Aelwyn is sixteen and preparing for midterms at Hudol. Uniform pressed and starched, head full of incantations and spell components. She doesn't mean to bump into Adaine and get orange juice all over her shirt but today isn't the day she's going to start showing weakness.
"You know, you really should watch we're you're going," she says archly, playing off the clumsy mistake as a purposeful jab.
Playing it off a bit too well because, the next thing she knows, Adaine is flipping her off and a bolt of queasy looking, green energy is coming towards her. Ray of Sickness. And she can't spare the spell slot for Counterspell because she needs it for her exams.
"You little bitch!" Aelwyn says once she's emptied the contents of her stomach down the front of her shirt.
"Good luck with your exams," Adaine says sweetly.
Aelwyn is eighteen and the oldest, mangiest cat she's ever seen in her life has just vomited on her shoes.
"My," she says, casting a shield spell around her ankles to stop the cat from clawing at them. "You weren't kidding. He is a little bastard, isn't he?"
The shelter volunteer looks mortified. "Oh, gods! I am so sorry. I tried to warn you--I mean, not that I'm blaming you but--"
"No, it's alright. I did ask you to show me stragglers."
The shelter worker gestures to another pen on the other side of the room. "I can show you the kittens we just got in or there are some very well behaved older cats as well if you'd--"
But Aelwyn cuts her off, scooping up the old cat--though she holds him at arm's length for now, just to be safe. "No need. I haven't changed my mind. I'll take this one." She looks at the tag on his collar. "Hector."
Aelwyn is three and, as of a month ago, no longer the youngest Abernant.
She's had baby dolls in the past but never a baby sister and this is exciting new territory. She's full of questions. When is she going to be able to walk? When is she going to be able to talk? When will she be old enough to have lembas bread instead of formula?
Her parents seem less fascinated by the new addition to the family than she is but her mother is amused when she slaps away the hand of a colleague of her father's who tried to touch Adaine before sanitizing his hands, standing between the much larger man and her sister.
"So defensive. Perhaps she'll be an abjurer."
When Aelwyn asks what that is, her mother says that it's a kind of magical protector and she likes that a lot. That sounds like a good thing to be.
At night, Adaine cries. Except, she doesn't hear it because the mobile above her crib is etched with runes that cast the Silence spell.
"But what if she gets hurt?" Aelwyn asks.
Her father brushes her off. That's what the Unseen Servants are for. But she thinks that's what an abjurer might be for too and even though she isn't one yet, that doesn't mean she can't start practicing.
So, every night, Aelwyn waits until her parents have put Adaine down for bed and then tiptoes into her room. She checks to see if Adaine is silently wailing and if she is (and even sometimes if she isn't) she presses her face between the bars of the crib and sticks her little hand over Adaine's face.
"Don't cry," she says, even though the Silence spell mutes her words as completely as the tears. "Mum said I'm an abjurer. Nothing will get you. Don't cry, baby."
Adaine grabs her hand with impressive grip strength for something so small and, within a few minutes, she's trancing peacefully.
Aelwyn is seventeen and her sister is off to save the world again. This time from a Night Yorb--whatever that is.
It feels cruel that Adaine should have to go risk her life again so soon after she just almost died--not almost died, she did die before being raised by her cleric.
She wants to come with, to help in some way. Surely she could be helpful--last quest they brought Gilear for Helio's sake!
But Adaine doesn't ask her and she can't bring herself to say the words she needs to have the conversation she wants. So, instead, she lightly whaps Adaine on the shoulder with her spellbook as she's packing for the quest.
"I know you haven't done much studying lately what with your grades being based on how many hobgoblins you kill or whatever ridiculous system Aguefort has cooked up," Adaine rolls her eyes at that, "But if you don't mind a little cram session before you leave tomorrow, I can show you how to cast Teleport like I said. Might help you stay a touch less dead on your quest."
Her tone is light but her eyes betray her: Please, please, please don't die again.
Adaine's expression softens but then she scoffs, playing her half of their game. "I don't know what a Hudol dropout who's been in jail for the past year is gonna teach me but do your best."
Aelwyn is seven and her father is cross with her.
"Really Aelwyn," he says and even though they're talking via crystal she can feel the frost of his glare. "You thought it was appropriate to call me at work for no good reason? How many times have I told you and your sister to not bother me while I'm working."
She hates the word bother. She doesn't want to be a bother. She tries very hard not to be. Maybe she just didn't explain herself well enough.
"I know, father. But Addy got really scared and panicky on the playground. She was breathing really hard and--"
Her father makes a noise of disgust. "I don't have time for this. She is in primary school now. Stop coddling her. And her name is Adaine, not Addy. Please speak properly. I'm raising you better than that."
He hangs up before she can say anything else.
Aelwyn is eighteen and most of the claw marks on her arms have healed, which is nice. On her lap asleep is Hector who has apparently decided he likes her enough to use her as a radiator but not enough to submit to medical treatment without using her arms as a scratching post.
"You little heat vampire," she says as she slides her thumb across the screen of her crystal, searching for a video that will help her out. Eventually she finds one that looks promising and she calls it up.
On the screen, a halfling is standing next to a cat who is actively shredding her sweater with its claws. "You're going to be tempted to use some kind of a shield spell when applying the ointment," says the halfling. "But cats can smell abjuration magic and they don't love it. You won't get close enough to do the job. Isn't that right my darling?"
In response, her cat hacks up a hairball.
"Darling indeed," she says under her breath.
But even laced with sarcasm, the word is sweeter against her tongue than she anticipated.
She sinks her hand into Hector's fur and scratches his back for a few moments before tentatively speaking aloud. "Sleeping well, my darling?"
Hector says nothing--he's asleep and a cat. But warmth blooms in Aelwyn's chest--more than enough to make up for what Hector is leeching from her.
Aelwyn is seventeen and her father has given her the most horrible command she's ever received in her life--and she's counting being made to sink a ship full of people in that calculation.
She knows her father doesn't expect her to delicately extricate the knowledge he needs from Adaine's mind. He expects her to get it at all costs. To ransack and pillage the memories if necessary with no heed of the consequences on her psyche. He'd probably prefer it that way--the more broken Adaine is, the easier it will be to mold her into a version of herself that is more useful to him.
Aelwyn is usually a smooth talker and a convincing liar but now, she stumbles all over her words, babbling out a stream of deflections and pleas as her heart squeezes tighter and tighter in her chest until she can't hold back the truth that she's been suppressing for years anymore.
"Adaine's just…she's a baby."
Aelwyn is eighteen and her apartment is full of cats.
She's always thought that the phrase, "One thing led to another" was a bit of a cop out--clearly there were key steps between point A and point B being glossed over--but in this case, there is truly no better way for her to articulate how she went from zero cats to ten cats in such a short amount of time.
She's sure that if she was still living with Jawbone, he'd have something to say about it but that's exactly why she isn't currently living with Jawbone.
She portions out food for all of the cats, saving Hector for last because he likes to eat curled up next to her.
"My darling baby boy," she says, lifting him onto the couch with her because the jump up is a bit much for him and his old bones. She kisses him on the top of the head and then pulls out her crystal. She scrolls mindlessly for a bit before checking her messages despite the fact that there's conspicuously no notifications.
Not that she has many people to expect texts from but she hasn't heard from Adaine in a few weeks and it's unsettling. When they weren't getting along, they were still living under the same roof. She was able to keep tabs on her, more or less. Now, they're closer than they've been in ages but barely talking.
I'm the older sister, I suppose, Aelwyn thinks. I should take the initiative.
She pets Hector with one hand and drafts a message with another: Are you alive, bitch?
She's about to press send but then she frowns and deletes the draft. After a few moments of thought, she taps out a new message: Can't believe I'm gonna say this. Miss my little sister. Everything all right?
Aelwyn is seventeen--though she doesn't feel like it.
Her mind is telling her that she's sixteen and that she was just been broken out of a jail cell in Solace but Adaine is telling her that she's just been broken out of an entirely different prison after being tortured for months even though she doesn't remember any of that.
But her body feels frail and Adaine says she's been in her mind which means she must have used the hard reset.
She's suddenly feeling very vulnerable--not because of the disorientation or the of the levels of exhaustion she can feel weighing on her like leaden chains. No, it's because of the fact that Adaine using the reset means that she must have read the treacle-y note that she left there for her to find.
It was just an insurance policy, she tells herself. There was wisdom to buttering up your savior to make sure she'd do what you needed her to do.
She manages to mostly believe it. But the small, truthful part of herself that knows how deeply she meant the words is so uncomfortable that she antagonizes Adaine until she's annoyed enough to hit her with a spell, sending her into blissful unconsciousness.
Aelwyn is nineteen and she's going to kill her mother.
Well, not alone of course. Adaine deserves the kill at least as much as she does if not more. It'll be a group effort.
It's a strange mix--the cold fury at her mother mixed with the warmth she feels for her sister, sitting across the table from her. She sees Adaine summon a flame her palm, a preview of what their mother as waiting for her. She sees the face of her baby sister, left to wail alone silently for hours, soothed by her presence.
"Yes, my dear," she says, the endearment coming freely as if this has always been their dynamic. "We'll get her."
But there will be time for that later. Right now, it's time for ice cream and seeing Adaine so content in such a simple pleasure causes the warmth in her to surge so suddenly that it would be startling if it wasn't so pleasant. The urge to voice it is so powerful that she doesn't know that would have been able to stop it at any point in life, let alone now.
"I hope we get to eat ice cream and cast magic forever," she says, words that would have been impossible for her to say one short year ago and impossible not to say now.
And, to her delight, Adaine agrees.
