— I'm not here looking for absolution —
Stave has little care for the rest of their family, sprawling as they may be.
At best, he feels a faint indifference to them—barely understanding or recognizing them for their familial ties. At worst, he feels annoyance for even thinking that he would be associated with them. Bound to them. The only one to escape such bitter annoyance is his sister, his other half. Whether she uses her strange gift on him to instill some sense of love or it is just the odd way of siblings, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t truly care, because as long as she is around, there is something like an anchor holding him down.
So, the bite of anger he feels when he calls her to him is quickly snuffed out when she comes to his side. He smiles—a cold and empty thing, even for her—and presses his nose to her cheek. Perhaps a reminder of his possessive nature or perhaps simply an affectionate touch, although it’d be impossible to tell.
“Does it matter?” he asks, annoyance twisting in his words, but he sighs, rolling a thin shoulder and looking toward the northeast of where they stood, where the meadow began to slope and he could barely see the landscape beginning to shift and change. Something lived beyond that, he knew. Something dark and empty and twisted that called out to him—crooking a finger and begging him to come forward.
Exhaling, he shakes his head.
“If you must know,” his voice measured, as though explaining to a child, “there is a land near here called Pangea. Apparently our father helped raise it.” Of course there father is the father of dozens, hundreds, of children. Not that he knows the full scope of it. But such things do not matter. Stave has a greedy heart and a greedier mind and the things that he chooses as his own remain as such, untouched within him.
“Don’t you think we should visit it?”
