Just as the gentle, pleasant vocals had attracted Albrecht's ears, so had the singing managed to reach the pricked listeners of a hellish white creature slinking through the snow. Narrow snout lifts to scent the air briefly, hell black eyes scouring a horizon that betrays nothing. Her superior hearing is a trait she employs for the sake of her sister, head twisting to gaze over her shoulder where Hotaru idly walks behind her. Someone is singing, she murmurs across their bond, playing the strings like a harpist, plucking specific chords to invite the correct response from her beloved. Bicolored eyes lift to meet bottomless black. At first there is an indifference to her expression - why should Hotaru care that one of her flock is singing? But Alice knows she needs this, this association with her people. She deserved their love and acknowledgement, and though Hotaru would never admit it to herself, Alice knew she needed it. Especially in that moment, with Tingal haunting the edges of her vision and the memory of Ashamin's words and Thranduil's retreating back. 

Come, sister. Just for a moment.

Alice has always cared for her beloved. She always will. But her hand has been forced to gentle after the trauma her Queen has endured in the past season. Hotaru can play the perfect facade to any around her, but her soul cannot lie to Alice. She sees the fissures and fault lines, and she knows that one well placed strike would cause her sister to crumble. It is her job to prevent that from happening. Nothing would break her beloved while she was around, and she would kill anybody who stood in the way of her methodical healing process. 

Still, Hotaru pauses. Alice doesn't know the singer, which means Hotaru does not either, for where one is found the other is not far behind. The hound tilts her head to the skies, scents the air, desperate for some sort of card to play against the Lady to intrigue her long enough for this to work. The stallion from the meeting is there, she points out, withholding the smug feeling welling in her chest. She knows Hotaru is interested in the crass stallion, and sure enough, the rose maiden's ears perk and her steps wander closer to Alice. "Very well then, let's go visit." Her voice is soft, and there is no need for the words to be spoken aloud, but Alice considers it a win nonetheless. 

- - -

As they approach, Hotaru's eyes are first drawn to Albrecht before finally sliding over into the depths of the shadowed cavern where the brightly colored maiden sings her song. The beautiful Lady strides forward, golden starlight tail flickering idly at her hocks as she sidles up to Albrecht, a sly glance of her eyes and a smirk of her lips engaging him quietly. "Care to dance?" she teases, momentarily shifting about in a makeshift dance to the tune of the woman within. Flicking her ears she calls into the cavern, unbothered by her own disruption unlike Albrecht, who for once seemed rather polite to leave this moment to the unknown mare. "What is the cause for celebration?" It echoed faintly at the mouth of the cave, but Hotaru as well would not dare to step within. For the sake of privacy perhaps, but also because she could not stand to linger within the mouth of one any longer. Not with how trapped she felt as of late.

Sharp jade eyes linger along the crevices of her skin, settling against her like a pleasant fabric weighted down and settling in the ridges of her bones. Her own eyes never received the memo of continuity, one ivory and subtly blue like the sheen inside a shell, the other sea foam green, but they turn and regard the man in turn. A playful crinkle at the edges of her youthful eyes, a sultry twist of her lips. She finds him interesting, this sturdy fellow with his barbed words, no less intimidating in his admirable age. An age seemingly difficult to achieve with the way Helovia stole life away so quickly and efficiently. "Perhaps you could teach me a thing or two, and I you. It's a far more engaging dance," she murmured pleasantly, lids low and catty, eyes intent upon his. She could only dream of the vast knowledge and experiences that lay beneath his cranium, wanted to sink her claws into his wisdom and drag it free for her own gain. 

However it must wait; she will tease her way into his brain and his graces in due time. For now she was drawn here for a reason, and the lyrical music has ceased abruptly, heralding words that bubble effervescently against her ears. A curiously patterned, bright creature wandered from the shifting shadows of the cavern, pupils wide and shrinking sharp beneath the rays of the sun. For a moment the Lady is amused, wonders at what creature came together to create a specimen such as she. At least until she remembers her own abnormally rosen hide, and mentally shrugs. There are some ridiculous character in Helovia, Hotaru is simply used to the understanding that Helovia is a magnet for the odd and obscure. 

Both brows lift in momentary surprise as the words of the maiden choke off and splutter for some reason, dropping into a low subservient bow. Alice feels a thick smog of pride and vanity, already liking this girl for her display of respect and submissiveness towards her Alpha. Hotaru meanwhile soaks in the moment for the briefest of seconds, only to laugh softly and gesture her foreleg loosely towards Fiachra. 

"There's no need for such a display, dear. I am your Lady, not a dictator. You're right this is a time for celebration." Any new lambs to her fold was always a cause for joy. Alice rolls onto her side in a flop of dirt and snow, tongue lolling out between sharp canines, clearly bored and lazy with the proceedings. Whether Hotaru is sincere in her comforts, well...she is familiar with the style she utilizes freely. Deimos is the cold and unfeeling front, and she the welcoming matriarch that contrasts him. They will trust her, and when the time comes they see her fangs, they will trust in her power instead of fearing and resenting her. She had torn the Falls to ashes with the soft lure of her lips, but her lambs and her followers are the few spared. The few loved by the patriotic beauty. 

"Welcome to the Basin," she lilts pleasantly with a glowing, if subdued smile. "What is your name? I am Hotaru, and this is Alice." Icy locks flick around Hotaru's hocks to gesture at the lazing demon beneath her belly, hell black eyes twitching up to Fiachra when Alice's name is spoken. For now she seems harmless, lazing about beneath her bonded. She means it far less than Hotaru however, whose genuine love for her people is stronger than the animalistic, singular tie Alice has to her Alpha.