Tillo Lando February 23rd,20XX

Anatha, the woman we had met yesterday, quietly locked the door behind her and rearranged her clothes as she walked towards us.

A few different expressions flashed on her face as she realized we had turned into toddlers and she tried to calm herself down.

We should have changed once Aaron left but Kaja didn’t budge so neither did I.

It hadn’t been that big of an issue at first.

We’d debated what we should do for Squire on the way home and had predictably settled on doing the news channel. It wasn’t particularly something I wanted to do, but I didn’t like any of the other ideas and Kaja seemed into it.

I’d been okay with going along with her but I’d gotten annoyed when Kaja had suggested that we change how we look when we go to the new school.

Joyce had offered to transfer us to a school closer to where we lived, which I liked. Kaja liked it too, but she also wanted us to change how we looked and prevent the other students from recognizing us as the same people on Squire.

I’d immediately resisted. It wasn’t like we were going to go shape-shifting all the time or changing things from something to the other. There was no reason for us to look like anyone but ourselves.

Besides, we’d be spending a lot of time at school. It would be a pain to remember two different appearances for home and school.

Changing our appearances wasn’t super hard, but it wasn’t super easy either. We didn’t just get to ‘let go’ and revert to our usual selves, it was an effortful process and we usually always ended up slightly off the mark. I’d thought I’d been doing a good enough job as a light tower for us to stay as true to our original appearances as possible.

It was only after seeing the pictures of us from a few months ago that I realized just how gradually we’d changed.

We could put this much up to puberty, but a few more adjustments and we would have looked like completely different people from half a year ago. We already looked a lot more similar than we’d used to.

I would not suggest that we should stop using our powers since it didn’t seem like there would be much cause to, but Kaja’s suggestion had thrown me off.

Why did she always want to change how we looked?

And wasn’t she scared of getting lost?

Anatha sat across from our shared seat and looked us over a few more times before dragging a chair from across the room and settling into it.

“So, what seems to be the problem here? And ah, before we speak, I will let you know I will tell nothing you say to either Cyrus or Ms. Knightly. In return, I hope that the two of you will make your best efforts in cooperating with me.”

She looked at our faces and wrote a few things down on her notepad before continuing.

“Now then, Ernate, it seems like you have a lot you need to say to your sister. Shia, I know you want to talk first, but I asked Ernate to start. Would you be a good girl and listen to your brother?”

Her voice pitched upwards as she spoke to Kaja as one would to an infant. It was irritating, but it was hard to get angry at that, considering how we currently looked.

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I wasn’t expecting to go first either, so I tried my best to gather my thoughts.

“I just want you to listen to me sometimes. Everything is so new and I know it’s exciting, but I… I don’t think you’re being fair about this. I always go along with your ideas, so why can’t you listen to this one thing for me?”

“It’s not like-“

“Not yet, Shia. Instead of retorting, I would like you to stop and think about what Ernate said, and why he said it. Whenever you’re ready, I want you to tell us the conclusion you’ve come to.”

Anatha gently cut her off and gave her a task to do.

We ended up sitting in silence while Kaja gathered her thoughts. I could tell by the way she tensed her back and the petulant way that her lips tilted she didn’t like it, but she was taking it seriously.

But maybe a bit too seriously.

Seven minutes passed slowly and Anatha finally put up a warm smile.

“Should it take so long to understand your twin brother, Shia?”

Kaja looked annoyed by Anatha’s words, despite the older woman trying her best to speak gently and kindly.

“I understand him! I do! What I don’t understand is why he’s so against this!”

I could tell that she was more frustrated than angry, but the infantile voice that came out of her body wasn’t capable of expressing such subtleties.

I wished I could say that was why we turned into infants when we fought, but honestly; I didn’t know why it happened. It had just happened one day when we got angry. We’d still been new to our powers, so we hadn’t been able to change back until we cleared the air between us and weren’t angry anymore.

Ever since then, we’d go back to these forms whenever we fought and wouldn’t go back until we resolved the conflict.

“Ernate? Could you explain to Shia why you’re so against whatever this is? I can leave the room while you do so, but I feel I would be more helpful here.”

For once, I didn’t look to Kaja to make sure she would be okay with it before I gave my response. I already knew that she wouldn’t want her to stay, but I did, and for once I didn’t feel like giving in.

“No, you can stay. The problem here is that Ka- Shia wants us to change our appearances while going to school. I don’t want to because I don’t want us to get too used to changing our appearances… Even as things are we already look so different from how we used to… I’m worried that one day we won’t be able to get back to how we were. I’ve already told her all this, but I don’t think she listened then either.”

That was a cheap blow, but I needed her to realize that this would not blow over.

Anatha looked taken aback by the sudden revelation of information and let us know she hadn’t been expecting to hear it all, but by the look on Kaja’s face, I could see that she hadn’t been expecting me to say everything either.

I didn’t see what was wrong with it, and I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong.

Anatha already knew about our powers, and this was what she was here for. I’d never been to a therapist before, but one of my classmates had, and they’d said that hiding things only made therapy harder on them.

“Well, Shia. I don’t want you to get angry, and I don’t want you to yell. Instead, try to understand why he’s feeling this way and think about why your actions might have made him feel worse.”

To my pleasant surprise, Kaja didn’t blow up at me but took a moment to calm down before she spoke.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like that T- Ernate. And I listen to you! You’re right that I was being selfish about the school thing… I still think we should do it, but I’ll back off this time.”

“And”

Anatha’s warm voice gently prompted her to keep speaking.

“And… I’ll try to take your opinion more seriously. I guess I’m so used to you trusting me on these things.”

“I know you didn’t mean that to sound as emotionally manipulative as it did Ms. Shia, but try to avoid words emotion evocative language in the future when you’re saying you’ll take his opinions into consideration.”

A bitter expression blossomed on Kaja’s face as she got reprimanded, but she tried her best to internalize her words.

I wasn’t sure why she was being so cooperative, but her putting in the extra effort made me happy.

Not to say that we hadn’t squabbled in the recent past, but this was one of the first full-blown fights we’d had in years. If not for Aaron’s interference, I was sure that I would either have had to give in, or I would have blown up at her and we would have fallen apart.

I could tell that Kaja could see how bad things could have gotten since she was being so cooperative here.

That was something great about her, she was aggressive on the behalf of both of us because she’d had to be, but she also tried to adjust when she felt she went too far. Since I saw her trying so hard, I calmed down a lot.

I would not back down on the school thing, but I would do something else to make it up to her.