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Sabin could have taken the thieves, easy -- could kick the knife out of this one's hand, then take out the two behind him faster than you could blink -- but almost the instant he pulled back his fist to strike, he found himself hesitating. He'd come here to confirm a suspicion -- investigate, as he'd told Celes -- not start a fight, after all. More importantly, ever since the continent had crashed into the sea and cracked the world in half Sabin had increasingly reluctant to hit actual people, no matter how much he figured they might deserve it.
Besides, there were only five of them, all armed with ordinary weapons. Sabin really didn't like fighting anybody who didn't have a solid chance of winning.
He slid his foot along the ground, settling into a defensive stance as the man with the knife lunged at him. Of course, Sabin easily sidestepped the clumsy strike, throwing up his hands to deflect the follow-up stab. One of the others dived at him with a club while his cohort came in from the side to try and knock Sabin's legs out from under him, a gambit that was actually within spitting distance of well-coordinated -- it forced Sabin to leap out of the way, whirling in mid-air to plant a foot solidly in the club-wielder's chest. The man made a sound that was more rage than pain as he staggered backwards, and Sabin's nails dug into his palms as he concentrated. Pulling his punches was far more difficult than it looked -- the control involved in hitting his opponent hard enough to repel them but not hard enough to do any serious harm was immense. It took up so much concentration, in fact, that one of the other thieves skulking on the outskirts of the melee actually managed to clip him with a thrown rock, or maybe a dart, gouging out a small wound on his shoulder. It was shallow enough that it itched more than it hurt, but it shouldn't have happened at all.
The knife-wielder took another swing at him, which went wild, and then pulled back for a second blow. Sabin braced to throw him if he came close enough, but the attack never materialized. Instead, a voice -- sharp, commanding, used to being obeyed -- cut off the fracas before it could properly begin, and the sound of it hit Sabin harder than any knife strike could have.
"Stand down," the voice said. "Lay a finger on him and you'll be sorry."
In town, they'd heard rumors of a gang of criminals who had holed up in the South Figaro caves under a new ringleader who, it was speculated, had ambitions of getting into Figaro Castle's long-buried treasure vaults. Their leader had spent some time in what passed for a tavern there, trying to scrounge up various tools for the journey, and his refined manner of speaking and charming good looks had made quite the impression.
Sabin had thought it was a ridiculous notion -- there were surely many former aristocrats out there who had fallen on hard circumstances and turned to crime -- but the fixation upon Figaro Castle and unusual grasp of engineering had caught Sabin's attention and refused to let it go.
The chances were slim -- the evidence that it was circumstantial at best -- but he had to know.
Of course, bad odds had never bothered his brother, who was always on the lookout for ways to even things up.
"Edgar?!" Sabin blurted out.
The thief with the dagger stood frozen for a moment, staring at Sabin before looking back at the source of the voice as he emerged from the shadows of the cave. "You know this guy, boss? What's he on about?"
The man's expression was perplexed, and that was the moment another realization hit Sabin like a second, wild haymaker straight to the jaw.
Up until now, Sabin had still felt, in his heart of hearts, that he and Edgar still looked alike. Apparently, though, they didn't even look particularly related.
"We are...acquainted." Edgar stepped forward into a sliver of orange torchlight, and Sabin stared at him, taking in everything there was to notice. Edgar was dressed in ragged traveler's garb, brown and black, without either the solid and functional armor or subtly expensive-looking suede cloak he'd sported on the road before the world had broken. His hair, which he'd always worn tied back, fell loose around his shoulders, and he seemed in dire need of both a shave and a bath, which seemed to have put him a permanently sour mood -- Edgar had never been much for roughing it.
Other than that, he looked exactly as Sabin remembered him, and Sabin knew he hadn't changed all that much. Still, not a single man present had asked if they were even brothers, let alone identical twins.
Instead, one of the other thugs -- a lanky, chestnut-haired man with a scar along his jawbone and a club in his hand -- broke into a leering grin. "What's got you so worked up, huh? He an old flame or somethin'?"
Edgar caught Sabin's gaze for a moment, his expression strangely unreadable, and at least that was still like looking into a mirror -- the exact same shade of steely blue, the same long and light lashes, identical even hollowed out by fatigue and care.
And then Edgar winked at him, and the moment was gone. "Something like that," he said, a nearly-sincere smile spreading across his face. "We're breaking camp here. Come have a drink, Rene," Edgar said, the long-unused middle name rolling off his tongue like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Then, I suggest you hoof it back to South Figaro, or wherever you came in from. Really, this isn't the place to be wandering around unarmed like a damn fool."
---
While the thieves set down their packs and set about building a fire, Sabin had watched Edgar, taking inventory of how much they differed in appearance now -- something he'd avoided thinking about in any detail, he realized, until confronted with the fact. Edgar was hardly a small man, and they shared the same broad-shouldered build, but years of devoted training had molded Sabin into a shape that could not be achieved by hefting hammers in a workshop, or even the casual training in swordplay they’d both gotten as boys. Their faces might have started with the same clay, but the life of a king and the life of an ascetic had shaped them in very different directions. Even their hair was no longer identical shades of gold — Edgar’s had darkened over time, but the sun on the mountaintop had kept Sabin’s a light, sandy blond that had yet to fade even under the cold, smoggy sky.
"Old flame?" Sabin hissed, incredulous. "The hell are you talking about, Edgar?"
Edgar sat down next to Sabin and handed him a bottle of what was probably wine, at least technically speaking. It had a label, but it was unreadably smudged. Sabin did not hazard a drink.
There was a long silence, and for a moment Sabin was almost afraid this was a case of mistaken identity -- that after all this time, after all that had happened, he'd lost the ability to recognize his brother on sight. Maybe this was some other man and Sabin was just seeing things that he wanted to see. He wouldn't be the first to start losing his mind after everything went to hell.
Sabin swallowed, and then Edgar leaned in close with a conspiratorial grin, exactly like they were children again plotting to swap clothes and ribbons to play a prank on their tutor.
“Call me Gerad, in case someone overhears,” Edgar said. Every so often he glanced to the side, to see if any of the thieves were listening in. “Look, I needed something that'll keep them from thinking we're twins.” He pulled himself closer, until their thighs were touching, and Sabin felt Edgar's arm slide around his waist. "I can't let them figure out who I am."
"Come on. There have to be thousands of blonde twins in the world."
"Yes, but not thousands of blonde twins that everyone's heard of, you see. It'll call King Edgar to mind, and everyone knows he was charming, intelligent, tall, blonde, and had a twin brother. I already check off all the other boxes. They'll put two and two together."
Edgar had always been an incorrigible flirt, ever since he was old enough to know what the word meant, so maybe it was also an obvious kind of lie -- and it did rather neatly explain why Sabin could scarcely take his eyes off him, and it wasn't as though Edgar had never touched him like that before. When they were boys, they'd certainly done a number of things they knew they had to keep secret -- even princes couldn't get away with everything. Back then, though, they had looked so similar that even their nurses and retainers had struggled to tell them apart. They'd been fond of wearing each other's clothes to encourage the confusion, especially Edgar who had always loved attention, and their father had occasionally claimed he was going to start marking them with paint.
It had been so long since they'd ever done any of that. Now, Sabin was uncomfortably aware that they were too close, that he really ought not to be resting his hand above Edgar's knee like he was, that Edgar was probably whispering so close to his ear not to keep the others from overhearing but to make Sabin shiver a little. It was like a cog in one of Edgar's machines had gotten warpeda and no longer quite fit.
“I assume you won't tell me what’s going on,” Sabin said, not daring for the moment to turn and actually look at Edgar.
“You’d blow my cover in a heartbeat, you hothead. Speaking of…” Sabin carefully followed Edgar’s gaze to find that the thief who’d first pulled a knife on him was watching them, glancing away when he saw Edgar looking back. "I think we're gonna need to sell the story a little better."
Sabin licked his lips, then leaned back briefly to take a swig of the wine -- mostly to hide his expression. It tasted slightly better than he anticipated, but his expectations had been low.
"Got any ideas?" Sabin croaked, his voice rough. He definitely had at least one in his head right now, but it was something they hadn't done since they were teenagers, and Sabin had long suspected they might not ever do it again.
Edgar produced something from one of his myriad pockets that glinted in the firelight -- bright flashes of brass between tarnish and verdigris settling into the crevices of the object like moss. A five gil piece -- pocket change before the cataclysm, barely enough to buy a street vendor's cheapest pie, but its value had increased considerably compared to gil notes now that everyone needed metal more than money. "Well, I thought we'd leave it up to chance, just like old times. Tails, we pretend to have a fight, I throw you out, we go our separate ways, and I'll come find you in South Figaro once I've secured our home again. Heads..." Here, he paused, looking up through his lashes at Sabin.
Sabin swallowed. He remembered this game, of course -- if you could call it a game. It was really more of a pretext than anything else. Heads, you get a kiss.
And there was a question Sabin had never gotten the chance to ask.
"When we were kids," Sabin whispered, "did you--"
"Not every time," Edgar replied, anticipating the question before it even left Sabin's lips. "You would've caught on if I did."
"You are such a prick," Sabin said, but was unable to suppress the first beginnings of a smile. It was, for the most part, exactly what he'd anticipated Edgar would say, which was a comforting thought.
“Come on. I was sixteen. All sixteen year old boys are pricks.”
“I was also sixteen, you idiot.”
Edgar laughed quietly. "Well, it scarcely matters now -- I lost the coin ages ago. This one is ordinary as they come." As if to prove his point, he rolled the coin across his knuckles back and forth, a dextrous gesture that made Sabin shiver.
"Nah," he said, voice rough. "Forget the game. You don't have to keep giving me excuses forever, you know."
To anyone watching, it would look like an un-brotherly gesture indeed — Sabin caught Edgar’s chin in one hand and kissed him, lips parted against his, hesitant at first before surging forward with more passion. Nobody kissed their brother like that — except if the two of them, because Edgar never knew when to quit and Sabin never listened to his better judgement.
The thief watching them snorted in laughter and went back to tending the fire. Sabin pulled away just far enough that they could exchange words again, but Edgar captured his lips and tongue again before he could speak.
t felt for a brief moment like they were both boys again, inseparable and indistinguishable, two sides of the same coin. Before Edgar had broken it all for both their sakes. Before they’d been parted ten years, before the world had gone to hell.
Most coins weren’t like Edgar’s silly little trinket with two identical faces. Toss one in the air, and it might land on heads or tails — but no matter how it fell, it was forever and always the same coin with two sides.