Chapter 51: I-You-Me (1/2)
Two pairs of eyes opened at the same time.
The twin saintesses woke in the same instant, their breathing shifting in identical rhythm, their lids lifting together as if the same hand had drawn them up. The room was quiet. The light from a low lantern came through the small faux window in a single pale column, falling across the bed they shared.
They sat upright at the same moment.
They looked at each other for a second. The identical faces regarded one another with the same placid expression, and then each got out of bed on a different side.
Together, they made the bed. Each worked on one side, their hands moving in a mirror, smoothing the sheet and folding the blanket with the same motions. The pillow was set at the head of the bed with two identical adjustments. The cover was pulled straight on both sides at once.
They stood facing each other across the room, and each lifted a brush to the other's mouth. Identical white teeth were brushed in the same rhythm, the water bowls placed beside them at matching angles. They rinsed, spit, and set the brushes down together.
The face cloths came next. Wet from the bowl, wrung at the same moment, pressed to each other's cheeks with the same pressure.
"There is a lot to do today," said one.
"For me, yes," agreed the other.
They rose. Their robes lay folded at the foot of the bed, identical, white with gold trim at the edges. Each picked up the other's robe.
Both lifted their robes up and over the other's head at the same moment, trying to dress the other.
But their hands and robes got stuck, their arms intersecting and creating a tangle.
They stood in the middle of the room, each with an arm caught against the other's. It was impossible to do this at the same time.
"I will go first," said one sister.
"No. I will go first," said the other.
They did not move. Neither could move.
They looked at each other. The same eyes. The same set mouth.
Then, in unison, they turned. They lowered the robes down between them and laid them open along the surface of the bed. Both of them dropped to the floor. They slid into the robes from below, the fabric rising over their bodies as they straightened, and stood up beside each other, dressed.
“Perfect,” said one.
“Ideal,” agreed the other.
Goblins scattered as they walked, moving to the walls and through the alcoves away from them. It wasn’t like with Barjuchne, where they ran in fear. Rather, they just avoided the two saintesses like they were plagued. The goblins would bow if the robes lingered, like for any of Barjuchne’s princesses. They would produce supplies if asked. But given the option, they preferred to be elsewhere, finding the pair's synchronized movement and shared speech deeply unsettling.
"Rou-ya," said both of them at the same time.
The goblin princess had been standing at the mess table with a mixing bowl held against her chest, scraping the sides with a wooden spoon. She jumped at the sound of her name, a full-body flinch that nearly sent the bowl out of her hands. She caught it, stared at them, and composed herself with visible effort.
"Y-yes?" she said.
The saintesses spoke, one after the other, their voices laying single words into a shared sentence. "Are there wounded today?"
Rou-ya stared at them. The spoon was still in her hand. She looked from one identical face to the other and back. "...What are you?" she asked.
The two saintesses looked at each other for a moment and then back at her. They did not answer the question.
Rou-ya shook her head. "No." She paused. "But Bruschetta is coughing again."
Without a word, they walked backward through the door, both of them retreating in perfect silence, neither turning around. The door swung shut behind them.
Rou-ya shuddered.
The wool across Bruschetta’s shoulders was damp with sweat, and a thick cough had been working through her for the better part of an hour. Her face was flushed.
One saintess pressed her head against Bruschetta's chest. The other pressed hers against Bruschetta's back. They listened, one to the front, one to the rear, breathing slowly and evenly.
"Uh..." said Bruschetta. She stood there, nervous.
Both of them shushed her at the same time.
The shushing sound continued. It travelled. The first saintess stopped, and the second picked it up, and the sound moved around Bruschetta's body in a circle for a moment, wrapping her in a low, continuous hiss that had no direction it stayed in.
"I'm okay," said Bruschetta. "I just need Barjuchne to breathe into me again. It helps."
The front saintess shushed her. The silence moved. The back saintess finished it.
"The Consumption has receded," said the front saintess.
"It has gone deeper," agreed the back saintess.
"I'll be fine," said Bruschetta. She coughed again, the breath catching in her throat. Her legs wobbled under her.
"Barjuchne has instructed me to safeguard you," said one saintess.
Bruschetta's face lit up. She clasped her hands together, the flush on her cheeks moving from feverish to something warmer. "Aw... she's so sweet."
"Open your mouth," said the other saintess.
"...Huh?" asked Bruschetta, staring at her.
A glowing hand clasped over Bruschetta's face from behind, holy magic spilling through the fingers and lighting the chamber white. "Mrph!"
"Mm! Mm!" Bruschetta fought against the grip, twisting and pulling at the wrist. "I'm okay! Please leave me alone!" she shouted, wriggling free and stumbling back across the room. "You're too scary! I want Barjuchne!"
She made her escape, backing toward the door with her eyes fixed on them.
The saintesses looked at each other.
They walked the lower corridor in search of work.
The goblin they passed had a limp. It was visible in the way he favoured his left leg, the gait being uneven, the foot landing wrong. He saw them approaching and straightened. His face tightened, the ridge of his jaw showing where he gritted his teeth, and he walked on the injured leg at a normal pace, risking nothing, showing nothing.
The saintesses watched him go.
F.P. flew past them at head height, her wings carrying her at speed. She stopped, reversed, and hovered in front of them with her arms crossed, looking at both of them in turn.
"What are you two doing?"
The saintesses looked at her. Their expressions were the same. Void.
They looked at each other. Then back at her. "Two?" said one. "There's just me here."
F.P.'s eyes narrowed. She looked at them for a long moment. "Ugh." She flicked her hand. "Creeps." Her wings caught the air and she was gone, disappearing down the corridor in a few quick beats.
The saintesses stared after her. Then they looked at each other. Their shoulders moved in identical, small shrugs, and they continued walking.
The afternoon found them on a ledge at the mountain's lower face, where the stone gave way to a view of Jaesowen Vale spread out far below. The rebuilt town had grown. The streets ran with movement, carts, and people. The smoke from cookfires rose in thin, straight columns against the late light.
They sat quietly, watching it, their legs together over the edge.
A group of lizardmen moved along the switchback path below them, their black scales catching the light. The saintesses turned their heads at the same moment, both of them tracking the patrol.
The lizardmen felt themselves being watched. They looked up, saw the two pale figures on the ledge above them, and vanished into the cover of the trees with the immediate, wordless speed of animals hiding from a predator.
The saintesses turned back.
A group of young goblins were playing a game on the clear ground between two buildings on a ridge below, chasing a small ball, laughing, and falling over each other.
They watched them.
They looked back at each other.
"I wonder if it would be fun for me," said one.
But both of them, or just the one that they were, knew that they, or she, weren’t welcome.
They rose. The motion was synchronized, neither leading. They stood on the ledge together, the wind passing between them and moving their hair in opposite directions.
"...I am other," said one, looking dejected.
Her sister put a hand on her shoulder. In turn, the former copied the motion. They stood there like that.
"No. I am not other. I am," said the other, telling her sister that she wasn’t the problem.
The first sister shook her head. "No, no. I am not other. I am," she replied, meaning that she was the problem. Not her sister.
They looked at each other.
It was all rather tiresome.
"Should I pray?" said one, not sounding convinced.
"The one I pray to does not speak to me," said the other.
"I can talk to myself."
"I know," said the first. "But I always talk to myself."
Their hands slipped off of each other's shoulder and then just met down below, their fingers holding.
They looked back down. The goblins had seen them on the ledge and had quickly gathered up their game and moved elsewhere. The clear ground where they had been playing was empty.
A hot wind blew past the saintesses, pushing through their hair.
"I feel..." said one.
"Sad," finished the other.
They looked at one another.
"Lonely."
"Unwanted."
One of them perked up. "Barjuchne will speak to me. I am a princess."
The other shook her head, perking up just the same even if her words didn’t match her body language. "Barjuchne has no time to speak to me. Everyone is a princess."
Quiet.
Their posture readjusted.
"I am auxiliary," said one, looking back out at the horizon.
"I am secondary," said the other, looking out at the horizon.
"It is because of how I am," agreed both at the same time.
One of them tilted her head to the right. The other tilted her head to the left. Their crowns struck together in the middle with a small, light sound.
"...Why am I this way?"
They sighed.
"HEY! Come back with that!"
The shout came from around the corner of the path above them, frantic. A moment later, Blibli the slime princess careened around the bend at full speed, her form stretching and wobbling with effort.
"Quick, hide me! Please!" she pleaded, without slowing, and glooped around and behind the saintesses, clinging to their backs and compressing herself flat against them.
The scholar princess Ead came around the corner a moment later, panting, sweating, and bent double with her hands on her knees. She looked up, saw the saintesses, and straightened with visible effort. Her wide-brimmed hat had gone crooked.
"Oh... Your Graces." She braced herself on a rock, breathing hard. "Did you... did you see a slime come this way?" She looked past them at the path, sweat dripping. "She ate my notes."
The saintesses looked at each other, then back at Ead.
A quiet whispering came from behind them. "Please-please-please!" it begged.
"No. I did not," lied one.
"My apologies," said the other.
Ead sighed. "Curses." She wiped her face on her sleeve. "It's going to take me days to rewrite all of that." She looked at them properly for the first time, her eyes taking in their synchronized stillness. "Ah. You know, now that I have you, I was hoping we could have a talk sometime."
"A talk?" asked both of them at once, surprised.
"Yes. I'd love to learn more about your condition," clarified Ead. She pushed her hat straight, the curiosity in her voice shifting registers, the scholar replacing the victim of theft.
"Oh," both of them said at once. "No, thank you."
Ead stared at them. Then she lifted both hands, palms out, in a gesture of complete accommodation. "Okay. Maybe some other time." She adjusted her hat again. "Now, where did that slime go..." She began walking, peering around rocks and corners. "Blibli!"
Ead's voice faded down the path as she searched.
Nothing moved.
Then Blibli popped out from between the two saintesses. Having been pressed flat inside their robes, she crawled up out of the collars and reformed in their midst. "Wow! That was close!" She giggled, her googly eyes floating freely around inside her translucent mass, each one looking in a different direction. Several scraps of paper bobbed alongside them. "She almost got me!"
"Ead seemed upset," said one saintess.
“Why did you eat her notes?”
"I like the way the ink-paper tastes!" explained Blibli, as if that were sufficient reason. “And Ead never has time to play with me, but this way, she does.”
The slime princess settled onto the ground, reforming into her usual shape. Her head split in two directions at once, one eye on each saintess.
Quiet.
They stared.
Blibli stared, and then she gasped, as if she had just received divine insight. A ripple. "Do you want to play with me too?" she asked, eager. Blibli’s two faces started inflating, filling with air as she puffed out her cheeks.
They seemed surprised by that.
"I don't know how to play games," said one.
"I have never played a game before," said the other.
"Whaaat?!" Blibli's entire body rippled with disbelief as she let out the air she had been absorbing. "Come on! I'm going to show you my favourite one!" She glooped up, took one of each of their hands in a pseudopod, and began dragging them down the path. “We’re playing tag with Ead!”
The saintesses looked at each other. Their expressions were the same. Confusion.
“Eaaad,” called Blibli, loudly.
“BLIBLI!” shouted a desperate voice from above, seeing her. “Stay right there!”
“Run!” yelled the slime-princess, giggling happily as she began making a mad dash for her life.
This is apparently the other reason why she took her notes, to make Ead engage with her in what she considered to be a game.
Giggling excitedly at being chased, Blibli made a break for it, dragging the two trapped saintesses after her.
They looked at each other, confused.