Perhaps curiosity had gotten the better of her as she stood there, her jaw straining and her hands paling from the grip they held on an arrow bringing the forest back over her skin. She had not been at the hovel in a long time; she had never wanted to return. Lucena was different— she helped the children, saw something different than a past life the both of them had decided to overcome.
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But Astartia couldn’t look; Astartia saw herself.
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It was the first street they’d homed themselves in, burrowed into a spare box or wall cleft, and her fingers twitched. She had taken so much, knicked everything she could— she called it survival, but that never washed down the guilt.
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I had so little, yet I took so much.
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You would have died if you didn’t. Salacia gently soothed her witch, unembodied voice but a soul just the same, for the serpent had already shed this skin.
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Maybe.
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Her chest restricted; she let out a breath. And then, Astartia turned away, a scabbed over wound festering once more under her skin— and yet, despite the street, despite the longing, despite how well she knew the ins and outs even years later, she could not bare see where it all started.
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So she left, to the cemetery, to a place she always thought she’d find a home in before she found salvation.
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But she had been noticed before her lips could part to speak, eyes taking the time to recognize a woman Astartia didn’t know, but did, but was familiar all the same.
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The woman brightened, and then she blurted, and something sparked; very suddenly she found the smooth band tightening bow to back and the water she could hear leaking into the streets and the mana all around her— she noticed the differences, though sometimes the two were no different at all.
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“Yeah,” she supplied, almost laughing, though the spirits saw a smile crease over her lips. “I’m Astartia— you’re Claire, right?”
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She almost did not want to ask, for she knew, but would never bear ruining a good thing for her twin. Claire was a good thing; so Astartia was good to her.
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“I guess we’ll be mission partners, then,” she continued, her smile more genuine now, more welcoming (reassuring), and her legs moved before she ordered them to, and pressed on, gentle and silent — a hunter — into her hunting ground. “Also,” she turned to Claire, “Darts is a perfectly acceptable replacement for a name; they’re kind of like arrows… fits.”
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She fluttered her shoulder, to her security, the part of her that she could abandon yet never did. But now, she carried it everywhere; danger was too close, and Astartia knew better than to startle a wounded animal— and here, perhaps she was the pained half of a tortured coin.

by sixsmith.