[/html]She wanted desperately to hate Myrika, because it was easiest to hate and shun, because she had grown used to the absence, because was all right with being alone. There were issues of pride and betrayal, too, and broken promises and lost dreams and hopes. And yet she had come to Inferni. She had asked for help. She was there, accepting it. And she wanted just as desperately to forgive her sister, to forget the unknown things between them, to remember the feeling of trust and company. But there was a surer safety in loneliness. The loneliness could not betray her again, or even for a first time.
Cassandra did not flinch this time, but she still tensed visibly, body stiffening as her ears flattened against her skull. The pressure was still there, insistent against the sides of her head. She inhaled when Myrika put her arms around her, breathing in the smell of salt and horses, of honeysuckle and wet marshlands -- smells of Inferni where once there had been grassy hills, goldenrod and thistle, and the fresh mint their father liked to keep. But beneath it was still Myrika's personal scent, husky and warm and ever-familiar, as it was not so different from her own.
The swell of emotions in her chest rushed at her throat, and the weight in her head pushed down again. Every part of her body hurt, wounded or otherwise. Cassandra did not lift her arms to hold her sister, but she leaned forward slowly, a strangled squeak of a whine escaping from her lips. "No," she said, but her voice was breaking. You can't help me. But the words were gone. Noises came from her, but they were just emotions that could not be distilled into language. She buried her thin muzzle in the wavy red hair and cried.
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