[/html]Any means a creature took to ensure her own survival was surely justified. Blood shed and scars earned in such struggles were not things to be ashamed of. This was something she knew implicitly, but illusions of purity and sin weighed on her still, and Cassandra was as certain of her own shortcomings and failures as she was of her sister's prevalence just then. The desperate need to trust and to forgive swelled in her chest, but the bitterness too, was a needy thing. She swallowed both and another strip of meat, reveling in every second of silence and pretend serenity between them.
"I can sew the pockets," the smaller sister said. "I don't want to trouble you more than I have. I'm sure you've other things to attend to..." It was probably a futile thing, hiding from Myrika her collection of small blades. She might well have found them already, if she had examined the bloody cloak with any care. It was funny too, that the pair of them should tip-toe around the deaths dealt by their respective hands. It was obvious enough. Myrika had defended some cousin from some villain; would Inferni even keep a thing that would not kill? Family or otherwise? And Cassandra? She had come limping to the borders, soaked in blood, but a survivor. What would anyone have imagined she'd just come from doing?
It was laughable, their individual pretense, their collective guilt, and their refusal to acknowledge anything to the other, even knowing, guessing at it all.
"Why did you come here?" Cassandra asked finally, after long minutes of quiet, and half the deer was gone. "If... if daddy left for Thornloe, then you knew mama wouldn't be here. Why did you come? And stay?"
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