I don't know when the love I felt for her shifted into loathing. It was so gradual, so swift and silent; I couldn't put my finger on it if I tried. We were always so close as children, so close in both age and personality. We could have been twins, for how similar we looked—although I always considered her the prettier one—her eyes a more pure color, not shielded by ugly awkward glasses, her hair darker and glossier. She was always quiet and ladylike, crying at the least slight or hurt, and I envied her for it.

I resented her, not quite hate yet, when we were both chosen to become sybillae. We were always so alike—I wanted something different, wanted something that was uniquely mine. We paired up with different girls and I began to see less and less of her, we drifted further and further apart. I began to think of her as a burden, a usurper, resented all those times I held her when we were children. She was a stranger to me now. And I could tell it hurt her, me acting like I didn't need her anymore, she was always just standing silently in the shadows gauging me with those cool, cool eyes. My resentment grew.

So when I sat on my bed, in the dark, before my first battle crying and shaking like a child, and she came, I think it was then that I knew I hated her her. She stood in the shadows as the thunder crashed around the ship, looking at me, quiet, a stranger—her amethyst eyes foreign. I could tell she wanted to say something, I couldn't imagine what, and I wept, trembling. Hate welling up from nowhere, frantic, afraid. When I told her to undress and she obliged silently, I hated her more for obeying—could taste homicide through the mucus and tears coating the back of my throat. I looked upon her pale breasts, her arms trying to shield her nakedness, hunched around herself protectively and I hated her. I hated her as I grasped her arm and pulled her down to the bed—loathed the look of confusion in her eyes—gradually replaced by desire, she made a soft sound, betraying her surprise. I hated her more when she offered no resistance to me tugging her naked body down on top of me. I hated the mew that escaped softly when I kissed her, despised the way she smelled and tasted so familiar, like me, and the way her body mirrored my own. I bit my lip to keep from slapping her as she gently removed my glasses and placed them on the nightstand, clenched her hand to keep myself from hurting her as she did to my body exactly what I had asked her, without words, to do. I shut my eyes to block out her violet ones swimming with concern. They were filled with love and wonder and they made me want to vomit or physically hurt her, see her bleed. I hated her even more then, as we fucked; sisters, lovers, sibyllae. I hated her for the forbidden feelings she called forth from my body, hated her when she gasped with wonder as I gasped and arched; hated the sweat that streaked both of our bodies, hated her when she held me lovingly afterwards—and hated myself more for letting her.