The reasons and choices behind actions

It was quiet around the table as the Irish twins finished their tale. Finally, Kanon broke the silence:

"...did you manage to find out what happened to your sister after you two died?"

"Proving a good example of what is commonly called "Saint bloodlines" across the centuries," Shion spoke up while holding up his cup for a refilling of tea, "Normally a Grand Pope only have one student, generally in the last years before the next Holy War, as I likely will do and as Pope Sage did with Manigoldo, but Brianna managed to become the next Virgo Saint during the first twenty years of Ishir's reign as the Pope after that her personally trained her and after marrying a fellow Saint from Jamir, she actually had seven children who all left behind descendants right until this current era. I would not be surprised if I end up having a student to train as the next Aries Saint, who may actually be one of her very distant descendants, since the people of Jamir generally are very long-lived."

"Wow…descendants over 1 400 years…" Saga said in awe, while Tiernan and Owen smiled in pride over that their sister had made such a fine legacy.

"Defteros, did you not close the door to that lava chamber?" Aspros wondered when they suddenly felt a faint smell of something burning in the air.

"That is coming from the kitchen," Azel commented, causing Daria to suddenly look alarmed.

"The lamb roast I placed over the fire earlier!" she realized, and left her place at the table.

"The lamb roast intended for dinner tonight, you mean?!"

Letting out a mixture of foul words in various languages over forgetting that they needed to turn the roast around on the spit so it was roasted evenly under an open fire, the older Russian sister ran off to the kitchen with Azel and Amir right after her in case she needed help. Out of habit from their life as slaves, Lydia and Elena also made a movement to raise, but Irina stopped the younger sisters with some words:

"No, Daria will fix that on her own. Besides, your respective scars from the attack that killed Lydia did act up this morning, and we all know from before that it is not a wise idea to let you two do any chores when those phantom pains act up, remember?"

The Greek sisters gave each other a look, but they did not seem offended by the reminder. Some behaviors simply were a natural instinct remaining from life.

"Just because we are spirits, does not mean that we are just aimlessly floating around in this place. And sleeping away the years between every Holy War gets boring rather quickly even with every new generation joining up and adding to the numbers here," Seti explained to Saga and Kanon about why they were making meals despite being spirits, as Ramses filled up more tea for Lydia and Elena.

Soon footsteps were returning from the kitchen.

"Phew…thanks for getting our attention to the smell of something burning, Aspros, else the lamb roast would have been very unevenly roasted and getting dry without the needed coating with its own juices due to a lack of attention. I think we got a little too caught up in listening to Tiernan and Owen telling their life story, because we generally do not have that sort of story telling too often," Daria thanked, looking like she could allow herself to relax a little.

"Shion, why are you using that sign language commonly used on missions and by the Sanctuary guards when talking is not allowed?" Saga wondered, then noticing something that he had missed due to the minor caused a few moments earlier:

Shion was signaling this language with Amari and Sade, and judging from the fast hand movements all three made, they seemed to have a sort of debate going on between them.

"...should know the whole tale…? Reasons behind said action?" Kanon repeated in confusion, because he was better at learning by observation than his brother and was proud that he could read that sign language far better than Saga due to often running around the Sanctuary when they did not have any lessons and playing a private game of hiding himself where he could overhear adults talking yet not notice him.

"...of course you are able to "overhear" us thanks to that habit of yours to sneak around, Kanon," Shion muttered when realizing this, stopping the talk with the African twins.

"Excuse me for a moment, I need to bring something. Amari, it was in that chest where we kept spiritual versions of the stuff our parents left us at their deaths, right?" Sade said, raising her Cosmo to touch him for attention, and her brother nooded.

"Shion, as the current Pope who should have learned the story in the scrolls Ishir left behind, I think you can give some of the details better than us."

"What story and what details?" Saga and Kanon wondered at the same time, one of the rare moments they would do so.

"In a moment, boys, Sade needs to return first. It is related…to how she and Amari tried to avoid having the Curse of Gemini kill them in their Holy War."

~X~X~X~X~X~X

Sade was quick, and came back with something covered in cloth.

"Saga, Kanon…does the name Gemini Ayaan ring any bells? Your paternal grandmother is one of the storytellers in your home village, she should have mentioned that name at some point in tales of historial Saints," Shion reminded them, and the ten-year-olds tried to remember what they knew.

"Ayaan? Ayaan is an Arabic male given name meaning "watchful, seeing, witnessing, viewing" which is a connotation to the Arabic word 'ayn, meaning "eye" or "sight", Grandma always says this sort of information before starting her storytelling… " Saga mumbled as Kanon knitted his eyebrows, mentally hearing the scolding his grandmother would threaten to give any listening child if they did not pay attention to what she would tell, because this was an oral tradition with ancient roots and the elders really did not want the younger generation to lose that connection to their ancestors.

"Gemini Ayaan…Gemini Ayaan…I know that name from the story tellings!" Kanon said slowly as he made a mental filter of the tales that he recalled his grandmother telling, "Gemini Ayaan…hey! Isn't that the Gemini Saint at the beginning of the eighth century who stole the sealed-away Scythe of Chronos from its hidden place in the Sanctuary and used its time-cutting powers for some unknown reason, causing himself to age forty years overnight?!"

Shion was grateful to hear that both Saga and Kanon did not dismiss those storytellings of their grandmother, she and other elders were a great help in teaching the new generations about knowledge that was not always written down.

"Ayaan stole the Scythe in a desperate attempt to break the Curse of Gemini, despite not being affected by it himself. By his generation, the Sanctuary had gathered enough clues about the Curse that it would mark every set of twins that was fated for the Holy Wars. In the form of the Gemini symbol on the left shoulder and over the heart on the back, where Lydia and Elena had their injuries from Romulus and Remus. Tiernan and Owen had the Gemini symbol partly masked by some birthmarks, so it was not so obvious on them."

For some reason, Saga and Kanon felt really unnerved by the silence around the table now.

"...Amari and Sade had that mark on their bodies when they were born?"

"Yes, but not only that. Gemini Ayaan was their birth father."

It was likely for the best that neither Saga or Kanon had eaten or drank anything in that moment, else they would have done a spit take in shock.

"Wait…WHAT?!"

Of course, Saga and Kanon knew stories where Saints had families without giving up their Sainthood or service to Athena, and that some of those children would end up succeeding the parent, Leo Regulus becoming the new Leo Saint after his father Illas in the 18th century was a well-known example.

"...how…?"

Both Amari and Sade seemed uncomfortable with sharing that tale, perhaps due to the fact that Ayaan had been banished from the Sanctuary after stealing the Scythe and undoing the seal on it.

"We are born in the year 706 AD according to the Christian way of counting, and with the Holy War proving true to happen in 746, it would be perfectly logical to believe that we would not be involved in it apart from possibly witnessing it happen and see the Gemini Saints fight for Athena, after that Father had trained his successors. But when we arrived into the living world on that 25th May after a successful birth, everything seeming like we would grow up in the typical lifestyle of the nomadic tribe of our Mother with Father coming to visit us from time to time as he still served the Sanctuary…and had those marks on our tiny bodies…Father realized in unimaginable horror that we would be the next set of twins caught up in that Curse, that we, at the age of forty, would fight in the Holy War as the new Gemini Saints."

His paternal instinct as a father wanting his children to be alive and not have them be haunted by something that would kill them. Knowing what had happened to the Gemini twins in the two previous Holy Wars.

"So…he stole the Scythe from the Sanctuary despite knowing that it would be a reason to be executed…in an attempt to break the Curse once for all? Since Chronos is the Greek god of time?"

Recalling what he had read in the ancient scrolls, Shion took over:

"Ayaan did not manage to break the Curse, but instead he tried to twist it. By placing upon himself. With the Scythe, he caused a rift in the flow of time, temporarily breaking the connection between the present where his children was newborn and future where their adult selves would be the Gemini Saints after succeeding himself in serving Athena, adding those forty years upon himself to age prematurely so that the Curse would kill him instead of Amari and Sade during the Holy War in 746."

All this had been recorded in the writings after that the aged-up Ayaan had been found by his fellow Saints, and it had only been firm orders from Ishir that had prevented that he was killed on sight for his crime.

"Pope Ishir showed mercy when Father explained why he had done it, since Ishir had witnessed the Curse of Gemini himself with Tiernan and Owen. He did not strip Father of his Sainthood on the grounds that the crime had been done with honest intentions to prevent that Athena would risk to lose one of the needed Gemini twins before the Holy War broke out, but instead chose to banish him from the Sanctuary for the coming ten years, ordering him to stay with the tribe of his wife and raise us as a family in the Sahara desert, so it would not seem like Father escaped any punishment at all apart from suddenly becoming a old man by his own actions…"

Sade interrupted herself, using the sleeve on her craftan to wipe away the tears that threatened to emerge. Amari also looked very emotional at remembering what their father had sacrificed for their sake, because he had not wanted them to live knowing that they risked death because of the toxic resentment from two long-dead brothers from the Roman Empire. Taking over from his sister, Amari did his best to speak with his normal voice despite that he generally did not talk very often, partly as a result of his congenital hearing impairment that had slowly turned into real deafness over his life, and because he was of a silent character:

"Father chose to bear that burden on his shoulders, to suffer a legacy of questionable behavior that would shame his name as a Saint, because he knew that Lady Athena would need both me and Sade alive at her side."

Unwrapping what she had brought before, Sade revealed a painting that had to be one of her older brother's drawings on canvas as a young boy. It was a clear family portrait with the two of them, an African woman around her late twenties to early thirties and a much older African man whose beard and hair was all white as a sign of high age.

"What happened…when those ten years of banishment had passed?"

The African brother and sister immediately turned serious again at that question from Saga.

"Being 75 years at his return to the Sanctuary, did not stop Father from insisting on training us two personally as the new Gemini Saints or bringing our mother Fatima with him when she refused to divorce him and get a chance of remarrying to a younger man that could give her more children than just the two of us. He would end up having only seven years left to live, but he wanted to make use of those remaining few years of his lifespan to ensure that we would be a very different legacy from his crime."

Irina did actually laugh a bit at hearing the detail of how Fatima had chosen to stay with Ayaan despite how he had changed. Divoce had been legal in Viking culture, a right for the women that she and Daria had witnessed themselves.

"Even if there are better marriage offers after separating from a husband, he may have proven himself to actually have been such a good match in the longer run, that only a fool would leave him in favor of another man who fails to live up to the standards of what the wife is used to from the first husband."

And with this beginning, where their birth father had tried to twist the intended fate for them already when they were less than a day old, Amari and Sade shared their life story as the Gemini twins of the mid-8th century AD, serving Athena in the Holy War of 746.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

Author's note: The Trident of Poseidon can hardly be the only Divine weapon of another God or Goddess sealed away in the Sanctuary by Athena over the centuries, and given who Tenma's dad in the Lost Canvas ended up being in his true form, well, maybe there was a time when a historical incarnation of Athena defeated Chronos and sealed away his Scythe

Yes, a little idea from Leo Illas and Regulus being father and son in the Lost Canvas series: They can not the only pair of parent and child to end up wearing the same Cloth while serving Athena. Besides, I wanted to play with a idea of how the Curse of Gemini may affect other Gemini Saints outside those who fights in the Holy Wars. Answer: A parent who faces the nightmare scenario of the newborn twin children being cursed with a horrible death hanging over their little heads