How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?
Small, jubilant form is drawn to his fur, and though her interest in the creature makes her gaze lift to it, Hotaru doesn’t encroach on Deimos’ space to further inspect it. It’s beautiful in its strangeness. And easier for her to bear looking at.
His correction takes her aback, genuinely surprised by how her own self-loathing had changed the way she’d interpreted his help. It’s not shame she feels, though perhaps it’s simply too close to vulnerability or embarrassment to parse. It feels as if they’re one and the the same these days. Because she feels broken. Not in the way where you rage or sob your anguish out. The kind that makes you numb and complacent. Empty and directionless. Hollowed out from giving too much. At least Deimos gave himself in honorable ways as he chipped away at his own boundaries and restraints. Hotaru was not so noble or admirable. Maybe not broken. But useless. Purposeless. Stuck. Motherhood did not dull her sharpness in the past, and she would never blame her children for how she’s currently feeling. Except it feels easier now to slip into the facade of being a mom and nothing else. To use it as an excuse, a shield, to hide from the fact that she feels worn and broken down, like a once-prized sword left in the corner after being found too rusted to repair.
I know you never would. Never. He just needed to feel that, to know it from me, before he could feel at ease. Or to offer a chance, as he’d worded it. Hotaru hadn’t paid the wording itself much mind, too firmly faithful that the time would never come where Deimos would somehow impossibly prove Remi right.
It’s a relief to know they are well if nothing else. And what of Sah and Aino? The ones who had stayed, who were now so far from reach. Nothing terrible had happened or she would surely have heard from Remi or Juniper, but they wouldn’t know of individual lives.
His correction takes her aback, genuinely surprised by how her own self-loathing had changed the way she’d interpreted his help. It’s not shame she feels, though perhaps it’s simply too close to vulnerability or embarrassment to parse. It feels as if they’re one and the the same these days. Because she feels broken. Not in the way where you rage or sob your anguish out. The kind that makes you numb and complacent. Empty and directionless. Hollowed out from giving too much. At least Deimos gave himself in honorable ways as he chipped away at his own boundaries and restraints. Hotaru was not so noble or admirable. Maybe not broken. But useless. Purposeless. Stuck. Motherhood did not dull her sharpness in the past, and she would never blame her children for how she’s currently feeling. Except it feels easier now to slip into the facade of being a mom and nothing else. To use it as an excuse, a shield, to hide from the fact that she feels worn and broken down, like a once-prized sword left in the corner after being found too rusted to repair.
I know you never would. Never. He just needed to feel that, to know it from me, before he could feel at ease. Or to offer a chance, as he’d worded it. Hotaru hadn’t paid the wording itself much mind, too firmly faithful that the time would never come where Deimos would somehow impossibly prove Remi right.
It’s a relief to know they are well if nothing else. And what of Sah and Aino? The ones who had stayed, who were now so far from reach. Nothing terrible had happened or she would surely have heard from Remi or Juniper, but they wouldn’t know of individual lives.
HOTARU
