Yuuko looked around, worried, ears back. "Shigeru? Shigeru...where'd you go?" She was worried. He'd been...she didn't remember her brother ever acting like that. And...now she wished she'd snuck her mother out too! Maybe Shigeru wouldn't be so...angry? if she'd done that...
Shigeru had moved for his den, keeping to difficult paths and holes, wriggling as he moved.
Mother.... Hurt. A lot.
Yuuko used ever bit of experience she had in hunting to keep to her brother's trial, though some of the areas HE was used to and she wasn't were...entertaining. She even ended up with a couple thorns in her rump from one bush she rubbed against on accident. But she ignored the pain (it was more an annoyance than actual pain) and kept going. Until she reached the entrance of a den. "Shigeru?"
Shigeru grimaced when Yuuko called out, the male crawling in further as he frowned, fluffing.
"Leave me alone!"
Yuuko's face fell further. "Shigeru...at least let me explain? Please?" She didn't want him to be sad anymore! Not her brother. He looked better smiling.
"Leave me alone." The male tensed.
Yuuko shook her head. "No. You're family. I won't leave you alone." She took a step closer, into the den. "I should have tried bringing Mother with, when I escaped."
"Well, you didn't and she never tried." Shigeru huffed, fur ruffled. "I wasn't worth bothering with."
"Yes you are. And..." She sighed. "If Mother never tried, it's because she was...she was scared. We were captives in our own home, Shigeru. We lived in fear everyday, of the males that had charged in and decided to claim our lands..."
"Easy excuse to leave a son." He huddled, trying to avoid her.
"All Father and I ever had were one another."
"All Mother could talk about some nights was finding a way to at least get word to you and Father!" There was the temper that had gotten her in trouble, that had driven her to flee after getting her rump handed to her. "It wasn't an EXCUSE! Shigeru...you..." As quickly as it came, it vanished. "You weren't there..."
"Well you weren't here!" Shigeru finally snapped. "We weren't exactly safe ourselves!" He bristled. "You didn't have someone snap in-pride and try to force everyone to stay in one place! To force cubs to hide because if we stepped outside we would DIE."
Yuuko growled. "No, we didn't have someone snap. We had OUTSIDERS KILL OUR QUEEN. CHASE HER HEIR AWAY. They kept the cubs hostage, and if one of the grown-ups slipped up, they'd hurt US. I grew up in constant fear, wondering if I'd be able to hide well enough to not be noticed! It was especially hard on Mother...She's a Nanny."
Shigeru snorted, still shrinking away, frazzled.
"No, you don't get it. He might've killed cubs! You don't know anything!" The male triued pushing past.
"Father and miss Na'ima were always trying to hide others trying to slip away! So much as a WORD could set him off!"
"Shigeru." Yuuko's voice was flat now, her expression matching. "You're describing what we were going through when I ran away. I got my rump trounced before I ran away because one of the males didn't like my attitude." She took another step forward. "You want to know the difference? We didn't have anyone helping us escape."
Shigeru frowned.
"You don't know anything!" And the male moved, trying to push past, grimacing to himself.
It still hurt.
Why couldn't he listen?! Why didn't he get it?! "Shigeru...why are you so set on hating us?" Her voice wavered. She didn't want family hating her. Not after knowing an uncle who believed in her strength, and a mother who loved her with everything she was, and a father who comforted her...despite barely knowing her. She didn't make any move to pin him, though.
"You know, I can ask the same thing." He frowned, tensing. "Maybe you can also explain what it's like having a mother."
He'd seen mothers-- the pride had cubs, but rarely. But it still hurt. He didn't know why he'd only had a father and asked. The answer hurt, deeply.
He just kept quiet.
"I don't hate you. I don't hate males. For a while...I was angry at them, because shortly after Mother brought Akemi and I into the pride...the usurpers attacked. The only memories I had of kind males were vague ones of Father. Of you." She sat, ears down. "Not all the Antianeira hated males. They had their reasons for not wanting them around. Some had been hurt very badly. Some...some had things done to them that no one has a right to do to any other. Others...just preferred the company of females."
Shigeru snorted.
"Mother could've stayed." He scowled.
"Mother could've stayed."
Even Primitus' cubs had some kind of female figure. What was he given?
A near-silent father that threw rocks at some for their antics, who wasn't unsupportive, but didn't understand his own son.
"Mother was still recovering." She looked up. "Maybe...things would have been better if she stayed. But...she would have been hiding from everyone here, too. Mother didn't have an easy life growing up. Mother didn't know other females after weaning until she was an adult. She was taken away from her mother as a cub, because her father thought she was a boy since she was the only cub. She was surrounded by males, considered a failure because she was female, beaten, forced to take care of her half-brothers and father. Even though she knows there are good males, because of Father and a couple of others...she would have been scared here, even if our Uncle hadn't gone crazy."
"Then call me selfish and a monster. Because I'd have felt safer." The young male moved outside, head hung. He knew it was selfish... But he'd wanted that love, that bond.
He shook. She took his siblings and not him.
He was hated for something he couldn't help, damnit... Something that wasn't his fault, and the male choked back a sob, jumping onto a boulder slowly.
He was a monster.
Yuuko shifted, creeping after him. And in a wavering, quiet voice, spoke again. "She never hated you, Shigeru. She wanted to visit you, but then the usurpers came." And she slunk off, looking down and brokenhearted. If the usurpers hadn't come...if she'd managed to help her mother escape, too...
She was a failure. Her own brother hated her now.
"No she wouldn't." Shigeru scowled. "Because I'm a male. And I'm not father." He grimaced, the crafter looking to his paws.
"I'm a monster!"
The male jumped down, physically shaken, frantic.
Monster roiled in his head like dirty words, forcing him to quiver and tremble. He was like...
He was like Shupavu wasn't her. The notion made him sick.
He was a vile, repulsive monster.
He hated himself.