He was not unfamiliar with death, how life ended. That was the cycle of Nature, just another turn in the great circle.

That is what the village priest often said, and something he’d never questioned. It was from Cycure herself, the highest of Nature’s aspects.

It was from god, it was the way of things.

So when livestock died, be it for meat to trade, or sickness, he was never bothered. Nor when neighbors suffered loss, or his own kin. This was nature, the way of things, the body, and soul recycled, and reborn again.

He was bothered now.

Father comforting, mother behind, trying not to weep, even though she’d lost sons before. She loved them all, was emotional, unlike him, cold, often called distant.

Not today.

In a bowl, held within his surprisingly steady hands. Rimean stared down at the ashes of his second half.

His twin, his closest brother.

“We give back to the land we come from.” He voiced calmly, but he was not calm, he wanted to scream. “So that he may return to us in a new form, the cycle of life forever turning, forever giving and receiving.”

Mother failed to hold back her sobs, even though she’d already cried so much.

Why could she cry and not him? He loved his brother, they were inseparable, always together.

He poured the ashes into the hole, and together with father, planted a fresh fruit tree over it.

Father breathed deep afterwards, holding back tears of his own, and placed a hand on his shoulder again. “I’m sorry my boy, but there’s work to be done, we need every hand.”

“I know father,” he said, calmly.

Mother wept louder and glared at him. “He was your twin Rimean, gods around, shed a tear.”

“I’m sorry mother.” He said back, meaning the words, he really did. “I don’t seem to have any.”

She scoffed, sniffled, turned her back to him and left.

“They will come in time my boy,’ father said warmly. “Your mind is elsewhere, as is mine, poor timing this, the fields.” Father went quiet, then began to rub his eyes, tears were forming.

“Come, the rest of the family needs us.”

He followed, waiting for the tears to flow. Even when he began his daily labor, reaping the harvest of their work, they didn’t form.

the entire day he waited, and was left disappointed as brothers glanced at him occasionally.

They expected the tears too, but his twin, Meanri, he was the emotional one. 

Rimean is the cold one, the stone, heartless some said, even to his face.

They continued to give him looks, even when the work was done and they returned home.

Dinner in their cozy hovel, was quiet and awkward.

Mother glared at him often as he ate in silence, still no tears.

He was bothered by it, like everyone else, angry, even if it didn’t show and he didn’t act out.

And while the tears didn’t come, something else did.

Why?

Why did his brother die? Why did his brother have to stay dead?

There were all sorts of tales about what the Natures could do, how they healed wounds, revitalized lands, brought life.

His twin was young, yet a season old. How could it have been his time? Why did his heart give out, and why couldn’t it have been started again?

‘Why could it not be fixed?’

They fixed things all the time, wagons, tools, even beasts, they made stunts to help the healing as the priest gave prayers and bestowed a miracle.

He didn’t bestow a miracle to Meanri.

“He is dead,” the priest had said softly to them. “There is nothing I can do, Nature has called for its offering, we must honor it, as it honors us with yearly harvest.”

He’d wanted to kick the old man of grey fur. He’d heard the priest was almost fifteen seasons old, he should have been the one to just fall over dead without reason.

Not his twin, his other half, his loving brother.

He placed down his finished bowl of stew, half glanced to his right where Meanri should have been, laughing happily, and pressing closely to him.

One of his older brothers sat there now, staring very intently at his own bowl of food.

As people finished, talk, that normally was already loud and happy, started. Chatter about the fields, what was left to gather, and whether they would get done in time.

It was all meaningless to him, so he stayed quiet, focused inwards to the questions, to the anger, to the growing need of knowing why.

‘I loved my brother.’ He thought, more than all the others around him. He focused on that, tried to force the making of tears, he failed. Even as he thought of the broken routine, how Meanri should have started talking about their day, all the interesting, and frightening things that happened.

He was easy to scare, would even be startled by his own shadow at times, if it caught him by surprise.

Only silence now, only questions.

Why? WHY? WHY?

Those thoughts followed him all the way to bed, curled tight with many others. Even though he was surrounded by kin, he felt so very lonely.

‘Oh gods,’ he thought, offering a prayer. ‘Why?’

He spent half the night staring at the ceiling, waiting for the answer.

Silence was all he received.

So, he tried again, but this time… this time he prayed broadly, any answer would do, from anyone, as long as it wasn’t his own thoughts.

At first, nothing, then at the edge of his hearing, a voice.

‘He died because of a weak heart. One overstressed from his impassioned states, it happens, Heon can be so… emotional.’

He went very still.

‘Do you want more answers?’ The voice asked, sounding closer. ‘I can provide so many, for the price of Devotion of course.’

So he prayed again, focusing on the Voice and asked another question. ‘Could… Could the aspects of Nature have saved my brother, brought him back?’

The voice was right at his ear now. ‘Yes, for all her faults, Cycure can bring back the dead, she’s not good at it outside of plants, but she can if guided by her superior.’

‘Then why?’ He pressed, why had his god forsaken his twin?

‘Devotion first little one.’ The Voice said softly.

He prayed again to it.

‘It’s not a nice thing to say, or to hear, but your brother wasn’t worth it. Especially since it goes against her nature, the cycle you’re all taught, and all those limiting views.’

‘Not worth it?’ He thought back, still praying, so it answered.

‘You, your brother, your family, you’re all just tiny, tiny, lights in a rivers worth of others. What does she care, if some die? There always more to replace those lost.’

The voice went quiet, and he himself was left hurt.

‘I’m sorry dear child.’ It spoke. ‘That came out to blunt, I’m bitter about it, she has so many, and I so few these days. But that is the truth, harsh as it is, even if a prayer had been sent, which I doubt, she wouldn’t have answered.’

He felt numb, but oddly satisfied, at least he was getting answers, at least something higher seemed to care.

A thought came to him, so he prayed to it before sending his question.

‘Could you have brought back my brother?’

‘Easily,’ it answered with such confidence. ‘But not now, your brother has reincarnated, his memories wiped clean, not even I know how to undo that.’

‘Recycled,’ he thought. ‘The circle beginning anew.’

‘The true death, child.’ The voice spoke, the words heavy. ‘Never follow that path, there’s no going back.’

‘So Meanri is gone for good, there’s nothing that can be done?’

The voice remained quiet, he prayed, yet it didn’t answer instantly.

‘I’m sorry child, but no.’

His brother was gone, it set in.

Meanri was dead

The tears still didn’t come. There was only the anger, and a need for answers.

He prayed, and asked why the tears wouldn’t flow.

‘Your body, some would say, has a flaw, joined with the general nature of your soul, ah, you.’

‘You care, I can feel it through your prayers, but your brain, the object in your skull. Is arranged in a way where tears are hard to bring forth.’

‘They say I’m cold, as expressive as a stone.’

‘The latter is true, but the former, I feel the anger, the sorrow, how badly you want to bring your brother back. But I can’t do anything about it, no one can.’

He breathed in deep, it was comforting to have someone to talk to, someone who understood.

‘If I keep praying to you,’ he thought. ‘Will you stay with me?’

A warmth seemed to flow over him, almost like a hug. ‘Of course, and while I keep you company, I can teach you things, miracles, wonders, ways to help those hurt, if you so desire.’

He thought on it, how he could be someone to actually offer aid.

‘That sounds, wonderful.’