"You're always thinking."

His head swung around and found his soul twin standing on the stocky legs he normally would have. "That's your fault." The Guardian spoke lowly and stood, not wishing to awake his friend. His steps started sluggishly at first then picked up their pace.

"I guess it is. I remember when you came to Baron." Twinie started to walk. "You feared everything, did not speak a single word. Barely ate. Nearly took you a week just to leave the cage."
"Well... you were not the one everyone wanted buried a few times over." Therony's shoulders and red-gold wings shrugged.

"I know. I know." The foot tall dragoness stopped when they reach a couple of rocks just at the boundary. "Therony. I have a request. May I see your Guardian power?"
He sat on the rock and turned back to the group of racers. "I suppose. Just tell me why?"

"I've seen you under the binding spell, I saw you as the Destroyer Dragon, I see you now like this. I wish to know all your faces." She leapt up onto the other stone and faced him, only getting his broad back and wings.
"Alright." He swung around on the rock slowly. "I can only show you a bit."

Therony concentrated and exuded the smallest portion of it. The six ether wings manifested. Shorter than the wingspan of his half-form's wings, he swung around once again on his seat to reveal them.
"Then." The Guardian showed more, Twinie viewed the six wings growing then merging together. "...This."

Twinie's eyes widened, the sky colored eyes led her body to get onto the ground once again.
Therony gave a half-hearted smile. "I need my warrior's help to go further right now and I do not wish to awaken her..."

"No. No! This is just fine." She ran quickly around her colorful twin. "You don't know how much this means..."
"Huh?" He picked up the other bard. "What do you mean?" He saw her natural quartet of dark wings open from her back. She was on the verge of crying. His empathy felt her joy.

"I'm not an outcast. I knew it. Neither of us..."
"No, you are not. Everyone keeps on telling me I shouldn't be around." Therony shook his head; it took a stretch of his imagination but when he saw her wings. "Angeliou. The Sol came from him?"

Her head frantically nodded,  "Did you...?"
"I think he is the only one that actually likes me in their ranks." He sat her on the stone he once preoccupied. He patted her head only to see a watery eyed grin. "Sorry, I don't get to do that much with you."

Twinie hopped up onto her feet on the stone and shot a blaring look but it softened. "Then why do you hold back?" Her wings folded in on herself again.
"What do you mean?"

"T, you can't fool me. Your memory cannot be that bad. We created Cyrasis! Or how about Zilla? You stayed in that small form for so long... Why?"

Therony flinched. "It is because we were together. Our magic was greater than that of the Queen nothing more, nothing less."  

"Twinie." She softly whispered their shared moniker. " I watched you like an elder sibling when it's the other way around. Saw you as slowly rediscovered how to live. We gone to every possible place on Earth that we could and fought side by side time and time again. I've searched for the way to get rid of the evil binding you. Felt you go to the brink time and time again while we parted. Yet, all that time I knew which of us is stronger... It wasn't the evil. It was you. We are only a year apart, yet that year matters much. The one borne under Draco's eyes."

"No T, not you too." He held his skull, " Don't start about those stars! The Silver Rose made sure I knew not of them, or any iota of Guardianship. My mother did so only when she was sure..." His eyes brightened to the point where he was close to changing colors. "Don't tell me I shouldn't be here! Why can't I just exist? Not have this looming fate over me! Just don't..."

"...If I did, I would deny myself Twinie. We were the outcasts. We found our place where none could be found and yet neither of us is happy. I did find a way to get rid of your evil. The Book of Esuran."  

Where as his pain surfaced moments ago, complete shock came to grips on his soul now. The last word of her sentence... "The Book?"

"Yes, anything written in there becomes truth." She watched her soul double's eye drift back into a natural hue. "We can go there and..."

Therony took a step back, his mind drifting far away as possible. A different version of himself consumed by bitterness, unable to feel. How that one fought his Twin for so long...

"T? It is what you want right?" The dragoness took a spot his warrior does often these days. The same spot he inhabited often on both. She glanced downward from her perch on his head. How often he spoke of freedom from the "curse", not only to Twinie but Acortesha also.

"Aye. But for now let us deal with this race." His eyes drifted away to the wood. She caught wind of his distress but instead of pressing it, she let it flow away. "Tell me, those bards..." Therony diverted his gaze upward, the sudden jerk of his head, made his soul twin drop to his neck.

"Sent by the rest to kill you. If not for Cade I would not have found out."

"I'm going to start keeping a pad nearby." He growled. Therony's eyes shot past the gems. The Guardian didn't recognize it, but as he watched the stars he found that bewitching constellation, Draco. The celestial dragon remained white for normal souls. For dragons on his world, the seasons altered the color, its singular exception being that of the eye. It varied often as the day and long as a month's time. Tonight, he saw the cold silver stare down at him, not like that of the moon or a distant heavenly body. The longer he stood there, it felt like he was pulled away.

"Therony!" Twinie pounded his skull with a little bit more of her truthful weight.
"Huh? What?" The Guardian snapped back to attention, frantically moving his head back and forth.

She sighed, "T, you should sleep. No buts, just go to sleep."

Acortesha's blue slit saw the soul pair part ways. Therony's Guardian wings vanishing as he did so. She awoke when their rune first activated, he didn't focus enough. She followed his heart, respectfully not following their mind link. He truly was bothered then distant. The warrior feigned slumber when he nearly collided with the hot rod's rear foil. The bard glared at the vehicle before laying down on the grass on the other side.

She shifted positions just enough to face the bard's aura, concealed to her natural eye.
What? Preonus' chosen fighter did her best to keep up the charade, unsure if he noticed or remained awake still. Her friend's lifeforce was completely wrong. It remained solid to prove his natural heritage, but now only two colors existed. The black proving the lives he took in his lifetime. Yet, all she could see was silver; a hue darker than even her flesh and perhaps his eyes as well. Did she do that? Her glance jumped to the motorcycle yards ahead of them. A cold stare focused on the bards in this race still, unaware the others closed in.

"We tried it the humane way." Those bards pulled onward on the race course. The lady bard grumbled, seemingly accepting that a car crash was kind. Her massive companion mumbled something, two large fingers handling the steering wheel.
"No Magnus. We can't return to the society as failures. We were chosen to kill Unseen for a reason." Magic swirled about her gloved hands. The gem Queen Vaughnen's spell created on the side cracked, turning a sickly shade of green. The hearse pulled off the designated road, instead of invoking the trigger to disqualify them the spell acted otherwise. "There is only one finish line. Go there."