@ash

Since his sobering altercation with his brother, Kier was quieter. Subdued. Broken and belittled into submission. He’d snap out of it, go back to his self-aggrandising flair and his odd, flamboyant charisma, but for now he was just little Kier, Kate and Mal’s creepy brother. He no longer radiated any semblance of power, of knowing, of mocking. The world felt like it moved silently along in black and white, slowed by static, meaningless, empty.

He trudged soundlessly into the trainee quarters in the Mansion, carrying two fat little mice. They reminded him of when he’d never felt more like himself, with Eris, but he pushed it aside; he was too downtrodden to think on the power of the memory. Wordlessly, he dropped one of the mice in front of his sister and padded a half-turn to lie down beside her on his side, legs closest to her. “Thought you might be hungry,” he muttered quietly, eyes on his own mouse instead of on her. He didn’t say it, would never say it, but he was there because Kate was the closest thing to comfort, to kindness, he could find in his family. That wasn’t really saying much — she was cold, awful, cruel; had always been just as much a bully to him as their brother had. But it was rare that they both ganged up on him at the same time; when Mal did, that usually meant Kier and Kate had an unspoken truce. He was hoping, faintly, that that was the case now.

Maybe him going to her was really little more than the fact she was a she-cat — meant to be harmless, nurturing, maternal. Maybe there was something twisted in it, some relocation of the closeness he wanted with his mother onto his sister. Maybe she would be just as nasty and dismissive of him as she usually was, the perfect daughter who had no time for her snivelling brother. But either way, here he was. Going to his sister for some aching sense of familiarity, of stability, of gentleness. Of comfort. The house walls settled around them, creaking quietly under all that old weight.

“Where’s father?” he asked, in that same dull, quiet voice, sounding so awfully tired, like he’d given up, as he prodded his mouse’s chest with his paw. He didn’t even feel like eating its heart; it was too cold, not like the fresh, hot one that had melted in his mouth in Eris’ lab. That felt like moons ago. This blood would be congealed. He pushed it slightly away. He didn’t really need to know where their father was, had no real interest in him at all anymore now that he was growing up, but Harley was part of this familiar past he needed right then — or this past he was punishing himself with by returning to, stewing in the dull, listless self-pity of being the helpless, bullied little kit he’d always been — and so he asked. It was part of this script of theirs, the script of these three siblings. Only, now Mal had been somewhat cut out and Kier and Kate were the ones left reciting it. The ties holding the three together were growing looser and looser by the day. One day they would dissolve, or be torn apart, or rupture entirely.

Now, though, for just a little while longer, they were still children. Children who could pretend there was still anything between them but blood and bitterness. Who could pretend there had ever been anything at all. In a way, it felt like a swan song as the three siblings’ childhood slipped away, and their relationships with them. What would they be in a year, in two? Not this. Not picking at mice side by side in a quiet, golden morning, sad dust motes floating between them. There was some unspoken tenderness to it. He was still her brother; he knew what food she liked. He loved her just as much as he hated her. He knew her just as much as she was becoming a stranger to him. There was nothing between them; there was everything between them. She was his blood, his past, his sister, as much as he might have wished over and over that she had never been born.