“Yes, now everyone knows why you chose both of them.”
“Stark naked.”
Aiko nodded. “And indeed, they are all sure they are mirror identical twins. It’s not just their eyes.”
I laughed. “Yeah, there’s a lot of mirroring going on.”
Roran groaned and stretched and scratched at his pec. He stopped, and a look of confusion washed over his face as his eyes opened.
“Wait…”
“Welcome home.” I smiled, walking around the bed to stand next to him.
“How… what… wait.” He put both hands on his head, shook it slowly and blinked repeatedly. “Oh, dear gods, I’m so foggy. Did I drink too much?”
“Not that I know of,” Aiko said.
“I’m…” Roran’s gaze landed on me. “Kimber. Where am I?”
“In bed at the stronghold,” I answered.
“We were on the balcony trying to fix the shield. The rock exploded, and…we went somewhere?”
I cocked my head. “You don’t remember?”
“I went somewhere but… I don’t know where. Or wait. Maybe? No. There’s… oof. So foggy.”
“Don’t worry about it for now,” I said, leaning down and kissing his forehead. “You’re here, safe in bed now.”
“Vampire stronghold. Earth. Chile. Yes. Okay, I remember that.” He nodded, and then a line of pain crossed his face. “Okay, no nodding for a while. I really feel like I drank the whole bottle of whiskey.”
“Ouzo,” mumbled Rilen. “It feels like Ouzo.”
“Oh, hell. Do you remember the time we each drank several bottles of that stuff on the ship to Athens?”
“One of my clearest memories of a hangover because it sucked so much. This is close. Did we drink?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” I answered. “We just found you naked and posed strangely in the hall downstairs.”
“N-naked?” Rilen asked.
“Indeed,” Aiko said. “Bared for the world to see.”
“Please don’t tell me they’re going to build another statue of my cock?” Roran groaned.
My eyebrow lifted. “Anotherstatue?”
“Fertility cult in ancient Greece,” Rilen said. “Apparently, we were perfect specimens, and they built a few statues to us. With giant erect—”
“Yes, thank you. Got it.”
“Another mix-up. They actually thought we were the son of a god,” Roran said. “Never realized there were two of us. Changed the story over the years, and it turns out, when we looked it up, they had changed the statue’s name to Priapus. The god of fertility.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “How many other local gods did you two create?”
“Well, there was that one cult in India—” Rilen said.
“No, stop. It was rhetorical.” I waved him off. “You two truly were always making trouble.”
