They decide to leave the next day.

We decide to stay.

I remember in harsh, vivid colors the faces of Calla, Watercress, and Poppy...

Oh, I thought, Not you. Please not you.

Poppy's disappointment stuck with me for a while, even though it shouldn't have hurt at all. I looked up to her so much more than I knew. I saw in those defiant eyes and strong words a kindred spirit, or at least something I could admire.

I still do.

Quietly.

***

"What now?" Rose says on the night after and the morning before. We find ourselves overlooking the way we came, out to the west, where the trees part and reveal sprawling acres of fields and wildflowers. We both know our paws will never tread them in the same way, that we have been torn forcefully from the earth like onions being ripped from the ground.

The difference is that we have pulled ourselves up.

"You'll find something worth staying for." I assure her.

"Have you?" she asks.

I nod.

"You better," Rose warns, "because I'm staying for you two. So you have to be happy."

"Fair enough." I reply, mocking her diplomatic tone. "If you want to barter with my happiness, we can propose an exchange."

"Those aren't big words, Daisy." Rose tells me.

"Incandescent," I reply.

Rose pouts. "That's not in context. Anyone can just recite large words. The goal is to use them as a means of expanding your range of thought."

"Fine, fancypaws, but if I did just want to recite large words, having you as a sister helps. A lot."

Rose smirks, but as she looks back up at the sky, her face grows solemn and her tone bitter. "They don't want a bard here."

"Then what are you going to do?"
"Everything. I'm going to do so much that they'll never notice I haven't picked a profession."

"Really?"

"Sure. I think working with Alabaster might be nice, and that Red Canis you and Ace hang out with all the time-"
"Anassa." I correct her.

"She has a library, doesn't she?"

"Yes, but it's not her profession. She's a farmer."

"Guess I'll be sticking around you and Ace, then. The rabble shall be blessed by my 'intellectual presence'." she jokes, starlight glittering in her eyes.

"Intellectual this!" I spring at her, and we wrestle down the hill, a mess of giggling fur and bits of leaves and grass, happy to be alive and young in the light of the moon.

***

I will never forget the look of my mother as she stared back. It was a glance as cold and hard as the moon's glare, the apex of the sun in the winter, a pitiless brightness that promises nothing.

We all grieved in different ways.

For my sisters, all their emotion threw itself into this moment, this kicking out, and everything after was a new life, a new world, a universe where they had no wrong to rectify.

I, on the other paw, felt my mother there in places where she shouldn't be, no matter what I did.

It was the least I could do for my Eudican blood.

***

We pack ourselves into the den that winter, and Ivy and Marigold quickly take to decorating. They fuss constantly over what should go where and what furniture to buy, though the arguments usually end in full facial snogging.

"Do you two need help?"

Two sets of glares tell me they're perfectly fine.

Rose has already had the common sense to leave the house, if you can call this that, and I find myself disappearing as well. I take walks, talk to the locals, meet up with Ace and stroll into the woods.

I've become adept at keeping myself busy.

***

"Do you think he likes me?" Rose asks.

"Romantically? Rose, he's five times our age." I say, lying on the ground outside of the Stocked Pantry. It's not quite mealtime yet, and the Glade is vacant, which is a testament to how little farmers do in the winter.

"I- I don't like him romantically! I'm not like that!" She sticks out her tongue as if to accentuate her point. "Gross!"

"But you like him."
"Intellectually. He's the best conversation partner I've ever had! Just the other day, we had the most interesting conversation on Canis social cues versus those of Canira, and how groups of Canira tend to be more closely knit..."

"Here we go again." I sigh. "What about me? I talk to you."

"True, true... see, this is why you're best sister. Ivy hasn't spoken to me since the Eudicans left."

"She's happy, at least." I reply. "That's enough for me."

Rose's nostrils flare and her eyes roll into the back of her skull.

***

It starts near the end of the starving moons, right before the world begins to thaw.

Ivy drops to the ground and Marigold rushes over, bright gold and flower-scented panic.

"Are you okay?"
"Thought I smelled something." Ivy says. She looks my way and her eyes are eerie, almost hollow. It's almost as if I'm not looking at my sister, but at something else, something dark and festering that lives within her bones.

"Can we help? Do you mean emotion scent or regular scent?"

"Emotion." she confirms. "Definitely emotion. You scent anything, Marigold?"

Marigold shakes her head.

***

The growing season comes around and I'm all too glad to stretch my paws.

Anassa is happy to see me as well, and we set to work on tending to the kaanin while Ace gets out the seeds so we can start sewing the fields. I spend most of it gazing off into the distance, looking for familiar shapes over the horizon.

"Something wrong?" Anassa notices almost immediately, though she doesn't even look up from her work.

"Worried about my sister, I suppose. She's not been feeling well."

"Alabaster's pupil, or the one who brings in the herbs with Marigold?"

"Ivy- I mean the second one." I correct myself.

"She's an empath, isn't she?" Anassa asks.

"They both are." I reply.

"They say things about empaths. First, despite knowing everyone's emotions, they're quite private."

"Yep." I confirm. "That's Ivy."

"Second, Anassa bites into the kaanin's back, and it goes limp. "They have an awful tendency to die young."

***

It takes Marigold after the seeds have been sewn. Ivy is so close to her that once again, despite the marked difference in their fur color, they look like a singular being.

"What's today?" Ivy asks.

"Storm clouds." Marigold whispers back.

"I'm afraid I'm rusty on the terminology, what do storm clouds usually indicate? Who's feeling it?"

"Nothing. She's never mentioned them before." Ivy tells me.

Marigold continues, "-and no one. It's muddled, in some way, and it's coming from..." She squints. "I have no idea."

"Have you had headaches? How strong is it?" Ivy presses.

"I didn't feel like this while we were moving." Marigold shakes her head. "I'm going to take a day or two, walk out, see what I can find. Get back to the earth."

"I'll come with you." Ivy says.

Marigold shakes her head. "Alone, Ivy."

Ivy's eyes widen with disbelief, with hurt, but she says nothing. "Be safe."

Marigold begins to disappear into the trees, bright gold visible only in flashes.

"I love you."

***

"I found it."

"Found what?"

"An answer. I found these creatures... they showed me things. Incredible things."

"Mari, are you alright?"

"More than alright, Ivy, and we're going to be okay."

***

Rose clearly has no idea how to tend to plants.

I manage to avoid swooping in for half the day, but eventually, the tension breaks and I storm over and begin fidgeting with the dirt. "No, you have to put the fish over the seed, not under it. You don't wipe the dirt over it like that either. Watch-"

She pushes the dirt away. "I don't think this is my thing." she tells me. "I'm just going to help Anassa out on the half moons, when she's tending to the library. This is my last day."

"What was that about doing everything?" I ask slyly.

"Everything worth doing." she explains, but I can taste the insecurity in her voice.
"I think you mean everything you're good at. Let's call this a point for me, shall we?"

"Sure," Rose mutters. "Guess you win this one."

I smirk.

***

Ivy paces the den so often that I think her pawprints might sink into the earth and become a permanent fixture.

"So, what's the story today? Anassa was thinking of making some kind of weekly publication, and it looks like I've just found the ultimate drama central."

Ivy's not having any of it. "She's gone today."

"Maybe she needed some space?"

"Space? Between us?" Ivy asks. "She's been going weekly now. I don't know what's wrong."

"What is she going to?"

"Fauna." Ivy says. "She's been making pacts with them. Exchanging teeth and bones for the future. Looking for a future where things work out better, I suppose."

"Teeth? Bones?!"

"Prey bones," Ivy reassures me, "Her teeth."

***

"Oh, she's definitely been to the library. I didn't think much of the visits, though. She checks out the same book every single time." Anassa tells me. "It's this massive tome! I keep it in the back. The last time anyone wanted to look at it, it was Alabaster, and he claimed it was for privacy reasons. Bet it's where he learns all his venecrystalogy."

"His what."

"Magical crystals." Anassa explains. "The book is a copy of the Woods Tome. It discusses use of soul magic, or the magic found in the physical body, in relation to the magic naturally found in the earth. You'd be surprised the type of exchanges you can make if you know what you're doing."

"Not interested." I tell her, desperately hoping she doesn't extrapolate. "Definitely not interested."

"Marigold is."

***

I catch her on the way out.

"You can't keep doing this." I warn her. "If you hurt my sister, I will never forgive you. Is that clear?"

"I'm not asking your forgiveness, nor am I expecting you to understand." she replies, golden fur rippling in the wind.

"I can't understand because you won't explain it to me."

"The Fauna. They're shifty creatures, but I need their assistance desperately." Her mouth opens, revealing several molars missing and scarred gums. "Anything for your sister. Anything."

"What could possibly be worth this?" I ask.

"You know what we are, Daisy. Our energy is unstable. Living around this many Canis is slowly driving us both crazy from the sensory overload. If I can predict what will set us off, what tragedies, what Sentients to avoid... we could make it. We could live longer than any other Empath." she says. "Or we could leave."

I glare. "Ivy would never."

"Then I need to do this."
She disappears into the ribcage of trees that are just hardly growing leaves, and I find that she blends twice as well. It takes only moments, a blink, and she's gone.

***

"We have to get out of here."

"What?"

"I was wrong. I was completely wrong. Do you trust me, Ivy?"

"I... I can't go." Ivy steps back. "There are others here who still need me."

Marigold bares her teeth, revealing ugly scarring. "I need you."

Ivy's breath shudders. They're poised on a decision.

I see two pairs of eyes move over me, crouched in the house, and then return back to their steely silence.

They don't come to any conclusion that night, and I make a mental note to hound Ivy after twilight sets in.

***

"First day of the dog days tomorrow." Rose tells me. "Alabaster and I-"

"I don't care." I tell Rose. "I really, really don't care."

"You never care." Rose's voice raises to a high whine. "Don't you think you could stand to be a little more supportive?"

"Fine. Tell me about the dog days."

"They're a hole in the system. An erratic half moon where the weather spirals out of control and the magic of this world spikes to-"

"Okay, not to doubt Alabaster, but we learned this from our parents when we were pups. Young pups."

"Not that. I was just thinking we should make plans with Ace or something. Maybe test it out."

"Alabaster agreed to that?"

"No, we were just discussing what you could do, in theory. Space manipulation is twice as easy, so... teleportation, anyone?"

"Rose."

"Teleportation games of chase and catch. You know, the game when you hide the stick, and they hide the stick, and then you try to get across enemy territory and-"

"Rose! This isn't a game. Lives could be at stake."

"Since when are you such a killjoy?" she asks. Waving a paw in front of my eyes, she continues, "Daisy Eudica, are you in there?"

"Yes! Rose, quit it!" I snap. "Seriously."

Rose sighs. "Something wrong?"

She sees the reflection in my eyes, my stillness, and she knows in the way only siblings can know what the other is thinking.

"Her."

***

I didn't want to be right.

***

Marigold's body lies on the floor, blood spread around her like flower petals. Her face is frozen in a strange and awful ecstasy, and spectral patterns line the walls. The leaves are drenched in deep red and they stick to the ground and the corpse, and the body seems to still breath from the wide open maw pulled back into a malicious grin.

I wonder what she's looking at, what could convince her to go beyond, but the answer leaps out from the back of her maw, where teeth are missing. She's made a deal and this was the result, the true payment, the ultimate victory.

Ivy lies crumpled against the ground, and I can see her pouring out of every pore and every breath. I am no Empath, but I can still taste the raw, visceral power emanating from my sister.

***

"I should have gone." Ivy says hours later.

***

Ivy Eudica was determined to disappear.