It started with small things.
Viel had grown clingier each day, constantly at Cael's side. If Cael left the room, he followed. If Cael turned his back, Viel pressed himself close until their shadows touched. He didn't speak much—but his hands always reached, grasping, holding.
Eryx was different. He didn't follow.
He watched.
His gaze tracked Cael everywhere—while he cooked, while he swept, even while he read by the window in the fading afternoon light. He smiled when Cael smiled. He frowned when anyone else made Cael laugh.
Possessive.
Like a predator watching a prize he hadn't claimed yet.
⸻
Cael noticed it. He tried to tell himself it was nothing.
That they were just children—traumatized, needy, desperate for comfort.
But then came the incident with the bird.
⸻
It was late morning. Cael had been planting sprigs of lavender by the back fence when he heard it—a strange, sharp sound. Not a cry. Something smaller.
He stood quickly, brushing soil from his hands.
The twins were sitting in the grass nearby.
Between them lay a small, crushed sparrow. Its wings twisted. Its neck broken.
Still twitching.
Viel was quiet, expression blank. His hands were covered in downy feathers.
Eryx... was smiling.
"I told it to shut up," he said. "It wouldn't listen."
Cael's blood ran cold.
He crouched down, jaw tight, and gently scooped up the bird with trembling fingers.
"Why would you do this?" he asked quietly.
Viel blinked. "It was just a bird."
"It was alive," Cael said firmly.
Eryx tilted his head, watching the way Cael's hands cupped the broken body like something sacred.
"You're upset with us over that?" he asked, almost amused.
Cael looked at him.
And for the first time... there was no smile.
"Don't hurt things that can't fight back," he said, voice low. "It's cruel."
Eryx stared at him. Silent.
Viel looked away.
⸻
He buried the bird beneath the lavender. Pressed his hand to the soil. Whispered something soft and sad.
The twins stood behind him, unmoving.
Cael didn't yell.
He didn't punish.
He was simply disappointed.
And that stung worse than any scolding.
⸻
Later that day, when Cael left to fetch water, he returned to find Eryx had cleaned the whole table without being asked. Viel was sitting quietly, folding little scraps of cloth into strange, uneven birds.
They didn't apologize.
But they didn't need to.
Because something in them hated seeing Cael sad.
⸻
That night, he didn't tuck them in immediately.
He sat by the fireplace, staring into the flames, thinking.
The twins approached quietly. Viel crawled into his lap without a word. Eryx leaned against his back.
"I don't like it when you look at us like that," Eryx murmured.
"Like what?"
"Like you're... hurting."
Cael sighed, threading his fingers through Viel's hair.
"Then don't make me hurt," he whispered.
⸻
The twins didn't understand why it mattered. Why a dead bird made his hands shake.
But they remembered the look on his face.
They remembered the silence in his voice.
And for the first time in their lives, they felt something strange.
Guilt.
Not because they hurt something.
But because they hurt him.
And that was unforgivable.
The next morning, Cael found Eryx dangling a poor frog by its leg over the garden well, while Viel sat beside him silently picking the wings off a beetle with quiet precision.
Cael dropped the water bucket with a thud.
"Absolutely not."
Both twins looked up.
"You two—what on earth do you think you're doing?" Cael stormed over, arms crossed, brow furrowed in a way that was somehow more terrifying than any raised voice.
"It was noisy," Eryx muttered.
Cael snapped, gently taking the frog from his hand and releasing it back into the pond. "That beetle too. Gods, how many times do I have to say it?"
They stared at him.
It wasn't the scolding that shocked them. It was the care behind it.
He looked at them the way no one ever had—not afraid, not disgusted, not defeated.
Just angry in the way a mother would be. The way someone angry because they believed they could be better.
"You two," he said, pacing now, clearly flustered. "I'm letting you stay here because I trust you, alright? You've been good, I know you're trying—but that doesn't give you the right to hurt creatures that can't defend themselves."
"They're just animals," Eryx said softly, unsure if he was pushing or testing.
"They're living," Cael shot back, looking between them with firm eyes. "You don't have to understand—but I want you to promise me."
The room went silent.
Viel's hands tightened in his lap. Eryx blinked slowly, gaze narrowing, reading the lines on Cael's face.
Disappointment. Again.
And worse—genuine hurt.
That unfamiliar, heavy feeling in their chests stirred again. It felt like swallowing something wrong.
"Promise me," Cael repeated, gentler now. "No more hurting harmless things. Not here. Not ever again."
Eryx opened his mouth.
Then shut it.
Then nodded.
Viel nodded too, very slowly, his eyes on the floor.
"Good," Cael sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "I swear, the two of you will be the death of me."
He muttered as he walked back toward the house, "One day I'll wake up and find you keeping snakes under the floorboards, won't I..."
They watched him go in silence.
Eryx's lips twitched into a slow smile.
"That was kind of cute."
Viel leaned into him slightly. "He was mad."
"He still fed us. Still tucked us in. Still kissed our foreheads last night."
Eryx's voice dropped to something closer to awe. "No one's ever yelled at me like that and still... cared."
Viel was quiet for a long time.
Then he murmured, "I don't want to leave."
"Neither do I."