Nora had only just walked into Hattie's apartment when she heard the roaring noise of Hattie smoking in while angry. When she was calm it could sound like a gust of wind but holy shit, this was basically a tornado.

So her big sister was pissed.

God, she was not equipped to deal with this right now. She'd been in a group study session at the library for almost five hours as her group had tried to finish their ethnography for her junior year Anthropology course. Coming home to her sister in a rage was not helping with the tension headache that was already developing. She was almost positive that the others who lived with them weren't at the apartment this weekend, so she was on her own with this one. Knowing she didn't have a choice, she let out a resigned sigh and immediately walked to where Hattie was nearly vibrating, and placed her hands on her sister's shoulders.

"Deep breath. Deep breaths, sis."

Her sister followed her directions, closing her eyes and taking a few tense but deep breaths. After a minute or two her eyes opened and her tense shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Want to tell me what just caused Hurricane Hattie?"

Hattie's fists clenched and she stalked over to the refrigerator, pulling out a can of Diet Coke and cracking it open before muttering quietly, "Derek called on me."

Nora dropped her backpack to the ground and whooped loudly, jumping into the air and yelling, "Finally! But you aren't happy so…" she let her arms, which she had raised in a celebratory pose, fall to her sides when she finished her sentence, wincing as she said, "he didn't call on you to mend any burnt bridges."

Her older sister's expression crumpled, which Nora knew was a warning of an upcoming sob session, so she strode over the her and bent down slightly to give Hattie a tight hug. With Hattie being 5'1 and herself being 5'8, embracing her sister was admittedly a little awkward. Any discomfort was immediately pushed from her mind when the tears and heaving breaths started.

Nora could barely make out what Hattie was saying, what with her face buried in her sweater and the hiccups in between each word.

"Derek didn't take back the banishment mandate. His body had to instinctively call on me because he was so close to dying. He'd rather die than talk to me again!" Her final sentence ended with a piercing wail and Nora cringed, awkwardly patting her back and murmuring, "Hey, hey, it's alright. It's okay. On the bright side, now that the banishment is broken, you can go back to him whenever."

Her sister lurched backwards, tears immediately stopping as she demanded more than asked, "Why do you think that."

Nora rolled her eyes at her sister's moodiness and walked to her section of the apartment. She had moved into the apartment with Hattie and her three apartment-mates just before freshman year when she began attending a private boarding school in Providence that was conveniently only two blocks from the apartment Hattie co-owned.

Nearly the entire wall next to her bed was obscured by stacks upon stacks of books. Hattie had began to paint after she had moved out of their parents' house to "find out what she really was" and discovered her talent, but Nora had always been more of a book smart kind of person. With an older sister who was a supernatural creature, what was a nerd to do other than try to read up on every single facet of the supernatural world that she could find?

For God's sake she had been taking Latin for four years so that she could attempt to translate some of the more obscure texts she could find.

To top it off, something that had made her goal to help Hattie by discovering as much literature as she could on Reapers that much more difficult was that very little of that literature still existed. Because the story of Reapers had become a nightmare to the supernatural world rather than a guardian as they were intended, many of the families that carried the gene had tried to destroy the evidence of their ancestors to protect themselves. It was only by sheer luck that their mother's side of the family had been one of the few to keep their records.

Skimming through the books on her shelf, she pulled out a labeled three ring binder that she had stored her translations of a particularly thorough bestiary in. She flipped through it for a minute before finding the passage that she had been citing. Hattie had sat on her bed with her legs crossed, so Nora walked over and sat beside her in a similar pose before she began to read aloud.

Due to the Binding between a Shadow Guide and their Intended, the Guide must at rare times obey the Mandate of their subject. If the order compromises the sworn Duty of a Reaper to protect their Intended, it may be – alright, this isn't verbatim, but I had to substitute an English word that made more sense – overridden. Once the Mandate has proven to endanger the Sworn Duty, it may be discarded permanently with similar Mandates, as it is the Reaper's duty to save the Intended from themselves if it becomes –again, I had to find the closest English word I could find – a necessity.

When she had finished reading the paragraph she had translated to the best of her ability, she looked up and saw a wide, almost sadistic grin covering Hattie's face.

Yes, it was sort of frightening that she wore that expression when her sister was a supernatural creature with a knack for guns. But yes, she much preferred it to the crying. Nora was too exhausted herself to deal with any more crying.

Hattie's voice was a pleased drawl when she asked, "What is the probability that Derek would know that his order is no longer gonna work against me?"

Catching on to her sister's line of thought, she grinned herself and snorted before saying, "Absolutely zero percent. We're actually the only ones in the country to my knowledge who have the original Latin text, much less one translated to English."

"So if I wanted to, say, pop in for a visit to chat – or, y'know, emasculate him with my brand of cutting words – he would be woefully unprepared?"

"Absolutely."

The two sisters were now wearing similar gleeful looks, and they burst into laughter. The loud, embarrassing braying sound of their laugh was the only trait they shared. While Hattie had hazel eyes and was short with – well, she had been blonde before she started dying it pink – hair, Nora was tall and had almost black hair with light blue eyes.. Additionally, Nora was – well, Hattie phrased it 'stacked and with an ass to match' – and her big sister was fairly petite.

When they had quieted, the atmosphere of the room had lightened considerably from the shitstorm of angst that had been permeating the air when Nora had first come back. Her observation was proven correct when just a second later Hattie met her eyes and said, "I have to change out of my painting clothes and feed the cat, but after that want to go get a ton of gelato for the freezer before Ethan comes home and bitches about sugar content and calories?"

"Hell yes."