The only reason she knows what a twin is is because of her father’s twin brother, Garett. The uncle she tried to trick sometimes when they played the game where she’d think of a plant and he would create it out of thin air just like her father. Sometimes she’d change her mind at the last second, but he’d always catch her no matter what kind of complicated thing she tried to conjure up. Her uncle brought his son, too, his son who could do funny things to her dreams when she made the mistake of falling asleep in his company.
She thinks about telling Ellie all about them but she gets distracted thinking about Taiga and where she lives. “I don’t think we live anywhere,” she says, wrinkling her pale blue nose.
“My dad likes to keep me close to the trees, but he also likes the sky because he says I can make light with the moon.” He’d told her she’d done it once as a baby but she has no memory of it. She shrugs, unaware that this is no ordinary talent.
“What’s Taiga like?” she asks. “Maybe me and my dad can live there, too.” It does not occur to her that there are enemies and allies. That there are borders and pacts. That, though she and her father move freely in the common lands, nomads are not always welcome in the kingdoms and their territories. She does not know that her father had a home once or that he gave it up to chase whatever place clung most fiercely clung to autumn so that she would feel comfortable.
@[Elegance]