Something touched his nose, the lightest of touches, and Ashe brushed at it without opening his eyes. Butterflies, he thought "Wake up, love. The Horde descends upon us once more." He reached out a hand to gently shake Jera awake…and found nothing.

He opened his eyes.

"Hello, brother!" Yarrow waved an eagle feather in greeting. "I chose this place because we shared so much here. Our secrets, our clothes, our toys, and even our dreams. You do remember those times still, don't you?"

Ashe sat up in his bed, and it was indeed his, the one he'd slept in as a child. He was not in the bedroom of his new home, but rather back in the room he and Yarrow had in their childhood. He stared at his twin." I shut you out of my thoughts. How could you do this?"

"You've blocked me off from Mind speak with you, dear brother, but apparently, we can still share dreams. Which, by the by, is what this all is." He waved the feather about. "Never fear, you'll wake up beside your lady when it's done."

"You stay clear of Jera, Yarrow, I'm warning you!" He swung his legs out beneath the covers, intending to stand, then frowned as cold air rose goose bumps. He was clad in a longer version of the nightshirts he'd worn to bed in younger days. Yarrow gave a snort of laughter. He, naturally, was clad in his usual finery.

"It's a dream, Ashe. I trust you can manage to change your clothes without help?" His brother gave that irritating smile and waited as Ashe did exactly that, the nightshirt replaced by clothes identical to his own. He touched feather to brow in mocking salute.

"What is it you want, Yarrow?" Ashe stood and confronted his twin. "What could we possibly have left to say to each other that we haven't said already? There's nothing more between us."

"I don't agree with you. For one matter, I promise you, I would not harm your wife. Even if I cannot share your thoughts as I once did, I can feel your moods, and I know how happy she's made you. I approve of Jera, in fact. I am pleased you found yourself a wife from among our own folk. Very pleased indeed." He twirled the eagle feather between his fingers as he spoke. "For the other matter: look about you, brother. This is where we grew up. Ashe, we were so close to each other. The bond between twins, between us, is a special one, yet you've shut me away."

Ashe slowly nodded. "Yes, I did. I had to do it, Yarrow, to save myself, to keep the poison within you from spreading into my own soul, much the same way a healer amputates a limb to save the rest of the body."

"A poison now, am I? You are my twin, Ashevathallion. We were conceived together, grew together in the warmth of our mother's womb, born within minutes of each other. We are two halves of a whole, Ashe, and what we are now is because of what we were to each other."

"Not any more. What you are now, I had no hand in making. You've let your hatred of Ian darken every part of you. I can't let that creep into me. I won't allow it."

"You won't allow it." The eagle feather tapped at Ashe's chest. "How high minded you are, brother, how easy to close off part of your life, how simple to tell yourself it's no fault of yours. But you can't ignore the past, Ashe. It's part of you."

…a woman's voice, singing as she cradled them in her arms…grief, washing over them as that voice and presence bid them a faint farewell in their minds…the bright morning when their father handed them their first adult swords…the fear of their first battle, then the exaltation at their victory, and the shame after at how they had reveled in shedding blood…climbing recklessly up to an eagle's nest to claim the very feather Yarrow now held in his hand…

…Rowan, sitting at her loom, laughing as she made them try on for size tunics she'd made …the three of them, riding across some field... trading off verses of some song until they were breathless with laughter…the shared joy at the birth of Rowan's first son, Sethan…the sorrow at the death of Sethan's father…

"Stop this, Yarrow!"

…standing at a window together, looking out at the newest plane their father's Song had brought them to in the search for a safe home…riding out of the woods at Thornhaven as the humans stared wide-eyed at them…the days spent together exploring this world…a smoky tavern in Constantinople, a flash of fire on steel, and the great pain along their face…

"No. It's my face, mine! Stop this, Yarrow! Stop it now!" But the images still came, faster and faster..

…the fever dream in the dark cell…the flash of light as Rowan came to free them and take them home…the argument over the scar…the Midsummer Festival, Voran Blackthorn taking Rowan by the hand to lead her off into the dark away from the bonfires…the rage at the birth of a halfling son to their sister…

"Your rage, Yarrow, never mine. Please, brother, enough!"

"Oh, not enough, not just yet…"

…the last day… Ian's Naming Day…riding out together with Rowan, their nephew Sethan and his love, Beitha…. Voran's cold eyes as he rode toward them, Ian at his side…the taunts…and then the sudden burst of light, and waking to find the others all dead, only they and Ian left alive…

"Yarrow, for pity's sake, let it go! Ian was little more than a child, and Voran had fed him so many lies, fed his anger. Ian was not responsible!"

"Ah! So you admit someone can help shape another's path in Iannon's defense, but deny it in mine. I see."

Ashe sat back on the bed. "It's not the same, Yar. You are the cause of your own undoing."

"Am I?" Yarrow came over to crouch by Ashe, reaching out to run the feather's tip lightly down the scar on Ashes' face. "Yes, and of this as well, as I've been reminded every time I've seen you since the day it happened, as has every member of our clan…"

…the first day out of their rooms since the wound, walking into the hall to eat dinner, the faces turning to see the angry scar with sympathy, and then turning accusing eyes at the unmarked face of the other…

"You could have had the wound Healed. The scar would have been less, if there were even at scar at all. But no, you chose to leave it. What was it you said, as a reminder to us both of the price of pride? Easy for you to say, Ashe. You aren't the one who has to look at it, are you, except in the mirror? I was the one being taught the lesson, wasn't I? Not you." The feather gave another tap to the marred cheek, and then Yarrow stood. "You blamed me, I blamed me, gods, the whole damn clan blamed me! And how do you think that made me feel, eh?"

"Yarrow…"

"That was the first time you shut me out. I thought I would go mad. Rowan, she did what she could, but it wasn't the same."

"Yarrow, brother, I'm sorry. Please, listen to me. It's not too late. You have only to set aside your hate of Ian. Meet with him, tell him you've put it in the past, and in time, he'll accept it. We can be a family again."

His brother gave a harsh laugh, backing away. "I had a family. I loved Seth as if he were my own, the way you love Iannon. But you miss my point, brother. You were the one who shaped me, all those years ago, when you first shut me out. I had to put the blame on someone else, so I blamed the humans, and so it became part of me. Don't you see, Ashe? We are two parts to a whole, and you are the light to my dark. Without you, there is no light, or at least not enough to fight the darkness away."

The room faded, and trees appeared behind Yarrow's form. Ashe recognized the small clearing several hundred yards into the woods beyond the cottage. He found himself still sitting on a bed, but now it was the one he shared with Jera. He turned to see himself lying beside her in sleep, then looked back at his brother. "Do it, Yar. Set aside the anger, and I promise you, the darkness will fade. You have good in you still. It's not too late."

"Ashe, I poisoned the Mirror. Because of me, blood kin have died fighting the beasts that drank the tainted water. It's far, far too late. I can never walk the Green Silences in peace again." He began to fade. "And it's mostly my own doing, I admit. But-" he pointed the feather at Ashe. "-deep down, you know you had a small part in what I became, don't you? Don't you?"

"Yarrow, let me help."

"Too late. I won't trouble you again, brother. I truly wish you and your wife happiness along your Road. But I thought you should know what the true price of pride was."

"It was what we once were to each other."

He faded from sight, and the feather floated to the ground.

**************************************

"Ashe? Love, what is it?" Jera leaned over him in bed as he opened his eyes.

"A dream. Just a dream."

But a few hours later, he took a walk in the woods, and in the clearing he found a broken eagle's feather.

Bill West © Apr 2003

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