Slender as spider’s legs and dark as the night sky, ink sprawled over the page, tracing the path of his quill with an ease that came from years of practice. Not even a tremble caused deviation within the lines. Each letter painted in the measured precision nearing the level of an aficionado. A hard task to achieve in sixteen short years.

The hands holding his quill were softened flesh, not even the shadow of a callous dared to make itself known upon his skin. Only the merest hint of thickening in the skin showed at the knuckle. Where his pen oft rested. From hands akin to a pianist arose arms thin as birch saplings that met at an achingly narrow chest. If not for the perfect clothing encasing his form one might have believed him to be on the brink of starvation. He was alarmingly rangy, barely enough to stand up against a strong wind.

Though one would find themselves quickly dispatched with if found underestimating the young man. From his svelte form rose a twig of a throat which supported a substantially disproportionate head. If one could look past his disturbingly insubstantial body to his face, they would be pleasantly surprised. As he arched himself over the paper on which those letters danced, his face furrowed with concentration. It did nothing to diminish the blossoming handsomeness of his features.

As with any young man, his face was reddened in places, clear marks of agitation and irritants criss-crossed over the sharp planes. But, beneath that redness there was a sharpness which whispered predator. Just the smallest hint of a threat behind the deep brown of his gaze. Those eyes were nearly dark enough to be mistaken for black, but if you were close enough to tell their true color it was already too late. Beneath their slightly sunken sockets, there raised twin peaks of razor sharp cheekbones, the clean edge only more clearly announced by his emaciated appearance. Betwixt the violent ridges raised another feature, just as well defined. His nose might have been found in twin upon the sculpture of a greek god, not to mention the perfectly proportioned cupid’s bow of his mouth. 

Though at that moment his soft lips were twisted frustration. Wrested into a tangled knot of muscle and flesh that bespoke his concentration. His eyes never even twitched toward the other young man sitting in the room who could have passed for his twin. Slightly elder and much more well-defined—his body did not look on the edge of starvation—his brother, Tair, watched his every motion with worry in his mocha gaze.

“Nikolai,” the deep velvet timbre of his voice broke through the silence in the room. “Don’t push yourself so hard.”

Nikolai’s head whipped upward with all the anger possible of his sixteen-year-old frame. Red flickered in the depths of his midnight eyes and his once perfectly pompadoured hair sprung wild in places, a far removal from the precision of his letters and the rest of his appearance. Heavy with guilt at the worry he found in his brother’s eyes, Nikolai’s throat bobbed before he lowered his eyes, locking his control down on the volatile emotions boiling below the surface.

“Okay,” he muttered the response without conviction, his attention already turning back to the rough paper before him. It had been hard to keep his letters so precise with the page fighting back at every flourish and line. Though that guilt fled the moment his eyes hit the paper.

Spreading slowly, millimeter by millimeter, ink overtook the page. The beautiful spider web of translation disappeared with each brush of the liquid. His chest constricted, hardened. Ruby red returned to his gaze long before he managed to lift his eyes to stare at his elder brother. The world spun without moving. It vibrated through the soles of his feet and shuddered over his spine. Panic bled into his bones beneath the anger, an emotion he wouldn’t deign to recognize. 

Muscles bunched and coiled under the frighteningly thin layer of his skin. Power emanated from him, Tair merely shook his head softly. Nikolai bared a pair of sharp white fangs in return, the formerly beautiful lines of his face twisted terribly as he did so. Countless more fangs joined the first ones he had revealed until his mouth appeared more shark-like than human. Instead of his handsome features, the lines of his face morphed, deepened, the cold ridges of his skull shone almost white beneath his too-thin skin and black veins pulsed sluggishly over the pale skeletal features. The corners of that perfectly cupid-bow mouth split, leaving a ragged line of torn flesh in its wake that didn’t even register to him. Beneath the split many more gleaming fangs were revealed.

The shift took mere seconds to complete, all the while Tair watched him with a sadness that fed the ravenous beast of anger which had exploded from a well-kept kernel within his chest. He knew it was an overreaction. He knew if he wanted to fix it he had to do it now. He knew what would come if he didn’t. But he couldn’t help it. Panic had cracked wide that hidden kernel and years worth of repression sprung free at once.

“I taught you better than that.” Tair’s voice was pitched low in the tone he’d well crafted through the years for his volatile younger brother. Nikolai had heard it too many times to count. “We can fix this, you know we can.” The harried pitch that his tone suddenly held tweaked a deep recess of Nikolai’s mind.

His muscles bound tighter, fear awakened and curled together with that pressed down panic. They slithered through his anger. Weakening him. Again.

He hated it.

The sensation seared him. It boiled him alive and left him a husk. In spite of himself he felt his transition fading. The pressure of his skin against his skull lessened. Salt tanged against his eyes.

He released a low growl from deep in his throat. Fighting the sense of helplessness which bled into him.

His eyes dropped to the twisted clubs of his hands. Silver gleamed from what had been fingers before they lengthened into vicious knives, though each second they shortened again. His joints groaned as they shifted back into place. Those ink-filled veins disappeared beneath the surface.

Soft as a feather fingertips landed against his forearm. Curled around the barely-there limb. Dug in gently.

When he lifted his eyes to meet Tair’s there was no longer any red behind the dark brown. The warmth he saw reflected in his brother’s eyes melted like butter into the remaining cracks of his anger and shattered it. His body slumped into the chair of his desk. 

“How?” His voice was nowhere near the husky baritone of his brother’s. Instead it was the battered and bruised, hitch-laden voice of a puberty riddled boy trying to come into the form of a man.

“Easy.” Tair said with a hint of forced enthusiasm.

Nikolai’s eyes took in the splotched page before him, his absent attention and too-ready anger had led him to knock over the inkwell whenever Tair’s voice had broken through his concentration. He needed to get a handle on that. Had it been father?

He shivered.

With a deep breath he scooped up the now empty inkwell just as Tair’s fingers went to grab it.

“It’s my mess.” His twig-like arms pressed into the desk, lifting him easily in spite of their apparent frailty and he crossed the overly wide expanse of the library rug to drop the well and ruined paper into the trash near father’s desk. For the first time in hours he stood and allowed his body to stretch out. As his gangly arms lifted far overhead, his eyes traced the three story high bookcases that surrounded them. The dark old wood was oiled to a glistening gleam by servants on the daily, not that anyone beyond them and the brothers really ever saw it. Colorful spines filled every spare inch of shelf space, some which had not been touched in years and some so worn that their lettering was long gone. Each one kept free from even a speck of dust.
After a moment he turned back toward his brother, the dark oak of his father’s desk unheeded behind him—surely filled with paperwork sent there to be forgotten—burned into his senses even as he fought to ignore it. His throat bobbed. Within moments he came to a halting stop before Tair, the two desks they worked at were a shabby imitation of their father’s, less than a quarter of the size. On his sat the, thankfully, untouched tomb A History of France in the 1500s written by some long dead author his father cared little about. What father did care about was the information within those pages.

Surely he could have read them anyways, every member of the family knew French just as well as their native tongue, but that was not the point of the matter. Why read it in French when he could force his children to translate the books for his leisure? If not for being a supernatural creature even Nikolai would have gotten some sort of cramping of the hand by that point in his life. They spent hours every day translating books which their father wanted. Tair might have faced the duty with an easy stride, fitfully accomplishing anything asked of him as always, but it had been more than a shade difficult for Nikolai in the beginning. Switching between the languages was no easy task, and to do so while keeping his text lovely, legible, and accurate?

These hours were the worst of his day and yet…

He couldn’t help but find himself pouring his energy into them.

If only he could make father as proud as Tair did.

“Come on brother,” Tair’s voice held a smile. It tugged Nikolai free of his mind.

His own lips curled into a gentle smile. “How do we fix it?”

“By starting over.”

The words dropped Nikolai’s stomach into the pit of his abdomen. Tair didn’t even notice as he flipped between pages in his hands. Those eyes so similar to Nikolai’s own were determined in their observation. They glided heavily over every line and letter and word. Eventually they raised back up to land on Nikolai once more.

Tair’s smile widened. “It's not so terrible, really. Sit.”

Nikolai slipped back behind his desk and rested his hands against the top so that they would not quiver.

“Look, here. Only the last few pages were stained. You just have to remember to keep your finished pages out from under those you are working on. Set them aside to dry when you complete one.”

“But,” Nikolai’s voice pitched in without thought, “if there are no pages underneath it makes it much harder to get that smooth line. Here.” He pressed his fingers to the top page, where the cursive bled together seamlessly in spite of a large hitch in the paper.

Immediately, Tair tugged out a couple of different pages. “Yes, but if you continue to do so, you will keep having times like this.”

The papers were scattered with blurred edges, not much mind you, but enough. There were also spots where the ink he spilled had clearly sept through and bound itself into the fibers of the paper. Tension bunched through his shoulders and tightened around the base of his throat. It kept him from allowing out any words so he merely nodded.

Tair’s hand settled against his shoulder. “Keep a blank page underneath if you must.”

Nikolai took in a deep breath, allowing it to stretch his ribcage and press against the tension in his torso. In and out. It did little for him physically, but it was a comfort all the same.

Almost on instinct his hands set out the paper—two blank sheets, one atop the other rather than his stack of finished pages—pulled a new inkwell out of his drawer, and cleaned the silver nib of his quill on the cloth at his right hand side. Another deep breath as he dipped the nib into the well. His fingers trembled for one second, two, until Tair took a small step back. The air swelled around him, welcoming the new shred of freedom. The tremble slowed and stopped.

His quill hit the page.

Filled with intent his gaze returned to the open book before him, he flipped back a few pages to line up with where he needed to start again. His empty chest echoed the fear and panic from earlier back at him in a silent threat of never enough. It didn’t stop the thin, spider legs of writing from spiraling across the page once more. After so many years it had finally gotten easier, nearly as easy as breathing by that point. So, it was no surprise when time slipped away from him once more.

He barely heard the footsteps before Tair’s voice cut through his concentration once more.

“Nik,” the warning was painted clearly in the tone.

With impossible speed, heightened by his volatile and reawakened emotions, Nikolai cleaned his nib. Smack. Unscrewed it from the quill. Smack. Recapped the inkwell. Smack. Settled all three gently into the top drawer of his desk. Smack. And slid the drawer closed.

CLICK!

The door swung open slowly. It didn’t dare squeak as it did so. Nikolai’s eyes pressed incessantly forward, cutting into the spirals of dark wood that accented the bookshelves near the first floor. His body held itself in utter stillness. No breath passed his lungs, no tremble worked through his muscles. There wasn’t even a heart in his chest to thrash. The only part of him alive was that ever-present trepidation laced with hope, it slithered through him, a snake looking for the right place to strike.

His fingers pressed into the wood of his desk, begging for relief from that anxiety and still he remained motionless. Smack. Smack. Smack. The footsteps beat the floor into submission. Each smack a demand for more. More control, more attention, more of anything and everything. The sound reverberated in Nikolai’s empty chest.

“Good evening, boys.” Valor Ravenshade’s voice sliced through the air. It hollowed out what remained of Nikolai’s abdomen. His eyes quivered, ached. “How much have you accomplished today, Tair?”

Nikolai’s throat bobbed as he listened to the shuffling of papers. Each second parched his mouth until it became a desert. He began to fear he would not be able to form a single word when Father’s attention turned on him. His eyes twitched down to the short stack of papers before him, not enough, his mind whispered. Still only the sound of paper filled the room.

A grunt from Father.

“You missed a word.” Bitter and cold, Father’s voice took on a tone Nikolai had heard much too many times directed at himself. It burrowed under his skin and writhed even without having been toward him. Father didn’t speak to Tair in that tone, Tair didn’t mess up. Sweat beaded on Nikolai’s skin, if Tair could mess up—had messed up—what did that mean for him?

Snap.

Bones crunched.

Nikolai fought the need to turn toward his brother. Father would be watching for it. Even just the sounds managed to awaken memories of his own. He could positively feel the way his own throat had cracked before under the force of his Father’s smack. Highborns could take a lot of damage, but as a fledgling, still a child, the force of Father’s reprimands had the possibility to do major harm. Acid burned at the back of Nikolai’s throat, begging him to turn toward Tair. 

Papers fluttered, falling, and Nikolai’s gaze turned to stone. He let the rigidity of immobility sew itself into his muscles, from the outside he might have passed as a wax figurine his features turned so lifeless. As Father crossed in front of his eyes he allowed them, only them, to move. His gaze scanned upward to meet with the mirror-like eyes of his Father. Silver and molten, they conveyed his every thought and disappointment as clearly as reading it upon the pages before them. Just then they held the same expression as was eternally offered to Nikolai. Barely there recognition that a person resided within his line of sight, heavily disgruntled and disgusted by the necessity of wasting attention on his worthless second son.

Otherwise, he was a feature by feature portrait of his sons in the years to come. If Tair was the filled out version of Nikolai, Father was Tair in fifty, a hundred, years. He moved with a confidence clear in each twitch of his centuries old flesh. His face held the refined elegance of a Lord and the imperviousness to match. None got beyond that brick facade which made up the countenance of Father, not even their mother. As they had heard countless times, he was Highborn from the purest of lines, and his sons would continue that. Tair would be sold off shortly, within a year or two at most, to only the most perfect of Highborn brides in order to ensure the continuity of the Ravenshade line.

Nikolai’s wandering thoughts reigned in immediately with a tsk of Father’s tongue against his teeth. Nikolai ground his teeth together in a bid to hold back the surge of anxiety. His head dipped respectfully.

“And you?” The words were short, clipped. The absolute least energy he could expend on Nikolai.

In spite of the desire to hurry and flounder in an attempt to hand Father his papers as quickly as possible, Nikolai moved with a stillness and slow precision ingrained into the depths of his marrow. He scooped up the finished pages and the one he had been in the midst of completing. Easily, he slipped them together and tapped the bottom edges against the top of his desk before handing the stack to Father. 

Those inkwell eyes devoured the pages at an unbelievable rate as Nikolai felt his hands grow clammy. Seconds, maybe a minute, disappeared at a snail’s pace Father scanned through his work which had taken hours until glancing back up at his second son. Something akin to surprise flickered in the depths that threatened to unspool him and leave him a puddle on the floor. Old aches stirred under his skin, bruises long gone flared.

“Well done.” The words were a foreign language. “You have very minor smudging,” he placed down the page, pale skin flickered in the unstable light from the candle atop the desk, “here. And here.” His fingers traced the words Tair had already pointed out to him, but those errors were far finer than any Nikolai had made in the past. 

His stomach squirmed with discomfort at the praise. He dipped his head, partially to hide his confusion, partially to hide the glimmer of pride that bloomed across his florid cheeks. Soft and warm, that feeling filtered to the top of his head. It threaded through his taut muscles and weakened their tension, warming him from the inside out—only expanding further as Father’s palm rested on his shoulder for a moment. He’d only ever longed to make Father proud, no matter how unlikely it seemed.

“Thank you, Father.” His voice was almost gritty with unshed tears of happiness.

“Tair, I expect better from you in the future.”

Nikolai was drawn back to the memory that Tair had taken a punishment which would have undoubtedly been his own if Father had returned a mere half hour before. Guilt dampened the feather-light feeling of pride.

“Absolutely, Father.” Tair didn’t allow even a shade of pain to color his words.

Valor Ravenshade merely uttered a ‘hmph’ before turning away from the twinned desks. His steps still held that demanding smack as always. Though, they paused much sooner than they should have. The moment he stopped, foreboding slipped under the remnants of Nikolai’s pride and strangled him. 

No. The word—the plea—vibrated to his core.

Dense. The air grew stagnant as it thickened with unspoken emotion. As it pressed into his shoulders, Nikolai was reminded of the way it felt outside just before one of the countless storms struck their vast stone abode and countless gardens. During those times he felt an urge to wait, to feel the fat drops of rainwater as they pounded into his flesh. Now he knew the sensation foretold another pounding.

Heavy paper scraped against itself, louder than any other noise in the vast space. Nikolai didn’t dare turn his eyes toward the source. That sound dimmed under the silence which came after. Tiny legs of threat scurried the length of his spine.

“Who’s is it?” Father demanded.

Silence swelled for only a second before Tair’s voice broke it. “I—”

“No it’s not.” Father cut him off.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Nikolai steeled himself.

“Of course it couldn’t be true.” He didn’t even yell. There was no inflection to the dead tone of voice. “You couldn’t go a single day without being a source of utter disappointment.”

Valor Ravenshade stopped before Nikolai’s empty gaze. The emotions fled from his body as Father glared down at him. Pride, panic, fear, anxiety, hope. They all disappeared. His insides were a vast unfilled depth, the crumpled pages smeared with ink were held in Father’s hand. Their once pristine surface marred by wrinkles. Nikolai felt a brief camaraderie with the soiled paper before Father slammed them onto his desk. Wood splintered.

“How much of my ink did you waste with your uselessness?” The last word slipped betwixt bared, pristine, white fangs.

Nikolai immediately opened his lips to respond only to be cut off.

“And. What son of mine would allow another to take his responsibility? What kind of weakling has your mother made you?” 

Their cold, absent mother flickered in his mind for a moment before fading.

“NOTHING? You have nothing to say to me?” The words bit deep into the remains of Nikolai’s heart.

“F-father, I didn’t…”

“You most certainly did!” Valor’s voice hitched into the highest of volumes it ever reached. Not quite a yell, but well upon its way there. Nikolai took in the splinters of wood that had pierced Father’s flesh when he slammed his fist into the desk and he swallowed hard. Those would—

The thought disappeared as Father’s non-dominant hand smacked against Nikolai’s hollowed cheek. His head snapped to the side with a crack eerily similar to the one which had come from Tair before. His brother sat there in silence. When the smack swung Nikolai’s head toward him, he was met with stoic quiet and pity. The pity burned worse each time. He knew Tair could do nothing to stop Father, he’d never been able to before, but Nikolai begged him time and time again to just look away. 

The words echoed in his mind as new bruises bloomed over his pale porcelain skin. Time disappeared from him, though it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before Valor determined him no longer worth the effort. Nikolai curled in a ball on the floor. His bones ached. His chest threatened to compress him to the point of not existing.

Smack. Smack. Smack.

Those footsteps reverberated through his skull and pulsed in his bruises. He heard the barest snick as the door opened and only a second passed once it closed before Tair was on the ground alongside him. The damage would heal quickly, they might be fledglings, but Highborn always healed faster than those feral, turned pieces of garbage. His brother scooped him close, curling the gangly length of his limbs in tight. Nikolai almost looked a fragile nine-year-old again, wrapped in his grown brother’s arms like that. It hurt. Almost as much as Father’s punishments. Yet, he found he could no more push Tair away than stop their Father.

So instead he melted into the hold of the one person he trusted in the world.

Tair’s thick voice echoed through the room, spinning tales Nikolai had loved for years. Tair painted them into countless worlds of wonder and slowly, oh-so-slowly, his voice opened the gates protecting Nikolai from everything. Gently, he pried up the barricades and urged emotion back into Nikolai’s core. 

Everything hurt. His pride, his body, the sliver of hope that lived deep within the recesses of his mind. As Tair led Nikolai back into the dark world they occupied, Nik shoved the abuse toward that simmering kernel of hatred and anger at the center of his being. Every day the layers around that kernel thickened, it grew and it pressed against the bounds in which he held it. Still, he could not stop himself from feeding it those emotions, undoubtedly one day that kernel would shatter...but today was not that day.

“I’ll never let go,” Tair said softly.

His brother held him, loved him, and for today that was enough.