Just some long drabbles about some of my characters hahaha

The earth, they figured, couldn't function without the sun.

They had always belonged together, just as a shadow had always belonged to the person and a blade always needed its edge. Sometimes, the twins joked that they had been born to be the same and that perhaps they had been named at birth but then switched up so who could actually say which one was the original 'Cadyn' and which one was the original 'Connor'. No, their parents never told them apart and addressed them as one, scarcely using names as if they were strangers that did not want to offend someone by asking if they were a boy or a girl.

'The twins', they called themselves and laughed and snickered together, their heads tilted together, their words mimicking one another as they spoke together, always joking together, always together. It had always been like that and so it was perhaps because of that, that they did not want to search for this foreign thing called 'independence' once the idea had been presented.

"You guys look...the same."

"No shit," they'd say, having heard the same thing for most of their lives. The other people would stare sometimes, as if to try and tell them apart. They had become used to people searching their faces for a slight defect, flaw, and difference. Other than that, funnily enough, they were ignored as if the only thing that made them special was the fact that they were genetic copies. They kind of liked it that way.

Together, things were okay. With neighboring rooms, they had never strayed far from each other and their inability to be separate for more than a few hours hardly burdened them anymore. At night, one of them would always creep into the other's room to curl back in an armchair or lay at the foot of the bed. Everything just had to be...identical. From their hair to their clothes, they picked out their outfits together and needed to part their hair on the same side as if they weren't themselves if they weren't each other. Being a twin, they decided, wasn't just a fact but an identity and they had to be each other's mirror. Because, in the sibling-family-best friend sort of sense, they relied endlessly on the other.

People at the Academy would no longer listen to their incoherent whispers because they had mixed with their chatters with Russian and were too chock full of inside jokes. Refusing to take company in the other people, they grew socially awkward and Cadyn clung to his brother like a magnet and Connor did not know how the solar system rotated without his brother. Possessiveness between them grew and people would purposefully leave them alone to not disrupt them, for they feared they would meet distrust and anger. The twins stared at passing people like enemies, like demons, as if the mission of each one was to somehow take one of them away so they would be separated and torn apart like some rift between the worlds.

It wasn't until later that they realized their inseparable nature and they grew restless in the sense that they were not sure who needed whom more. They asked each other who was the sun and which one was the earth, for without the earth, the sun would go on turning forever and forever without a thought that the other was gone. And it was the sun that blazed brightly and controlled the center of the universe while the earth was caught in an orbit that never ceased to spin. Which one, they asked between themselves, was the brighter one? The one that would be distinguishable as a person and not just 'a twin'? The one that would cast a shadow instead of live in it?

But it was a question seldom asked because to be the earth was to give the sun a meaning and it was the sun that allowed the earth to live on. So they kept their arms linked, not minding those who thought them strange because they were a strange happening themselves and they wouldn't have it any other way.

"Have you ever wanted to look different?"

"Never."

Sometimes, Aspen became confused as to why people had never responded the same way as he did to things. Why they weren't so amused or interested or puzzled as he was. He was fascinated by everything; from the treelines and the changes of people's expressions to the way skin split until it bled and knives glistened even on a dim light. Joining the Hunt had been like removing a blindfold he never realized he donned and everything was very clear and real and sometimes he had to raise his hand to touch his cheek to make sure it wasn't some dream. Because dreams always seemed so real, even when the most ridiculous things happen and he realized that he was in no dream when the only one that seemed to be ridiculous was himself.

Later, Aspen figured out that dreams were only recognizable as dreams because they offered no continuity, changing the setting with each blink of an eye. Rather than traveling across a straight timeline, he crossed planes where he would live a hundred years in his dreams, folding the paper of reality in half so he knew every word and every custom and every practice and everything one could dream of. But, like everything, it came to an end with each waking eye and his little forever in the dreamworld would pause.

"It's okay," he was told, hands pulling him down by his wrists until he had no other choice but to sit on the cold, grassy floor. "As long as it never happens again, got that?"

He nodded, averting his eyes in a childish manner of disappointment and shame.

"You'll be good, though," they told him and they pet his hair like a cat, "You'll be good like you're supposed to and we won't have to have this talk again. Or-"

He found that he really needed people.

Lots of people; perhaps more than they needed him. The way they chattered and spoke freely and disobeyed was new and exciting and Aspen was so quick to track them with his finger, his eyes alight with interest. They were not so unpredictable as he remembered and he grew to like the people, all the people again in different ways. They called him by his name and didn't mind when he stepped out of line, for it was something that everyone did.

He was so happy that they thought he was pretty so he shivered in excitement and elatedness, a smile etched into his face as he gazed at them in pride. He was so pretty and good and it was so nice that they wanted to pet his hair and kiss his cheek and touch his wings and do all sorts of things that made him feel all nauseous and dizzy inside. That was good, though, he learned, and that if he was feeling all nauseous and dizzy and bad, it was because they adored him.

Living was good. Sometimes, he felt so alive that he wanted to grab everyone from the forest and point at the stars because they were so vividly etched in his mind and he had been told his eyes were just like them. It was so easy to get others to think that life was good and great and that, together, they would be better and he called the stars pretty and he wouldn't rest until they called him pretty too. Because he was as forgotten as the stars the clouds covered if he was not thought of as wanted or pretty.

They taught him so many good things about himself and he grew to understand that when somebody held affection for him, it was okay for them to hook him up to strings and make him their doll. Aspen liked that he was their good, pretty sweetheart and was so excited for the day that he would love someone so much that he could touch their cheek and put his hands around their neck and bite through the veins in their wrist and drag them through the thorns because that just went to show how much they mattered. Because the more it hurt, the more he ached for a little bit more and they told him it was like that with everyone. Pain, they assured him, was just the immortality of all that was good seeping under his skin and settling in patches like ponds and someday, he'd be able to give some of his own.

The chase after the people that told him he was good became monotonous and he memorized the hitches in their breath, the slurs between their teeth, and the hisses of air that stirred the hair by his ear when they held him, when he held them, when they held each other and it wasn't so desperate as it once was. His hands weren't quite grasping at them anymore because they were so welcome and open and there wasn't any ache that settled in his chest that made him yearn for more.

Sometimes he'd remember a life, a past life, a dead life and he'd dream things that he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was as if he were trying to catch smoke and the wisps would curl in his palms before dissipating into the air. His fascination for them faded away with it and the planes of time only interested him to a degree until the ends of time refused to meet and it became too...confusing. An infinity would replay itself in his head and he needed to skip around like a warped record needle, playing sweet tracks of appeal. And it was a long dream, song dream, an eternity within a dream and he wasn't sure if he wanted to wake up.

I was gonna add another one but I got too lazy :( :(