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i don't think you see

the places inside me where i find you

Everyone always said that you and your sister, Ilaria, always bore a significant likeness; both having the same merigold hair and honey eyes, coupled with the age difference of a mere year, you were both often mistaken for twins. You were the elder, born in the balmy height of summer, and she in the crisper autumn of the following year. This resemblance haunts you. It lurks in every mirror, in every reflective surface; Ilaria stares back at you rather than yourself. She won't let you forget what you did, how you spurned her in her time of need, when she needed her older sibling. [break][break]

There was a time when you both got along like peas in a pod though, back when you were both youngsters. Born to a young couple reknown for their musical prowess, you were immediately thrust onto the edges of high society. Venezio and Leonora were talented musicians who had met playing in an orquestra that was popular back in the day, often solicited to play in functions frequented by nobles and the higher classes. You and Ilaria weren't of distinguished birth but it was still a world you were expected to adapt to; your parents had plans for you both.[break][break]

Plans for their name to wedge its foot onto the first rung of aristocracy.[break][break]

Your childhood was music and exhausting practice. Hours upon hours, playing wind instruments until it felt as though your mouth would never not be dry again, plucking strings until the tips of your fingers were calloused from a gentle age, poring over musical scores and theory until your eyes itched and reddened. It felt as though you learned how to read sheet music before actual letters; when you shared this with anyone - in jest, clearly - your parents would laugh proudly, as if were some accomplishment. And if it weren't music you were being taught, it was etiquette and how to behave among the gentry. [break][break]

You didn't once complain though; this was the only childhood you knew. You fraternized in playrooms with the children of lower-classed nobles, had the occasional playdate, but it wouldn't be until you were older that you'd know that such arrangements were for your parents' own benefit.[break][break]

It was your sister who was a little more... vocal. And even more so once your musical affinity was discovered.[break][break]

Spell-singing. Your parents couldn't be more joyous. It was certainly a gift from a higher power to reward all their hard work poured into you. You were instructed to keep it a secret though, to let no one know you possessed such a power. With the bewitching quality to your voice, you would find yourself a nice wife, you were told, but if anyone were to find out... well... that would be considered cheating, and nobody liked a cheater.[break][break]

From that moment on, your sister - who had always flagged in her studies in spite of your good relationship - was cast even more aside.[break][break]

For a while you didn't question why Ilaria was absent from an increasing amount of your classes or why she was allowed to go out more and more. Until you did. But not out loud though. Not yet, at least.[break][break]

At seventeen you made your symphonic debut as a choir soloist once your voice had matured and, immediately, people were smitten with your voice; rich and deep yet still embellished with the innocence of a youth, pure and clean. Not a soul noticed the subtle weavings of mana ornamenting your vocals though, your parents had made sure you'd practised religiously so only to grace your singing with but a hint of magic, enough to beguile but not enough to make it blatantly obvious. Just enough to garner attention and ears eager to listen to more.[break][break]

Your sister, by now, was a rare sight at home. The only reason she was permitted to reside occasionally at the family home would be that kicking her out would entail embarrassment, acknowledgement of their failure. But once the furor of your first function had passed, you sought her out so to naively celebrate with her; the only person you honestly really wanted to share this taste of limelight with.[break][break]

It wasn't until one night when you'd gotten up to get a glass of honey with water that you caught her skulking about the Di Pietro residence. [break][break]

"I-Ilaria? Is that---" Those were the only words you were able to mutter before her eyes met yours and, like a skittish creature caught unawares, she bolted. A clatter of a oak chair, a shout of her name, a flurry of fabric and the slamming of a door. Something spurred you to take after her in the midst of the confusion, some deep sensation that something wasn't right gripped you and moved your feet for you. In her wake, you sped out of the door and into the night.[break][break]

When had Ilaria gotten so fast? You chased after her for a mere two streets and she was already disappearing around another corner before you could properly see what direction she took. Your lungs burned as if you were breathing your own element of magic. It was a poor mockery of the games of tag and chase you played as children; this time you were beat before the game had truthfully begun. She left you there to hoarsely shout her name into the moonlit night; your mouth once again as dry as it were from your days as a child exhausted and your fingers trembled like they used to after plucking harp strings for hours.[break][break]

But you didn't turn back, you lumbered on, in the inane hope you'd catch up to her, perhaps the same inane hope Ilaria had once had to catch up to you.[break][break]

You didn't though. Rather than find your sister, you found yourself in crooked company that sneered at you. Humans in humble clothes; commonfolk. You, someone so inexperienced at life, naïve and unadventured, coddled and protected, didn't realize the situation you'd quite literally walked yourself into. You saw a group of unassuming strangers; they saw a young solitary man wearing a very fine coat, very far from home. Opportunity dressed in treated leather with an inner fur lining.[break][break]

They asked for your coin pouch and didn't believe you when you said you didn't have anything on you, having left the house with nothing in your haste. You were answered with a shift jab to the gut that winded and kneeled you, the sharp pain and sheer surprise of being aggrieved making your eyes smart with water. The laughter that rang in your ears at your pitifulness hurt even more. Tendrils of flames curled at the tips of your fingers in some attempt at retaliation but, as if it were an actual fire someone was trying to quell, they were stomped on. Repeatedly. That... that hurt even more. At some point, as they tore the watch from your wrist and the coat from your back - the only objects of value on your person - you must have yelled for aid. Or tried to. Because there were fingers, ones tinted yellow by tobacco and mired, grasping for your throat and a voice at your ear, fetid breath whispering, teasing, hushing the weak songbird. [break][break]

For the longest while, you thought it was the edges of your consciousness making you hallucinate, but a girl with luscious locks touched by the colour of the sun seemed to morph from the shadows themselves. Ilaria. Your lips silently mouthed her name... stop, s-stop, you wanted to beseech, plead, as the man holding your throat fell away in a warm spray that mingled with the coppery taste already on your lips. His companions, one by one, folded as well, slipping into the cobblestone gutter where they were likely born, their blood running like rivulets of dark wine through the stones.[break][break]

Sto... stop. [break][break]

Her hands, delicate and pale, that once strummed horsehairs with a feminine daintiness were now stained crimson and played the edge of a knife with the expertise of a conductor's wand. Her same hands, reaching out for your pathetic, slumped body, were the last thing you recalled before your consciousness was overwhelmed.[break][break]

You were so... weak.[break][break]

Some witch you were, not able to even protect yourself from those not even touched by mana. [break][break]

Weak, fragile, you really were just some... defenseless little songbird, rescued by someone who was now a stranger to you. [break][break]

In the weeks that passed, those thoughts were on the forefront of your mind. Along with Ilaria's advice, a few words that she'd murmured to you in your faltering lucidity on the way home. Pull the wool from over your eyes, step out of the cotton they've swaddled you in, she'd told you, cut the strings and stop being their puppet. You didn't see her again once you woke up in your bed but her words stayed with you. Immediately, you knew by them she meant your parents because... oh, how they fussed and despaired over your fingers, your poor broken digits, calling the best healer they knew in the hopes they could be amended before any lasting damage to their dexterity could take root. It was then you noticed something was... amiss in where they'd placed their concerns. Concerts were cancelled, rescheduled, people you didn't really know would visit and ask your simpering parents into your welfare over tea and sweets. Not once did Venezio or Leonora - as you began to call them - ask why you'd wake in the middle of the night, fitful, and coated in cool sweat, your vision momentarily awash in the shade of a deadly cerise.[break][break]

You didn't sing again once you noticed that the people who had raised you cared only for certain pieces of your body and talent. You didn't pick up another violin nor did you spare a glance for another musical score. They contested your defiance, they begged, they shrieked, they pleaded and they raged when you announced you were taking a... vacation of sorts. You said you were going for an inspirational 'break' near the coast, to freshen your mind and purify the soul, so you could return to music with a renewed vigor. They... begrudgingly accepted though, once you promised it would help the artistic rut you were in.[break][break]

But you had no such plan. You journeyed north to Sundial, where tales of all notable witches seemed to be born. Covens, ages old, that were filled with powerful members of all different elements. Helios Knights, Jester's Den, Leviathan, Silvertongue... if you were after strength, this had to be where you would find it, if not... you did not know where else you could possibly look. This was the new beginning you wanted, that you needed. [break][break]

You were ready to cleanse yourself of your old life and put in the past the previous Damiano, the feeble boy who only knew how to dance to the tune his upbringers sang.[break][break]

Jester's Den seemed the laidback environment you sought, of all the covens they appeared the one that called to your desire to live without strict limitations and order. You were accepted into their ranks, albeit on the lowest rung, and from there you started your new life.[break][break]

Until... your old one decided to pay one single visit that you rue until this day.[break][break]

Ilaria. Of course it would be Ilaria.[break][break]

A couple of years had passed since you moved to Sundial and joined the Den. You'd grown into... a difficult man. Bellicose, a tinderbox that ignited at the smallest provocation. It was too easy to offend you, to get on your bad side. You burned as hotly as your element, your temper just as fiery. You singed anyone who got too close, pushing them away and when you drank... it was even worse. It was as if a scowl was the only expression you knew. Overcompensation at its finest. [break][break]

That ugly expression was wiped clean from your face though when you spotted her through a crowd; it was hard not to notice her mellow yellow hair that glinted brightly under the vibrance of the sun. You froze, the humdrum of people around you feeling as though they stilled as well, as you took in the woman she had grown into.[break][break]

You shouted her name, loud enough to be heard over the crowd; a feat accomplished easily by a spellsinger despite desisting use of their affinity. [break][break]

She looked up. And looked straight through you.[break][break]

You were suddenly seventeen years old again, watching your sister turn away from you and flee, albeit this time she was more composed about it and astride a sleek palfrey. Had she not recognized you? Not wanted to show recognition? But, again, you persisted. You shouted her name again and pushed your way through the rabble, elbowing and shouldering those who didn't get out of the way in time. She didn't look back again, but kept her mare moving forward at a gainly stride. [break][break]

This time you were faster and caught up to her. You grabbed her by the knee and then she looked down at you again.[break][break]

"Damiano."[break][break]

The unconcealed contempt that showed in her equally honey eyes scorched you, the surprise that jolted through you felt akin to touching a metal skillet heated over an open flame. Sudden, eye-opening, painful. Confusion followed suit. What had you... done to deserve such a look? Before you had a chance to ask through, your hand was kicked away. When you tried to reach for her again, you were met with another swift boot.[break][break]

"Do not touch me."[break][break]

"But Ilaria! What---"[break][break]

Before you could finish that question, her reinforced riding shoe met your chest and sent you careering backwards. Winded, on your ass in the dirt, your face livid and turning a shade of puce, you stared after her with a tumultuous mix of emotion. Shock, offense, indignation, bewilderment... anguish at the only family member you felt like reconnecting with. A man appeared at her side within another moment, no doubt asking if everything was okay. She spared you one cool look.[break][break]

"Everything is fine... it's nothing."[break][break]

And, with that, she departed.[break][break]

You would have been fine if that was the last time you saw her. Perhaps you deserved such a greeting, you figured, after mulling it over some ale. After all, you did take off without a single word, even if she made getting in touch with her a challenge since adolescence. But, surely, it didn't warrant such... a lack of affection. You reflected, you thought, you debated... and reached the conclusion you hadn't done... anything? Anything besides strive to be the model son your upbringers wanted you to be? And hadn't she been the one to help him extract himself from their influence? [break][break]

It made no sense, you concluded. Ilaria made no sense.[break][break]

Fuck her. If she was going to treat him as if he were alley scum who dared to touch her, as if a glance of his hand would taint. Just fuck her. He didn't leave everything behind, everything that would have assured him a comfortable life, just to be rewarded with her patronizing look. You let your feelings ferment in alcohol. You let the last bit of love and gratitude you held for her be consumed by the distaste you regarded almost everyone with.[break][break]

You even got the chance to tell her to go fuck herself one night. That one night that haunts you.[break][break]

It must have been a few months after your brief encounter when she turned up at your doorstep, a vision of a ghost with the fearful pallor she glowed with. You'd been drinking, again, when you answered the door and irate that someone disturb you at such an hour. Ilaria appeared smaller now she wasn't astride her horse but that wasn't a fact you noticed. You didn't notice the specks of blood covering one of her cheeks or the mussed quality to her hair. You didn't notice how her fingertips were knicked with fresh cuts or how her clothes showed hints of have being recently in an altercation. You didn't notice how her shoulders trembled as if she were a little girl again, not a woman grown.[break][break]

Or, rather, you chose not to notice right then.[break][break]

She sought refuge for a night. Just a night, she whispered, no louder or else her thin voice would tremble with the distress she felt.[break][break]

You turned her down. You just snorted and barked a laugh. Now? Now? Now she wanted to know of you? [break][break]

"Fuck off, Ilaria," you growled and slammed the door in her face and went back to the bottle waiting for you besides your bed.[break][break]

A few days later, you sobered up.[break][break]

And a few days later, you were informed of your sister's passing. A dispute among some coven members, apparently, some Leviathan business, people whispered. No one had seen her. Her body wasn't recovered, no doubt too mangled to be fit to be identified regardless, or even fed to someone's familiar. She'd been a promising witch, someone else said, young and talented, driven on by an unwavering strength. A promising witch that'd gotten involved in the wrong crowd many years ago; how could her parents - whoever they were - have permitted such a thing?[break][break]

You heard just enough to piece together that... perhaps not everything had been sunshine and easy going for your sister. She had needed you that night, the same way you had needed her those years ago. She'd returned for you, saved you, whereas you'd answered her plight with a door in her face.[break][break]

This much... you can't forgive yourself.[break][break]

You remind yourself of your guilt each time you look in the mirror and see her again.