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The situation is this: a mission has gone awry and they are surrounded by gun-wielding pursuers with no clear way out.
The wind clips harshly against Lyney’s face, and for the first time in a while, he doesn’t need to look at Lynette’s ears and tail to surmise her emotions. Her expression alone speaks volumes; eyes wide with fear and her bottom lip quivering.
There can be no doubt about it—they’ve been betrayed.
Somebody, Lyney doesn’t care to ponder on the semantics, had been planted in and amongst the Hotel and exposed Lynette’s movements. They’d listened in, or perhaps they’d wielded an adept silver-tongue and coaxed the information out of hiding before passing it on to their opposition. After that, all that was left to do was lay and wait for the agent and then spring into action. But they’d been cocky. They’d heard that a child with a vision would be sent, zeroing in on ‘child’ and entirely ignoring the aforementioned ‘vision’.
To underestimate his sister like that was their fatal flaw but served as Lyney and Lynette’s one opportunity to escape, which is how they found themselves at a cliff’s edge where a single motion sends a scatter of pebbles tumbling to the ground below. It's oddly reminiscent of how they found themselves in this situation in the first place, except this time there is no water for Lyney to take the brunt of.
In the past, when he and Lynette jumped off that cliff and into the water below, Lyney had curled around her and positioned himself to take the impact head-on and thought to himself: it doesn’t matter if I die here—so long as you’re safe.
Of course, the preferable option would be survival (he wasn’t suicidal, but what else could this kind of sacrifice be called?). The fall was quick and before he knew it, Lyney's back hit the water and it was as though he’d touched down on hard cement. His consciousness jerked violently and as spots of black coloured his vision he'd hoped, god, he'd prayed that Lynette would be alright.
Waking up is a shock in itself.
Blinking his eyelids is a stiff and uncomfortable affair, but the dark room makes it easier. It’s quiet, the bed beneath Lyney is comfortably soft and before his eyes adjust to the lack of light he wonders if this is what death is like. Dark, warm and a little groggy.
“Stupid.”
His sister’s voice. All of a sudden Lyney is not so impartial to the idea of being dead.
He turns his head to face the voice and winces at the ensuing ache, but whilst it sounds like Lynette, he has to see to believe. And there she is. Her eyes are still the same shade of violet as his, but the sclera of them is pink and raw at the corners. What a terrible brother he is, making his poor sister cry. He opens his mouth to speak, but his throat is painfully rough and Lynette beats him to it.
“When you decided to do that,” she spits the word out like it’s dirt, “did you take a moment to think about how I would feel if you had died?”
He pauses. For the briefest moments, yes.
She would return to the rendezvous point whilst his unconscious body drifted to the bottom of the ocean, and she’d cry, likely be inconsolable, but she’d be safe and it would’ve been thanks to him. He’d already failed to protect her once, sitting idly by and waiting naively for her return all the while some terrible man watched her with hungry eyes. But where Lyney had fallen short, Father filled in for him with all the grace of an angel and the deadly precision of a murderer. So to put it simply, he couldn’t— wouldn’t— fail her like that again.
There are no words exchanged, but the look on Lyney's face does all the talking for him because something in Lynette’s expression hardens and she lets out a noise not quite dissimilar to a hiss. “Alright, how about this,” she says. “What if I died?”
“No!” yells Lyney, though it’s less of a shout and more of a hoarse cry. Lynette dying—that isn’t an idea he could even consider entertaining. And then Lyney realises with a sudden clarity that oh. How stupid of him.
The angry curve of Lynette’s brows gentles into something sadder and she lays her head on the bed. The moment that thought clicked, Lyney began to see things he hadn’t before in the darkness: the books that are stacked around his bedside, paper and an accompanying pen with its cap laying askew, the ash blonde fur strewn here and there on the duvet covering him. Lyney has no doubt in mind that Lynette hadn’t left him, not once.
But that begs the question.
“How?” he asks. How am I alive?
And then, she smiles at him. “Open your hand,” orders Lynette.
Without complaint or further questions, he does as she asks. She unclasps something on her person, cupping it secretively in both of her hands before bestowing it upon his waiting palm. It’s warm on Lyney’s skin and smooth to the touch, thrumming with energy and a loosely fettered power, and when Lynette finally lifts her hands Lyney is met with the most astonishing sight. A Vision.
He stares at the jewel in shock. The idea of a Vision was one they had abandoned a long time ago. A childish hope that the heavens would take pity upon two poor, destitute orphans and bestow upon them their blessing. A Vision would’ve saved them back then, Lyney had firmly believed, but with a bitter finality he had eventually concluded that the heavens would not open up for them and that childish dream had to be cast aside in the face of reality, cold and harsh. But in the face of crisis, fate has finally moved in their favour.
“Lynette,” whispers Lyney, astonished and amazed.
She rests one hand back over her Vision, pressing it between them. Her hopes and dreams solidified, their bond well and truly cemented as she allows Lyney to hold the raw manifestation of her soul in his bare palm, such trust not unfounded and yet Lyney can’t help but think he is undeserving. He would spend the rest of his life repenting for that night, for as long as Lynette will let him, he will be his sister’s shield and defend her from all things terrible and wrong.
But the Vision that now rests between them changes things.
“You don’t need to worry about protecting me anymore,” whispers Lynette, like it’s a secret just for them. But more so, she speaks like it’s a promise. Lyney’s throat is clogged with emotion (awe, wonder, nerve, fear), he can do nothing but nod.
The truth is this: Lynette doesn’t need him to stand guard for her anymore, but old habits die hard.
The night Father saved them something had changed within Lynette. Something ever so slight, but Lyney could hardly call himself her twin if he didn’t notice; she didn’t smile as much. That in itself would be concerning, but then she wasn’t crying as much either. Her face wouldn’t scrunch up angrily when she was irritated and her habit of edging closer to grasp onto his sleeve when she was afraid came to an eventual halt. Slowly but surely, a veil of indifference had begun to fall upon her and Lyney didn't— and still doesn’t—know how to stop it.
His one saving grace is this: her ears and tail. When Lynette is upset her face may look unphased but her ears lay flat against her head and her tail hangs low. When she is in a good mood, her ears are perked forwards and her tail is raised high. Sometimes she might make a noise to the effect of a purr and blink at him slowly (this is Lyney’s favourite). But these become few and far between, because against all odds, the impossible happens.
She is no longer by his side.
Idiotic. Unbelievable. Completely preposterous! Since they'd been conceived, Lyney and Lynette have been pressed up against each other like two halves of a whole, hands intertwined and fates aligned. Where one of them goes the other is sure to follow because together they are complete and nothing can go wrong. But now, the nightmare that had ruthlessly plagued and pursued Lyney ever since that night has become a reality; he cannot follow.
Initially, the notion made him proud. Of all people, his sister was certainly the most worthy to have drawn the eyes of the heavens and receive their blessing, there was no doubt in Lyney’s mind. It appeared that Father also thought so, her long clawed hand resting not gently but not harshly on Lynette’s shoulder and drawing her aside one night.
“What is it that she wanted to tell you?” asks Lyney when his curiosity gets the better of him.
And Lynette’s stony expression cracks just a fraction of an amount. “My next mission.”
The underlying connotation hangs in the air like a death rattle. My. Not our. Lyney’s face falls and he can’t even muster up the slightest bit of guilt when the tip of Lynette’s tail twitches nervously and her ears flatten as a result, because his emotions are entirely usurped by one feeling: dread .
“What do you mean?” Lyney says, carefully. But no matter how hard he tries he can’t keep the upset inflection out of his voice.
Lynette’s tail flicks from side to side, its fur standing on end. “You know that there are things that Vision wielders can do that normal people can’t,” she mutters, “and people with Visions are already sparse. So Father has given me a mission to test my capabilities.”
And it is really that simple.
Soon enough, he’s bidding Lynette farewell at the door of the Hotel. The early dawn light casts a nostalgic shine on his sister who is draped in a foot soldier's uniform (a long black coat with a furred collar, some trousers, two boots) and it looks wrong. She lingers at the door, Lyney can tell that she wants to say something from the tell-tale flick of her tail and the purse of her lips, but instead she pulls him into a short but tight hug and whispers “See you later” . As much as he wants to, Lyney won’t cosset her, but he will adamantly insist on fixing the lapels of her coat for far longer than necessary and tell her to stay safe. Some of the stiffness in Lynette’s posture melts and she nods, then before he knows it she’s gone.
Lyney doesn’t have much faith in the Hydro Archon of their age—not with her theatrics and melodrama—but it doesn’t stop him from praying for Lynette’s safe return.
He spends the day uncharacteristically quiet. The other children of the Hotel watch him from afar, they’re used to him when he’s all-encompassing and swinging about the place merrily with Lynette not far behind, so his strange silence shadows the Hotel in unease. Little Freminet is the only one to edge near, perching Pers upon the table Lyney had taken to moping at. Without a word, Freminet winds up the gear on its back and then sets it loose to waddle across the table and bump into Lyney, who looks up from where his head has been buried in his arms. Freminet stares at him and Lyney stares back.
“Send him back,” says Freminet, blunt and to the point.
Pers had come to a halt right next to Lyney, so he winds up the gear on its back and Pers waddles in its clickety-clackety tune back over. Freminet winds it up again and the cold metal of Pers’ body nudges Lyney’s arm for a second time, but now when Freminet stares at him (impassive but hopeful) Lyney winds it up without a word and waits patiently for it to skitter back to the other boy. By the time Freminet gets bored enough to trot off elsewhere, Lyney’s nerves now simmer at bay, no longer trying to jump out of his skin.
Still, he finds he can’t sleep that night.
Lynette's return is marked by Father’s arrival. Two days after his sister’s departure, Father arrives at the crack of dawn. She stands in the reception of the Hotel and doesn’t look surprised when she finds Lyney slumped against the stairwell, bleary and tired but alert enough to jolt like a live wire when he notices her.
Keeping dutifully in stride, Lynette is just a couple steps behind Father. Her eyes widen a fraction of an amount when she catches sight of Lyney, a small micro expression but it’s more than enough for him to take notice. He’s sluggish and tired, but he rises to his feet and drags himself across to meet her. Then, hanging in the air like miasma, or a bad omen, the tangy scent of blood. He looks down and the left sleeve of Lynette’s coat is splattered in it. The air leaves his lungs and for a brief moment, the entire world stands still.
“Lyney.”
His sister’s arm is covered in blood.
“Hey, Lyney.”
His sister’s arm is covered in blood and there’s nothing he can do about it.
“Lyney!”
He blinks blurrily and comes back to reality with the sight of Lynette’s uncharacteristically worried face. He’s holding onto the sleeve, there’s a slice going through the fabric and beneath the second layer of Lynette’s undershirt he can see the white of a bandage. Did she have no weapon to defend herself? Of course she didn’t, despite what the uniform may imply she was sent as a spy not a foot soldier. Carrying a weapon, inexperienced as she is, would be more a hindrance than a help.
“Ah, sorry!” he exclaims. “Just went a little empty-brained there. You know, blood has always made me draw a blank, hasn’t it, Lynette! Perhaps it’s a bit of early onset hemophobia?”
(It’s a half truth. In general, Lyney isn’t at all afraid of blood, considering he’s seen his fair share of it. His sister’s blood on the other hand…)
But his enthusiasm never works on Lynette, which is further cemented when her eyebrows pinch with further concern. She’s seen how behind a closed door he goes from an eager grin to an exhausted sigh, so to think his sister will be so easily fooled. How tired he must be to try and use that excuse on her, of all people.
Lynette looks him up and down, takes in the slouch of his posture and the way his eyes are half-lidded with fatigue, then makes her assumptions.
“You need to go to bed,” she states as though it’s a fact.
In her tone it doesn’t sound like an option, so already slightly guilty from trying to divert her attention, he drags his heels up the stairs, throws the covers askew and falls into bed. Lyney is tired, so much so that he can’t even find the energy to drag the covers over his body, so instead he lays still with his eyes shut and waits for sleep to visit him. It dances in the corners of his vision, right there but just out of reach, because something is still nagging at him.
The door creaks open and Lyney knows it’s Lynette from the soft rhythm of her footfalls. She pauses in place, then wanders over to his bedside. The rustling of sheets isn’t loud but in the quiet room it’s deafening. When Lynette finally pulls them up to his shoulders, covering his body in a cocoon of gentle warmth, she whispers a quiet “Goodnight” that he so desperately wants to return, but feeling warm, safe, and with the mysterious weight off his shoulders, sleep finally takes him whole.
To Lyney’s dismay, it is not a one-off experience.
Lynette goes out on more missions, so many that there are times when he goes without seeing her for days, then weeks, and when she returns she is worn thin with sleepy eyes and scrapes on her skin. The times when Lynette is gone out of the Hotel so early that he wakes up to the sight of her empty bed become far too common for his liking and there is one thought in Lyney’s mind: this can’t go on.
She won’t tell him about her missions, only a few basic details that Lyney could surmise for himself just by glancing over the dossiers that sit in the bottom drawer of her bedside table, dressed in manilla folders and kept out of sight. Sometimes, when the light falls on their room just right and their beds are left unmade and messy, Lyney can pretend that Lynette is just downstairs, quietly eating breakfast in a far off corner of their makeshift kitchen and saving a plate for Lyney when he decides to get up.
Nonetheless, Lyney’s disgruntlement comes less from the fact that he himself misses Lynette like a door would miss a handle, but the fact that Lynette despises it just as much. At a glance, she is impassive. Her face is straight and unflinching, she takes orders with no complaint, but her tail lashes in irritation and ears are constantly alert, swivelling and flicking animatedly. Lyney knows this because he is her brother—her other half—and he knows it’s not presumptuous or brazen of him to imagine she feels quite the same.
So naturally, something must change.
With a confidence he doesn’t quite feel, Lyney finds himself rapping his knuckles against the hardwood door of Father’s usually empty office. Then he stands determined outside the large door, dwarfed by everything in its entirety. He’d never truly felt small before, but then again, he doesn’t remember the last time he’d truly been a child. When he and Lynette were scraping the streets for scraps, their survival was ensured by his maturity. It’d initially been faux, the first mask of many he’d slipped on, until one day it wasn’t. The bravado and confidence of a tried and true performer, sharpened with experience, came naturally to him and the eyes that perceived him no longer looked at Lyney like he was a child.
But Father is different. The slanted X shape of her pupils looks past his skin and right down into his core to see something he can’t. Something naive and inexperienced, not fit for tough field work, unlike his sister.
Lyney never had the chance to be a child. Despite that, Father makes him feel like one.
A low rustle in the room, then the sharp clacking of heels growing nearer and louder is the only warning Lyney gets before there comes the tell-tale click of the door’s lock turning, then the click-clack of Father’s heels echoes to somewhere further in the room before she calls out in a voice that betrays no emotion.
“Come in.”
His hand rests on the handle of the door. It’s a test—everything is with Father. Will he pick the wood doll or the wire doll? Will he salivate when the bell rings for tea? Will he open the door of his own volition or leave while he still can? His fist squeezes around the metal and twists.
Father stares out the window of her office which puts her back to him. “Lyney,” she says, nonetheless.
“Father,” he replies in kind. “I want– no, I must ask something of you.”
Perhaps it’s the formality which decorates his tone so sincerely that makes her turn to glance at him, or maybe she’s just bored. “Go on,” she beckons.
“I want a Delusion.”
Father’s lax posture suddenly goes rigid. The low rise of her shoulders are straightened out in a pinch and she stills so quickly that Lyney fears she’ll send him away without a second thought. Was the harsh delivery too much? Should he have eased her into the idea? It didn’t matter, he had done it and would pay the price.
“And why would that be?”
Lyney’s eyes grow as wide as saucers. For a brief moment, all he can do is open and close his mouth in shock like a beached fish gasping for air, but he quickly regains composure. “The missions you’re sending Lynette on, they’re dangerous,” Lyney states. “As her brother, I can’t in my right mind let her do them alone.”
“So your solution to that is a Delusion?”
“...Yes. It is.”
Father is quiet for a period of time. It unnerves Lyney; her still figure, her silent response, it all points towards a negative conclusion for him. But he can see her consideration, feel it hanging tensely in the air. She’s right there, if he pushes just a little harder…
“I know that a Delusion is on par with the might of a Vision, so if I were to have one then accompanying Lynette would be a non-issue, no?”
He phrases it as a proposal, but the reality of the matter is that Lyney is begging. Try as he might to keep the desperation out of his voice, it creeps in and then sticks out like a sore thumb. Father remains silent, regarding the scenery beyond without a hint that she even heard him.
Desperation is such a terrible thing, Lyney thinks. It can be a double edged sword, bringing out the best and worst in a person. Desperation floods his mind then and there, because for as long as he’s known Lynette has been by his side. Perhaps Father saw the entire notion as something envious, Lyney vying for a power that would allow him to keep up with his sister, but that was hardly the case. They are two halves of a whole, one is not complete without the other and Lyney knows this to be true. The thought escapes the confines of his mind, slipping through the gaps and out of his mouth without permission:
“I need my other half back.”
Finally, Father turns to face him. There’s a certain hardness to her expression, stony and unmoved as she shoots him down with a simple question.
“A Delusion,” she says, her lip curling in disgust. “You’re aware of the toll it can take on the body?”
“Yes,” Lyney nods hurriedly. “But I’m willing to run that risk.” For Lynette.
“And would Lynette want you to do this?”
A response is on the tip of his tongue, but then his brain catches up with what Father had said. The words catch in his throat and what comes out instead is a sharp inhale.
How cruel. A finishing blow to his previously steadfast conviction, the rhetorical way Father says it makes it clear to Lyney that this is where she’d been leading their conversation all along. Building him up and tugging him along just to cut him down without mercy. So cruel. But deep down he can’t blame Father, because the only thing she’d be guilty of is laying down the cold, hard, cruel truth.
Lyney would be a terrible brother if he didn’t know that Lynette would never accept his desire to remain by her side through the use of a Delusion. And in retrospect, how absurd. By accepting one he was signing on to his own funeral, just for the opportunity to get the briefest taste of being on Lynette’s level before withering away and leaving her all alone again once more.
She’d told him once, “No one needs self satisfied concern.” And really, had this been for Lynette at all? Maybe on a surface level it had, but at its core he was simply desperate to catch up with her, yet not out of a selfish fear of being left behind, rather the fear of what might happen to her in his absence. As her brother, Lyney was— is —supposed to protect her, standing guard to her soft and vulnerable parts and taking the hits directed at her head on, so that pain becomes nothing but a distant memory. Being on the sidelines had sent him into shock and made him delirious.
Distracted by his thoughts, Lyney doesn't even notice Father until she was brushing past him and placing a rigid hand on his shoulder. Craning her neck down, she fixes him in place with an impassive stare.
“This is not the first time that you have lacked power–” (An aristocrat, gutted in his own bedroom. Father—the Knave—adorned in his blood.) “–but you’ve found an answer before, haven’t you?”
The warm heaviness of her hand lifts from his shoulder and then her presence leaves the room entirely, the click of the door closing shut announcing her exit. All Lyney is left to do is ponder.
He drifts like a ghost back to his room, alight with nerves from the encounter but with an odd feeling of emptiness in his chest. On the upside, Father had not skewered him in place for demanding a delusion. On the downside, he had gained nothing from their conversation.
But is that really the truth?
Father’s rhetorical question makes him think. She’d told him that he’d found an answer before, but what could that refer to? Father hadn’t been all too concerned about his and Lynette’s childhood or what they got up to after being initiated into the House of the Hearth, so there was no way she could know about Cesar or how significant magic had been in their upbringing.
So the answer Lyney had found before… What had kept him and Lynette afloat for so long…
Adaptability.
His greatest weapon back then had been his adaptability. His willingness to acclimate to whatever situation was thrown at him. Father’s words echoed in Lyney’s mind and intermingled with Lynette’s own.
Spreading out the dossiers for the missions Lynette had taken up, he cements there and then that this would not be done for himself or his own peace of mind, but to ensure Lynette’s safety. His concern would not be self-satisfied, because Lynette didn’t need it. What she needed was a brother who was not so much caught up in the abrupt shift of their dynamic, but rather one who would support her nonetheless.
Because in the end, supporting Lynette from the sidelines is better than not supporting her at all.
The conclusion Lyney finds himself is ultimately quite simple. He’ll be Lynette’s ‘guy in the chair’, for lack of a better term.
Her only way into the location is attended to by gardemeks armed to the teeth with dangerous artillery? He tells her to utilise the nearby cliffs and, under the cover of night, use a windglider to descend upon it instead.
The escape route for this designated operation demands that Lynette barrels through a thick undergrowth then pass over fearfully quick rapids? He asks her if it’s really that important the intel arrives at specifically half-past twelve, or if they prioritise Lynette’s safety through the use of a longer, safer route and ensure the intel is delivered at all.
Before Lyney’s interference, Lynette would return with twigs in her hair and a couple scrapes. After his ‘meddling’, she trots through the door, tail held high, and greets him with a hug. She meets him at the rendezvous points, the Hotel, half-way back from the mission, every time safe, warm and alive.
It’s no surprise that after a streak of successful missions with little to no loss, Father returns to the Hotel.
To most of the children, Father is the reason they are alive. She is the reason they exist freely, sleeping in warm beds and eating fresh food. If that isn’t the case, then Father is the reason they no longer have to sleep with one eye open or constantly check over their shoulders. Despite this fact, she is not particularly loved as one would with a parent, but instead revered.
She is their god who lifted them from perdition and allowed them to live with a purpose. So when Father arrives at the Hotel and makes herself known (rather than slinking in the shadows accompanied only by the click of her heels), an atmosphere covers the children like a blanket and smothers them silent. They bow their heads and do not meet her gaze not out of fear, but respect.
Father strides forwards, and out of the corner of Lyney’s eyes he can see the sharp steel-toe of her heels.
“Lynette,” she speaks clearly. She needn’t ask out loud because Lynette’s head tilts up and locks eyes with her. “You’ve been doing well.”
Lynette inclines her head and clears her throat. “Thank you, Father.” And then, out of the corner of Lyney’s eyes he watches as her fists slightly clench. “But I couldn’t have done it without Lyney.”
His eyes are still fixed to the ground: Father’s steel-toed heels, the specks of dust on the floor, a little crack in the linoleum tiles, and yet he knows she is looking at him because her eyes are as hot as lasers as they stare into the back of his head. It’s something different to her usual empty stares, this isn’t Father looking at him, but the Knave. And yet, it isn't dangerous. It isn't as though the Knave plans to step between them and demand that he stop barging in where he doesn’t belong. Rather than that, Lyney gets the abnormal notion that she is impressed.
(Any other child in the house might’ve returned to beg her for a delusion when the answer didn’t arrive to them easily, or simply just given up, but Lyney hadn’t. He’d taken her words to heart and put them into practice.)
“Is that so?” She speaks, calm and sombre but loud enough for the entire room to hear. “You’ll both come with me.”
It leaves no room for argument, so when Father begins to walk away, they follow. Despite the large gathering of children, Lyney doesn’t hear a sound out of them, he only sees their eyes full of awe.
In the privacy of Father’s office, she looks down at them and begins to relay:
“One week from now, there is a package that must be intercepted,” she tells the twins, then walks around to a drawer to pull out a folder. “From your recent accomplishments, it appears that two of you would be far more beneficial than only one of you.”
Father extends the folder. But not towards Lynette.
With a tentative hand, Lyney takes it between his fingers and holds on tight. The only time Father had ever been entirely direct was the night she invited them to the House of the Hearth; ever since then her demands have been either vague or unspoken. But Lyney has learnt to read between the lines and he knows that this is an opportunity. He has proven himself a valuable asset to Lynette’s success and now he is allowed to return to her side. He will not let this opportunity slip by.
Throughout the ensuing week, Lynette smiles more, and surprisingly, Lyney finds he does as well. They curl up on the floor of their room, occasionally accompanied by Freminet who had taken to watching them with poorly concealed interest. They devise together, because this time it won’t just be Lynette on the field—Lyney will be there too.
The folder isn’t too thick but still filled to the brim with paper. The same professional display as all the others, it’s nothing abnormal to Lyney. There’s a map plan of the establishment, two storeys tall with one entrance and two exits, one on the roof and the other on the bottom floor, not too far away from their destination. The real issue is the fact that the room directly opposite is an office and very likely to be occupied. It’s nothing too detrimental, but means that stealth is mandatory.
A feeling that Lyney hadn’t felt in a while travels from his head to his toes, excitement. It makes his hair stand on end and he struggles to fall asleep at a sensible time, but so does Lynette. Her smiles are small, just a tilt of her lips, but it’s better than the dull-eyed expression she wore before. Even more significantly, her ears prick forwards and her tail is held high.
On the night of their mission, she fixes his lapels and adjusts the coat of his collar. There’s a hint of anxiety to her, movements alight with nerves, but he knows she is relieved as well.
“We’ll be careful,” states Lynette, fixing him in place with a hard stare.
“Of course we will, my dear sister!” affirms Lyney, the smile tugging at his lips growing a little wider when she grunts at the endearment.
“And you’re certain you know the routes?”
“Absolutely certain.” He nods, perhaps a little more than necessary.
“Positive?”
“Positively positive!”
His answer is good enough for her because she hums affirmatively, then blinks slowly in his direction. He’s missed her so terribly, his wonderful sister. The time they’d been separated had felt akin to torture, like two separate poles of a magnet with an infinitesimal amount of space between them, longing to be reunited. But now here she is and all it takes to reach out and hold her hand is to extend his own.
Their group is small and comprises Lynette, himself and three other children of varying age. A girl, around their age and with dappled hair relays the information: the building unit is surprisingly quiet considering the intel they’re transferring, two stationary gardemeks positioned by each outside door and then another two active ones patrolling the walls. There are few lights on inside the unit and luckily for them the place where the intel is held looks unoccupied.
An older boy, taller than Lyney, reaches down to strap a bag around him and tells Lyney that this is where the intel will be stored as and when they find them, which hopefully should be easy as these sorts of groups tend to label their things diligently. In addition to that, an emergency paraglider for each twin. It’s set in stone that Lynette will use her experience to survey the ground and keep an eye out while Lyney takes on the easier task of finding and securing the package.
“Be on alert,” the dapple-haired agent tells them. “I’d like to imagine it’ll be easy, but the idea that they’d be so flippant with the intel only hours before transfer? It’s giving me a bad feeling.”
The gentle curve of Lynette’s brows hardens and behind her eyes Lyney can see the cogs turning. His sister is a smart girl, so if she also thinks something is off…
“We’ll be careful,” Lyney echoes their prior sentiment and Lynette’s ears twitch. The pensive look from before evaporates from her face and she nods.
“You can count on us.”
Under the cover of night, they slip into the building. The quiet whirring of the gardemeks puts Lyney on edge, just the idea that one shot from those dangerous, finely-tuned machines could incapacitate them without issue makes him feel all sorts of flighty. Contrastingly, Lynette practically ignores them as she slinks past like an alley cat, working the lock on the window in quick succession. The window jolts quietly, then Lynette pushes it ever so slowly until there’s enough room for the twins to slip through.
When Lyney’s feet touch the floor and he takes in the sight of the room, it reminds him of nobility. Glazed wooden furniture that shines under the light of the moon, hardback books decorated with silver and gold trimmings, trinkets and pointless accessories that only serve to make the room look expensive but instead accomplish in it appearing gaudy. Lyney sneers, because he knows full well that it is only a front meant to pull prying eyes away from the malevolence most nobles harbour.
But Lyney won’t look away, he can’t look away, not when he’s seen it first-hand.
“The intel is a door down,” Lynette tells him, her shoes quiet against the wooden floor, and she peers out of the office to look down the hallway.
It’s a long, wide thing, decorated with cabinets, mirrors and large vases filled with flowers both not native to Fontaine and ones familiar to the twins. It’s nerve wracking in the way a long, dark corridor is expected to be, the only glimmer of light coming from the moon. Lynette takes the first step, still quiet, but relaxed. There’s no danger in sight so she allows her nerves to settle.
Lyney follows suit, not quite matching her delicate footfalls, but not causing a ruckus either. All of the doors are closed except one, directly opposite the room where the intel lies in wait.
His sister works the lock with clumsy precision, and in the quiet of the empty facility, all Lyney can hear is the muted click and clack of mechanical components being worked. She’s never quite been good with things made of gears and screws unless it meant breaking them open and luckily for them it’s the exact skill-set they require.
Finally, the lock breaks open with a clunk and Lynette jerks the handle downward. When she pushes the door, it comes open with a creak that makes the twins wince, so they waste no time entering and getting down to business.
“You check the back, I’ll check the front,” whispers Lynette, creeping over to a cabinet nearest the door.
“Got it,” he nods, and trails over to the further end of the room.
On his end, there’s a window two times his size that hides the outside world behind two dark blue curtains. Lyney opens it just a crack and the stark shine of the moon casts a little bit of light. He still has to squint to make out most of his surroundings, but it’s marginally better.
There are a few points of interest on his side. For one, a large cabinet with two glass doors. Behind it are an array of trophies and medals, brightly coloured ribbons and badges made of shiny metal. Terribly gaudy, Lyney thinks, regarding them with a critical stare.
Below the glass casing is something that looks more like a shelf. Books, all the same size as each other but varying in colour, are organised in a neat and orderly row. They seem untouched, he realises when he goes to check in between one's pages and a thin layer of dust meets the pads of his fingers. At first, he’d assumed the lack of proper lighting was hindering his vision, but when he moves closer to the window, Lyney realises the book is entirely empty. Clear pages, void of words or pictures, and now that he checks, there isn’t a title or author to be found. Just decoration.
A dead end. He puts the book back in place and wipes the dust from his hand.
The rest of the cabinet is squirrelled away with a lock, tiny and thin and requiring an appropriate key to open it. Unless Lyney wants to bust the thing open with his bare hands (which would result in far too much noise) there’s not much he can do. As a last resort, he crouches down to his knees and presses one ear against the cabinet door. He knocks, quiet enough to go unnoticed but loud enough to hear the vacant echo inside. Lyney huffs out a laugh. Clearly there’d be no point making the effort to open it, because the inside sounds completely empty.
An entire trophy cabinet, just for show.
His final point of interest is one last trophy. It sits in the middle, big and golden and in the shape of a cup with two handles either side. He wonders how much the owner of it had to pay to win it. The glass doors open with a squeak and Lyney lifts it closer. He grunts and struggles a little, because the thing is pure metal, heavy and cold in his hands. Lyney staggers under the weight, but that’s when he sees it.
The intel!
In the concave middle of the trophy’s cup, it’s exactly what the mission reports had described: a thick envelope, about the width of his thumb, with a bright blue sigil on its middle. Lyney wastes no time in grabbing it and returning the trophy to its previous position. They’d done it, now all he needs to do is recoup with his sister and–
“Lyney!” hisses Lynette.
“Lynette!” whispers Lyney, turning to face her with a beaming grin. “Look, I’ve got it! We can leave for the rendezvous point now. Let’s go!”
“Wait, Lyney,” she hisses once more. Now that he truly looks, there’s a wildness to Lynette’s appearance. She’s frazzled, her eyes wider than Lyney has ever seen them and her body drawn so taut she’s shivering.
Ah. Lyney had almost forgotten. Something is supposed to be wrong.
Her wild eyes dart left and right then she edges in closer to whisper frantically in his ear.
“There was a man,” she utters. “I didn’t notice it before, but in the opposite room—” the dark room parallel to the one they had so audaciously entered “—he was there. Just sat at the desk, staring.”
Lyney’s throat is dry.
“They know we’re here. They’ve known we were here since the beginning.”
It’s as though those words are a trigger because suddenly an alarm goes off. Blaring and loud, Lyney flinches, but it’s nothing compared to the wail his sister lets out, dropping her trained posture to clutch at her flattened ears. Lyney jumps into action, one hand stuffing the envelope into the large pocket of his coat and the other grabbing Lynette’s arm. She thrashes in his grip, but the alarms are hardly letting up any time soon so the best course of action is to get out.
He drags his cowering sister to the hallway and standing in front of their exit is a sight that leaves Lyney horrified: five gardemeks, tall and bulky, blocking the doorway and pointing their artillery-ripe arms at the ready. In front of them are humans, a man in a suit at the forefront boxed in by two other men dressed in the typical officer uniform with their own rifles at the ready.
“You know, when it came through that the Fatui would be sending children to do their dirty work, I’d almost fired my informant on the spot!” The man in the suit yells over the sound of the alarms. “But lo’ and behold, here you are!”
Lyney doesn’t say a word, only gritting his teeth and holding Lynette tighter. When he gets no response, the man’s nasty grin slips off his face and now he’s just baring his teeth.
“You have something of ours.”
Lyney tilts his head up and scoffs. “Do I? So sorry, but my memory is a little foggy. Maybe you could catch me up to speed.”
“Don’t play wise with me, boy!” The two armed gunmen at suit-man’s side cock their rifles and Lyney tenses further.
His eyes flicker down at Lynette, who has stopped hyperventilating and now has her ears pressed as flat as she can make them. At a glance, her eyes are shut, but from the subtle jerks of her head that could easily be written off as fearful shivering, he can tell she is surveying their surroundings. He needs to buy her time.
Lyney throws one hand up in surrender, the other preoccupied holding onto the bag. “No playing wise here, mister!”
Suit-man snarls wickedly and the other two at his side jolt and raise their guns. “No moving unless the boss says so,” shouts one of the gunmen.
But ‘boss’ is far more focused on Lyney’s other hand.
“Hand over that bag and maybe you’ll be let off lightly.” His mouth curls into a wicked leer once more, as though he thinks he has the upper hand. “Maybe a decade or so in the Fortress of Meropide. That’d hardly be a long time for two little Fatui runts like you. Or would you rather be filled with lead?” He laughs cruelly. “Tempting deal, eh?”
They’re outnumbered. Out-manned. Outplayed. So with a full-bodied sigh, Lyney’s shoulders go slack and his hold on the bag loosens. Suit-man’s leer grows even wider. “Smart boy. Now toss it over.”
At Lyney’s side, Lynette mutters something ever so silent: “Emergency exit. Out the backdoor.”
Only a sliver of white envelope pokes out of Lyney’s pocket and the bag in his hand is hardly heavy, so he hurls it as hard as he can at the man and barely has a chance to see him fall back into a gardemek (which itself only stumbles slightly), because Lynette has regained her bearings and grabs his arm in an iron-tight grip. All of a sudden, her vision flares alight before she’s suddenly engulfed in a darkness that has bright blue licks of energy dancing at her heels. She dashes down the corridor at such a speed that has Lyney gasping and tripping over his own feet.
They wind around corners, not daring to look back as the stomps of footfalls and mechanical stumps alike sound as though they’re hot on their heels.
She practically slams into the emergency exit and Lyney barely has enough time to ask if she’s okay because the door flies open and Lynette stumbles onto the grass.
She turns to him and beckons hurriedly. “Let’s go.”
Cool wind against Lyney’s face is only half of a relief, because it hits him like a freight train that they have no idea where they are. This area of Fontaine is strange to them, the plains spread for miles before a treeline even begins to poke over the horizon on one end and on the other the ground curves up before ending in a jagged cliff.
The plains make them far too vulnerable, simply moving targets at that point and Lynette obviously knows this as well because she takes off towards the cliff. As they run, Lynette calls out to him through gasps of breath.
“How did they know?” she yells over the wind whipping against their ears.
“You heard him, somebody told them in advance,” Lyney clenches his fists as he runs, unable to fight the way his brows pinch together angrily. “We were outed. Betrayed!”
And then, in an airy and worn-thin voice, Lynette says, “Are– are we going to die?”
No, Lyney wants to call back, but it’s not as easy as that.
A mission has gone awry and they’re nigh surrounded by gun-toting pursuers, armed to the teeth with artillery and soldier-robots. Not to mention they’re running towards the peak of a cliff with no clear way out. His hair blows in his face and is distracting against the harsh winds, and Lynette’s eyes are wide with fear. Lyney wants to comfort her, but he won’t lie to her either.
“I…” he starts, but his voice fails him. Death is a possibility, a terrifying possibility at that. Lyney doesn't want to die, but he can feel its cold fingers wrapping around his neck.
Yet if he loses faith now, then so does Lynette.
Bolstered by the thought, Lyney shakes his head furiously. “No!” And he truly believes it. They can’t die now. “We still have one last trick.”
The cliff is in sight and they slow their run to a jog then a walk. Lyney peers over the edge and then looks over to Lynette.
“No,” she says. “No way.”
“It’s our only way,” Lyney begs, shucking off the foot soldier coat. “Besides, this time we have this.”
On his back is the emergency paraglider. They shouldn’t have had to use this, but if any moment were worthy of the title ‘emergency’ then it’d be now. Lynette is still clearly apprehensive, but the sounds of warning shots fired into the air make her wince. She runs around his back and unclips the paraglider, spreading it out neatly on the grass. It’s a dark colour, supposed to blend in with the night sky.
“Alright, now hold onto me.”
Lynette blinks and goes to open her mouth to speak. Lyney is well aware she has her own, but time is already running thin. Another shot of a gun is all the alert Lyney needs, there simply isn’t enough time to argue semantics.
The edge is precarious and terrifying, rocks scatter with the slightest shift of their feet, one wrong move and both of them could die. From afar, there are now definitely more than three men, cackling evilly and coming nearer by the second. He can hear their taunts carried by the wind, ‘here, kitty-kitty!’ one man chortles. ‘Where the fuck is that package, huh?!’ another man hollers, waving the empty bag in one hand and his gun in the other. ‘Look at that, they’d rather die than go to prison!’
Lyney grabs her, holding his sister as tightly as possible and throws them off the cliff.
His sister’s hair is in his mouth and she clutches onto him so tight that it’s sure to leave a couple marks, even through his clothes, but Lyney doesn’t care. All they need is to get away. The package is still secure in his pocket, but it's survival that is at the forefront of his mind, not the stupid mission. Once more, Lyney is struck with the thought of what if it’d been Lynette alone on this mission? With his free hand he clutches onto her even tighter.
“Holy shit!” One of the gunmen yells. They’re at the cliff now. “They’re flying away!”
The next response makes Lyney jump as the bang of a gunshot flies past them. Lynette gasps, scrambling for purchase and peering over his shoulder.
“Lyney, Lyney they’re shooting at us!” she frets. “If they shoot the paraglider–”
Pop!
A rush of air to Lyney’s left rings in his ear and the paraglider jolts sharply to the side.
Bang!
Another hole pierces the fabric and Lynette clutches against him and whines. They’re no longer gliding along on the wind at a rapid pace. They’re falling to the ground, plummeting at an even higher speed. Except this time, there’s no water to catch them.
The men on the cliff cheer and even more gunfire rains down on them, although at this point the damage has already been done. Their paraglider is done for, just a rag of fluttering fabric in the air barely keeping the twins upright as the ground rushes to meet them.
How unfair.
Some might pity them, call it a true tragedy. Others might blame fate. A terrible travesty that befell two poor little orphans, just another chip off their shoulder to join the rest. Fate had dealt them such a horrible hand, the only natural reaction would be to despair.
Lyney grits his teeth. No.
If they never returned then the news of a mole amongst the Hotel would never get out, the idea of more children following in their footsteps before being tripped at the last hurdle. But even more so, he refuses to ever be apart from Lynette ever again. This is unfair. So incredibly unfair. Anybody else might wallow in despair and sink like a stone in water, but Lyney has faced such an amount of it that he has instead learnt to see it as opportunity.
A tragedy, a coincidence, fate or whatever it is hellbent on insisting, Lyney refuses.
Warmth sprouts and blooms in his chest. The cold night air against his face feels like knives against the hotness brewing within him. Everything is perfect, waiting for him back at home, he has his family, and within his arms he has his sister. He has a purpose, as much as fate demands that he isn’t allowed it, Lyney will not let go. He’d have to die first, but never has the notion of dying been more preposterous than now, not when he has everything he’s ever wanted.
Flames bite and lick at his palms before engulfing the twins whole, intermingling with it are the blue wisps of Lynette’s anemo and they both merge together so beautifully, like a shooting star crashing through the atmosphere, but Lyney will not allow them to hit the ground.
The power that rests barely sated at his fingertips is so much more than just power, it’s a part of him. His hopes, his desires, it comes into reality and forms into something physical and passionate enough to change their trajectory entirely. The air rushes to give way, whooshing around him and when they finally make contact with something, it’s not the cold hard ground, but water.
Liquid rushes up into Lyney’s nose and he splutters, choking and almost shocked into unconsciousness with how cold it should be, but there’s that warm something that keeps him tied to reality. Lynette is still grasping his sleeve tightly, she comes to her senses surprisingly quick and tugs his shocked self along, but Lyney won’t let her drag his lifeless body from the water again.
Swimming is like second nature; Lyney may not be a diver but he has lived in Fontaine all his life, so kicking his legs and sweeping his arms is hardly a difficult task, bolstered by the fire in his spirit, he and Lynette fight against the tide to breach the surface. They gasp, wet and sodden, but alive. Far away shouts from the cliff-side sound like a bygone nightmare as the twins drag themselves out of the water and onto the sandy embankment. Lynette climbs to her feet and shakes herself off, the fur of her ears and tail dripping unhappily but her eyes are the most expressive he has seen in ages.
“We’re alive,” she gasps, after a couple of heavy inhales and exhales.
A cocky smile works its way onto Lyney’s face. “I told you so,” he laughs, breathlessly.
Lynette surges forwards, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face into his shoulder. She’s muttering something into his neck, a mantra that sounds something akin to we did it, we’re alive, we did it, Lyney, and when he goes to mirror her movements and embrace her tightly, there’s a flash of red in his palm that he hadn’t noticed before.
It glistens and glows with light, hot to the touch but not offensively so. A comforting warmth, like a campfire or a radiator which vanishes the freeze of cold wind and wet clothes from Lyney in an instant. A Vision. His own Vision.
Before, Lyney might’ve pondered the reason he’d find himself blessed by the heavens and given such a gift. Fate finally changing its tune? A stroke of good luck for all the terrible events he and Lynette had been forced to endure? But if that was the case, he would’ve received a vision a long time ago.
Whatever the reason he finds himself with, Lyney doesn’t see the need to question it, because the answer he’d receive is no longer important.
Instead, he tucks it into his sleeve and hugs his sister in return.