Gem POV

Sausage and I stepped off the platform and were immediately met with the cold knives of England's winter wind. It whipped around our faces, playfully lifting up our scarved and whacking us with the tassels. Sylvie, the person who had sat across from us on the train, and their friend Indigo stepped off as well, peering around the platform.

"Can't wait to see your brother." Sausage smiled, pulling his deep maroon scarf tighter around his neck. He scanned the platform. "Did the village even get told we would be here?"

I shrugged. "Don't think so. I'll say one thing, Pearl definitely would be here by now."

Sausage nodded, he knew his cousin well enough to know she would be here if she knew, despite the weather. Indigo turned around to look at us. "Come on! Creed told me that Fwhip opened a café!" There was a twinkling in his blueish purple eyes that I hadn't seen in a while. The arts academy didn't have a lot of astronomy courses, so they were forced to study in the sister school, Lifen Academy for the Sciences. Sure, they roomed with Sylvie but still, not having their younger sibling in the same class when they had been for years was a bit of a shock.

They grabbed my hand, pulling me and Sausage along as we ran through the village. It looked like a snow globe, or a scene on a Christmas card. White puffs of smoke floated through the air from the small cottages lining the street. The mingling scents of chestnuts and hot chocolate filled the air, tickling a memory in the back of my mind.

"You've got hot chocolate on your nose." Sausage's voice rang out. He pulled his sleeve over his hand, wiping the fluffy whipped cream off Fwhip's nose.

Fwhip batted his hand away, giggling. "Stop!" He managed to get out through little giggles and yelps as he pulled away from Sausage, who still managed to wipe the white fluff off his nose. Fwhip looked at him with a defeated look in his striking blue eyes.

I followed along. I wanted to see his eyes again, learn what my twin had been doing in the last year or two without me, but his blue eyes weren't the only ones I wanted to see.

I wanted to see her eyes. Her glistening sapphire eyes, set in a stony beauty that, yes may be cracked with loss and sorrow, but preserved her beauty all the same. Her endless ocean, so deep you'll find yourself lost if you gaze into their impossible depths too much. Her graceful silk stare, emotionless to many but, to me and others who knew her insanity was rooted in goodness, wrapped you in comfort no matter the time or day.

Those eyes that looking in adoration at me. The eyes I had been dreaming about for an age and a half.

Pearl hadn't managed to get into the academy. Well, it wasn't like she wanted to anyway, but she sent an art portfolio in and got it returned with a polite letter of decline. Sausage got accepted right away. Fwhip didn't even send in a letter. Even the sister school, Lifen, didn't have a proper engineering course. Besides, dad selected him out of the two of us to take over the café and rebrand it.

I was curious as to what they'd been up to in mine and Sausage's absence. I know that Pearl's running a flower shop, Fwhip inherited the coffee shop, Al - one of Fwhip's old high school friends - was manager at the shooting range, Ex (Al's boyfriend) was one of Fwhip's employees.

I heard that Al was also working with one of Sylvie's friends, Creed. Their partner, Cat, was working at the local history museum. It's quite nice, to be honest. There's just a small friend group, but the smaller the better in this place. You stay with the group you start with.

The air was the same as we walked. The wind whipping my plait against my back. It smelt like home. The trees and shopfronts were decorated the same as before. The Christmas card rooves were the same. Everything was the same, except the people, who were older. A hint of worry and concern in their eyes as they looked at the four of us, muttering to the people next to them.

I was drawn away from the faces by a warm embrace of sound. "GEM!" I heard her Australian tones, a blanket over the ache and pain of not being able to see her in ages. I whipped around, looking at her eyes, like sapphires in the early nighttime. Her hair flew around her shoulder as she ran, almost in slow motion, towards me like a pair of angel wings.

She wrapped her hands around me, holding me in her arms and squeezing me tightly. I smiled, burying my face in her mass of soft brown hair. She smelled like roses and... fire? I've learned not to question her and her fire obsession.  

"I missed you, my dear." She said, weighing my plait in her hand and running her fingers along the bumps of it. 

"I missed you too, sunflower." I smiled, looking up into the eyes of someone I missed so much, the way they watched my smiles and comforted my tears. They're so... her. "How've you been?" 

She smiled down at me, the glittery blue roses in her hair, woven into a neat little crown, glistened in the glow of the street lamps. "Good, good. I do have to run now though-" she glanced down at her watch. "-but Fwhip's in the café. He'd love to catch up!" 

There was something in her eyes as she waved at me, Sausage, Indigo and Sylvie. Something weird. I just wouldn't know how weird for quite some time.