Two teen age boys, wearing black, in the corner of the book store, heads so close they could pass as connected. They had to be up to something.

“Why are we even bothering? I’m gonna be like this forever and mom and pop are gonna find out and they’re going to send me away because I’m a freak,” came the miserable grumbling from behind a tall stack of books. The voice was defiantly in the late stages of puberty as the pitch randomly changed, and it had been spoken just above a whisper.

“Oh stop your gripping. You aren’t a freak.” The reply seemed to have come from the exact same voice. It was the same pitches and whisper, only this one sounded more confident then the other. “Besides, mom and pop wouldn’t send you away. It isn’t your fault. Now help me look.”

“Oh it’s easy for you to say,” this was the first, miserable grumble as before. “You aren’t setting things on fire every time you turn around.”

A pair of hands grabbed a pile of books and shifted it sideways, pulling the book of the top of the pile down onto the table. The gap in the tall piles of books revealed a person and a mirror image. Only, it wasn’t an exact image, the face, the nose, the bone structure, the color, everything was the same, save for the hair and the eyes.

One of the boys was sitting up, slouched backwards in his seat, the chair tipped back onto two legs, his knees holding him up against the table, a book and a highlighter in his hands. His hair was in spikes and was so blonde that it was questionable whether it was natural. His eyes, focused on the pages before him, were of the bluest hue that eyes could possibly hold.

The other boy was slouched over too, but he slouched forward. A book was propped up by another book in front of his face as his chin rested on the table. This one, apparently (if a pouty lip and sad eyes said anything), was the one that was grumbling. He was identical to the other, except that his hair is a mixture of reds and browns, the color of a fox. His eyes are brown, specked with yellow and red around the pupil.

His hands were both wrapped in clean white bandages and a band-aid rested across the bridge of his nose and at a spot on his check.

“Nothing in this one.” Said the Blonde and snapped the book shut, the other looked up at him briefly before turning his eyes back to the book in front of his nose.

“We’re never gonna find anything, Cult.”

They were being a bit loud. April, being a normally bouncy person, could understand this, but this was a special case. This was her first experience with an honest-to-goodness magical bookstore.

She peered around a stack of books, blonde ponytail swinging, a book hanging loosely from her hands. "Could you keep it down or something, guys?"

Darien looked up at her with those red-brown eyes, briefly.

“Sorry, we’ll try to...” Just as Coaltin had begun to lower the other two legs to his chair to the ground and just as the words had hardly gotten out of his lips, the book in her hand started to smoke. Coaltin first froze, stared, then wildly turned his gaze to look at his brother. Darien’s face wore the expression of one who’d just been slapped, his eyes wide and frightened.

“I didn’t...I couldn’t...make it...” ...do it...help it...stop! He let out a groan from his throat.

April felt the power, and glared. Books were not something you messed with, even, especially, if they were books on magic.

She dropped the book like it was, well, on fire, stepped far enough away as to be somewhat safe, fast, mind focusing on a lack of fire, murmuring to herself as a way of focusing further. "Nada. Nada. Nada fuego. Nada fuma."

You know how some people use latin for spells? Well, April uses spanish. It's an odd habit of hers.

She looked up again, her expression very, very offended. "Geeze, rude much? Do you see me going around setting your books on fire?"

Now, let us point out that if April's spell is unopposed, the fire will go out with a Snap. She's rather powerful. If she has to fight the kid's mind to put it out, it might not go out so quickly.

She would not encounter much resistance from the kid’s mind. Darien didn’t want that book to burn. He didn’t want to ever see a fire again. He stared back at April’s offended expression with wide eyes, a mixture of fear and dismay. He opened his lips to say something, closed them, opened them again, closed them again and his eyes slid shamefully away from her’s. How he felt guilty for something he’d not meant to do. Normally he would have shot back at her and showed her what rude really was. But he just felt drained and frightened.

Without his senses about him, Darien hadn’t noticed what Coaltin had. She’d not been in the least surprised that the book was setting fire, she’d known it was one of them somehow, and she’d stopped the fire. But, he let his chair fall back onto all four legs and jumped to his feet to instinctively defend his brother.

“He didn’t mean to! It wasn’t his fault.” He’d raised his voice above the whisper now and it cracked on the words ‘mean’ and ‘fault’. His blonde brows were knitted together and his blue eyes angry for a moment. Then he shook his head. “What did you do? How’d you do that?”

Maybe there was a way to stop Darien’s fires, or at least to put them out when they happened. He leaned over, trying to relax the tension from defending his brother, and put his hands on the table, leaning on his hands. His little finger touched Darien’s thumb in the physical contact that they’d always needed. It didn’t matter how old they got, they weren’t ashamed to hold hands and throw an arm over the others shoulder.

Darien remained sitting with one hand on the table, the other in his lap, eyes averted from hers.

April crossed her arms, leaning her weight on one leg.

This was her 'thinking' pose.

Well, obviously they were Unnish. Basic etiquette said not to tell them anything. On the other hand, they were just as obviously untrained and powerful. That meant a crash course Initiation.

"I'm a mage. He's a pyro. I put the book out with magic. Anything else?" She said it fast, low, quietly. This wasn't the kind of thing you want to say, or someone to overhear.

She was thinking of something else at the same time (it was habit, to think about multiple things at one time, one way she got such good grades). With a thought, wisps of shimmering Power seeped from her into the book on the floor, slowing itself as glimmering ribbons of air. The book healed. Scorchmarks became paper, the cover returned to its original dusty blue, everything.

Well, except for the wording. She'd have to do some recopying from an unburnt text- she didn't have the book memorized, sadly.

Darien had been too busy feeling guilty and looking at his hand on the table to notice the wisps of power mending the book he’d killed. But Coaltin was staring at it, startled and excited. Her explination was rather difficult to believe as well, but...pyro seemed to be what Darien was, so what else could she be but a mage. Darien lifted his eyes and looked at Coaltin, his finger had tightened around his brother’s.

“Yeah.” This was coaltin again, Darien couldn’t seem to find his lips at all. “Can...can you teach him to do that?” He spoke quieter too. She’d spoken quietly for a reason so he was following her lead. At these words, Darien looked up expectantly.

"Dunno. He'd need to be more than an elemental. Can he do anything more than set things on fire?"

She was talking over the kid's head (bad habit of hers, I'm afraid).

Pause.

"And what're you?" One kid was magic, other kid was with him, both looking at magic books, forgone conclusion was both were magical.

Coaltin frowned in thought, searching his memory for an answer to her question. Could Darien do anything else? He'd never seen anything else being done. He shook his head slowly.

"I don't think so," he looked at Darien, "Can you?"

Darien half shrugged at this, shaking his head to signify that he wasn't sure at all. Coaltin looked back at her.

"Guess not."

Her second question, what Coaltin might be, evoked two different responses from to nearly identical boys. Darien's response was to stop moping and look at his brother, a mixture of emotions crossing his features. Curiosity, doubt, and hope. Hope that there weren't two freaks in the family. Hope that there was two and that when they weren't wanted anymore that they'd still have eachother to befriend.

Coaltin's response was to stare at her. He hadn't thought of this possibility as of yet. But it made sense, being identical twins and sharing most of their traits, why not one more? His mouth grew dry.

"He's not done anything weird yet," it was the the red head who spoke this time.

"Huh." She peered at both of them, but decided against doing anything other than asking.

Come to think of it, she should look up a truth spell. Could be useful.

Dear gods but she loved having access to books of magic.

"So whatcha doing, anyway?"

April is an eensie bit pushy. Don't mind her.

((Gasp! I can't believe I just posted in the wrong thread. I just left a post for Arc on this one. *slaps forhead* Sorry Cloudie.))

Coaltin still seemed to be in shock at the thought that he was would be able to do anything like Darien, he sat down and stared at the table top trying to recall anytime when he'd lit a fire to something without meaning to with matches.

Darien however ran a finger down the stack of books in front of him, his brown eyes on the book she'd 'healed' still.

"Trying to find a way to make it stop."

The brown eyes flicked up to her face and took on the sort of look that meant if he weren't a guy and he weren't in public, he might cry.

"I dun wanna be like this forever you know."

He tried to say it like it was no big deal but didn't suceed.

Pause.

"...why?"

Not liking power was an alien concept for April.

Of course, she's never had any trouble controlling her powers, which could explain it.

"...beacuse..."

Darien looked at his hands, although the fire really had nothing to do with his hands, just his mind overall. Coaltin was paying attintion now, his finger twisted around Darien's little finger as a means of suport.

"...Because it's horrible." He eyes flicked back up to her. "I keep setting things on fire. Messing things up. I burned Cult. I've burned my bed and moms laundry basket. I want it to stop. I don't want to hurt anyone."

He sounded pleading and now he really might cry. He was frustrated. Coaltin gasped and pulled his hand away from Darien's because Darien's hand had become terribly hot.

April shrugged rather heartlessly.

She definitely spent too much time around Alexander Barclay's teaching style.

"You can't make it stop. You have to learn to control it. These things don't go away."

She's being honest, of course, but social graces were never her strong point, any more than tact.

If he tries to set something on fire again, she'll take steps to stop him. She's a fan of the no-coddling school of teaching. (Barclay again.)

Not that she realizes that she's teaching him anything, of course. She's just trying to get him through the denial and anger phases into acceptance as fast as possible.

"Who's Cult?"

His shoulders seemed to sag at her announcment at being unable to stop it. So he guessed he was stuck with it the way someone was stuck with too big of ears. It's not going to go away. Cult?

Darien lifted one hand and pointed at his brother.

"He's Coaltin James, I'm Darien James."

Coaltin stepped forward now, his hand leaving the table, and Darien's touch, to sit back down and tip his chair back.

"How does he learn to control it?"