The Sanctuary of Yesterday

1.8 | semper pura

Grace barely slept that night. A small, minuscule, part of her couldn't quite fathom how her three friends were able to sleep, but her rational side recognized they had to pull deep from their cores to use the healing magic they performed. So she let it go and focused on her sleeping best friend.

She was startled by the twitch of Sage's hand around mid morning. Shooting up from her bed, she rushed to her friend's side. Clutching the hand that moved, she murmured calming words until Sage's eyes opened, filled with panic. Continuing her kind words, she waited until Sage had calmed a little bit before trying to start a conversation.

"Good morning, Sage," she said softly, "Can I do anything?"

"Water," she croaked, squeezing the hand harder. Grace conjured a glass of water and raised it to her friend's mouth, who slowly drank it.

"Let me wake the others," Grace smiled, and went and shook each girl informing them Sage had woken.

Jasmine was the first to her side, "How do you feel?"

"Like I've been hit with a certain unforgivable," she joked, trying to lighten the mood. Jasmine and Willow shot nervous glances at each other, so quick one normally wouldn't have seen it—but Sage did.

"What's- what's going on?" She started to panic, trying to sit up. Only to be held down by Grace, setting her on edge even more. "Did someone attack me with an unforgivable?" she was just about yelling.

"If you lie down and shut up I will explain," Jasmine snapped, always playing the bad cop and the rational one at that.

Sage stared at her with an open mouth for a moment before shutting her it into a tight frown and settling back into the bed but never relaxing.

"Sage," Jasmine started carefully, "how long have you had a compos vinculum bond?"

"A what?"

"Compos Vinculum," Grace breathed out, drawing her own conclusions, "or a shared bond, commonly known as a twin bond."

Shock formed over Sage's face, "A twin bond? I don't have a twin bond, there's no way. I would have known." She could hardly keep the self-righteousness from her voice.

"You do Sage. We saw it, it's the only rational explanation," Willow spoke up, finally. She watched her friend become more and more confused until something snapped.

"So if I wasn't hit with an unforgivable myself, that means..." Sage had trailed off, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

Her eyes had glossed over and her hands were now full on shaking, instead of just twitching from the after-effects of the curse. Leah, who had surprisingly still said nothing, grabbed Sage's cold hands into her warm ones.

"Sage, this twin bond is a curse and a blessing. It rarely ever forms and only in pureblood families. What studies know is: you can send messages mentally, like talking in your heads, you can feel each other's extreme pain, which will soften the blow on the other twin, and you can sense other extreme emotions. There are ways to temporarily block it, and we can help you learn. These things are truly a blessing," Jasmine said, thinking back on her research.

"What's the curse?" Grace asked.

"Curse? Grace, we went over this, it was the cruciatus," Jasmine sighed softly, trying not to let the annoyance through.

"Not the curse Theo was hit with! I'm not a dumb bint that way everyone believes, you know? You said it's a blessing and a curse, what's the curse?"

Jasmine looked stunned and opened and closed her mouth in a very unladylike manner.

"When, and Merlin forbid anytime soon, one of them dies, the other- they'll feel it," Willow whispered, not making eye contact with Sage. "Like a deep hole inside of them that will never be able to be fixed or filled. It's also extremely painful to the twin and can cause death to them, just from the pain alone."