Gender/age: male/23 (older twin)
Physical: medium-fair skin, with a golden tan. Blond hair that is short and stylish. Light blue eyes. He is 6�3�, and slender, with long balanced limbs and an attractive look at any time.
Mental: Sullen and demanding, Dave is singularly strong willed and impatient with others who disagree with him. He will listen to reason at any time, but for him to respect another�s authority or their feelings, takes quite a bit of work. He is a natural leader, but he is less likely to compromise when times are rough, and insists that his way is the best one for the group. He admits that there is a rift between him and others in the group, and that will have to work itself out. His relationship with his brothers is complex. Dave is very intelligent, and he uses everything he knows to help him and the group.
Skills: Administrative and leadership abilities are strong in Dave, as well as the instinct to protect his people. He will go to great lengths to find information about someone, or a place, before entering it with his friends. He is quite literate, one of the few in the group truly trained in any Harper skill. He is an expert shadower, tracking people the way a hunter would track prey, and he can do this with a �paper trail� as well as a physical one. He is very good at rumor-mill work.
Dave wrote in his journal with the eyes of the others flickering on and away from him just like the shadows of the fire. The whole night had been exhausting, but rewarding. The whole troupe, more than a dozen children and teens plus some of their parents, had been liberated from the confines of House Faustas. It wasn't as if they hadn't tried to leave, they had been prevented, year after year, from leaving and heading back to their clan lands beyond the hills.
The reason of course, was that while the families of Clan Triptych had been residing within the House lands, their own had been taken over and used by the House. Dave's father Dean was one of the few clan elders who could claim some autonomy from the House, and had managed to smuggle Dave out years before.
Not one of the Clan here around this fire could appreciate any of that, of course. Some of the kids even wanted to remain in the House willingly.
But they didn't know what was in store now. And of course that made Dave the untrustable one, their enemy. He would have to watch some of them very closely indeed.
A hand pressed on Dave's shoulder. He looked up, seeing Rita. A smile crossed his thin lips. The first in hours. Days perhaps. Her own smile was guarded.
"Dane is not... adjusting well." She said, glancing over her shoulder at where Dave's twin brother sat huddled, staring at the fire.
"I know that. I am in fact painfully aware of that." Dave rose, folding his journal back into its leather case, and pressing it down into his satchel. He went with Rita to his brother's side. "You know there is a reason I wanted to bring us all out," Dave said, quietly. "I can feel his fear. His terror."
"As I can feel your disgust," muttered Dane. "And your loathing. And your ... what is that?"
"It's called compassion, brother," Dave said with a snarl, "and I only wish I could extend it more easily."
"Wait," Rita slumped against the fallen log where they had perched the half-responsive twin. "Wait. What exactly do you mean, feel?"
"Feel," the pair both said, echoing one another. Dave flickered a smile, which Dane did not allow to cross his own tired, morose face.
"We've always had a connection, deeper than a sibling. More like..." Dave searched for words.
"Like a dragon and their bond," Dane whispered. His brother nodded. "I learned what he learned, outside, while I was kept by the House. I got to watch while he found the clan's records and their lands ruined by Faustas. When he met you."
"You don't sleep, do you?" Dave asked his brother, and Dane shook his head.
Rita ground her jaw back and forth. Clearly, she was unhappy about something. Oh.
Oh of course. Rita would want to know if 'everything' meant...
"...Everything?" She hissed. Her hazel eyes burned brightly. "Everything. You barely even mentioned you HAD a brother, Dave. How dare you?"
"it isn't his fault," Dane said, meekly. "Some of it was mine... I asked him not to. He seemed so happy with you. I ... didn't want to change that..."
Rita stiffened, and to both young men's surprise, she bolted out to one of the caravans and tied down the flap behind her. There was a tense moment of silence between the brothers. Silent to all around them, perhaps. But hardly on a different inner level.
Why is she so angry? And why is she angry to know how you feel? Didn't you ever tell her?
Dave lowered his gaze, glanced from the caravan to his brother, then back to the ground.
"You didn't?" Dane said, almost angry. "Dave, you're -- no wonder she's angry. She doesn't know what goes on in that skull of yours. Sometimes I don't. Try and keep yourself occupied."
Dane stood and strode over to the carvan, while Dave looked on. Something inside his head, in the pit of his stomach, twisted when Rita let him into the caravan wagon.
But he wound up rather laughing to himself when Rita apparently realized that their voices too were twin.
"She wants to see you, not me," Dane grumbled with half a smile. "But she said that I'm a close second..." He shrugged, "whatever that means..."
Dave grunted, smacked his brother on the shoulder, and went to the wagon. He tapped his knuckle on the wood frame, and heard a sobbing "come in" from his love.
Inside the wagon's dim interior, Rita had not lit a candle or lamp. Her eyes still shone, though, as if they had a light of their own within. "How could you just..." Dave held up a hand.
"Rita, I'm sorry..." He gulped, and knelt beside her. "I love you, and I don't mean to hurt you. When we met, I was hurting. You ... don't know what they were doing to him, you know? They tried breaking his mind, his spirit. So he rode with me, in here," he tapped his forehead. "I gave him what strength he could take, but he's always been there for me too. And... so have you."
He kissed her on the forehead, wiping away her tears, "Thank you."
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