As strong as the seas are stormy.</style>
Her children are strong and independent, diamonds shedding their earthen flecks and seeking illuminating sunshine from beneath the protective, shadowy reaches of her maternal boughs. Though they worry her heart with their constant wandering and fierce independence, and though she worries for her son's stoicism and single-minded devotion, the Lady is aware that they will take care of each other out there in the wilds where she cannot reach them. Where one goes the other follows. Alice goes with them more often than not regardless of that knowledge, even though she recalls her own feelings towards Stella's constant presence with fond amusement. She'd rather they despise her for Alice's hovering than encounter trouble alone and defenseless, far from where she could aid them bodily. Though her worry for them occupied a good deal of her thoughts, her duties could not simply be ignored. Especially when pacing around worrying did no real good to her herd or her errant children.
There is so much broken in the Basin, and she and Deimos have each other's backs in a way they had not managed in the past. Together they are desperately trying to glue the fragments together into some semblance of normality. So long as they can make it through this season, and the next, Hotaru could not care less for the distant future or looming goals. That will be reserved for days when they are solid bedrock once more, not this shattering layer of ice scarcely covering a riptide of black water. She is tired, trying to split her time between trying to raise her stubbornly detached children, finding time with Ashamin outside of the Basin, and trying to rule a kingdom falling apart at the seams.
Despite her love for her people, Hotaru was still mortal, and her energy reserves were depleted beyond recognition. She would work herself to the bone if it meant saving her herd, but she could not help the tired, dejected drag of her hooves as she wandered in solitude towards her cavern. Her children may or may not return to nestle together at her side, enveloped more in each other's heat than any security or affection she could offer them herself. Arya was gone in the wind, Mirabella was dead and Raeru was but a ghost to her. She had failed in so many ways as a mother, no matter how desperately she loved them or how much she offered them.
Stone clicked beneath her hooves as she slid into the relative warmth of her cave, head low and shoulders aching with work and stress. Tomorrow would only bring the same challenges, and she needed to be ready for it. Standing alone in the too-big expanse of a cavern she'd chosen for the sake of her growing family, her heart ached with loneliness. And she couldn't help the nostalgia that drew her to the corner, where a spot of colorful blue lay concealed behind her armor and jewelry. Pale lips lowered, trembling a little with the weight of the day and the chaos of her stressed emotions. Alice whined at her side from where she had slunk into the cave, trying to give Hotaru space but also unwilling to leave her alone as the rest of her family had. A quiet question lay in that soft lupine whine, but Hotaru had no answer for her beloved.
Her lips drag the fabric up and away from where she has concealed it, unwilling to answer her daughter's curious questions or risk anyone in the herd recognizing the fabric he had so often worn. It settles around her shoulders like a whisper, a memory of what could have been, the other direction her heart still tugged even with Ashamin's hands wrapped warm and possessive around the battered organ. She had so many mixed feelings towards the previous owner of the item; love, hatred, despair, frustration, hopelessness. He had never returned the feelings she had so desperately thrust upon him, perhaps unfairly, for he had never seemed willing to even entertain her confessions. But he had challenged her, both prior to their crowning and after they had settled into their titles. And perhaps most importantly, he had saved her. Gone looking for her instead of turning his gaze away, and though his words had only added more pain to the physical agony when he had finally found her, he had still remained behind to give her time to escape. Surely that meant something? And yet he had never returned, leaving her only with the echo of his words, the soft blue fabric, and the necklace around her neck.
He had always been too far from her for Hotaru to realize the necklace had any specific properties, unaware of its mate laying around Thranduil's neck and the magical tie between the two items. But she digs her face into the soft fabric, wishing selfishly that his scent still lingered. She loves Ashamin, she does, without a doubt. But her love has always been so hard to give away, and Hotaru can't help that her feelings for Thranduil still linger. His harsh words and dismissal of her feelings could not sever the affection she held for him, though it had undoubtedly dimmed with distance, with abandonment. With distraction, with a brighter, entirely different love that came from the Clovenheart. They were so different, the two men she had loved. One proud and deceitful, a mask as complex as hers woven into the very structure of his face. The other honest and humble, his emotions so raw and bright it sometimes hurt to touch, to feel. But one was a familiar devil, like looking into a mirror, and he understood her. The other, however, was safe and steady. Bedrock as opposed to a turbulent windstorm. And they both had their values, their attractive portions. But she was only allowed to choose one, it seemed.
An unfair, sexist thing. For she knew Ashamin had other children, other lovers. But he was faithful to her, and she was monogamous at heart and would return his loyalty. And it wasn't as if Thranduil would return to her, not after being gone so very long without word. She had only the cape and the necklace to remember him by, her love fading beneath the light of Ashamin's affections and the disappearance of the one she had once cared so deeply for.
The metal against her breast goes shockingly cold, ripping a startled, confused noise from the Lady as she stumbles back as if to escape from it. Her nose dips inquisitively, trying to figure out what's going on, only to recoil as the cold continues to persevere. Alice is standing at the entrance of the cave, a scent tickling at her nose but no sounds accompanying it, confusing her senses and sending her hackles up with a deep, throaty growl. But beyond it, miraculously, as if beckoned by her rare moment of grief and nostalgia, she hears her name spoken tremulously. Every muscle freezes, and she can't lift her eyes from where they have fallen to the triskelion on her breast. Because she knows. She knows that voice, no matter how long it has been since it graced her ears. And she's unaware of the fact that her conflicted emotions must be scalding him through his own necklace, her fear and worry and disbelief.
Ru, Alice begs, standing between the two as Thranduil reveals himself, cloak slipping away. Hotaru exhales shakily and lifts her face to where the blooming sunlight streams in from the mouth of her cave, backlighting the Laurelin waiting in the entrance. Surely this is a dream, a hallucination.
"Thranduil?" Her voice wavers and breaks, disgustingly revealing her weakness. Her hooves shuffle nervously, not sure who she's supposed to be here. The woman who had confessed her love to him? The maiden he had saved? The Lady of the Basin? She did not know how to simply be herself with him, not sure who that even was or what it entailed. She takes a tentative step forward towards the light he stands in, dawn arriving and spilling across his luminescent hide. But as she steps closer his injuries come to light, and her heart sinks with defeat. He must only be here to seek healing, she thinks bitterly. Alice's disagreement is scarcely acknowledged.
"You're injured," she speaks softly as she approaches, as if afraid to speak any louder in his presence. Like it will shatter this, the illusion she still thinks he may be. "What do you need? You can rest here, I can fetch Tiamat or Enna," she offers, and is suddenly deeply self conscious, aware of the fact that he has caught her with his robe around her shoulders. But taking it off now would only draw more attention to it, and yet she feels the weight and feel of it so precisely she fears that she'll go mad from the sensitivity. Just as she feels his gaze, has always felt the weight of his earthen orbs. And Hotaru can't help but feel cornered, here in her sacred place where he blocks her only exit, a thousand crumbled words between them and the sting of rejection still lingering in the caverns of her heart.
| | 
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
![[Image: 515265280ffff]](http://images.helovia.net/index.php/view/515265280ffff)
