Family Matters

"Why did you choose this location?" Lynna asked for perhaps the third time since they'd arrived in the bog. 

"If I didn't have an answer for you the first two times you asked, what exactly do you think will have changed this time around?" Rovell snapped at her sister, not bothering to look over her shoulder this time. She could hear Lynna struggling through the peat, but it somehow didn't matter anymore. 

"I'm just saying," Lynna grunted as she pulled her foreleg free from the muck and set it on a moss-covered rock, "You could have chosen a different location and--" She let out a squeal of surprise when she set her weight on the rock and it collapsed under her hand. It hadn't been a rock after all, but a ball of only moss. Her arm sank into the dank brown water until she felt her hand collide with something solid. 

"You were the one demanding we spend time together, I didn't ask you to come," Rovell retorted, looking back at her sister's squeal just to make sure she wasn't drowning in the muck. Clearly she was fine, so Rovell turned back. Lynna was significantly smaller, perhaps half of Rovell's size last she cared to compare, so the smelly water only came up to about the middle of her arms. Lynna, however, was sinking up beyond her belly with each misstep. 

"Is it so wrong that I would want to spend time with my sister?" Lynna protested, grunting as she pulled her arm free once again and struggled to find a foothold. 

"Because you've wanted to do that all your life, right?" Rovell snorted derisively, shaking muck free from her back leg and hearing an indignant squawk come from Lynna. She turned her head slightly to catch a coy look behind her and bared her teeth in a ferocious, vindictive smile. Whatever had clung to her paw had just landed right on Lynna's snout, running down her lips and soaking into the longer fur on her chin and jaw. Served her right. 

"Just because I haven't doesn't mean--doesn't mean I can't start now!" Lynna said, her voice breaking slightly as she managed to pull her back legs free, staggering and sliding forward indignantly on her belly until she reached a shallower part of the bog. She lay there panting, flicking her tail forward to look at the sodden, soggy mess that was her tail fur. It was going to take hours to get the mud and peat off that clung to it--and what if the mess left stains! 

Rovell's pupils expanded with excitement as she saw movement up ahead, peering through the lanky trees that grew here, roots channeling down into the water to make them look like they too tip-toed through the bog. Between gnarled, low-hanging branches, the eldest sister could just make out the scutes of an absolutely enormous crocodile lurking in the muck. This part of the bog must have flooded often for it to stay here, otherwise it wouldn't be able to hunt as efficiently. 

She lowered herself into a crouched position, creeping through the muck toward a large tree, climbing carefully up its roots until she could perch there, holding her tail up out of the bog so it wouldn't get caught when she leaped. She would bring this crocodile back with her as her trophy, to prove that she had completed her task. 

"Rovell, can you--" 

Rovell hissed lowly to cut her sister off, the ends of her whiskers all but vibrating with excitement as she watched her prey settle further into the bog. 

"Rovell!" Lynna's voice was sharp and insistent now, almost panicked. And when Rovell turned to snarl at her to shut her mouth, the older dracus's heart fell. Lynna was clinging to the muck, the lower half of her body disappearing into the ground. 

"Lynna!" Rovell cried, leaping from the tree and landing a tail-length away from her sister. She had to lift each leg deliberately in order to move, and as she drew closer she heard the sound of water dripping into a deep cavern below. The ground must have opened up beneath Lynna, and she was about to fall in as well. 

"I'm--I'm slipping!" Lynna cried, her jade-green eyes wide with fear, claws sank deep into the mud. 

"I'm here," Rovell panted, reaching out for Lynna to pull her up, but the muck had left her hands and just about every part of her sister slippery. She couldn't find a grip, and before she could even try to find a solution, she felt Lynna slipping farther into the hole in the ground. She cried, "I'm here Lynna! I've got you!" 

The younger dracus cried out as she slid further, looking up at Rovell with pleading eyes. She grabbed hold of her sister's hand and elbow, desperate to hold on. "Don't let me go, *please*," she breathed. 

"I won't," Rovell promised, "I won't let you go, I won't--Lynna!" She felt Lynna's hands sliding down her arm. Without anything else to hold onto, Lynna fell, crying out in fear. Rovell snarled in frustration and dove head-first after her, reaching out and sinking her claws into her sister's shoulders on either side of her chest. She planted her pack feet in the bog, slipping as the weight of Lynna dragged her closer to the hole. 

Lynna howled in pain and twisted, reaching out to sink her claws higher up on Rovell's shoulders. She felt the muscles under her sister's pelt bunch up before she was heaved out of the ground and dragged back into the muck. They sat together, chests heaving, bleeding from the wounds they had given each other in their desperation. 

"I told you this was a bad idea" Lynna sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping with the muck from the longer fur on her cheeks. 

Rovell stared at her sister in amazement, shaking her head slightly. "That's what you have to say after I saved your life?" she demanded, unable to even sound angry now, just incredulous that her sister would say something so selfish. 

"My life wouldn't have been in danger if I hadn't had to come with you just to spend time with you!" Lynna snapped back, struggling to her feet and stumbling a step away. "You never have time for me anymore." 

Indignation filled Rovell and she too came to her feet, her tail lashing behind her in agitation. "Really! That's what you think? Tell me Lynna, when did we *ever* spend time together when you were young? I was already grown by the time Mother had you, and you had no interest in me. I was fine with that. We grew up in two very different social circles, we liked different things, I understood that and I thought you did too, considering the one time I did try to get involved with what you were doing you practically chewed my ears off. But now you have the audacity to come to me and demand that we spend time together as if we were ever close in the first place." 

Lynna opened her mouth to speak but Rovell let out a hissing snarl and jumped forward, her paws splashing in the peat and making her sister flinch back. 

"It's my turn, Lynna," Rovell hissed. "I have banished myself to the sidelines all your life so that you could work on whatever problems you had that made you cling so much to Mother. You needed time and space, I gave it to you. Now you come to me acting like we had a wonderful, close relationship and acting like it's your right to be protective over me when you wouldn't have lifted a finger to help me in the past had I asked." 

Lynna's whiskers quivered as fresh tears spilled from her eyes. She said in a trembling voice, "We're sisters, we're supposed to--" 

"We share a mother and father, Lynna, that's it,” Rovell spat. "We are bound to each other by blood alone, and that isn't enough to build a friendship on, let alone a relationship. I tried to get to know you, you pushed me away at every turn. I refuse to apologize for something that I did not cause in the first place." 

Silence stretched between them, even the frogs seemed to have abandoned their posts in the wake of their argument. 

"You don't want to see me, then?" Lynna asked, her voice numb now. 

"Not if you're going to keep behaving the way you have until now," Rovell said, feeling calmer now that she'd finally gotten the words out. She'd held them inside for so long, it felt like some tension was released in her chest that she hadn't noticed was there until it was gone. "I will listen to you when you have concerns or troubles, I will help you if you need help and ask me for it, but you don't get to treat me like you did when we were children anymore. We are grown, so we act like it. This is my boundary, you need to respect it. If you can do that, we can still see one another." 

The silence returned, and Rovell felt her stomach clench with the beginnings of grief--grief for the loss of a sister she had always wanted to have, but hadn't been ready to admit was never hers to begin with. 

"I can do that," Lynna said quietly, looking up at Rovell finally. 

Rovell breathed out slowly and padded forward, drawing her tongue over the wounds she'd left on Lynna's shoulder in slow, soothing strokes. 

"Can we go home?" Lynna asked. "Please?" 

"Yeah," Rovell rasped. "We can go home. Try again another day."