Treasure
Sometimes, when he sees her out of the corner of his eye, she is Hisana.
When she stands by the window in the stately dining room, watching the sun set, he can almost pretend she is.
But the set of her jaw, the determined line of her lips, the intensity in her eyes; those things save him. They set her apart; he cannot pretend she is Hisana when confronted with these unassailable differences.
Even so, he catches himself from time to time, staring past her. Looking through her. Searching for that elusive point, that degree of not seeing, where she becomes her sister.
He doesn't do it often. Exercises his ruthless self-control to limit these tiny, forbidden moments to the times when he truly needs them. When his grief catches him unawares, as though he only lost her yesterday, even though it has been years. When the burden of his morality weighs him down, choices made that cannot be undone.
And then sometimes, it just happens. He turns around and she is there, a blow to the heart, an insult to reality.
He hates those moments.
Treasures those moments.