SIX MONTHS EARLIER

"Oh."

"I- you," Rae spluttered. He reached out with his hands, pausing right before touching the Ga'anite's face. "What in the Wills?"

Two two looked exactly alike. Brown eyes, staring at each other from under a mop of curly snowy hair. Even the slightly discoloured patch of skin at the corner where Rae's jaw met his ear was reflected onto the other's face. The dark circles under the Ga'anite's eyes, and his overall disheveled appearance, other than their clothing, were one of the only things that marked them as different.

They stood like that for an eternity, quietly studying at each other. Rae broke the connection first, clearing his throat uncomfortably and taking a small step back. He'd dropped the bread rolls in fright, started by the Ga'anite's appearance, only reminded of them when we nearly stopped onto one. "Uh," he started, at a loss for words. "These should still be fine." The other waited in silence as Rae fumbled with the rolls of bread, dusting them off with his sleeve, before sticking his arm out and offering one out.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, sure, of course. Rae, by the way. I mean. Me. I'm Rae." The prince furiously studied the floorboards, not lifting his eyes. "This isn't really going like I envisioned it," he admitted, sheepishly looking up. "Sorry."

There was a tense moment of silence in which Rae cringed at himself. 'Just had to ruin it! Absolutely perfect.' He knew that the majority of the Ga'anites sported white hair, snow-like, like himself, and so different from his parents or any other Kijah's brown hair. How couldn't he know, with the stares that seemed to follow him wherever he went, reminiscent of the taunts in his childhood. Children were children - heartless, more ravenous than a pack of starving hyenas - but they weren't exactly discouraged, either. Every bit of it was a sore reminder of the rumours that followed his family amidst growing tensions between the two nations - traitors, Ga'anite lovers, moon-stricken. Meeting someone that was the very thing that he was accused to be was something that he'd prepared himself with since he was young and decided that he wanted to explore the world - the whole world, not just that of Kijah'dar. Coming face to face, however, with someone that didn't just look like him, but someone that looked precisely like him? He couldn't have dreamt of this in his wildest dreams.

The Ga'anite laughed, startling Rae. "Me neither," he chuckled. "It's my fault too, I mistook you for someone else."

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"Well then. Start over?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay then," Rae said, straightening and making an elaborate bow. "My name is Rae. It is a great honour to meet you."

Fighting to keep a straight face, the other replied, "Please to meet you, Rae. I'm Sonas." Shaking off crumbs from his hands and drawing the curtains farther away from the window to let light pour in, Sonas motioned to some chairs pushed to the side of the room. "Now that's out of the way, mind if I have some more? I don't know when lunch will happen, but I'm more than happy to answer questions and eat at the same time."

Rae sat down, handing over two more bread rolls. He watched the Ga'anite eat, a pang of guilt shooting through him. "We can talk later, it's not important," he said, waving away half-hearted protests. "You've probably been asked too many questions already, and mine can wait. I will ask you one, but first, eat, and take your time."

His eyes kept drifting over Sonas's face, and he found himself comparing it to his own, trying to find any imperfections in the reflection. It wasn't the likeness portrayed in a pond-water, riddled with ripples and distorted, but the near perfect replica of a mirror. Rae had to force himself to look away from the Ga'anite, keeping himself in check every time his vision strayed from the room's stone walls.

"This was great, thank you," Sonas said, wiping off crumbs.

"Of course. Er- if you're done…?"

"Right, the questions. What did you want to ask me?"

Focused as he was on keeping himself busy as to not compare his face to the Ga'anite's, Rae was caught off guard. The questions he'd planned on the way to the keep had vanished from his mind. "How did it happen?" Rae asked, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. "The crash, I mean."

Sonas's face paled, then darkened, then paled once more. Each word he spoke was like a heavy bucket of water slowly pulled out of a deep well, clunky, like the bucket slid back a hand for every two it rose. "There was a… a storm." The Ga'anite looked away, not meeting Rae's eyes as he slowly spoke, opening up to yet another complete stranger. He wasn't sure how many others Sonas had had to speak but, but it did not seem to get easier. "There was more than one vessel. We were trading. Bringing goods. I don't know how many made it out if- if any even did. We split up across the stormwall, to try to get at least some of the cargo across." Sonas chuckled mirthlessly, "Merchants through and through. The other two ships that came with us… if they followed us then they too must've gone in through the eye of the storm. They said that the people that found me went back to search for survivors. I'm not a sailor, but I gave them directions best I could. They don't think they'll find any-" he paused, choking up. Breathing for a few minutes, he continued quietly, "They don't think they'll find any survivors, may Luuni guide them home."

Guilty pangs shot through Rae again, dissipating half-formed questions. Caught flat footed, he scrambled for a way out. “Do you… do you want me to show you around?” he offered weakly. “So you don’t have to wait here, all alone with nothing to distract you. I can understand if you’d prefer being left alone, of course.”

Sonas pursed his lips, weighing his options. Rae kept still while he thought, fighting the itch to fidget. “Very well,” Sonas said. “I would appreciate it.”