𝐎𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐀 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 [𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐝]

⟹ 𝐢. 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

For as long as she can remember, Jet has shared a bed with her little sister. It had never been discussed or contested. From the moment Lenore was old enough to be out of her crib, she slept next to her big sister.

Nobody batted an eye, really, because despite the age gap of four years, the sisters moved almost like twins. They used to do everything together, went to the same schools, got the same teachers.

They could even be mistaken for twins, with their matching dark hair and round, girlish faces. The only noticeable difference is Leni's blue eyes in comparison to Jet's dark brown ones.

However, even as they grew up, even as the differences between them grew more pronounced and Jet began to fry her hair with bleach (at first it had been a dare, but then she had grown to like how it looked) which further distinguished their appearance from each other, they continued to share a bed.

It's one of those things that just is.

Like the way Jet can pinpoint someone's exact mood and temperament, or the way Leni always knows if it's going to rain.

The practice was partly for practical reasons. It helped with their sleep talking—somehow, whenever one of them starts talking in their sleep, the other wakes up and puts a stop to whatever words are being mumbled in that hazy, subconscious state.

—Stopping the sleep talker is important, for whatever they utter in their dreams, in this state of in-between, might be made manifest in the real world. The girls had almost a sixth sense for each other in these moments.

Admittedly, this made sleepovers awkward; Jet's peers didn't always want to hang out with a younger girl, and without Leni to put a stop to the sleep talking, it's difficult to explain why sometimes the group having the sleepover would wake up covered in chicken feathers (Jet had a phase of dreaming about flying, specifically flying with wings, and her childlike magic manifested that into different sorts of feathers.)

Jet took matters into her own hands; she simply stopped going to sleepovers where Leni isn't welcome.

Their sleeping habits only strengthened during the death of their parents, an unfortunate car crash that left them orphaned. Sent off to live with their eccentric aunts in a small town in Massachusetts where everything is new and baffling, the girls found solace with each other.

Unfortunately, their small haven only lasted so long. At eighteen, Jet got accepted into a university in the city, with a scholarship offer that was too good to pass up. And so she packed her bags, armed with a citrine crystal and a sleeping concoction of chamomile and a secret ingredient Leni refused to name in order to make sure Jet sleeps deeply.

Without sleep talking.

It was difficult, being so far from each other, but Jet was diligent, always, always telling Leni where she is, so that in case something happens to her, there would be a trail to track. Leni, for her part, lit Jet's favorite candle every night, the one that smells of cinnamon and amber, and mutters a few words of safety for her older sister.