Blood, warm and viscous, ran streaming down Lust's arm, pouring forth from where her fingers pierced through the gaps in the human's ribcage. Poor John (Jim, Jack? In her ecstasy, it was impossible to remember) writhed against the wall, gasping out futile little breaths between mouthfuls of blood; he was trying so hard to escape, it was almost cute. She thrust deeper, and that was enough. The life faded from his eyes, and his body hung limp from her arm.

Lust held him there for a little while, until the blood flow slowed to a trickle, until her breathing was under control. For a perfect ten seconds, she lived in the bliss of the memory of that moment. The next second, pleasure fell away into revulsion.

She wasn't supposed to do that.

She was supposed to seduce him, coax information out of him. He wasn't supposed to die. He was important—or, he had been important. A high-ranking soldier who'd been to Fiske many times, with knowledge of its defenses, and of its weak points. A filthy man, so easily swayed by her charms. But now, he was dead.

She hated her impulsivity.

Lust wrenched her Spear from the man's chest, letting him fall to the floor in a lifeless heap, and leaned against the wall, trying to control her breathing. His body seemed inhuman, lying there, twisted, lit darkly by the yellow lamplight. There was work to do now. She had to clean this up. She had to get rid of the body, had to think up an excuse as to why he was dead. But there was no way to fool anyone into thinking that this was anything but murder, and now the information that he'd known was lost forever.

She'd ruined the plan.

Father… and Pride. They'd be—

"Perhaps this mission was too difficult for you."

Lust froze. Pride was here; she heard the rustling of his shadows. He'd seen it all, hadn't he? "How long have you been watching me?" she whispered.

"The whole time," Pride said. "And you were doing so well in the beginning." Out of the corner of her eye, Lust glimpsed an eye on the wall, watching her carefully. There were probably more, behind her, but she wasn't brave enough to look for them.

"I'm disappointed, sister." The eye blinked. "But you are young, still. It's my fault, I suppose. I should have realised that you weren't ready to send out yet."

"Don't blame yourself for my failings." Unconsciously, Lust ran a hand through her hair. The blood that still clung to her fingers tangled her hair into sticky clumps. Filthy. And Pride had seen it all…

"It's difficult work, isn't it?" Pride sounded almost sympathetic, although perhaps Lust was imagining a softness in his tone (one that she didn't deserve). "Pretending to be human. It's disgusting. I know that I find it difficult. You'll learn, Lust, as I did."

He could say that, and, perhaps it was true, but Lust found it difficult to imagine Pride ever giving in to his desires in the way that she was so often tempted to. He was a century older than her, blessed with astounding abilities, cold, cool, and logical in all that he did. Flawless. Father had created him first, and loved him best.

She could be as good as him. She had to be. There was so much work to do, and Lust needed to carry her own weight. It wasn't as if Father had created her to be lesser (had he?); she had no excuse. Her failures were her own.

"You don't need to worry about me." Her voice sounded taut, stretched thin enough to snap. "I have no excuse, Pride. I'll simply do better next time."

"I never said that I was worried." His teeth smiled through the darkness. "You're still learning, as I had to. You'll be perfect soon."

She felt his shadows surrounding her—gently, with no malice towards her—but they could cut and kill just as easily. Was her spear capable of cutting his shadows? She had no reason to try to find out, and yet, she wondered.

"Do you have a weakness?" She said the words quietly, casually. At least she could control the tone of her voice.

Pride chuckled suddenly. She'd caught him off-guard. "What kind of a question is that?"

"It's a question, that's all."

"Hmm." He smiled widely. "Plotting something, sister?"

"Would I do that?" Lust said the words jokingly, letting a half-genuine smile colour her face. He'd taken that well.

She hadn't pushed too hard, had she?

"It's hard to know with you," Pride said idly. His shadows reached slowly towards the body lying twisted on the ground. "I'm certainly not as impetuous as you are, if that's what you're wondering."

"That's more than obvious." Lust watched the long dark arms snake their way across the floor, wrapping themselves around her victim. Every one of Pride's actions is carefully planned in advance. He'd undoubtedly pondered over the best way to get rid of a body before making his move towards the body before them—before trying to undo her mistake.

"Well then, I'm not sure what else I can tell you." Pride smiled brightly, his white teeth glinting in the lamplight. "Father did create me to be perfect, after all—as he did for you, of course."

"But, I'm not perfect."

Pride stopped, the body hanging in the air, suspended in his shadows. "What?"

"I… make mistakes. So, surely…" Lust hesitated, unsure if she should let the topic go. "Surely you've… made mistakes before."

Pride watched her in silence.

It was childish to act this way. Lust should simply do better next time—and she would. But… if Lust wasn't perfect, then Pride shouldn't be either; Lust couldn't believe that Father would create him to be better than her. "Are you perfect?" she asked, her tone equal parts flippant and sincere.

She watched him, wary of his every movement, of the way that his shadows coiled, curling in spirals around the dead man.

"It's impossible."

There was a muffled crunch, and then the body was gone, swallowed up into the depths of the shadows. "It's impossible to appear perfect… currently," said Pride calmly. "How can we be, when we're so close to these creatures, day and night? This world wasn't made for us to be perfect in."

"So, even you aren't perfect, then." Lust felt almost disappointed at how easily he admitted it.

"I am perfect."

Lust blinked—was he contradicting himself?

"And you are too," Pride continued, his shadows drifting lazily, washing over the walls in waves of black. "It's this world that isn't perfect, and it's what we struggle against. You're younger; you can't help but struggle more than me, because you don't yet understand how imperfect humanity truly is."
"It can't be that simple," Lust sighed, leaning against the wall. "It's merely shifting the blame, then; putting the blame for my impulsivity on this world."

"View it that way if you want to. But when we've remade the world in Father's image—well. Then all of our 'faults' will be seen for the blessings that they really are." Pride's smile stretched widely, his teeth glinting in the lamplight. "It's only a matter of time before our struggles will seem like a distant dream."

"You have such a way with words," Lust said dryly, but… his confidence was reassuring, although she doubted, still. Was he telling the complete truth? Did Father really create them both to be perfect?

"I'm a little insulted that you don't believe me," Pride said lightly. "Have you ever known me to be a liar? But you'll see the truth soon enough."

"I don't disbelieve you." Lust shrugged. True; Pride had never been dishonest with her. But, still…

Nonsense. Pride was ruthless. He would never lie about something as trivial as protecting her feelings.

"I'll see the truth for myself, I suppose," she said. She retracted her spear, looking at the empty, bloodless space where her victim's body had been lying. "I suppose we should go now, onto the next job," she said, offering Pride a smirk. "Now that you've cleaned up my mess."

"Yes," said Pride. His thousand mouths smiled charmingly. "Let's continue to develop our talents."

A/N: This written for a prompt from my friend Shocotate, "You don't need to worry about me." I'm so sorry for taking so long with this, and I'm sorry that it's not the fluffy story that I showed you a paragraph of before! That one will be written...eventually...

Pride and Lust's dynamic is hard to write because they're so similar in temperament. It's rewarding to write, though. It was fun trying to write Lust's POV here; I haven't written her very often.

Thanks so much for reading!