#——— ⟢ 𝐍𝐄𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐂𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔 】₊ rafal 01.

[nelithic]

He'd traded words with an Emblem once, admitted something at the tail end of their exchange regarding siblings. A belief that he truly meant- that he well and truly believed. 'Elder siblings are not the only ones who care.'

Stalking the docks- searching for his older sister with a grim expression that staved off strangers in a sweeping radius- that opinion clung tightly to the truth. He pushed past the men and women going one way with single-minded focus. Rafal stuck out. Rafal didn't care. He thought about transforming and scouting for her from the air just to make the search quicker, and only vanquished the thought at Nel's sighting.

"Here you are, sister." An angry furrow cleaved the space his brows even before he approached her. So easily sprung up at any annoyance. At this juncture it was a signal of something deeper; worry and distress. Nel hadn't been on his ship. Word of major assignments to different continents flooded his ears instead. It was easy to connect the dots.

"You are on a different ship. Did you tell them it was a mistake?"

But it wasn't a mistake. He knew that. His shoulders tensed preemptively with the burden of that knowledge, wanting to erase it. Wanting to change the rules. Rafal had promised to be her brother to him, to her, and to himself, and he had meant it.

A frustrated sound whistling sharply through his nose, he dragged his fingers through his hair. ". . .No matter. I can simply accompany your ship. I can fly if I have to—if there isn't room for another passenger. If they intend to stop me they may contend with my fangs."

chance was the word the weak used to explain the planning of the strong — so had it often been said in gradlon, land of their origin. whatever opinion one may hold on such a maxim, it is what occurs to her curiously now as a pale, stormy twin pushes his way through the milling crowds towards her. despite his thunderous expression, nel's loses a fraction of its own with relief. before she can say, however, that she had been searching the docks for him as well and so his finding her here was not only owed to coincidence, he launches into accusation: more and more familiar now since he had shed his skin as nil, but still yet an adjustment from the meek and compliant temperament she had known for centuries.

yet there are certain things that remain the same. a frenetic energy beneath the outburst that speaks to its root. she finds a smile touching her lips whilst he rails, for what greater comfort can there be to a fraught fell dragon, ever mindful of her other half's safety, than to know that the desire to remain at one another's side is returned in full?

it eases the part of her that had, for a moment in time once, feared— doubted— that his triumphant rejection of her after the shell of nil had been sundered was not so made of flagrant display as she had adamantly believed. in the clutch of that urgency at the fall of a world, it was all she had had to believe, and so she had clung to it then with an unshakeable tenacity and a willful denial of any other truth ironically befitting of sombron's once-favored heir.

she is remitted for it now, in each moment like this one.

"you know as i do that that is not an option, rafal," comes her anticipated, staid reply — stone to curb his agitated flame. "you must have heard that my destination is hostile to our kind. i would not tolerate you putting yourself at risk." a quick headshake. "and before you ask — i will be careful."

quiet gaze returns to his, garnet to garnet matching, and with the disquieted shadows of his face and figure to the waiting background of large ships moored for imminent sail, there comes an undeniable pang in her chest. were they somewhere quiet and alone together, she would perhaps transform and enfold him in the microcosmic blue of her wings in an embrace that had always come more naturally than those of this smaller and somehow inadequate form. instead, she only takes his hand, holds it firmly as though she intends to lead him somewhere as she always has.

"i understand how you feel. to be separated when you have waited a thousand years is indeed cruel beyond words. i am also pained that i cannot watch and protect you as well, as i have since we were nestlings. it will be the first time we have taken long missions apart. i trust you will return to me safely."

a statement, not a request. at the fall of a wholly different kind of world, it remains still an adamant belief — a willful denial of any other truth.

[nelithic]

rafal's rancorous obstinance is not an uncommon sight; the hesitation of unspoken dread less so. she has rarely seen that pall come over his face — not even so often as nil, and hardly since — and the pale of her hand closes tighter about his in equally wordless answer. she knows he would not finish the thought, just as she would not, just as neither of them had ever been taught precisely how to; as gradlon's survivors, they are the scar tissue of dark scales and lightning, not soft entreaties and upturned palms. even centuries in safer harbors, quieted by the pastels of lythos' sanctuary, could not change the lesson that plainly offered hearts were open for cutting.

she accepts what he gives — that silence, pregnant with unturned grief, a resonance she shares. she hears it in her mind like the sonorous ring of a tuning fork: a perfect pitch between imperfect twins.

she does not need to say i know this.

she would not do him the disservice of questioning that he would return any less than whole and safe.

with a dragonstone and a strength all his own, greater than hers, he was no longer nil, sheltered beneath her wing. the corners of her eyes soften, happy for his boast. "i would accept no other outcome," she replies with calm certainty, letting her hand fall — empty but still warm — to her side again when he releases their hold. and as though buoyed by that, the thunder returns to his expression again, and nel thinks that she could remember this moment even should all other memories fade with time: rafal, chest forward and head high, reassuring her that his strength would not fail him, making equal demands of her to return as she always had. the cloudless cerulean sky; the surging crowds of the pier.

( a world where they were truly halves. )

"rest assured, our promise remains first in my mind. i refuse to give you grief and deprive you of your twin; that has been the cause of my actions all these years."

as fell dragons, they part in triumph only: "when we return, i look forward to hearing what you have experienced. save your finest tales for me — i will cherish every word."

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　₊　rafal　┃┃┃　end.

No matter how fiercely his complaints gusted there could be no budging Nel's stone. Rafal wilted at the cool reach of her reason, the fingers reaching deep and the words even deeper. Resignation would have suited him here, he knew her sensibility better than anyone- she knew the one known as 'Rafal' more than enough- but it was still a time of firsts and a willful son of Sombron rooted so stubbornly in his ways didn't have to like it.

They would fly two separate stretches of the same sky, further apart than they'd ever been before. His lip curled in distaste, not at her, never at her, but at the insolence of probability and chance and fate itself to tear two twins from one another at their invisible seams. It lied even on the fringe of an insult- after everything this was to happen? After Rafal renewed his promise he would be made a liar so soon? The only reprieve in this moment was honesty; his emotions were far from a mask.

"This will be the first and only time." The sound of a childish insistence even to his own ears. He would have paced like a caged beast if she allowed it, if he hadn't wished to preserve the warm link of their hands for as long as he could. "You know what I would do if you only said the word. There is no meaning in my existence if I cannot be there to protect you." If you are not there beside me. "If you did not return to me, Nel. . .I would . . ."

He swallowed on the unspeakable end of that answer. It would have been easier to smooth over these things as 'Nil'; Rafal by comparison waffled on his intense words and hoped for the best. That he would somehow be understood. If Rafal would one day fall on the sword of his own atonement, it was still Nel that he lived for- his comforting scabbard, his defense against the ills of the world, the home he returned to. He pursed his mouth on these thoughts, ignoring the mewing of the gulls above them all the while, the salty stench of the sea behind him, one part of him- the silent, undeserving, never to be worded part- wishing for their time in Lythos again.

"But if we must be apart, then I shall not break your trust. It is less my intention to cause you worry. I will not fall—whatever concerns you possess for me may die here. There is no chance that I, Rafal, would be cut down on some foreign shore."

He dropped his hand- he let her go- not because he wanted to, but because someone between them had to. Because they were always two contrary halves of a whole; he who roused and she who caused slumber; she who reached and he who pulled away. Comforted by that, a familiar petulance even returned with his spirit. The arrogant bearing, the love too strong and too proud for easy sentiments: "So do not break your promise to me either. I will not forgive you if you do, sister."