History

Leandro was born somewhere along the coastline of southern Brazil, his mother and father having gotten in the back of a van with a group of migrant workers traveling north from the Uruguay border and towards Rio de Janeiro. Whether they knew he would be there sooner than not they never told him, but somewhere along the coastline his mother had felt his approach, and one of the women travelling with the group had escorted her out of the vehicle, and onto the beach - his father holding him for the first time as the sun rose up.

He grew up a happy enough kid, seeing beautiful things in the everyday - finding that even in simple pleasures one can find some way to explore and discover joy. His love of food, heavily spiced and colorful along with his love of running, jumping and playing anything under the sunlight made and kept him healthy and made him popular enough with the kids who lived with him on their somewhat impoverished streets. Kicking an old an run down ball down the road along old cars and graffitied homes, he rarely felt the troubles that came with his father struggling to hold a job, and his mother's - then still - unrevealed sadness.

He was never a good student and while his parents and teachers seemed to wish the best for him, his distracted nature and his boundless energy seemed to convey to them that he would never be one to sit still. A passing grade was a passing grade and that was good enough. He would still be able to find a job somewhere, and they would make do eventually - as they always did.

He was ten when his father left them, having to go off shore and work on an oil-platform south and away from him and his mother. He missed the man, and when he stopped coming home a few years later he accepted it with a stiff upper lip, for both his sake and that of his mother who seemed to struggle more and more.

Then, the dreams started. He saw someone in them - himself? A reflection of a person he felt he knew yet seemed so very foreign to him It took him a long time to finally tell his mother of the boy that seemed to watch him when he slept, having been unable to expect the reaction he got from her. She cried and shouted and blamed and ignored him - and in between the noise he managed to figure out that he was not the only one born on that beach so many years back - just the only one to survive the birth.

He had a twin. His mother then believed the spirit of his brother was haunting him, and Leandro quickly came to believe the same, as mirrors seem to show another boy more often than not - reacting, moving, talking - reflecting him... and sometimes others. The reflection showed Leandro people from far away, he saw forbidden things that people did when they thought no one was looking - and one day... he found that his brother could even take him away, through these silver doors to other places.

That was years ago, and much of this had become nonsense to him. His mother now lived retired and alone in a beautiful house in a protected resort, and they had not spoken in a while. He figured that the reflection was not his brother, but his own - simply offering him the powers that it seemed no other had. And he appreciated it. The power felt good. Curse or no, he magic or no, whatever it was - it was useful. It allowed him to travel. To see. To experience. To learn. To pack his bags, and step into worlds so distant and foreign.

He made friends. And enemies. Played cards. Drank with models. Shared secrets. Carried wealth and art and drugs and all those things all over - until those things became a job and so became boring and then were done only to keep the people with the power and the money at his side. And so the list of people who were unhappy with his unnatural advantages - secret they may still be - started hunting and tracking and trying to secure the boy that seemed to be everywhere, knew everyone and always had some sense of how the game was going to play out.

Until he finally got that damn letter - and he realised how tired he was from running. Tired he was of distraction. Tried of, in those dark moments, still worrying about Ordnael - his mirrored twin, and that one day, maybe, it would be him stepping through the mirror, leaving Leandro behind the glass.