The two twins sat with their feet dangling off of the edge of the flying city, watching the hot Pandoran sun finally sink behind the horizon, ready to retire for a long night. Empty bottles of rakkale lay around them, and each clutched a yet-unfinished bottle. The twilight gleamed off of their matching green eyes, gifts from their father, as they tried to make out shapes on the far-away ground. The alcohol was as warm as the setting sun, and Angel was sinking bottle after bottle down her throat, relishing the floating feeling that wasn't coming from the city, while her brother was still slowly working on his first.
"The newest Jakobs model," Roland was saying. "It's only being sold on a few planets… I'm gonna save most of this reward money for it."
"I dunno what –hic- happens to my money, really," Angel admitted.
"I know what happens," Roland told her. "You drink most of it away."
"Well –hic- maybe."'
"You really should try to at least cut back," he goaded gently. "It's not-"
"What do you want me to do, Roland, replace it with methamphetamines or something?" She snapped. "Eridium, even?"
"Angie, don't even joke about the eridium. You know how bad that is for Sirens, it took Lillith fifteen years to get clean-"
"Then shut up and let me have the alcohol. I need something, and this is my best option that won't have you freakin' out." Another splash of rakkale went down her throat, its burn a mere ash compared to her scorching tone. "I need something."
Without a word, Roland snatched the bottle from his sister's hands. Taken aback, Angel could only watch as he flung it far out into the clouds around Sanctuary, flying a good distance before Pandora's gravity snatched it away. Without sparing a glance to the darkening visage of the young Siren, he pivoted and began a staunch march towards their home. A series of angry shrieks punctuated by the chime of shattering glass and the sharp crack of wild static played as his exit song, an ugly sonata that was the theme of his lost temper towards his unstable sister.
Scarlet lines of blood laced themselves around the blue tattoos on Angel's left hand as her balled fists continued pounding the glass, already in smithereens, into smaller and smaller pieces of sharp dust. Both hands were bruised and bloody, seeming to want the glass dust to be smashed into the very foundation of Sanctuary. It felt good. The pain felt good. It felt right. The searing anger in her chest felt even sweeter as her blood dripped onto the city's floor, splattering into the glass dust and creating small, sparkling dots of red. Rage had burned the memory of language out of Angel's brain, and all her throat could do was let flow a long trail of unrefined sound- shrieks and screams and wails. Unbidden, large surges of electricity were coasting down the spirals of her tattoos like trains on an iron track, occasionally derailing from her body and discharging into the suddenly-very-stiff air with unforgiving cracks. She was a living storm, and all she knew was that at that moment, she hated her brother, and she loved the feeling of hating him.
A rare sight was waiting for Roland to behold back at the family's apartment. Tattered, aged papers and cloths adorned with strange alien text were scattered across the well-worn kitchen table, where sat his mother, studying them. Rarely was the aging Siren found anywhere but her study or the Pandoran wilds these past five years, questing to uncover the secrets of her powerful lineage, a mysterious heirloom she had passed to her daughter and yet was still poorly-understood. Once well-kempt even in campaigns of war, Roland had heard, passion and fervor had chased personal manicure from his mother's mind. Her once-glistening blue hair was carelessly pinned away from her face, as renegade strands stood out in such great numbers that she had the appearance of a thin, frayed mane. The makeup that had been so carefully applied in her youth was now smudged on almost as if by accident, and a habit of infrequent sleeping had turned her smooth skin into a dull, dry mask. He remembered the days years ago when his mother had not neglected her glamour; but when a breakthrough had come in her and Tannis's joint archaeological excavations, she became caught up in the grip of obsession. She poured over texts and tomes, often falling to dreams sitting straight up at her desk (if she slept at all), as her appearance became as neglected as the increasingly-empty place in bed beside the father of her children.
Here she was, the ghost of her former self, for the first time in years not covered in dirt at a dig site or locked in her study. "Mom," he said, softly as possible, as if she were some gentle animal he had hear about on a far-off planet that would be startled by any noise or motion.
She looked up, her pale eyes taking a second to adjust to the change in focus. "Roland," she finally said. "Where's Angel? It's odd when you're not together."
He sat down across from her, casually staring at the manuscripts that blanketed the table. "She's probably having another tantrum," he said quietly. "I told her to stop drinking and threw her alcohol over the side of the city."
"Hm, well, that costs money," she replied, a hint of uncertainty in her voice- she most likely was trying to remember how to interact. "Your dad left for Thousand Cuts, earlier today I think."
"I saw his note."
"His handwriting is so bad."
"I know, Mom." He let the silence fall. Maya rarely talked with anyone nowadays. Sometimes Roland thought she actually forgot how to speak, how to have a conversation that was more than a passing phrase or a plea for Angel to quiet down. "Maybe, when Dad gets back, you two should go out to Oasis or something."
"Oa… why?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. You're just always so busy, he might like to just spend time with you." Maya blinked slowly. "Just an idea."
"Maybe," she murmured, turning her eyes back to her tomes.
He waited for further response, for his idea to hook into his mother's brain and give her something to think about besides the work that had taken over her body and soul, to get her thinking about rekindling the spark with her long-neglected partner. He watched the pale eyes dart from side to side across the pages… watched her turn a page… watched her continue to read…
As the minutes crawled on without any further words, Roland's hope slowly faded. It didn't look like the idea had even registered with his mother for longer than the brief second it took for her to comment on it. Like everything else unrelated to her task, it was discarded by the obsessive mind that had reduced the once vibrant woman into an almost mechanical husk.
He should have known. He didn't even allow himself a weary sigh as he rose from the table.
Dried blood caked Angel's arm and matted hair as the slowing shakes of her huddled body indicated that her fit was nearing its end. She lay in a fetal position in a bed of shattered glass, still at the edge of the city. The sun was nearly set, and Pandora's long nighttime was about to begin. The last salty tears of hatred were drying on her face, inked into messy black rivers by her cheap makeup. Her ragged breathing was slowly stabilizing, and the high-altitude winds helped soothe the last remnants of the savage beast within. Angel closed her eyes, doing her best to not feel anything. With effort, she managed to calm the last of her belabored breaths and stop the shaking of her tired form. When she opened her green eyes again to find that the Pandoran sun had finally sunk beyond the horizon, saturating the lawless world in a surprisingly soft twilight.
She lay there for a while more, simply staring at the purpling sky, not wanting to move until she was sure all of her vital signs had returned to normal. One star began to shine. Then another. Slowly, she let her muscles unlock. The glass dust scraped her skin, but the fit had wracked her body so savagely that in the aftermath all of her sensory nerves seemed to have shut down.
Angel often had fits of rage- but this was the strongest one she had experienced. No matter how angry she had gotten before, she had never felt such hate for her own brother, her best friend. I should probably apologize… she thought weakly, knowing full well a simple sorry wasn't exactly enough after the incredible outburst. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the rapidly-darkening sky, her limbs feeling like gelatin, unable to rise. She was so tired.
trashlady: i'm a piece of shit sorry i have school and a job and pets and a boyfriend to neglect, this story can't be the only thing in my life that i forget about
trashlady: my life priorities are pets job school boyfriend stuff stuff stuff stuff story
trashlady: w/e
trashlady: people still keep liking this story and it fills the cold bitter chasm that should house my heart with happiness so thx
trashlady: idk should we get in to the whole passel of issues that Detached Maya has? i wasn't intending to but hey