"Twins" by Cristina Marsi

Illustration for the Fanes saga.

Once upon a time, in a hidden valley among the Pale Mountains dwelt a people called Fanes. They had hidden there many centuries before, to escape from their enemies and for a long time they had managed to live peacefully, attending their flocks and growing barley and wheat. A treaty with the neighbouring people of the Marmots assured stability to their borders, but there was a condition: whenever in the royal family two twins should be born, one was to be sent to the allies, to be brought up according to their lifestyle...

And one day the queen gave birth to two beautiful girls. Although they were twins, they could have never been more different. One of the twins was blond, lively and shining like the sun and was called Dolasilla. The other was pale and quiet like the moon and was called Lujanta. The king was not very happy: he would have preferred two boys, to bring them up like warriors, since he was a mighty king, with great ambitions and the peaceful life in the hidden valley didn't suit him... The king didn't belong to the Fanes people, he had just married the queen, and didn't know about the ancient treaty... had he known however, he would have laughed, since he despised the peaceful and sleepy Marmots.

So the ambitious king made his own treaty with the fiery Eagles, under similar conditions... And one night, as the queen was sleeping, he sent one of his squires with the twins all wrapped in blankets to the top of the Sass dla Porta, the mountain overhanging his realm, so that the Eagle king could choose the twin he wanted. When the squire came back to the castle with the little Dolasilla, the queen was overwhelmed by joy. Lujanta, in fact, had already been secretly sent to the Marmots and the little creature the eagle had taken away with him was a marmot cub. But the treaty with the Eagles was broken, and also the Marmots, still faithful to the queen, refused to have anything to do with the unloyal king and retreated in their hidden tunnels... For the Fanes people a long period of war and destruction was to begin...

Gouache on paper. 30*42 cm