Inspired in part by this comic – http://www.rhymes-with-witch.com/rww10042012.shtml
We were born from the same place.
My mother liked to point that out. We’d been born from the same people, from the same place, from the bed. We’d been conceived on the same night, three years apart, each of us.
I don’t know why they kept trying, after the first disaster. But they did. Every three years, on the same night. And every time, the were given another child. And every time…
…well, some attempts worked out better than others, let’s say that.
I was second. I was The Blessing, which isn’t an easy weight to carry, not after Sirius, who was A Burden They Must Carry.
This all fit, I think, into some sort of belief my parents had, but never managed to share with me. It wasn’t Sirius who ended things for them, but Altair, who came three years after me. Well. Altair ended our mother. Our father held on after that long enough to see me, Deneb, Cygnus, and Lyra old enough to last on our own – until Lyra was almost three years old. Until the day passed when they would have conceived the next one.
Then father took out Altair. That was a bloody and dark day, and none of us – those of could feel, those who can remember – will forget that day.
It was a noble and brave thing of him to do. Altair had grown strong and nasty, even though he was younger than I was. But that meant that that left three of us to fend for ourselves – and to handle the monsters born in between.
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