Gemini - Story 1

The breeze is soft and quiet this morning, magic permeating the air with an effervescent quality to match the energy of Luna’s two children, dashing up the white marble stairs behind her.

“How much further, Mama?”

Luna stops and looks down at her son as he slips his little hand into hers. She smiles gently at him, then kneels beside him on the steps.

“Almost there, Little Star,” she says with a laugh.

Luna sometimes forgets that what seems like a short trip to her must feel like a veritable journey to someone with such small legs. Each step comes up to his knees. Though, it doesn’t seem to bother her daughter. Aurora sweeps up the steps past them like a leaf on the wind.

“Tired already, Lulu?” she giggles.

Dilucos scrunches his nose at his sister in disapproval, then looks at Luna with a question in his round, violet eyes. Asking permission. She doesn’t know why he does it, but he never wants to use his magic without her explicitly telling him he’s allowed to.

“Go ahead, Dilucos,” Luna says, holding back a smile.

He’s so serious. He must get it from her.

Dilucos drops his mother’s hand and runs up the steps after Aurora, clumsily trying to grab ahold of the deep black shadows that suddenly scatter around him. He manages to snag one just as he catches up to his sister.

“Hey, that’s cheating!” Aurora protests.

Dilucos wraps the shadow around his shoulders as he runs past Aurora, turning his head to stick out his tongue at her. Luna watches him trip on the stairs right as the shadows envelop him. He vanishes into the floor…

… And tumbles down the stairs several steps above them. Luna winces. He hadn’t quite figured out how to teleport properly while running, she should have known better than to let him try it here. Luna hurries up the steps to meet him before he rolls straight back to the bottom. Aurora stops and watches her brother with wide eyes, unsure how to help.

Dilucos manages to hook one of his arms through the railing before Luna reaches him, halting his descent, face pressed into the marble steps. He lays there quietly and limply as Luna runs to his side.

“Mama,” he mumbles.

Luna rolls him over in concern, and Dilucos looks back at her with a pout.

“...That hurt,” he concludes.

Luna can’t help the laugh of relief that slips out of her.

“Yes, I’m sure it did,” she agrees.

Aurora trails up behind them.

“Did he die?!” she asks loudly.

Luna furrows her brow in confusion and looks at her daughter.

“Die? What do you-” Luna pauses, then shakes her head. “Who was speaking to you about such things, Little Bird?”

“Mors. He said people die all the time.”

Dilucos looks up at Luna with wide eyes, and Luna scowls.

I’ll need to speak with Mors about not terrorizing my children, it seems, she thinks.

Luna sighs.

“Your brother can’t die, Aurora. You’re both immortal.”

“But Mors said-”

“Mors was probably making a joke, Little Bird.”

“... Oh.”

And a bad one, as usual, Luna thinks to herself.

“So I’m not dying?” Dilucos asks.

“No. You’re not,” Luna confirms.

Aurora glares down at her brother.

“Well, that’s what you get for cheating,” she says.

“Mama said I could,” Dilucos says as he sits up straight, his face the picture of innocence.

“Mama!” Aurora protests, looking at Luna with utter betrayal on her face.

“I did not-” Luna sighs.

How to explain this?

She starts again.

“It isn’t cheating to use your magic, Aurora. It’s a part of who each of you are. If you want to use it to help you win a race, you can.”

“Yeah,” Dilucos agrees, nodding seriously, as though he wasn’t asking permission of his own a minute ago.

Aurora frowns. Then she leans forward and pokes her brother in the chest, challenging.

“I’ll bet my magic could get me to the top faster than your magic,” she says.

Dilucos springs to his feet and starts running up the stairs again, perfectly fine. His shadows trail after him, flitting through the air gleefully.

“Loser has to kiss the winner’s feet!” he spouts off.

Aurora laughs, then stretches her arms out wide.

“Hope you like kissing bird feet,” she says.

In a flash of light and a flurry of feathers, Aurora transforms into a little sparrow. She darts past Dilucos just as he drops into his shadows again.

Luna sighs and starts following her children at a slower pace.

“Please be careful, both of you!” she calls after them.

They might be immortal, but they feel pain just like anyone else. And another tumble down the stairs means they have to start this whole trip over again…

Luna eventually finds the twins standing at the top of the stairs, arguing. Of course.

“Kiss my feet, Rory!”

“I was here first, you liar!”

“Nuh-uh, it doesn’t count if you didn’t touch the ground.”

“Says who?!”

“Says me, stupid.”

“Say it again, and I’ll push you down the stairs, Lulu-”

“Oh dear, it seems I lost,” Luna says with a long sigh as she sits down between them.

Aurora and Dilucos both cock their heads curiously at her, their argument suddenly forgotten.

“You weren’t even playing, Mama,” Aurora says.

“I was, but you are both far too quick for me,” Luna says sadly.

Then she looks pointedly at her son.

“Now, whose feet am I kissing first?” she asks.

“Notme-” Dilucos’ words run together as he tries to dart out of Luna’s reach, but she quickly grabs him around the waist and pulls him onto her lap.

“Too late!” Luna says as she begins to tickle his feet, which prompts squeals and giggles as he struggles to escape.

Then she turns her attention to her daughter. Aurora makes it half a step before she’s dragged into the pile and given the same treatment. Luna gives each of them one last kiss on the head as the giggles die down.

“Now,” she says, looking them each in the eye, “do you know why I brought you both up here?”

They each shake their heads, and Luna smiles softly.

“Then let me show you…”

Luna climbs to her feet and takes each of their hands in her own. She’d brought them to the overlook, the highest point in Caeles. Of all the places in the heavens, this was where a sky god could feel the most connected with their own magic. It was where Luna would come when the familiar ache to embrace night would strike. Though she couldn’t see the stars anymore, she could still sense them here, hidden behind a veil of daylight.

The twins are at an age where they are just beginning to discover their magic and explore the possibilities, restrained only by law and imagination. Luna knows what it is to lose a piece of her magic; a piece of herself. That is not a fate she ever desired for her two children. It’s time for them to see their magical domains for themselves, to forge the bond between god and magic, strength and self.

She leads Aurora and Dilucos to the edge of the overlook, the white marble floor cool beneath their feet. There’s a metal railing of twisted silver and gold fencing off the drop, but it doesn’t obstruct the view. The entire sky stretches before them, painted in the pastel pinks and oranges of dawn, flaring into a vibrant red. Aurora lets go of Luna’s hand and grasps the railing, her orange eyes wide with wonder.

They had seen the sky before, of course, Caeles is the sky, but they hadn’t seen it like this. Anywhere else in Caeles, the sun and moon are visible overhead. This is the one place where they could stand above them, where their light doesn’t eclipse one’s vision. It is the sky in its purest form.

Luna strokes her daughter’s soft pink hair back from her face.

“This is your sky, Aurora.”

Aurora looks up at Luna, her eyes sparking with light, a grin on her face. In a flash of light, she transforms into a sparrow and takes flight, little wings aflutter as she dives into the clouds. Luna watches, feeling a warm glow in her heart.

Dilucos suddenly wraps his arms around her leg, and Luna looks down at him in surprise. He gazes up at her with concern.

“What about me, Mama?” he asks quietly.

Luna scoops him up into her arms and rests him on her hip.

“It will be your sky in a few hours, my Little Star,” she reassures him.

Dilucos frowns, the stars freckled across his cheeks dimming slightly.

“Promise?” he asks.

Luna kisses his forehead, and the stars on his cheeks brighten again.

“Promise.”

Dilucos nestles closer to her as they both continue to watch Aurora. After a moment, he pipes up again.

“Why can’t I fly like Rory?”

“You are different gods, Dilucos. I have no doubt you will discover your own animal form soon.”

“Will I fly then?”

“You might. It depends on what you are in your heart, what your magic says you are.”

Dilucos watches his sister, and his eyes flash with light for a moment. Determination.

“I want to be a bird, so we can fly together,” he says.

“And perhaps you will, Little Star. But it is not so terrible to watch the sky from below. I can’t fly in my animal form.”

“But if I can’t fly, how will Rory and I stay together?”

“You and Aurora will always be together, Dilucos.”

Her son turns to her, his eyes round.

“How do you know?” he asks.

Luna smiles wistfully, her gaze falling past the clouds and onto the invisible sky beyond.

“I saw it once,” she says softly. “Written in the sky.”

Aurora returns from her flight and perches on the railing beside them. Luna gives her a smile, and Aurora transforms back into a girl, beaming, her legs hooked through the railing. But Dilucos keeps his eyes locked on his mother.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Luna hesitates.

Sol had asked her not to speak of night to their children. He feared it would breed disunity within the entire pantheon if Luna were to remind the gods of her former kingdom.

“Besides,” Sol had reasoned, “if Aurora and Dilucos aren’t made aware of night in the first place, they can’t possibly miss it.”

Luna couldn’t argue with that. There was no reason to impose such longing onto them. She knows the pain it brings. But when she looks at her son now, she can see that Sol was wrong. What she sees in Dilucos’ face is the same longing she feels deep inside, a longing for something he doesn’t even know exists.

Luna takes one last look at the pastel sky and makes up her mind.

“Before you were born, there were once stars in the sky. If you looked closely enough, those stars would tell stories.”

Aurora tilts her head curiously.

“What stories?” she asks.

“Many things,” Luna says softly. “Things that happened long ago, and things that were yet to come. We called these stories ‘constellations.’ They are our memories, and our hope for a bright future.”

Luna sets Dilucos down, and her eyes glow a pale silver as she uses her hands to paint with white light on the air before her. Aurora hops down from the railing, and she and Dilucos inch closer to Luna, trying to decipher the drawing. Luna continues.

“One such constellation was called ‘Gemini…’”

Luna steps back from the constellation she drew, then places a hand on each of her children’s shoulders.

“...The twins,” she translates.

Dilucos looks at Luna with bright eyes.

“That’s us?!” he asks, his voice a squeak.

Aurora narrows her eyes at the constellation critically.

“That doesn’t look anything like us,” she states matter-of-factly.

“Yes it does,” Dilucos says, turning his attention back to the drawing.

He steps closer to it, his eyes beginning to glow a soft purple as he gestures to the top of it.

“See, those two stars are our heads, and those are our arms-”

“Oh, I see,” Aurora cuts in. “Then, you must be the one on the right, Lulu.”

“Why?”

“Cause he’s got a gimpy leg.”

“I do not have a gimpy leg!”

“Then why are you so clumsy?”

“Why are you so stupid?!”

“Quiet, both of you,” Luna interrupts.

The twins obediently fall silent, albeit still scowling at one another. Luna shakes her head.

“You asked how I knew you would always be together, Dilucos. Do you see now?”

Dilucos gives one last glare at his sister before looking back at the constellation with curiosity. He stares at it for a moment, eyes glowing softly.

“We’re holding hands,” he states.

“Exactly,” Luna agrees. “A millennium before your birth, and you two are written in the stars, holding hands.”

Luna takes each of her children’s hands and draws them together until they’re face to face. They couldn’t look more different. Aurora has pale skin, colored the same shades as the dawn sky behind them, her hands and feet dyed bright red to match her fiery spirit. Dilucos has dark skin, colored in deep blue and violet. His hands and feet are covered in stars to match his bright and curious spirit. Dawn and Twilight, as opposite as their parents. And yet, they share the same mischief, the same life, and the same love.

Luna laughs.

“For better or worse, little ones, you’re stuck with each other,” she says.

Aurora shuffles her feet awkwardly.

“I’m sorry I called you ‘gimpy,’ Lulu…”

Dilucos looks away with a pout.

“I’m sorry I called you stupid, Rory…”

“Evenifit’strue-” he adds quickly.

“Dilucos,” Luna says sternly.

Dilucos glances back at Aurora again.

“... Sorry,” he says, more earnest this time.

Luna nods curtly, satisfied with the apologies.

“Now,” she says, “what would you both like to do while we wait for twilight to show up?”

Dilucos looks at her hopefully.

“Can you tell us more stories, Mama?”

Aurora nods vigorously in agreement.

Luna peers over the railing for a moment, looking at the sun shining brightly below her. Then she smiles gently at the twins.

“Alright…”

---

Aurora and Dilucos will return with the next segment of their story in August. Subscribe at the bottom of the page so you don't miss the next update!