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Raven isn’t a stranger to physical touch. Despite what people might think looking at them by their -not even grumpy- just unconventional exterior it comes naturally to them.
Fen’s hand in theirs is warm, something they’re so used to like the bracelet Fen made for them they put on every morning. It’s worn out, about to fall apart, but it’s theirs, something other that what their parents gave them.
Whenever they’re sent on a mission most people would deem quite unsuitable for two children, they walk through the fields, their hands firmly pressed together.
It’s not because they’re scared. Well, maybe sometimes, like that time they were chased by a bear double the size of them, or the time they got lost in the woods. But it’s become more than that, an instinct to grab her hand to just be close like muscle memory.
It’s the same hand Raven imagines holding during their coming of age ceremony. Sharp needles stabbing their skin, their face and nerves on fire and all they can think about is how much easier it would be if Fen was next to them.
But she isn’t.
All she has left in the camp is a faint shadow of herself and a grief in Raven they usually try to ignore.
Hand holding wouldn’t be possible anyway, one has to go through this alone, as their clan has told them countless times.
And Raven is.
A small part of them is glad Fen doesn’t have to go through this, and yet every single part of their body selfishly longs for her to be kneeling next to them, the symbol of the other twin soul slowly etched into her face, squeezing their hand and brushing over it with her thumb.
But she isn’t, and the person they’re looking at instead is the one directly responsible for her disappearance. They push down any urge to scream, they can’t let their parents win this, they’ve already taken enough of them, the only thing that mattered in this place.
She isn’t there, and they’re overwhelmed by the urge to cry even more than to scream, because it isn’t fair that they will have to bear the mark of Falon’din alone without his brother right by his side, when not even the legends dared to separate them.