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"Earth weary twin, don't let me in,
I'm afraid I'm ablaze with the people I've been"
*
Aubrey thought it was her, at first. She thought, maybe, that the crystal's images still projected themselves on the world around her, that she still saw in kaleidoscopes, and that that's what made it feel so wrong. Surely, surely it was her.
Surely, nothing grave enough coud have happened to affect Edmund's walk this way, to make his usually light footsteps shy on the wooden floor of the place they called home, to make his graceful posture scared of every noise. Surely, she was imagining things when she looked into his eyes and saw no spark in them. Surely, there was a reason his side remained without a sword. Surely, there was a reason he felt so different.
But when she saw Ethan stumble in, the first night she got back, a bit drunk, smiling, boyish smile on tired features, still at ease in a swimming world, she had to admit it.
It wasn't her.
And it wasn't Edmund.
Aubrey used to pride herself in her ability to tell the twins apart. A slight limp, a mole, a chipped tooth, a broken nail, one winking eye over another. A dog's favour.
Each mission, each tiny scar added a stitch to the intricate tapestry of the Hitchcock twins, and she enjoyed knowing it by heart. Of course, after Train Day, well. The bandage across Ethan's neck made it easy.
But there was still a thrill, when the sun had set and shadows danced on everyone's throats. A little game to play. Here, the way he grips his glass, the way he puts it back down - that's Ethan. This bright burst of laughter ? Edmund. They shone in each other's differences, and Aubrey was a light source.
After Memoriam College -
Well. After Memoriam College, there was no wondering. There was a door, and the door had two sides, and each side had a twin. One was falling apart. One had already fallen.
The shadows on Aubrey's throat felt menacing.
Hitchcock was sleeping in the main room. Hitchcock, because Aubrey could never really tell the twins apart when they were sleeping - something about faces and attitudes melting into each other. Something about youth. Something about ranks.
Hitchcock opened his eyes, sat up, and the slope of his shoulders gave him a name.
"Hey, Edmund."
Edmund's voice, rough from sleep, replied under a small smile :
"Hi Aubrey. Working on something fun ?"
Aubrey glanced down at the powders and vials spread on the table.
"I'm not sure yet. Slept well ?"
He shrugged.
"Does anyone, these days ?"
Aubrey grimaced. The house, the dining room, the table, Samot flashed before her eyes.
"It's funny," she said, eager to change the subject, "I can't tell you apart from Ethan when you're sleeping."
Edmund's smile turned bitter.
"Ha. Yeah. Even when I'm sleeping, can't get rid of him."
He swiped a thin hand across his face, and Aubrey saw his edges melt away more and more as he pulled himself from sleep. Silence stretched and she went back to her tubes.
"You know," Edmund started, eyes lost somewhere, "Ethan is the oldest. He got me to join the cavalry." There was a long pause - Aubrey didn't know if she was supposed to talk. "He always liked horses. He liked tangerines, too." He sounded almost defeated.
"He doesn't anymore ?"
There was another pause.
"I… well. We don't get tangerines anymore."
He left the sentence and the room alone, and Aubrey only had herself to ask what he had meant.
Hitchcock was dreaming. Hitchcock, because he could never really tell who he was when he dreamt - something about hands in jagged brush strokes melting down the painting. Something about hopes. Something about horses.
He couldn't tell where he was, or why he was, caught up between the sword held to his throat and his broken ribs and the difference between those two things. He heard in the distance laughter and children and clashing steel and, closer, inside his ears, the name Carolyn - unless it was Caroline ? - and the words sister and villain and twins. He was warm and he couldn't tell where the heat came from - the horse, his hands, the blood, the dark.
The hands tore down the painting. Edmund woke up.
"Hey, Edmund."
Aubrey was sat at the dining table, surrounded by vials and pots and tubes and other intricate arrangements of metal and glass, an eerie light reflecting on her scales. She was looking right at him.
"Hi Aubrey. Working on something fun ?"
Aubrey glanced down at her work with narrowed eyes.
"I'm not sure yet. Slept well ?"
Edmund thought of the images slipping away from him with each second, the fever and the confusion. The hands tearing down the painting - or was it a map ? He shrugged.
"Does anyone, these days ?"
Aubrey grimaced. The scales under her eyes were dull and cracked like barren land. Her hands were slightly shaking on her vials. Her eyes unfocused for a second.
"It's funny," she said, swiftly changing the subject, "I can't tell you apart from Ethan when you're sleeping."
Edmund's smile turned bitter. He had the words right there, lodged in his throat, painful : "me neither." He didn't dare say them.
"Ha. Yeah. Even when I'm sleeping, can't get rid of him."
He swiped a thin hand across his face, and felt himself be more and more defined. Horribly, permanently, tragically different.
"You know," Edmund started, eyes lost on something that looked like the past, "Ethan is the oldest. He got me to join the cavalry." He paused. He tried to find other details, however minuscule, that would prove that this - this unfamiliarity , had always been there. That this individuality wasn't new. "He always liked horses. He liked tangerines, too." His mouth stayed open after that sentence, tongue still hanging on the idea of more words, but he had nothing else to say. This is what he had to hang on to - minutes, horses, and citrus.
"He doesn't anymore ?"
There was another pause.
"I… well. We don't get tangerines anymore."
He didn't know.
With those words, he got up, and went back to the room he'd spent so long in. Because it was familiar, and because it didn't hurt.
The door felt like it had learned the shape of his spine. The door knew him, now. An oddity.
Edmund didn't mean to be maudlin - no, really. He knew he had a penchant for the dramatic and the theatrical, which some might attribute to his fondness of dancing, while some would recognise as an inevitable consequence of constant performing. But no one cares much to analyse the attitude of the eccentric.
Edmund didn't mean to be maudlin, truly, but there was a distinct sense of tragedy clawing at his chest, and he couldn't quite make it make sense anymore. The facts were that the door knew him, and that he didn't know himself, because all he knew was his brother, and he wasn't his brother anymore.
Maybe he was mourning. Not himself, he wasn't quite there yet, but mourning still. Mourning the certainty he'd known since ever. Hitchcock, as a character, had always been so confident. Hitchcock, as a role, had always been so evident. But now, solidly Edmund, the man in the mirror didn't feel capable of acting anymore.
The names Carolyn and Caroline still clung to him from the dream. Their identical faces laid on top of each other to form a perfectly matching image, and Edmund felt sick. He remembered his own question - "do you know what the other one's thinking?" - and it tore something in his chest open. He had meant that question.
Because, of course, the Hitchcocks were twins. But they were also just Hitchcock. "It must be really hard being twins, right?" he'd asked, because he had always seen his brother as an extension of himself more than as a separate person. "Do you know what the other one's thinking?" he'd asked, because he knew what his brother was thinking - or at least, used to.
The truth was, he did not know how to be a twin, or at least one of those twins that did not breathe in each other's lungs.
The truth is, he did not know how to be a twin, or at least one of those twins that could betray each other.
Would Ethan ever lie to him?
Oh, God.
Would he ever lie to Ethan?
When Edmund lied to Ethan, he told himself that it was not betrayal, that it was preservation. That if he'd had to lose a part of himself, he could still save it in Ethan. That he was allowed to be selfish.
Ethan had all the edge Edmund had lost : in his boldness, his sword fighting, his smile. His dreams. Oh, Ethan carried naïveté on his sleeve, and Edmund was not going to let it be lost.
Maybe it was resentment, too, because Ethan had lied to him first. Told him that people joined the army because "our God is Alive and He is Great," that medals meant something, that horses were kind. But now Edmund knew that Ethan's God was Dying and Lost, that medals were often fake, that horses were only animals, and he hated knowing it all.
Still, he thought that the lying was fine, because they were still interchangeable in conversations, and because Ethan still hadn't realised.
When Ethan realised, when Ethan left, when Edmund laid dying - Edmund decided to be maudlin for a change. The thought crossed his mind that as Samothes had made Marielda an island, His murder had made Edmund an only child.
In this moment, Edmund understood the difference between islands and continents.
He held his brother's sabre in his hand, and witnessed the end of the world.
After that - well.
There were some lonely days, because there always are, and then there was forgiveness, because nostalgia is the mother of forgetting.
When Edmund knocked on the door of the house and Ethan opened, the matching scars on their necks stared at each other, and the jagged brush strokes killed detail.
The twins were in the same place again and no one cared much to look at them closely. Fading in each other had always been an instinct, and it was one easy to fall back into. There was all the time to talk when gods are dying, and talk they did.
Heaven and death are quite similar, all things considered, and maps always lead somewhere. Sword fighting and dancing are quite similar, as most people know, and someone always ends up hurt. All things die, but before that, all things heal.
The world forgot the Hitchcocks ever each had a name, and thus, so did they.
*
"I know it's ending but I'm on the mend,
oh, unbalanced, triumphant, and trying again"