Molasses, With Rainbow Sprinkles and Hot Fudge.
Author: Gigi.
Title: Their Saviour.
Challenge: Molasses #1: Survival of the Fittest, Rainbow Sprinkles, Hot Fudge.
Rating: G.
Word Count: 600
Summary: They were joined at the hip, always had been and always would be.
A/N: I want to introduce to you the Liang twins. Their personalities are meant to be similar, but at the same time, distinct in a way. I wonder if I’ve managed to convey that. Rainbow Sprinkles because they are secondary characters, Hot Fudge because they are possibly the closest things to villains you will get within the circus.
When they were born in their tiny village in the south of Siam, China, they were looked upon with equal parts revulsion and interest. Some said that they were a miracle, others said a curse. Some said that it was a punishment, others a sign. Everyone agreed, though, on one thing: a freak of nature.
Freak. The world followed them like a bad aftertaste. It hung in the air around them, stuck to them like flypaper, and they struggled upon it endlessly.
It was only by chance that they lived. There was an incredibly high chance of them dying at birth, but they overcame that. They were strong. They strived. “We did, Tsai-Wu. We are strong.” Others like them had been born before them, and they were sure that many were afterwards: but most died. They lived, though. “We were always meant to live, sister.”
Thanks to Thibault.
“We owe him our lives, Fen-Yung.”
“I know that just as well as you do.”
The Cirque de la Soie had been travelling Asia at the time. It just so happened that they stopped in the open fields close to the tiny village they were born in for a two-month practice period before migrating back towards Russia and Europe. In their village, such a strange birth had never before been witnessed, and they were going to be drowned. Put down like animals.
“Tsai-Wu. You always get so angry.”
“I can’t help it, Fen-Yung.”
“I know you can’t, but let go of the ornament.”
But Thibault saved them. Thibault Bouteiller, their single saviour, the one person that they could rely on. As nothing but babies he had taken them under his wing, raised them, taught them, housed them and clothed them. The finest tailors, wherever they went, made them all kinds of beautiful clothes out of the finest silks. Tailored especially to fit them.
Two people sharing a single body.
Two heads, four arms, two torsos. That was all fine for a set of twins. But then it went wrong. The pelvic bone didn’t fully separate, they had a single malformed liver between the two of them, and two legs-three, if the shrivelled limb hidden under their dress could be counted at all. One digestive system. One reproductive system. As if they would ever have a family.
Thibault. They loved him. Everybody loved him. The whole circus was under his spell. Even though they saw backstage, even though they saw how the illusions and tricks worked, even though they saw the fearsome lion yawning and smacking its gums in its cage and the towering elephants lifting up children with its trunk in play, even though they saw all of this... he just brought that little bit of magic into it. With his glimmering top hat and jaunty grin, with that way of talking that made you immediately feel like you were in on a secret.
“He’s getting old, Tsai-Wu. He won’t be ringmaster much longer.”
“Hush, sister!” The one that had always been referred to as the ‘second’ twin, the smaller one, Tsai-Wu, snapped her head around to look at her sister. They spoke in their native language, which so happened to be French. As Thibault had taught them. “You must not say such things. You know that there is trouble brewing already about who is to be the next ringmaster...”
Fen-Yung exhaled hard. Her sister sighed in response, a little more softly. They had their own trailer to live in, their own furniture, their own everything. But they never had a moment alone. To them, ‘alone’ meant simply with each other. Thibault understood. He called them each by their own names, never "the twins", and always remembered which one was which. They'd miss him.