23 A story of brothers

"Should we go next?", Gale asked his brother.

"If you want, you can do it.", Eric answered.

"Hah, even if you begged me I wouldn't let you tell this story! This is too important for you to ruin it."

"Oi oi oi, are you sure you should talk like that to your big brother?"

"How could an idiot like you be the big brother?

Anyway, nows not the moment for this.", Gale put an end to their bickering.

"As you know, Eric and I are brothers. But what you probably didn't know, is that we are twins. Normally, twins would be a sign of good luck, but our case is a little different.

Our father was the leader of a merchant caravan, and he always said that to be the leader of a merchant caravan, you need a strong body and mind. And the one who would end up inheriting the caravan would be the one who had both.

Normally, it should always be the older brother who inherits the caravan, but it seems like they made a mistake when we got born. Shortly after we got both born, it seemed like we looked so identically that even our parents couldn't differentiate between us. But they found out that one of us had a certain birthmark. And since they had only prepared a single crib, since they didn't expect twins, they put us both together.

Alas, they didn't expect to make a mistake, because when they were about to begin the naming ceremony on the next day they realized that the birthmark that was supposed to identify one of us as the firstborn was missing, both of us had not a single birthmark anywhere on our bodies.

In the end, they decided to name us Eric and Gale, even though the older one of us was supposed to get the name Gust.

Later, our father always joked about how he still couldn't be sure who of us is who because they supposedly had to put nametags on us to be able to keep us apart.

Our father was always training both of us together and making us compete, saying that it was fate that the better one of us would inherit the caravan. But in the end, Eric would only become stronger, while I would only become more intelligent.

The people around us started to say that we were amazing talents and that they would be happy if their children would even be half as good as one of us, but they also said that I received twice the brain and Eric twice the brawn.

Our father, on the other hand, got more and more dissatisfied with the situation. All that he could see was me who was too weak to become a caravan leader and Eric who was too stupid, and even when people said that we should just both inherit the caravan together he always said that that was something impossible.

What also didn't help was our five years younger brother that got born the year before. Ironically, he had exactly the birthmark that they thought one of us should have and they ended up giving him the name Gust.

Obviously, we both took good care of our younger brother, but he always was quite mischievous and liked to play tricks on us. What also didn't help was that our father started to favor Gust over us.

In the same way that he said that it was fate that the more suitable one of us twins should inherit the caravan, he suddenly started to say that the birthmark Gust had was a sign of fate.

And every time Gust got away with one of his pranks, he grew more and more daring until we couldn't bear with it anymore. At that point, we decided to take a little revenge to show him how we felt every time he did something like that to us.

The funny thing is, although our way of thinking was pretty naive and I wouldn't try something like that nowadays, it actually worked. After the incident, although he never stopped completely, his pranks became much rarer and pretty harmless. And since he learned his lesson, we got along pretty well again.

The problem was our father, he became very upset and his opinion on us became much worse than it was already.

At that point, it was pretty much guaranteed that Gust would be the one to inherit the caravan, so after a lengthy talk, although I did most of the talking, Eric and I decided to give our full support to Gust. After all, we both understood the problems that would arise if we were to inherit the caravan together. The problem wasn't with us, but with our children. With two leaders, whos children should then inherit the caravan? And that wasn't all, there were several other problems.

So we decided to support our little brother while he would become the new leader, after all, that's what our father had us always taught for and even if we wanted we didn't know what else we should do.

But one day, when we were in a village close to harborton, an accident happened when the caravan was just about to leave. And while I and even Eric were able to understand the severity of the damage that caused to the caravan, Gust didn't, and as just another one of his little pranks, he made it look like it was mine and Eric's fault.

But our father took what he said very seriously and became very angry, and while he gave us a severe scolding, hitting us for the first time in our lives, he ended up officially disowning us and called us a disappointment.

We knew Gust well, so we also knew that he didn't mean anything bad with what he did and that he especially never wanted what happened next, so we don't give him the fault for it, but well, things turned seriously bad after that.

In fact, Gust had been nearby when all of that happened and heard everything, so the first thing he did after we left our fathers room, was apologizing to us. In the end, we all decided that it would be for the best to wait for our father to calm down a little and Gust went to him only about an hour later. But maybe that was an even bigger mistake, and no one of us expected what happened afterward.

When Gust went to our father and told him that it wasn't our fault and we didn't do anything and that he only played a prank on his two older brothers, our father became furious. He turned totally crazy, calling us a disgrace, a disappointment, claiming that we blackmailed and forced our brother to take the blame.

No matter how much Gust cried and begged, our father didn't listen to him and beat us up until we fainted. At the time we woke up, the caravan had already left.

At first we tried following it, but of course, we were much slower, and when we came to harborton, they had already left again. At that point, I couldn't go on anymore because of my weaker body and decided to stay here and Eric decided to stay together with me.

After that, it didn't take long for us to become part of this group, and since then we have been here.

Did I forget something, Eric?"

"Besides mentioning that I'm the older one? I don't think so."

"Are you serious? How could an idiot like you be the older brother?"

"And how could you be the older one? You are weak as shit!"

"Hahahaha!", Alice sparkling laughter sounded through the sleeping city, and a moment later, as if infected by her, the others started laughing as well and even Forster couldn't help but chuckle without a sound at the bickering of the two brothers.

"Hey, you little shits! Get down from my roof!", when they heard this shout, they somehow couldn't stop themselves from laughing even louder while taking their leave, looking for another roof. There were still more stories to be told tonight.