"Opposite but Exactly the Same" by Anna ´Annarti´ Thomas

Yamin laid her head on her crossed arms on the stone windowsill, sighing heavily and gazing out over the kingdom. The hot, midday sun beat down hard on the red sand, making everything seem to wobble as though she were looking through a flame. Although the sky was bright blue and the desert sand rich red, it was hard for her to distinguish where one began and the other ended.

Her pale sapphire eyes dropped from the constantly changing horizon to the men who had massed outside the strong stone walls of the city. Thousands of men perched on the backs of thousands of horses. Half carried swords and daggers, the other half were armed with bows and arrows, strapped firmly to their backs. At least fifty battering rams lined the rear of the army.

Yamin’s line of sight was drawn, as was that of each of the men below her, to the figure who rode at their head. She wore a long black cape edged in silver that rustled slightly, though there was no wind. Anyone who didn’t know the rider would have put it down to heat distortion, but Yamin knew better. The figure rode a horse whose coat was just as black as her long, wavy hair, now wound around at intervals with silver ribbon that glinted in the sunlight when she moved her head. Her horse’s tail was bound in a similar fashion.

Even from this distance Yamin could see her shimmering silver bracelet, reflecting bright white sunlight from her dark chocolate, almost black skin. She carried no weapons and wore no armour. She didn’t need any. Though she was more than competent with a blade, the sapphire studded bracelet was all she needed.

Yamin straightened and fingered the cool silver of her own bracelet, glancing down at the one remaining blue jewel. The rider had no idea that her bracelet wasn’t the only one of its kind. She didn’t know that once all the gems in it had fallen that she would too. She didn’t even know about Yamin, yet Yamin knew all about the rider.

She was her opposite in every way. Where Nimay thrived in battle, Yamin couldn’t stand it. Even just seeing the army head out on yet another campaign made her feel sick in her stomach. Nimay was energetic and spent her free time in the training yard, while Yamin was reclusive, spending most, if not all of her day in her room in the castle. Rather than use her… attributes to her advantage, she preferred to stay more or less hidden.

Neither girl had spoken a word their entire lives, though Yamin was the only one who knew why. Maybe some day she would meet Nimay, but that day wouldn’t come for a long time yet. She was still too young. Maybe they both were.

Yamin sighed again and pulled herself from the window, taking a brush from her bedside table and pulling it through her long hair, white as starlight and straight as an arrow’s flight. When she had finished she looked down at her pale, delicate fingers, so different from Nimay’s callused brown ones. Opposites in every way, but one thing made them the same.