They are something and they are nothing. They are the scars that line their skin, like artwork, he had said. They were his pieces of beauty, where skin would bubble and flesh would rot, take away the outside, to see the glorious white bone beneath. He had been their creator, in a way that paintings were naked without a brush. They, the two of them, had been his blank canvas, and there, years, years and then some more, they had been multiple masterpieces.
Until now.
Lethea had forgotten, she had found it easy. To remember the sunshine against her eyes, yet not the pain as he dug into their flesh. Her dear sister, Mnemosine, she could not forget. It was her glass-like eyes that saw all, and still, saw all. They were two broken branches, from the same tree. One bent far more than the other. Their bay bodies, mottled with scars, broken by memories and stories. They were, they are, and yet, they walk together as though the world was not some picturesque autumn day. The twins walked with a strange glaze to their eye, their footfalls matching as they strolled side by side, their earth coloured frames knotting in with the burgundy and red leaves as they swirled about them in a myriad of colour.
There were suspicions in Mnemosine's eyes, they were shrouded with a shadow, a memory that flashed even now, in her mind. Lethea, she was whimsical in the way her ebony mane fell across her face, became knots against the wind. Her eyes were as bright as the clear skies, and yet there was a faraway glass appeal, she wore a smile yet knew not what was worth smiling for. She had her sister, and her sister had her. And that was it, and that was all.
And that was all they needed, perhaps.
But the chill in the air, it promised a cold spell, whispered upon Jack Frost's frozen lips. the cold, Mnemosine could feel knit within her china-white bones. Lethea, the dear girl, she was spun by flower petals and delicate leaves. While her sister was the rigid bark that was seeming to hold the duo together. It was her, that had the idea for the two to enter the field. For a chance for something, anything. Her soft brown eyes watched her sister, a slight curve in her fine head kept her smooth in her striding, never breaking cadence with her twin.
'Where will we go?' Lethea asked, her tone a crackle in her parched throat, her dry lips breaking into a sliver of a smile as she gazed upon her sister. The bay twin shook her head, dishevelling ribbons of ebony, casting them across her face, hiding the shame, the disappointment of their scars, their stories. Oh, if only she could be as oblivious as her sister, perhaps she could find some peace.
'Anywhere, anywhere will do, Lethea. Just not here. Not here at all. It is too open, far too open.' right now she did not fancy parading about the field, kicking up the fallen leaves. She would prefer to slink into the shadows, to hide, to forget. Oh, how she longed to forget, like her dear sister. Lethea outstretched her nose and touched her twin's neck, a soft caress, even with a rough muzzle. The touch seemed to quell Mnemosine's wrought nerves, if only for a moment.
'We'll find somewhere. We'll find somewhere...' her words were soft spun silk, and yet her glass-eyes were glittering, shining with the want of tears. Tears for her twin, tears for the pain that mars her bay sister's face.
'I hope you're right. she swallowed, the lump felt like iron in her chest. Oh, she hoped she was right. She hoped indeed.
Lethea & Mnemosine
we are just misguided ghosts, travelling endlessly