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“I can’t believe I agreed to take the two of you with me,” Katarina says, her voice dry as both Cassiopeia and Talon pile into the back of her car. “Could you at least make me feel less like a hired driver?”
“I need to finish Talon’s makeup,” Cass replies without missing a beat (and, even more egregiously, without even a thank you), and when Kat looks back in her rear-view mirror, Talon just shrugs. His eyeliner is complete—alongside a fair amount of eyeshadow, done in the subdued colors of the ace flag—but one side of his face is suspiciously absent of glitter, and Cassiopeia has what looks to be the entire contents of her vanity table clutched within her arms. “I’d drive carefully if I were you, Kat, or it’s your nice leather seats that will take the hit.”
Katarina grimaces. “Sometimes I wonder if I was cursed with the worst family in the world,” she says, not to either of them in particular, and as she starts to pull out from their family’s cobblestoned drive, she bumps the music up to drown them both out.
The three of them are headed to Valoran City’s annual Pride Festival, and Katarina (ever the gracious older sister) had agreed to drive them all there. It’s not often that all three of them are home like this, yet the stars had aligned alongside their summer schedules, and Katarina finds herself secretly pleased to be spending some quality time with her siblings again. Their parents had never let them do something like this as children—having taken a long time to come to terms with the fact that all of their kids (even the adopted one) had ended up some manner of queer—yet the three of them had found ways of partying their way through childhood either way. Katarina had attended Valoran City Pride for the first time when she was just barely in college, having snuck out with the girl that she’d been seeing that summer, and she’d attended each year thereafter with stars in her eyes, the bisexual flag painted high on her cheeks, and a very ready willingness to have some fun.
Indeed, Valoran City Pride is well underway by the time they find parking and make their way to the entrance—Talon’s makeup having finally been completed in the meantime. He’s got the ace flag tied around his neck like a cape (something Katarina usually finds overdone, but that looks weirdly fitting on someone as assassin-creedy as him), and there’s a smattering of pins across his chest—another ace flag, the gay pride flag, the polyamorous flag, and his pronouns. The rest of his outfit is, customarily, completely head-to-toe black. Conversely, Cassiopeia has dressed as scantily as Katarina now knows her to do—the large trenched overcoat that she’d worn to the car having been discarded once their parents had bid them adieu. Her makeup has been done up in the sunset hues of the lesbian flag, the thin of her dress matching with her lipstick, and her prosthetic legs are the shiny gold ones that she only takes out when she wants to make a statement. Katarina’s reluctant to admit she looks insanely good, but then—that’s always been a difference between the two of them. Katarina in her combat boots, and her sister in knife-edged heels.
“Meet back here for food and drinks before the headliner?” Cassiopeia asks them both, as soon as they have wristbands and have been admitted into the venue.
“Only if I don’t find someone cute enough to steal me away from you cretins, first,” Katarina replies, saluting, and then the three of them split—the cadence of it familiar to that of when the three of them go shopping together. Talon heads off to the various vendors and attractions, Cassiopeia straight to the dancefloor, and Katarina slides herself into a seat at the bar: close enough to the music to enjoy it, but not so far that she wouldn’t be able to chat up another person who catches her fancy.
It is (as it always is) a great time. Kat flirts with a few people while she drinks herself confident enough to head down to dance later on in the night, and Cassiopeia winks at her when she and a cute blonde girl stop by the bar for water and a drink or two. Talon comes back with more swag than Katarina thinks is possible, and the two of them sit and chat about their lives as they wait for Cassiopeia to finally join up with them again, too. The food is overpriced as always, but Katarina is a working woman now (as are her siblings—), and they clink their plastic cups together as the sun continues to set and the glittering lights of the festival steadily blink on. They talk and reminisce and listen to the music thrum, and as the evening continues to pass—all three of them having taken their time alone before finally coming to rest with one another again... Katarina finds herself content.
“It’s nice,” Talon admits, later that night, “to do stuff like this with you both. It feels almost like we’re kids again.”
“Aren’t we still?” Cass says with a laugh. “I certainly barely feel like an adult, these days. But you’re right,” she agrees. “It’s nice. As much as I hate to admit it—I’ve missed you both.”
Katarina smiles, a small quirk of the lips. “You’ll need to repeat that so I can get it in high-def,” she says, and Cassiopeia rolls her eyes in reply. The girl she’d been dancing with has long gone back to the dancefloor—her number written across Cassiopeia’s arm—yet Cass looks in no rush to head back to her. And Katarina, despite the people she’d connected with as well, finds herself glad. She steals the last fry (“Eldest child privileges—”) and looks back between the two of them. They’d all been raised so different, and had ended up so different, too. Yet here they all are, reminiscing as adults and desperately pretending they hadn’t missed each other in the interim, and Katarina grins wider as she stands, downing the rest of her drink.
“Shall we?” she asks them both, tilting her head toward the vibrant rainbow lights, and together the Du Couteau siblings stand—ready to take the rest of Valoran Pride by storm.