Sanguinis et Omnium Fractorum//Sebastian Sallow

Of Sparrows and Sunsets

CW: Graphic descriptions of violence and blood.

Friday, 16th September 1892

Anne Sallow was lounged back on the small two-seater settee. Ever the chaotic mirror of her twin, the brunette had opted to throw her legs over the arm of the furniture and now lay with her head in Clara's lap; her copy of Goshawks Guide to Herbology: Year 7 levitated over her face as she turned the pages with lazy flicks of her wand.

The magic was bordering on unnecessary, yet she'd insisted on it. Too long since she'd had the ease of it at her fingertips without tempting the cost of pain, and lately, she'd made every excuse to whip out her wand, even for the most menial of tasks.

A feat she'd taken to with surprising ease given the length of time she'd been out of school. Still, Anne was almost as intelligent as her brother, even more so in some aspects, and aside from most practical demonstrations of magic, she had managed to keep up with most of her written and theoretical coursework over the years she'd been away. Her practical wand work had not been far behind.

Clara shifted under the weight of the woman's head and flipped the page of her own book. Sebastian and Ominis had already departed for History of Magic twenty minutes earlier–a subject neither Clara nor Anne, it seemed, had seen any interest in continuing beyond O.W.L– and Anne had managed to drag Clara from her dormitory for what she had deemed some much-needed girl time. Which, in the end, had turned into Clara trying to catch up on her schoolwork while they devoured a tin of brightly wrapped toffees Anne had kept hidden from the boys.

Anne's book snapped shut and fell with a muffled thud to the ornate rug at their feet. She stretched back, arms reaching behind her head, fingers fumbling toward the tin of sweets resting atop the small black end table on Clara's other side.

It had become so customary for Clara to see the woman hunched and bundled. A shawl, a constant presence over her shoulders, coupled with thick sweaters even in the hottest dregs of summer. And that ever-present careful curl of her spine, the near continuous, almost unconscious guarding of her abdomen.

To see her now– stretched out like a cat, her abdomen fully extended and cheeks flushed with the strained exertion of fumbling for the tin of sweets at such an awkward angle.

Clara watched and waited for the twinge.

Too much of a habit to monitor for the indicative hints of her discomfort.

But, as had been the case for several days, the pain never came. After a moment, Anne's body slumped down, arms falling to her sides, and she caught Clara's eye with a single raised eyebrow and a half-smile quirking at the corner of her lip.

The right side. Sebastian's was always on the left.

"I know; I keep waiting for it too."

"What?" Clara feigned ignorance and dropped the box of sweets into the brunette's lap.

"The curse." Anne pressed. "You're still looking at me like Sebbie used to...or still does sometimes.

But it's gone. I can feel it. Or rather, I can't feel it anymore."

Clara frowned. " I don't...is everything...has it all just been settled between you two then?"

The whiplash had been so severe she'd half expected to wake up one day and find things thrown back to the way they'd been only days before. To find Anne back at home curled beneath the weight of the curse and Sebastian's name, a taboo that danced on delicate threads in the shadows of their conversations.