[m] [p] our guilt, our blame, our blood, our fault
#21
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Myrika is by me!

No, we're not, she agreed. The truth of that was written in the cringing; the averted eyes and sometimes the looks, more terrible; the strange distance Myrika did not know how to begin bridging -- if indeed it could be bridged. She would have done anything, if only she knew where to begin. Perhaps her sister could not provide this knowledge herself, though. Maybe the only way to fix things -- to the degree they could be -- was to leave herself.

There were too many things binding her to this place now, least of all her leadership -- maybe she might have left months ago, before Vesper and before leadership, before the deaths she'd inflicted. She looked over with blue-green eyes, trying to will something into existence which might change or help things. There were so many silly and useless material things she could have piled atop the cloak, but perhaps in giving them, she would have given her guilt form and substance -- physical reminders of the absence and its petty attempt at atonement.

The tawny-hued coyote moved, with exaggerated slowness, to put an arm around the pale form. I don't think you're fine, either. Her voice was very quiet, for she did not think asking again or being less than satisfied with avoidance or silence right, but she needed to try. She could not disagree with "will" -- the future was not hers to divine. But just now, she did not think Cassie was just fine. There was more than just lost time and broken promises in the schism.

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#22
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Though parts of her wanted to disagree and cling fast to the righteous anger, Cassandra knew with a resigned certainty that she had forgiven Myrika the moment she had decided to come to her seeking sanctuary, however temporary, within the skull-lined borders. And in the quiet moments they had shared since, for all the uncomfortable pauses and awkward, transparent pretense, Cassandra knew she was trusting her sister, believing in her, loving her still. And she knew that these feelings would come back to betray her somehow -- it was inevitable; everything did.


The wall between them remained because she wanted it to and felt safer behind it, but still she would reach through the iron bars for feeling and comfort and warmth. Ever the needy child, even if she pretended otherwise. For this lingering weakness, for this love, the albino hated herself, but held on yet.


She turned away again, but this time didn't flinch, or shudder, or cry. "There's nothing you could have done," she said again, just as quiet. "And there's nothing you can do now that you aren't already doing." The pallid woman leaned gently against her sister, her wounded shoulder between them. "You don't really want to know what happened." For once, there was something she could protect Myrika from, or pretend to.

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#23
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380


Myrika is by me!

Maybe not, she agreed, albeit without conviction. She turned and put her muzzle to her sister's arm, the side of her muzzle resting above the bandage, hovering without contact. The faintly sweet smell of the paste and the clean smell of the bandages drowned out most other scents. Perhaps it was better she did not know, but she still mourned this loss of trust, for she did not immediately understand the protective nature of the gesture.

She could not, however, be convinced there was nothing more to be done. She could not redo what had been done or left undone, but the present and the future were a different thing entirely. The redhead lifted her nose, pointing it back toward the windows a moment. She resolved to attempt a different tactic. Eira was captured after the storm, she said, voice distant and slow with memory. Farmers, I guess. One told me they'd done a lot of work and effort in catching and keeping her, so it was only right I stayed and helped. So I did.

There was a pause as she considered her departure, how best to phrase it. One of them -- I guess, he -- you know, she said, ears flattening with shame. She couldn't say "wanted her" and certainly not "desired her." There was no way to put it that did not make Myri want to sink into the ground. I didn't, though. I liked his sister. I didn't really understand how much until I'd already left.

She would not have even said that much were it not for just who was seated beside her -- only that it was about the best she had to offer in the way of kindred tales, and even then she did not know just how radically divergent their tales were. The worst part of her tale was not when the brother had cornered her; it was the sister's refusal to accompany her, and that look.

Stupid, she muttered, shrugging only the shoulder further away from Cassie. She was not entirely sure whether she referred to her own past actions and thoughts or the idea that she might share this tale in comparative offering of her own hurts and think it the equal of physical scarring.

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#24
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As her sister began her story, Cassandra wondered how she would feel if their experiences had been reversed. If all that had happened to her had happened to Myrika instead, if she were the one to make it through without scars, real or imaginary, if she were not the one weighed down with terrible truths -- how would she feel about not being told? And if she were told, what would she make of that? She could not think how Lady Cassandra, Goddess of Purity, might have reacted to such revelations, but it was easy for her to think of violence, or at least the wish of it. For as clearly as she knew she still loved and trusted her tawny littermate, she knew she would readily slaughter anyone that dared touch her.


And so she stiffened when Myrika paused, ears erect with a suddenness that reflected her surprise. "He didn't... hurt you, did he?" The albino woman had turned back to her sister, voice still soft, but with a sharpness and harsh edge that had never been there before. Even as the lifting tone punctuated her question though, Cassandra could already see the answer in Myrika's awkward embarrassment and general demeanor. Her body eased and her ears returned to their half-mast position.


Self-conscious about her surely-wrong assumption, she added, "You never told the sister then, did you?"

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#25
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347


Myrika is by me!

No, I told her, she said, shifting her weight awkwardly -- though still carefully, as not to jostle the injured shoulder. Even despite the squirming sort of feeling she had in her chest, the acute pressuring and clutching sensation of discomfort, she pressed on. And he didn't hurt me. He... cornered me, she started. He had my hands. She had wanted to bite him and make him let go, but the fear that he might bite back or worse had stilled her jaws. But the brother -- she could not even remember his full name, other than that it had started with "Lami" and so he was called most frequently -- was not even the worst part of her experience; he was an added detail, the spark for her departure.

He was standing there, just looking at me for the longest. A few minutes, it felt like. And then Tyveni -- the sister, Myri clarified. She came in and yelled, and he stopped. I told her I liked her and wanted to leave with her, but she -- looked at me funny. Her ears dipped and her head bent with the memory of it. Disgust, hate maybe? She hadn't been able to bear looking at it long enough to tell, though the murky few seconds she remembered that face were probably seared permanently into her head. Thinking of it now, for the first time since perhaps before the first of the Boreas attacks, Myri realized again how much that look had bothered her. She said something... I don't remember. It was no, though. So I left. She'd left running and whimpering, and guilty even then for failing to extract Tyveni from that environment. For the most part, that had left her -- if her friend had wanted too leave, she would have by now, Myrika or not.

She did feel small and stupidly childish, contending with half-wit brothers and unrequited love, while her sister fought off bandits and thieves, her father ate his horse from under himself, and -- well, no one even knew what had happened to Rachias.

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#26
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Her tail twitched with a restless agitation while she listened to Myrika's story, but her body relaxed and she slowly exhaled a breath she didn't remember taking. Cassandra was not accustomed to needing to or wanting to comfort others. In their youth, she had done little to help ease her sister's preoccupation with her appearance, so caught up she had been in her own. And sickly and weak as she'd been, she had always had the attentions and comfort of her small family. She had not minded so much, but she had never been very in tune with the feelings of others as a result.


But now she slid her arm around Myrika, ignoring the slight protests of her shoulder. "She was an idiot, Tyveni," Cassandra said, her voice with some lingering sharpness. "Didn't know what she was losing." The albino was relieved though, that her sister's woes seemed faraway for the most part, and that the conversation had drifted away from herself. "Vesper's not the same sort of fool, is she?"


Closeness and betrayal came hand in hand; it was as true for romance as it was for all else. And yet, Cassandra could not look on her sister's feelings with contempt. Perhaps it was because she had, her whole childhood, watched her father suffer from the absence of his mate, and she believed as much as she believed anything that he would love mysterious Rachias until the day he died. She would not think of her own experiences; those feelings were buried deep, and she did not count. Those with goodness still left in them -- her father, her sister -- they would find their place to belong.

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#27
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314


Myrika is by me!

She might have been called an idiot for the inverse, for an apparent failure to find attraction where it was natural and as most did. And part of her perhaps still even liked Tyveni too much to call her an idiot, but she could at least smile and carefully squeeze herself into the offered embrace, glad for its comforts. She had, for the moment, completely forgotten it was to be the opposite -- she was to have comforted, rather than being comforted.

And, she could at least agree that Tyveni had not known her loss, for Myrika believed, with profound idealism, it would have been easy to ignore her admission and continue with their friendship as it had always been; she was ignorant of the difficulties of avoiding one's romantic feelings with continued friendship. Though this was a lesson later learned with Thamur, most of their awkwardness was attributed to her discovered sexuality rather than the individual involved.

But thoughts of Tyveni were swept by the wayside with another name, and Myrika's smile turned more toward dopey rather than amused. No, she feels the same way I do. That is... Myrika paused, trying to puzzle out how to describe the way she felt about the scarred Centurion. Umm, she murmured, and a second later, gave a quiet laugh. There were still no words of hers that could adequately explain her feelings.


Vesper's great, just great, she said. It's just -- I can't really... it's really hard to describe, she finished, stammering a word or two and tripping badly over the second instance of "really." Her feelings hadn't been possible to describe even to the mottled coyote's face; why should it be any easier here, even to Cassie? Have you loved someone? she asked meekly, thinking it was the only way to understand. You'll know what I mean.

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#28
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It was with some apprehension that Cassandra listened to her sister's girlish stammering and silly gushing. The swell in her chest, with its terrible mix of conflicting feelings, rose again and bubbled at the base of her neck, sending lumps into her throat. She found herself somewhat bewildered at Myrika's earnestness; it accentuated again the divide between them, the invisible wall she would not tear down. There was, apparently, plenty of innocence left in her tawny littermate to destroy. Cassandra could try to hope, but she did not truly believe that it could be preserved forever. All the same, she did not want to be the one to let the darkness of the world taint what had been kept safe thus far.


The weight in her heart sank into the pit of her stomach at Myrika's question. Not for the first time, her immediate impulse was to laugh, shrilly and harshly, to push away, to sneer. Cassandra bit her tongue instead, tensing, though she tried not to. She should have anticipated the question; it was natural the topic should pass back to her. She should have already prepared something to say, some simple tale with at least a neutral sort of ending so as to not spoil the guiltless joy of her sister's romance.


It had taken a long time for the pallid woman to move on from spending all her waking moments thinking of Jerome and of their last days together. It had taken longer still, for her to segregate her other memories of Matagami from the things that had transpired, to hold on to her French, her knowledge, her various skills, without thinking of those who'd taught her. She let a silence grow between them for longer than she should have, pale red eyes staring forward without seeing anything in particular.


"No," Cassandra said finally, shifting her gaze. She smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. "Maybe when I meet her, I'll know what you mean." She had not loved Jerome, it was easiest to tell herself. She had still been a child then, stupid and foolish; it had not been love.

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#29
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there were no less than three red squirrels in this post. fuck yeah moment: one of them was a real word


Myrika is by me!

It was the quiet that brought her head out of heaven, all the warm and gooey thoughts and feelings induced at the mention of Vesper dissipating with the prolonged quiet. She hunkered down a little, though did not seek to extract herself from their sideways embrace, glancing at Cassie now and again. Her eyes seemed to be looking through the schoolhouse and everything in particular, and Myrika was growing more and more uneasy with the quiet.

She was perhaps steeling herself to whisper her sister's name when Cassie spoke, a word that seemed much louder than it actually was. There was a smile, but it seemed small and somehow not altogether there, as if her thoughts were still faraway as her eyes had been a moment ago. She remembered, in the quiet, just what had begotten her gushing about Vesper, and the track their conversation had taken.

Did you like someone very much, then? she suggested, feeling more coy than she actually was. An idiot? Like Tyveni?

You said no, but I don't think it's no, she wanted to say, though her questions were still gentle and given in the mild voice of a commiserator rather than an interrogator's cold tone, though part of her now well-remembered grief and strangeness was turned to angry hurt. That small thing wanted to throttle the hurt out of her sister and smash it to pieces on the ground, as if hurt was some diseased and vestigial organ so easily removed. She wanted to help and was not allowed that much. Better yet, she believed in knowing and listening, there was help to give.

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#30
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SQUIRRELSSSSSS.


Perhaps she had let it fester because she had not heard the silence at all, or the words she'd said to break it. Instead, Cassandra became suddenly aware of the thundering in her chest and the way it seemed to be escalating in volume and quickness, accumulating in a wrenching, twisting feeling in her torso, halfway between her lungs and her stomach. As her false smile crumbled, she wanted to retch and somehow expel the gnawing pain, which spread again to her throat, her head, her heart, her fingertips. Unwittingly, she tensed her grip on her sister, pulling her a little closer, ignoring completely the stinging in her wounded shoulder. That was an insignificant hurt, just then.


She felt light-headed and unsteady, as if she would lose her balance, despite being seated. And she almost didn't understand that the feelings that rushed at her were memories she had pulled away from herself. More than sadness, there was terror; more than anger, there was despair. More than simple pain, there was an overwhelming grief that trapped her breath under her tongue and made her body shake. She had not loved Jerome, but maybe she could have, if things had been different.


She squeezed her eyes shut, but opened them again almost immediately. Memories surfaced more easily in the dark. Her mouth was dry and she felt like dying. "I don't know," her voice mumbled, though it felt faraway. Perhaps he had been an idiot, and all his pack and family as well, but the word seemed a laughable descriptor. "I was the idiot."

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#31
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dis post = meh forever


Myrika is by Bobbi!

She was sorry for the question, for the palpable trembling it provoked. But in Myrika's mind, words and expression were still a tool of healing, and she earnestly believed both might soothe some of the hurt apparent in the ghost-pale form. The sand-colored coyote had listened to Sparrow's disjointed story, shifted to show her the painlessness of the process, and watched with triumph as the coyote repeated the process. This memory of the power of words was strong within the hybrid. It still twisted something jagged and sharp inside her to hear the quiet, low voice and self-deprecation and feel the quavering in Cassie's limbs. She held fast and hugged more tightly again, still observant of visible scrapes and bruises.

No... not you, never you. She could not imagine her sister gazing on another with the sort of look Tyveni had given, let alone acting in a more despicable manner. She needed no words, no tale, to tell her that much. Though the flinching creature was a stranger, there was too much of the child Myrika recalled from youth left in voice and countenance and scent for her to separate the two. She bit back and swallowed more words threatening to bubble from her copper-streaked muzzle, allowing herself only the murmured disagreement. Quiet could not be derailed, and Myrika would keep it so, at least for a little while, and dare to hope it might provoke further words.

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#32
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It was not the first time the panic had come. She could see that there was no danger and nothing physical to fight against or flee from, but her body reacted otherwise. Adrenaline filled her veins and quickened her pulse, feeding the tightness in her chest until the weight became tangible and she would have sworn that it was possible to tear it out, whatever it was. Cassandra parted her slender maw to suck in air, but it did little to steel her nerves. She wanted desperately to run, but the warmth around her and the scent that enveloped the room were the safest things she knew.


She could not cry again, but pride seemed a faraway and silly preoccupation, as did the rationality of what she saw, staring forward. There was nothing there. There hadn't been in a long time. The heavy breathing was only her own, and there was no physical weight pressed against her. There was no rain falling. There was no background jeering and taunting. The echoing voices were memories only, and they were from a long time ago. Her free hand clutched at the furs they sat upon, nails nearing digging through the dried skin underneath, and for many long seconds, she said nothing and only breathed, sucking in air through her open mouth like a dying fish.


"I should have never told him," her voice muttered, though she did not know how the words fit in between her urgent breathing. "None of it would have happened if I hadn'tif--if I hadn't." She'd seduced him, he'd said, as he lay dying. It had been her fault. Not a goddess. Just a witch. "If I hadn't told him."

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#33
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--


Myrika is by Raze!

The quiet was not so much stillness or lack of noise as it was lack of speech -- she could hear many things quite well, least of all the near panting of the smaller figure beside her, the thundering of a too-loud heartbeat, and even the fainter noises of something giving way beneath sharp claws. Her blue-green eyes glanced down, and she herself wanted to extract herself from their half-embrace and prostrate herself before Cassie and beg for forgiveness, but she refused the urge, however powerful it was. The gurgle of hurt in her sister's voice was only a small and disjointed piece, something she did not understand as of yet, and Myrika needed no superior perception to ascertain it was just that -- a very small piece. None of what else?

She rubbed softly with her one hand and reached out in offering of the other, crossing it awkwardly across her tawny body so her sister might easily reach without stretching the wounded shoulder too much. It's okay, she said, quietly, repeating the phrase a few times. She knew the feeling too well, though -- she should have never told Tyveni anything. If she had simply offered to go away with her as a friend, maybe there would still be some chance for them?

You can tell me, she added. Nothing bad can happen if you do. Her voice was awfully soft, as if she herself was afraid to drive away with speech and questions the small part of Cassie's hurt given to her.

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#34
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She had been just leaving Thornloe, when it had happened last, the nonsensical terror and the unbidden swell of tangled hazards in her chest. She'd chanced upon the campsite of a mated pair of loners who had offered to share their fire and their roasting deer; the woman had been pregnant, and so the conversation had wandered there. The panic had been sudden, enveloping her wholly in just moments as the words died in her throat and there came an awful retching. She had vomited most of her meal, and when the man had approached her afterwards, seeking to comfort her, she had lashed out. Cassandra was glad that they had fled, angry and confused into the night. Others before them had not been so lucky.


But here she could not strike, could not turn her blades or her fangs towards her sister. She could not claw her way through the make-believe dangers and find the vanquishing sunrise on the other side. Her colorless fur stood on end and her skin was hot, hypersensitive, ready to boil. She could not fight the wisps of memory tangled in with the nightmares. She could only sit, and breathe, and breathe again, and cling to the body beside her, trying not fall apart.


Cassandra took the hand Myrika offered, but stared down at her feet, trying to will the weight to slip down and puddle away. The rational part of her still wanted to spare her sister the grief of knowing, of being told just what the world was capable of. But the rational part of her flailed against the tightness in her chest and achieved nothing while her heart continued to race. "They thought I was a goddess," she mumbled. "They thought I was giving them good weather and healthy crops. I should've never... never told him and let him... should have never let him... but I wanted him to and I thought it would be okay and he said it wouldn't matter and that no one would care but--" the room spun and she inhaled with a wild sort of desperation. "--Jean wasn't supposed to be back for hours; he said... he said I wasn't pure anymore, and."


The heaviness shot up from the bottom of her stomach and tore at her throat; the pressure was immense and it was all she could do to not shriek and whimper and cry. She bit her tongue for what felt like the hundredth time, withdrawing both her hands so she could clutch at her opposite arms, as if that would steady her body's shakes and trembles. Cassandra shook her head once with a sharp, sudden force, trying to clear it, trying to throw off the weight, but the weight came from all around her, a dozen heavy hands grasping at her and a dozen hot mouths panting terrible words in her face, stealing the air from the emptiness around her.

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#35
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347


Myrika is by me!

The twisting thing in her stomach pierced more, and she hated herself for having wrought this with her questions and words, though perhaps even then part of her recognized the inevitability of such a thing. Sorrowful as she was for having provoked such things within her sister, she was also infinitely relieved it was hers to know, too. She held fast and squeezed the hand, her own breath an increasing heaviness in her lungs until she realized she was holding that, too.

The fawn-colored hybrid exhaled slowly and suppressed her own whining and even growling, though they threatened within her. She was grave-silent in her listening, finding even the noises she wanted to make inadequate to express the things she felt. Anything Myrika might have said or done was only so much bathetic gesture, the most minute and insignificant thing swept up in the wave of things spilling from her sister.

The names and the they were unknown to her, but she conjured images of them and tore them to pieces all the same. If she could not do it herself, Ithiel could have for her, the rest of Inferni, too. In that moment, given a tangible and known enemy, she would have echoed a predecessor in seeking the worst monsters she could find to exterminate her sister's monsters. She quivered with her own anger, incapable of suppressing that much. Her jaws were set together, clenched tightly. With the shake of Cassie's head, she released and drew back, uncertain if her holding and closeness was wanted. Her other hand hovered over a bone-colored back, but she dropped and withdrew it, instead curling both into fists.

Myri still believed, too, in catharsis -- even if she understood part of that included, irrevocably, taking some of that feeling into herself. She would have stolen it all away if possible, if only sorrow could be siphoned with things small and ineffectual as words. There was no turning away now, though -- it had been too late the moment she saw her sister bloodied and bruised and scarred.

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#36
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"They were beating him," a weak, pitiful, whining sort of voice said. "Jerome was a terrible fighter. Jean was his brother and they were his friends, but that didn't matter. They didn't care." She drew up her knees and clutched at them with the hand of her good arm, the other falling uselessly at her side. The pain in her shoulder was still very dull compared to the mad bubbling heat in her head, chest, and throat, but it was a tangible hurt all the same, and she did not want to fight it. Cassandra could taste blood and bile on her tongue and spoke to take the bitterness away.


"T'were beating him and... and I thought they were going to kill him... I tried to stop them, but." She inhaled sharply, but breathing was harder now, with her knees against her chest and her throat, raw and dry somehow, clammed further when the air rushed against it. "...There were too many of them," she whispered, now dipping her nose down so her muzzle was curled against her own chest, her forehead pressed against her legs. "They pinned me down and Jean said...he said if I wasn't pure anymore then it didn't matter and that anyone could... could have me."


She laughed then, suddenly and loudly, pulling her lips back and bearing her teeth as she did so. It was an awful sound, strangled and ragged, like a dying animal screaming for mercy. She laughed into her knees, body curled tightly, nails digging into her arms hard enough to draw blood. "Others came, but they didn't help. They took turns. No one helped." And then the sobbing laughter died as quickly as it had come and she held her breath, burying her head into the folds of her thin, trembling body. "They let us go, eventually," she said, though her voice was muffled and laboured. "Jerome said it was my fault. It was my fault. And he... I let him... maybe I wanted him to... and then I killed him.


"Jerome was a terrible fighter."

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#37
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533


Myrika is by me!

Her curled fists twitched several times throughout, and she jerked all over when Cassie laughed, though it was not a gesture of surprise. She was dimly aware of tingling numbness in her hands from the force of her clutching them together, tingling in her fingers as she tightened them so much she thought tendons would surely snap and bones crack under the pressure. Her teeth ground together and clenched so forcefully she was surprised they did not shatter and tumble, in hundreds of miniscule pieces, from her muzzle.

She sprang to her feet and paced rapidly to the end of the room. She turned around and paced back, then back again, though this second time she stopped midway through the room, and abruptly turned to smash both hands into the desk. The bone jumped off its surface and landed awkwardly, clattering to the floor a moment later. Myri wanted to put her head through its surface, too, and kick it to pieces -- she wanted to destroy something, but her strength was not so great against the desk. The single strike aching through both hands and reverberating through her arms and even up to her shoulders was enough to temper her anger -- she'd never really known real anger until now -- at least to the point of control.

The Aquila hissed a breath out of her nose, still clenching her teeth too hard to even open her mouth. She wished she did have a pet monster to send seeking after these creatures. She did not know a word foul or cruel enough by which to name them, but she wished she could burn their bodies and hang bones all the same. She had killed to protect and defend her home and her cousin before, but she had not wanted to. This impotent desire for simple malice was new to her. She wanted very much to reject and hate that desire, to turn away from it and consider herself above it, but staring into the wood grain of the desk, she realized she could not -- and relented, relishing it and letting it sink into her.

No, no, no, she said, and six or seven times more, when her tongue returned. She was still staring down at the surface of the desk, glowering and glaring as if her eyes could burn through it. She straightened, though, with the cessation of the single word, and turned back toward her sister. The sandy-furred coyote crouched down again in front of her sister, wanting very much to touch and hold and hug.

It's not your fault. None of it. She gave in to only a light touch on the uninjured arm, acquiescing readily to the possibility of a flinch or even worse reaction. Please don't think like that, she whimpered, pleading with a thought process she did not know how to otherwise combat. Given a hundred years of uninterrupted thought, Myri might have been able to deconstruct just why and even put it to words, but she hadn't so many years to live and there was only the deeply set knowledge that Cassie and any other faulting themselves for such acts of violation was wrong.

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#38
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She was drowning. With body curled and her head buried, she could not see and she could not breathe. Blood rolled over her tongue inside her closed jaws and her lungs screamed for new air. Cassandra did not notice her sister rise or move or pace, and though her body jumped at the noise, she did not really acknowledge the abuse of the desk and the clattering of the bone to the floor. Her stomach lurched and she felt again the pressure against the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, sucking in another ragged breath as she did so, and tried to calm her heaving chest.


The pallid woman laughed again when her sister spoke, though she did not really hear the words. Her voice was softer now, too asphyxiated and heavy to maintain its prior volume. She uncurled slowly, taking gasping breaths in between desperate giggles and hacking coughs as she continued to supress the urge to vomit. "I was pregnant," she continued. There was barely substance to her voice now; she had to consciously work more saliva into her mouth between the swallows of blood. "They could have been his... they could have been anyone's." A shrill sob of laughter. "I killed them too. They were never born."


Cassandra lay on her side on the bed of furs, uncertain of how she got there. Her knees were still drawn halfway up to her chest, but she did not hold them in place. Tremors rocked her body with each breath she drew, but slowly, gradually, the terror gave way to exhaustion. The adrenaline had run its course and there was no energy left to feel or fear or say anything more. Her eyes were open, but she didn't know what she was looking at. She breathed in whimpering gasps. She didn't know how to do anything else.


It had been nearly two years already, but she had never said the words before, even alone, even to Lady. There had never been anyone else to tell or to care. It had taken everything she had to even tuck it away in a place she did not look at every day. They were someone else's secrets.The things she'd said and admitted to were only lies, pretend nightmares and scary stories. They never happened to her. She had never loved. She had never killed. She had never been betrayed. She had never been left alone. She breathed.

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#39
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457


Myrika is by Raze!

She wanted very much to ask Cassandra to stop, to look up and agree, and smile, though she was fully aware how absurd such a hope was. The tawny hybrid refused to yield to the compulsion to ask her outright to stop. Perhaps it was the cold tallying of this clan's history -- the observational and dry way she'd written death, war, and rape -- even using her grandmother's polite phrase: have against her will. That phrase, echoic in her head just then, very much needed to be scratched out, perhaps the whole page torn out and rewritten. Such coldness had no place in descriptions of brutality. Those deeds needed to be laid bare, visible for what they were to the world.

All the fur along her shoulders and neck was fully roused. A shiver ran through her arms, and the rattling brought a sharp stab of pain in her hand. She looked down and saw a smudge of red against one tawny-hued knuckle but paid it no mind. She touched her sister's hair, running her fingers along the long silver-pale locks, brushing them away from her face and tucking them behind her head. It's not your fault, she said.

I would have done the same. Would she have? I wouldn't want them. You didn't want them, she murmured, unable to keep the words away. They never were. She didn't know if the words even mattered -- there was blankness in her sister's face. She kept talking all the same, some of the same phrases and sentiments repeating. I'm sorry, she said, and it was one of the things the fire-haired coyote said again and again -- for what had happened, for making Cassie relive it, for thinking she could have helped, and many other things. There were many pleases, too, though Myrika did not know if she was pleading to be heard, believed, or right.

Listen -- please, she said, louder, clearer, and less a babble than the rest when one very clear and very rational thought arose above the jumble. If anyone ever touches -- if anyone even looks at you or anything else -- tell me, she said, authority sliding unintentionally back into her voice. Tell me -- and I'll tear them to fucking pieces. It wasn't so monstrous to seek vengeance, however -- what made it so was the quiet cold all her anger had turned into, fire frozen into a solid chunk of ice in the center of her. It was too easy to mislabel the feeling as protectiveness and too easy to turn all that cold into its fuel. Maybe she had her pet monster, after all.

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Part of her wanted to continue, onward to the wolf that had found her days ago, onward to the latest assault and the latest death and the blood that was on her still. Part of her wanted to tell more of the story wherein her beautiful horse dies. Part of her wanted to gut herself further and lay out all the rest of the awful tales for her sister to see. She could not think of what they were though, just then. She could not remember what else had happened and when, or the details of any story. Jerome's beautiful voice whispered in her ear, or perhaps it was Myrika, or her father, but she could not make out the words. She was tired and felt as if she had been running a long time. Her breathing was laboured still, but gradually she quieted, and it was no longer a rattling gasp.


The thin, colorless hybrid had not closed her eyes (memories came more easily in the dark), but slowly, she became aware of the room again: the rough brick walls and the small cookfire and the old desk and the hand brushing away her tangled hair. And Cassandra was ashamed for her outburst, or whatever it had been, for her great displays of weakness; twice already she had let the twisted knot in her chest choke her reason and her pride and spout words and noises and garbled nonsense she would not otherwise have voiced. Her sister had watched over her when they were children; Cassandra had never been able to do much for her, and for all that had happened, it seemed things had not changed so much in their relationship.


She lifted a hand to grasp Myrika's and whined softly, apologetically now. "I'm sorry... for being a burden," she mumbled. "Thank you..." And with great effort, she smiled, looking sideways at her sister from where she lay on the bed. She tried to give a small laugh too, though it turned into a cough. "You don't... you don't need to worry about protecting me though..." She breathed in a long, slow breath. The knotted weight remained in her lungs, but it was not unbearable anymore. "I'll kill them... myself. And anyone who hurts you, too." Exhale. She looked away again. "I'll kill them all." And she would, as she had so many others already.

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