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“I would be honored,” I said, meaning it. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I knew it would be interesting.
[Come forward, little Jane,] it intoned. [Come forward and open your mind…]
I stepped forward, letting my shields drop away, picturing my mind as an opened Tupperware container. Partly, I figured that the creature could probably take what it wanted, anyway, so I should play along. But, I was also interested.
And while the Tupperware imagery wasn’t the most elegant of visions, it clearly worked…
For suddenly I was plunged into the sea, the water roiling with my siblings’ play as we twined in and out of each other, making knots of our limbs for the pleasure of feeling each other’s touch and the equal pleasure that was the challenge of unknotting ourselves.
The sea was our home and our mother, and in her embrace we played. At night, we took shelter in our father’s arms, a large cave that barely contained our intertwined, sleeping forms.
I’ve been here, Jane True realized. I remember this. You were with me when I slept.
[Yes,] the creature acknowledged. [It was easy to reach you then. But you thought it was all a dream…]
Your sisters and brothers, I realized, horrified at the knowledge that this gentle mind, touching mine, had suffered such loss.
[Yes,] was all the creature replied, and even after all these millennia its thoughts harbored immense grief.
For despite the ages that had passed, I could feel the love and the comfort in that cave of intertwined tentacles. To have had so much, and then lost it all.
“Who killed them?” I asked.
[A cousin. A creature of Fire. It was killed, in return, but that brought me no comfort. ]
No, I thought. It wouldn’t.
“Why did it attack you and your family?” I asked.
[Because it could. Because it was its parent’s creature—mercurial and so hungry. ]
“And your parents?”
[Water and Earth, who lay down together to form the world. We were born of love. ]
“And yet you destroyed so much… your memories are full of death…”
[Yes,] it replied sadly. [But I was created for a world that ceased to exist. In that world, our play was harmless. Later, the world was no longer ours and I no longer fit. ]
“And so you were imprisoned?”
I felt the creature smile in my mind, but it was a sad smile that countered the sense of peace I was still living, nestled in among my (long-dead) siblings. We were still communing in its memories, and it felt like we were narrating one film over another.
[I have things to show you, child. Things that will help you to understand not only your own world and your place in it, but also what you must do next. For I am not the only thing of power left on this planet, nor am I the most dangerous. War is coming, little one. And we must all choose a side. ]
And with that I was pulled out of the nest and into what felt like a stream of memories. I was living them, but it was like they were running in fast forward. Senses, impressions, and sights all streamed into me, through me, but I lived each for every second it took to pass through.
I watched as the world went from the ocean it had been, with a cluster of earth in the center, to a place of continents. Once my kind—for I, Jane True, was still living through this great, elemental being—were mostly eradicated either by accident or design, the elements bonded together one last time. Earth gave matter, water gave substance, air gave breath, and fire gave its spark so that life could once again flare into existence. This life, however, was tiny, embryonic. It stirred around me and I held my very breath for fear of destroying it. Soon, however, it thrived, and developed, ever evolving until the embryo developed into a multitude of shapes and forms. And then it continued changing and growing.
Eventually the seas could no longer contain its multitudes, so life went looking for more space on land. There it thrived, as well, and soon both earth and water contained a plethora of beings so amazing in their variety and splendor that I was happy merely to observe and study.
The land creatures were the most interesting. I’d never forget the development of feathers, nor the first time an ape walked on two legs and had thoughts beyond its next meal or shelter. I rejoiced at mankind, for I could watch them through their dreams, and later, as I developed my powers, through their very own eyes. They were so complex and intelligent. But despite their potential, I knew that fire was in their veins—along with earth, air, and water—and that it was in fire’s nature to flare up and destroy.
When that first human felt my presence in her mind and asked me what I was, I was as shocked as she was. I went deeper and felt her connection to her progenitors: the elements. We were not the same; where I was elemental, she was in touch with the elements, but still she was something more. The next step in human evolution, I taught her to use her connection to the elements to manipulate her world. She could create fire with a touch, shield herself from harm with the air, call to water so that she never remained thirsty, even create shelter out of the barest environment for herself and her family. Finally, I was able to teach her to change her shape, until she swam with me as a porpoise.
The part of me that was still Jane True nearly shat itself at these revelations. Are we all really just humans? I thought. Could all the Alfar mythologies about being a different species be lies?
I also realized something else. Oh my gods, that’s Blondie! I thought, watching the young human woman change herself into a porpoise, and back. Is she that old?
Others were born like that first elemental girl, the one Jane True knew as Blondie. It wasn’t a common mutation, but it happened often enough that I was able to manipulate them to help them find each other. Some, however, lived so far away that I had to teach them myself. I’d learned to guide their powers and their training in their dreams, so they never learned of my existence. But I still loved them, as a parent loves a child, which is why the first one to be murdered hurt so much.
He was only a boy. The first time he called forth fire to warm his freezing family, his father called him evil and slit his throat.
The killings were more common after that. Some of my children were able to create places for themselves in their clans as shamans, or even as demigods, but most were abused, cast out, or killed. I guided the survivors and the exiles together, creating safe havens where they could live together in peace.
I blamed fire for the other humans’ inability to understand my children. But I’d forgotten that fire lived in their veins, as well.
I’d also forgotten that while I was one of the last of the ancient elements left on earth, I wasn’t the last.
It started out as a whisper in the dreams of my most powerful children. In their waking life, they were shielded from me. But sleeping, they were more open. And while I never searched their minds, such sleeping whispers would sometimes intrude upon me.
Their dreams revealed some who wanted more power. More important, they wanted power in order to seek revenge upon those who had cast them out, or hurt them, or killed others like them.
These ones banded together, practicing their magics not to make their lives better and easier, but so they could use their power as a weapon.
Soon enough, this attracted the attention of one of Fire’s only surviving children. He was young—hardly older than humanity—and Fire had made him deliberately weak in an attempt to create something that could survive itself.
On his own, Fire’s progeny could do little. He was just a whisper of flame—but just as a single match could start a blaze that burned down half a continent given the right conditions, he knew he’d found the perfect kindling in my children.
He whispered to them of an artifact: a child of earth who had laid down to rest in its parent’s bosom, and had died there. Reabsorbed, its corpse had added to the power that now fed my little elementals. But i
t had left part of itself behind.
“… a single horn, like that of a bull,” Fire’s child whispered. “With which you can magnify your power beyond your imagination. You can become as gods…”
Some of my children left in the night, guided by the flame that led them, like a will-o-the-wisp, to their doom.
The horn was found and brought back. Its magic was unleashed…
Suddenly the memory I was living slowed, until I was in the moment again, watching everything unfold from the creature’s viewpoint behind one of its children’s eyes.
I watched as a young woman stepped forward, holding aloft a bull’s horn the length of her forearm. Her tattooed forearms…
Blondie, I realized, my heart thudding in my chest. She was there, at the beginning, and here, as well?
My friend was obviously making a speech, gesticulating vehemently with both her free hand and the horn. Around me, some of the other people’s faces reflected agreement, others concern, others confusion, and a few anger.
One of the angry-faced beings—a young man, who looked very similar to Blondie—stepped forward, confronting the Original. They were up in each other’s faces, while panic shot through our host’s system. He was obviously terrified by the proceedings, and feeling his panic made watching the scene a whole other level of experience.
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