"It's alright, I got you, don't be afraid,"

"We'll be fine,"

"This is the end,"

"No! Please!"

Euriella kept her eyes shut as her fingers lingered and pulled on the strings of a harp she'd placed between her arms. She could hear it all, whispers, murmurs, desperate cries for help and people's last words in their final moments.

Things that could only be heard by a banshee. Things that would otherwise be devastating and weighing any other soul down. Euriella on the other hand, didn't seem to mind it. All the pain and torture she was constantly confronted with everyday, at all times. On the contrary she seemed to be open to it, welcoming it, as though she reveled in it.

She sat by an open window, allowing the winds to softly play with her hair, like she gently played her instrument. With each string pulled, a new voice came to her ears. Sometimes the hushed tones would turn into dying screams... But that only made her face look even more serene, and her smile grow brighter.

Nothing seemed to phase her, nothing appeared to be getting through to her heart of stone. No one could tell just by looking at her, one could easily mistake her for an angel through her aspect alone.

But perhaps, so very far, deep down the alcoves of her soul, a soft piece of her good will remained...

"I can't do it. It's not working," The voice of her sister, Maylee, blared out from memory.

"It takes time, I told you it would. These things don't come easily," Euriella had given Maylee that response back then.

"How much longer do you think this is going to take me, I mean before I get the hang of it?" Maylee had asked.

"It all depends on you, I am afraid,"

"But I swear I am trying, it's just that, the moment I put my hand on the tree it...," Maylee's frustration grew with each second that passed. She clasped her right hand in her left one, eying the ginormous tree that stood close by them intently.

"That it overwhelms you?" Euriella gave her sister a soft little smile, "The nematon is not just any tree, you know? Its great power sucks the likes of us towards it. It's the source of all good and all evil in us. And our powers happen to rise exponentially near it. Thus, it is perfectly normal that it consumes your senses at first,"

"What if I never make it? Will father... Leave me behind?" Maylee's true concerns were slowly making their way to the top, through her throat and out of her mouth.

"Well, with this attitude we're not off to a good start, are we now?"

For a moment, Maylee seemed to think that her sister had purposefully avoided her previous question, but she also seemed to let it go eventually, in order to ask a different question, "How did you manage?" she said with a small voice.

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"To control my powers?"

"No," Maylee corrected, "How did you get used to the voices?" she added.

Euriella opened her mouth then closed it again, she remained silent for an instant after that, clearly considering her next words with a bit more care. But then, she finally spoke, "Do... Do the voices hurt you?"

"Do they not pain you, sister?" Maylee asked with admirative eyes.

"They used to. But I discovered my powers very early, back in my childhood. I believe it was only a matter of time, the pain didn't disappear, I just learned to live with it, and now, it doesn't bother me anymore. I am afraid, I can't really be of much help in this matter," Euriella watched as worry creeped back into her sister's eyes, upon hearing her latest words. She remembered the heavy silence that had followed their conversation on that day. It was so damning that Euriella had felt as though the burden of breaking it, laid on her shoulders, "Nevermind that for now, I believe there is a much more urgent matter to tend to,"

"There is?" Maylee's eyes grew wider in an instant.

"Why of course there is. There is that untamable hair of yours. It has grown too long, and it is imperative that we find a suitable cut for it," Euriella suggested humorously, her hands on her hips.

At those words, she watched how her sister's tension had melted in one breathe. Maylee'd dropped her guard down along with her then slumped shoulders. Her teeth peaked at Euriella through the gleaming smile that drew itself on her lips.

Had she known that those moments weren't meant to last, Euriella would have painted that smile for herself to keep, before the long years came to forever blur away the shine of them. By then, moments of reminiscence were a rare thing for her. But whenever she did, she'd always chose that moment to go back to, amongst thousands of others in her long list of memories. Nobody had ever given her a smile as genuine and warm as the ones Maylee made a habit of giving her. So, she cherished them with all her power, knowing that she could never admit that to anyone, sometimes not even to her own self.

"Something the matter?" another voice brought her out of her own depths.

She opened her eyes to see that Kali had entered the room where she previously sat alone in. She hadn't noticed it, but she'd stopped playing the harp way before Kali came to interrupt her, "I hear you didn't fulfil your goals for the night," she said, her usual demeanor back on, like it had never left her.

"None of us did," Kali retorted.

"I'd watch my tone if I were you. You may have had dreams of your own once upon a time, but now you only breath for what we brought you back to do," she warned Kali with very little emotion, apart from the disturbing constant semblance of serenity she always had on, "Call the others for me, and meet me in the grand hall," she added shortly after, without the slightest consideration towards Kali's discomfort.

She didn't wait for Kali's retreat before diving back into her contemplations. On her own time, she wondered, if Maylee ever had those shared memories of theirs, surface like they did for her.

Maylee...

Maylee sat miles away from her sister. She couldn't see her, couldn't hear her, yet, she too had sunken deep into her own thoughts. In fact, she was in so deep that she barely noticed when Allison Argent came in and stood by her side.

The huntress had noticed that Maylee was only physically present with her, her mind might as well have been light years away. Through the manner in which the banshee was fiddling with her hair, Allison could tell that she needed to call for her attention before she could get it. So, she placed one of her arrows before the eyes of the banshee, promptly pulling her back out to reality.

"Busy mind? Marie-Amelie Argent," said the huntress, making sure to pronounce the name with a French accent.

Maylee's eyes shot up towards Allison faster than the speed of light. Nobody had called her by that name in... A century. Nobody could, for nobody knew what her real name ever was before she became Maylee. Even that accent remained as fresh in her mind as the last time she'd heard it.