[Sarissa]

The crows flew, whether they were Azuhel's or not, Sarissa didn't care. Red eyes stared blankly into blue, or what once was blue, as they faded out of reality and into the next world. Blood squished between teeth, between gums and she tasted blood for the very first time. The blood of another, of a wolf — of her brother. Her white was painted red, the flowers behind her glistened in the dull sunlight as RED, RED, RED had washed over them. The torn open neck of her brother blossomed open into muscle, the tendons bubbling from his lungs tryhing to suck in air when they couldn't. No, he was suffocating and she laughed.

Sarissa laughed and giggled until there were tears. The girl wheezed frantically before glancing toward her sister. "What do .... what do we tell mom?" What do we tell her? We killed Hercules, we killed our brother!!!

A pit of anger had balled into her chest, and it burst. It wasn't their fault, it was his. And now he's dead. Gone.

"It was his fault."

✦ ✦ Speech Text ✦ ✦

[Maera]

Red paints white, it paints black, it shines against pale blues. One twin is fire, the other is ice, and they blossomed into their duality. They are individuals, they are not the same, yet they are inevitably tied together.

Sarissa flourished in the heat, the Sun, in the Day, but Maera could not. Where her twin walked boldly into the light, shrouded in dark, she could only cower and hide in the night and pray for solace from their mother. Luckily for her, or perhaps not, Atlas was pregnant and needed more sleep. The fat, round shape of her mother had begun to terrify her less and less, especially as she grew bigger and stronger, but she still always felt so weak in comparison to the mint wolf.

Maybe it was the lack of fear from her mother, who never let her forget that she wielded both the gift of life and death, that 'I brought you into this world, and I'll be the one to take you out' was a regular phrase of endearment from the border guard.

The rest of her siblings were their own beings, but she would always be the 'other half' of her inverted twin, who always resembled and acted more like Oleander than herself. It perplexed her, but she never questioned it, just accepted the role she had been given in all of this. Not that she didn't love Sarissa- no, she would kill for her sister, and there is proof before them in the form of one of their more carefree brothers.

'What do ..... what do we tell mom?' - the thought had not yet crossed Maera's mind, and with that question, she instinctively shrunk back from the mess they'd made. "...What," she feels dizzy now. All the rage that had run rampant in the moments before Hercules' death had dispersed and left the blue eyed girl breathless. 'It was his fault,' Sarissa explained.

"N.. no.. no. No it.. its..Did we do this?" Of course they had, but she had disappeared into the depths of her mind and painted that beautiful orange an ugly, mother green as they ripped the life away from him. Maera had always hated Hercules, the same as she hated the muddled blood siblings before them, but she couldn't picture a world where he wasn't always in it, antagonizing them.

"Sarissa.. Sarissa, she'll kill me. Stop laughing! She'll kill me!" the blue-eyed girl let out a cry and rushed her sibling, aiming to knock the girl down, but nothing more than that. "Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck," it was easy to picture what Atlas would do when she finds out, but Orcrist? "..Wh.. what.. what will dad do? Sarissa, Sarissa, what will he do if he finds out? We can't.. we can't.. hide him.. he.. he.. we're covered in his fucking blood, we stink of him, he.. he stinks of us.. this whole area.."

There was no covering up this crime, and she held no political weight to brush it into the rug. She had gotten on Azuhel's nerves once before, and she imagined her grandmother was hardened to the likes of her, so she would find no mercy, would she?

With a glance towards Hercules, she briefly wishes she could trade spots with him, and that he- out of all of them- is the lucky one. "I don't want to die yet."