Immaculate

2881 P.C., the First of Spring, Hylicia’s Vale.

Antares watches with curiosity from the bedside, where his mother is holding her newborn babe closely. The baby is the picture of health, cooing softly in its mother's arms, maybe a little larger than most babies are. The pain of childbirth all but forgotten, Reia is calm and smiling warmly as she lovingly holds the infant in her arms. All is silent, save for the pitter patter of rain outside, and the distant rumble of thunder somewhere off in the distance.

Antares climbs up onto the bed, his knees wobbling slightly, and holds his arms outstretched for the child, looking up at Reia earnestly. Reia looks back down at her older son, smiling softly. “Do you want to hold your little brother?” she asks.

“Little… bro-ver?” Antares asks, his voice full of wonder as he looks down at the newborn, who Reia places delicately into Antares’s waiting arms, making sure to hold him securely up on the bed.

“That’s right, he’s your new little brother. That means he’s your family, just like me.” Reia affirms, holding Antares to make sure he doesn’t let the newborn child fall; though Antares is holding him, Reia is the one actually supporting either of their weight. “As his older brother, it’ll be your job to take care of him, too.” Reia asserts firmly.

Antares stares down at the newborn, feeling a strange sense of warmth in his heart. His new little brother is nestled down in his arms, curling up next to his chest, yawning and mewling softly. Despite being newborn, the child already has a thin layer of hair on top of his head, as white as snow. Antares delicately brushes the baby’s scalp, the thin wispy strands parting around his hand. “Does it have a name?” Antares asks, looking back up at Reia soulfully.

Reia pauses for a moment. She had thought long and hard about this before, of course, but as she sits there, all those previous ideas melt away and a single word enters her mind. “Alunya.”

Alunya. The name engraves itself into Antares’s mind as the infant shifts, wriggling around in Antares’s arms, and opens his eyes- Bright silver, brighter than anything Antares had ever seen. He can see his reflection in them, but something feels wrong to him. Off.

Acting on instinct, Antares squeezes his eyes tightly shut, and it's like he can feel his brother's presence next to him. Alunya. My little brother. My… family? Unconsciously, he leans forward; Not his body, but some other component of himself that he can’t quite place. It’s… Unfamiliar, a sixth sense, as a feeling of bewildering confusion sets in. It feels… Stormy, chaotic. Tempestuous, like the storm raging outside.

I… Want to feel like that, too. I… it’s like some part of him is reaching out, grasping at the presence, pulling it closer to him. He feels… Malleable, fluid. But his focus is interrupted, when he feels the arms around his physical body shifting and he falls to the side.

His soul retreating back into his flesh, Antares’s eyes blink open in confusion. As soon as he does, he is aware that something is off. Reia is staring at him, eyes wide in shock, and somehow the world around him feels… Different. “H-huh? Mamma?” Antares squeals, shivering as he wonders what he had done wrong.

“A-Antares, how did you…?” Reia slowly gets out, while Antares simply blinks up at her. Eventually, his mother points at the big copper pot full of water by the bedside. “L-look at your reflection!” Antares stumbles back unsurely, looking as though he was about to cry, but does as Reia had instructed, letting go of Alunya and getting down on his hands and knees on the floor to peer over the edge of the pot.

Yet as he stares down into the water, he blinks in confusion, not understanding what he is seeing. Because in his reflection, the raven-black hair that he had shared with his mother is gone, and in its place, is a head of pristine, snow-white hair, the same color as his new brother.