Brianna turned to glare at the petite were-cheetah who was pulling the occasional piece of clothing out of her closet. Most of the clothing was ending up on the floor as Grave rejected it but some of it was ending up on the bed for future consideration. Notably it was the smaller items of clothing that Grave threw on to the bed.
Brianna twitched at the mess that Grave was making but she was not the type of person who would be distracted easily on something she set her mind to. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Brianna demanded.
“Hmmm?” Grave murmured distracted as she held a pair of Khaki trousers against her petite body, it was one of the few things that looked her size in Brianna’s closet.
Brianna had bought some clothes to fit her half-were-cheetah body just in case she changed forms once again, problem was that Brianna tended to like army style clothing that whilst looking good on Brianna’s more human form, did not look as good on Grave’s more feline form.
“The whole ‘Man; am I glad I’m not say that sort of crap anymore’ thing,” Brianna restated as she picked her own clothing off the floor, were she had messily dropped it when she undressed to use the Jusenkyo water, which had caused this entire mess.
Grave turned to look at her inquisitively. “Brianna, do you actually stop and listen to half the things that come out of your mouth?” She asked in that curious yet sarcastic tone of hers.
“What’s wrong with the things that come out of my mouth?” asked Brianna indignantly as she slipped her underwear up her legs.
“The nookie force?” Grave offered as an example as she dropped the Khaki trousers onto the bed and moved to rummage through Brianna’s closet again. She tried to ignore the various weapons and sex toys that seemed to be everywhere in the closet.
Brianna snorted, “Obviously you underestimate the power of the sticky side,” she stated confidently as she slipped her bra on.
Inside Brianna’s closet Grave twitched, she pulled out of the closet and turned to face her twin with an annoyed expression. “This conversation ends now,” she declared in a deadly serious voice.
Brianna froze with the rest of her clothing in her hand. “Why?” Brianna asked cautiously, turning to face the previously homicidal were-cheetah.
“Because if you continue then I’m going to start imagining Darth Vader as an interstellar pimp, the mental trauma of said imagining will cause me to flip out and murder everyone,” Grave explained casually as she leaned against the side of the closet, her eyes narrowing.
Brianna stared at her, she certain that Grave was joking. Well, pretty certain anyway.
Grave rolled her eyes at her worried twin and gave her a weak smile back for reassurance even though her insides were rolling with various conflicting emotions. “It was a joke,” she sighed, “your lack of faith…in me… is disappointing…” Graves murmured voice sounding flat even to her own ears.
“Grave, you tried to kill my sisters. I can’t just trust you,” Brianna stated somewhat arrogant, condescending, and self-important tone.
She realized it was the wrong thing to say and it was definitely the wrong tone as magic suddenly cackled in the air.
“Fuck you!” Grave snarled suddenly, her eyes hateful as she stalked up to Brianna, slamming her finger into the other girls’ chest. “Fuck you! You tried to do the same thing and don’t lie! We shared minds, bodies, and souls! I know you! We wanted them gone! We wanted to be our own light, to be our own selves!”
Grave stepped back, tail flickering viciously behind her in her anger as she scowled at Brianna. “The only reason you played nice was because you were afraid of that Arch-Mage father of ours. Don’t pretend you are innocent Brianna, and do not sprout hypocrisy at me!” Grave spat at her twin as she vented some of the conflicting emotions built up inside her.
Brianna recoiled as if punched; her first instinct was to level hurtful barbs and accusations at Grave but truth sank deep, there was little she could say to Grave that she was not guilty of herself.
Brianna sighed, turning her head to look down at the floor. “Your right…”
“Of course I’m fucking right! I’m Grave, I’m always fucking right!” Grave hissed at her, but the anger was fading from her tone as she was somewhat mollified by Brianna’s acceptance of guilt.
Brianna stayed looking down at the floor, not really in thought but rather out of need to avoid looking at Grave as she tried to sort out her own emotions.
There was an eerie silence between the two sisters that hung for several awkward minutes.
“Do you know what hurt the most?” Grave questioned idly in a melancholy tone, Brianna looked up to see Grave looking out the window. “When you tried to murder me back in the bathroom.”
Grave turned around and smirked that confident devil may care smirk of hers, “Don’t look so shocked sister, you know as well as I do that the little scene in the bathroom was little more than premeditated murder. Zap me back into your head and then get someone to dispose of me permanently, so very clean. No blood, no mess, and we can’t have our dirty little mistakes for everyone to see of course.”
Brianna tried to swallow around the lump that was forming in her throat.
Grave leaned back against the windowsill. “The most damning thing… I actually trusted you then. I come peaceful, friendly, explain my honest reason for turning a new leaf and you still try to kill me. AFTER promising not to kill me none the less,” Grave explained bitterly with a distant thoughtful look on her face. “Guess I’ve been betrayed by all of my sisters now.”
“Grave…” Brianna started sadly as she walked up to the petite werecheetah, not entirely sure what to say. “Grave… I know it doesn’t mean much but…I’m sorry.”
Grave took a shaky breath and shook off the hand Brianna lay on her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her, choosing to stare blindly at the carpet instead as she blinked back tears. She would roll over and die first before she showed anyone else her tears.
At her rejected offer of comfort, Brianna knelt down besides the other girl. “I’m sorry about betraying your trust in me and breaking my promise, it’s just…” Brianna took a deep breath before trying to put her feelings into words, “…it’s just that… you remind me of things in myself that I’d rather not remember… and in that way you’ve always scared me, terrified even. Your want to kill our sisters reminded me of my early days and your right… I did play them in the beginning to take me in but…. I came to care for them and love them. The thought of hurting or killing them is painful nowadays but… you remind me of a time when I would have slit their throats and laughed whilst doing it.”
Brianna was quiet for a moment. “It’s not a pleasant thought,” she reflected sadly, as she lapsed back into silence.
Grave looked across to Brianna with overly wet but piecing eyes, searching her for several moments before pursing her lips. “Well, I’m your version of the boogie monster?” Grave asked slowly before pausing, “That’s kind of flattering I guess… and at least that’s your reason for trying to screw me over.”
“Why? What did you think was the reason?” Brianna asked, curious despite herself. She was probably treading on dangerous ground as Graves voice was flat and unreadable again.
“Admittedly I was somewhat concerned you would have considered me the curse, that… I didn’t deserve life because of that… or something,” Grave spoke a little shakily, crossing her arms across her chest defensively.
Brianna gave her a reassuring smile, hoping to calm the other girl a bit, “I know you’re not the curse, when Genn got inside your mind in Jade and discovered you were a split psyche…”
Grave scowled deeply. “Genn,” she muttered darkly with venom dripping from the name, she had unfinished business with that bastard shape changer.
Brianna leaned back a bit and looked somewhat warily at Grave, “You promised not to hurt anyone Grave…”
Grave face sharpened as her confident facade slide back into place and she held her nose up, “Yes… and unlike you I will keep my promise. Just don’t expect me to be love and cuddles with them… ” she warned her larger, less furred twin as she moved to sit down on the floor next to her.
“Anyway… Once everyone else heard that, they all considered the issue closed, end of story. But… it kept me awake at night. I kept thinking to myself, Brianna… your nothing more than a split psyche too; part of Britney and part of Gina come to life. I can remember you from our beginning, when we were… entangled. You are part of Britney and part of Gina too, worse yet you were always the stronger half of us,” Brianna kept talking as it seemed to be mostly calming Grave down and would hopefully rebuilt some of the thoroughly destroyed trust between them.
“Ah yes… I had it all. The brains, the brawn, the breasts, and the magic,” Grave reminisced as she tapped her chin. “How are you enjoying my body by the way Brianna?”
Brianna frowned at her. “It’s my body now, so don’t get any ideas. I won occupancy quite a while ago…” Brianna replied with a smirk of her own, unable to restrain herself from shooting a barb at Grave.
Grave pouted. “No fair, I get stuck with this petite body,” she complained somewhat half-heartedly, she doubted that fighting over bodies would help her in anyway so it was probably worth accepting that body as lost to her.
“Hmmm… your cute and exotic, you could do worse,” Brianna commented idly as she looked Grave over for a moment as a reassurance and to distract Grave attention, there was not a chance in hell she was giving this body up. “Back to the psyche thing, I was left thinking what was different between us and I realized there was very little. That if I didn’t play by their rules and do the family thing then they’d place as low priority on my life as they did on yours. I hate that arrogance of naturals, whether they mean it or not. The way that they assume that they are somehow better than clones, hybrids, anagrams, machines, golems, or whatever else exists artificially in this universe.”
“Your thought patterns are overly depressing and philosophical,” Grave commented idly as she flicked some lint on the carpet. “Whatever happened to ‘I think, therefore I am?’”
“Life is not that simple Grave…” Brianna answered with a sigh.
Grave smirked ever so slightly at her twin. “Sure it is, you either exist, or you don’t exist. If you exist then that’s the end of the matter, if you don’t…. when then it just doesn’t matter so why worry?” she queried her guns and philosophy sister.
“Hmm… that’s one way of looking at it…” Brianna mused, slightly taken back by Graves attitude.
“So tell me sister… if you viewed me as a person after all then did you mourn my ‘death’?” Grave asked sweetly into the pause of conversation as she smiled like the cat that got the canary.
Brianna froze slightly as her mind recognized the potential danger of answering ‘no’ but she didn’t need to lie, “Yeah I did a little actually…”
“You did?” Grave asked as she blinked, obviously surprised by the answer. “Wait… what do you mean ‘a little’?”
“You did try to kill everybody on Jade,” Brianna reminded her.
“Not everybody,” Grave stressed amused, “I don’t think I shot at the bar keeper, besides I distinctly remember someone causing much more damage with their lazy boy of doom and those damn Peebee’s of yours.”
“You caused them to blow me up,” Brianna remembered, annoyed at the entire incident and her malfunctioning AI’s. “I was sore for weeks afterwards.”
Grave smirked before chuckling, “I thought the whole foul villain speech, and Peebee thing was hilarious, definitely one of my better moments.”
Brianna pouted but had to smile along with Grave; looking back from an objective point of view, she supposed it was funny.
The pair sat in a much more amiable silence for a while until Brianna broke it.
“So are we good now?” she questioned, wondering if Grave was still planning to knife her in the back the moment she turned around.
Grave looked at her and smiled, “Yeah, we’re good for now. You know what they say…confession is good for the soul and all that.”
“Good,” Brianna commented pleased before she thought for something else to talk about, “hmmm… so back to the whole nookie force thing then?”
“Don’t start Brianna…”
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(Posted Mon, 04 Sep 2006 22:24)
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