Silver Jungle

Chapter 9

Dani was sitting cross legged on the love seat when Dra finally came back to the house. She stomped in to the house, slamming the door.

"What in the world happened to you?" Zammi exclaimed, just seeing her daughter. Dani opened his eyes and look at his older sibling, his brow wrinkling. She was dripping wet and shivering, looking more pissed off and angry than before. "Did you fall in a river?" Zammi demanded.

"No, I just, got into a fight. With Esha. Who is still an asshole." Dra muttered, looking away.

"Well, why were you fighting with Esha?" Zammi asked. "He's much stronger and older than you, Dra! You should have expected to lose."

"I just wanted to try, okay? I have nothing to lose, so why not?" Dra countered.
"Because, for all I know, you could be sick right now!"

"I'm fine, but thanks for the vote of concern."

"Don't get the rest of us sick. I'm not up for it." Dani told her. Dra just snapped at him. "What? It's true. I don't like being sick."

"I'm gonna purposefully cough on you now." Dra muttered.

"Please don't." He asked. Dra snorted, and Zammi glared.

"If you have the energy to yell at your brother, go get few eggs from Apep for some dinner." Zammi scolded.

"I'm going to take a shower first. And I'm not hungry."

***

The next morning, Dra wasn't on her petlatl and she wasn't down stairs at the table. Dani looked in the living room, and in the bathroom, but only Zammi was there, fixing her long hair with a snake shaped pin, at the vanity.

"Have you seen Dra lately?" He asked her.

"Not recently. Why? Is there an issue?" Zammi asked, in the middle of doing her hair with golden pin.

"Uh, I just can't find her. I'm sure these no problem, I just thought she was going to teach me today." Dani tried to pass it off as nonchalantly as he could, but Zammi still frowned.

"Yes, she should be." Zammi muttered suspiciously. "She's not out hunting, is she?"

"I don't think so, she ate dinner at like, eleven last night." Dani recalled.

"That wouldn't really change the fact." Zammi muttered. "In our origin, we metabolize food much faster than in our shifted form. By the time we have returned to our shifted form, we are hungry again."

"Right, 'cause snakes don't need as much food as humans." Dani remembered. Zammi made a 'kind of' gesture, and turned the corner into the library, a room Dani hadn't spent much time as he wanted to in.

"Get down from there!" Zammi snapped, scaring Dani.

"What?" he asked, confused why he was in trouble.

"Not you." Zammi pointed up at the ceiling where a very disgruntled Dra hung from a hammock that had defiantly not been there when Dra had shown Dani where to find the books about mythology.

"Why is he still here?" Dra growled.

"Why wouldn't he be?" Zammi said, confused. Dra glared at him.

"I thought you wanted to go home. You don't really care about us. You'd rather be back in Arizona, with your adoptive mother, and just forget about us." She spit, and Dani felt his anger swell a bit.

"All I wanted was to call Marble so that she didn't call in the National Guard to look for me. You don't know how she is." Dani corrected, trying to choke down his rage. "It would be really embarrassing for me to go home with an armed guard, and hard to explain."