Crimson & Cream

“Jetsam!” his twin brother Flotsam whispered from beneath. “Get down! We shouldn’t be here.” He tugged on his sibling’s ragged pant leg. The second-hand russet breeches were ill-fitting and already too short for the growing youth. Jetsam’s trousers, like his wrinkled tunic, were swiped from a peasant’s clothesline.

Flotsam and Jetsam the twins had been dubbed upon being fished from the Jade River by the sewer orphans. Nicknames stuck to the urchins like greasy dirt. Renaming was an unceremonious rite of passage for the orphan gang. Adopted into their clan eight summers ago, the siblings’ real names faded away with so many other bad memories, like a dream of a past life.