Sibling Rivalry
Once Koga was grown, once his father was dead, once he had rid himself of them, very few people outside of the pack knew that he wasn't an only child.
His sister and brother – both older, both, he felt, better loved then he – were cast out in the wake of his father's death.
It hurts to look at them so soon – so soon after his father's death; so loved, so respected, and he had tried so hard to please him and I'm still second best, I'll always be second-best, I'll never be her – and so soon after that of his mother, slain in battle next to his father – you were, too, weren't you, Mother? Always second best, second-best to a half-breed, a mongrel, a nothing – and so he tells them to leave, tells them he never wanted them there to begin with.
When his sister looks at him, regards him with eyes that are beautiful and sad and half-dead – Whatever you want, Koga, you lead here now – he nearly takes it back, nearly says he doesn't mean it, nearly asks her to come back.
But she's already gone.
So he tells them they're better off without them, they'll be fine, just wait and see – and in the back of his mind, the memories are there, playing over and over, Shirokiba laughing at his antics, Kiare there with soft words to urge him to sleep while his parents were gone – and sometimes, when he comes to the spot by the river where they played with him when he was young, he thinks of them.
And he misses them, and sometimes he wishes he could take it back.
But he can never find the words.
End
A/N – Koga's brother and sister are purely of my own invention. Creative license. You know how it goes. They will crop up again, as I have several other little ficlets and one much longer tale involving both of them.