They grew up demons of the North when they finally found their voices and legs, nearing the tenth nameday. They screamed and shouted at one another and the other adolescents, sticks flying in mock war. A wolf of a boy pounced atop another, beating them down with a mighty howl, while across the way, a girl snaked silently through the overhanging shadows of the homes above. She clipped off her enemy with a mock-weapon to the head, wood popping defiantly as it collided with the skull of another Velheimer girl.
The boy turned at spotting the girl, giving a cheerful hiss of laughter after taking down the neighboring girl- who made no move to warn the victor in their small battle of the boy racing across the snowy dirt towards her. The wolf wrapped his arms around the waist of the snake, twisting and flinging the only slightly smaller lass to the icy dirt. She gave a yell of surprise as she hit the ground before rolling across it to look upwards towards the boy with her features, pale blue eyes staring into her own from above. The boy swatted his twig down to hit the girl, but she easily parried and swiftly kicked his feet out from beneath him, giving victorious laughter as he crashed into the ground besides him, easily captured at the wrists by his female doppelgänger.
Finally, the snake was captured and a swift smack across the face with the stick in the wolf kept her at bay. The two stared at each other a moment, the nose of the girl bleeding, before they broke into loud laughter, it spilling across the yard of the village. The children helped each other off the ground and finally spoke towards each other as the girl was lead home.
"Søster, you're insane. You know I can beat you every time."
"I'm not insane, Bror, you're just fat and hard to shove."
"Fat! This is pure muscle, you silly beast."
"You're the pig here."
"You're a cow."
They snickered among themselves as the old bickering continued, her brother lifting his hand to press under his sister's nose in a lazy attempt at stopping the bleeding. As they finally neared home, they could see a man standing outside the dwellings with their grandmother, their father's mother. Her silver hair swayed as she gave ecstatic laughter and wrapped the warrior of a man into a loving embrace. The children paused on their way to stare forward until the man finally turned with searching eyes and all three found joy in a single moment as the warrior man found the children and the two realized again who he was as they had not seen him in nearly a month.
"Papa!" Their voices laced together as they shouting for the man, racing across the dirt and colliding with him in a shower of furs as the force of his children brought him towards the ground. He laughed heartily, his arms holding the girl and boy close as he murmured towards them with a bold smile.
"How are you, little Axe and Ellie?" He asked, drawing back to take in the features of his children, matching his and their mother's, and each other's, more than anything. They snickered and Ellie- Siselle, his daughter, lifted her hand to brush away the remaining blood from her nose.
"Bror beat me," she said finally in a false pout.
"Then beat him back, Ellie," her father responded with bark of laughter as he brushed his fingers across the girl's injured nose.
"Not right now, though, Søster! I want to spend time with papa." The boy, Aksel, interjected with a glance towards his twin. She cackled a laugh and gave a nod of agreement as the two were lifting from the ground by their standing father. Valbrand Haagenvig gazed over his young children, his fingers brushing over their white-blonde locks with a smile before he swept them inside their home.
For the days and years that followed, all the way to the year 306, when Aksel finally followed his sister's footsteps to join their father in Regalia, the wolf and the snake were one in the same, together and similar as mirrors. One conquered the sea and battlefield as a mighty Northerne warrior while the other wore the crown of all the shadows and secrets she could snatch up. A mighty wolf and a stealthy snake; twin children of the valiant Valbrand.
