The expanse of her cavern felt empty with Thranduil's absence. She didn't know why she'd expected him to stay, as if his visit had somehow erased the decision he'd made when he'd descended the mountain to free her from her chains. But she felt the ache of his disappearance like a physical wound that could not be sutured. It nestled right alongside the hole that Ashamin's had left, and she mourned that her sin of loving more than one man had led to the fitting fate of being abandoned by both of them. Just as she was eternally left behind by her children, who disappeared into the frost like ice particles blown away on the northern wind. Reminding her of her failures as a mother, no matter how she tried to love and encourage them. Was this revenge as well? For despising her own mother when Phaedra had done nothing wrong? 

Hotaru's head dropped listlessly to press the soft expanse of her pale muzzle across the pendant on her chest. An intertwined, unending knot. It was as warm as her chest, silent on Thranduil's end. What did he feel, on the other end of the pendant? Were her emotions projecting through the pang of ice he would feel on his chest? Would he think of her, come to her, or would he simply sigh and ignore the silent call? 

Alice was keeping watch in the front of the cavern and even she could not rip Hotaru's mind from the doubts and worries that plagued her when her citizens could not see her weakness. There was no answer she could give. Alice did not know the heart of Thranduil or Ashamin, and could not help the crumbling kingdom Hotaru reigned over. It broke her heart to see her sister so torn apart, and it hurt worse to see her face each morning with a brave face and a flawless smile, hoping for change that wouldn't come. A cycle that Alice could not break, though she would in a heartbeat if only to shatter the chain it had become around Hotaru's neck. 

Ears perked as steps approached at a fast pace, and Hotaru lifted her face listlessly. Nobody but her closest friends and advisors would seek her out in her cavern, unless it was an emergency. There was no point in summoning her frigid countenance, not when she didn't have the energy to spare. But even in her downtrodden spirits, the Valkyrie smiled to see her elder sister trailing in through the grey-bright opening of the cavern. Though Hotaru was a Lady, and Raeden was not, she still looked to the golden girl as her older sister. Perhaps she could help ease the burden from her shoulders this evening. 

Alice licked at Tin's nose while the sisters greeted each other, Hotaru offering her smiling lips towards Raeden for their own reunion. "I've missed you too Rae," she confessed softly in turn, hating the miles and miles that kept them apart at all times. But she could not ask her sister to abandon everything she knew and loved just to come to the Basin with Hotaru. Just as she knew her sister would never ask the same of her in reverse. A deep sigh rattled through her chest as Raeden - who always knew Hotaru too well, who could see past any mask the Valkyrie composed ever since they were young fillies - immediately noticed her emotional state. 

"I've stupidly fallen for two stallions, both who have abandoned me. One who I had foals with. And this herd...well, while the Edge swells to bursting, the rest of the herds suffer in turn..." and she hoped Raeden would forgive her bitter tone, because she did not blame her sister for being part of the one herd that seemed to be doing well as of late. And she'd glossed over Thranduil and Ashamin, not wanting Raeden to really pry deeper because the wound was too fresh, the hurt too present to really talk about it. But Hotaru did laugh softly, eyes warm with fondness as she regarded her sister. "We both know I'm the fighter, Rae. Wouldn't want to get your pretty coat bloody, now would we? You're the beauty and I'm the brawn." And again she tried to hide her bitterness, years of feeling inadequate next to her sister rising up, issues she'd never really dealt with. Had never been able to deal with, with how Raeden had disappeared for years on end. 

And then the next question shattered her apart, and she stared in horror at her twin, who had spent so many years unaware of the fact that their parents had been murdered. "Oh Rae...oh Gods Rae I...I didn't know that you..." her voice was choked as her throat closed tight around each word, strangling her with the weight of the knowledge she held. And though she hadn't cried for them since the night she'd discovered their bodies, tears fell anew from her mismatched eyes as she relived it all over again. "Raeden...mom and dad...they were murdered by Gaucho when he was possessed by the Moon Goddess. They died together. The God of the Earth turned them into a tree in the Steppe..." tears fell down her cheeks as she whispered this news to her twin, and though she was grateful that - unlike millions of others who had lost their loved ones - she had a monument to visit to always remember her parents, it did nothing to lessen the burden of loss in her soul. One that Raeden would now have to carry as well. And Hotaru would never have wished that on her.

So sad ;-; @Raeden stupid tag

Alice yipped softly and butted her flat head against the small space between the cerndyr's antlers, keeping quiet to allow the sisters their reunion. Hotaru had lost so many friends, so many foals and family members - Alice could not take this time from her, not when it was so rare. So scarce but so precious. So she and Tin retreated to the edge of the cavern, and Alice's hell black eyes averted from her bonded, giving privacy that never really existed with intertwined souls. But she could present a facsimile of it, at least, for Hotaru's sake. 

As everything spilled out, Hotaru felt a weight lift from her rosen shoulders - whether or not Raeden understood didn't matter, because she finally had someone to say it too. Someone to share the burden with. And...it felt amazing. Because this was her sister, someone she had once despised, someone she had thought lost to the wilds or worse - to death, like their parents. Hotaru never thought she'd get this again, this sisterly closeness she'd been missing for most of her life. They had both grown up...Raeden was no longer the prim princess bully that she'd been when they were younger, when Hotaru was weak and cowardly and cried as easily as the rains fell from the heavens. Hotaru had a sister, someone to share these moments of weakness with. Someone who may judge her in private, but would keep her confidence eternally. It was...well, Hotaru didn't really have fitting words for the feelings that realization managed to illicit in her tired heart. 

So even when Raeden tried to brush it away and comfort her, Hotaru still laughed, even if it hurt the raw edges in her soul a little. "I know. Trust me Raeden, I do, I have twisted them around my ankles just like you and mom used to. But..." her smiling face fell, and her eyes went dark with haunted ghosts that would never leave her alone these days. "Somehow, they managed to make me feel something real for them. Rae, I...I really love them. Both of them. And having someone you love that much leave you like it's nothing? I sit in here at night and I wonder why I wasn't enough to make them stay. Why they would tell me they love me only to disappear like I never meant anything in the first place." Pale frosted locks fell across her eyes, blank stare angled at her sister's hooves. 

"This emptiness where I used to carry their hearts hurts worse than any wound my body could bear. I thought myself invincible to everything this life could rain upon me, but it was love that brought me low. How shameful." And her mismatched eyes clench against the reality of her weakness, the way her heart still beats for Ashamin and Thranduli even as she begs for a new purpose in life. Hung up on them as surely as a noose around the neck, for how it makes her feel. 

But her sister has a son, and that is more important now. Hotaru has a nephew. And her eyes light up and she moves forward with a joyous laugh to bump noses with her sister. "You didn't tell me you had a son! Raeden! You must introduce us!" Raeden had already met Ru'in and Romina, but Hotaru didn't have the courage to tell her older twin that she'd had two other daughters - daughters lost to the world, one nearly lost to death were it not for her birthright of immortality. And wasn't that worse? To know her lost daughter was not lost to death, but that she'd simply left and never returned, because her immortality did not grant her that sort of excuse. 

The conversation took so many emotional turns Hotaru's head was spinning as her shoulders sagged once more in defeat. "Our numbers are dwindling. No matter what Deimos and I do, they are complacent, lazy. Invasion is inevitable at this rate. Take comfort in your herd's stability, Raeden; it may even be them who move against us. It is the weak deer that is hunted by the pack." Alice growled softly in the corner, vowing that she and Hotaru would never relinquish the Basin or the crown without giving their all in return. Perhaps even their lives. And while Hotaru would never have confessed such things to her sister - a sneak of another stronger herd - she was the Valkyrie's twin. She had to trust that what was said in this cavern did not leave it. 

And the news only continued into further depths of hell. Their parents' murder, Hotaru's unwitting hand in the process. Not that she could ever confess such sins to her twin, the only living family she had left. 

But she could comfort her elder sister. That, at least, was something the Valkyrie had power over. 

She stepped forth and wrapped her neck around her sister's withers, pulling her close until their heartbeats were pressed against one another. They may not be here, but I am. I am alive, and you have me. Things she couldn't say but hoped Raeden would understand. "I'm so sorry Rae," her own choked voice croaked, tears she hadn't shed in years forming once more in her vision. Hotaru would never let them fall, but they stung her eyes all the same. 

They stood pressed together for many, many long moments, until Raeden's composure returned to her and Hotaru tentatively retreated, wishing she had the power to take Raeden's grief away. To do something more. But this was Raeden's move now, and the Valkyrie stared incomprehensibly down at the glass bracelet offered to her, the tears returning with a vengeance. She lifted her leg to allow Raeden to press it on, and the tears dripped silently down her face. 

"Thank you Rae," she whispered unsteadily, lifting her eyes to her sister's pale gems. "I'll wear it always, so that we may be connected no matter how far we roam." And if the Gods did take them, the world would know their love for one another, symbolized by the bands around their arms. 

So sad ;-; @Raeden stupid tag