The Voice of a Flute
The stables were dark and silent, lit only by the moonlight that streamed in through the small windows near the ceiling. Most of the horses stood sleeping in their boxes, breathing deeply. Once in a while one of them would wave its tail reflexively to chase away a fly, but other than that, the stillness was complete.
Without breaking the silence, two small shadows entered through the large door. They moved quietly, with the wariness of those who depended on silence for survival. Their hands were clasped tightly together as they sneaked past the horses without waking them, glancing at each other now and then as if to regain confidence that neither of them was alone in there.
If anyone had watched them as they walked in and out of the beams of moonlight, they might have wondered if they were seeing double images. The two shadows wore the same face, the face of a gaunt, dirty little boy with uncut blond hair. The clothes they wore were more or less the same as well, although they were hardly more than rags - stained and torn to the point were no one could tell which color they had been to begin with. The boys might have been nine or ten years old, but were small and skinny enough to pass for even younger.
They were twins, that much they knew. Once, their parents had called them Koutoku and Shunkaku, but that was in the distant past. For longer than either of them cared to remember, no one had called them anything. There were plenty of orphans from the civil war in the country, and the people lucky enough to still have a home and a family ignored them at best, beat them up at worst. No one would ask a street rat for its name, after all.
The elder of the twins, he who had been Koutoku, pointed at a pile of hay in an unoccupied box by the end of the corridor. His brother nodded and whispered, "That looks good."
A second later both of them were settling in the hay, relaxing a bit after getting so far without getting caught. It seemed they had been right in assuming all the chores in the stable had been performed for the night - unless something entirely unsuspected happened, no one would be here until morning. And that they would worry about in the morning.
For the boys, the hay was nice and warm, and the body heat of the horses raised the temperature in the stable to a comfortable level. Winter was on its way outside - it rarely snowed in the Kutou Empire, but nights were chilly during this part of the year, and it wasn't easy sleeping outdoors.
The elder twin looked expectantly at his brother, who knew immediately what he meant. He smiled and produced a small loaf of bread from a pouch he carried under his tattered pants. They had snatched this from a merchant earlier the same day, using their usual method, where the elder brother distracted the victim with some beautiful flute music, and the younger sneaked in and picked something edible.
"Here, aniki," the younger twin whispered, handing the bread over. "It looks delicious! You split it, I always mess up."
The elder brother took the bread, turned it a couple of times in his hands, and then broke it into two clean halves, almost exactly the same size. He measured them carefully against each other and gave his brother the piece he thought was slightly larger.
"Thanks!" His mirror image took his piece eagerly and started chewing on it without hesitating. The other twin considered doing the same. He was hungry, his stomach told him that. But appetite - the craving for food that his twin felt all the time - he couldn't remember feeling that way for years. Not since his world had shattered and the two of them had become alone. He knew what would happen if he didn't eat, though. He would become too weak to take care of his brother - that had happened before, and he didn't want it to happen again. He took his bread and started eating it, almost reluctantly.
His brother had already finished his piece before the he had come halfway through his. Hunger satisfied, the younger twin lay down on the hay and snuggled into it. "Ahh..." he sighed. "This is nice and soft. And warm. I like it here." He turned to put his head up on his elbow and face his brother. "Hey, aniki," he said. "What was that song you played before? It was a new one, wasn't it? Could you play it again? When you're done eating?"
The elder brother frowned. He didn't want to start playing the flute in here. After all, someone might hear it from outside, and come to check it out. He finished eating his bread and lay down beside his brother in silence. His twin knew what the frown meant and sighed, but lay back down and didn't press the issue.
Both of them were almost asleep when someone noisily opened the stable door. The younger twin sat up with a start and might have panicked if his brother hadn't grabbed his arm and motioned for him to be silent. They didn't know who it was. If they were lucky, and kept silent, they might not be found out.
However, they didn't seem to be lucky. There were voices over at the stable door, several loud, crude male voices. Probably drunk. The twins shivered and pressed closer to each other. Then they heard a female voice scream, and steps approaching fast in their direction.
The elder brother moved fast, covering his twin's body with his own and pressing him down into the hay. He tried to cover himself with hay as well, but it was too late. Four large, unkempt, and judging from the smell and the slur in their speech very drunk young men had already appeared in the opening to the box where they were. They had a young woman along, but she was wild-eyed and struggling in the grip of one of the men, apparently unwilling to do whatever it was they wanted her for.
The men stopped in their tracks when they saw that the box they thought they would play in was occupied by a small, trembling boy. Two large, golden eyes looked up at them, begging them to ignore him, go somewhere else and do whatever they were doing. But they were far to drunk and exited to leave him alone.
"Hey!" one of them exclaimed. "What ya doin' here, lil' bastard!?" He got no reply, but probably didn't expect one. Instead he lifted the boy by his tattered shirt and threw him away. The child flew several meters and landed hard on his back, sliding a few inches and hitting his head on the wall. He grimaced with pain, but surprisingly, he didn't make a sound.
The man who had thrown him growled. "Hey punk!" he roared. "Think yer cool, huh? Think ya can jus' ignore us, huh?" The rest of the men also turned around to face him, and one of them raised his foot to give the child at their feet a kick in the face.
The boy didn't believe in any god that would grant prayers, but if he had, he might have prayed that his brother would have the sense to stay quiet. These drunks hadn't noticed that there were more than one boy. His twin might yet get out of this safe. His steeled himself for the kick he saw coming.
Those hopes were crushed when an enraged yell rose from the pile of hay behind the drunks. His twin brother jumped up from hiding with a scream of anger and with the power of a desperate surprise attack, he kicked the man who had been about to hurt his brother on the shin. The man roared and his kick never hit. At least it never hit the elder twin.
The next moment, the scene had turned into complete chaos. All four of the drunken young men turned on the sudden new attacker, holding him, beating him, kicking him. The woman seemed to be completely forgotten for the moment, and before anyone noticed she had made the run for it and was gone. The elder brother, his head still spinning, was also forgotten for now, but his twin was screaming. He could feel the other one's pain, and he wanted to scream too, but he couldn't. His brother was such a fool. He shouldn't have done that. He could have been safe.
There was only one thing left he could do now. Sometimes he despised himself for being able to do this; sometimes he despised himself for not learning it early enough. Most of all he despised the world for making something like this necessary. Long ago, he had been unable to save his parents, his relatives, his friends - but he could save his brother now. He reached for his pouch and pulled out a short, simple wooden flute. It was his prize possession, and playing it was one of the few things that still brought him joy. But not like this.
At the sound of the flute, all four of the men froze. A second later they were writhing on the floor in pain, blood spluttering from their mouths and noses. The boy kept playing. He had cried the first time he had done this, but not anymore. He kept playing long after the four men had stopped twitching, and then he fell to his knees. He felt tired, so tired...
"Aniki?" His brother's voice finally reached him. He looked up and saw his twin sitting next to him with a bruised face but wearing a small smile. "Thanks, aniki." He threw his arms around him. The stables were silent again - it seemed even this commotion hadn't stirred the horses - and the only sound that each of them could hear was the beating of his brother's heart. It took a long time before either of them moved.
Finally the elder brother rose. He grabbed his twin's hand and started to pull him up. His brother understood his thoughts perfectly and replied to the unspoken request. "Yes, let's get out of here." They couldn't very well stay in a stable with four dead bodies. Besides, the girl might be back with more people any moment, and they didn't seem to have luck on their side tonight.
Silently, they got out of the stable and out on the street. It was still cold out here. But they had to leave; they had to get as far from here as possible. The elder brother pulled harder, and they started to run. The town was small enough to lack a wall, and it didn't take long for them to leave it behind. As long as they were running, the cold didn't seem so bad, but when they finally slowed down, they realized they were both shaking. Whether it was with fear or cold or both was hard to tell.
"Hey, aniki," the younger twin mumbled. "Let's just go to sleep here. They won't look for us here, will they?" He could see his brother's face clearly in the moonlight and was happy to see him nod.
They had reached something that looked like an old abandoned field. The ground was covered with grass, but there weren't many trees. The elder brother shrugged and sat down right where he was, and the younger followed suit. They pressed against each other for warmth, but they were still shivering, and neither of them felt much like sleeping.
"Aniki..." The younger twin said suddenly, on impulse. "Won't you talk to me? Just once? I would... I would like to hear your voice." This was new, he had never asked before. His elder brother hadn't said a word since that day - he had cared for him, and they had both survived by relying on each other - but he hadn't spoken a single time. The younger brother tried to talk for both of them, and between the twins, words were seldom necessary - but he missed hearing a friendly voice, especially at a time like this. "Please?"
The elder twin blinked, but opened his mouth. He tried to speak, tried to fulfill his brother's wish. He'd do anything to make his brother happy, anything. But no sound came. He tried again, but it was impossible. Something deep in his throat stopped him, told him it was too soon. The scars were still too fresh. He might talk one day, but not today. Instead he managed a smile and gave his brother a look as if to say, 'What do you mean? I have a voice.'
He pulled out his flute again. And this time the melody didn't kill anyone. This time he played the way he wanted to play. The sound of the flute was his voice, the melody his words. He played about himself and his brother, he played about life and peace and happiness. And lying there in the open field, he played about the stars.
He could feel his brother relaxing beside him. He was falling asleep himself. It didn't feel so cold any more.