#npc | Athena Nzinga Ace

[eranthiss]

What's wrong with you?

"You're an only child, aren't you?"

Athena jabs Iris in the ribs with a shitty hospital crutch, and she winces in pain.

"That cane was expensive! Why do you have such a thick skull?"

Iris turns to face her sister, and spits out something in Andiilan that makes her sister thwack her in the neck with her crutch.

[eranthiss]

Iris grins, almost maniacally for a second, and spits blood onto the front of Athena's shirt. Her knuckles are bruised, she's pretty sure she's missing a tooth in the back of her mouth-

Yup, she is.

- and her ribs are very, very sore. Her sister looks worse for wear, though.

"Bitch !" Athena's fairly certain she's broken a rib, and her mouth is quite steadily filling with blood from accidentally biting down on her tongue.

"You fucking started it! Eugh- don't get blood all over my floor!" Athena raises her middle finger at Iris, and she sees red.

____

Caitlin looks tired of Iris's bullshit today, from her position carefully dabbing iodine into the grazes on Iris's hands. "You should be in therapy. Both of you."

Iris shrugs, and thanks Caitlin for the help. She stands, and hoiks a ice-pack out of the freezer, and passes it to Athena.

"Probably. Athena's not from around here, though."

"I think I bit through my tongue again. You're taking me to A&E."

Iris raises her middle finger at her sister, and Caitlin makes a 'You'd fucking better' type gesture at her.

"It's called Urgent care, dipshit. You broke your cane-" Iris can feel the bruise from it forming on the side of her head. "-You lean on me til urgent care, Kay?"

Caitlin doesn't get paid enough for this.

[eranthiss]

"I don't understand, am I not allowed in here?"

Iris used to adore her sister when she was really little. She was always so grown up, so pretty and smart. Iris meets her sister's gaze, blood red eyes matching blood red eyes. Athena's pupils flicker white, and Iris notes the familiar wave of pressure come over her with her sister's influence. She feels the manufactured calm settle into her for a solid five minutes.

"Athena, that's fucking rude." Iris knows she'd normally be fuming. "Did you come here to try and manage me like a unruly Duraladon or are you just doing this now?"

Athena struggles to hold her little sister's gaze, but she catches her pupils flick white- and then it hits her all at once; a wave of some unholy conglomeration of...grief? Anger?- No, she can't tell what it is- something in there- a violent, inhuman kind - like a parent loosing their child-

Her thoughts go to her baby daughter. Athena flips her cane over in both hands. "What."

Iris's pupils flicker white once more, and Athena feels that same unnatural... Grief settle in her chest.

"Mind your own business, Athena. You don't need to know about that."

Athena considers leaving, really. Iris doesn't dodge her first strike, but her second does miss.

Iris is suddenly glad she's barefoot. Eventually one of the staff members will probably deal with this.

[eranthiss]

Athena's never been very sure what to make of her baby sister, but she's even less sure now, as she stands in the Unova League's Champion level battleground.

She can feel something off in here. A lingering death knell, tracked in on something-

Athena lifts the carpet covering a raised dias in the centre of the room, and stares. It's somewhere around here. She tastes the air, briefly. Definitely. Very faint, but here. Kneeling, she brushes a hand over one particularly oddly coloured brick, and licks the dust off her palm.

That was a person once.

She goes stiff, grasping for her cane on the floor, and stands.

"BITCH-"

Athena has approximately thirty seconds to react before a stiletto heeled shoe hits her square in the chest- and then the second shoe. That was Iris's voice.

"What the hell are you doing here, Athena?"