It had shocked them growing up that their father hadn't raised them as others did. The study of languages, advanced mathematics, complete muscle control, and enough alchemical ingredients to fill a tome. It changed his children on a metaphysical level, and they were absorbing the information without end. It wasn't natural, to be certain.
"Am I here for your entertainment or do you wish to speak with me?"
Victor sat cross-legged opposite his father, eyeing him with shrouded disdain. A thin smile rested on his lips while the two watched each other. His brother, Olivier, had left earlier with a blank face as if to refuse any hint of what the conversation was about.
Victor's father had no such apprehensions.
"As I said to your brother, your potential is unfortunately… lackluster." Samuel was eerily calm, but his entire persona seemed unkempt since they returned home.
Victor drummed his fingers as he analyzed his father's body language and his subtle intonations. He was afraid, but not of Victor, his brother, or their situation. He knew his father well. If it were that much, Samuel would have already eliminated that nervousness that permeated his being. Victor found it intriguing.
"We're supposed to lay over for those greater than us, I suppose? Let the other children trample over our futures? Snuff out our family?" Victor revealed a line of straight teeth with a smile, and the unnecessary words lingered in the air. They were less a question and more a provocation.
One that Victor knew his father wouldn't return.
"Neither of you could stomach that, and neither could I," Samuel lifted himself in his seat. "Your mother is right, the two of you've changed. Your brother hides it better than you do, but despite my best efforts, maturity is hard to force on children. Yet, the two of you seem more mature than ever."
Mentally, his children had grown quickly in the past week. Far more than he had previously thought; the question was: was it something he had done, or was it something else?
"What if I don't mean to hide it?" Victor cocked his head, his thin smile twisting into a sharp grin.
"…" Samuel didn't bother responding to his son immediately, nor did he rise to the confrontation in his son's voice. He felt that there was no reason to rush the conversation; the two had all the time in the world. "Your brother is calm about the ritual's result. I suppose you are too – you certainly seem so."
"Of course. It's only natural to move on with my life and simply use the alchemy afforded to me to increase my Limit of Fate. It doesn't do well to dwell on things that can't change, and I can't change the past…"
Victor eyed his son and wondered whether he had created a pair of children who would ravage the city they would grow up in. He thought, 'The mere idea that I'm considering this with children. The other alchemists would try to tear this family apart.'
Victor remained still in the room's growing silence, his body not betraying any of his real emotions.
While watching his father, Victor came to his own conclusion. He kept himself closed off, even in this talk between father and son. Samuel didn't want to reveal anything, nor have even a chance of it happening. Yet that in itself revealed something: he was trying too hard.
'Perhaps Olivier discovered something before Father managed to raise his composure? He's still unnerved.' Victor mused.
Samuel turned back to his son, "I find the situation as intriguing as I find it harrowing. I won't have the two of you tossed to the wayside like dogs."
"It might be best for everyone if you did," Victor said honestly as he stood from his chair.
'But then you'd have nothing for the world to remember you by.' Victor internally continued.
The rain clattered angrily against the window as the wind threatened to tear the city apart. The light from the window illuminated only Samuel's back as he clutched his hands. Both of his sons' actions carried a finality, an iron-clad conviction that would shake even a battle-hardened person.
Their words had a certain measure to them, one that made it seem like they had meticulously crafted each word before ever speaking them.
"As I told your brother, when the time comes, I'll let you two in on my research."
Victor froze as his eyes darted to Samuel's face. Even in their past life, their father never let them see his work. He always held an air of mystery toward his sons, while the work he did on himself was evident to anyone, the work Samuel did for the Familia was obscured by layers of bureaucracy. He was, after all, one of the highest-ranking alchemists in the Familia.
Even if his work didn't bring in much pay, it gave them something even more worthwhile: status.
"Why?" Victor spoke, surprised by the seriousness in his own voice.
"It will enable you to become great alchemists, even despite the will of alchemy." The inference that the two brothers were poor alchemists irked Victor, but he held his tongue. There was no reason to tell his father that the two had returned from the future. As a matter of fact, the two were poor alchemists at the moment.
Telling him about their past life could score them points with their father, but Victor despised him. To tear away their childhood in the way he had… It was cruel, and it meant they never existed as their own creatures; they were simply extensions of their father. No matter how many years the two had lived, they were a continuation of him.
All in some twisted way, their father achieved his only goal and left his mark on the world.
"I'm going," Victor said suddenly, his thoughts lingering on a past he didn't want to remember.
Samuel watched his son stand. He was so small, yet he knew in time that the two children of his would be titans in the world of alchemy. It had to be true, even if the universe was shouting at him the opposite. He opened his mouth, but the words were trapped in his throat. As Victor reached the door, Samuel finally muttered.
"I love you, you know that, right?"
Victor grabbed the handle on the wall before turning around. He looked at his father, and for the first time, his true expression was clear on his face. His lips curled up, his chin raised, and his eyes squinted.
"Then you should show, instead of tell." He opened the door and slipped out.
Samuel's eyes almost began to grow wet, but with a blink and a turn of his face, it was gone. He walked to the window of his study and watched the raging storm devastate the coastline, his face growing colder by the second.
'Maybe the storm will wipe our city off the map,' he thought calmly.
Victor sat in his room that night, staring at the ceiling. He knew if he turned over, he'd see his brother watching the stars and moon. Victor had no desire to watch the celestial movements. Their constant presence at night reminded him of his dreams. It was the very idea of those dreams that kept him awake.
'Dreams…' He thought as he spotted an ant crawl down the wooden beam on the side of the wall. He leaned forward and lifted it.
He watched it spin in his palm for a moment before placing it back down. He began watching it more closely as it traipsed across his desk, then he crushed it with his finger. Without haste, he brought the twitching chitinous shell to his face, eyeing the tiny squashed mass.
'What of my fate?' Victor leaned back, flicking the ant away and noting that his brother had gone to sleep.
Knowing him, he wasn't truly asleep, merely resting his eyes and waiting for a moment they'd both enter the land of dreams. That way, neither of them could cause some form of harm, even if they couldn't physically.
'I've never dreamed of Olivier.' Victor thought about the dreams that had plagued him in his life. Futures that came true and futures that didn't.
Divination was seen as an illegitimate field of practice, filled with many a conman and liar. Yet, Victor knew which dreams would come true. They felt different than the others, and they lingered in the back of his mind.
He had known he'd return to the past. It was one of the few dreams that he knew would come true. The final year before they returned, he would be plagued by the same dream every night. His mother's final moments and the blinding purple light that tore him into the past.
But he never dreamed of his brother. Not once had he ever seen his brother in his dreams, no matter the context. He had long since decided that he'd invest in divination in this new lifetime.
Now that his brother had returned with him, he would double the resources for his dreams until he could conclude whether Olivier would actually appear in them. If he did, he'd continue practicing divination, optics of those around him be damned. However, if he failed to find Olivier in his dreams, he would pull back on the resources.
'But, I'd still invest. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to see the events surrounding him, if not him himself.'
"You can rest now," Victor said aloud as his eyelids grew heavier and he sank into his dreams once more. In his past life, he had tried to ignore his dreams and hide their existence so as not to be ostracized by those who thought him a madman. They were a tool for him when necessary, but nothing more.
Now, however, he knew their worth.
"Do you think the fish swim to Covia?"
Victor stirred in his bed as he heard a soft, feminine voice. He looked down from his supine position, towards the door, and saw a small figure there – smaller than even the young twins. She stared at the brothers with her jet-black hair and pale skin.
He began to open his mouth, but she asked again with a giggle, "Do you think the fish swim to Covia?"
"The Isle of Covia…? Who are you?" He didn't answer her; instead, he posed his own question. Her resemblance to him and his brother didn't escape Victor as he analyzed her face.
"You forgot about me?" She pouted and looked away. "Everybody forgot about me. Just like the fish forgot about the island…"
"Who are you?" He repeated again, getting up from his bed.
"This is just a dream, so why does it matter? Do you really think our brother would stay asleep if someone barged into your room?" She smirked lightly, trying to hide a laugh.
"'Our' brother? Not 'your'brother? We never had a sister." Victor stopped in front of her as he bent down closer to her face. He began inspecting her, trying to find the missing link. He was certain he and Olivier had only ever been the only children in the Shrike family.
"Of course you did! You're just a bad brother! A bad brother who dreams of big things, but forgets the little things," she said before flicking him right between the brows, causing his eyes to shoot open.
When they did, he found himself in his bed, under his blankets, with light flooding into the room. He winced as his eyes adjusted, and he saw Olivier calmly getting dressed. While it was their last day before the academy, children could leave for the academy housing early.
As Victor thought back to his dream, he found himself struggling to recollect it. He paused in his bed with a distorted face, the feeling of something important gnawing at him. Yet, he had forgotten the dream.
'If it was forgotten, it can't come true. Whatever it was, it mustn't have been important.' He wanted to believe that, despite the gnawing feeling he got when he thought about it.