Oh my gods, ya'll! We hit 1k! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm so happy! We're only on chapter...five? This is amazing! Here's a super-long chapter for ya'll! Anyways...

TW: internalized homophobia, depressing thoughts, suicidal thoughts, almost-derogatory term, censored curse word.

Sorry in advance...

-L-

Linh POV: First Person

"I'll go after him." Keefe said, sprinting out the door my twin had run out of. Wait...what? I wrenched my arm free of Marella's, bounding down the stairs in my too-high heels. In hindsight, maybe dressing everyone up hadn't been such a good idea. It was a sleepover, not a Winnowing Gala.

"Wait! Keefe!" I called, running after him. After that whole fiasco, the last thing Tam needed was his crush running after him and demanding answers. I just hoped I could get to him before his panic attack got even worse.

I just hope Marella won't be worried. Usually I'm the worrier in our relationship. She's more the do-insane-things-and-kiss-my-worries-away kind of person.

I careened around the corner straight into a fork in the corridor. I strained my eyes down each of the paths for another flash of blonde hair, but Keefe was nowhere to be seen. Now what?

Think, Linh. You know your brother, your twin better than any other person. He's your other half. You're supposed to just know.

...Wait.

There was a cool Hydrokinetic trick I had just learned. It was insanely hard, but if I did it correctly, I could tell where the water molecules had been recently disrupted.

Basically, I could track where my twin had gone.

Normally, I wouldn't try it out in such a bustling environment, but I needed to find Tam. The last time he'd run out instead of melting back into the shadows, it had taken hours before I got him back into a semi-coherent state. And his attacks had only gotten worse after the war.

My brother had been having panic attacks since we were little. The first time was when my parents -if I could even call them that anymore- had a really big dinner party. We were confined to our rooms the entire time, but when we started to get hungry and our parents still hadn't come to give us dinner, or allowed one of the gnomes to do it, I started crying.

Tam, seeing my distraught state (I was eight, ok?), tried everything. Banging on the door, calling our parents imparters, screaming. Nothing worked. Finally, he'd had enough. In a fit of anger towards our parents, he used his shadows to completely shut down the mansion. All the light. Gone. Everywhere except our room was plunged into darkness. The guests left in a panic, and that's when our parents finally came upstairs.

They screamed at Tam for hours, threatening everything from disowning to Exile. Around the three hour mark, he simply shut down. No sounds. No movement. He just curled into a ball and stopped everything. I think his heart even slowed down. Only once our parents left did he start whimpering. He actually thought our parents would Exile him. I did too.

After that, he didn't have another incident for a long time.

I had to try out the trick. I needed to get to him before Keefe did. If Keefe got there first- with his personality and Tam's crush on him- I refused to think of the consequences.

I took a deep breath and steeled my nerves. I reached out, my hands splayed and my palms face-up. I laid my conscience out, imagining my mind wrapping around every tiny water molecule in the air. C'mon Linh, you've got this. Just a couple more strands and-

All of a sudden, I turned hypersensitive. I could literally feel the molecules brushing against my skin, tangling with my hair, fracturing the air in front of my eyes.

I'd done it! I wanted to cheer, but it was vital that my emotions remained flat and calm. I couldn't stop now. Ok, I need to find the trail. I casted my eyes around, making sure not to actually move my head. Splitted molecules, splitted molecules. Where were they?

There!

A trail of disrupted molecules split the left corridor in half. The molecules swirled around, the ones closest to me almost settled, but the ones farthest still spinning. I breathed a sigh of relief. Now let's just hope Tam hasn't gone into one of the rooms...

I let my eyes unfocus. Letting my power pool back into my hands, I ran to my brother.

I just hope Keefe hadn't gotten to him before me.

-L-

Tam POV: Third Person

Why. Why in Eternalia would you do that? You complete, lovesick idiot. Help Keefe take down Fitzphie? Yeah, that'll surely get him to like you!

It's hopeless. He's never going to like you. He hates you, remember? Of course you don't. You're blind. He's going to marry Sophie, or Biana, or some other powerful, high-ranking girl. Yeah. Girl.

He's straight. He's just like the rest of them. He was raised by the most homophobic family out there. You coming out to him, going after him, will just make him hate you more. He'll tell the Council. You don't belong here.

"Shut up."

Why are you even here? Linh is the only one who tolerates you. You forced her to be lesbian just so that you could have someone like you. She doesn't like you. She won't miss you if you just disappear. These 'friends'? They're just taking advantage of you. And when they find out, they'll shun you too.

"Shut up!"

You can't even have a good ability. All your ability does is darkness. Just like you. You should go away. Just do it. You coward. You can't even help everyone out by dying. You're still here. Why are you still here? You shouldn't be here. You're just a no-good disgusting fa-

"Shut up shut up SHUT UP!" Tam yelled, clutching his head. "STOP!"

He was sitting outside, in one of the countless courtyards Everglen housed. Although the crystal bench certainly wasn't his first choice -he never had quite gotten used to the casual luxury of the elvin world- it worked as a spot for him to have his panic attack alone and to fight the voices in his head.

Tam dropped his hands wearily, the voices at bay for the meantime.

The voices had been there since Tam and his twin had been exiled. For months, he'd been terrified- he'd heard of a terrible mental illness humans got that sounded like what he 'had'. But one day he'd chanced a visit with another exiled elf, Arwen, who had been exiled hundreds of years ago for being non-binary. They'd told him that they had it as well. It wasn't schizophrenia, which was the greater, more devastating human form of it. No. It was a mind shard.

A mind shard is a rare, little-known form of a broken mind. Instead of mind shattering from guilt, a piece of the mind breaks off from the rest of it. From out of it comes almost a separate conscience, a separate voice in the person's head. Mind shards could come from any too-strong emotion. One time, Arwen had told Tam, an elf was so happy, so ecstatic, that a mind shard happened. A piece of the elf's mind broke off, but it was part of the happiness. And it became an almost 'good' voice, a positive one.

But that was a unique case.

With Tam, it was different. His mind shard broke off from not a positive place, but a negative one. A shard that came from all the stress, all the weight of his parents disapproval on his shoulders. It broke off and became 'the voices.' And it had been with him forever since.

It didn't happen with many people. There were maybe, what, less than a hundred cases in the entirety of elvin history? That was what Arwen's guess was.

If only Arwen was still with him and his sister today.

"Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Don't think about Arwen. Don't think about what you forced them to do." Tam whispered to himself. He knew Arwen, in the end, had done it on their own. They'd sacrificed themselves willing. But if he had never forced him into helping in the first place...

...Arwen might've still been alive.

Oh wow, brilliant self! Tam thought sarcastically. You started with a panic attack over Keefe and ended up thinking about Arwen and all your past mistakes! Wow, that's sure to get you calm enough to join the group again! Why don't you just add in Keefe to make it even better!

"Tam...? Tam?" Who in Eternalia was dumb enough to follow him? And it didn't sound like Linh...

Tam craned the corners of his eyes to see a figure jog into the courtyard.

It was Keefe.

F***.

*This has been censored on the off chance my parents read this*

-T-

Well. That, uh, wasn't fluff? Sorry? Not sorry? 

Poor Tammy... :(

I was originally going to make him have schizophrenia, but then I realized how little I know about the subject and how terrible it is and how I didn't want to portray it inaccurately. So yeah. He's got a mind shard now.

And who's Arwen you ask? Is the lgbtq situation in the Lost Cities that bad? What exactly happened to Arwen anyways?  All will be answered eventually...

Anyways, Marellinh confirmed !!!!

Yes, Marella and Linh most definitely got their shit together and became a couple first. This is canon in the kotlc gayverse. I will accept no other explanation.

Online school is ✨ torture.✨ Hopefully -hopefully- I'll be able to update a little more frequently now that I'm more sinking instead of drowning in homework. Yay! Anyways, per usual, thank you so much sticking with me throughout my crap updating schedules. I really hope it's worth it.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter!

~Elle