Sora had tumbled quickly through a variety of emotions at the meeting, but was now settling on the easiest one to muster -- rage, which had been stewing throughout its conclusion. "A word," she'd said, her voice barely above a growl, and had pulled Morganite to relative privacy. This tucked-away room was easy to pace through, working off nervous energy so she didn't do something she regretted as Sora pieced her thoughts together.

But every time Morganite came back into view, the flames of her rage were fanned with even more vigor. "You are well aware that Kini wouldn't have stood for this kind of talk." Her blood was boiling. Finally, she turned to Morgan, quivering in every limb with restraint and fury. "How dare you throw Kini's name in my face like that. How dare." She jerked her head away rather than stalk forward -- Sora didn't want to threaten her sister, certainly, but she was furious. She needed to be heard. "How dare you throw their name in my face," she said, her voice quivering, "and how dare you get angry at me for stepping up into a position Kini asked me to take while you were reeling. How dare you be angry at me for protecting you, for trying to diffuse the situation, for trying to help? The agreement was that we took care of them together, Morganite." Her eye narrowed.

"And don't think you can act so high and mighty, Miss Vargas-May-Be-Breeding. I WAS TRYING TO KEEP THINGS CALM FROM THE BEGINNING!!" she roared, her emotion suddenly getting the better of her. Sora paused, and took a deep breath. Closed her eye tightly -- she could feel a migraine coming on. Then, again, calmer -- "I was trying to keep things calm from the beginning. The moment the Bone King offered a hint that we might have been misconstruing the situation, I altered my behavior accordingly. I wasn't stubborn and I certainly wasn't disgusting--" any more than in appearance -- "so I've got no earthly clue what you were talking about."

She bristled and looked Morganite over coldly. "Don't tear into me because I'm an easy target. Don't pretend I'm in the wrong for calling a spade a spade, especially considering I shut my mouth when I realized I was in the wrong." Don't make me regret my promise.


@morganite

Morgan was weirdly calm. Which probably meant she was so emotionally exhausted that she was at the point of feeling nothing, which wasn't good. Not at all.

"How dare you," she countered immediately, though she sounded tired, "How dare all of us? The way we acted- I, Charles, and you- was atrocious. The hyena was right. She was right. We carry the air of grief around us, but that doesn't mean we ever had the right to fling it in people's faces like the death of our family is a weapon to use!"

"He asked you to take care of me, not take my position as matriarch. And if you think you were diffusing the situation, then you must be mad!", she said, in disbelief that Sora truly thought that she'd helped at all, "Did you really think pointing out that Alpha is Eythan's grandchild helps matters?!"

Morgan bristled, as if there were quills on her back rather than fur, "You are acting like a child. You are acting like you have the right to barge in on their family meeting like it was your right! Like some... some kid taking over a birthday party! It wasn't your right! It wasn't any of our rights! We said some terrible things and you didn't even bother apologizing- because you're always right, of course."

She turned her head away, jaw clenched and ears pinned, "If you think I'm tearing into you out of anger, you're stupid- yes! I said it! And I'm not going to blubber my apologies like I used to. But you weren't calling a spade a spade. You were shoving your opinion into the faces of people who didn't want it, and didn't care, just like Charles and I was. I'm upset that you refuse to see that, and I'm upset because you did make things worse by blatantly poking a bear with a stick to get a rise out of it! You weren't calming anything!"

If she were any angrier, she would have blamed Sora for why they'd been silenced, and would have rubbed Simon in her face as well as Kini too. But she wasn't. For now.

@Sora

strong language

Sora looked at Morgan, total disbelief scrawled across her features. "A weapon? I did no such thing. Don't fucking put words in my mouth, Morganite." Too angry to shorten the name, too angry to fall back on a term of endearment -- every word clear, crisp, and enunciated. Sharp like a tack. She shook her head. "And don't act like you didn't misunderstand, either. Don't act like this is my fault. Don't act like you and Charles wouldn't have said anything if I hadn't spoken first." She gritted her teeth. "Don't fucking take me out of context. Don't look at me like I'm a monster because Eythan was being a prick and don't expect me to be the bigger fucking person, because news flash! I NEVER HAVE BEEN!!"

Her ears pinned back. "Being the bigger person is just what they tell victims to make them shut their mouths. I never asked for this, Morganite. I never asked to be fucking born, I never asked to watch my family die, I never asked to be put in this position. I never asked to be thrust into a cruel, unfamiliar world where folks don't mean what they say and where everyone speaks a second language that I seem to be fucking clueless about!"

A cold wave settled over Sora. "I don't like this new you, Morganite. I don't know why everything has to change. I don't know why we have to change. But apparently we do, and I am not going to sit here and let you talk to me like I'm a child. I'm not going to take that."


@morganite

strong language

"I'm not putting words in your mouth. They were your own," she said, "And when did I act like I wasn't being stupid too? Did you not hear me say that it wasn't only you? You're being stubborn and brash and rude!"

"You, Sora, are putting words in my mouth!", Morganite said, eyes narrowing, "I never said to be the bigger person. I said to shut up so that we could speak our minds at the end, like the hyena suggested! I never asked to be born either, none of us did, but we were and now we have to suck it up!"

She stamped a foot and growled low in her throat, "You speak the language perfectly clear when you apparently want to. But the second someone opposes your opinion, you become a... an asshole!"

Morganite inhaled and shook her head, frustrated, "We're not in that stupid little cave, Sora. You can go ahead and stay in that headspace if you want, but I won't! They died for us to live and I'm not going to throw that chance away! Things changed and you're stupid if you don't know why they did."

Morganite didn't want to lose her sister, but Sora would if she kept acting like this. As if her opinion is the only right one.

"I'm going to give you a choice," she said, cold and quiet, "Either you return and sit down and shut up until we can speak again, or stay here and lose my respect."

@Sora

strong language

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

[like, sora's intrusive thoughts return and say something bad]

---

Sora took a step forward. "I'm the one acting high and mighty? Acting like I'm the only one who could possibly be right? Take a look at yourself, Morganite." One way or another, she hadn't started things. She'd misconstrued Auré's gathering call as an invitation to speak like the Bonebound did -- which was valid, considering she had no prior experience or way of knowing otherwise -- and had yielded to Giggle and the Bone King when she'd been challenged. Meanwhile, Morganite was acting like getting pissy at an aggressor made her the villain, and Sora wasn't going to put up with it. "If I'm in the wrong, so are you and you have no fucking right to be angry at me about it."

Morganite kept talking, though, and frustration soared. "THINGS DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE BECAUSE THEY DIED, MORGANITE!!" Sora was bordering on hysterical now. "They don't have to! We can keep being a family, damnit, and our stupid fucking trauma doesn't have to get in the way of that! We are allowed to grieve and then keep living life as normal. We deserve to." But if things really were changing, and if they were out of control, and--

And if Morganite was giving her an ultimatum?

Sora's cold grew into icy spikes jabbing at her chest. "Have things really changed that much?" Her voice sounded... faraway, almost. Distant, almost like--

you... should have followed... your brothers...



@morganite

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

graphic themes

"You are right now!", Morganite shouted, "You act as if I don't know that I was an idiot!"

She flinched at Sora's outburst, taking a step back and tucking her tail between her legs for a moment.

"... Things have to change because they did," she hissed, "Because we're not the family we once were, and there will be gaps to fill. Our trauma has and will get in the way of that, and it will be a long road to healing for all of us. You can't push it down and expect it not to spring back at you. We will grieve, yes, but I won't stop being afraid of the dark. I won't stop having nightmares. Not for a while. We deserve to be left alone to heal. I want to leave and get as far away as possible from Hydra, but we have to look for stones, somehow. In that Hellhole."

Just thinking about it made her chest tight.

"Things changed when we saw Thalia die," she said, and swallowed, "... And sometimes I wish it had been me."

Morganite clenched her jaw and sat down heavily, tears in her eyes. She was so... angry. Why couldn't it have been different? Why couldn't she have run after Simon instead? Why couldn't she have held on tighter, been braver?

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

[oop sora's a lil suicidal but that's not a surprise]

---

Sora didn't want things to change. she didn't understand why they had to, not really. But... then again, hadn't-- hadn't it been that reckless sense of camaraderie that had gotten them killed in the first place? Simon and Orenstein, they'd both died trying to save someone else. Strangers. They'd thrown their lives away for Gembound who weren't even part of the family -- could they have survived if they'd been just a little bit crueler? If they'd cared just a little bit less?

And Owlface and Kini and Simon, who had all said the same awful words before they rushed into the shadows? They had to know it was suicide. They had to know they wouldn't come back, had to know that it was better to die than live without them. Sora shuddered. Kini-yolotl would have known what to do. It was easier, when it was just Kini and Morgan. When she didn't have to think about anything.

Sora was just... so, so tired. "Fine," is what she finally said, her voice distant. "If things have really changed so much that you can't be with me anymore, that you have to be different, then maybe we do deserve to be left alone." Wouldn't the quiet be nice? The hog looked away. She said the word change like poison. Why was Sora the only one who didn't want to change? Why didn't everyone want to go back to what they had been? Happy-go-lucky kids who loved each other and wanted to see the trees?



@morganite

Morganite shook her head, "You're... so naive. The only way to move on is to... is to grow up. Make new lives out here and be happy. For them. Clinging to what isn't real anymore won't help you."

She looked down and sighed, eyes sad, "Please, Sora. You shouldn't forget, but don't let it consume you."

Turning away, she sighed, mumbling quietly, "I have to go talk to Charles. Are you coming?"

She stopped in her tracks and looked back at Sora with her big green eyes, which once held an odd, joyful youth. They were full of sadness, now, and were dull and flat.

@Sora

Sora shook her head. "I don't think you understand, Morganite." The hog took a step back, putting physical distance between them. She didn't even want to look at the hybrid anymore. "I made that promise to my sister. Someone caring and soft who wanted to help her siblings, not call them disgusting and invoke the names of the dead to make them feel shitty." Sora frowned. "I made that promise to someone who needed me, and who needed my help. But apparently, Kini was wrong -- you are strong enough to do this on your own."

She didn't recognize the look in Morganite's eyes. None of them would have wanted the family to fall apart like this -- but Sora wasn't willing to change herself. She wasn't willing to let the Masked Merchant take away any more of her. And if that meant splitting away, well, then so be it -- Sora had better things to do than listen to insults.


@morganite

"I called your behavior disgusting," she corrected, and flinched, "You're a hypocrite. You too invoked their names in order to make me feel guilty. You're not innocent, Sora! Your behavior isn't at all reasonable!"

Morganite turned around, tears welling up from the sheer anger she felt, "When you came out of your egg, who was there? Me. Who was there to lick your bruises after you fought with Kini? ME! WHO WAS THERE FOR YOU, FOREVER AND ALWAYS? ME!!"

She snarled and stamped a foot, more than pissed off, "Forget you, Sora. You're not my sister. Not this mess of a Gembound who's given up instead of at least trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel. You aren't strong enough to do this, and that's where we differ. You're not willing to change and that will catch up with you."

With her ears pinned, she let out an aggressive snarl towards her and hissed, "Stay away from my family unless you're willing to pick up your act. Which I doubt."

Oh how she despised Sora in that moment. Her stubbornness, her nature to stand her ground even if she was so horribly wrong. Being a hypocrite, a jerk, and all in all? A terrible sibling.

"Goodbye."

Morganite turned and stormed out of the cave, growling as she went, magic sparking at her paws, wanting to be released in her anger. She shoved it all down and shook her head. She would be the bigger person. They didn't need Sora.

Exit Morganite unless stopped.
@Sora