It had been three nights. Three glorious nights since we'd made out escape from the wretched planet called Earth. The castle shot through the pitch black void, speeding past the sun and beyond the outer rim of the solar system. Stars looked like smudges of glitter on black silk as we rushed home at the speed of darkness.

Normally I should have been glad to go. I'd always loved the all-consuming blackness of deep space, the peace the dim light of the stars offered. The trip, however, had not been a pleasant one thus far. It had been three agonizingly long nights of angry looks and absolutely silence. Three nights where my sister and I should have been celebrating and reveling in each other's company had instead been spent alone. Oh, she was here with me, but she refused my advances and spurned my company at every attempt. My dear sister Magenta had not uttered a single word since lift-off from the planet's surface.

I believed this was something the Earthlings called 'the silent treatment', and it was excruciating.

I set the controls to autopilot and went down to the kitchen. I stood in the doorway watching her cook. Her back was facing me and she hacked at vegetables mercilessly.

"Having trouble?"

She wheeled around, a large cleaver in her hand. Magenta took one look at me, raised an eyebrow and cast me a look if supreme disdain before turning back around to resume her work.

"Magenta," I sighed her name. Her silence was unbearable. I groaned, her passive torment working on me as viciously as any torture Frank had conceived. I didn't know what I had done to incur her wrath, but I meant to find out and fix it. It was still another two weeks before we were back home in Transsexual, but I couldn't deal with another day of her shunning me. "Please... Talk to me."

I walked up behind her and laid my hands on her shoulders. "My beautiful sister..." She flinched and her body went rigid under my hands. She gripped the cleaver like she meant to kill. "I can't stand this anymore!" I shouted, begging her for a reprieve from this torture. "What's the matter?"

She bowed her head and resumed chopping vegetables, pretending I wasn't there as she had every other time I'd tried to speak with her in the last three nights.

"Damn it, Magenta, answer me!" I commanded her. "Why won't you speak to me? What's wrong?!"

She slammed the cleaver into the cutting block and spun around. Ice cold hatred distorted her beautiful features. "What's wrong? What's wrong?! How dare you ask me such a stupid question?!"

The rage in her voice surprised me, but at least she had broken her silence. "How am I supposed to know why you're so mad if you don't tell me?"

Her light eyes opened wide, full of pain. She balled up her fists and shrieked in my face, "You killed her!"

"What?!" I scoffed and laughed, stunned. "Is that what this is all about? That Earthling?"

"Her name was Columbia!" She shouted at me jabbed her right pointer finger into my collar bone roughly, the sculpted black nail digging into my flesh. "You didn't have to kill her!"

"She was in the way!" I countered. "I don't understand why you care? She was an annoying little-"

"She was my friend!" My sister snarled, furious. "She was my ONLY friend and you killed her!"

I didn't know what to say to her. My jaw tightened and clenched. "It was an accident."

"You never liked her," she said bitterly. "You killed her out of spite!"

"I did not!" I roared back at her, grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her against the counter, hard. Horror replaced the anger in her eyes, and I reeled back, slowing to a gentler pace. I touched her blood red curls lightly. "My beloved sister, I swear to you... I did not do it on purpose."

Magenta dropped her eyes away from mine and she shook her head. "You did it all the same."

I sighed and stroked her soft cheek, and this time she didn't flinch away from my touch. "I had no idea you were so fond of her."

Magenta shook her head, and I wasn't sure if she was disagreeing with me or merely upset. "I promised I'd help her escape with us," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"You did what?"

"You didn't see her after Eddie was killed… I promised I would take her with us when we left," she said to me in a small voice. "I couldn't leave her there alone."

"And what were you going to do with her then? Take her home and keep her as a pet?" I laughed at the very notion. It was absurd! The idea of my dear sister dragging that silly little Earthling around with her on our dark home world... No, it was unfathomable.

Magenta's eyes flashed with anger. "You made sure that wouldn't happen."

"I told you it was an accident," I groaned at her stubborn unwillingness to understand.

She shook her head. "I think you were jealous," she lobbed the accusation at me and jabbed me in the chest again. "You knew I was fond of her and you killed her because you don't want me to have anyone but you!"

"So what if I did!" I snapped, outraged and frustrated with her. It had, in fact, been an accident just as I'd indicated to her earlier. She was not wrong that I wanted her all to myself, though. I despised the thought of her giving her affection to anyone but me. She was my sister, and I loved her more than my own life. Was that so wrong? "She was just a worthless, weak Earthling!" I grabbed her lovely face between my hands, "Don't you see! You're better than that!"

"And you're no better than the Master was!" She wheeled back around and collapsed over the counter, sobbing. "Why?! Why did you have to kill her?"

Fuck! "How long are you going to hold this against me?!"

She shook her head, her thick curls tossing back and forth like a rippling red wave from the motion. "What's wrong with me?" She wept, her body wracked by heavy, uncontrollable sobs. The sound of her personal agony tore through me. "Why does this hurt so much?"

I didn't have an answer for her. I couldn't fathom what she was feeling, didn't begin to understand it. I had seen and caused the deaths of countless Earthlings under the direction of Frank, our Master, and it mattered very little to me. They could be a fun distraction, but they were beneath us. I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly. "I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Don't you know I love you more than life itself?"

"I love you, too," she trembled against my chest for a moment, but then shoved me away. "But right now I hate you!"

"You... You loved her?" I looked at her, confused at the source of her outrage as much as I was shocked by her tone. The level of suffering and loss in her voice was palpable. One did not suffer so unless they also loved deeply.

"No," she replied quickly. "I don't know." She pulled away and wiped her eyes. "There's an ache," she laid her right hand over her heart. "I don't know how to stop it." Tears rolled down her cheeks, streaking her dark makeup.

"What is this?" I touched the water leaking from her eyes, confused by this strange display.

"This is what you've done to me!" My sister shrieked at me and fled the room. I stood there staring at the remnants of an uncooked meal, shaken in the knowledge that I had caused her to suffer so.