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Carcelan Serpents are born as two. Two of them in the same egg. Twins, always. The Carcelan society is built around it. Mating partners can change, but your twin? Your twin is always with you.

(Centuries later you will find that the other species that inhabit the lands beyond the valleys of Carcela do not quite understand it.)

Beyond growing up together, and your twin mirroring and inverting your colours (scales and eyes), and being the person who’s the lookout for your shenanigans, and helping raising your children… There’s a bond. You don’t need to see them to know them. They are part of your soul.

Carcelan serpents feed off the same life energy. When one twin dies, the other does, as well.

(When your parent’s twin Rhiache fell sick, your parent Salwa fell sick in turn. You and Caitrion did everything you could, but there was nothing to be done. You buried them curled together, as is custom.)

—

When you go paint Eshwa’s pots with staining greenberry paste, Caitrion keeps their eyes open for interlopers.

When Caitrion applies wax to Beshu’s chalks, you warn them when their twin Chyshe approaches.

When you two hear that Rchiu and Mrese want to venture beyond the Valleys of Carcela, you look at each other, and know that you had the exact same thought at the exact same time.

(When Rchiu and Mrese return, their souvenir for you are candies that glue your teeth together. You spend the rest of the day making noises at each other and messing with people)

—

Caitrion was gifted, in a way you weren’t. They always said you could learn the magic as well, but… for Caitrion it’s like breathing, for you it’s like breathing water. Possible, but… you’re at home in the skies. Like Caitrion is. You’re Yond, and you know there’s something missing, in this world.

It began when Caitrion worked their first spell, eyes wide, and one thing that was became something else. A skip in reality, a branch in perception that was not meant to be.
A missing puzzle piece, the picture can be inferred from the other pieces, and makes sense, but there is a piece missing.

You tell Caitrion, and they listen. Let’s find out what it is! They’re excited. It’s the calling. It’s their calling.

You’re afraid, a little bit.

—

You catalogue the missing world, and try to make sense of it. It’s there when Caitrion is there. It’s worse when Caitrion works their magic. They colour flowers and there’s a skipped note in a song. They grind a stone to dust and for the rest of the day you’re missing the twelfth of your eleven tastes. They intone a song and you join, and your melodies dance together but stop just shy of touching.

It’s worst when they’re gone.

—

Caitrion lives faster and faster, they fly and look and move, when you’re observing. A rock in a river, you tell yourself.

You tell Caitrion. They say, Yond, you slowed down.

—

They say, Yond, I’m worried.

You say, Caitrion, I’m worried.

—

There’s a skip, and for a moment, just short, infinite, unbearable moment, your twin looks like a stranger. They noticed it as well, you think.

You spend the rest of the day hugging in silence. Caitrion holds you as if they were afraid you’d disappear.

You hold them as if it were the last time you’d ever see them.

—

When a travelling Kalean mage came to Carcela, you sat nearby and tried not to listen to the mage’s and Caitrion’s animated conversation. There’s so much that you still haven’t seen and explored in Carcela, and you’re sure that if you have just seen a little bit more, you can connect the lines and figure out what it is that is missing.

There’s a tree here, a tendril winding itself around it, digging into the cracks in the bark, growing leaves like a gown for the tree. If you asked someone else what’s missing from it, they’d answer, “Flowers, duh”. But…

It’s not the flowers. It doesn’t need them, it’s got the leaves, and the roots that just travel where they need.

Caitrion would answer, “That thing I can’t see but you can”. Because Caitrion knows, as much as they can know.

And since Caitrion can’t see that missing thing, they can’t help you. They want to, you think. They say it.

But they’re focusing on their own calling instead.

That’s…

That’s alright. Twins tend to have differing, but complementing callings. No matter how close you are you are not one. It’s in the scales and eyes, the colour of your scales is the colour of your twin’s eyes, the colour of your twin’s scales is the colour of your eyes. It’s like coins, Caitrion says, coins have different sides as well.

Coins, you ask, and Caitrion answers that the people outside use coins to help with the trading. The traveller showed her some. They’re shiny, and some are small, and some are larger, and round, and with corners, and some have holes in them, and all of them have symbols. There’s a kind of magic in there, they say.

Caitrion, you say, I think your calling is outside of these vales.

Caitrion smiles, and hugs you, and three moons later they leave.

—

More strangers come. Many bear messages, for you, from Caitrion. They’re learning. They hope, that if they learn enough, they can understand what you’re seeing.

—

Your own calling keeps you in the valley, but you wonder if the missing thing is missing outside as well. There’s just so much.

—

One of the travellers stays. They’re a serpent, that much you can see.

But they have no wings.

They have no twin.

—

The concept of something missing is obvious in them. So obvious that everyone else can see it as well, but…

Their presence is a wholeness, in a way.

You’re searching for the missing thing, and, in At Teshiah’s presence, you can’t find it. You look at the gaps and the skips and suddenly there’s something there.

—

At Teshiah speaks of the thing that fills the gaps, like a fish grasping water, and you provide the hands. It all fits. This is something huge.

—

When Caitrion returns, and you tell them, because you need to tell them, they need to know, it’s grand and wonderful, and they’ve got that lopsided slightly exasperated grin and punch you in the arm, and say “Seriously, that was it? I don’t believe you, sometimes”, and they tell you of their own research, and how it might fit.

—

Caitrion is a bit stiff with At Teshiah, a quiver in their shoulders, a skip in their answer, filled with… With what?

—

There are others in the valley, however, who come around. Chyshe develops a cataloguing system that makes everything so much easier, and you can bounce the greatest ideas off Mrese’s skull.

In a way, Carcela is this missing thing, you all exist, but few even know of you, and fewer come here. You’re missing from the world and the world is missing from you, but that’s alright.

You’re still there.

—

Caitrion skips more times, they’re spinning, grasping something while missing hands.
But they’re still there.

—

You feel it like being torn in half. You wake up to a sun that has not skipped ahead, but you’re in the skip. You don’t know where Caitrion is. You hurry home because that’s where they were last, and you don’t find them there, just someone looking like them who is writhing on the floor in pain.

Someone you, intellectually, recognize as Caitrion. But it’s not them.

It’s not them.

It can’t be them.

You’d know it was them on a visceral level.

The visceral level is gone. Your sense of Caitrion is gone.

They’re not.

They’re still here, but… not.

—

“No. I see.”, they say. “And I do not like it.”

And then they’re gone.

—

You know they’re out there, somewhere, but when you close your eyes and feel where they are, like listening to the wind or to your own pulse, there’s silence. Like eating, and tasting nothing. Like opening your eyes, but not seeing. Holding something, but it’s like it wasn’t there.

But you’re still there.

—

You’re in your home and you expect three things but there’s only two.

You want to water the plants, but they’ve all been moved.

There’s a room that was occupied just yesterday, but it suddenly isn’t. Except it is.

Except it isn’t.

—

There’s early snow, except At Teshiah tells you it’s on time.

There was a skip.

But you’re still there.

—

You’re the skip.