A/N- Yes, you did read the summary right, this story is Kestrel/Bowman twincest. If you get freaked out by this kind of thing, please please please don't read it and come complaining to me.
Perhaps it's too many Disney movies in my younger years, but I do believe that any kind of love is never wrong. It's just love, y'know? You can't predict it or shape it, it just happens. If you disagree, that's what the Back button on the top of your screen is for.
For everyone else however, enjoy!
Dream to Dare
Dark eyes. Big round dark eyes. So much like his very own, but hers were different. Hers were fiery and wild and had the power to engulf you whole.
His were quiet and –in some peoples eyes- somewhat wise. Bowman knew this to be false however; he had the eyes of a fool. He was a fool.
Only a fool would fall in love with their own twin.
He'd known he loved her since they were very young. Although twins, Bowman and Kestrel couldn't be more different, she was brave and strong, he was scared and weak. Her eyes burned with a passion and he felt a shiver run through him when those dark angry eyes turned on him.
He'd known it was wrong even back then- people don't love their relatives, let alone their twins. In Aramanth this was one of the strictest laws and held a great punishment for anyone who dared to break it. Everywhere in the world, Obagang, the Mastery and even the homeland, it was all the same. Bowman's love for his sister would never, never be accepted.
Not that it would matter anyway though, she didn't love him. Kestrel didn't love anyone, she was too wild to be tamed, the idea of her settling down to start a family incomprehensible.
Somewhere in the back of his heart though, he had hope that she might choose him. The idea was stupid and unrealistic, he, her twin should have known. He could feel her feelings and think her thoughts yet he was too stubborn to see the truth.
He was such a fool.
She had been so brave when they had gone Into the Fire to find the voice of the Wind Singer. "We'll go together," She had said, "Always together."
He had betrayed her, his weak will had crumbled at the slightest touch from the Morah and he had fallen under her command. His eyes had felt hazy and Kestrel's voice had gone, instead replaced with the will of the Morah, and the joyful desire to kill everyone. He'd been under the Morah's spell, she'd shifted reality to some twisted acting stage where killing his sister was just act one and there was much more to come.
He'd finally seen sense though, at the last moment, when Kestrel had splayed her arms wide, welcome for death. At the moment, he'd seen the truth.
Just thinking about that day made him feel ill, he could have killed his sister and thought nothing of it. That illness he felt was fringed with shame, his heart had been tainted, deep in the back of his mind the Morah slithered, waiting for the sluice of hate and rage to open so it could spring free.
His heart was far too tainted for his beloved sister; however, this fact only seemed to make his love for her grow stronger. It grew and grew until it bloomed into a vicious sinful and beautiful flower. Bowman could only be thankful that the stinging insect that made you drunk had not bitten him. Who knows what atrocious things it might have made him do? He would never be able to look in her eyes again.
But then he'd been told he would be sacrificed for the Wind on Fire. At first he felt afraid, but that had given way to a greater sensation of relief. He would go, taking his sinful heart from this world and Kestrel would be free.
He felt bad for Sisi though, he knew she loved him, and in a way he loved her too. But it was never in the way he loved his sister. He did try to love Sisi, he really did, but when his lips met hers for the first time, he imagined it was Kestrel he was kissing.
Foolishness, really.
However, never once did Bowman act on his forbidden desire for his twin. He couldn't bear to be rejected and loose the friendship they shared.
He prepared to lose his life for the Wind on Fire, when Kestrel suddenly took his place. Bowman was shocked and horrified and tried to force her to change her mind. It was somewhat true that he was jealous that it would not be him who would experience the bliss of the Wind on Fire. But the truth that swallowed that feeling up was that he could not survive life without her. They had always been together, how could it be any different?
It was just too cruel, she knew he would never manage without her, she had even thought it to herself when they were younger.
How could she be so selfish?
They had fought then, Bowman battling her with his love and rage. It wasn't enough, Kestrel overpowered him and he realized it would be her who would go.
The thought was terrible.
It felt as though Bowman's heart was being ripped in two when they parted, he lost the other half of his soul that day.
Sisi comforted him after that and Bowman was very grateful to her, she did love him very much. So maybe he could learn to love her in the same way. So they got married shortly after and had several children. But it was always Kestrel who he wanted to stand with him, not her.
The last words his sister had said to him always echoed in his mind at his darkest of days, words she had said to him in his mind, on the very edge of death and bliss.
She had said, in a quite different voice, "I love you!"
He was a complete, absolute fool.