Dichotomy

[DotCom]

Tai was not reassured in the slightest by Kohe's reassuring glance. After twenty years, she understood her sister could be something of a martyr -- it seemed to run in the family -- and that reassuring glances only meant she hadn't been imagining it when she felt something off in the air. When Rask sat down beside Kohe, a faint frown on his face, Tai knew she'd been right.

"What?" she said, moving closer with Sero balanced on one hip. "What's wrong with her?" Because she knew something was wrong, had known for days, weeks, months now. Kohe hadn't let her be afraid, because Kohe wasn't afraid. But the problem hadn't left, either, and that wasn't much better.

She leaned over and pressed a hand to her sister's forehead, like Rask had done, suddenly keenly aware of the fatigue and vertigo she'd been ignoring all day -- apparently at Kohe's expense. She felt felt the heat there and frowned, letting Sero, who finally seemed to have caught on something was wrong, slide to the floor.

"Tai?" he said, half pout, half question.

"It's okay, Blue," Tai said, already distracted as she filtered through what she was receiving from Kohe, all of it deadened by exhaustion. "Go play with Mommy, okay?"

"What happen Kohe?" Sero asked pressing a little closer.

Tai shook her head, disappearing to the kitchen for a moment to return with a cool, damp rag she hoped would wake her sister, and suspected would not.

"She's just resting," Tai said, her voice just slightly strained. "It's alright."

"Come here, pico." Lyra had emerged from the kitchen, her expression somber. Sero stared at Kohe for another long moment before scrambling to his mother's arms. She hefted him up and rested his weight against her right hip, tangerine eyes flitting back and forth between Kohe, Tai, and Rask, before settling on the younger twin.

"You really don't know?"

Tai might have flinched from the words if she weren't so distracted sifting through layers of her sister's consciousness. She didn't look away from her sister's flushed face as she answered.

"I have no idea."

--

Faster.

Jack felt a growl bubble in his throat, somewhere between the acrid taste of bile and the burning of his lungs. His powerful legs ached and trembled beneath him; all four paws were burnt and blistered from the heat of the Tar Pitch, but he was beyond feeling actual pain anymore.

Anger, though...he understood that. Anger, resentment. Perhaps a pang of fear, but that was quickly pushed away, used only to fuel his flight across the mottled black and red wasteland that remained after the Great Betrayal over a hundred years ago.

Didn't you hear me, reznak? I said faster.

I'm trying.

A cold laugh echoed in his head, almost a relief from the heat that had him seeing nearly doubled. The black wolf moved over the Tar Pitch like a shadow, nearly untouchable. But even he could not escape his father's gaze.

If you have the energy to mindspeak, reznak, then you can move faster. You think me cruel, but I am not the one who will sear the fur from your hide if you don't make it before the earth splits again.

Jack snarled a wordless response, spittle dripping from his jowls to hiss into steam at his feet, but he ran faster. He had fallen victim to the acid geysers that made the Tar Pitch one of many unkind places left on their homeworld just once before. The pain had kept him from sleeping for two weeks.

He reached the black sands with just seconds to spare. He had only run the half marathon this time, finishing in just under an hour, but the fumes rising from the Tar Pitch made his lungs burn and his stomach twist inside him. He felt his legs trembling, on the verge of collapse, but he knew better than to show such weakness in front of his father. The large gray wolf sat calmly on his haunches, watching his younger son with impassive red eyes. Jack stared back, his body heaving as he struggled to draw even a few unlabored breaths. He longed for the cool touch of water against his ravaged throat.

He did not move. And for a time, neither did Briar Blackfang, the oldest living descendent of Elias Blackfang, the savior and traitor of his people.

When he finally did move, he offered only one word of explanation for his actions.

Sinitrus, he spat.

Then, with the renowned speed and strength of his ancestors, he leapt forth. Powerful jaws wrapped around Jack's neck, only barely catching the scruff, and drawing blood nonetheless. Exhausted and unable to fight back, Jack found himself lifted then flung through the air back toward the unforgiving heat of the Tar Pitch just as the earth split eagain and belched hot steam into the air.

The great gray wolf and the silent brown wolf beside it turned and left, ignoring the black as it tried to scramble to burning paws, to safety.

His howls and whimpers of pain echoed through the air only until another bark, sharp and angry, cut them off.

 

[Kaisaan]

Queen Visseen was as beautiful as Elitoro remembered her to be.

She was his mother, but it had been some time since the Prince had called her as much, had thought about her as such. She'd been his world, his guiding darkness when he was young and his father alive, so disapproving. His mother had been kindness, a gentle touch, a soft-spoken word of encouragement. But the War of the Light's Wrath had changed her. No longer did he see his mother when he looked upon the icy-blue eyes and pale blond hair of his Queen. She was pale beauty, ice and sharp edges now. Where once he'd seen a wonderful diamond, enchanting and awing when he looked upon her, now all Elitoro saw was hardness and a deceptive lightness that wielded the most effective shadow.

She was his Queen now, nothing more and when Elitoro bowed before her in the icethrone curling with black tendrils of Midnight, it was to his Queen alone that he spoke.

"You called for me, your Highness?"

"Rise." The world was crisp, piercing and Elitoro did as commanded, daring to look up and meet the pale blue eyes that watched him with his own of an opposing shade of brown-black. Visseen seemed to weigh her son for a long moment, nothing in her face to show her thoughts of him before she spoke once more and her voice echoed off the dark iced-over rocks of the chamber around her. Shadows coiled in the corners of the room, guards waiting to swarm whoever their monarch might demand.

"I have received Word from the Midnight. The Time is upon us."

For a creature of ice and darkness, Elitoro still felt a chill run down his spine and he worked to keep his expression neutral, blank. "What is it you would have me do?" Because he'd known this day would come. It was all his father had ever talked about; the day his son would be of value to him, the day everything would change and he'd no longer have to suffer this runt that brought such disgrace upon his Kingdom. It was the day the Prince had both dreaded and hoped for and now it was here.

"Stay still."

It was the only warning he received before his mother's scepter was pointing at him and Elitoro felt the Midnight hit him squarely. And it burned like fire.

His scream climbed the ceiling of the chamber, echoing off the underground walls and still the black darker than pitch wrapped about his body, feeding into his pours, eyes, ears, mouth, nose, filling his body and mind with a pressure he could not possibly contain. And within the depths of himself, past the excruciating agony, Elitoro felt something simple click open and the Midnight left just as quickly as it had come.

And then the real pain started.

---

Kohe woke screaming.

They were piercing, anguished, agonized cries that wouldn't cease and the Demisan thrashed and writhed in Rask's hold as if her body were afire. And to Kohe, it felt like it was. She couldn't speak, couldn't think, could barely breathe past the pain from dual sources and it was only when she passed out from hyperventilating past her own shrieks that the house grew quiet again, though, the person the cries had belonged to continued to jerk and squirm, her fever now raging even as the mysterious pain did.

Said pain would not let her sleep, would not let her escape and Kohe woke again, her mismatched eyes glazed with something only she could see, something only she could feel and while this time she didn't start screaming, the words that tumbled from her mouth were both furious and pleading, desperate in turns, but unlike any language anyone in the room had ever heard.

And Rask could not help her.

He was trying, his power enveloping the Demisan and then sliding away again, useless for Kohe was caught in a Timestream and even as her body was here, her mind was not and therefore could not be protected. It could not be drawn out until Kohe herself chose to let go of whatever she was seeing, viewing, experiencing.

And right now she was too out of her head with the pain to think that through.

But not too far gone not to recognize salvation when her eyes finally landed on it. Kohe reached for her twin with hands that nearly burned the heat radiating off of her was so intense, but it was her mismatched eyes that echoed the unbearable suffering she was in....but at the same time, they echoed other suffering as well for in her sapphire eye was the swirling of a black so dark it could swallow the universe and in her scarlet eye, a yellow so pale that flickered like sun-fire. Both colors seemed to scream their own anguish and Kohe's voice echoed it.

"Tai! Make it stop! P-please make it s-stop! They're h-hurting them!"

She arched again with another choked cry, hands flying to her head as Kohe curled once more soon after, trying to breathe past the pain the two most important to the twins were feeling.

 

[DotCom]

She was dying.

Tai was only twenty years old, but together, she and her sister had seen more than anyone thrice their age, and Tai knew -- knew -- she was dying.

It wasn't her first time, no. She had nearly drowned when she was six, and just shortly after that, an illness she could not name or even remember had nearly claimed her. And somewhere in the dark corners of her parents' minds, she felt death had loomed over her and Kohe once even before they were born, the night of their birth, perhaps, in the same way Lyra's had hovered over her on the night of Sero's.

This was not like that. This was not a gentle, hazy fog of distant confusion. This was not pain unmatched, or fear. This was a simple burning agony that was somehow worse because it wasn't hers. It was Kohe's. Somewhere, somehow, Kohe was dying, and so Tai was, too.

She stood there frozen before Kohe as she screamed and writhed. In the kitchen, Sero clung to his mother sobbing into her neck. Lyra looked pale, sick. Rask wouldn't look at her at all. And Tai...Tai...

"Tai!"

The younger twin jumped, violet eyes flicking from Kohe's face to Lyra's, who was suddenly, somehow right beside her, one hand clamped almost painfully on her shoulder, the other still supporting Sero against a hip. Vaguely, Tai wondered how long her aunt had been trying to speak to her, how much time had passed since Kohe started screaming and stopped again.

"Tai!" Lyra's voice came again whip-sharp over the sound of Kohe's whimpering. Tai felt her eyes drift back to her sister, and Lyra shook her again. "Tai, pay attention. Listen! Listen to me." The hand moved from her shoulder to her cheek and Lyra forced her to look away from Kohe, to Lyra, tangerine eyes hard, but calm.

"Tai?"

"I...I'm listening," she started, then coughed, her voice rough. Had she been screaming, too?

"Kohe needs your help. Can you help her?"

Tai's eyes were wide, unfocused. She was shaking so hard, she could barely stand. Sero was scared, so scared, she could feel the fear rolling off him so thick, it nearly choked her, and --

"Tai?"

"Yes! No. I mean...I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with her, I don't...I can't -- "

She broke off in a weak whimper, hearing Kohe's voice desperate in her mind, hating herself because she didn't know what to do. Kohe was hurting. She wasn't supposed to be hurting, Tai had promised her that again, and again, and again, and now she was here again, confused, helpless, useless, while Kohe died.

"Tai. Stop. Breathe. Think." Lyra made her younger niece turn to meet her eyes again, gentler now than they had been the first time. "You can do this. You saved me and Rask. You can save Kohe."

Tai studied Lyra's face for a long moment, then took a deep, shaky breath and offered a watery smile.

"O-okay," she said. She put out a trembling hand to brush Sero's platinum blonde hair from his eyes and he looked at her, shy, distraught.

"What's wrong with Ko-ee?" she hiccuped.

"She'll be alright, Blue," Tai said, willing herself to believe it. "I'll fix it. Okay?"

Then she turned to the couch and gently pushed Rask aside, careful avoid kneeling on tails or wings as she laid three finger tips to Kohe's temple and stepped into the black.

--

There were three paths here, not the one she'd been expecting, and yet somehow, she was not surprised. The first was Kohe's. It was brightest in her mind's eye, vibrant, strong, that warm, familiar pink she now ran ethereal fingers over, both seeking and providing comfort. But it branched further on, two separate directions, two more colors that didn't touch. They were dimmer than the pink, unfamiliar because they shared no bond with her, and yet they were tightly bound with her sister.

How was that possible? Who could Kohe know that Tai did not? It was true they were older now, and while they had many friends in common, they no longer felt bound to the same groups of people. And yet Kohe had always been the quieter, more reserved twin. Unless Tai made the initial interaction, it was unlikely any friendship, let alone a bond this strong would be formed. And yet as Tai walked to meet the two new paths, one black, dark as pitch, the other a faint yellow, she was not surprised. The connection had been looming at the edges of Kohe's consciousness for months, and even a non-Empath could sense that.

But right now, all three paths writhed and burned with a separate pain Tai could not understand and only barely feel, so great was her concern for her sister. Who were these other paths? Were they friend or foe? Was it worth it to risk saving them if it could harm Kohe more?

And yet she had never, in twenty years, two decades, known Kohe to be wrong. If these connections were made, they were made with a reason. And Tai could not deny she felt a powerful connection, even without drawing closer.

She did not know who or what these connections were, but they would be, if they were not already, very, very important.

Without thinking, Tai drew close and plunged her own mind, a hearty, yet warming indigo into the fray.
--

Tai went abruptly limp beside Kohe, so suddenly that Sero stopped crying and Lyra looked from Tai to Kohe to Rask, worried. Then Tai's eyes flew open, not quite focused, but different...strange...glowing a single, solid shade of pale violet. Lyra took a step back then, putting herself between Tai and Sero, who peeked around her shoulders.

"Tai?"

Tai screamed. Just once, a sharp, short sound, as if she'd been startled. Then her body went rigid again, as if she were fighting against herself, invisible restraints, or something inside her that desperately wanted out.

"Tai?" Lyra said again, still cautious.

Now-violet eyes focused on the Keeper with startling speed.

"Don't!" said Tai, her voice strained and nothing like her own. "Don't touch me. I--I'm fine. I'll lose it if you -- " She broke off, squeezed her eyes shut, a strangled whimper sounding at the back of her throat. "I can f-fix this," she said through gritted teeth. She'd balled her hands into fists so tight her knuckles seemed to glow white. A strand of dark purple hair hung into her face, clinging to her sweat-soaked brow. "I can do it. Just d-don't touch me. And don't let Kohe fall."

"What?"

"Don't -- " Tai started. Then her eyes rolled back into her head as both she and Kohe went rigid again.

--

She didn't know how long she floated there, or if she screamed, or for how long she screamed, or if any sound left her mouth whatsoever. She opened her eyes and at first, there was nothing but bright, hazy spots of pain and light. No color, no sound, only agony.

But this was important to Kohe, so it was important to her. She would not look away or sleep or give up until Kohe was okay.

Stepping back, she found she could get her legs underneath her and once again see the three divergent paths, pink, black, yellow. But now each of the streams of color and light were shot through with a darker purple, her own indigo leaving splashes of warmth and calm and love and joy trailing away from her and into the dark. And now that she touched all of them, she could save all of them.

Tapping into her Empathy and a knowledge she didn't understand, Tai made another light shield, a bubble she spread as far from herself as she could along the black and the yellow and the pink. There was instant relief wherever the light touched, as though the shield obliterated the pain, the cold, and the darkness that came with it. Even here, Tai trembled with exertion, knowing she could not reach back along all the paths, not even Kohe's. But she could stop this pain, right here, right now. It glowed in her mind, an acrid, ugly red that burned like fire or poison. Tai wrapped herself around it, her Empathy easily picking up on the hopelessness and desperation behind the fear and pain, gently pulling the streaks of red from the pink, the black the yellow. She drew it into herself, whimpering at the sensation of absorbing everything that was so opposite her, and when she sensed she had it all she put it in her light bubble and sent it far away.

All around her, the three paths had settled. They still burned bright, the black and yellow brighter now that she could see, feel, touch them for herself, though she had no desire to do so yet. These were Kohe's connections, not hers. And that was why were path had not yet joined theirs. The black and yellow flickered with the indigo, impossible to miss, but perhaps not so impossible to ignore. They would not sense its presence for some time.

But until then, it could keep them safe.

She hoped.
--

Tai, as usual, woke first.

It was quiet around her, or she thought so. Her ears buzzed in a sort of high whine and there was a thin trickle of blood coming from her nose that she ignored as she looked over to Kohe, who lay limp and pale beside her. Tai swallowed back the rising tide of bile in her throat and blinked away the headache she could feel throbbing behind her eyes. The shadows of two unfamiliar presences whispered quietly in her mind.

She heard nothing.

"Kohe?" she said, her voice hoarse as though she'd been screaming again. "Kohe?" She pushed herself to her knees, ignoring the wave of nausea that swept over her as she shook her sister again.

"Kohe? Please be okay, 'setta, please! Tell me it worked. You have to be okay. You have to tell me it worked. Please...please..."

 

[Kaisaan]

He couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. He barely knew if he was alive anymore. There was nothing but the pain. Nothing but the searing fire in his mind that would not abate. It had come up from the depth of himself, triggered by the Midnight, but not caused by it and Elitoro knew he wasn't even screaming anymore. It was a wordless cry that kept his throat open in a wordless plea for someone to DO something.

But no one moved.

There was no balm, no relief, no sense to anything. And then there was nothing but a bright light that made him writhe to escape it, burning with the heat of it where it touched his skin. And he wanted to die. To simply die and become nothing, to not only lose his physical form but his shadow one as well. He wanted to escape and simply die.

It was then that darkness came, bringing relief, driving away the pain, but unlike any he'd ever known for it wasn't harsh and final, but rather seemed to move and caress. It was....not really black either, but a dark...a dark purple and the Ashkerai knew he saw it for just a moment, felt comfort in its touch, felt a peace and happiness that were so foreign to him but made him want to reach out for it. Then it too was gone, swallowed up by a new sensation, a new overwhelming something in his mind.

By the time Elitoro realized what was happening, it was too late. And then he was no more, pulled down in terror and helplessness into the deepest corner of his mind where the Midnight had released something else entirely. Someone else.

The brown-black eyes that opened were not like they'd been before as the male rose from the ground, a fluid, lethal grace in his movements as he took in the throne room with an air of subtle disgust, unimpressed. His gaze flickered to the Queen in her icethrone and slowly she rose, looking both unsure and interested.

"Elitoro?"

The male Ashkerai smiled slowly, nothing warm in the gesture and his dark eyes glittered with a hard, sharp light like the edge of a blade in the dark before it struck.

"I prefer Eliko."

----

Mismatched eyes fluttered open slowly and Kohe took a long, but soft breath, staring at nothing for a long moment before her head turned toward her sister and her tail rose, the end touching Tai's head gently. The eldest Demisan looked at the younger with a bittersweet mixture of sadness and gratefulness and the same was reflected in her voice when she spoke, the sound hoarse from the screaming.

"It worked. You stopped the pain. I knew you could."

Kohe slowly, almost achingly turned to her side and she reached out a hand, palming Tai's face, smiling softly for her twin. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm sorry, Pejkia."

Tears gathered in Kohe's eyes and she blinked, sending them down her face in a slow torrent as she shook her head and took a shaky breath. "I was too late. I'm sorry, Tai. I was too late for him. He took the wrong path. I tried to find him in time. I did. I promise I did." She hiccuped and sniffed, fighting the pressure in her chest, but unable to help that it leaked from her eyes in a constant flood. Guilt ate at her. She'd been TRYING to find Tai's mate, knowing that he'd be first. It would be him who would be in danger of taking one of the dark paths in time first as he was here, closest to them, but she'd been too late.

"Kohe? Who are you talking about? What's wrong?"

Rask's voice made her look over, but Kohe shook her head and looked back to her sister, her words whispered for Tai alone. There were some things that even their Uncle Rask could not know, not anymore, not yet.

"I found him, Tai. Your mate. But I couldn't save him from the dark path this time. I'm sorry."

 

[DotCom]

Tai felt her whole body sag in relief, releasing a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and she was leaning forward suddenly, nearly in Kohe's lap even before her sister had finished speaking. She knew what Kohe was saying was important, even if she didn't know how. It was something to do with their future, their fates, and not just theirs, but those two other beings in the darkness, those distant, angry shafts of light, one black, one a pale yellow, something far beyond she could understand, but something Kohe seemed to grasp for better or for worse. Tai knew she was supposed to care, had to care, because they were in trouble, the mysterious lights, and she and Kohe were in trouble with them. She had to care because she was still connected, like Kohe and yet not like Kohe. She could still feel things from them, could still feel the remnants of her shield around all of them wearing thinner and thinner by the moment.

There was anger at the end of those paths. Anger, loathing, rage, hurt, fear, guilt, pain. She didn't understand them. But she wanted to help.

And yet she could not focus on what Kohe was saying, despite how important it was, because Kohe had been gone somewhere dark and awful, somewhere Tai hadn't been able to protect her, and the sound of her screams still echoed in her brain.

Tai hated crying. It made her sad, and it made everyone around her sad, and there was nothing she liked less.

But Kohe had been hurting, and she couldn't help it.

"I don't care. It doesn't matter right now Kohe, just...please don't cry, 'setta, Kohe, I...I..." she trailed off, unable to think, unable to even form the words she wanted to say to her sister, giving up and instead wrapping her arms tighter around her twin's neck. She could feel one or both of them trembling, just like she could feel her own heart thudding against Kohe's shoulder. She had her sister in an awkward grip, one wing flung over the back of the couch, the other bent uncomfortably beneath her knee, Kohe's tail trapped between Tai's stomach and Kohe's chest. But she didn't care. She had to know Kohe was okay. She had to.

Behind her, Lyra quietly picked up a still-stunned Sero to exist into his bedroom for the moment, leaving the twins to their own devices. She hadn't seen Tai sob like that since the night Kohe had come back from her first jump, and before that, when Tai herself had nearly drowned. It had seemed to Lyra for years Tai was so good, so kind, so naive, there was nothing on earth or in heaven that frightened her -- aside from water and darkness -- but now Lyra could see that was not true.

She was afraid, desperately so, of losing Kohe.

It was some time before Tai had calmed herself down to where she felt like she could sit back and give Kohe some breathing room. She was still shaking as she did, but she was breathing more regularly now. Her face was a splotchy mess of tears and blood and she pushed her hair from her eyes with a look of sheepish disgust.

"Sorry," she said after a moment. "I...don't know...I don't know what happened." She frowned a little as the depth of truth to the statement occurred to her, but then she shook herself and it was gone again. Violet eyes raked over Kohe's being once more, as if to reassure herself her twin was still whole and hale, before the last of the tension eased from her shoulders.

"I...saw...I think I saw...those...the people, the ones you've been dreaming about. I don't know what they look like, or where they are, but I can feel them now." She paused, searched her mind, but she knew it was still true. There was still an uncommon hatred and coldness there. It made her shiver.

"I touched them, and now...now maybe they can feel me, too. I don't know. But Kohe...Kohe, it's not too late. I touched them and I changed them, and I think...the same way we've done with colonies and villages around here, Ko, we can find them. We can help them." She shivered again and sniffed and finally smiled, rigidly determined.

"I want to go, Kohe. I...don't care if they're our mates or not. But they felt that pain, too, and it won't go away from them if we don't help. We can find them. We can save them. You and me, Kohe. We have to."

 

[Kaisaan]

------

No one understood why they had to go. Not even Rask for all his knowledge of the future could grasp their reasoning and it didn't help that neither twin gave a real reason. They only said they had to go, that there was something they had to do, someone they had to help. None of the older adults liked it, none of them wanted to sanction it, but the end result and crux of the matter was that Kohe and Tai were no longer children. At twenty years of age, they were considered adults to both of their species - and quite honestly two or three years before that in Aavan culture.

They could go where they wished and no one could truly tell them they couldn't.

But that was not how the twins wanted to leave; estranged from their family, their parents hurt, their Uncle driving himself to distraction with worry, their nephew saddened and the rest of their family just plain confused. No, that was not how they wanted to leave their family, but Kohe knew - and she wasn't sure if Tai understood this or not - she would do just that if it came down to it.

Koheera loved her family, dearly, and there was nothing she wouldn't do for them, but what they could not understand yet was that both those males were part of her family, too. And this picture was far bigger than any of them could imagine. There was more at stake here than simply their family and it was for that reason that the Demisan would not hesitate to walk away even if it left behind a jumbled chaos she'd have to come back to later.

No, it was for Tai's sake that she'd waited two weeks. That they'd stayed for Tac and Yenna to announce that the green Aavan was pregnant. She stayed the fourteen days so things could be discussed, hashed out, emotions stabilized, acceptance reached because Kohe KNEW that coming back to a mess like this if they left it unresolved would be torture for Tai.

And she wouldn't do that to her sister.

But Koheera could not deny that she itched to be away. Not necessarily from everyone she loved and was familiar with, no, but because she knew it had to be. Tai....Tai was always going to be....well, Tai. She was always going to be Kohe's sunbeam, the ray of light and love, warmth and hope to any who needed it. She'd always look for the best in people, in situations and Kohe knew she would be powerful beyond comprehension someday. She would amaze the universe itself with her capacity for forgiveness, compassion and mercy. She would be something no one had ever seen before.

Tai was the Rekuhisha and while her sister didn't quite know what that meant yet, Kohe did. Tai was the embodiment of Hope itself and as long as her sister was alive, Hope would be, too.

The elder twin, though....Kohe knew she was not the same. There would be no accolades for her. People would not speak her name in affectionate reverence and adoration. No, she was a creature different entirely. She was something that had existed before, so long ago that no one remembered it now, something ancient and wild in its power. It was untameable in many ways and pliable in others. Just as she was. She WAS her power in the same way Tai was.

Kohe was the Akatikari. She was the closest living incarnation of Time itself.

And she knew time was running out, drawing to a point so bright in the Timestream that she could hardly make out the paths yet, but she knew them to be there. Kohe knew it was time to tell Tai all that she knew, but not here, not with everyone around them, but soon. She promised that to herself as her mismatched eyes scanned the group around she and her sister. Grandparents, parents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. They were all here, all accounted for whether by blood or heart, and the eldest Demisan had to smile from where she leaned against the archway into the garden, her arms crossed loosely, black-white hair messy about her and tail languidly coiling her and there on the cobblestones.

She would miss them. All of them dearly, completely.....but today she and Tai were leaving, no more delays and everyone knew it.

 

[DotCom]

Tai had known from the moment Kohe woke that evening two weeks ago, mere hours before Yenna announced another cousin Tai ached to know she would miss, that she and Kohe had to leave. Not forever, or so she hoped, but for a long time. For good, and for better or worse, they were leaving. Some part of her had known it from that day Kohe had come back from her first jump. Like their parents before them, she and Kohe were not normal, and had never been meant for a life of normalcy. Some day, there might be families, boredom, birth announcements, laughter and love untainted by foresight, duty, responsibility.

But that day was a long way off, and there were many, many hardships between then and now. And Tai knew, too, when they left this time, it would not be for a week, or a month, or even a year. They would cross more than space before they finished this journey, and there was every chance in a hundred worlds, in a thousand times that both of them might not make it back.

For that reason alone, Tai was loathe to leave.

She knew Kohe believed her to be powerful, a force beyond reckoning, but for all Tai had insisted her big sister was never wrong...she had some reservations on that front. There were forces out there far greater, far crueler, and far more powerful than Tai, and they terrified her, because she was not sure she could protect her sister from them. And they would want Kohe, she knew. Wherever they went, it was Tai who was first lauded. Her powers were so bright, so evident. But what could a bird made of sunshine hold against the pillar of strength that was Kohe and her Time Control? It would happen, she knew, again and again, and in all the wrong ways and in all the wrong places. Some day, if that day hadn't already happened half a hundred times, someone would come for them. They would see Tai's powers, her insipid ability to make people laugh, and they would...laugh.

And then their eyes, greedy and cold, would fall to Kohe, to true power, and they would take her, one who would not be taken. And Tai would fight to the death, and know with her last breath she had not, had never been enough to save Kohe.

So, part of her -- a large part of her, a part she tried to hide from Kohe -- was scared to leave. Yes, she would miss her mother and father and grandparents and aunts and uncles. Yes, her heart twisted inside of her to imagine saying goodbye to little Sero, who couldn't understand; the thought of missing Yenna's child had left her weeping for an hour, bursting into tears right there at the dinner table where Yenna had made the announcement. There was so much here here she didn't want to leave: family and friends and memory and love and life. The place where she and Kohe had grown up, had grown into themselves, even begun to learn of their destinies, though those futures would not come, paradoxically, until they left.

But beyond that fear and nostalgia, there was a deeper, blacker terror. One that said Kohe would not always be hers. And that, Tai could not abide.

She had laid awake so many nights, wondering if she could take Kohe out of it, knowing if she showed even the slightest doubt to Rora or Rask, even Mori or Lyra, they would help her, convince her to stay, encouraging and kind. They would not see the coward she was. They would not know. But she also knew Kohe would go one way or another, and even if she wasn't enough to protect her sister, Tai could not, would not leave her sister.

Even so, as she saw Kohe standing at the end of the pavilion where Rogan and Yenna had put together their 'going away party', she could feel a dark apprehension building in her. It wasn't too late. There was still time. They could stay, even find new paths for themselves, Kohe was always saying a hundred thousand different things were possible...

And then she felt them again. A cold brush of black, the heat of a yellow rage. Both so distant, so full of hatred.

Both in danger, and both so deeply ingrained in her now, even after just two weeks.

She would give her life for Kohe. But these two...they were worth so much more than she could ever hope to understand. And she could not abandon them.

She walked up beside her taller sister with a faint smile. Violet eyes were wide and hurt, but dry and somehow smiling. Hopeful.

For the first time in a long time, she spoke without words. Her right hand found Kohe's left and their fingers intertwined. She put her head against her sister's shoulder and brought up her other hand to gently pull a tangle from black-white hair.

When you're ready, she said simply, I am, too. I think I've found them. We....we can go whenever you like.

 

[Kaisaan]

Kohe knew what it cost her sister to admit those words and the elder twin brought her arms up to pull the younger close, kissing the top of Tai's head and then resting her own on her sisters with a shaking sigh only Tai would hear. Thank you, Tai. I know this is hard. I know it is, but...I can't do it without you, Pejkia. I need you.

And she felt no shame in admitting it. She and Tairisa were two quarters of the same half. Neither of them was complete without the other and yet...neither of them were complete with each other, either. Most would say they were two halves of a whole, but Kohe knew better. They were only a quarter in a four-piece circle. The other two were the other half.

And Tai had found the one closest to them, her mate.

It made the elder Demisan both envious - that Tai should get to meet her mate first - but also relieved. Finally they would have a chance to stop this coming catalytic event that would rock their future to its core. Finally she could stop merely knowing and dreaming, but DO something. Kohe had never been more filled with purpose in her life. Here was a chance to stop her own death, her sister's death.

She would take it.

Scarlet and sapphire eyes finally met Tai's violet and Kohe smiled, relief evident in her gaze, in her face, in the way her tail had stopped twitching and her body had gone less tense. We'll go soon, but I will not have you leaving before you say your proper goodbyes. I know you too well, little sister. she teased gently and then pushed Tai toward their family again gently, following behind this time.

----

It was nearly evening when they set out and the adults had tried to get them to stay one more night, to leave in the morning, but the twins had determined to leave today and that was what they did.

The tears and promises, good-lucks and come-back-safely rang in Kohe's mind as she raced across the plains that would lead to the forest, Tai flying and scouting overhead. She wished they hadn't been forced to leave their family, everything they'd known, behind. It was the first time Kohe openly admitted it to herself that she was scared, but there was no denying it now.

They were following a trail only Tai could see and while that did not bother Kohe as she trusted her twin without question, it did make her nervous as to WHERE that trail would lead, where it would end. Kohe knew what she'd seen those two weeks ago. The Black Canyons. A place still forbidden after twenty years and no activity from the Ashkerai. That's where she'd seen Tai's mate.

And that was where she would bet anything they were going.

The thought made Kohe stumble to a stop in the middle of the jungle, breathing fast but not hard and she swallowed back the bile that wanted to rise, inhaling carefully through her nose. She looked up at the flutter of Tai's wings, having known her sister would realize she wasn't following and come back.

"'M'fine...fine...." Kohe shook her head and clamped her teeth, feeling her stomach try to rebel and she fought it, looking around for a distraction. No, she would not puke. She would not give in to this coiling fear that had lain dormant for the last two weeks. No. She knew why it was still here; the pain. She didn't want to feel it again, but Kohe knew she would. At some point she would and irrationally - or perhaps not, she didn't know yet - the thought of the Black Canyons made her want to tremble and turn back, afraid of that pain again.

So she sought something else to occupy her mind and soon spotted the heat cavern in the earth. She pointed at it and then dropped her hand again, realizing it trembled just slightly. "We should stop, before it gets too dark."

Mismatched eyes met violet then and Kohe spoke softly. "And then we need to talk. I have to tell you some things I never have before."

 

[DotCom]

For a long time, the sadness combatted the fear.

Tai flew because she loved to fly, and it made her feel better, and being beneath the trees, even with Kohe, meant the sun set too fast. There was no light for her to play with (or chase away the darkness with) under the canopy of green, and she could see if there was danger coming for Kohe long before it actually reached her.

But she also flew because she hated being sad, especially around other people. If she had to choose, it would be Kohe in a heartbeat, but she knew her sister already felt guilty about taking Tai away from her parents, from Rask and Lyra and little Sero, from everything she'd ever known, and everyone she'd ever loved. And she knew Kohe would know how suddenly empty she was feeling whether she was walking alongside her, or a hundred miles up. But at least here, Kohe didn't have to listen to her cry.

And for the most part, she didn't. She tried not to. She was excited for the adventure, and anxious to save the two Kohe had seen -- their mates, Kohe had said, though that meant less than nothing to Tai. She loved everyone and couldn't understand putting anyone but Kohe above another person . For all Kohe had insisted she needed Tai along, Tai knew she needed to be with Kohe, wherever Kohe was, so much more. She couldn't have stayed behind, even if she'd wanted to, and a part of her, a part she tried to hide even now, had.

But it still hurt. Actually, physically hurt, a pain that manifested in fatigue and muscle aches, a low, dull throb of a headache behind her eyes. For the Empath to leave the city, where she had thrived on the life and love and joy of everyone around her, with whom she had made deep and lasting connections...it felt almost as devastating as being cut off from the light, or thrust into the deepest, coldest water she could fathom. And while she didn't dare burden Kohe with it -- she would rather suffer the dark for an eternity than foist anymore guilt on her twin -- she knew it was unlikely she was keeping the faintest edges of her grief from overflowing to her sister.

Together, it built a decent enough distraction against the coming night, against the thoughts now blossoming in her head -- they had spent a hundred nights in a hundred different places, but never alone, and never so far from a city. And there was far, far more, even Tai knew that, than darkness and emptiness here to greet them.

Still, she kept the tang of fear at bay, focusing instead on trying to calm her own sadness, and assuage Kohe's unease. At least until 'unease' leapt to fear, and a nausea so fierce and sudden, Tai found herself gagging. She pulled up abruptly and circled down to land beside her sister, and only when she was beneath the trees did she realize how truly dark it had gotten.

She suppressed a shudder, sending a nervous glance up through the canopy to call on starlight, if she needed it, before nodding to her sister. Kohe's admission, as well as her palpable fear, made goosebumps pop out on her arms and her stomach drop like she had just stepped off the edge of a cliff into a deep, dark abyss. But the heat cavern was close, and warm, and bright, and she trusted Kohe.

Even if her twin's news was bad to its very core.

 

[Kaisaan]

They sat in silence, nothing but the crackling of the lava pit before them lending to the serenity of the cavern. It seemed to last forever to Kohe, though, because for the first time in her life, she was unsure just how to tell her sister the things she needed to say. It wasn't like delivering a message or simply explaining how something worked. It was far more complicated and the elder Demisan knew that Tai might never truly understand some of it.

And that was fine, but....Kohe needed her to at least have an idea of what was going on.

She knew Tai could handle it, but would she understand it? How could she make her twin see what it was she saw? Make her experience what Kohe knew? How could she WANT that for her sibling at all? What kind of sister did that make her that she was even considering making Tai go through that, just to show her.

Kohe sighed, feeling the weight on her shoulders become far more intense, but finally she spoke. "Tai, do you know what we are? What we really are?" Mismatched eyes met her sister's and Kohe knew the answer already, smiling just a little as she reached forward and brushed that one wayward strand of dark purple hair from her twin's face, all the affection in the world in that one small gesture. "You're Hope, Tai. Not just the word, but the....everything about it. You are Hope. You do just bring it and give it, Tai, you ARE Hope. You are...something no one has ever seen before."

The Demisan suddenly knew she wasn't making much sense and tried again, shaking her head, sitting back on her feet, kneeling before her sister as her fingers reached out and once again carded through white-purple hair fondly, trying to think how to say the words, how to make Tai understand just how important this was. Oh, she knew her sister would know, but....but Kohe needed her to know.

"Rekuhisha means 'Spirit Reviver'." Kohe smiled a bit, but held her sister's gaze with a piercing one of her own, something she usually reserved for others, not Tai. "That is what you are, Tai, down to the very depths of your being. That is what you do. You have a power that..." She shook her head, sighing, dropping her hands, knowing that Tai didn't believe such things about herself, no matter how Kohe said them. "I know you can't fathom it and I know that you don't really believe me. I know, but Tai, you have to understand me when I say I have seen what you can do. I have seen you accomplish miracles, things that people can't even dream of. You are special, Pejkia."

She cupped her twin's face, looking at Tai with the adoration of an older sister and friend. "You are something no one has ever seen before. No one in the whole of time. You're something new and wonderful, Tai."

Kohe smiled, genuine and happy, her eyes glittering with promise and tears both. "You could heal the world, little sister. You could stop war if you wished to with nothing but words. I've seen you do it. So I ask again; do you know what we are? What you are? What we are meant to do? Could you believe me if I told you?"

 

[DotCom]

Tai's first instinct was to fill the heat cavern with fiery red butterflies, because she was jittery and anxious from the dark outside, from being away from home, and because she could feel Kohe's anxiety even stronger than her own. But as soon as her twin opened her mouth to speak, she knew it was not just fear Kohe had to share. It was something bigger, something heavier, not dark, but solemn, and not a space for butterflies.

So, she sent just one. One faint orange butterfly, emitting a golden glow and a gentle warmth as it lit just above her sister's ear, glowing amidst black-white strands of hair. It faded, though, as Kohe spoke, and the younger twin was beset with confusion, and then uncertainty...and then just doubt.

"I...I believe you..." Tai said slowly, and it was true. She believed Kohe...she just thought Kohe was confused. Tai had heard the title before, Rekuhisha. But a title was not a destiny, and Tai was just one person.

"I believe you, Kohe, I just..." She shook her head slowly. "I can't do anything without you. You can change the future." She smiled almost indulgently and called Kohe's butterfly back to fade into a shimmering handful of sparks. "I can just make light shows."

Tai loved Kohe with everything she was, and everything she would ever be -- whatever that was -- and she knew better than anyone her sister was never wrong. Not ever. So what she was saying now scared Tai. Because while Tai knew she was special, she was no miracle worker. And she'd learned long ago she couldn't save the world.

No, what Tai was was naive and idealistic. She was a romantic at heart, always seeing the best in people, always willing to uproot the worst. She would give the shirt off her back, would spare her dying breath for a stranger without a moment's hesitation. Tai wasn't stupid. She was skilled with light, and with Empathy, moreso than her mother had been. She had helped her aunt and uncle recover after a horrible tragedy had nearly torn them apart. She had reached out and touched two souls whom Kohe said would changes their lives. But she was nothing so big, so powerful and untamable as Hope.

She couldn't be, and that was alright with her. It was better that way. As much as she might have wanted to save the world, touch every soul, living and dead and yet unborn, spread light to every corner of the universe...she knew that was impossible. She had learned about true darkness when she was eleven years old. She knew there were things even she could not defeat.

And that Kohe did not know that broke her heart.

For the first time in her life, Tai didn't understand what Kohe was saying, and when her sister started crying, Tai had to hold her breath to keep from doing the same. She leaned forward, a tentative, strained smile on her face.

"'Setta?" she said gently. "'Setta, please don't cry. I...it's okay. We're going to be okay, I promise." Raising her eyes to the jagged edge of darkness where the heat cavern spilled into the sky, Tai swept a hand over her head and sealed the entrance with a faint orange shield.

"I'll keep us safe, okay? We are going to be alright." She knew it wasn't what Kohe wanted to hear, but she didn't know how to answer those things. She didn't think Kohe was wrong. Kohe was never wrong. But her sister was afraid, desperately afraid, and she was tired, and Kohe was confused.

Now Tai reached out and mimicked her sister's earlier move, gently brushing aside a strand of hair from mismatched eyes and smiling a little more freely now.

"C'mon, Ko, let's go to sleep, alright? You'll feel better in the morning." She coaxed a gentle calm onto her sister, trying to ease her to sleep. "It's alright. We'll be okay."

 

[Kaisaan]

She wasn't listening.

No, no, that wasn't right. Tai was listening just fine. She wasn't hearing. And for the first time in her life, Kohe felt a flare of angry frustration toward her sibling and she nearly pushed Tai's hand away. She didn't, more love and compassion, understanding and affection outweighing the irritation, but it was there, flaring for a moment, settling into a bubbling froth within her and then finally departing as she sighed and looked down at her hands, shaking her head as more hair fell forward, loose and tangled after all her running.

Tai didn't understand. Perhaps she wasn't ready to, but damn if Kohe knew when the right time to tell her was. It was comical, really, knowing what she was and then knowing that she couldn't find the right time to tell her sister what she needed to tell her. It threatened to make Kohe laugh and then she just felt like crying, but didn't allow herself that, taking a breath and letting it out slowly before she looked up at her twin with an attempt at a smile, knowing she had to be worrying Tai a great deal.

"All right. We'll sleep. It's okay, Tai. You're not ready and it's okay. We'll sleep."

This time she pulled her sister close, hugging the younger Demisan securely for a long time, trying to push the urgency she felt back. There was still time. Tai wasn't ready, so there was still time. Kohe would make sure of it.

---

She woke at near-dawn with a scream caught in her throat and Kohe was scrambling out of the warmth of the cavern, out into the forest before she could hear a word Tai might say, gulping for air when she came to the surface and sinking down with her back to a tree. She placed her head in her hands, fingers curled in her white-black hair and the Demisan strove to regulate her breathing.

She'd known.

Kohe had known it would get worse, she'd known since that first Jump at eleven. She knew so much more than she ever said and it weighed on her mind like the greatest of pressures, but this? How many times could she watch her sister die before she went crazy?

And that was what they did, wasn't it? They went crazy. All the ones who'd been like her in the past, they'd gone crazy. Useful, yes. Like Seers who saw far more than any Seer could, but it drove them mad. The weight of it, the knowledge, the lack of understanding from anyone around them about what they experienced - Kohe knew it had eventually driven those like her away from everyone else. Into a lonely existence with nothing but Time as company. They died alone.

That was not what she wanted.

But how could she explain any of this to Tai when Tai didn't want to hear it? Tai was light and Hope, but her sister couldn't even believe that. So how was Kohe supposed to convince her that what Kohe herself said SHE was meant to be was true? How could she show Tai what she knew? How could she burden Tai with that?

Then again, how could she not?

Mismatched eyes looked up into the violet she knew would be watching her and Kohe reached out, her slender fingers finding Tai's smaller hand. A shuddering sigh was released and Kohe spoke softly. "I need to tell you something, Pejkia, and you're not going to like it, but I need to tell you because it's the truth."

 

[DotCom]

Tai knew her sister would not wake well, and she tried to be ready for it. She knew because of her Empathy, and because Kohe was her sister. She knew because Kohe had started whimpering in her sleep just moments before, and because Tai could feel the fear and panic building in Kohe's unconscious mind even before then. She knew because she'd felt Kohe's tail brush her back at it started to twitch, and she knew because she'd already been awake.

There were a lot of things to have kept Tai awake that night. She was warm enough curled beside Kohe, and almost certain nothing would come for them -- or nothing they couldn't handle -- this night. The dark outside made her anxious, but the pale shield she'd erected around them stood strong, even when she dozed. She was tired enough, sad enough to have just drifted off, and any other night, she might have.

But not that night.

Because for the first time ever, she'd felt anger from Kohe directed at her, and she hated it.

Oh, it had been brief, smothered by love and affection and understanding so genuine it almost brought tears to her eyes. But it hadn't taken the edge from the anger, and while Tai hugged her sister back -- of course she did -- she couldn't swallow the guilt the anger had brought with it.

Kohe didn't hate her. Tai knew that, because she could feel it. Kohe wasn't even angry anymore, but she had been, angry at Tai for not believing her. Angry at her twin sister, because Tai had let her down.

She said nothing, only nodding, not quite meeting her eyes as the two lay down, side by side at twenty years, just like they had spent their whole lives. But now, they were not at home. Things had changed here already, for better or for worse.

For the first time, Tai could not understand her sister, and Kohe had resented her for it.

Tai hadn't slept much that night, alternating between stunned confusion and guilt frustration. She played Kohe's words over and over again in her mind, turning them half a hundred ways, examining them under light only she could see, but anyway she cut it, Kohe's prophecies were beyond her. Hope? How could she be Hope? How could she possibly be as important as Kohe seemed to think? Couldn't she understand it was she who held the power? Tai was not the one who could mold the future and change the past. Tai made birds out of rainbows and taught little children to laugh. Tai would be whatever her sister needed her to be -- sibling, friend, protector, guide -- but she could not be a hero.

She could not be Hope. That was a thing far greater than Tai could ever even dream.

Her train of thought had been cleanly derailed by the beginnings of Kohe's nightmare, and while the young Empath was immediately on alert, she found she could not touch Kohe yet, for fear that she would upset her again.

And then, suddenly, Kohe was screaming and running, and Tai was following without so much as a second thought.

The gray light of dawn greeted them outside in the forest and Tai waited as anxiously patient as her worry would allow for Kohe to catch her breath. She could feel something like fear rush through her at her sister's words, but she nodded.

She would not disappoint again.

 

[Kaisaan]

"I have told you that you're Hope. The incarnation of Hope, and I know you haven't accepted that, and it's okay, Tai. It is. It's okay. You'll understand someday, I know you will. You're just not ready and that's all right, little sister, I promise. I'm sorry I got angry. I'm just scared."

Kohe took a deep breath and gently she pulled Tai down to sit beside her, tail wrapping around her sister's leg on instinct alone, seeking to both protect and seek comfort. Her shoulder touched Tai's and Kohe felt more stable than she had before. She could do this. With Tai beside her, she could do this. That had been her mantra since she was young. With Tai she could do anything. Without her sister, though, Kohe knew she would fast deteriorate. It was not even a question of would she, but rather how long would it take?

No, she needed her twin. She always had and seeing Tai die over and over again...it was wreaking havoc with Kohe's emotions, far more than anything else ever had.

"I've told you what you are, Tai, but not what I am." Mismatched eyes turned and looked up, meeting violet and Kohe truly looked uncertain and young, far younger than she'd appeared in a long time. Suddenly her tangled mane of hair didn't lend her a wild look but rather a lost one, her curled figure not speaking of exhaustion but rather a deep fear of something that should have never, ever crossed her mind.

Rejection.

"In the same way you are Hope...I...I am Time. I am the embodiment of all of Time. It...it passes by me and through me, and I can touch any part of it. Not just the future. I can change the past, Tai. I am a pebble dropped into a pond, creating a ripple, but I am also the ripple, spreading farther and farther beyond myself and into the darkness."

Kohe bit her lip, a habit she'd not done in years, something she'd only done when she was much younger. "I...am not like you. I am not good. I...am not anything and everything all at once. I am alone, Tai. So many voices and people, so many times and events, and I am alone. No one sees, no one feels, no one knows what I know."

She looked back to her sister and there was a clashing of equally powerful forces in her gaze, just as different as the colors of her eyes themselves. One was the vulnerable, young, scared Demisan and the other was the confident, ancient, wise power that was within Kohe even as it WAS Kohe.

"I don't want to be alone. I don't want to go crazy like those before me did, Tai! But I don't know how to make anyone see, UNDERSTAND, what I know. I don't know how..." She was shaking now and Kohe hated it, but could not stop the reaction to the emotions, everything she'd bottled up for so long.

 

[DotCom]

Tai shook her head faintly as Kohe apologized. She didn't like Kohe's anger, but it was far preferable to her guilt or her fear. She wanted to interrupt, to tell Kohe to take a minute to breathe, but from the moment her sister's tail wrapped around her leg, she knew Kohe would be lost if she interrupted, and Tai wasn't sure she would know how to get her back on track again. And she would have to. She could sense that, if nothing else. No, she wouldn't like what Kohe was going to say. But it was also very, intensely important that Kohe say it, however bad it was.

So, instead, Tai sat quietly. She reached over and laced her fingers with her sister's, and she spread out a faint, warm calm. It wasn't thick enough to smother, she didn't want to do that. She just wanted to remind her sister that she was here, and she was listening, and that Kohe could trust her. And no matter what, things would be okay. Tai would do whatever it took to make that part be true.

And, of course, Kohe had been right. Kohe was always right.

Tai didn't understand. As she began speaking, that became immediately clear. She could still not see how a single person, not even Kohe, could embody something so huge, so immaterial as Time or Hope. Her sister had incredible powers, but her sister was still just that -- her sister -- wasn't she?

Or was she?

Tai had never had the knowing like Kohe had, and her inherent ability to see the best in people made her naive. She knew that. But she knew, too, she was not stupid. She held within her an intuition born from the strength of the Empathy. She had an uncanny ability to string seemingly disparate concepts and notions into one larger idea. And what she saw now was that Kohe's revelation was not all that surprising.

She had always known Kohe had been different. More than strange, more than reserved, more than powerful, but different, and as much as the twins were alike, there was something far greater than Tai could put into words that separated Kohe from everyone else she had ever known.

Was it that Kohe was not just a girl, not just the first Demisan, not just her sister...but the incarnation of Time itself? Tai reeled back for a moment, trying to reconcile the idea in her mind, even as she held Kohe's trembling form closer, a wing curling protectively around Kohe's shoulder just as Kohe's tail wrapped around her leg.

She tried to imagine, for just a moment, Time joining Itself, breaking apart to land in Its own stream in the form of a girl who would know so much more than one person ever should. If it was possible, if Time could become synecdoche, could exist alongside Itself, within Itself -- and why shouldn't it be able to? Time existed everywhere in a hundred million different possibilities, even Tai understood that -- then Kohe was right. It was not good. Neither was it bad, but it was far too vast for any one person to handle. Time -- Kohe -- would have to be impartial and alone. Forever. And for all her insistence that Tai could save the world, the younger Demisan knew she could not save that which could not be changed but by Itself.

For a moment, Tai could not speak, suddenly keenly aware that her sister could die, spiral slowly out of control, and there was nothing Tai could do about it, because Kohe was right. She hadn't even understood what Kohe had tried to tell her last night. How could she possibly understand the many incarnations of Time? Was this how her sister had been feeling for twenty years now? Had Tai been that ignorant for that long, to let her sister suffer in silence while she herself skipped along in the light, so stupid as to have been thinking she knew her sister, any part of her sister at all? Kohe would die alone, misunderstood, and miserable for it, and Tai...Tai would have no one to blame but herself.

Tai turned to her sister and for the first time in her life, there was true hopelessness there. The perpetual optimist had met her match in understanding she had been failing Kohe for years, and would continue to fail. Kohe, who had given so much of herself so many times before, who now looked so small, so young, so scared, Tai felt sick. She stared at her sister for a long moment, her expression one of mingled horror and sorrow. Their mission, it seemed, had ended before it had even begun. Mate or no, Tai knew she could not live without Kohe, and Kohe could not live alone.

Tai opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure of what to say for the first time in her life. She had been there when Sero was born, and when Lyra and Rask hadn't been able to find each other afterward. She had been there the night Kohe came back from her first jump. She had seen, had fixed a hundred different almost-bad situations with Kohe. She loved nothing more than making people happier, better. But now, she could think of nothing to say, and she knew immediately when a slash of red-hot self-loathing swept through her.

Quickly, trying to hide tears from her sister, she turned away...and saw Kohe's tail still wrapped around her leg.

And just like that, the tension went out of her.

No, she said, not bothering with the word so much as its essence. She turned toward Kohe, violet eyes alight with determination. And love.

"No," she said again. "Kohe, 'setta, listen to me. You are...different. Special. And you're right -- the rest of us, we might never understand you all the way. In the same way we can understand how the suns set, or how life is made. Kohe, those things are miracles. They are too big and too wonderful for anyone to understand them. They are a kind of magic that inspires beauty, and if we could see behind them, that beauty...it would fade. It would be no less powerful, no less miraculous, only less...less mysterious. You know our mother's people, Kohe. Aunt Siya and the others. If they knew how the suns revolved around the planet, they would not rest until they could get the stars to do the same. It would cease to be beautiful, miraculous. It would be science, and yes, it would be...so much easier to grasp, Kohe, but it wouldn't be that same beautiful thing. It would only be a thing.

"Kohe, you are the sun and the stars and the moon. You are rain and fire and new life. You are a miracle, Kohe, and maybe you're right. Maybe I can make them happen, 'setta, but you ARE one. You are so much more than any of us could even imagine, and if we can't get to you, Kohe, then you are all the more beautiful for it."

She paused for a moment, already knowing what she had to say next, without knowing how or where the information had come from, but knowing her sister needed to hear it.

"As far as being understood...I...think your mate will do that. There will be a Bond between you stronger than the one that links Mama and Papa, or Lyra and Rask. Stronger, even, than the one that links you and I." She frowned and delved deeper into her connection with him, with Kohe's mate, and in her mind's eye, she saw the black and yellow paths suddenly glow brighter, shot through with an indigo that both offered and sought protection and comfort. It glowed brightest in the river of pink, now wrapping around, providing warmth, love, affection.

Hope.

"He was made for you, Kohe. In every way, he was. It's like...he was always supposed to be there. Even now, he looks for you, longs for you, though he doesn't know it. And when you meet...eventually, you will be inseparable. Nothing will compare to the Bond you share. I can feel it. He will understand you, Kohe. He will be able to see more than anyone you've ever known, than even I can see now. You will not be alone for long, Kohe. You only have to hang on. Alright, 'setta? You have to hang on."

It was only then Tai realized she was crying, as scared as she was hopeful, as happy as she was sad.

"You can do it, Kohe. I won't leave you, not when you find him, and not after. You'll be okay. Because...because you are Time as I am Hope, but you are also my sister, and that part is no less who you are. You ARE good, 'setta. You are good, and kind, and whole. You are Time, yes, but you are also Koheera. You are my twin, and you are good and you are loved."

She reached around with her other arm and she hugged her sister's trembling form close, her wings wrapping around her twin as another shield, this one gray by the early light of dawn, wrapped around them. And when she pulled away, her hands found her sister's face, and her eyes those mismatched pupils.

"You are not alone," she promised. "You will never be alone. You are my twin, Koheera, and you always have been, and you always will be. There is nothing anyone can do, not even you, to change that."

 

[Kaisaan]

Kohe listened to her sister in growing wonderment like a child being told the greatest secret and best secret in the world. It was a feeling she'd not had in a great many years, but now, in this moment, she felt it and as her eyes met her sister's violet gaze, Time itself experienced warmth. Time itself felt the caress of hope and Kohe suddenly found herself crying, sobbing as her arms found her sister again and she released the anguish and pain, the fear and burden she'd been carrying for so long.

The young Demisan cried until she felt she couldn't cry anymore, but it was not the weeping of the despairing, of the hopeless. It was pained, yes, but not without its own release, relief, even joy as the tears finally dried and Kohe was able to breathe easier, pull back from Tai enough to smile. And smile she did, genuinely, the light of it reaching her eyes in a way it had not done - not truly so - in a long time.

"Thank you, Pejkia." she whispered.

But her mind sent so much more, her emotions fed into Tai a message all their own. They spoke of profound relief, of love and devotion, adoration for the light that had led them back from the pit. They reached for Tai, drawn to her like the sunbeam she was and Kohe could feel her sister's power around her like an aura, something Tai didn't even seem aware of or to purposely cause, but it was there and the mismatched-eyed Demisan soaked in the calm and warmth her sister exuded.

Needing it.

And then, even as Kohe brought her hands up to touch Tai's - still smiling at her, tearful, but calm, peaceful for the first time in a long time - Kohe's mismatched eyes swam a dark purple, nearly glowing and her voice, when she spoke, was hers and yet different. But her mind, the connection they shared, the Demisan didn't pull it away from her twin like she usually did when Jumping. No, this time the pink of her mind stayed with the purple of Tai's, calm and reassuring.....because the complete truth now was that this power, this ancientness that now surrounded Kohe, it WAS Kohe, a part of her Rora had always felt was a threat, the part Tai had been unsure was even Kohe.

It was Time, it was Kohe, and now it spoke to Tai, to Hope.

"You are right. In one path what you say is right. This is the path I would like to take. I simply despaired of ever reaching it, finding it. You led me to it, you set me on this path, to him. Thank you, my sister." The words were simple, but the emotion, the sheer FORCE of every threads of gratefulness from every path in Time that branched off from this one shining, light-filled one was staggering.

And Time, Kohe, smiled.

"Would you like see it? Time. Just a peek?"

 

[DotCom]

Tai sat patiently while her sister cried, offering calm, but careful not to force it. These were not hysterical tears, she could feel that. These were of the cathartic variety, the kind that hurt even as they healed, the kind everyone needed to move on. And she could feel her words had made a difference, and that because Kohe accepted them, they were true. And if that was the case, she had nothing to worry about. Kohe would meet her mate one day, and with him, she would be happy and good. Some part of her, even those whole of her, would be Time, would always be Time. But the part of her that was just Kohe would find itself again in the one who was coming.

Tai tried not to feel too jealous.

It was easier when at last Kohe settled again and pulled back and smiled, really smiled, and then her thank you was lost on Tai as the younger twins was suddenly fighting tears of elation and relief herself. What was a thank you to her? Just as Kohe could not speak as to how grateful she was to her sister, Tai could not explain how unnecessary that gratitude was. To help Kohe was to help herself. To ignore her sister was tantamount to the slowest, most painful death she could have imagined. It wouldn't have been all that much of a stretch to argue everything Tai did was done selfishly, except those who knew Tai knew she didn't have a selfish bone in her body. She was just so deeply Empathetic that anyone's pain or fear or anger became hers. And for Kohe, that rang doubly true.

Still. She knew it was important for her sister to express her gratitude, even if she could not speak it, so she only grinned and nodded and leaned forward to hug her sister.

"Always, 'setta," she replied simply.

And when Kohe's eyes changed, and when her voice and her mind followed suit, Tai's smile only faltered a moment, as some part of her she could neither name nor identify understood this was the part of Kohe that was beyond her, even as it was Kohe, and vice versa. She kept a close eyes on the familiar pink of her mind, even as she felt the rest of Kohe -- what she had called Time -- shift around them. It did not matter to her. What she knew was Kohe, and had always been Kohe. The power, she knew, was important to her sister and an important part of her sister, perhaps even the most important whole.

But Tai had never cared what Kohe could do, or who she could be. She cared about her sister, her twin, her best friend, and her better half. And she could still feel that in Kohe. It was all she needed.

She didn't understand Kohe's words, but she saw within the gesture a familiar smile, mirrored in her own.

Tai nodded.

"Show me."

 

[Kaisaan]

Kohe, Time, smiled once more than simply reached out, fingers barely brushing Tai's temple.

The world seemed to turn inward, first dark and then exploding with light that was nearly blinding. That light divided in pinpricks of light, like stars in the night sky and to look upon them was to realize that there were trillions upon trillions upon trillions of specks of light, all separate from each other and yet so clustered together that they layered one over the other, but never quite lost their individuality. They glowed in thousands of colors and shades, some hues too different even to be named.

"These are lives. Each one a name, a purpose, a person." Time provided and then she reached out, both a solid form and yet not solid at all, seeming to be neither and both at the same time as she hovered in the middle of the of the lights, like a planet at the center of an innumerable amount of moons, all orbiting around. But that wasn't accurate either as her hair, her clothes, her very essence was wrapped up in those lights, around them, within them.

She plucked one light, just one from the incomprehensible amount around her and it expanded into a bright flash that consumed Time and Tai before it gentled to a glow that left them looking at streams of light of all different hues. All the streams started at one point, a bright pinprick that Time gently touched fondly, with familiarity.

"Sero." One word and it was clear this light represented their nephew. Time's fingers moved along the one light stream branching off from that pinprick until she came to a place where the one stream divided into two streams. "Two paths. Two futures." Her fingers chose the brighter stream of light until it came upon another split, this time three of them. "Three paths. Three futures." Choosing one, she came to an eight-way split and then looked to Tai for a moment before bringing her eyes back to the pathways and then removing her hand, sweeping it over the paths instead, expanding them so it was clear to see that each of the eight paths split into paths of their own, some with more choices, some with less and those paths split and so forth. Some paths seemed to go dark, even black.

"Death. Every path is better than another, some paths are fated to doom." Time said softly and then with a small gesture, she seemed to wrap up all the paths and had sent the brilliant light speck that was Sero back into the fold with all the other trillions upon trillions of light specks.

"Each light is a life. Each one has a starting path. Each starting path has a choice. Each choice has a consequence. Each consequence has a reaction. Each reaction determines a fate. Each fate has a purpose. And I see them all. I can influence them all."

 

[DotCom]

"So you can keep him from dying?" Tai blurted, without really thinking, and instantly regretted it. What had been her sister was not anymore, or at least not the part with whom she spoke now. And while Tai would never be able to see anything but Kohe when she looked at her twin, she recognized now there was more to Kohe whether she liked it or not.

Tai wasn't sure she did.

"You could, couldn't you?" she went on a bit more gently. "Keep him from dying? Sero? Not...not forever, just..." She trailed off, unsure what she wanted, or what she was asking. Tai could never be called stupid. But she could be so naive sometimes she did not even realize what she missed. In her mind, it was simple -- if you could choose a path for someone you loved, why would you not choose to keep them from darkness? As if the dark was one thing, one shallow malefactor existing only in the nightmares of the good and wholesome. Because Tai could not apply the notion of evil to a person, and while she recognized it made even less sense to apply said evil to a thing, a presence...it was so much easier for the young Empath.

Perturbed, she turned to look around her putting out a hand to brush the myriad starlight of life around her, wondering if she could manipulate this light, chase away the darkness here. Knowing better than to try. Whatever her sister had become, this was Kohe's world, and not hers. She dared not play when she couldn't see to the outcome.

Still, as she stood there, a thousand pinpricks of light cupped in her hand, she could not help but wonder what would happen if she brought light to each of those darkened places.

"Kohe, we could save the world if we wanted to. Right here, right now. We could. I know it." Then, cautiously, almost afraid: "Don't you want to?"

 

[Kaisaan]

Time looked at Tai for a long moment, dark purple eyes seeming to weigh something, not particularly what was in Tai, but rather what answering her could cause, could bring about and finally she answered, calm, factual, but not unkind, not without emotion. Not without awareness of how her answers effected those around her. No, Time was not as cold as people wanted to think. But she did her job above all else. That was just the way it had to be.

"I desire for each life to fulfill its purpose, Hope. If that life is meant to end to fulfill what it was meant to do, then I am satisfied. I desire for all paths to be of light, not of darkness, but if that is saving the world or leaving it to find its own way, I do not know."

She looked back to the pinpricks of light and caressed a few as one might run their hands through starlight reflected in a lake. The lights seemed to brighten, some of them, but others went out completely. Time had run out for them and perhaps if Tai looked more closely now she would see that, watch as millions of lights went out at the same time only for millions more to flicker into life. Birth. Death. It was all part of Time, what she was and dark purple eyes looked back to violet.

"I said I could influence their paths, their choices, not that I could control them. Free will is not gone from this place. It is more alive and potent than the world itself is. I see every choice, I know the wisest to make, the right paths to go down, but in the end, it is not my decision. It belongs to the life that must travel these paths. Even you, Hope, can not MAKE a decision for ANY of these lives. You can only touch them, try to change them and therefore their path, but sometimes even you will not be enough. Even the both of us can not be enough."

She smiled and gestured to the light around them. "If you wished, right now, you could touch all of them, spread light and hope and joy into every single life, past, present and future. Through me, you could become part of every single one of them, and it would change the future, it would change the present. We would return to a world that we would not know, perhaps even one that would not know us. It might be for the better, but it would be changed. And yet some things would not be, some things would have gone far worse."

"Do you see this, Hope? This is a lake, still, serene, untouched for the moment. It steady, moving as it should, natural. As soon as we touch it, we become a pebble, a rock that disturbs the surface, the future, first, creating ripples, but then we touch bottom, the past, and we disturb there, as well, creating an effect all the way through the water, the present. No action is without consequence, either good or bad, or both." Time explained patiently and then found Sero's light again, cradling it in her hands tenderly, bringing it between herself and Tai as she looked down at it.

"To change one part of his past will change his present. To change one thing in his present will create a whole new generation of paths, erasing old ones, creating others and still keeping some that were already there. The future is not set in stone. People like to say such, but what they do not know is that the past and the present are the same way. And it is truly a risk to mess with any of the three."