We have canines for a reason

Umineko no naku koro ni - 17/07/2022

1,262 words.

There are animals for more terrible than the lion.

Author's note:
I meant for the title to be from a poem by tumblr user @grendelmenz. I would also be dishonest if I didn't mention tumblr user @rontra's kyrosa art as some kind of inspiration, it got me thinking about what domestic life between them would be...except still in canon, where they are both murderers. A mix of EP2 Rosa and Prime Kyrie.
I associate Kyrie with hyenas because of rontra/Kibitzer's Skin Game (although maybe it was the Sonozaki that were the hyenas? I forgot lol), but I don't remember if that's a thing in canon lol... Just follow me on this.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, I enjoyed writing it! I love writing this kind of atmosphere...

Disclaimer : Umineko no naku koro ni belongs to 07th Expansion.

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The hyena laughed, blood dribbling from her maw. It splattered in wet drops on the pavement, the sound unnatural against the downpouring rain.

She took a corner to the rose garden. Her shoulders were rolling with the thrill of the kill and the crazed grief of losing her hunting partner.

In the carnage of petals torn apart by the wind, her fur drenched with the typhoon, stood a wolf. She jolted at the intruder and bared teeth. The muzzle of the rifle rose up between them. The rain was pinning long strands of hair to her forehead, sweaty and sullied, and with her free hand she was tightly clutching a sheep to her.

That display of motherly affection rumbled through the hyena’s bones. She didn’t lower her own gun just yet.

“Rosa-san.” she called, drawing out the three syllables under her tongue.

The wolf opened her eyes wide and squeezed her daughter closer, as if she wanted to hide her in the long folds of her skirt. Her grasp shook on the handle of the weapon.

“Ky… Kyrie-san?” Rosa blinked, quickly. Kyrie rubbed her cheek with the heel of her palm, smearing fresh blood to be washed away in the rain. Calculating.

Each drop was exploding on impact on the ground. The lines of roses stretched out for an eternity between the two predators.

Their stand-off was interrupted by the clinking of her boot when Kyrie stepped forward. Rosa straightened and tightened her hold on the rifle, but her opponent only glanced past her.

“You did this.” it didn’t sound like a question.

Her silver hair shone in the moonlight as she pointed with her chin to the two corpses spread out on the gravel. Rain was soaking their clothes, blood seeping in grotesque pink trails from under them and from the hole in their foreheads. Kyrie recognised the brown qipao with golden insignia, which led to little doubt about the second corpse.

The younger woman threw a panicked look behind her, as if she had forgotten, and she stumbled a bit. She opened and closed her mouth several times, guttural sounds that barely resembled words:

“That-… It’s-… They were after me for the gold! I didn’t-…”

Kyrie stepped closer. Rosa stopped scrambling and aimed the gun at her face, the clutch on her daughter’s slumped shoulders stronger still. Her eyes were piercing white in the darkness but she was shaking.

Her opponent, she wasn’t sure, purred: “You did a horrible thing, Rosa-san.”

She flinched as if being scolded, but Kyrie continued, voice dripping honey: “But you had no choice.”

As she talked, very slowly, her long fingers wrapped one by one around the wooden barrel of the gun. At a hypnotizingly slow pace, she lowered the weapon while Rosa was ensnared in her stare.

“Kyrie-san, you… You killed them all, didn’t you?” but she didn’t raise the gun back up.

The hyena didn’t answer. “Even… Even Battler-kun…”

The eyes fixed on her remained motionless. Like the grey surface of a quiet lake. There wasn’t any ripple when her voice sliced through the night:

“If Rudolf hadn’t been killed, I would have considered sparing Battler. But after all…” And it seemed as if, although this farce was so terribly human, a demon appeared behind her to speak those words: “He was still that woman’s child.”

Rosa understood. She gripped her own child tighter when Kyrie’s sea-grey eyes glanced down to the small silhouette: Passed out, her stuffed lion on the verge of falling out of her little hand, its black beaded-eyes staring at the scene. But Rosa didn’t move away.

Kyrie’s mind cut sharp through the fog clouding her muscles, calculating, always. The tugging in her chest recognised the wavering in Rosa’s gaze; oh the pathetic pathetic loneliness… Her teeth flashed in the night as she smiled. She would gobble up her whole.

Drawing ever so close, her mouth hot against Rosa’s ear, she almost had to support Rosa’s staggering body as her voice filled her head:

“Rosa-san, let’s escape this island together.”

The stench of blood that clings to their nostrils every minute of every day ever since that time on Rokkenjima, is for a moment of reprieve covered by the smell of sweat. It dilutes in the liquid ink of the night, smooth like Kyrie’s lips on the silk of Rosa’s nape. She breathes a sigh of relief, the guilt pushed far back under the pillows of her bed Kyrie has seduced her way into, it turns into a moan.

It has taken a while for them to get to this point, but Rosa is so tired, and Kyrie is so cunning. It is so alluring, for an instant to drop all the human pretences they have to put on as survivors of the massacre, and to slip back into their nature, the one they revealed to each other on that island.
To be known is such a terrible thing. The solace of it pulls her ribcage open and burrows itself in her entrails.

It glints in the darkness, as Kyrie sinks her fangs into the flesh and Rosa drags claw marks across her back.

The smell of pancakes floats in the kitchen. Maria wipes her eyes still sticky with sleep before sitting down at the table for breakfast. The morning sun pours in through the windows, and she can’t see Kyrie’s face when her favourite aunt sets a plate of fresh pancakes in front of her.

“Here you go, Maria-chan. With a lot of chocolate syrup, your favourite.”

Maria “uu-uu” cheerfully at the lovely steam that wafts up to her nose.

“Did you sleep well, Maria-chan?” Her mum turns away from the coffee-maker, her hands wrapped around a hot cup. The little girl gives a vigorous nod and she drinks in Mama’s soft smile.

Maria likes Mama a lot, especially when she is happy, and Mama looks the happiest ever since they’ve moved in with Aunt Kyrie. Sometimes Maria catches her humming as she does the laundry or even when she removes her shoes after a tiring day of work.

It’s been eight months since they’ve come back from the family reunion on Rokkenjima. Maria doesn’t remember much of that night, but she knows Krauss and Natsuhi were already dead so she hasn’t been surprised to learn from her mother, her aunt helping find the words, that everyone else had died too. She has been sad, of course, cried over her cousins. And Ange, poor Ange, is inconsolable over losing her brother. Since Maria is now her big sister, she tries to comfort her by explaining that they’re all happy in Golden Land now. Surely that was the doing of Béatrice.

Maria plans that after school, she’ll continue teaching Ange about magic. Mama doesn’t scold her for talking about it anymore, and Aunt Kyrie even praises her for her knowledge.

Sometimes Mama still gets mad and raises a hand at her, but Aunt Kyrie calms her down, so Maria is almost not scared anymore! And when Mama stays late at work, even if it happens less often now, Aunt Kyrie picks Ange and Maria up from school and cooks them dinner, so Maria is very happy!

She munches on the soft pancakes and has to refrain from wolfing them down because they taste so sweet. She offers a bite to Sakutaro in the chair next to her, but he doesn’t seem to appreciate it.

Kyrie combs back a strand of hair behind Rosa’s ear and the woman blushes. Sakutaro shivers.

There are animals far more terrible than the lion.

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