Tia:

During the same time…

Tia underestimated the difficulty this world would offer her as a woman; it seemed that the patriarchy ran deep in this world, or it at least did in her family. This was an unavoidable obstacle. Two years prior, when she was rejected from the Magical training program, she was devastated but undeterred. Other than her consistent battle with meeting expectations that she felt were unattainable, she would constantly think about how different her experience was in her childhood from her previous life. Unlike her old brother, who she left in the dust, her current brother outranked her in all important factors. Tia felt she didn’t belong in this environment but had no choice. After all, at eight years old, she could do nothing.

During the past years, she often came in contact with the people of the village and it is there where she met the son of the owner of the villagers inn Caelan, who from the very beginning seemed to be different from the others, never fitting in, and she could relate to that. Even if he was really just a young child.

He also had access to something she didn’t. Information on magic. Which was vital for her, so she would spend a lot of time with him, and they became close friends.

One day, when visiting the town, she arrived just in time to see the young girl who watered the fields in action. Tia, while she was walking to the inn, paused to watch as the girl whom she came to find was named Ajax stepped into the center of the field. she noticed her movements and the flow of mana she had created. It was exactly like she had read about in her books. She felt as if she could see the mana flow out of her as the mist spread across the field, like electricity in the air, before exploding and the mist turning into water. It was so beautiful. She hurried to the inn as the sun was beginning to set, and her mother was strict about curfew.

The village was laid out in a small circle with the manor far south of the town and opposite of the village's head farmer which was farthest north with the inn just below it, the fields sat at the center of the town below the inn, with the market and other houses surrounding the fields. She arrived at the inn and walked right in the front door where, as usual, no one resided; occasionally, someone would visit, but it was rare enough that she was not concerned. The Inn stayed afloat due to Tia's parents, Caelan's mother was an old adventuring friend of her father's, and he kept her close because of this. As usual, Caelan was almost half asleep at one of the inn tables, his hand in his arm drooling onto the top. Tia approached, looking around to see any sign his mother would be home. No sign of her but the room was very clean with just three tables in a row and the bar at the back with a pair of stairs connected to it leading to the rooms.

“Hey, wake up. I have the funniest story to tell you.” she tapped his shoulder hurriedly, taking a seat across from him.

“Hmm, what.” A drowsy Caelan raised his head, fluttering his eyes to try to wake up and rubbing them.

“Oh, it's you, Tia,” He yawned.

“I was wondering when you were coming along.”

He reached below the table and laid a large red leather back book onto the table with a thud. This book was key to her success, the title read, ‘An adventurer's guide to magic’ It was his mothers from her adventuring days Caelan had told her.

“Before that listen to this” She tells him, his eyes still droopy looking looks at her nodding,

“I summoned water magic today, without the conversion powder!”, Immediately Caelan snapped to attention,

“No way! how?” His enthusiasm made Tia feel excited as well, she was finding it hard to fight off her childish instincts.

“I was messing with those magic hand signs while my brother was training and seeing him stirred something in me.” She recalled the moment in her head as she told him about how she sat in the window, avoiding her mothers speech etiquette lessons she watched her brother do what seemed like impossible feats for an eight year old. She was mindlessly going through the magical symbolism, which she discovered was present in all magical text she read but was never talked about, mana seemed to flow in specific directions when casting spells and acted similarly to the alphabet so as long as you knew the symbol or letter, you could execute most spell based off of this. All she needed were the symbols, thus the water droplet formed in her palm with a brief blue glow and dropped down below her, right onto the head of her brother. Caelen laughed,

“No way, how’d you get away with that?” He asked her,

she didn’t really know either, she had been wondering about her brother for a while now, at first he just thought all children might be odd like him but after meeting Caelen and the other kids of the village his brother showed extremely strange behaviours, especially with his speech. Saying slang and using terminology that shouldn’t be known in this era. Also he seemed oddly familiar to her previous twin. She has vivid memories of her previous twin busting into her room when they were teenagers whilst rapping to his favourite song,

‘Hey wassup hey,’.

She shivered, what a terrible memory.

“So what other magic have you learnt?” He asked her, oh yeah she had forgotten she had been learning earth magic and hadn’t realized how adaptable it is as most of the symbolism for it were the same across the board, just different directions.

“I also learnt some earth manipulation spells from the book you let me borrow…” Tia flipped through the pages until she found the page she wanted. “...Look here.”

“No way!” Caelan yelling as he stood up suddenly putting his hands behind his head a look of shock on his face,

“Shhhh” She told him, putting her finger up to her lips, and then pointed to the wide open window.

In a low whisper he whispers to her, “Why can’t we tell people the stuff you learned again.”,

“My mother would get mad if I did so you can’t tell your Mom either, OK?” she whispers back to him.

She gets up and begins walking to the window to close it, seeing how dark it had already become she instead walks to the front door pushing it open a force resists the push as it swings open and she sees Tiago stomach first on the ground outside.

“Tiago! Why are you here!” She yelled at him angrily, this is not good if her Mother finds out it could mean the end of everything.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“I was just walking around this area and saw you in the window” He responded quickly to her answer which raised her suspicions even more,

“I was just gonna say hello and wassup I mean.” He continues rambling,

how is she going to solve this issue, her thoughts are racing. Then something stood out about what Tiago had just told her, she peered at him curiously.

“Can you use that phrase again?”

“Hello?”

“No.”

“Wassup?”

Her eyes widened, there was no way right? although she guesses it is entirely possible that it could be true, she is in another world herself. But as far as she was aware he didn’t die that night. She shakes her head, she needs some more evidence but this at least proves one thing. Her brother is definitely from her world as well. However this didn’t help her with the problem at hand. Either way she has to go home, so she turns to Caelan.

“I have to go tonight. I apologize for my brother's rude interruption and spying.”

“I wasn’t spying.” Tiago tries to interject,

“Whatever.” She storms past Tiago.

Her feelings feel unfamiliar and messy and she's struggling to hold her tears. She can hear the sound of Tiagos footsteps catching up to her as she walks back to the manor. What can she do now? It's all in Tiago's hands now. It infuriates her how little control she had on the situation, if this was her old life she would’ve fought tooth and nail for what she wanted but she always had her family's support. This was foreign, and different. She wondered if this is what her previous brother felt. What a lonely feeling. The silence made the air feel heavy as they walked, finally she turned to Tiago.

“Whatever you heard in there, just forget it OK? Please.”

She hoped the bright moonlight didn’t illuminate the tears that she couldn't fight back. Tiago paused for a moment, before responding.

“Yeah, ok.”

His voice had a hint of understanding, he was from her world too right? If it's really her brother maybe he'll finally get his retribution for the way I treated him. Doubts and anxiety filled her head as they continued their walk back home. Either way she needed some space to clear her mind.

The moment they arrived home Shilah was waiting up the stairs by their bedrooms and pulled Tiago aside, Tia ignored them and slammed herself into her room. Leaning against the door she slid to the bottom hitting the ground with a soft thud and quietly cried on the floor. She never cried in her previous life, she never even really got angry. Emotions were an escape from the work that needed to be done. Was this the well-up of all her emotions from both worlds? Tiago already promised not to say anything. It was a weakness she felt, but maybe this is her chance…to be a little weak.

The environment around the house changed from that day on, the next day she started her morning as usual, praying that Tiago hadn’t said anything, but her mother acted as usual. Doing her hair and sorting out what clothes she would wear that day, but when she stepped out of her room, Tiago was standing outside staring down the hallway opposite to her,

“...Tiago?” She called out to him curiously.

“What are you doing?” She asked him,

he turned his head staring straight at her and his face swells with a huge grin.

“Good morning Tia, I asked mother if we could eat breakfast together and she said yes!”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the stairs down to the kitchen.

“Wait but why didn’t you tell mum?” She pulled back momentarily.

He looks back to her, his smile remaining but his eyebrows bent into a puzzled expression.

“Bruh, I wouldn’t snitch.”

Tia palmed her own head. She could not believe he was serious, there is no way anyone from this era has a term called bruh, nor would they use the term snitch that way. She giggled to herself as she let him pull her down the stairs. Whether or not he was her brother or not, she believed now that at least one person in this new world wasn’t out to get her. That morning the breakfast meal tasted extra delicious and she felt renewed in her pursuit to understand this new world.

After her meal her mother was going to visit a nearby city for the day so she had a whole day to learn the basics of the earth spell she was interested in. Earth wall, it was fundamentally simple with its formation and would prove to herself of what she was now capable of, with this plan in tow she waited for her mother to leave, assisting her in braiding her hair and sending her on her way by carriage. She waved as her mother left and the moment she was out of sight, she ran. Through town and past the fields. Arriving at the inn again, she pushes the door open. She was surprised by an unexpected sight, sitting on one the tables was not just Caelan but also Tiago who had numerous books she hadn’t seen before laying out in front of him. They both turn to the sound of the door banging against the wall.

‘You’re gonna break that door one day, ya know.” Caelan told her,

“Never mind that, why is Tiago here?” She asked him, pulling a chair next to Caelan opposite her brother.

“Well now that I know how devoted you are to this magic thing…” He pushed the books onto her side of the table,

“...I thought you could use these.”

He scratched the back of his head as she peered over the covers, 'The Beginners burner book of fire mastery’, and ‘Earth shattering retrospective on earth magic’. She immediately flipped them open, her eyes sparkled with curiosity. So much new information, she looked over to her brother who had a stupid grin on his face.

“Where did you get these?” She demanded,

“Does it matter?” He looked nervously left and right.

“Of course it matters, this one glance won’t help me learn anything from this book so I need to be able to hold onto it!”

He shifted his feet and sighed,

“Look I convinced Father that I’d attempt the whole fire magic thing again but I have no intention of learning it so as long as I go back with it whenever I go out to ‘Study’ it, you can use it here ok?”

he sounded convincing enough, pretty sound method too. Maybe she's being too suspicious, he had already proven to her that she can trust him. She stood up from her chair and walked around the table to him. He leaned away wincing as if expecting to get hit. She leaned forward and embraced him in a tight hug, he relaxed for a moment and hugged her back. She then pulled away,

“Thanks.”

“Of course, that's what brothers are for right?”

His face rested in his infamous cheeky grin. Her eyes then flashed her previous brother's face over Tiagos, then a memory of her previous brother had gone out of his way to find an ex-boyfriend who had hit her and beaten him to a pulp and she was berating him for how this would look on his record. That same stupid grin and statement,

“That's what brothers are for right?”

Now she was sure of it. She was given another chance with her twin brother. She had two million questions to ask, she opened her mouth to ask but stopped herself. Another memory, of her old twin asking for his support to hide how he had failed to enter university to their parents, and how she shamed him. She was never good to him. Even shunned him from the family, nothing but a failure of a brother. There's no way he’d want her as a sister after what she put him through. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know. She retook her seat next to Calean who began talking to her about his discovery with earth magic. She promised herself that things would be different this time right?