain of her captivity. How long? She thinks dully, mind a haze as she lays there, refusing to open her eyes. Maybe if she just lays here...she can waste away. Maybe he will overlook her. Maybe she will be saved. But she has stopped trying to run. She can't, for how he has injured her legs so badly. I fought, she tries to tell herself, but she wonders if this crippling weakness had lay dormant within her all along. Had she been a child playing queen this whole time? No. I AM a queen. A Lady. I deserve my title. And she plants her teeth along that knowledge and lets it pull her free from her stillness, greeting the cruel, beautiful world with dull eyes. Dull, but not broken. Not yet. Maybe soon, but not today. Tingal will not give up so easily, and he would come for her again today. He always did, though his intervals were impossible to predict. 

The Lady shifted, groaning and whimpering her agony freely, knowing he is nowhere near. Not now. Her body hurts, and every twitch and inch she gains is accompanied by a pain that burns through her cells until she can nearly feel it in her soul. The crest of her neck, the sides of her face, her stomach, a fracture in her right foreleg, countless cuts and bruises that mottle her so deeply she can scarcely tell the original color of her skin. The blood dries to blackness and flakes off, but it is always replaced. Always. Her throat is hoarse from screams she would not let him hear, until the moment she could hold back no longer. The deepest cuts still bleed sluggishly, painting the soft white of her skin the same red she always turned in these colder seasons. Even as she sleeps she bleeds, and she wonders why that is not enough for him. 

She staggers uncertainly to her hooves, if only because she can fend off the worst of his attacks while standing. If she falls...he can crack her ribs, crush her face, her legs. He can kill her. Even though she knows he's keeping her there for the purpose of prolonged torture, that could change at any moment, especially with his mercurial moods. She won't take that chance. 

Hotaru stands there at the precipice of the world, the place rumored to be closest to the Gods, and begins to laugh. 

She laughs until her broken ribs ache, until she cannot physically stand it anymore. Then she stares off into the distance, her face drawn and quiet, wondering where Alice is. -ru. One pink ear twitches, but she dismisses it and stares vapidly into the distance. Tingal will return for her eventually, and she must conserve her energy to fend him off and keep her own injuries to a minimum. Hotaru had learned the first few days that running was useless, when it exhausted her and he could easily catch up to her in her wounded and broken state. It was better to stand and await him, to meet him with the gathered remnants of her strength and pride. 

But she was not broken. Hurt, and terrified, and haunted, yes. But not broken.

Ru? It is so faint, barely even a whisper, but Hotaru's head jolts around as if she's been electrocuted by her own magic. Holds her breath until her ribs ache, staring off into the distance as if it will beckon the familiar ghost of a voice back to her. Am I losing my mind already? How childish. Get yourself together, Hotaru. Sharply gnashing her teeth she pins her ears back and turns her face away, as if the direction matters. The minutes tick by, seen only by the way the shadows grow and shrink in different directions throughout the day. She has come to memorize this piece of land, for she knows she will either die upon it, or finally kill Tingal in one of their battles. It is already endeared to her, if only because of that. The fields would be Heavenly one way or another, though she'd sooner like to see Tingal in Hell than any celestial place of purity. 

RU!

This time it shatters through her head, still distant but real. Her breath leaves her in a sharp rush and she stumbles on her fractured leg, trying to find the direction of the voice. Not just a voice, but Alice. She begins to weep, knowing Alice was not close enough for her - or rather, whoever she had fetched - to see Hotaru in such a state. Her soulmate, returned to her at last. A beacon of hope, of solidarity, of rescue. The tears dry quickly if only for the panic that sets in. She has to find them, and now. There was no telling when Tingal would be back, and Hotaru could not guess who Alice had found. Whether this was a coming battle that they could win, with Hotaru so beaten. 

Alice! The Lady claws into the frail string of their bond, drawing on the spiritual and emotional strength that Alice eagerly pours into her. It is a phantom kind of bolster to her spirit, but she clings to it, stumbling in the direction she can feel Alice's soul emanating from. RU! It echoes again, louder, and Hotaru feels her heart quake with relief in her chest. This is not the end. But she shushes Alice nonetheless, too afraid of the hound howling instead of using their bond to speak. It's why she refuses to shout her name, too afraid it will draw Tingal's attention if he is anywhere close. Her name repeats over and over and over, closer each time, until Alice bursts from the undergrowth and she's there.

Alice knows not to touch, can feel the pain emanating from Hotaru, but the Lady buries her face in the fur of her bonded and quakes all over. She has no tears to shed, not when she is so joyous, so full of tentative hope. Who did you bring? And then she lifts her eyes.

OOC thingies here

There is nothing before her. Her eyes scan across the clearing, narrowed and anxious, ears pinning into her wild mane. Even on broken will and shattered bone she stands proud, daring this savior of hers to judge her for her moment of weakness. She will meet him with the point of her horn and the gnash of her teeth. Just as she had met Tingal face to face even in her terror, her despair, for days on end. There is only a vast emptiness, and it sets her on edge more than any reveal could manage. Where did they lurk? But Alice whines and slips between her legs, careful not to brush against the leg with the fractured bone. The question Hotaru had posed was one she was reluctant to answer, if only to spare her Lady the pain of the realization. Thranduil had been the only viable option, but the threads intertwined between the two were also like a spider's web, one that cinched and entrapped Hotaru far too often. Thranduil, she explained quietly, watching as tension and relief warred upon her Lady's visage. No wonder she could not see him then, Hotaru mused to herself. Her ears flickered, wanting to stay pinned and vicious, angered that he could see her so battered and beaten. Of course he would judge me when I am like this, but would assume he is above me when I saw him in the same state. 

The maiden stood frozen in the meadow, her eyes sharp and flighty, knowing she could not alight her eyes upon him but helpless to stop the need to capture him within her gaze. So you've come to me? Her breath shuddered wetly in her throat, a waiting game. He would come to her eventually, though even she could not comprehend the willing sacrifice he'd made, nor the hesitation he felt as he warred with his own stunted emotions. Perhaps she trusted the blade at her throat too deeply, for her own hand was poised around his wrist, daring him to draw it across the porcelain of her skin. Her own blade lay at the nape of his neck, after all. Some twisted sort of embrace, eyes alight with fires they could not tame but could not admit to owning. The dance macabre, if they were to title the steps their feet would swing them, the tune to which they danced. As enticing and dangerous as it was teasing, for how her own weak emotions lay trapped within her breast. Her downfall, but one she would demand of him, using it to spur herself into a position where she could strike and bring him low into the mire with her. Does my blood entice you, dearest? she thought mockingly, wondering when he would break this stillness, this spell. 

Alice's nose was keen, relying upon those senses to ensure he had not run off like a coward, abandoning her Lady. Even if he had, she would die here on this pseudo-battlefield, protecting her Lady till the end. Nothing, not even Hotaru, could make her abandon the rosen girl once more. As Thranduil approached she kept quiet, watching Hotaru, the play that occurred before her eyes, the machinations that would lead to salvation or downfall. The Lady did not move, her eyes finally catching the way the grass bowed beneath weight that existed but could not be seen. Her skin rippled as the softest gasp fluttered in her throat, silken words as sure of a caress as the way his tail wrapped delicately around her back legs. The warm ghost of his breath could not be fully impeded by whatever fabric was cloaking him, and she shuddered, feeling hear heart trip in her ribcage. His words nearly didn't register, so captivated was she to experience the warm touch of another that did not herald pain and heartbreak. But you do indeed bring heartbreak. She swayed further into his grasp, turning her head blindly to try and find a face she would not be able to discern. 

She finds her voice, her courage, for he bolsters the coals her fire had dimmed into. He is hers as much as she is his, and she feeds off the power his presence lends her. I can do this, she thinks. She cannot even see him and yet he empowers her, reminds her of things like grace and dominance, battles won and her own accomplishments. "We can't all look as handsome as you, now can we?" Her voice is raspy but lilts with a weaker version of her normal wit, trying to tell herself that she doesn't need to see him. But she wants to. Oh how she wants to. Wants to drink in his face, remember every royal curve and elegant twist to his structure. Maybe she could sense the impending goodbye that he wrote with every beat of his blackened heart. 

Her name twisted off his tongue like something sinful and broken, a multitude of unsaid, unacknowledged things that cracked and resounded within her own heart. "Thranduil?" It was as soft and helplessly said as her own name, unable to remain silent, reaching for him verbally where she was still - even now, broken down and beaten - too proud to do it physically. But it stutters and shatters and falls away, something to be brushed off and forgotten. Hotaru won't forget. She has smelled the first blow, fresh blood, and she won't allow him to leave her like this. He is hers. 

She laughs, eyes slipping closed and letting it shake her frame softly. "Ready take on the literal tiger? How knightly of you." But then she shudders to recall those claws scraping across her skin, the pointed teeth that forced her blood from her body, the massive form that broke and battered and dominated. Stumbles closer to Thranduil, as if he would dare receive her, as if he could still respect her seeing her this way. "Kill him," and she's gasping, her panic setting in, thin figure - so thin, can't eat, can't sleep, he might come again - trembling as her eyes dart about, waiting for the beast to come prowling out. She can't let him take Thranduil. Can't let it happen.

I should've known. My darkness was always so much worse than yours, Thranduil. She turns in a sudden fit of violence, shoving her muzzle at him, eyes blazing with a fire that could not be killed. Not even after these weeks of torture, of embracing death. "I don't care what you do to him, but you will come back." Her teeth bare and her ears fall to her neck, a threat to cover the terror, the pleading. I can't lose you, you're the only one I've ever found that understood me. I love you, you fucking idiot. "You're mine. You aren't allowed to leave me." Her breath is coming fast and violent, and she grits her teeth, wanting to fling the fabric from his skin and let him take the brutal finality of her words with his face bare to her. 

Alice. My tiara is around here somewhere. Go find it. The hellhound turned and sped off without another word needed, obedient. We're leaving.

OOC thingies here

There is something lurking unspoken between them, and Hotaru wonders why she does this. Why she bears the barbs of his words, when she knows she’s not as strong as she likes to think she is. She can’t handle them, not really. Is loving him just another way of hurting myself further? Was her self-hatred so deep that she would willingly pursue somebody that would love her only the most basic, primordial, painful ways? That he would come and run for her, protect and defend her, all the while cinching the collar tighter in anger. Because he wanted to singe his own mark into her flesh, cause her pain on his own terms, see her broken by his own blows. You’re no better than him, Hotaru thought hatefully, glad she could not see his face, for she would surely end up ruining her own chances of salvation if she could. Tingal, Thranduil…where did the differences lie?
 
Why did she love him? It was a possessive sort of love, and she hated herself even more for it. All we do is hurt each other. But we’d rather hurt one another than let anyone else hurt us…I don’t think that’s what love is. But Hotaru deserved no other kind of love. This violent, broken love was the only kind she could hold in her bloodstained hands without feeling remorse. Even if she doubted every second whether he loved her, or saw her as something to remain glittering and shiny in his possession. Some sort of trophy. Because it was a way to win. To triumph over her, by owning her, by tying barbwire around her heart and gleefully tugging her along.
 
She could force her own possession upon him, desperate and uncalculated, but it would never be what she wanted. Just some last bid attempt to put them on equal ground, because she’d rather love him bleeding than not be loved at all.
 
He takes her upon himself, and she stares blankly at the disembodied face beside her. It is her face that stares back at her, and for a moment, even with her own gloated vanity (a sham, a farce, for she would never stop being that knobby-kneed ugly filly from the forest) she is surprised by her own beauty. And she realizes with a sick twist of her gut, something that feels like the beginning of an onslaught of hysterical crying, that she looks like her mother.
 
The soft feel of fabric upon her hide is a distraction, and it shields her from the awareness of the fact that she does not deserved that dished face, those expressive eyes. It smells like Thranduil, and her girlish heart leaps in her chest unbidden, because fuck it but she loves him. In such a horrible, twisted, demented, unhealthy way. And she wishes that they weren’t both so twisted, that she didn’t strangle, choke, and chain the real parts of herself down into the bowels of her flawless façade. Because she would never be able to admit that what she wanted was what her mother had once had. Soft, loving touches. Stolen moments. True, visceral love, whispered into skin. Shared scents, shared lives. Romance. Grandeur. But that was what Ru wanted. The entity that had been Ru was supposed to be long dead, the corpse that fertilized the growth of the Queen that had become Hotaru. Those flaws had been the cracks in the concrete that gave way to the rebirth of the Lady of the Basin, and only crumbled stones were supposed to remain as any proof that she’d once been so despicable. But Thranduil could never give her that, would never deign to give her that. She hadn’t known she’d wanted it, so blind was she to her own desires, until Ashamin and Mesec had treated her as if she were made of glass. As if she deserved to be treated like she was something precious, not whipped and cajoled with violent words and domineering actions. But she loved him because she deserved it, and because only two individuals as specifically broken as the pair of them could ever come together in any semblance of wholeness.
 
Instead she tugs the cloak closer with her teeth, higher on her withers, and stares dead-eyed and unfeeling into her own bi-colored orbs. She thinks that maybe she should say something, a witty quip or sarcastic comment. Something to prove to him, to herself, that she was still on equal ground with him. But he demanded her, “go”, and it seemed so horribly profound. Go, because she was unwanted. Go, because she was not worthy of his affection or attention. Go, so he could clean the mess that she had started.
 
Alice had returned with her tiara clasped between ivory teeth, but her hell-black eyes expressed the resounding pain she felt from her mistress’ side of the bond.
 
Everyone I’ve ever loved left me first, she thinks, and Alice whines. Maybe I should turn the tables.
 
So she walked off, as quickly as she could manage with the state her body was in, clasped in Thranduil’s scent and with Alice hurrying beside her. To freedom, though the meaning of it had changed for her now. Thranduil didn’t even know that while Tingal had worked day and night to break her, to feast upon her, to kill her, the Laurelin had been the one to deliver the final, fatal blow. 

OOC thingies here