Welcome to Gaia! ::

Third year wasn’t going as well as Sonora had hoped. She had been writing the bare minimum for her assignments but still felt tired all the time. She slept through the entire December’s worth of Astronomy, messed up on their midterm in Music, and was definitely not waking up in time for walks or journaling before bedtime. Even Skyfire was being more stressful than usual, getting into fights with Circe. Come Christmas Break, Sonora had gone home and just cried to her parents. After a discussion about how to better approach taking a bunch of classes, Sona had gotten back to the new semester ready to do better and be happier--and that included finally going to Hogsmeade to collect on her little bet!

She lit up at the mention of the dueling range-- August had mentioned it in passing that he had a friend who lived--worked?-- there and she thought nothing of it until now, but she’d love to check it out. She was about to share that when Jonah abruptly cut off and spun around. Sona shifted, peering around his shoulder to see what had happened. She was shocked to glimpse Iggy yelling, Kam annoyed, and a moment later Iggy running back for the castle, clearly distraught.

Please, please let this not be because I overreacted that time, The thought flashed ominously through Sona’s mind. She took a breath. They had to do something. As though reading her mind, Jonah levitated Kam’s book away. She caught it, taking a few steps forward. Jonah’s gentle push only confirmed that he was on the same page and she nodded. ”Take care of him,” she replied before walking quickly towards Kam herself.

”Kam? You okay?” she asked softly. She sank into the spot next to Kam. Sure Iggy had been the one to run off in tears, but Sona guessed that Kam had to be feeling something awful to push his twin away like that.

She hugged his book to her chest for a moment before remembering it wasn’t hers. ”Oh, you can have this back...as long as you promise to talk to me?” she said, holding it tentatively back out to him. Kam wasn’t being a prat, surely this was all just some misunderstanding. All of this--Iggy crying, Ves and Jonah being upset with Kam--misunderstandings. And today they were going to try to figure out the underlying cause of this giant misunderstanding and make a plan to clear it up!

Sonora listened quietly as Kam spoke. She didn’t interrupt when he asked if he shouldn’t have made Iggy cry--the way he continued, he obviously thought it was the wrong way to handle things. But more than that, he explained himself clearly, no prodding necessary. It gave Sona the distinct feeling that Kam had thought through this already--and had been suffering in silence. She was tempted to correct him when he mentioned that people didn’t care when they mistook him for Iggy. Then there was that bit about Iggy being better at him. They obviously couldn’t be true. But she understood thinking through feelings quietly and planning her words well and didn’t interrupt until he punctuated the sentence with a bitter ”I hate being a twin.”

”I like both of you,” she murmured quietly, laying her cheek on her knees as she peered at him earnestly. She spoke up more clearly: ”You’re different people. And that means you're both wonderful, just in different ways." She could understand the disappointment he expressed--it would probably feel really bad if he thought people were more animated around Iggy. Maybe it was similar to how she felt when she noticed that Jonah always seemed more mischievous around Vespera and more studious around her. Or how August was just more snarky around Lizzie. It was like people tried to blend with people around them. Kam was relaxing to be around. So maybe people were just more relaxed around him? That wasn’t a bad thing at all.

”Kam, you are standing on your own. And I don’t mean that just because you’ve both clearly got different interests and paths.” She thought through his words again, brows furrowed a little when she wondered how he had gotten onto that train of thought. ”Why do you think Iggy is “doing better”?”