Kaldros trudged through the mud, the vast expanse looming ahead of him seemingly never-ending. He was soaked, the perpetual rain coating everything in a thin sheen of clear liquid and making the soft ground squelch under his footsteps. He tried to conjure some magic, but found that he lacked even the smallest drop of mana.
Suddenly, he spied another figure walking through the mud, tall and pale, wearing a long black coat with grey etchings. The figure had white hair and golden eyes – an albino like Kaldros – and his patrician features were set in a display of shock, his hand suddenly flashing to the longsword of strange design sheathed at his waist.
Kaldros attempted to call out to the person, but no sounds emitted from his mouth. He tried to run towards him, but tripped over and fell face first into the mud.
Kaldros began to sink, slowly at first, but increasing in speed the lower he got. He thrashed, attempting to rise to his feet, but the mud stuck fast to him, weighing his normally light body down. A strong hand gripped his shoulder and hauled him upwards, face to face with the mysterious figure.
His lips moved in a shout, but Kaldros couldn't hear anything past the constant splash of rain. The figure shook him violently, and the young mage couldn't help but notice the sharp fangs in his mouth – he tried to pull away but the figure held him still, continuing to shout despite the silence of his voice. He pulled out something from his pocket – a silver pendant in the shape of a collar, with a straight line coming off from the bottom and two diagonal silver pieces with horizontal lines attached to them also.
The mysterious, fanged person then pressed the pendant into Kaldros's hand, still speaking to the young mage. He released Kaldros and stood up, nodding at him, the boy looking back with a confused expression.
.*.*.*.
The dream ended abruptly, fading from memory as Kaldros instinctively thrust forwards, ramming his face into his brother's muscled back, which caused Jakhan to laugh in surprise.
"So you're finally awake then?" his brother asked, continuing to carry him at a fast pace through an enclosing forest. Kaldros looked around him, seeing a snowy woodland with huge trees that stretched up many metres.
"What...Where?" he tried to ask, his throat raw like he had been screaming for hours on end. He remembered being choked by the vines and Atasha's haunting shrieks, but beyond that, nothing. The battle was clearly over, otherwise his brother wouldn't be running away – Jakhan was extremely stubborn and refused to give up at anything.
"We are heading towards Sarashak – you remember learning about that, don't you? We lost the battle after the Temur ambushed us. The only reason any of us survived is because of you," Kaldros heard awe creeping into his brother's voice, "You slew hundreds of Temur with your magic. And then you summoned three – three! - Butchers of the Horde," Jakhan continued speaking but his brother wasn't paying attention, holding his hands out and looking down at them in horror.
"I killed … Hundreds?" Kaldros asked, interrupting his brother who grinned, his pride in his brother obvious as he tried to keep the dark undertone of envy he felt out of his next comment.
"You are basically a hero now. I'm sure the survivors are telling stories about you even now,"
"No," Kaldros declared softly, "I am a monster," All he could see was a terrifying vision of blood pouring forth from his hands, agony erupting in his head, and as Jakhan started to speak again his twin slumped forwards, unconscious once again.
.*.*.*.
Sorin awoke from his magic-induced vision, his head pounding with an aching pain that he had last felt on Zendikar, when the Eldrazi had arisen once again from their millennia-old prison. The vampire knew it signified a large amount of colourless mana, which told him he was close to Ugin, the ghost-flame dragon that had aided him in originally sealing the monstrosities from the Blind Eternities away.
However, the contents of his foray into the Aether disturbed him immensely, the old planeswalker never having intruders into his meditations before. The Aether showed him a new location each time, and as he was attempting to make sense of what he was being shown, he saw the youth blindly stumbling around. Sorin was amazed rather than frightened at the sight of another being in his visions, wanting to talk to him to see what he knew, but the boy clearly couldn't hear his questions.
Desperate and realising that the boy would soon fade away from the dream-realm, Sorin had tried to give him something to remember the planeswalker by, something with power but also memorable – the pendant of Avacyn's collar being perfect in that respect. The child obviously had power, otherwise how could he have entered the vampire's dreams? He had disappeared quickly after, leaving Sorin alone in the raining realm to ponder the nature of the intrusion.
.*.*.*.
Jakhan stopped, his lungs heaving and his limbs in need of a long rest, and gently laid his brother down on the snow – although Kaldros was light, almost unhealthily so, and Jakhan could easily carry him, the physical exertion of running with another human on his back whilst having absolutely no rest after the battle had begun to take its toll.
He sat down with his back against a stout tree, panting for breath as salty perspiration ran down his brow, when he heard footsteps crunching through the snow. Instantly alert, Jakhan slowly rose to his feet and moved defensively in front of his inert twin, quietly unclasping his axe from around his waist.
A shadow darted into view, and Jakhan sprang forwards, swing his axe violently with a war-cry on his lips. Tanned hands grabbed the haft of the weapon and yanked it out of Jakhan's grip, the older twin falling over because of his momentum.
Brown eyes framed by wide cheekbones looked down disapprovingly at him, and a deep and familiar voice lectured admonishingly:
"You need to work on your technique, the bias you put on your right side makes it easy to disarm you,"
"D-Dad?" Jakhan questioned disbelievingly, "I thought you would be withdrawing with the Khan,"
"I chose to come back for you two instead"
"But doesn't that mean-" Jakhan was cut off by his father, who ruffled his short hair fondly.
"Any punishment is worth it to ensure that my sons are safe," his eyes glanced past Jakhan's relieved expression to the comatose Kaldros, his thin face screwed up in a grimace of pain, "Is he alright?"
"I'm not sure," the older twin uttered unhelpfully, turning to look around at his younger sibling, "He keeps fading in and out of unconsciousness, but I don't think he's entirely aware of what is happening – I only had one proper talk with him, the other times he muttered something and when I tried to reply, he was already asleep."
Jakhan talked quickly, his worry for Kaldros evident.
"Releasing that much magical power in such a short space of time is bound to take its toll on a mage." Carrok sat down next to his youngest son and ran rough fingers through his silken hair, the exact same texture of Cerelis's.
"I wish I could have been there for him," Carrok said, melancholy infusing his tone.
"So do I, Dad. We are meant to fight together, but I got cut off-"
"No," Carrok stated, "I didn't just mean in the battle today, I meant all throughout his life. I couldn't stand the sight of him, it reminded me too much of Cerelis. In my grief I ignored him, focussing too much on you and throwing myself into war – maybe bloodshed would help ease the pain, I foolishly told myself. And it did, for a time. Until even that became stale and boring – I did things that I will regret until I am cold in the grave. I spent time with you, thinking that your brother would be useless in my pursuit of violence. I finally realised two years ago how wrong I had gone. I resolved to love him, but it was too late."
"Kaldros didn't exactly make it easy for you!" Jakhan yelled, unsure at how to react to his father's moment of weakness and letting his emotions get the better of him, "He ignored you, forced you out and almost killed you!"
"Don't blame your brother, Jakhan. I have failed as a father," Carrok murmured despairingly.
Jakhan was about to punch his father, going to tell at him to snap out of his depression, as a Temur warrior launched out of concealment, spear directly aimed at his father's heart. Carrok reacted with blinding speed, leaping with his broadsword unsheathed. The heavy blade cleaved through the Temur's skull as an arrow thudded into the ground, missing the Warblade by millimetres. Jakhan stood up a second later, axe held tightly in his large hands.
"Go. Now!" Carrok shouted, as more lightly-armed humans dropped down from the trees. Frost spread in freezing cracks across the ground, and Jakhan heard a squawk from somewhere above him. He glimpsed dark feathers fluttering past him as an old aven flew at him, raking cold claws through the skin of his bare forearm. Jakhan grunted and headbutted the bird-man; it crashed into the ground in an explosion of feathers. He swung his axe around in a wide overhead curve, burying it in the aven's chest.
Ripping the axe free, the older twin took his place next to Carrok, blood running down his face.
"I'm not leaving you. We will fight them together!" he shouted.
"Don't be an idiot!" Carrok yelled, "There are far too many of them for us both to defeat – think about your brother. They would probably take him as a captive – who knows what they would do to him? I'll hold them off for as long as I can."
"I can't just abandon you!" Jakhan pleaded.
"I can finally have an impact on his life. Please don't deny me of that," tears filled Jakhan's eyes as his father shouted "I will not tell you again. GO!"
Jakhan nodded slowly, turning and scooping up his slight brother and beginning to sprint away from the ambushers, still following the course of the small stream.
He heard a berserk war-cry and the shattering of metal coupled with a crunching of bone. And then, silence.
Jakhan ran on, tears streaming down his face and dripping onto the cold ground. He felt intense sadness, but more than that, unquenchable rage. Why did his father deserve to die? He was loving, brave and loyal to his clan. Jakhan could think of many people who should die instead of his father, but pushed the vengeful thoughts to the back of his mind. Right now, he needed to concentrate on keeping himself and Kaldros alive, to not waste their father's noble sacrifice.
.*.*.*.
Kaldros's eyes snapped open and he sat up, pushing aside the woolly cloak draped over him and re-fastening it to his back. He tried to stand but sank to his knees – he felt exhausted and strangely empty, and his legs refused to obey his commands. It was night-time, but the moon still did not shine through the darkness of the snow-clouds.
He was perfectly unscathed, and although Kaldros remembered vines with sharp thorns stabbing and strangling, drawing blood – he should have small holes and marks all over him. It was like he had been healed by extremely powerful White magic, and recalled what Jakhan had said: he had lost control and used up huge amounts of mana, it would have been incredibly easy to seal his wounds.
The youth looked around for his twin brother, not seeing him in the darkness but spotting footsteps leading off out of sight in the crisp snow. Kaldros shivered, curling up into a foetal ball, leaning on the tree behind him and pulling the snow-horn cloak tighter around him, wondering how his brother coped in the biting cold without one.
Rubbing his hands together, Kaldros noticed that his short-sword was missing; he concluded that he had probably lost it in the battle, realising that without his blade or his magic, he would be easy prey for the numerous predators bound to be in the forest.
Just as he was beginning to think of dark, terrifying creatures emerging from the blackness and attacking him did Jakhan appear, carrying a small deer with a huge wound in its side. He also had a satchel of water strapped to his waist.
The twin instantly concluded that something was wrong with Jakhan, his shoulders slumped and his posture, usually straight-backed and proud, was bowed and slouched. His brother looked sorrowfully back at Kaldros, the mage seeing the pain clearly enough in his brother's eyes despite the fact that he didn't have enough mana to even observe auras.
"What's wrong?" Kaldros asked, his voice hoarse but still concerned for his brother's well-being. Jakhan passed the satchel of water over and his younger brother quickly unscrewed it and drank deeply of the chilling but refreshing liquid, looking back guiltily at Jakhan as he realised that he had drunk over half of it already.
"Go ahead, drink it all," he said nonchalantly, sidestepping his brother's question, "There is a stream nearby, so I can go refill it at any time."
"You did check it to make sure it was safe, didn't you?" Kaldros enquired innocently enough, pausing to hear his brother's answer before drinking more. However, Jakhan found it irritating and shouted back: "Of course I did you idiot, where else would I have got the deer from!"
Kaldros recoiled in shock, fear prevalent in his red eyes as he shuffled backwards, away from his angry brother. Jakhan sighed, letting the rage which had exploded from nowhere simmer back down into him.
"Kaldros, calm down, I wouldn't purposefully hurt you, would I?" Jakhan smiled apologetically, ignoring his brother's snide remark of "I beg to differ," and sitting down across from the albino.
"I didn't want to tell you until we were safe and you had recovered, but thinking about it, you deserve to know," Jakhan reached forwards and placed a large hand sympathetically on his twin's shoulder, his eyes already misting up. Kaldros leaned forwards, anything that could make his brother cry was definitely something serious.
"Kaldros, our dad, he..." Jakhan's voice broke in despondency as tears again rolled down his cheeks, "He died protecting us,"
The silence descended over the area for a few seconds, only broken by the wind rustling through the trees as Kaldros stared blankly at his brother.
"Well that was careless of him," Kaldros simply stated.
Jakhan gazed back for a single second, completely shocked at his twin brother. Then fury rose in him and he grabbed his brother around the throat with the hand that was on his shoulder and slammed him into the tree and lifting him off his feet, causing Kaldros to cough violently. His large hand fully encircling his brother's fragile neck, Jakhan tried to restrain himself and let go, but the rage controlled him, causing him to squeeze but not with full strength - he still had some measure of power.
"What, you think I would care?" Kaldros gasped with a strained voice, glaring at Jakhan, "I never loved him, in fact, I-" Jakhan screamed in anger and cut him off, choking his brother with full strength, moving his other hand round his twin's throat. Kaldros's glare quickly lost its intensity, knowing that he had pushed his brother too far, his eyes bulging and his face turning red, and then blue. His vision blurred as streaks of darkness swirled around the edge of his sight.
Kaldros tried desperately to pry Jakhan's squeezing fingers off his neck, but he was nowhere near as strong as his fraternal twin who snarled at him and pressed his thumbs into the middle of his neck. Crimson blood ran down from the corner of his mouth, Kaldros's eyes pleading as he knew he would die if Jakhan didn't let go soon. He looked at his brother imploringly, and Jakhan snarled, squeezing harder and almost crushing his brother's windpipe. His eyes fluttered and rolled back. Just as he was about to slip into unconsciousness, his brother released him, dropping him to the floor as cold air flooded into his lungs.
Kaldros panted, gasping for breath as his twin turned away and silently prepared the deer for cooking. Kaldros tenderly stroked his throat, a huge purple bruise swelling up on it. He started to laugh in-between heavy breaths, the action causing him pain but he continued to do it. He shivered in fear, and resolved to say something sarcastic - he didn't want Jakhan to see him terrified, it would crush his twin with guilt.
"I thought you wouldn't hurt me, big brother," Kaldros said in the most patronising voice possible. He never called Jakhan that.
"Shut up," Jakhan snarled.