Chapter Text
Dear Sister,
I hear you’re alive. How disappointing. I’ve also survived this long, no thanks to you.
I wonder if you’re still stomping around the countryside, pretending that burning everything down is going to bring him back. I wonder how I could ever look up to you. I wonder if you’d be mad at me if you knew I was burning all the memories of you. All those lovely trips you rode with me on your back; I wonder if you walk them still, with no one by your side.
I wonder if you ever even cared about me.
Yeah, I don’t think you ever gave a damn about me.
I think you only care about your revenge and your stupid hair. And I think you’ve always been like that. You taught me never to start a sentence with because, because it’ll undermine my point and isn’t very correct. It’s because you’re an asshole.
If you need me, reconsider.
I’m done trying to save people who don’t want to be saved.
I have a husband now, someone who chose me; you attended our wedding and you wrote a beautiful speech and during it you told me that you would always be there. You lied, but he’s kept his vows. He’s outlasted you, and even if I look at you and see a mosaic of everything that hurt me as a child; you can take responsibility for your own actions.
You have to take responsibility for yourself, is what I’m saying. No one can pull you out of this except yourself. It’s your problem that you’re not choosing yourself. You keep pushing it onto me.
You keep stumbling around drunk and expecting me to catch you. You keep getting stranded in corners of the world that you can’t escape and expecting me to bail you out. You never ask me to, but you look at me and I see everything that you sacrificed for me as a child and yet, when I today ask you the simplest of things: you cannot do them.
You could give your life to me and now you can’t even give me your loyalty. It fucks with me, you know. You fuck with me, you know. You wouldn’t hold this mercy for me so I don’t know why I’m holding it for you.
If anyone needs me, I'll be at the bar
What did you learn when you crossed the point of no return? I’m almost afraid to ask you if you regret it. I don’t know what I fear most: the echo or the answer. The lingering look of doubt on your face, perhaps. That moment when you’re deciding if you trust me enough to not lie. That moment when I realise that you’re no longer my seventeen-year-old sister who made me feel safe during the storm.
We’re grown women now, aren’t we, Aria?
After everything we did, everything we saw; you still chose to turn your back on me for a hopeless cause.
I don’t want you to answer this correspondence.
It’s the night after they bury Ezra.
Dell falls asleep and the first thing they do is get really, really fucking drunk.
Arianna can hear his breathing ebb into rest—Ellie sniggers at her as she leans her head against the door, her ear touching the wood grain and mouths mother.
Her eyes say: you’re acting like the boy’s mother.
Her eyes scream: you’re doing things that ours would never.
Her heart is aching. She is, she is, she is. Yet, she can never allow herself to be. She finds her breath in between memories of little feet on top of hers, of taking him for his first proper drink in a bar, even if she’s let him sneak off with her alcohol for years. She’s a firm believer in that kids should get into some good, dumb trouble every now and then.
Ezra agreed with her.
Ezra is never going to agree with her again.
It’s the night after they bury her sister’s husband, the love of her sister’s life; one of the few people who ever cared to try and understand Arianna, even if just out of love for Ellie, and knowing that it would mean a lot to Ellie, if Arianna wasn’t the thing that killed him. He was still one of the few people who ever put in the effort to peel back her layers and believed that she was more behind them, and she’s going to miss him.
Arianna says it first, when they’re still standing by the door.
“We should get drunk,” she suggests, even if it’s not a suggestion. It’s closer to a well, I’m at least going to get really fucking drunk and I would encourage you to join me in that pursuit. I should have gotten drunker, when my husband died. I’m giving you the offer, now.
Dell’s going to sleep through the night if they bang around in the kitchen because he looked dead on his feet as soon as they crossed the threshold into the sanctuary that Ellie’s home, despite everything, in spite of everything, had become. Here, no one would apologise for their loss. Here, no one would say, through gritted, awkward teeth that it was inevitable. Here, no one would steal glances at Arianna and wonder where she’d been, and why the fuck she had the gall to show up to the funeral.
And even if he woke up, he would have enough good sense to leave them the fuck alone or join them and take a swig before asking any questions.
They went to the kitchen without another word, without making another sound, even as their feet sung against the floors. Arianna pulled out a bottle that smelled more of antiseptic than something that was safe to drink, and Ellie nodded in approval. Neither of them wanted to remember the night. Neither of them wanted to remember the day.
“I know you don’t want to hear it from me,” Arianna begun, her lips still on the rim, “But Ezra was one of the best men I knew. If not the best.”
Ellie raised her brow as she leaned over to seize the bottle. “Even better than Caleb?”
“Yes,” Arianna answered simply, relinquishing her hold. Ellie was already blurring at the edges. It was painfully easy to confess that yes, Ezra had been better than Caleb in a lot of ways. And in many other ways, he would never come close.
“He stayed,” she surmised, “He stayed when Caleb didn’t, and he raised Dell, even though he always knew that Dell wasn’t his. We never spoke of it, but I could see in his eyes. I think he always knew. He had to.”
“Dell looks too much like you and Caleb.”
Arianna nodded. It was a nice way to say that Dell hadn’t inherited even a smidge of Ezra’s rich skin, that the boy was as pale as the man from whose seed he sprung the day he died, bleeding out in the dirt.
“Dell is always going to see Ezra as his father,” she continued, tensing a little, “Even if I told him that he’d come from me, and that I’d never fucked Ezra, he would always consider him his father. It’s one of the reasons I could never tell him. He’s so proud of you two. He’s proud of coming from you. I couldn’t ruin that. Look at me.”
“That’s a stupid reason,” interrupted Ellie, punctuating her sentence by knocking back the bottle. Arianna already had a new one between her fingers, uncapping it with her teeth. Ellie didn’t sway her. She would love Ellie until the day she died, and long after, but it was always terribly rare for Ellie to be able to convince her of anything that Arianna didn’t want.
The functioning of their relationship was built on a passive acceptance of each other. Arianna would be brimming with pride over what her sister had accomplished, while Ellie would mourn the opportunities that the world had stolen from her brilliant sister. They would never speak of it to each other, never directly. But they would always know. Arianna knows that Ellie thinks she’s wasting her life. Ellie thinks that she threw her magic away for no good reason, and then she used it as an excuse to do nothing with her life. That’s the thing about sisters; you look into her eye, and you know. She is your greatest confidant and worst liar.
“He’s so proud of being your child. I think he’s the first Clawthorne who can ever say that. Our father hated his parents, so did mother. And we know what you and I think. I know what Henry thought.”
Ellie sighs. “I know,” she reasons, “But that doesn’t mean I can make myself agree.”
Transcription of Ellie Clawthorne’s deposition on charges of subverting the will of Commander Belos:
I: Why did you try to bury your sister?
EC: I didn’t try. I succeeded.
I: Why did you bury your sister?
I: I had forbidden you to do it.
EC: I owed it to her.
EC: Those who are not buried wander eternally and find no rest. If my sister were alive, and she came home weary after a long day’s hunting or work, I would kneel down and unlace her boots. I would fetch her food and drink. I would have made sure that her bed was ready for her to collapse into. Arianna is home from the hunt, even if she has caught nothing. Arianna is home. She’s earned her rest.
EC: I would always owe it to her to wait up to unlock the door in the dead of the night while mother and father slept, while she mined her rest so we wouldn’t have to.
EC: My sister has mined her rest.
EC: You wouldn’t understand it.
EC: Your sister was a rebel and a traitor who tried to kill me. You know it.
EC: She was my sister.
EC: And I loved her. I don’t care what the two of you did to each other. She was my sister.
EC: She loved you too, you know.
EC: She would have buried you, too. Even if you were a rebel and a traitor.
(The interview is ended. Ellie Clawthorne is not charged, even with sufficient evidence. This record is sealed, not to be opened without expressed permission from Commander Belos, who becomes Emperor.)
Sometimes, I consider walking into the sea.
And then, I look at you, hunched over the kitchen table, working on fractions; and I remember why I never could.
I know I’m not as long for this world as you are. I certainly hope never to outlive you if I am being honest. I would like to meet you halfway; I would like to see you turn fifty. I would like to see you turn safe, I would like to see you find arms to fall against that aren’t clumsy, clever, or cruel.
I would like to see you dancing in broad daylight and being loved for everything that shimmers inside of you. It’s a promise I make in the dead of night, when I’m sure no one will listen in. It’s a promise I remind myself of when I’m about to do something brash.
It’s a promise I don’t think I shall ever keep.
I can feel the noose tightening around my neck with every breath, even if I want nothing more than to stay with you until you can stand steady on your own two feet. I swear to everything that flows in the ground, to the magic in my fingertips, I promise that I would never choose to leave you.
The Titan himself could not tear me away from you. The only thing that can claim me is Death, and I will make it proud to take me. I will bare my teeth and I will snarl and I will make it stagger back, bloody, and glorious.
I love you with all that I have remaining.
And I must live until you can live without me, even if it’s against impossible odds.
I want to talk about my family, now.
Let me tell you about the fathers who left and the daughters they left behind. Let me tell you how their fathers left them nothing but fear in their wills and rage in their ancestry.
I’ve been half an orphan since he left. Half a woman, half a person—empty no matter what good or bad thing I pour into myself, no matter what I work towards. There is no closure to be found; and that is the worst part.
I do not miss him. I miss what he could have said to me. What he could have apologised for if I forced his hand, if I made him fear me, like I always feared him. I don’t think he was afraid, when I killed him. I think he was resigned, accepting, angry. But I don’t think that he was afraid of me.
He took everything I was and everything I wanted to be as a little girl. He left a lot of sadness behind, a lot of rage, too. And I’m clinging onto it thinking if I let go of the little half that I still am, I might truly perish this time.
In a dream, I saw my mother; with the love of her life and no children. It was the happiest I had ever seen her. I woke up gasping. You can’t just make people, and then abandon them.
I enjoy hurting. I enjoy violence. I blame my mother. A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort. I don’t love anything, I don’t love anyone, I don’t love anymore. Well, maybe my sister. She made me a whole person, she made me into what she needed. I owe her everything.
Sibling relationships outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. I had a brother who was my saviour, who made my childhood bearable. And then he died.
I still miss my brother.
I think that the first thing that really broke me was when my brother died. I think I would be a completely different person, had my brother lived.
“Sometimes,” Ellie snarls, “I wonder why I fucking try. I wonder why I try to convince myself that you’re someone worth saving.”
Arianna, standing at the door, her hip smarting like a bitch and reminding her that she’s never going to be twenty-seven again, doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing she can do that’ll make this any better. There’s nothing she can destroy, no one she can maim, nothing she can steal—so, she doesn’t know what to do.
Acting is so easy. Understanding is so hard. Justifying, even more difficult.
Ellie’s a swimmer. She can get through deep waters without drowning. Arianna doesn’t know how to swim. But she can run.
When she was twenty-seven, she dashed through a door and barrelled headfirst into the Human Realm for the first time and danced in the rain. She was alone, and she was glorious, and she outstretched her empty hands. Now, she’s seventy-seven and her legs don’t carry her as well anymore. She lives another fifty years, is what she’s trying to say.
And now she’s staring down the past, all reflected in Ellie’s teary eyes.
Arianna sighs.
She wants to scream back. She wants to scream that she never asked Ellie to try and pick up her pieces. She wants to yell slurs; she wants to break things. She wants to slam doors shut, to race into the woods only to realise, hours later, huddled under the tiny bit of roof that sticks out over the door. Intentional, of course. Designed by Ezra, smart for when you live somewhere the rain boils.
She’s still thin enough for her whole body to fit into the crevice, while Ellie’s gotten rounder with age. Arianna’s glad. She’s always tried to put on more than hard-won muscle, and she’s always failed. It’s been a combination of not having money when she has the motivation to cook, not having the motivation to cook when she has the money, forgetting how to eat when someone else is finally cooking for her.
Ellie’s waist is ample, and she rests her hands against it as she whips up fragrant dishes in the pot, or when she
We were sisters. We felt each other’s pain. We caused each other’s pain. We knew the smell of each other’s morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead before bedtime, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks. We wore each other’s clothes.
We stole from each other, treasured objects hidden under pillows, boyfriends snatched in the dead of night with a cattle brand of purple against tender skin. We defended each other, fiercely. We lied to each other, fiercely. We pretended to be older people, other people, lucky people. We played dress-up. We spied on each other. Blackmailed each other. We possessed each other like shiny things.
We loved each other with potent, fervent fur. Animal fury Monstrous fury. My sister. My blood. My skin. My cardinal sin. What a gruesome, ghoulish bond we shared.
I loved her more than I ever loved anything else, even wrath.