Twins
The first twins
Were once just the youngest children.
But that didn't fit.
Siblings do not share a soul.
Nephthysia and Absinthe.
To think, they could have been
Angels.
The first thing they can move, after so many centuries, are their mouths. Lips that form words of comfort. The curse is ending. Son enough, they will be alive again.
The next is hands, able now to clasp each other tightly, though the skin is still cold and the muscles still stiff.
Within a week, they are free of their entrapment. Another four hundred years of mobility, to do with as they will.
They have watched a world crumble, in the last six hundred years. Watched as the crowds that swarm past their statued forms change, slowly, from humans to Otherfolk, from free men to pets. The old cycles are returning, and the slave trade beckons them. What better way to get used to their new found freedom than by taking it away from some other living thing?
Those two served me well for many years
But sometimes it's easier when
Your twins share a gender too.
Sana and Riall
Pale as ice, Insubstantial as snow.
Even to themselves they are as stable
As mist.
No one can ever tell them apart. Even they themselves have trouble remembering who is who. Many times they have awoken thinking the were both Sana, or both Riall. In every way, they are identical. They words, their actions, their very thoughts all match. Looking at them is like watching a woman talk to herself in a mirror.
They are wispy, long limbed, and so very pale. Under bright lights, their skin seems transparent, like you can watch the blood flow through their veins. Hair as white as ice, and clothing made of gauze and snowy down. They seem unreal, and the scent of magic that rolls around them in waves does not help tie them to the waking world.
Once, their mother cut all of one's hair off, and called her Sana. The next morning, Riall's hair had vanished. That was the beginning of their magic.
By now, they have become skilled in the art, and as their spells are always cast twice, they have become strong. Strong enough that they have given themselves a long forgotten skill.
Eyes as cloudy as the mist, but now, finally, they can see.