The first time Gai saw him, he recognized him instantly. It was hard not to;
it was like looking in a mirror that went back in time. The hair was entirely
different, though, tied in a long braid - he remembered it floating in a thick,
transparent liquid - and the eyes of that particular, almost painful width that
meant growing up in the dark.
He did not know who to blame for not turning off the incubator. Or maybe they
had; the clone that crazy mednin had based on him had simply been the most advanced
of the batch. He had been too angry to care about the details.
He did not know who to blame, but as he watched the child run, ignoring the mockeries of his peers with admirable bravery, heavy braid bouncing behind him, as he watched him grow up without the warm and caring family Gai himself had know and still grow up to be honourable and determined, as he watched him try and try again to overcome a limitation that had been built into him by a madman playing at God, he decided that the burn he felt was guilt for not asking about what had been done, for assuming that the experiment - the child - his twin, his son, his other self - had been terminated.
The first time Lee saw him, he didn’t recognize him - he didn’t know; it was better like that - and yet he did; their souls matched. Gai never told him where he’d come from. It didn’t matter anymore. Lee was his own person.
Lee was his beloved disciple. His twin.
His son.