Chapter 54. Silent Reunion
After her training session with the new temporary Falcrest trainer, the eldest raven harpy sister had flown back up to the castle. Her wings were sure and strong, but they still ached from the workout Kaelen had caused and the maneuvering she had had to do to evade him and his moves. Although she had not always been successful in that.
Some cuts on the back of her wrist and on her shoulder showed that.
They weren't deep. Papercuts at best and barely noticeable, but they needed to be treated, and with the sweat feeling sticky against her scalp... the only place in her mind right now was the royal raven baths. She could almost feel the steam calling out to her.
A few weeks ago, Seraphina had said some awful things to her younger sister... twins or not, Sephora would always be her baby sister. Even if by just a few minutes. Those things had been horrible, and they were not warranted. While yes, the future weight of the Raven Kingdom's crown cast a heavy shadow onto Seraphina... her little sister Sephora was always disregarded, and she couldn't imagine how this felt.
Since that day, she had felt a strange rift between her twin.
Even when Sephora hadn't returned that day and had been absent for the very first day... a pit of concern had manifested in her stomach and grown into days of worry.
That was until she had met Sephora at breakfast one morning. Chatting away to Donivan the Chef and eating what looked like savory pancakes... taking one sniff of the air, Seraphina corrected herself, "Boar bacon omelets," she nodded.
They did smell delicious...
At the very thought, her stomach growled betraying her. Revealing that she was there.
In truth, Seraphina, while relieved to see that her sister was okay, having not seen her for days and having worried herself ill, had nightmares of awful things happening to her. The entire time her sister was here, and fine. Just as flakey as ever.
Nothing had ever been wrong.
Torn in two halves: wanting to tell her little sister off for worrying her so much and rushing over to give her a hug and telling her she missed her... so Seraphina did neither.
"This smells amazing, Donivan. Can I have some too?" As if to illustrate her point, the elder princesses stomach growled again.
....
Chapter 54. Sisterly Reunion
After her training session with the new temporary Falcrest trainer, the eldest raven harpy sister had flown back up to the castle. Her wings were sure and strong, but they ached from the workout Kaelen had put her through — and from the constant maneuvering she had been forced to do to evade his strikes. She had not always been successful.
A shallow cut traced the back of her wrist, another grazed her shoulder. Paper-thin and harmless, yes, but reminders nonetheless. And with sweat drying against her scalp, tangling into her hair, there was only one place she wanted to be: the royal baths.
By the time she slipped beneath the steam and heat of the pools, the ache in her muscles softened into something almost luxurious. The water lapped against her collarbones, the scented oils rich in the air, while she worked her hands through her wings, smoothing wax down the length of her primaries, careful, precise. The ritual calmed her, as it always had.
But her thoughts were not calm. They drifted, unbidden, to her sister.
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A few weeks earlier, Seraphina had spoken harshly — too harshly.
Twins or not, Sephora was still her baby sister, even if only by minutes. The words she had flung in the heat of frustration had been ugly and undeserved. She knew it back then, minutes after the original disagreement had happened. She had known it the moment they left her tongue. Her sister, firey as ever, stormed off in her own little world before she could process her feelings and words... before she could say sorry.
Thinking back... back then, it was pride that had kept her silent at first.
She remembered the gnawing guilt that settled in her stomach when Sephora did not return that evening for the first foreign bachelors dinner, with both kings, queens and princes in attendance all from foreign lands. It had been long ago organised, and painstakingly orchustrated and planned by their mother, none other that Queen Nox herself... even with the unexpected guests from the peacock clan.
It was really, really odd that Sephora had just not attended.
Had she really been so angry at her?
At first she though not. How could that be the case? They had fought over worse in the past and harsher words had been exchanged... at least that's how the eldest twin considered it to have been.
Then, it was a while before she saw her sister.
One day turned into two.
Then three.
By the fourth, Seraphina was plagued with restless sleep, nightmares where she searched cliff ledges only to find feathers, blood, emptiness. Sometimes, in these dreams, she'd find the carcass of her long-dead sister, in various stages of decomposition and sometimes eaten. Sometimes there were monsters lurking about her sister's body that she had to fight off in these nightmares. Where she would bring her body home, and there would be a grand funeral where all would weep and mourn their princess, the Queen, and the public would dress in white for days.
She was afraid... it had been so long since she had seen her sister. Never mind not speaking to her because she was still angry or upset at her for saying the wrong thing in a fit of annoyance. This was normal for siblings, or at least the Velwraithe twins, Vorian and Vexanna had said it was, Sylen's nephew and niece - the son and daughter heirs of the Velwraithe high noble house. Vexanna during a training session with Sylen had even confirmed it and reassured her that while she gets super irritated by her brother all the time and he gets irritated with her too... they always end up coming back and talking to each other. In short, twins? Siblings? They would always make up eventually.
Each morning, she awoke with her heart pounding and her bedclothes damp with cold sweat. Sometimes her eyes would be red and her face puffed from crying in her sleep.
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Then—suddenly, after a good few days—Sephora was back.
It had been at breakfast. Seraphina had rounded the corner of the great hall, half-tempted to seek Donivan and beg him for strong tea, when she heard laughter. Her laughter.
There Sephora sat, perched casually at the edge of the long table, chatting with Donivan the chef as though the last days had been nothing. A plate before her, piled with something golden and steaming. Seraphina's nose caught the scent first, and her mind named it before her tongue did... savory pancakes? Hrmm... no that didn't quite seem right. One further time the stiffed the scent in the air.
"Boar bacon omelets," she'd muttered under her breath as her mouth betrayed her ginning to drool, surprised at the pang of hunger.
At that very moment, her stomach betrayed her with a growl, loud enough that both Sephora and the friendly chef Donivan turned to look to see, whos belly beast hand made such a loud grumble. The Chef couldn't help a guttural laugh. After all, such a reaction to his cooking could only be taken as a huge compliment.
The eldest princess's face had gone beetroot red.
Even with the jovial atmosphere, Sephora's icy eyes flicked up, pale blue and glinting like frost, and for just a heartbeat, Seraphina saw it: her twin, alive, present, fine. Relief hit her like a tide.
The nightmares evaporated, leaving only the solid truth — her sister was here. Whole. Untouched.
Right now, Seraphina was frozen in place; torn between two immediate reactions... or better yet, impulses. One, was to stride forward and demand why Sephora had vanished for days without a word, why she had made her worry so, why she always had to behave so carelessly. The other, to rush to her and wrap her in a fierce embrace, confessing how deeply she had missed her, how fear had gnawed her hollow for days and nights like a haunting specter... a haunting suspicion that something very, truly awful had happened to her sister. To the younger princess.
In the end, the reaction that won out? Meant that Seraphina did neither.
Instead, she let the belly beast growl its ancient request for food once more, letting that hunger speak for itself. I mean, it's not like she had a choice in it. She forced a smile with her face beginning to go red again, stepped closer, and said lightly, "This smells amazing, Donivan. Can I have some too?"
As though to punctuate the thought, her stomach growled again.
As Sephora had tilted her head up to look at her older sister, a faint but small smile touched her lips — whether in amusement, mischief, or pity, Seraphina couldn't tell. Still, there was something behind her eyes that Seraphina no longer understood.
It worried her, for there had never been a point that she didn't understand.
Joining her sister for breakfast that morning, there was a strange small talk of nothing of real importance. Seraphina tried to tell her sister about all of the foreign harpies she had missed, but at this, Sephora seemed to be in an even further and more distant place than when she had begun to try.
After this, a rift seemed to grow between the twins. A silent ache of unknowing, of something unshared, and it drove Seraphina mad not to know what it was. Outright asking her was too insensitive, wasn't it?
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Resurfacing in the water of the royal baths, Seraphina was out of her reverie from a few weeks ago. Now, she was back in the present, with that luxurious steam curling around her face, Seraphina sighed.
Her chest rose and fell as if she could expel the weight through breath alone.
She regretted her silence.
She regretted her pride.
She worked wax along another row of feathers, slow and deliberate, but the water around her seemed to whisper the same truth she had been avoiding:
The rift between her and Sephora was widening, and Seraphina wasn't exactly letting it - she just had no idea how to even begin to fix things between them.
"You should apologies to her," She muttered to her own reflection in the bath... "This all could have been avoided if you hadn't been so prideful that day. If you had been understanding and hadn't said such horrible things to your baby sister."
The warmth of the water felt good against her hands, and the ringing pang from the training began to ease up. It didn't last too long. Her small cuts had already begun to heal. They were only slight papercuts that barely went skin deep. Reminders that she could do better. Next time Kaelen Falcrest was her step-in sword master for the day, she'd be ready for him.
Pressing her strong raven wings closes, Seraphina and sank deeper into the pool until the heat swallowed her ears, and her hair floated around her parchment pale face like black ink. For a moment, she imagined she was a hatchling again, floating in the small spring pool their nursemaids had once set up and taken them to.
Little Sephora had clung to her hand then, small fingers gripping tight.
Now, Sephora was slipping further and further away. She wasn't holding on now, her grip was gone..
...and Seraphina did not know how to get her back, or get her to hold on again.