[SE] fell from the pedestal right down the rabbit hole

Hotaru

I know that I should have told you that I would die
Just to hold you

Alys is perhaps the first to not pry further, to question and needle, curious as all humans are. Though Hotaru would have been happy to entertain such questions from her friend as opposed to a stranger, she is nonetheless grateful, the seer's restraint only elevating her in Hotaru's esteem.

The breathsnatch is a familiar, painfully annoying sensation, and Hotaru's face contorts in an animalistic sneer as her magic reaches both inward to her own lungs and outward to Alys' to chase away the cold burn and warm them anew, keeping the effects to a few short moments instead of a prolonged ache.

Laughing softly at the blatant admonishment, Hotaru lifts the hand with the pencil in it in a playful peacekeeping gesture. "I promise I'm not." Realizing how much she has not shared with one of her dearest friends, Hotaru sighs softly. "I took your advice to heart. Went on a few dates with a wonderful man. But...I reconnected with my ex-lover at my daughter's opening night for her bar." Doodling loose spirals in the corner of her open page, Hotaru tries to fit all that Sunjata means - and has previously meant - to her in words that all seem to fall flat. "We both lost so much in the war, including our shared lover. But he was not nearly so healed as me. Not as lucky to be surrounded by support the way I was in Halo." Her regal voice goes soft in a way more fitting for a storyteller, but whether it's because of skill or emotion is unclear. "I was overcome with a need to be that person for him, because he has so few. Because he deserves to be happy." Even when she'd been at her lowest, had thought maybe she really did hate him, she'd only wanted the best for him. Some things simply never change. "And, selfishly, I knew I would take any time with him I could get - because I never moved on. In fact, until my dates with George, I never thought I would even try again." Something that had led to the bone-deep loneliness that Alys had so promptly read from her tarot that first day.

"But he told me that he was refraining from a relationship with the only woman close with him because he could only envision loving someone he already had, after losing Nate." And maybe it didn't make sense to anyone else, but to Hotaru it had been entirely clear. He had changed with Nate's loss, and anyone who hadn't known him or Nate would simply never understand him enough to be close enough in his heart - or so he felt. "He didn't ask anything of me except a chance to rebuild bridges. And we have." Though color slowly suffuses her cheeks in a way abnormal to Hotaru, who is scarcely ever embarrassed or shy. "But...well...things have advanced past that in time." But she has dumped more than enough on Alys all at once, so it's here that Hotaru holds her tongue.

And if I just had my shit together I could be with you
But I'm too high on paranoia