First Posted: Jul/18/18

Amane's Ring

Origins of the Two Child

Ghost ReaperandWinter Cherries

(Part of the 'Off Set' Universe)

(See bottom for notes)

The first time Amane truly realized what a gift her sister was was when she'd gone missing. The guilt was overwhelming; her dad had told her to watch her while he went back to the car to grab her medicine (as Ryou had always been more sickly than she had) but Amane had been distracted by the ducks in the pond, neglecting to watch her baby sister.

As a consequence seemingly from God she was taken away from her, in one of the most cruelest ways imaginable in fact. Her daddy had panicked hard when she realized Ryou was no longer with her sister and Amane had as well. She hadn't known that leaving her sister by the swings as she went to go investigate the pond situation would have had such horrible consequences. The police in their big scary cars with the bright flashing lights and sirens were called to the park and Amane saw them asking all the other mommies, daddies, and kids if they'd seen anything happen to Ryou, using her as an example of what she looked like because they were twins and even though she really didn't understand what was going on Amane knew it was something bad and that it was all her fault.

Daddy tried to reassure her that this would have happened no matter what she'd done and that by going to go see the ducks she'd avoided being taken like her sister but Amane knew, she knew she was responsible for whatever happened to her sister next.

The detectives and the police brought her, her daddy, and all the people who'd said they'd seen a funny looking man around Ryou down to their scary jail building where she was sure they kept all the bad guys in the world and asked them to describe the man while a pretty cop lady drew out the descriptions.

Later, when she'd been at home coloring in a picture of the good man in the bright red coat she'd seen in a dream, Amane saw a compilation of the drawings and a picture of a smiling Ryou on the important tv channel mommy always watched around dinner time. Inside the kitchen she could hear their low arguing and mommy's loud sobbing but the pretty white people who nobody else could see told her that she should keep coloring in the man, they said worrying about her sister was less important and that she shouldn't think about her anymore; they would take care of Ryou instead.

Amane usually liked her funny translucent friends but they were wrong wrong wrong and that was making her mad mad mad. She told them to 'stuff it' (a phrase learned from watching the Maury show one afternoon while mommy had fallen asleep in the kitchen floor after daddy had hit her) because Ryou was important, Ryou was her world. Amane wouldn't dare to think about a living in a place without her sister, it just couldn't be true, they were special, they were the same! She had never seen anyone like the two of them were, exact copies of the other, that meant they just must have been fated to be together forever!

Mommy tucked her into bed that night and she asked if Ryou was gone for good. It seemed like a terrible thought but her friends had been pestering her about it every time she wanted to stop drawing the pretty man with the scar and they insisted she continue. They promised the man would help her and that everything would be okay once he came back. Amane didn't think that sounded very right, after all, how could this strange man help her if even the big, strong police men couldn't help her. Nobody had retrieved her sister as of yet and as far as she was aware, the man was just a figment of her imagination.

Her mommy told her that everything would be fine and that Ryou would be home soon but Amane wasn't stupid, she knew Ryou wasn't coming home anytime soon. She might have been a little kid but she was six and a half for God's sake, her parents couldn't fool her anymore! She was just as smart as any grownup, surely!

Tucked in and snuggled up tightly against her stuffed animals, Amane listened to a lovely white woman who resembled the nice man and let her stroke her cheeks as she sang her a pretty lullaby, the other translucent people brushing their ghostly fingers through her thick hair and gently braiding the pretty white locks. She wanted them to look after Ryou instead of her, she knew where ever her sister was she would need the sweet lullaby more than she did and Amane was always happy to share with her sister but they didn't want to go find her, they said she was 'out of reach' which didn't make sense because they obviously didn't follow the rules normal people followed so why couldn't they go see her sister?

These thoughts weighed heavily on her mind but the lady's pretty, delicate voice and the soft, soothing feeling of fingers running through her hair soon had Amane thinking less about her sister and more about the man in the red robe.

Sleep soon came after.

It was days and days and days later before they finally found Ryou.

Amane didn't understand the details of the situation, all she knew was that mommy had picked her up from school very very early and they'd driven all the way down to the big, white building where all the sick people went (a building she'd later learn was called a 'hospital') to see Ryou.

She was so excited! Ryou! Finally back home! Back safe! Her white friends muttered and scowled to each other but whenever she asked them what was wrong they always replied that it was nothing and to go back to thinking about her sister. Amane didn't think they liked her sister very much which made no sense because Ryou was such a lovable person! How could anybody not love her? Amane certainly didn't know.

Ghostly friends aside, the hospital was huge, Amane could barely wrap her head around how big the whitewashed building was, long bustling hallways and seven floors it was like being inside of a maze stacked on top of a maze stacked on top of a maze! She shuffled closer to her mommy, gripping her hand a little tighter, what if somebody tried to steal her away like they had Ryou? The park had been full of people when Ryou had gone missing and Amane didn't want to disappear when she was so close to victory.

Mommy gave her a reassuring pat on the head and led her through the long long halls and up the elevators and right in front of Ryou's room. She stop in front of the closed door hesitantly. What if Ryou was mad at her for not paying good enough attention and letting her get hurt? Amane would sure be mad if Ryou let her get taken away, who's to say Ryou wouldn't feel the same?

She told her mommy what she was worried about but she just knelt down with a hug and told her not to worry.

Amane slowly opened the door as her mommy and daddy talked to the big, scary doctors, slowly making her way into the room without anybody noticing. She walked up to the bed and climbed atop, observing Ryou's small body in the big bed.

Her sister looked very not okay. She was covered in cuts and big purple blotchy spots all over and the doctors had put a funny tube up her nose to help her breath better. There was a loud, annoying monitor that beeped every few seconds and a bunch of other machines that tracked all different kinds of things.

Her ghostly friends seemed very interested in all of the mechanics of the hospital room but all Amane cared about was her sister. She sat there on the bed with her for hours, eventually going back out into the hall to ask her daddy for a snack. She listened for a moment to conversation before interrupting. From what she could gather, a not-very-happy man had done something bad to Ryou, she was told nothing with a pat on the head and kiss on the cheek and sent out of the hall and back to her sister in the big white bed in the big white room in the big white hospital.

Ryou came home with them a few days later, the spirits grumbling and moaning to themselves as Amane helped her into the car. She was determined to take extra-care of her from now on, nothing like this was ever going to happen to her again and she would make sure of it. Mommy and daddy told her that Ryou would be a little more skittish and not liked to be touched very much from now on because the bad man had hurt her so she was stuck being scared even though she wasn't in any more danger. This confused Amane but she still tried to make her as comfortable as possible without upsetting her. A few times she had accidentally touched Ryou and her sister had practically melted down but when she asked permission first Ryou seemed to be okay. Amane's translucent friends stroked both of their hair and whispered lullabies in their ears and everything seemed to be okay for a while. She showed Ryou her pictures of the man in the red coat and she seemed to like them very much, holding them and admiring them and trying to copy them herself.

The spirits told her about the man and his noble deeds and she relayed their words to her sister, the stories of how his home was destroyed along with all of them and how he rose up from their ashes, ready to avenge their deaths and destroy the man who destroyed them. Amane didn't like the part about how he was alone but the spirits promised her that he wouldn't be alone for very long, he became the King of the Thieves, meeting a lovely boy with bright white hair just as theirs was and how the two fell in love. This confused Amane because her mommy and daddy and the preacher and the bible had always told her that like-liking someone that was the same they were was wrong but the spirits assured her that the true Gods did not care who you chose as your beloved, as long as you loved and cherished them them it would be fine. They told her of how the great Thief was overtaken by a black demon, overwhelmed in a battle of magic and wills and how he became possessed, they told her of how it had turned him cruel and warped the way he perceived the world, how his love had been killed right before him and how it had sent him straight back to the man who had ruined his life in the first place. Amane wasn't comfortable relaying the next part to her sister but her friends insisted, saying that it was important they both knew and that eventually Ryou would be able to see them as well but how she needed to understand first because she had been horribly damaged by the bad man and that it had warped her sense of the world just like their great Thief's had been. Reluctantly, she learned of how the man who had killed his village had already perished and how the twisted Thief swore to get revenge on his son instead, how he nobly dueled the evil boy, dying as he tried to get revenge and restore the items they were trapped in so that they may rest in peace along with his beloved. Instead the black demon forced the Thief to seal his soul inside one of the items so that he may come back to life once again and fulfill his revenge. They spoke of how the evil son had been sealed as well and how when the Thief reemerged he would be cruel and twisted from years of torture at the hands of the black demon and how she and Ryou would help restore him back to his true glory.

Ryou liked the idea of helping the nice King of Thieves, she said it would be a nice change in his life, helping someone who only ever tried to help. Sometimes she would get frightened in the night, crying out that she saw a figure lurking in the shadows and the spirits would tell Amane to comfort her sister with the knowledge that that was just a sign that the great Thief was getting closer to them and to returning to the land of the living.

In the 'Off Set' Universe, Ryou is trans and Amane is the older twin. The two of them also have a much stronger connection with spirits and the undead.

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- Ghost ReaperandWinter Cherries