Sincerely, The Stranger You Call Sister

Year 1: The Taste Of Freedom

"Hello" -Normal speech.

"Hello" -Parseltongue.

'Hello' -Thoughts/Silent telepathic twin-speech.

Hello -Writing.

.......................................................................................

Dear Little Brother,

Freedom tastes like flies in your mouth.

Well, that's what my Grandpa always told me anyways. I made a face when he first bestowed this 'wisdom' onto me when I was six years old, and to this day I still make a face when I remember it. Dear old Grandpa lost one too many marbles in his age...

In any case, while I don't know what freedom tastes like, I reckon it feels like the wind blowing in your hair (-out of your face, that's an important detail-) the leather straps of reins in your hands, and the powerful muscles of a horse beneath you.

My Mum could never completely understand why I loved visiting Auntie Madds's farm so much. Dad was a little bit better, having been raised on that very same farm, but even he liked his visits spaced. No more than thrice a year, one for Easter, one for Thanksgiving, and one for Christmas.

And while I could have certainly done without the chores Auntie Madds would assign Jacob, Nora, and I, we all adored Auntie's horses. She had two of them, both male; a young, hyperactive Morgan horse named Chase, and an older and more gentle Mustang named Adrian due to his strange love of swimming.

(I had laughed so fucking hard when the very first time little Nora rode without anyone holding onto her from either behind or on the sides, she slipped off and landed right into a mud puddle. Nora was not at all amused, and had refused to ride again for the rest of the trip.)

The three of us usually rode with Adrien, him being a gentle soul and all. But as Chase got older and properly broken in, and when my siblings and I proved our competency with horseback riding, Auntie Madds eventually allowed us to ride Chase by ourselves. As we got older Jacob and I would have races, I on Chase and him on Adrien for safety reasons.

Jacob would always accuse me of 'cheating' when I would win because I got the younger, faster horse, while he got the old man of the two. He wasn't entirely wrong.

I miss those times so fucking much. I miss Jacob's pouting and bratty behaviour when he lost, I miss Nora's whining and complaining to stop being selfish and let her have a turn on a horse already. I even miss having to help clean out the horses stalls, believe it or not.

Someday I hope to share the joys of horseback riding with you.

Sincerely,

The Stranger You Call Sister

~xXx~

September 5th, 1938.

"Tom, Tommy, my dear sweet twin," I clasp both his hands between my own, raising them as if in prayer and stare deep into his wary eyes, utterly and completely serious. "I love you to pieces. You are the light in my life. My other half. Truly, I would be lost without you. But I swear, if you don't stop walking on fucking eggshells around me, and keep treating me as if I'm about to shatter like a shite piece of glass, I will fucking shove my pencil so far up your nose you'll be seeing wood for weeks."

I didn't notice it all that much on the first day, being so stuck in my own head at the time, but since then I can see how Tom is so fucking hesitant around me. Watching me like a hawk, never more than a solid foot away from me, always choosing his words with the upmost care -especially if the conversation is somehow linked to our blasted, bloody ancestry- and overall treating me like a ticking bomb about to blow up in his face any second now.