Chapter Text
The Gods often work in mysterious ways, that much was understood by the humans on Earth. They made decisions and interfered with the humans’ lives as if they were nothing more than insignificant chess pieces. One might think that this would cause the humans to be wary and less trusting of the Gods above when in reality, the humans viewed this as motivation to do whatever it took to remain in the Gods' favor. Providing hospitality to anyone who came to you and asked for it quickly became one of the most widespread practices by the humans as the Gods were known to frequently make disguised appearances amongst them in order to get a gauge of the current dynamics and to test the humans they encountered.
Mira and Aziza were twins who were born to parents who strongly believed in providing hospitality to anyone who appeared on their doorstep out of the kindness in their hearts rather than only providing it because it could be a God in disguise. This mindset of theirs was only reinforced when they chose to settle down in the middle of the Desert Sea, knowing that the next closest settlement was several days' travel away. Thus anyone who did happen to come across their home was desperately in need of the kindness and hospitality their family was known for providing.
Shortly after the twins' birth, Mira began to show signs of being able to manipulate the visuals of the world around him. Small, insignificant items occasionally developed an almost shimmer around them, and when viewed from a different angle, the item appeared to have disappeared entirely. At first, their parents weren’t entirely sure what to make of these strange occurrences, as they certainly couldn’t be coming from their young son. However, it didn’t take long before more and more items of increasing size around Mira’s location developed the shimmer effect, stunning both of the parents. It was without a doubt, Mira had some kind of ability to manipulate the visualization of objects around him. As neither of the parents had any idea where Mira could have gotten an ability like that, they could only assume that it must have been a gift from the Gods. They recognized the Gods wouldn’t just randomly anoint abilities like this onto Mira without logical reasoning, even if they weren’t aware of said reasoning. Immediately, they encouraged Mira to strengthen his abilities so that he would be prepared if the time came for him to truly utilize his abilities.
As the twins continued to grow, their parents encouraged them to embody the same positive and kind outlook on life and the world’s inhabitants that they had. That was of utmost importance to them, ensuring that their children believed everyone deserved unconditional kindness and respect. As expected, both of the twins were excited to learn more about how their parents prepared to provide hospitality to the wayward travelers, which prompted the parents to teach them how to accomplish small, easy tasks around the house to contribute. While they were happy about the twins’ shared enthusiasm about helping with the hospitality tasks, neither of them wanted to pile a mountain of tasks on the twins, so they still had time to be children. Both of the parents agreed that they would wait several years until the twins were nearing the end of their childhood before assigning them to the more rigorous tasks.
Once the twins reached twelve years old, Mira’s abilities started to strengthen much quicker, which only prompted Mira to practice his abilities more. Aziza loved watching Mira practice, completely enamored by his growing ease at making objects disappear from sight. She desperately wished she had abilities of some kind to make her special like Mira, as she just couldn’t understand why only he had been chosen by the Gods even though they were twins. Regardless, she still supported Mira and did her best to help him when he was trying different parts of his abilities.
By the time they turned thirteen years old, Mira was easily able to make himself and Aziza disappear from outsiders’ view while they could still see each other. Because of this, they started to refer to Mira’s abilities as illusions since he was able to make people see that which wasn’t reality. The entire family agreed that referring to Mira’s abilities as illusions was much easier than just saying abilities over and over.
In the months that followed, it started to seem as though they were getting travelers on their doorstep every other day asking for hospitality. None of them could understand why all of a sudden there was such a sudden influx of people arriving, but they never voiced their questions to the visiting travelers out of concern for accidentally asking a disguised God. While they were happy to provide each of the arriving travelers with hospitality from the kindness of their hearts and not out of fear of invoking the wrath of the Gods, they couldn’t help but be cautious. The last thing they wanted was to accidentally lose the Gods' favor since it was their favor that gave Mira his abilities. What the twins did not see, however, was the repeated concerned glances exchanged between their parents when they were alone in the back room preparing the food for the travelers. The sudden increase of travelers arriving so frequently was quickly starting to drain their prepped supplies as they waited for the supplies they would be able to gather during the next harvest season. Both of them were thankful that the twins hadn’t started helping them with that side of the preparations, as neither of them wanted the twins to be aware of the current concerns. It wasn’t the twins' responsibility to bear that knowledge; that was up to them as the parents.
During the third group of travelers who had arrived for hospitality that week, the twins were in the Solarium on the side of the house. Mira was working on pushing his illusions further out from himself, attempting to hide more objects from view. Aziza sat and watched from the other side of the room so that she could tell Mira when his illusions grew to cover more objects.
Back in the main feasting room, the parents graciously covered the table with several types of dishes that were simple but would chase away the hunger of the travelers. They wished they could provide more types of dishes or even a fancier selection of dishes than they usually provided travelers, but their limited amount of supplies forced them to adorn the table with a smaller selection. The travelers were quick to show their displeasure at the lower-quality feast than they had been expecting, immediately questioning why the parents were denying them the pleasures of a high-quality feast. The parents tried to explain that they had been experiencing a higher number of travelers arriving on their doorstep asking for hospitality than normal; however, the travelers couldn’t be bothered to care and just waved off their excuses.
The hostile tension remained amongst the travelers as they ate the feast before them, grumbling and complaining the entire time without caring about the parents' presence in the room. A subtle concerned glance was exchanged between the parents, both conveying their worry that things could take a sharp turn at any given moment. The mother made a small comment to the travelers about going to the back room to get more supplies in order to subtlety explain her absence and not arouse any suspicions. She casually went into the back room to keep up appearances, then quietly slipped out to the rest of the house to find the twins. As she expected, Aziza was still exactly where she had been before the travelers arrived, sitting comfortably on the far side of the Solarium. And even though she couldn’t exactly see him at the moment, she assumed Mira was hiding behind his illusions near the corner opposite side of the door as there was a distinct lack of objects in that area.
Once the twins saw their mother slip into the Solarium, Mira and several objects around him suddenly popped into view with a wide grin. Both of them happily moved into their mother’s embrace, but their smiles started to fade as they noticed their mother’s grim expression. Not many words were exchanged between them, their mother wanting to keep their encounter brief so as not to raise more suspicion from the travelers, but she was firm with her intentions. She ushered them over to the far side of the room where Aziza had been sitting previously and instructed them to remain there, hidden behind Mira’s illusions, no matter what they heard. Naturally, both Aziza and Mira were concerned and panicked slightly at the hurried instructions but listened intently all the same. Before she pulled away from them, she placed a small kiss on each of their foreheads and a light brush of her hand on their cheeks. She nodded to Mira, then turned to slip back out of the room as the illusion formed around the twins, causing them to disappear from view completely.
As their mother made her way back to the main feasting room, she waited till the travelers weren’t looking in her direction before moving back to her husband’s side. She instantly noted the increased strained tension between her husband and the travelers than there was when she left. What felt like mere moments later, several of the travelers suddenly stood from the table with the bench they were sitting on awkwardly shuffling back from the force of the travelers. The mother’s hand tightly grasped her husband’s hand in surprise at the sudden move. The travelers that had stood immediately began shouting obscenities at the parents for their lack of providing the travelers with the proper respect nor the large, high-quality feast that they had expected from hospitality. A few of the travelers pulled out hidden knives from the inside of their long cloaks and advanced toward the parents while they continued to shout at them. With their hands still clasped tightly together, they sadly closed their eyes and took a deep breath, knowing there was no way out of the situation for them.
In the Solarium, neither of the twins wanted to speak out of concern for whatever had caused their mother to be in such a state of fright when she was with them. If they needed to hide behind Mira’s illusions, they knew that something must have been happening to warrant that kind of reaction. Thus neither of them spoke since Mira hadn’t figured out how to adjust his illusions to block out sound from behind them yet. To their confusion, there was barely any noise filtering into the Solarium from the main feasting room. Normally when a group of travelers was enjoying a feast, their home was filled with lively conversations and laughter; but now all they could hear was the occasional shuffle of something moving, like a bench or large dish platters.
However, the semi-silence for the twins was suddenly shattered as loud, harsh shouting echoed throughout the house. Their heads snapped toward one another at the change in volume, and even though they couldn’t fully make out the words being shouted, they were easily able to recognize the sudden shouting as not a good thing. Aziza shuffled closer to Mira so he didn’t have to exert the extra energy to expand the illusion as far out. While he was getting stronger with his illusions and able to hold them for longer periods of time, neither of them was sure how long he would be able to hold it in this circumstance.
The loud, indistinct shouting slowly transitioned to clear shouting of demands to search the place for anything valuable. The echoing sounds of items crashing and breaking as they fell overtook the shouting till that was all that could be heard around the house. Aziza tightly clasped Mira’s hand with wide eyes as two travelers entered the Solarium and, without hesitation, started ripping the room apart to search for valuable items. A small gasp escaped from Aziza as one of the travelers moved towards the corner they were hiding in, stopping just mere steps in front of them. The traveler glanced around the room, noting the numerous objects strewn throughout, before turning back to stare suspiciously at the noticeably empty corner. Both of the twins held their breath and stayed as still as if the smallest movement would give them away. Finally, the traveler’s suspicion disappeared entirely from his face as he lightly shook his head and turned away from them.
It wasn’t until after both of the travelers left the room did Mira and Aziza allowed themselves to breathe normally and move slightly so they weren’t so rigid. Neither of them dared to move much more than that as the crashing and indistinct mumbling continued to echo throughout the house for what seemed like eons to the young children. As the minutes dragged on, the hope for their parents coming to get them dwindled, leaving them to wait in somber silence. Eventually, the darkness of night crept through the house, and with it, a haunting silence as the travelers took their leave at last.
Time moved slowly for Mira and Aziza as they attempted to figure out how to move forward with their lives following the tragedy of their parents being murdered by that group of travelers. For the first time in their lives, they were confronted with the harsh reality of their family’s isolation in the middle of the Desert Sea as there was no one around for several days worth of travel that could help them through this somber time. In addition to having to figure out how to take care of their basic necessitates, there was the matter of the state of their house. The endless hours of items crashing and echoing throughout the house were a clear reflection of the damage the travelers caused in their pursuit of valuables. Nearly every section of the house had been completely destroyed, with nothing of use still standing.
As they continued to work on putting the house back together, they began to regret their parents’ wishful ideals of not teaching or assigning them the more complicated tasks around the house. While their parents’ notion of ensuring the twins still enjoyed their childhood was noble, it became more of a burden and a disservice now that they had passed. Their grief twisted and morphed their thoughts until they reared their monstrous head, and the twins were forced to face their grief.
Eventually, their grief began to lessen and transition into acceptance of what had occurred. Thinking about their parents and the wonderful memories they shared still hurt, but it lessened enough so that it was no longer a thick black cloud suffocating them. However, there was the other matter of deciding what to do about providing hospitality to any travelers who found their way to their house. Somehow, there hadn’t been a single group of travelers that had arrived at their doorstep in the time since their parents’ murder. They were both relieved that they didn’t need to deal with that just yet, even if it was a bit strange since their parents had been constantly serving groups of travelers in the weeks that led up to their murder. But ultimately, they knew that this strange pause of traveler’s arrivals wouldn’t last forever and would need to be addressed.
Both of them were extremely hesitant about letting any more strangers into their home out of fear of being harassed and taken advantage of. However, there was the issue about the Gods. Would the Gods be lenient on them if they chose not to provide hospitality to wayward travelers because of their fear? Or would the Gods be insulted if they arrived at the twins' house in disguise and were refused hospitality? Even though their parents had chosen to provide hospitality to all that came out of the goodness of their hearts and not because of the slim possibility of a disguised God, they still ensured that Mira and Aziza were well aware of the expectations the Gods had when it came to hospitality.
Mira, in no way, shape, or form, wanted to continue providing hospitality regardless of the possibility of a disguised God arriving at their doorstep asking for kindness and hospitality. Aside from the obvious concern for his and Aziza’s safety, they also had to keep in consideration the amount of essential supplies they had available for themselves. It hadn’t taken long for them to realize that their parents kept many things from them in order to preserve the illusion of everything being alright. They had no idea how much of a toll the large influx of travelers arriving had taken on their family’s food supply until they went into the back room for the first time and saw the state of their supplies.
While Mira focused on their limited supplies, Aziza recognized the travelers would bring with them news of the world beyond the Desert Sea and opportunities for her and Mira to socialize with others more. Now that it was just the two of them, she longed to learn more about the world around them. Her longing, however, did not override her concern for their safety, especially since all they had to rely on were Mira’s illusions. Ultimately, she reminded Mira that even if they chose not to continue, travelers were still going to arrive at their doorstep to ask for hospitality since they would be able to see their home. While she didn’t want to put the burden on Mira, he was the only one out of the two of them who had the ability to hide their home in plain sight. And without even needing to say it to one another, they both knew Mira was not strong enough yet with his illusions to fully cover the house, let alone actually maintaining the illusion long term. Thus, they relented and decided that if any travelers did end up on their doorstep, they would provide them at least a small, simple meal.