10 ways siblings can suck the life out of you

Seph waited as patiently as she was able while Ig appeared to sort out his thoughts. Whether it was premonition or merely logic, Sephira knew that something truly terrible had happened. It had never occurred to her to seek out answers of her own before leaving. Their elder brother had made a snarky remark about Ig being sent away, and anything beyond that reality had been lost to her anger and indignation. Besides, she'd learned at a young age that Kaius was not to be trusted.

Finally, Ig began. He spoke of their sister Avis, how they had spent a day together, and at that Sephira grinned. Avis was the youngest and smallest of them, sweet and naive in way Seph could hardly fathom for herself. Avis alone had seemed to need a buffer from the cruelty of the world in ways their other siblings never had. Seph loved her as she loved the rest of her littermates. And so, as Ig carried on, Seph felt her gut begin to twist. A body? Avis... was dead? She shook her head slowly. "No... No, Ig! How could you even say something like that?" She scrambled upwards, hackles rising as she stood in the cramped space. How could he joke about something like this?

"Kaius did it. I don't know how, or what he did, but he made a point of gloating when we were away from Mars. He... said Kirsi helped..." The truth of his words began to fall into place. Seph felt as if her mind was running so quickly that none of its thoughts made sense. She shook her head vigorously from side to side, wishing she could shake these terrible truths from her mind. "No! Avis cannot be dead," she said, beginning to sob, because she knew in the back of her mind that it really was true. It made sense. Nothing short of a murder would have forced Ig away from his duty. With a savage snarl she leaped back out into the storm, which was now roiling overhead and whipping at her fur. She bared her teeth at the sky. "If I ever see Kaius again, I'm going to skin him. I'm going to wear his pelt as a fucking cape. No. No!" She dug her claws into the sodden earth, and realized that her body felt numb despite the storm raging around her. She sank, defeated, head hung low. It can't be true... It can't.