Chapter 1: The Orphans

I woke one morning to find the sun burning my sleepy eyes. Still I remember the aching dullness of rising from a mortal slumber. I reached out young teenaged fingers across the smooth clothed mattress, touching the bare flesh of your hip ? caressing your thigh as you groaned, irritated by my rude intrusion from your dreamy bliss.

You hated that, didn?t you? But you never complained.

Every morning you?d remain in the same position, naked, with knees curled up to chest, arms lazily wrapped about them to keep them from slipping. There as you slept, my body spooning you, wrapping you up in a protective shell of my affection; pulling the bed clothes about us to keep us warm during the height of a cold frosty night, where the rime threatened to erupt through the misted glassy paned window and consume us both.

?Arua?? I whispered gently ? almost every morning in a soothing chant, closing off the light from my eyes so that I could savour the moment of dark warm and fleshy closeness of my dear Sister.

?Mm?? She?d groan in question, but never would she hear me. Such a heavy sleeper, my Sister was, she was always the one to get up last. It?d take several minutes for her to stir again, answering groggily as she adjusted her head on the pillow, thinking it were just another of my bad dreams. ?Wh?t??

That always brought a smile to my face, urging me to push my face into the back of her head and into the mane of lavish and long sandy blonde hair she kept conditioned obsessively to the absolute perfection. It?s coconut scent always so comforting to me. It was my night light to scare away the monsters from under the bed. It was my addiction.

?The Miss will come to wake us up soon?? I said nervously through my sibling bliss. ?The Miss? was the ?Mother of the Hall? ? for you see, we had been rendered orphaned for some time and shared a hall with fifteen other children. I don?t remember our parent?s face.
My fear every morning was that ?The Miss? would catch us while we were together, for sleeping together here was strictly prohibited. ?You must remain in your own bed!? The Miss scolded us with the tip end of her tongue when we got caught for the first time. The Miss was able to bring me to tears easily while my Sister would remain impartial, agreeing with whatever was said so that neither of us got into trouble... And if there were punishment Sister would take the blame ? Sister was always the target of their ire, they always blamed her for she was never a good girl.

Yes, Sister was a bad girl.

?? Then go into your bed, Mura.? Yes. That tone? She was annoyed with me already ? it was HER bed I was invading, why did I need to wake her up to tell her that I would have to get out of her bed to arrive back in my own? Probably because I didn?t want to leave her side and hope she?d stop me.

?I don?t want to? It?s cold in my bed, Arua? Yours is always warm??

?That?s because we?re both in it, stupid.? She did have a way with words. ?God! Mura, you?re such an idiot,? she had shrugged off my spooning of her form, a painful motion enough to have my on the verge of tears every time. I was only fourteen after all. But somehow that morning I didn?t cry.

?Ah? Y-Yeah? Your right, I suppose?? I sniffed, retracting back so that I could slip out of her bed and back into the covers of my own. Even though the beds were pushed close together ? an arm length way in fact, I still felt as if it were too many inches too far.

?Don?t be like that, Mura?? She grumbled in her whisper as to not awake the others, taking up a shifting position on the bed to practically consume the entire mattress with her stretching form. ?And stop coming into bed naked with me? It?s sick.?

?Mm, okay? Sorry Arua, for going into bed with you again?? I plucked up my own bed sheet and slid in silently.

?And stop saying sorry, Mu? It?s starting to annoy me.?

?Sorry, Sister??

Turning to push her face into the pillow, I heard her mumble:

?Idiot??