This was a huge mess. Unbelievably ginormous.

Eda hums distractedly, as she throws her head back over the chair, staring at the ceiling with a suffering little sigh of boredom. Her sister is seated beside her at the table, hunched over that stupid project she's been toiling over, nonstop, for weeks now.

Professor Skints assigned to them the nearly impossible task of creating their own axolotl, a living breathing creature, out of nothing but buffer, and whatever he had laying around at the bottom of his potions closet. Eda, one of his students most naturally versed in the art of potions, capable of concocting complicated elixirs and formulating insanely potent poisons, quit almost immediately.

She had no interest in bs like that, impossible pipedreams meant to trip up the impressionable. At the end of it, she knew he'd tell them it couldn't be done, anyway, so why try?

It didn't even matter what she did, since she was so darn good at potion making. Skints, she swears, thought she was some prodigy. It didn't matter how many airplanes she made from the pages of her textbooks, or how many times she kicked the back of Sabath's chair, or if she fell asleep in class, waking with instructions and half crushed root powder stuck to her face.

She could do no wrong, in his eyes, which definitely could not be said about most, (any) of her other teachers. And whoever thought she wasn't going to use that to her advantage, was an idiot.

Lilith persists though.

Eda watches her, for hours at a time, measuring chemicals, staring at the vat of bubbling magenta liquid in the dark light of the basement, as if willing the mixture to suddenly coalesce into something she can present.

That never happens, but Eda respects her determination.

She pops a candy in her mouth, tongue stinging with the acidic taste of lemon raspberry. Then she throws her feet up on the table, hands held casually behind her head.

"Done yet?" She asks.

Lilith frowns, looking torn. She pulls at her hair, gazing with frustration at the globby mixture swirling in the glass petri dish. Mocking her, somehow.

"No. I'm not"

Eda groans. This was getting ridiculous. At this point, she'd die before Lily finished,

"Hurry up already, Lils" She throws her head back, with the utmost expression of suffering on her face. "I'm bored"

Lily makes a distracted noise of annoyance. The clock ticks overhead. She adds a griffin claw to the concoction, with careful, shaking fingers.

"Too bad, Eda. Find something to do"

Eda scowls, but she takes her sister's advice. There really was nothing to do, cooped up in this stuffy, boring little house, anyway.

She kicks her chair back, stretches with a lazy yawn, and walks outside. The air is crisply cool, almost frigid against her exposed skin.

Perfect weather for a walk, she decides.

Apparently a lot could happen in 20 minutes. When Eda returns back home, she can smell burnt dragon tongue on the air. A bad sign. She pushes through the door, and immediately she's met with the sight of a warzone.

The walls are covered in thick, pink goo, splattered like guts across pavement.

And her sister stands in the middle of the blast sight.

It only takes Eda a moment, and 2 glances, to realize Lilith's project blew up on her. (That happened sometimes, in potion making. It was one of the aspects Eda loved so much about alchemy; the unpredictable, chaotic nature of the process. Explosions happened, a lot. Especially if you were inexperienced).

Lily stares at her, covered from head to toe in pink gunk, her school uniform so utterly soaked they both knew it was basically demolished. Even her hair is flecked with it, tuffs of dark, raven locks, usually so pressed and pristine (unlike Eda's, a wild mess embraced with enthusiasm, a mini rebellion in the face of their strict parents), stuck left and right with luminous, pink stuff.

Lily looks stupid, and her indignant expression pulls it all so nicely together.

Eda gasps, amazed, and then she cackles.

"Shut up" Lily shouts, with all the vitriol of an army, "This isn't funny"

But it was. It really was.

Project down the tubes!

"You fudged up!" She giggles again, "Perfect, prissy Lilith actually messed something up. This is too rich!"

Lilith just glares, as if to will away her amusement.

"At least I finished mine"

"Didn't need to"

She turns away, wrestling with her pride.

"Just help me, please"

Eda softens at that, struck by the look of pure desperation that crosses Lily's face.

She really needed her, huh? She smiles softly, at the way tables have turned.

Rebellious, messy Eda, leather jacket sporting, black boot wearing, can't keep her mouth shut, Eda, was usually the one who needed bailing out. The one who ended up in detention for clawing apart another student, for refusing to walk in line like expected, the one who got caught cheating (The school called it cheating; Eda called it being resourceful).

Now, Lily needed help from her. Ha. Funny.

She pulls her hand through short, burgundy tresses. Considers, for a long moment (she's already made her decision, but she wants to see Lily sweat, just a little).

"Alright. Potions master to the rescue…" She steps over, flicking a piece of glowing pink sludge from Lilith's shoulder, grinning, "But you owe me for this"

Lily laughs, rolling her eyes,

"Shut up, E"

Eda let's that go though, because she knows what Lily really means.

That meant, Thanks, and I love you.

Eda knew. They were sisters, after all, and sisters could read sisters.