Ankyra Sound saltwater blood

It had been he whose eyes flashed in his mother's dreams; the second pearl, the yellow-eyed demon wearing a cherub's smile. Yet he was no demon then, only a boy — less than that, an infant in its first breaths, unknowing of the world or even a sense of self among it all. There was only that first taste of salty sea air, and the warmth of life. Mother and siblings pressed around him.

The newness of it all might have frightened him, but there was something familiar here too. His twin at his side, just as it had always been: two of a kind, facing each moment together. If he was starlight and seafoam, if he was the flash of the sun on the waves filling wolven skin, then his twin too knew the ache and exhaustion of such an ordeal. To be made flesh, to be born into the blood and mess and cold and itching discomfort of it all. To know hunger for the first time.

Wearied, the child ate only a little. Then he rolled up against his brother and joined him in sleep.