The TwiceBorn

The Beauty In Being Broken

"Someday I'll need your spine to hide behind...for fear of moments stolen...I don't wanna say goodnight"--Dermot Kennedy

Still dumbstruck with terror, Aubery tried to get to his feet but fell. His horror at what had just happened was bright and vicious, but he was aware of another part of himself trying to surge to the surface, a part he thought he'd done away with a long time ago.

Looking at Islinn and Gray as they slept, he saw life. Every day mundane life and while it wasn't much of a life, what with Gray being bottle-fed and Islinn being so difficult, it was still life...and here he was, surrounded by fire and death and while the excitement of that pounding in his veins had always been enough, in this moment...he, once again, was on the outside looking in. Staring at what he could never have or be. Fragments of memories that felt far older than he was spun through his head. Stealing food in the marketplace and learning how to run and dodge thrown objects while he crammed the morsels into his mouth, finding Behrin, finding a home, all the laughter of the men that he'd pretended didn't matter until it didn't, and Behrin's hand on his shoulder...being favored over all others...being accepted.

The rocks were gone...the fire burned to ash...and the blood sky was nothing but a flat blackness and now he was on the outside. Again.

"Islinn"

He heard the word escape his lips and hated the sound of it, that weak voice he'd always hid had managed to slip past the lump in his throat and escape into the night air to expose him for the imposter he was.

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She wasn't asleep. The nights were too cold, and her clothing too bare to offer comfortable rest and even though she was relieved when she felt him get up, he'd left behind way too much cold air and space. She hated it but he radiated heat like a fire and many mornings she'd awoke to find herself tangled up around him, arms and legs intertwined.

The chill in the air was not the only reason she barely slept. When she closed her eyes, she saw Alora. Always Alora, never The Twiceborn and knowing her actual name was a secret she clung to with every sense of her being. She was the only one on this side of light, to know her true name. And she would lay awake while Gre and Aubery slept and watch the darkness fade into the morning and listen to the birds sing their songs. All of those beautiful songs with no words, and wonder where Alora had gone.

The Twiceborn had slipped soundlessly back into the shadows she came from, Islinn had no doubt of that but Alora...she didn't like to think that she had had to return to the shadows as well, leaving Islinn the only one who had known her as something different. Something...good. She was now the sole keeper of Alora's smile. Her words. Her touch. And it had to be the loneliest feeling in all the world.

She no longer dreamed. When she did slip off into sleep, it was blackness. Just different shades of shifting darkness. Strangely though, it didn't frighten her. Because maybe it was Alora. All that was left. All that she now possessed and was trying to use it to comfort Islinn. Maybe it worked like that. She didn't know.

The last dream she'd had of Alora had burned bright but had begun to fade as all the shadows and darkness of Aubery had slowly set in. But she would never forget Alora's words: