Stone Circle But my fate is in your hands

They stared at each other, and though Xan's breath came as a question, she saw the recognition in his eyes - the same she had seen in their father's many months before, and the same she had seen in Desna's when they'd reunited themselves. She didn't need her sister's confirmation. No matter the years, there was no taking that from them.

But time had took something greater, and though her heart swarmed with the words she could unfurl upon him, she couldn't. He'd been her friend, her rival. A competitor for their father's affections - but now that was gone. Who they'd once been, alone and to each other, had been stripped away by circumstance, distance, and time. She was no longer the Nanook he'd known - for just as Desna had become Valette, she had become something different, too. Better? She wouldn't go that far. Only different - and she had no doubt her brother had become something different, too.

He was a stranger, and yet so familiar; in a way that made things easier, and in a way that made things worse. Her mouth flinched in the smallest smile - perhaps to confirm she was indeed his sister - but words, she gave none. She had never been good with those, even in the best of times.

Look at us all, all awkwardly staring. Our parents raised us well. Haha!