there's a place where we stand outnumbered; thorny

[Valkerine]

there's a moment we make a decision
not to cower and crash to the ground

What's left for them now? What is left when your parents, beloved parents, pillars of strength, come crashing down?

The answer is simple: each other, and any friends they've made along the way. Valkerine has been more lucky than her sister in that regard. She's always been more apt to follow others, no matter where that following may lead – and luckily for her, more often than not it's lead to friends. And so as Thorny has grown more distant, taking solace in the desolate reaches of the Valley, Val has found herself unknowingly seeking out relationships, accidentally drying her eyes in the shoulders of Shahrizai and others.

But none of them are Thorny. And as soon as she is confident that she can be strong for Thorny, as soon as she is confident that she can be what her sister deserves to have, she returns to the Valley.

She finds her twin easily enough. Haven't they always been able to do that? Haven't they always been two sides to each other's coin? Perhaps they'll always be able to do it, right down until the moment they die – or, really, the moment that Val dies, leaving Thorny entirely alone.

She'll still have Nayl, but it will not be the same.

Val pauses, watching her sister wander the valley just a few yards away. They're both so much bigger than when they were newborn, bigger even than when they'd last trained with their father. Bigger than when they'd lost mother. Bigger, if only a little, than when they'd lost their father. But they're not big enough, not nearly big enough, to face life on their own.

"Thorny…" her voice is soft, perhaps so soft that it gets stuck on the wind. She is moving then, so fast, covering ground faster than she should be, almost tripping and stumbling. "Thorny!" she is screaming now, crying out for her twin, her voice so loud it's almost impossible to understand the words except that her twin would already know what they are.

And in just a few moments, she is crashing into her twin, wrapping Thorrun in a fierce, sisterly horse hug and giving her other half no choice in the matter.

valkerine

sad tomboy daughter of covet & librette

Image credit MultiCurious