For ysabetwordsmith‘s commissioned continuation of Day Twin, Night Twin, after The Dark and Light Mirror.

This really needs at least 500 words more, perhaps 1000, and it would be, like, a real story.

Life in the dark was everything Ella had imagined it would be, everything the stories had told, and all of that times a thousand.

It was darker, for one. The daylight people had no concept of true darkness, true night. Their stories spoke of the shadows, the echos, the hidden places. Their stories told of a little bit of mischief, like boggins and boggarts. People who dogged their steps and put salt in their coffee, soured their milk and sometimes made easily-foil-able plots.

And maybe that was the nature of the Evil Twins. But those who never crossed over, and the land in which the sinister-born lived… that was another story altogether.

That was a story of night time, where the sun shone through only in cracks. It was a story of trouble, where goodness-to-your-fellow-beings was not a watchword but a way to get mugged. It was a story of caution, of being the strongest of the strong or the canniest of the canny.

And Ava’s foster mother was all of those things.

In her own land, she wasn’t the bumbling, easily-fooled twin that she’d seemed in the daylight. In her own shadows, she wasn’t a sketch of a boogeyman; she was the boogeyman. She was the darkness. She was, Ella found, more than a little bit terrifying.

At first, Ella thought she had been caught. “Ava!” her foster-mother shouted when she returned home, home that was an echo, a mirror, a dark-shadow of the home she’d just left. “Ava, where the hell have you been?”

“I’ve been out.” She was used to being rebellious, being snotty. She was not used to having her mother – her foster-mother, though they looked just the same – be snotty right back. “Well, isn’t that good. Come here and help me with this bomb.”

“This what?” Ella’s heart jumped. She was in the right place, all right.

—

Life in the dayside was so much brighter than Ava had ever imagined. It was cleaner, for one. Cleaner and sweeter, and everyone wore such lovely things, as if they were in an ancient, forbidden fairy tale, and everyone spoke so very kindly and politely. Nobody turned up their nose at her. Nobody shook their head at her pretty white dress, nobody tried to get it messy.

The nighttime people had no idea how much smoother things could go if they were only nice to each other. She smiled and nodded and tried out her pleases and thank yous, and found that they were fun to say, when people said back to you.

It was so sweet. She’d heard a rumor, here and there, of the things the Evil Twins saw. They thought the daylight was foolish, born to be taunted and bothered, born to have every step that they took dogged by the mischief of the dark. They thought that only their little petty troubles kept the world stable.

And maybe that was true of the Good Twins. Maybe that was the nature of the those that had a bit of evil in them. But those who never came near the dark, and in the land where the daylight thrived… that was another story altogether.

And it was a story Ava was born to be the star of. She threw back her head and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. She had come into her own… and she was going to rule it.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/446985.html. You can comment here or there.

for avia‘s commissioned continuation of Day Twin, Night Twin

Those born to the sinister did not have children; it was impossible, or forbidden, depending on who you asked. Thus the daylight people were able to carefully control the number of sinister who were born, making certain it was always far lower than the number of daylight.

Ava was the only child her foster mother had, and was likely to remain so. The others were left in portals just big enough to allow an infant through, and given to sinister would-be-mothers by lottery; motherhood in the dark world was a very cherished thing.

Ella was the only child her mother had, and was likely to remain that way. She had a busy life, as mayor of the city (for some reason, those born the light side with dark twins tended to be important people, or rise to important places). She had lost her first husband to the plotting of someone else’s evil twin. She had her Ella, and did not want to lose her.

And yet Ava and Ella had other plans. They were just past their seventh birthday when they learned of each other’s existence; they were staring into a mirror, the portal that only twins could pass that existed in both their mothers’ rooms. Ava was doing her best to get her hair properly into pigtails. Ella had teased her curls into a rat’s nest. They stared at the mirror, willing themselves different, willing themselves…

“Like that. Only with better hair.”

Ella touched the mirror. It had never spoken back before. “Like that. Like the dark lady that came by yesterday.”

“Like that. Like the princess in the book. Like the proper ladies.”

“Like the ones that don’t have to go to school.” Ella stroked the mirror. She ought to be surprised, she thought, to feel it touching her back. But it was already talking to her; what was a touch in addition?

“Like the ones who get to live in the sunlight.” Ava could feel the portal. She could feel the sister on the other side of the portal. But she couldn’t get through anything but her fingers. “There has to be a way.”

“There has to be away,” Ella sighed. “There has to be. The twins do it, the evil twins.”

“The trouble-makers, the monkey-wrenchers. If they can cross…”

“Then why can’t we?”

It became their quest, dark twin and light, day twin and night. They read the forbidden books, and told their mothers’ mirrors of what they learned. They followed the twins, and took notes on where they crossed, and how.

They watched their mothers, when they played our their endless script of good twin and evil twin. “It won’t be like that.”

“Of course it won’t. We don’t need to follow the script. We were born on the wrong sides of the mirror.”

“We won’t spend all our time making easily-foiled plots.”

“Being gullible and easy to capture.”

“Leaving the keys to the city on the counter.”

“Leaving the map to the portals out where anyone could get it.”

Ava waved the map, and, with a great deal of effort, held it so Ella could see it.

“Leaving the map… no. No, we won’t do that.”

They were seventeen, then. Old enough to wander on their own. Old enough to cross through on their own, too, in the portals with the weakest gates.

Like the one in the old subway station, where the sun hit the shadows just so Old enough to cross through there, with a twin handshake and never a glance back.

But that was just the beginning of their story.

Next: The Light World and its Shadows (LJ)