[P] a lousy bunch

[Adonai]

i think of the red circle, ever-widening in the still water. i think of his silk shirts in the winged air—

❦

I

don't remember when exactly it was that I first realised my brother wanted to be loved more than he loved me. 

All I am sure of was that I was young still, and he younger. My hair had hung down my back in thick gold ringlets—for our mother had liked my hair long, back then, and it had not been until her death that I had shorn it—and Pilate's scaled cheeks had been years away from their transformation into cut diamonds, dazzling to others and offensive to me.

The younger ones had been too little for us to bother with, then, barely capable of walking; and our twins Miriam and Hagar were too obviously girls for us to talk to, at least in public, without risking our princely image. For boy-princes did not play with their angelic sisters in court. Boy-princes played with each other, and when they got bored of one another, with fantastical desert beasts like teryrs.

If we were not stabbing wooden swords into each other, we would be dreaming about stabbing real swords into a teryr, or a wyrm, or a rampaging, barbaric Denoctian. (This was during the height of Zolin's reign. Hating Denoctians was national sport.) It was the fantasy of choice for us. A mark of esteem.  

So, ill at the idea of my peers finding me inadequate in any way, I joined in their ridiculous schemes with a carefully calculated amount of eagerness until this constant calculating tired me enough to return me, gladly, to the side of my bright-eyed brother.

Deprived of Mernatius' company at court, I would bring Pilate with me the days our father was summoned to the king and keep him close by me so that I would not have to speak for too long with the sneering sons of Hajakha and Azhade. 

We kept each other company. I was the first-born, and so I never gave him a say in the matter because he belonged first to our mother and second to me. I belonged to him, too, if he asked, and only because I was obsessed with the concept of perfection in every way and being fair, as our priests had taught, was half of the effort.

I told him often that when I became king, I would appoint him as my regent. I didn't trust anyone else for the job; my own brother was surely a sound choice. "It is not so bad being Regent," I would add, before touching his head fondly. Such gestures of affection, I knew, would keep him loyal to me. "When I die, you shall have my throne." How gracious I was, to allow him this honor. I did not have to. Many kings had not, yet I would not be like them.

I would be fair. I would be pious. I would be loved.

Was it then that I realised? That when I was crowning myself king, Pilate was too. That when I assured him of his regency, he was hearing instead my last words: when I die, you shall have my throne. 

When I die, there is only Pilate.

§
When Hagar enters the statue hall, at first I pretend not to notice her. This is a skill I have honed, in the span of a few months, to a knife point. It is never them ignoring me, but me ignoring them. It is pathetic. It is all I have.

She never came to visit me.

What are you doing? my sister asks me, and my lips pull back into a sickening smile. Gallivanting. But because she is Pilate's twin, and will hear Pilate's words in my mouth, I bite the word back behind my tongue.

I don't turn to her yet. Instead, I run my eyes across a miniature canvas in front of me because I wish to stall before answering and because I wish for Hagar to know that I am stalling.

Perched delicately inside the miniature is a golden canary, its legs shackled to a splintering wooden shelf. Slowly, I bring my wing to the canvas' gilded frame and hover it there—unwilling to touch, unable to reach. I feel like I haven't seen you in years.

I don't think I have ever understood Hagar. I don't think I have ever understood any of them. 

When I turn to her at last, my smile is worn with the courtesy of a stranger's. "Hello, Hagar." There shouldn't be an accusation in such a benign greeting. But I am skilled now in ways I have never been before, and the one I must thank for this is her twin. In front of me, they are inseparable. In front of me, they are the same. 

"I am about to practise my lyre. Out on the terrace." 

@Hagar