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"I said we should've gone north."
Emnity growls in warning. She is too busy attempting to heal the massive ballista bolt holes in her body to fight.
Cruelty looks down at her sharpened claws. Her blood is full of fire, but she feels so cold this far away from home, hiding near a river as her awful sisters lick their wounds.
She blinks. Exhales through her teeth. Since when did she consider House Halovar home?
Agony is besides her, as always, the two of them opposite her eldest sister like she's more mature than the rest of them. Cruelty glances aside to where her sister's blue hands tries to hold the tendons of her borrowed body together. That stupid lizard ripped out some tendons, and those take a while to regenerate.
"Thank you," Agony whispers under her breath.
"What?"
"For killing that… that thing."
It takes a moment to even remember that she did, in fact, do that.
"I didn't kill it for you." Cruelty returns her attention to her nails, this time pretending to examine them for imperfections. "I was curious, and I needed to kill something."
Emnity rolls her shoulder as a part of it mends. "If only you had killed something that matters."
Cruelty's eyes snap up. "I didn't see you killing anyone."
"Our mission was to capture the young lord, not maim him. You could've taken out the druid if you tried."
She couldn't have. Cruelty knows she couldn't have, and that hurts more. That confusing mess of a battle was mostly spent being demeaned by the hag while Agony screamed in her ear. "I was trying."
"No you weren't. You let their stupid comments throw you off your game. Tell me why, dear sister, both of us are torn to shreds while you only bear the mark of a few arrows?"
Cruelty has to admit that the Lloy woman got under her skin. Interrupting her witty comment - comparing Wicander to one of the little pets druids so adore - just to imply that Cruelty could ever find that endearing… she shivers. Cruelty would be quite happy to never ever see that woman again.
"I am more deft at evading attacks than your lumbering frame or Agony's wobbling hooves. That hardly seems my fault."
Emnity snarls, turning her attention towards the onorous task of repairing her ribcage. "I need you to refocus. You wasted too much time walking around with that dead boy's face for no reason. We will have to travel twice as fast to catch up with Wicander now."
Cruelty still isn't quite sure why she did that. It had been a bit soothing for those twin freaks to recoil at the sight of her, but it occured then that she might've been the reason the Tachonis boy got away. Her sisters didn't care about the conflict between the sundered houses beyond where they had been pointed and told to shoot, but Cruelty found the petty squabbles fascinating. It is because she cares about it that the thought that they had upset practically every other sundered house in the name of Halovar fills her with dread.
"It isn't like we were ready to go right after meeting back up. You are still taking up time he-" Cruelty's mind catches up with what was said. "Wait, we're still going after that brat? There's no chance we will catch him now. He has a ranger, guardians-"
"I do not remember asking for your opinion. We will ride out as soon as we are ready and complete our mission."
"We need to return to Dol-Majkar! At the very least, we must regroup and gather some beasts of burden to-"
Emnity's eyes flare. She twists her claws to cast Dominate Person, and this time it catches.
"Enough from you. You will follow what I say until we can return to the photarch, victorious."
The failure isn't mine! Cruelty wants to scream. I wanted to go north!
Instead, she can do naught but sit frozen in place, her head tilted down in a forced respect. Her blood boils in every paralyzed point of her body.