The Twenty Virtues Book 1- The Twenty Generals

36-The Greatest

The story of Lord V'huluver begins with the birth of two children, twins in fact, V'huluver and V'hatred. They came from a middle-class family, loving parents, lived in a safe neighborhood, two healthy boys who had many things others would kill to have. A chance for peace, a chance for a future—two extremely lucky children.

The beginning of this story is happy, simple—in other words, not of much importance. The two were treated equally, a perfect balance; they were twins, so what would you expect? Easily mistaken for one another. Like an entity with a split personality. The biggest differences began when the two were very young.

V'hatred loved music and instruments, tirelessly trying to play them. Their parents were extremely impressed and, being supportive as they were, decided to pay for private lessons for their son... for their sons. They couldn't leave V'huluver out, even though the boy had never expressed any interest in music, he was forced to follow in his brother's footsteps.

Unlike V'hatred, V'huluver had no talent for instruments. It wasn't that he was a disaster, but when compared to his brother, the difference was like night and day. Both carried the same energy, but it's a fact that one shone brighter than the other. Did you know the sun is a star? Interesting, isn't it? All stars are consecutive explosions, but from afar, they're just points of light. It's funny how everything that shines has a different energy source—lamps are electricity, stars are explosions, and so on. There are so many materials that produce light, and even though each one is so different from the other, they're all still received as light by us.

The twins played together, but V'hatred dominated the entire show, and he didn't hold back from rubbing it in his brother's face, who always claimed not to mind, but deep down, he harbored the seed of a strange feeling. V'huluver found his brother's playing incredible, he wanted to someday play like that, but no matter how hard he tried, everyone always talked about how magnificent V'hatred's performance was and how his brother was light-years ahead. And no matter how hard he ran, he would never catch up, so he only had one option: to wish for his brother to stumble so that he would stop being so far ahead.

Again, it wasn't that V'huluver was bad; people liked his playing, but they loved V'hatred's. They were genuinely sun and moon—the sun shone with grace and power while the moon could do nothing but try to borrow some of the sun's light. His seed fed off his brother's light; the more his brother shone, the more that feeling grew, and the more it felt like it was going to burn him. It didn't take long for him to understand that the feeling consuming his heart was envy, which had started as admiration, as it often does, but had gradually become distorted.

V'huluver enjoyed drawing in his spare time; it helped him escape from his little competition, allowing him to enter a world where everything was under his control—who was on top and who was at the bottom. Sometimes he couldn't help but draw himself defeating his brother, becoming angry at how his brother never rested, never stumbled, always having a guitar in hand. V'huluver would never be able to catch up. He grew so anxious and pressured by that rivalry that it reached a point where he would always end up breaking the string in his hand.

The two grew up with this competition, and it's no surprise that they grew apart. V'huluver threw parties in his teenage years, always intending to make his brother take a break, to slip up and forget about the guitar. How could he change his goal, even in adolescence? V'hatred always managed to win every talent show, his handling of the guitar was impeccable, with each note played, a sunbeam emerged from his movements—a true rising star. And everyone could only talk about the mysterious and quiet brother of V'huluver, talented but shy and humble, never wanting to be in the spotlight unless it was on stage.

Humble... V'huluver despised that word, especially when it was directed at his brother, the talented one who always rubbed his gift in the other's face, always looked down on him. He was absolutely sure, even without ever confirming or asking.