Tahni was in no mood to be merciful. Her frantically beating heart pounded fresh waves of agony into her body with each passing second. Blisters were chafing, bruises were blooming and sore muscles protested wildly at every movement she made, but all that did was stoke the fires of her vengeance against the person she held directly responsible for her current situation.

"Hello, lowlife," she growled into her brother's ear, relishing the heavy sound of his laboring breath. 

"Being a woman doesn't spare you from retribution," he replied coldly.

Tahni smirked. She knew that deep down, he was boiling with fury. It was just like Steppo to maintain the tranquil appearance even in moments when normal people revealed their true inner selves. She supposed this was one of the many reasons why her brother could never really be normal.

"What about being your only sister?" she whispered.

His strength in twisting away took her by surprise, and she tumbled across the floor. She tried to stand up, but he quickly scythed her legs from under her and she fell to the floor again, swallowing a cry.

Heedless of the pain, she lashed forward, clawing at his suit, aiming for his face, but he soon had her pinned by the shoulders, glaring daggers down at her.

"If anything," he panted, "that makes you even more of a target."

She gritted her teeth, hating the tears that sprung forth from her eyes. She wasn't afraid, nor was she sad. It was so unfair when her body betrayed her, but it never crossed her mind that she had asked for any of this.

Clenching her fists, she tried to find purchase on the floor, but realized she could use his own strength against him. Leaning into his grip, she wrenched her right leg free and kicked her knee up into his side.

He should have seen it coming, but it appeared she wasn't the only tired one. Rolling away, he staggered back to his feet, bracing himself on a nearby wall. He didn't look well at all, caked blood marring his upper lip, red patches emerging across his jaw. But Tahni could feel her own body's protests, the pressure points along her bones where they had been dug into the floor.

"What brought this on, little pest?"

Tahni stared at him incredulously and crouched against the other wall of the corridor, holding on to her knees. She could have attempted to stand up, but that would have revealed her momentary weakness. Besides, she could glare death at him from this position just fine.

"You're claiming innocence, you wretch? If only Father could see you now, he'd have you stripped of all privileges!"

He spat onto the floor and looked at her with unbridled disgust.

"You think I care about the title?"

Tahni wanted to shriek in frustration. His voice had once again morphed into that deceptive calmness that belied the sinkhole lurking beneath.

"No," she said in as frigid a tone as she could manage. "You're just in it for the money."

The corner of his mouth quirked up.

"So are you," he whispered.

This could not be endured. She wanted to hurl herself at him again, but the combined exertions of the last couple of minutes had seeped her of her final dregs of energy. She was holding on by the power of will alone, and if she were to let go now, she was going to collapse into a useless heap right in front of her insane sibling. She could vaguely remember Ederra advising against this course of action, but she had been too far gone to listen to reason. Steppo was the same, if one pushed him far enough.

"And because you couldn't make enough on your own, you just had to dip your hand into my spoils!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The bastard could lie with a straight face like no other. She wanted to drag him down by his ears and make him tell her where she'd taken her loot, but it looked like he wasn't even willing to confess to his crimes.

The coward.

"Stealing things from your little sister," she sneered. "For shame."

"Stealing things from your parents," he retorted. "How unoriginal. Why don't you wait until Mother marries you off and then you can expand your domain into your husband's house?"

Tahni had already grabbed onto the brazier before she even registered what she was doing. It burned, but she didn't feel it. She aimed for his chest, but missed and hit his shoulder instead. A few sparks flew up into his face and he staggered back, crying out in pain. A part of her recoiled at what she had done, but most of her urged for a pressing of the advantage, so she finally charged him, pushing him into the wall and nearly toppling along with him into the next room.

"Get off me! You're deranged!"

"You're the one to talk," grated Tahni.

He was pulling at her loose hair now, and she had finally grabbed hold of his ear, her other hand ripping at the seams of his undershirt.

"I get that you talked to Mother because I did the same with Father, but you're forgetting why I did that in the first place!"

He scoffed, then choked out a laugh. No matter that he appeared just as tired as she felt, his physical strength hadn't ebbed one jot.

"Because you finally realized how useless your existence is, and are jealous of those of us with a higher purpose."

"Your higher purpose is pointless because so are you!" she bellowed. Granted, not her best comeback, but it didn't have to make sense. "You took the ivory table set, and now I come home to find the porcelain gone too, right from under my nose. And it's not even the first time!"

His eyes widened, feigning disbelief.

"Are you saying that a thief stole from a thief? But that's just dreadful! Someone should call the authorities."

She yelled out her frustration, and they finally broke apart. While Tahni collapsed into the wall, Steppo darted into the next available room. It didn't take long for her to follow. Now that rage alone fueled her actions, the more time she spent around her brother, the longer she felt she could go on.

She grabbed the first thing that came in sight and flung it at him. It turned out to be a delicately carved bookend, which broke on impact as she missed him entirely, hitting a window display across the room and shattering the glass. Her surroundings registered dimly for a second, and she recognized the library. Her immediate thought was one of gratification, since she had just been provided with an almost limitless supply of ammunition. Grinning, letting out an ear-splitting battle-cry, she grabbed an armful of books and began to make do on her promise of vengeance.

He dodged well at first, but then it dawned on him that he could do to her exactly what she was doing to him and soon enough, the center of the quietest room of the Sebek household became the site of gruesome violence against books and family members alike.

Two other people seemed to vie for attention at the very edges of Tahni's vision, two collateral victims desperately trying to get them to stop, but there was no ceasefire to be had when tempers such as theirs were involved. Tahni had no idea which ancestors they had to thank for their fiery demeanor, but she knew that she and Steppo were matched in stubbornness. Unless the whole house were to collapse around them, they were going to continue their fight until they both dropped from sheer exhaustion as their bodies gave up and refused to listen to them anymore.

It happened sooner rather than later, when Steppo ran out of books and she slipped and fell, hitting the back of her head against the sharp edges of a table. She saw him leaning down, aiming to pick up some of the scattered books around him, but she couldn't let him get the first strike in the final round of their fight. They were both nearly spent now, and her hand searched desperately onto the tabletop as she braced herself on it to stand up again. A book weight brushed her fingers, and she launched that at him, then some papers, but she scattered them out of the way, then a dart blower, and she clasped that tightly, raising it instinctively up to her lips. They used to play this game as children, when they had to hit the target with wads of wet paper. Meyo usually stepped aside when the competition grew fierce between her and Steppo, as it always seemed to do.

Meyo... He was suddenly in front of her, and then, just as abruptly, he was not. Silence rang for all of a second while her mind caught up with what her eyes had just seen.

That could not have been, but there was Ederra, slack-jawed and staring at the same thing, and Steppo, half crouched over a pile of discarded books, gaping and frozen in shock.

And right where her other brother had just been was a perfectly innocent, shiny, green gourd.