The parasite came apart in the specific way parasites come apart when a Scytherian has decided the conversation is over, completely, without remainder, the pieces of it settling into the alley floor with the finality of something that had made a poor decision about who to approach.
Plum De-summoned her scythe.
She looked at the alley. At the walls. At the corners.
"That's all of them," she said.
"Seems so" Einstera said.
Einstera resumed walking.
Plum "Lets call it quits for today, I'm going straight to bed."
They moved through the district in the evening quiet, the alley opening onto a side street that connected to the main road, the city doing its end-of-day things around them. Stalls closing. People moving toward wherever people moved toward at this hour. The specific amber of Dragon Hive's evening light doing what it did to the buildings it touched.
"Where's Burajiru?" Einstera asked.
"Home," Plum said. "He's not feeling too good."
Einstera looked at her. "Is he.."
"He's fine. Just tired." Plum adjusted her scythe. "I maybe fed a little more than I should have."
Einstera processed this. "May I ask something."
"You're going to ask anyway."
"How is he giving you such powerful abi?" Einstera said. "I've been watching you these past months and your output has increased significantly. More than it should from regular feeding. Whatever you're taking from him is.."
"It's hard to explain," Plum said, "because I don't actually know that much about how his abi works." She considered it. "It seems like it never runs out. Like there's always more. I eat and I'm full and then there's more." She tilted her head. "Basically I'm eating his abi."
"Eating his abi," Einstera said.
"Yep, and he taste so good."
"You're literally eating the man."
"Yep." Plum said this with the complete comfort of someone who had processed the information and arrived at acceptance. "Turns out Sun Bear is the only thing I can eat in this world."
Einstera was quiet for a moment. "What are the odds of that."
"I know." Plum smiled at nothing in particular. "And I love him so far. Sometimes I just want to.." She drifted. Her eyes went to the middle distance and stayed there. "I just want to chew him up like a little chocolate brownie."
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Einstera "People can eat Abi, I had no idea."
Plum "Correction big sis, Scytherians can eat Abi but we also have the ability to allow the person we are feeding on to feed on us."
Einstera "wait does that mean?"
Plum with a sinister grin "He eats me all the time and I mean that in all the ways you can think of."
Einstera blushed "Wow you two are all ready going that far."
Plum "Yeeeeeeeesssss, you and Yusuke should try it."
Einstera "Yeah maybe."
Plum "I don't know he doesn't have my babies lips."
Plum flicked the strand of hair from her face with a playful little snap of her fingers, her movement light and feline, less predator, more lioness enjoying the moment.
She was somewhere else entirely for a moment.
The smile on her face was the smile of someone thinking about a chocolate brownie they were very much looking forward to.
Einstera watched her sister in deep thought, daydreaming.
They walked.
"His abi is red," Einstera said. "That's extremely rare. I've never seen red abi in someone that age. The output level combined with the color.." She shook her head. "He's not ordinary."
"No," Plum said simply. "He's not."
Something in her voice when she said it was different from the chocolate brownie voice. Quieter. More certain. The voice of someone who has arrived at a conclusion through evidence rather than feeling and found that the evidence and the feeling agree.
Einstera stopped.
Mid-stride. Mid-block. No announcement.
Plum stopped beside her.
Einstera was looking at the street ahead but not seeing it. The specific stillness of someone who has been holding a question for a while and has decided this is the moment to ask it.
"Is he hurting you," she said.
Plum turned to look at her.
"No," she said. "He would never."
"You can tell me if he is." Einstera's voice was completely even. The specific evenness of someone keeping it even on purpose. "I will rip him apart if he is. I don't care how rare his abi is."
"Big sis."
"I mean it."
"I know you mean it." Plum put her hand on Einstera's arm. "Burajiru isn't like that. He's kind. He's gentle. He doesn't, he's not.." She looked for the right words. "He's a kind man. That's just what he is."
Einstera looked at her.
"So was father," she said. "At least that's what he pretended to be."
The words landed between them and stayed.
Plum's eyes fell.
Not to the ground exactly, to the middle distance where things go when they're too present to look at directly. She stood on the side street in the Dragon Hive evening with her scythe at her side and let the sentence sit in the air between them the way sentences that are true and painful sit when someone who loves you says them.
"I know," Plum said quietly.
They kept walking.
The street opened onto a wider road and they moved through it together in the specific silence of people who have said something real and are letting it breathe before saying anything else.
"I still have nightmares," Plum said. "About that day."
Einstera didn't respond immediately.
"The forest," Plum said. Not a question. Not an explanation. Just naming it. The way you name things that have lived in your body so long they've become geography.
Einstera listened
"It's like it was yesterday." Plum looked at the street ahead. "I wake up and I can still feel the ground when I fell. I can still.." She stopped. "I can still hear him behind me."
Einstera walked beside her.
"I'm sorry," she said. The two words carrying the weight of everything she hadn't been able to prevent and had carried the guilt of since. "You know I know you always say no but, you don't have to live alone. You can come live with me."
"You know why I won't," Plum said.
"I'll kick Xiu out," Einstera said immediately. "You're my little sister. You come before anyone else. You come before everyone else."
Plum looked at her.
At the profile of her sister walking, the straight back, the forward eyes, the specific architecture of someone who had decided at a young age that being unassailable was the price of being safe and had maintained that architecture ever since. Except in moments like this one. When the architecture softened just enough to say you come before everyone else with the simplicity of something completely true.
"That's why I love you," Plum said. "You really are the greatest sister."
Einstera's expression did something small and genuine.
"Barely," she said.
"Greatly," Plum said. Einstera turned her face away from plum, her watery.
They walked.
"I have nightmares too," Einstera said.
Quieter than the other things she'd said. The words placed carefully, the way you place something you don't take out often.
Plum looked at her.
"About that day," Einstera said. "About the forest. About." She stopped. "About being in the training yard every morning and knowing why I was there and not telling you why." She looked at the road. "I wonder sometimes if I should have told you sooner. If knowing would have.."
"It wouldn't have," Plum said.
They walked in the Dragon Hive evening with the city moving around them and the nightmares they both carried moving with them the way things move with you when they've been yours long enough to know the route.