"Come on!" Isabella tugged her twin away from their house.
Serraphina walked briskly, trying to match her sister's pace and at the same time trying to reign her temper until they arrived at the small clearing behind Grandma Millia's house. The clearing is obscure behind a thick row of bushes and trees. It used to be Grandma Millia's son's playground; both of them now lived in the Central although they did come and visit her whenever they could apply for leaves from the military.
Old Man Francis helped them change it into a training ground when the boys voiced their interest in serving the military years ago. It has a couple of old wooden logs that look worse for wear. There's several new logs also, they were put there by Michael last summer, he is Grandma Millia's oldest son. Now it became a hidden place where Serraphina lash out her anger.
"Go on." Isabella said softly. She pushed her sister towards the middle of the clearing before sitting under the shade of a large tree not far from her sister.
Serraphina snatched one of the three wooden swords that was laying around by the logs. She clicked her tongue in annoyance before she lashed out her wooden sword towards one of the logs. Her moves and hits were filled with rage as a silver thin aura began to envelope her sword. The log begins to splinter from all the slaughter. She moved to the next log when she slashed the previous one into two. Isabella let out a sigh. The logs are going to be murdered at this point and it had just been 4 days.
She managed to calmed Serraphina and separate her from their aunt successfully before any screaming match begin for the past 4 days. She thought that they could make it for the rest of the week, but unfortunately no. She left her sister for a bit and went to Old Man Francis house to take a bucket of water from the well for cooking. Just for a little bit. Not even for 20 minutes!
She comes home to her twin on the ground with a screaming Aunt looming over her.
She snatched her twins away, yelling at their Aunt that they'd be at Grandma Millias' and would be back after dinner. Isabella could hear Lucia spitting profanities towards them even after she slammed the door behind them. Maybe she should have followed her sister and started calling that woman a witch. But she thinks that it would be insulting towards the witch community especially when they didn't even know if witches exist here or not.
She need to remind Serra to not destroy another tree and to be thrifty with the logs as it would be another month before Michael and Matthew come to visit and makes them more logs. She missed the two brothers. They brought books and scarves and spoiled them rotten every time they came home. She knows that Grandma Millia keep worrying for her sons, that woman keep herself busy with dotting on them to keep her mind from wandering and worrying for her sons every minutes.
Michael is 26, two years older than Matthew; his brother. Michael passed the military exam when he was 17 while Matthew followed his step when he reached the age of 19. They lived together in the military barrack for a couple of years until they had enough money pooled together to rent a house together so that their mother could stay with them when she came to visit the Central. They asked their mother to move in with them, to live in the Central after they have a comfortable place to stay; she refused every time.
Imagine how shocked they were to meet Serraphina and Issabella when they came to visit their mother 2 years ago. Both of them received news that their villages were being invaded by a group of bandits. They immediately begged their Commanding Officer to send them along with the back up troops that would be sent away. They were lucky to have an understanding CO and that their request was granted and were even given 2 weeks leave effective after they helped with the attack.
Both the young man seems to dotted on them, excessively even; something that they seems to inherited from their mother. They patted Serraphine's head when she begged them to teach her some basic swordsmanship although Isabella seems to think that it would be unnecessary as Serra did learnt kendo before. But Serraphine said that they need to build a solid background in case there would be any questions in the future. Michael was a great teacher and he was in awed when Serraphina seems to take the swordsmanship like duck takes to water.
They replaced all the broken logs during their visits without questions even though Isabella knew that the two brothers seemed to be brimming with curiosity on how her twin managed to destroy the trees and logs with just a wooden sword. Serraphina thinks that Grandma Millia warned her sons not to ask questions but Isabella seems to think they were just polite enough to not want to make them uncomfortable.
Serraphina channeled her rages on the slashes that she throws. Every time Isabella deems her twin losing her patients with Lucia, she would drag her sister to this safe place so she could release her anger. Although they did learn one day that Serraphine needed to bleed her anger within limits because the first and the last time she lashed out, her slashes managed to destroy a log along with two other trees behind the destroyed log.
They were lucky that no one came out there to check on the destroyed area. It happened during stormy season and people chuck it up as caused by the lightning. Although it was awkward when they had to face Matthew who visited in the upcoming week and stood staring at the destroyed area for a full 15 minutes, he knew the aftermath of the swords afflicted incident when he saw one. That is until Grandma Millia claimed that it was caused by thunder during the storm and glared at Matthew to drop the subject (he did).
"Serra." Isabella sighs when her twin lets out a grunt and continues slashing away.
"Serra, Michael and Matthew won't be here for another month. You need to spare some logs. We couldn't afford to destroy another tree; George had pestered Grandma about it last time." Serraphina scoffed.
"That nosy brat needs to learn to mind his own business." George is Old Man Francis' apprentice. He wanted to succeed the smithing business of their village in their future.
"He seems to not have learnt from the past." She sneered and tossed away her wooden sword. The silver aura on the sword faded away but Serra could still feel her power agitate under her skin.
"No! You are not going to break his leg, AGAIN!" Isabella hissed at Serraphine who plopped down by her side. She glared when her twin snorted.
"He's lucky that it was just his leg." Bella rolled her eyes. Serra's anger issue had been a trouble before but it seems much worse now because it makes her power uncontrollable. And hers seems to be the volatile one between the two of them, Bella dreads to think of their future as their power seems to grow along with them.
"WE'RE the lucky one because he was too ashamed to admit that he was beaten by a six year old girl and claimed that he fallen down the tree." Isabella took Serraphina's chin and gently tilted her head, inspecting the split lips. No doubt, it's from their Aunt loves tap again.
"You hurt anywhere else?" The one thing that Bella could control is her healing power. And that's only because she could use it easily on her twin. She tried to use it on Grandma Millia when she's asleep before when she hurt her back, but it didn't work as fast nor as well as she could on Serraphina. They think it's because they are siblings.
"No." Her body begins to relax slowly when she feels her twin power mending her split lips. She could feel her agitated power simmered down.
Isabella let go of Serra's chin, she snake her arm around her sister and hug her tight. Serraphina tucked her face on Bella's neck and took a shuddering breath. Bella could feel her body shudder and become limp in her hold. Rubbing her twins' back and tucking her chin on Serra's shoulder, she let out a soft humm.
She finally let out a huff, she moved and arranged so Bella would sit leaning on the tree. She draped herself on Bella and resumed tucking her face back on Bella's neck. She took a deep breath and her body became lax completely when Bella's hand continued to rub her back.
"Want to tell me what happened?"
"... She was drunk. She asked for money…. I gave her this week's portion. She started screaming saying it's not enough…"
Bella keeps quiet. She regretted that she couldn't play with Serras' hair. That would be the easiest way to calm her twin. They had to wear their scarf and could only take it off when Lucia locked them in their room. The first and last time Lucia saw them without their scarf, she lose it and scream like a lunatic; and became a lunatic too, Lucia had cut off their hair, cropped it down to their scalp before threaten them that she'd burn their head on the stove the next time they show their hair.
To say that it was a painful experience would be an understatement.
"She asked for more money… Then started hitting…" Serra let out a sigh. "I'm sorry." She whispers.
"For what? It wasn't your fault."
"I couldn't keep my promise."
"You didn't provoke her. You didn't do anything wrong. She's a loose cannon, you know that. You warned me that when I asked you this, remember?" Bella kissed her forehead.
"Still…"
"Don't worry about it. We'll just leave it to Grandma Millia."
"Hmm.."
"You want to stay here? I'm going inside to ask Grandma Millia if we could stay over for dinner. You want to come with me?"
"I'll stay."
"Hmm… I'll help her with the dinner. I'll call you when it's ready." She squeezed her tightly.
"'Kay."
...….
Isabella steps inside through the backdoor that leads directly into the kitchen of Grandma Milla's house. She grinned when she saw the woman cutting potatoes on the dining table. There's some ingredients on the table waiting to be prepared as well. She sidled up by her side and hugged her carefully, minding the knife on the older woman's hand.
"Hi Grams."
"Hello, sweety. Having fun out there?"
"Mmhmm… Can we have dinner with you tonight?"
"You know that you don't have to ask for that, dear. I'm always happy to have you both here any time."
"Thanks Grams!" She went and grabbed a knife and a bowl.
"Grab more potatoes and carrots while you at it." And she did. Plopping herself beside the older woman, she begins to peel the potatoes.
"Something happened?" Ahhh… She knew them very well.
"..."
"Is Serraphina okay?" A tinge of worry marred her tone. That child has a bad temper, but she also knew their aunt since that woman was a child. And she knows her now, knowing how much Lucia despised her own flesh and blood.
"...She's fine." The silence was deafening. Millia let it drag. She always lets the twins talk at their own pace even though Serraphina and the notion of talking seems to be unlikely.
"I think it would be… hard for us to stay with you. On our birthday I mean." Bella try hard to not to look at Grandma Millia when she talk. She flinched when she heard the other woman let out a rough huff and a screech from the chair when she stood abruptly.
"Errmm, Grandma?"
"Continue here, sweety. I need to have a long talk with your Aunt."
"W-what? Grams…"
"No, sweetheart. I think that it's long since overdue. Fortunately, your other half is not here to glare me down from marching over to your Aunt. And I know that you are smarter than her to say no to me, aren't you, sweety?" Grandma Millia gave her a serene smile that reminded Bella a lot of her twin. She began to feel a cold sweat.
"Urmm.. ermm… Be careful…?" Her mouth twitched into an awkward smile.
"Good girl."