Circle

The room at your mother’s place stops being yours when you tell her that that thing is not going to wake up, ever. She looks at you, and then back at that thing, your twin, hah, as if, you’d know, and shakes her head.

“I’m not going to give up.”, she says, and continues moving from that thing’s side to sleep to work to back to that thing’s side.

You take your stuff and leave, and Qhor procures you a small attic place between the levels, which you leave via the window more often than through the door. It’s hot and stuffy, and, in the beginning, almost empty.

A cot, a chest shared by your clothes and your stuff, several stacks of books from school, a stove, a bathroom niche.

You’re a serpent, you like the heat.

—

You keep an eye on your stipend, and get to know your neighbours. You pay attention in school and excel at spellwork.

You do odd jobs for people, and get more stuff. Sometimes you get messages from people who are interested in your work, and some you have to dropkick from your front door, but that’s later, when many people know your name.

You worked hard for that, between school and assignments and sleep you worked, and worked. Qhor is worried, and it’s unfulfilling. There’s something missing, and you keep looking for it and not even know what it is, or where to find it, so you go and go in hopes that if you just see enough, you can grasp it.

…

No.

You know what it is, that is missing.

Your twin.

The twin that is and isn’t, an alive dead thing. A thing that should live but is rotting, and you’re rotting with it and can’t heal.

—

It’s the Torch that gives you the push, and you take a knife to the thing and cut it off before more of its rot takes you.

You find your attic filled with all the things that you tried to fill the void with, fabric and ornaments and magic.

You tear down your drapes and strike through the symbols.

—

There’s a skip in the world, and it separates into two. The Qhori can’t see it, even though Qhor’s roots come from that ghostly place.

The sailors can’t see it even though you almost slip through at night.

You walk atop the land that once was when Kiliskalea still stood, long claimed by the waves.

The Spiders know, and they let you pass.

The Sylkyet have legends, and wards, and ghostly trees cover the mountains at night.
The Beladi have places where rivers once flowed, where then came desert, and where now irrigation projects are running. They have the stories, of creatures from the ghost lands. It’s the land of your father, even if you’ve never met him.

Someone else’s land.

This is not what you’re looking for, and you turn back to Sylkyet, and the Spiders.
The Spiders know, and you slip through their webs. There is no sky above the trees, you don’t think, only void. Void of one of the twin gods, Caeri, Torch of the other, Haldr. A connection, maybe.

—

You walk the lands between, and fight, because you can’t do anything else. You lead, even though you’re lost. You seek, what your mother would say you yourself destroyed.
You seek, what you yourself say never existed in the first place.

—

You burn a grove into the place that can never change, and set up base, a tent and a cot. It’s a start.

—

Some of those you guided return, traversing the ghost lands themselves.

—

Star Torrent says she’s worried, and that you’re always welcome among the Blades. But you need to seal the pathway from the other side so the Strife cannot enter their world again.

You miss the people you fought alongside with, and they would’ve taken you in, but…
It’s a connected place, not a connecting one, if that makes sense.

Your base acquires storage, and you hang up the charms out of respect for the people who made them for you.

You do not hang up drapes.