Orange Brother, Blue Sister

I'd never known a brother and sister so different. Ilmi was like fire, a wild child who demanded attention and gave no heed to his mother or father's words. Kahina was calm, a keen listener if ever there was one in that family, she heeded her parent's counsel where her brother never would. Like fire and water, those two.

I never thought about how literal that would one day become, that the boy would have an affinity for fire magic and the girl an affinity for water magic. That he would manipulate Earth where she manipulated Air, her Ice to his Magma. And their tastes in color since childhood almost a foreshadowing of these powers... The boy always loved warm colors, all orange and red and brown and yellow to her cool tones of turquoise and azure, violet and navy blue.

Even their styles of magic beyond the elements proved opposites. The boy hated the poetic arts, having no skill in the recitations required in most spell-craft so he had taken to magic that required no words of any kind yet his sister was a bard born, so gifted was she in devising poems for spell-craft that her magic had begun to surpass even the greatest of sages by the time she was fifteen, her brother growing so strong in magics bereft of poetry that he had proved stronger than the strongest of sorcery warriors at the same tender young age.

Opposites they were in every single way and that is why I show no surprise now as they rush toward one another with killer intent. For I fear this was always fated... Perhaps by God if he exists or by Fate if it can exist without him, but here we are now by whatever means and I watch as my beloved nephew and his own beloved sister fight their final battle against one another. These two opposite forces born of the same womb. Like fire and water, like magma and ice, like earth and air, like night and day.