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“Nobody would ever know we were twins.”

Savannah was strolling through her sister Sierra’s gardens, noting the carefully-pruned topiary and the softly-singing fountains.  It was a beautiful garden, she had to admit.  Everything was exactly in its place.

“Sav, we’re twins.  Nobody would ever doubt that.  They only need to look at us.”  Sierra, as was often the case, huffed at her sister’s melodramatics and ignored (as was also often the case) the fact that they looked quite similar to 9/10 of their relatives and a large handful of slaves.

“But look at -” Savannah gestured around.  “Your garden.  Your yard.  You saw my yard last week.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Sierra narrowed her eyes at her twin.  “We see each other’s gardens every other week.  And yours gives fruit and berries and nuts and vegetables and, occasionally, rabbit meat.  And mine -”

“Is beautiful. And-”

She paused, because her favorite slave was bowing in the precise way he had when he wanted to say something.  “yes?”

“And are they not, mistress, Lady Sierra, simply a different face of the same coin?  They show care and concern in the land around you, in the plants and the water flowing.”

“The kid – sorry, can I?”

Sierra’s slave shifted a little.  He was a head taller than Savannah’s ginger-haired beauty, his shirtlessness showing off his muscles but also three dirt streaks and a scrape where a rose bush had gotten handsy with him.

She gestured him to continue.

“-ma’am, Lady Savannah, the kid has a point.  You both like getting your hands dirty.”  He gestured at the smear of dirt on his chest.  “and you like making the land around you – ah.  Bend to your will.  Like the kid and me.”  He grinned, mostly for the kid (who was thinking to himself that he was probably at least as old as this rude giant), but a little for his mistress, who liked some things a little less perfectly sculpted.  “Like your trees.  We both grow where we’re planted and we both like fertilizer and sunlight.  You’re just pruning us for different end purposes.”

Both twins were silent for a moment at that, and then Savannah quietly fed her well-behaved (well-pruned?) slave a grape.

“I suppose,” Sierra chuckled, “we’re pretty similar after all, sis?”