#✦ ‹ arc: ITL. › TAKE OFF THAT MASK / GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN.

[knghtlock]

continued from here w / @chemichasm !

mechanical hand drums against the arm of their chair , the indignant voice on the other end getting a hearty laugh out of them. sometimes, when they're deeply & irrevocably bored, they send out messages to random coordinates in the cosmos - not like a universe presumably consumed by the darkness will send anything back - but this ' hyperion ' address they found on a bunch of wreckage actually spat something back out!

the idea of something else being out there is enough to hook them into this exchange, running a few scans to try and triangulate the source. hotaru leans forward in their chair, laughter still ripping through their bones as they grab the receiver. " an asshole ." deadpan retort is punctuated by a split second of silence, before another laugh slices through the air. " nah , i'm just fuckin' with ya --- i'm from the sol system. an' for some light-forsaken reason, hyperion, your shit is on my planet! figured i'd at least try to call before we salvaged the wreck, but i didn't expect that you'd actually answer! "

the h.e.l.m's display pings - pulling hotaru's attention to the results. eyebrows knit together the further down they go, until cyan eyes finally land on the result ---- from at least one galaxy over ? " .... huh. that's .... weird . hey, better question, hyperion: how'd one of your ships even get to us, & where the hell are you ---- ? "

[knghtlock]

@int65 asked: vega's words are metal screeching and static, hotaru is one of the few he with whom he speaks the language that comes most naturally to him. ‘what will you do now, with the chance for a future we have won?’

to the untrained ear, it might just be screeching and static - but to hotaru, it's the comforting voice of her old friend , floating through her mind and causing the wings at their ears to twitch. they sit at the edge of the lost city , shoulder to shoulder underneath the nostalgia-filled sky , the atmosphere lighter as the traveler breathes a sigh of relief. it takes hotaru a moment, but they respond in kind - a series of chirps and static, hums and warbling scratches. < honestly ? i-i don't know . i didn't even think i'd make it this far ! it does feels kinda weird that the last city just started getting used to... > they gesture , hopelessly, to all of themself before the warlock continues, < well, me, and here i've gone and changed again. >

they flex their new arm - bulky metal burnt & molded & re-forged by the burning light of the traveler that once spiraled & coursed through their veins into something more organic than techno-organic: a metallic wing wrapping and spiraling around something more akin to flesh, a reminder fashioned from the light of a being they once called and cursed as a god. but it's not - it still ends in clawed fingertips , it still has those blue lights shining between the cracks, it is still metal that coats their arm with those new pretty plates. maybe , much like prismatic, the line between what hotaru is and what they aren't is endlessly blurred - no thin line , only what is. & despite everything they've been through, it's still them. it's always been them. & isn't that enough ?

the warlock's legs swing idly over the city of nostalgia's past as they mull all of this over : the struggles, the change, the road that lead them here & the road to be forged ahead , before responding: < i think.... i'll do what i've always done : help people. but do you wanna know a secret? well, it's not exactly a secret, > hotaru confesses, a too-human laugh bursting through the static, < but whatever the future brings, vega - i'm excited to face it with you. so.... what about you , my dear friend ? what will you do with the chance we've won? >

[knghtlock]

alright. time to expand on the post i made this morning besties.

re: hotaru abandoning the mantle / "mask" of polaris-1 during into the light / pre-final shape: it's a choice that they come to that is insanely personal to them. hotaru has been masquerading as an exomind for centuries by the time the final shape rolls around as a trauma response from when they were first raised. they were murked so many times by freaked out lightless and risen alike that they figured it'd be infinitely easier to pretend they were an exomin.d. because at least then, they'd still get to help people. and there were still things that they couldn't exactly mimic or naill, but their comrades chalked it up as clovi.s getting experimental with his warcrimes to make polaris-1 and left it at that.

but then the witness's forces flood the city. the final conflict with the witness, the darkness, looms heavy over the guardia.ns, and hotaru is intensely aware that this might be the god they can't slay. this might be the mission she doesn't come back from. and if they don't make it back, there were few that knew of her as hotaru. would they have to be buried in their mask?

so hotaru decides that she'd rather be hated by some as her true self than loved as a lie. that maybe, if the last cit.y can live in harmony & find community with empress ca.iatl and her imperial ca.bal, and stand shoulder to shoulder with misra.akskel and house light...

... maybe there would be a place in the city for her, too.

( it was never going to be as bad as they thought, by the way. full disclosure, hotaru's trauma made them absolutely terrified of people finding out about them being an exoborg and arguably warped their perception of what the average last city citizen would think of them. it's not the dark ages anymore, and while there's definitely a chunk of last city denizens that aren't jazzed about The Guardian lying to the entire city, it's not like they're in insane amounts of Imminent Danger. smthn smthn to hotaru, hell is other people & the literal impostor syndrome she locked herself in to protect themself from said hell. )

[knghtlock]

also i'm still kinda. not entirely here but hehe. final shap.e and in.to the light tags with zero context upon ye. ( see if you can guess what my upcoming blorbo event is )