Yuno was quiet for a long while after that, days filled with her silence. It was putting Yanus on edge, each day that passed without Yuno’s chatter wound her muscles tighter and tighter. Why didn’t she react? Wasn’t this essentially what she wanted, or did she still hold onto her desire for both of their deaths? The uncertainty was exhausting, but Yanus refused to be the one to break first.
‘I looked further, you know.’ Yuno said, out of nowhere. ‘Into our past, I mean. Well, the past of this body.’ She amended. She hesitated, mulling over her next words, Yanus listening in taut silence. ‘I think, I think I understand why you sought out godhood, why you put our family at risk’ she finally got out. ‘I think I knew it before too, but I couldn’t forgive you, I needed to hold you responsible for something. Needed a reason to hate you. You were the cause of my siblings’ death, my own would-be murderer. It was too much. Too much for me to accept at that time, that you might have made the right, the only decision. I needed time to grieve. It was wrong for me to take it out on you. You bore too much suffering, too much for a single being to carry. And I poured more on you.’ She quieted cautiously, waiting for Yanus’ response.
Yanus laughed. And laughed. Finally, finally her daughter understood her, understood why she had done what she had, and what she had sacrificed. Ha, it was far far too late for that now. She didn’t care for this apologetic daughter, let her hold onto her hatred, her rage, this old woman could take it and more. She would carry her own hatred for as long as she wanted and no weak apology, no sanctimonious kit would make her release it. There would be no absolution here. Not for her, not for Yuno.
Yuno seemed alarmed at her mother’s unhinged laughter. ‘Mother?’ She rarely called Yanus mother, rarely called her anything, Yanus noticed, abstractly, her own laughter now resounding in her ears. She could still hear the ghosts of her glee, it rang within her head like tinnitus. ‘What, what?’ she could barely hear her daughter, her ears still full of her own shrieks, was she still laughing? ‘Mother?! How dare you, you little parasite. I don’t need your apology, don’t need you. No matter how you feel now, the future is set, and I wont change it. The future belongs to me!’
‘I didn’t mean it like that!’ Yuno interrupted Yanus’ tirade, her own voice rising. ‘My feelings may have changed about you, but I still don’t think we should exist, I, I just wanted to, I was wrong! You don’t have to accept my apology, if you don’t want to, you can be mad at me as long as you want, I’ll accept my punishment.’ She calmed, a little, ‘I didn’t want you to go through life thinking I still held you responsible for what happened.’
Yanus pursed her lips together, her nose twitching violently as she tried her best to hold in her feelings, unsuccessfully, ‘I hate you. I hate you and you’ll never be a daughter to me. Just a disgusting body snatcher I’ll eventually be rid of. I will exist. Despite you, despite the wolves, I’ve won.’ Yuno sighed, resigned.
Their silence had a different flavor after that, Yuno cautious of setting of Yanus once again. Yanus could barely focus. She lived day to day, each moment in elation, a triumph to her existence. She muttered to herself, thoughts of wolves, of dying kits, both real and imagined. The carnage of the rabbit’s deaths still haunted her, from time to time. Now more than before. She had suppressed the memories of the wolves' carnage, after they had first occurred, buried them down. Her lapse in sanity seemed to bring everything to the surface. She saw them, now, torn apart, limbs scattered in her peripherals, a shredded kit when she glanced away. She shook her head, as if they could be shaken off. She saw her own absorbed kits, halfway to degraded, their tiny bodies still pink and soft, mucus and blood spotting their bodies. She moaned, unwilling to be confronted with them again.
Yuno had been right, she was a murderer, and just like the wolves, she had rabbit blood on her paws as well.
