Oscar was frozen in place, Valiente was glaring at him like he was her worst enemy. Akanu just stared, wanting nothing to do with the argument that was about to come, but at the same time scared because he knows just how fierce Valiente is when she's angry.
"Val, it's not what it looks like—" Oscar was (rudely) cut off. "I don't wanna hear it!" She snapped, pointing her tail at his chest. "I saw you leave, so there's no point in trying to lie." The feline gently pushed her away so he could have some personal space. "I can explain."
That's not gonna help you. Akanu thought to himself.
"No, there's nothing to explain. You thought you could handle the situation yourself, and decided to ditch everyone and go out on your own AT NIGHT!" The cobra yelled, currently not caring that she could very well wake up the entire house.
"I-I would never ditch you guys. I was trying to..." Oscar trailed off, running out of things to say. Having his sister this mad at him somehow felt even worse than the time he ran off for almost a year. "I was trying to find an easier way to deal with the drought." He said, rubbing his arm like he was just physically attacked.
Valiente saw this as an excuse instead of an explanation, and snapped again. "The solution that we agreed on was fine, until you decided to ruin it!" And at this point, fed up with how adamant her sister was being, Oscar was growing just as angry as her. Which was never a good thing. An angry Oscar is a force to be reckoned with. "I didn't. We can still go out and solve this tomorrow. I just wanted to see if these dogs were any less aggressive at night."
"Oh, yeah? If they were SO passive at night, then why did you come back home covered in more bruises and bite marks than last time?" Valiente asked. Oscar didn't answer. "You know what? I'll give them this. At least they see the world for what it is; a place where not all problems in the world can be solved. Oscar, you know that! Everyone knows that!"
The feline in question groaned. "You think I'm not aware of that? Maybe I don't have my self-confidence in order quite yet, but I'm certainly not stupid."
"Is that why you broke your Abuela's promise to go back with reinforcements?"
Oscar groaned, walking around in a circle. His mind was reeling and arguing with his sister wasn't helping. Like, AT ALL.
"You promised Abuela you'd go back to the dam with someone with you." She said thickly. She had been excited about it. She wanted to give the dogs a piece of her mind for hurting her little brother the first time (and the second, of course). Maybe take out their leader's eye instead of Ignacio's.
But Oscar had broken that promise, and at the moment she felt as though she couldn't trust him.
"The Encanto is in shambles from the loss of the river." Oscar said defensively. "And I didn't PROMISE anything."
"But you said you would." Valiente protested desperately. "We can go back tomorrow, I said!" Oscar hissed, literally one nanosecond away from scratching his sister out of anger. "What part of that don't you understand?"
Akanu was watching the entire argument with mild shock, taking a step backwards every time the shouting got louder.
For a moment, his brow furrowed and he glared at his sister, who didn't bother making an attempt to answer. Valiente bit her bottom lip hard and turned around so Oscar couldn't see her so close to crying, rubbing furiously at her eyes. She heard him sigh heavily. "Valiente... I know you're upset, and I'm really sorry."
"You better be." She hissed. Things seemed to have settled down for a moment, until Valiente gathered the guts to make eye contact with her brother again. "You're lucky Akanu was with you. You could've died tonight if he wasn't, and it would've been YOUR fault."
Oscar's anger sparked a little bit. "No, I would've defended myself until they left me alone." He countered. "Yeah? And how long do you think THAT would take?" The cobra asked. Oscar opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. She had a point. If he's learned anything today, it's that these dogs don't go down without a fight. "I thought so. Now tell me, brother, did you really think you could handle yourself out there?"
"Val, I KNEW I could handle myself out there. I took on a peccary, a green anaconda, and my dad, who's twice my age." Oscar answered with a smirk. "That was different. You're up against more than twice that many animals." Valiente growled. Her brother sighed, giving nobody in particular a sideways look. "Look, can this argument wait until tomorrow? People and animals are trying to sleep." He said.
He's realizing this now? Valiente thought to herself. Wait... I'M just realizing this now. Well, ain't I a stupid. "Fine." She said, turning around to go to Antonio's room. "What happened to you?"
Finally, Valiente couldn't hold her anger back any longer and it poured out of him in the form of words.
"I'll tell you what happened! You snuck out to go off on your own! And because Akanu was stupid enough to go too, you almost got killed! If it weren't for him, you would have been dead, and it would have been all your fault!"
"Listen, Val... I know that I screwed up. I– " Oscar attempted to apologize, but his now irate sister cut him off. "You're damn right you screwed up! You wouldn't have been covered in bruises if it wasn't for that thick skull of yours!"
The sheer malice in Valiente's words made Oscar wince, but he knew that he had deserved it. "I know, I know... I'm just thankful that everyone's okay," Oscar said, thinking about how much worse it could have been, like Javier did earlier tonight. He hadn't meant for his words to come off as offensive, but Valiente had taken them as such.
"Okay? OKAY?! Does your silhouette look okay to you?" Valiente roared and the volume of her voice threatened to collapse the entire house (and give poor Dolores hearing loss). He then pointed her tail at his bruised chest to stress her point, though the gesture was not necessary. Her meaning was already crystal-clear.
"No," Oscar gasped out as his sorrowful eyes fell upon his battered form. "You can't just do this to us! I'm your family! When are you gonna learn to trust your family?" Her tone held anger, but it held disappointment as well. "It's not that I don't trust my family." Oscar immediately denied his accusation, since he had no real proof to establish his statement.
He went out behind his family's back and disobeyed his Abuela in order to solve the dryout problem. And to make matters worse, he didn't tell anybody where he was going. How was that not a violation of trust? Valiente nodded as though she read her brother's thoughts. "Yeah, that's what I thought. If you trusted us, you would've told us that the plan was changed. Right?"
"Yes."
"You wouldn't have gotten hurt if you just kept your promise and stayed home."
"I know. I'm really sorry, Valiente."
Akanu didn't dare to mention the fact that he told him to go home, since that'd make the argument (and Oscar's guilt) much worse. He might be grouchy, opinionated, a little selfish, and ill-tempered, but he does have a heart. He's not made of stone. Not in the slightest.
Valiente just hmph'ed at her brother's apology and turned her back on him to sleep out the rest of the night. Watching her leave, Oscar felt terribly guilty for essentially betraying his family, but he was also angry that his sister was... well...
"Why do you have to be so aggressive?" He whispered. Valiente stopped in her tracks and remained there for a few seconds. Oscar didn't move, either. Not until Valiente lunged at him with her teeth bared. "Oh, I'll show you aggressive!"
She tightly wrapped herself around her brother, unintentionally choking him in the process. He managed to release himself from her hold to curl a paw into a fist to punch her, only to miss entirely. A fierce fight ensued, and Akanu couldn't do anything about it. Not without getting scratched or bitten, that is.
Luckily their argument woke Morada, Cinco, and unfortunately an even angrier Surly, who broke up the fight. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! What's going on here?" Morada asked, holding Valiente in one paw and Oscar with the other, the two of them giving each other death glares with an extra side of sharp teeth. Cinco's ears were down, scared that his older siblings were fighting.
"Oh, I'll tell you what happened, longhair." Surly said, his arms folded. "Your boyfriend broke his promise to go back to the dam with somebody with him and got his tail handed to him by the pack of dogs."
"I just..." He trailed off, trying not to burst into tears. "I thought I could handle this... myself... but I can't... all I did was make everything worse." He tried taking deep breaths, but it didn't help the waterworks that threatened to fall from his eyes. "Well, you've just proven to me that I can't trust you." Valiente said as though she didn't care about what her brother was feeling (even though she did).
And Oscar had it with her aggression by now. "With the way you're acting, I haven't found a reason why I should." He spat. Never has he met someone who got THIS angry with him for making a mistake. Sure, it was a mistake that could've resulted in his death, but a mistake regardless. And more were yet to come when Valiente blurted out something she'd never say to her brother.
"I hate you too!"
All animals, except for Surly and Akanu, who's eyes just widened, gasped audibly. The words hung horribly in the air, and Valiente could barely believe she'd let them slip out. At once she clapped her tail over her mouth, horrified with herself.
Oscar's stomach lurched when his sister said those words, the weight of their meaning hitting him with the force of a freight train and stinging a thousand times worse than any dog bite he'd experienced. He didn't know how to reply. He didn't know if he even could.
He lowered his head and walked forwards, trudging slowly out of the courtyard. He slowly ascended the stairs, his mind racing. He felt sick. Valiente hated him. That was the only explanation he could come up with.
Cinco stood at the top of the stairs, a nervous wreck. He looked up when Oscar reached the last step. "Are we...?" he asked, his expression gaining a spark of hope amidst the tension.
But Oscar shook his head. "No... not anymore. Just... I don't have it in me right now." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and sighed, shuffling past his brother. He reached Mirabel's room and passed Javier, who woke up for a drink of water. Considering that the river was currently unavailable, he might as well go to Cinco's room.
"What happened?" Javier asked, raising an eyebrow. Oscar stared at him, not sure what to say. The usual feeling of excitement he got when he looked at his new friend wasn't even rising up, he was so disturbed and upset by what Valiente had just said to him. "I… Valiente…" he trailed off and shook his head, giving up and pushing the door open. "I'll be in my lab," he said numbly, trudging behind it and clicking the button on his watch again.
Just before it shut he heard Javier asking frantically, "Wait, chamaco! What happened to Valiente?!"
Left alone, Oscar brought a hand to his head and gritted his teeth. "She… she hates me," he whispered, his chest throbbing painfully again. Needless to say, he silently cried himself to sleep tonight.
So did Valiente.
But little did they know that a small turkey vulture heard and saw everything that happened. And he couldn't wait to tell his boss the news.
