Hatted (On Hold)

Now Brotherhood

Now brotherhood. The two brothers were twins. A dead ringer for the other. If one called the other ugly, it would almost feel like he was mindlessly insulting himself. No one could ever tell them apart. So they called them each the same name, Twiddle. Twiddle and Twiddle - along with another baby boy who might've been named Twiddle too. They were supposed to be triplets. Their unknowing pregnant mother had gone to visit the old woman by the creek, hoping to get tea leaves for a tea party, but got a reading to go along with it.

She was quite surprised. The old woman by the creek stood up and told the mother to "Be careful, young woman" Here, she - the old woman by the creek - was telling her to be careful when the old woman looked like she could pass away any minute. The mother was extremely appalled. She was barely a woman when she had just turned twenty, how could she be a mother?

Thus, she consulted all the wise and believed to be magical ones in the kingdom. And everything they said mirrored the others. Triplets, expected no more than eight months. It was absurd. For a child to come out in less than nine moons was already strange enough, but for a twin devouring the other was stranger. The third Twiddle had eaten the first Twiddle. They had found out when the last adviser told them twins were coming out. Were mine ears deceiving me?

But no. He meaned well. They really were twins now.

The mother went home, still wondering if there ever was three brothers to begin with. 'I could always go to another one tomorrow. Make sure that there are indeed two of them.' She fixed herself dinner and went to sleep with a full stomach. But eight months had passed without anyone counting them, so when the mother woke up again, her water sac had broken. And she was giving birth.

With no one to accompany her, she died of blood loss. The old woman by the creek saw. The old woman was watching this whole time. The old woman got a blade, cut open the mother's stomach, and took off into the night with the two twins. They wailed and kicked. They had a feeling this wasn't their mother.