Amaris remained silent as they walked, his eyes trained on the horizon ahead as he counted the rising of his chest once and then twice and then… again and again and again. It was easier to distract himself from the nerves that alighted beneath his skin than to wait for his brother to speak. In reality, it shouldn’t be weird; this was his brother, and yet—it was. He wished Aelia was beside him now, a buffer to the unease and silence he felt crawling up his back.

In truth, Amaris was partially responsible for the discomfort. He neither had extended his paw to the rest of his older siblings, barring Sreda, whose insight into exorcisms had led him toward her creepy ol’ cave. But Violet? Alder? Narcissa? and Dimitri? His older siblings had been nothing more than passing ships within his orbit.

He didn’t seek them out, and neither had they sought him.

His ears perked and twisted toward his brother’s words, and though the sound of them had his hair initially rising in a flood of adrenaline, his beating heart eased as a smaller smile spread across his lips.

It’s alright, He murmured in kind, I guess I didn’t make much of an effort either. He confessed, with a slight bump of his shoulder against his older brother’s. We can start…fresh if you’d like?

Maybe they should do some brotherly activities…although Amaris didn’t even know what those could be.

His gaze shifted back toward the horizon in which they walked, I have been sort of a recluse myself, he added, haven’t really spoken up with any of you either... He drifted toward silence, his ears twitching against the quiet crunch of rock and gravel and dirt beneath his feet.

However, after a momentary pause, he turned to side-eye his brother with a curious glint, Is it true you met a demon? Amaris recalled there had been whispers of exorcisms, and he felt it couldn’t hurt to ask, especially if it would help him with his own and the shadows he routinely saw.