It had been just over two years since Aldona and Azuloas met Nojus and Jadvyga, the two had started training them on their third birthdays. They had convinced Šuo and Kranklys to teach them basic dagger tricks, while Katė had showed them basic footwork for sword-work.

Both Aldona and Azuloas soon worked out the reason behind the ‘demon hunts’ on their sixth birthday. Along with figuring out what the mark on their wrists meant, now both just covered said mark with a piece of tight material and leather.

Aldona could only giggle as she remembered their last birthday, Kranklys just looked at her as she did so. Azuloas joined her after she whispered the reason she was giggling in his ear; about how funny it would be if they did turn into the demon’s they feared they were all along.

The first thing that they worked on; was their stealth. To make their steps silent even as they ran down cobbled streets, to blend into the background and not be seen unless they wanted to be seen by someone.

Azuloas was pleased that the number of mobs chasing them had decreased, meaning they had been trained enough to fool someone with no training in taking in the entirety of their surroundings.

Aldona had started waking up with the sun, not that she minded. Since it meant that she had a bit more reading time than Azuloas did, along with overseeing breakfast and making sure Azuloas didn’t consume more salt then needed.

Not that it mattered today, it was the fourth of Gruodžio and that meant it was Dvesma’s sixth birthday. Both she and Azuloas had birthday presents for her, Jadvyga and Nojus had helped them make it.

Both claimed that it would help them remember different techniques. So that it was less likely that they would forget them in the middle of a massive battle.

Azuloas had met first Dvesma first, saving her from some of her older bullies. Once he had saved the Spoku-Acs heir, he had dragged her to meet his twin and both had kept an eye on her since then. The three had become fast friends, Dvesma had a habit of hiding behind the two as they walked down the streets.

Aldona and Azuloas had warned her about actively telling anyone about their friendships, neither of them wanted to see her harmed. Some people would harm her, nothing good happened to demon lovers.

Dvesma had agreed to not to actively tell people about it, but she did tell her family and regular babysitter. Dvesma admitted once, that he was her bodyguard since she wasn’t strong enough to protect herself.

“Azu, wake up!” Aldona shouted into Azuloas’ left ear, causing him to flinch and look at her with large eyes. Before rubbing them and yawning, while messing up his hair before glaring at her for the rude wake-up call.

“Dona, why’d you do that?” Azuloas asked her.

“It’s Dvesma’s birthday and the council wants us to stay off the main street,” Aldona told him before huffing and crossing her arms. “Some country has sent someone to talk to Grandpa.”

Stupid council, Aldona knew that they didn’t want the village or country to look bad in front of Sinzia’s ambassador.

“It’s Dvesma’s birthday, Dona, we need to get ready,” Azuloas told her as he put on a pair of black shorts and a sky-blue shirt. Aldona just grinned as she tugged a navy ankle length dress with elbow length sleeves over her head.

Neither twin liked to wear shoes, so they didn’t. Aldona felt more connected with the land beneath her feet, while Azuloas like the feeling of the wind against his ankles and toes. Most of their training happened in their mind spaces, then Aldona would show Azuloas what Jadvyga had taught her, then Azuloas would teach Aldona Nojus’ lesson in an unused training field.

When Aldona finished brushing her hair, she saw that Azuloas was going through their latest prank notes. Jadvyga had told Aldona that pranking was the perfect wat to train in the art of trap making, stealth and lying. Along with getting used to thinking about escape strategies.

Azuloas just grinned at her as he took their empty plates to the kitchen, Aldona pocketing the apartment keys in a hidden pocket.

“Alley ways?” Azuloas asked her as she locked the door, Aldona looked at him before nodding.

“Everyone’s gonna be at the parade,” Aldona said it also meant that no one was going to be bothering them today. Drunks would be kept in bars until they sobered up, most bars were just closed today. “Dvesma’s home isn’t on the parade route.”

“Even the council wouldn’t put a parade through clan territory,” Azuloas added, both nodding to each other before making their way to the Spoku-Acs compound.

“Aldona, Azuloas?” Dvesma asked them as they walked towards her family, a shy smile on her face as she spotted the two. They were waiting for her uncle and cousin, but she was glad that her friends had arrived.

“Happy birthday Dvesma,” Aldona and Azuloas told her, a bag hanging from Azuloas’ shoulder with colourful paper peeking out.

“Thank you,” she told them.

“Guess what?” Azuloas asked her a growing smile on his face, Dvesma just looked at me while Markuss Spoku-Acs looked at the picnic basket in his hands.

“Pardon?” Dvesma asked them, she didn’t have friends before the Vitkus twins. So, she didn’t know what they were planning or what they wanted her to guess.

“We got you a present,” Aldona told her, Dvesma looking at her with wide lavender eyes. Smiling at her, even as Dvesma felt slightly guilty, she didn’t get them anything for their birthday. Yet, here they were giving her a gift.

“You didn’t have to,” Dvesma told them, Aldona and Azuloas telling her happy birthday made her extremely happy.

“Bad luck, Dvesma, bad luck,” Aldona told her.

“Cause we did,” Azuloas finished handing a colourfully wrapped present to Aldona, before handing one to Dvesma. One book was chakra control, since Dvesma had managed that the Spoku-Acs bloodline needed prefect, medic level, chakra control.

Jadvyga and Nojus knew some pretty old and forgotten ones, some that were once used to train medic’s in the forgotten mountain tribes.

“We wanted to,” Aldona told her, she had copied a book of basic elemental and general techniques, ones that the Academy deemed they had to know if they ever wanted to join the Kareivis ranks.

Markuss just looked at the two, Anyuta softly talking to him about where they were going to set up their picnic. Both were just happy that Dvesma made friends outside her cousin, neither cared that she had befriended the so-called ‘demon twins’.

He knew that sealing a knife into a scroll, didn’t make the scroll a knife. Just like he knew that sealing one of the deadly sins into a baby, didn’t make the baby that sin. Markuss and Anyuta trusted Rajmund in his sealing abilities, the old of the Apsauga unit was a genius and his wife, Vitalija, had sealing in her blood.

“Where did you find these?” Anyuta asked them, her long raven hair pulled into two high buns with a few hairs framing her face. Aldona and Azuloas thought she looked pretty, her eyes were a dark lavender, and this make her pale skin, look paler.

“We hang around the Apsauga headquarters a lot and some of them would leave books and scrolls around the headquarters,” Aldona admitted. “And some of them taught us a few things.”

Kranklys and Šuo had started to help them with chakra control, Katė had told them that they had to start with their chakra control at young age. They had to use different training excurses to keep it under control.

“I see,” Anyuta whispered. Smiling at the two, she had been friends with their mother during their academy years. She was surprised that no one else had put the dots together, that they didn’t work out which clan the twins belonged to. Vitkus wasn’t a last name that was given to orphans.

“Father, can they join us?” Dvesma asked Markuss snapping him out of his thoughts, he didn’t have a problem with them coming. They helped Dvesma, his princess, with her shyness and that was something he couldn’t help her with.

At least, not without the elders breathing down his throat.

“Of course, they can come,” Markuss told her.

“Thank you Lord Spoku-Acs,” Aldona and Azuloas said while bowing, he was a Clan Head and deserved some respect. Grandpa had once gently told taught them about how to act around Clan Head’s. Neither Aldona nor Azuloas knew why he had done so, nor did they understand some of the lessons he taught them.

Some of them matched up with lessons that Dvesma got from her own parents.

“Markuss, it’s Markuss with Dvesma’s friends,” he told them, he had thought they were going to be like their mother and come up with several nicknames. The woman would call him Lavender Shortbread. He guessed that they were young enough that they were still learning manners and reacting poorly could turn them away from using them.

Dainis wouldn’t mind the two being there, and he had no choice in the matter. Since it was Dvesma’s birthday and they were friends. When Dainis and his son, Karlis, arrived Aldona, Azuloas and Dvesma were talking about what would happen once they started attending the Academy, the trio hoping to end up in the same class.

“Lord Markus, Lady Anyuta and Lady Dvesma,” Dainis greeted, Karlis holding his hand as he stared longingly at the giggling group.

“Dainis, I hope you and Karlis will be joining us?” Anyuta asked her brother in law, she didn’t care if he was part of the ‘branch family’. She had been born into the branch family and had only escaped that hell when she married Markuss and became part of the main house.

The caged mirror mark gave her nightmares still.

“No, of course not Lady Anyuta,” Dainis told her, smiling as Dvesma looked at her uncle. Aldona and Azuloas following slowly behind her. “Happy birthday, Lady Dvesma.”

“Uncle, it’s just Dvesma to family,” Dvesma told him, she never like Uncle Dainis or Karlis calling her Lady Dvesma. More so when her aunt and new baby cousin died in child birth, a risk that was higher for Branch woman than for the main family.

“You know it’s the same with me, Dainis,” Anyuta told him giving him a slight glare, before took the picnic basket from Markuss.

“And me as well, brother, there are no elders here,” Markuss told him, pulling Dainis into a side-way hug.

“I’m Aldona Vitkus,” Aldona greeted, Karlis holding out his hand for her to take.

“Karlis Spoku-Acs,” Karlis told her shacking her hand, before taking Azuloas.

“Azuloas Vitkus,” Azuloas greeted.

“I’m Dainis Spoku-Acs,” Dainis told them. “I need to talk to Markuss and Anyuta about something, so Karlis, why don’t you tell them what the Academy is like?”

Karlis nodded, before joining his cousin and her friends. Telling them about his lessons, he was in his second year and was going to turn eight in a few days, as they started walking towards Anyuta’s hidden garden, they moved to the topic of Apsauga, Kareivis and Sekti, which unit they would like to end up in.

How none of the three units were as glamorous as civilians painted it as, and how they didn’t know just how naïve they looked when they spoke of it. Karlis admitted that many of the civilians in his class were naïve and slow enough, that he didn’t know how they got in, in the first place.

Dvesma, Aldona and Azuloas would be starting the Academy in two months’ time, even then, all of three of them knew that the life of an Apsauga, Kareivis or Sekti was to kill or be killed, a life filled with death and grief.

Duty, broken hearts and blood-stained hands.

Nothing was glamorous about their life; nothing was less heart breaking then watching family and friends die. But someone had to keep their village safe, someone had to keep the enemy from killing everyone they got their hands on.

And so, they would hold their heads high and pack away the monster, only to bring it out when it was needed.