The first lesson be humility.

Long before the Golden Age of Peace, before even Auseklis first stepped outside His creche to explore those beyond, I was strongest. It be fact, in those days: most of my brothers and sisters be without interest in battle at all, and after a time only proud Tablack be having the will to challenge Me, each challenge earning Him only a visit to Lantra. In those days, I be proud, ignoring the mutterings of my weaker siblings. What cared I for Their hatred? I had strength, and with it, certainty.

That all vanished, once the others left Their crèches and journeyed outward. Auseklis came in peace, but the ones that followed did not. Some came with “weapons,” deadly sticks of strange, shining stone that They wielded like extensions of Their own bodies. Some came with “magic,” power stolen from the world beyond all My comprehension. Some merely came with strength greater than My own, a bitter realization that came to Me as I lay broken on the plains, the laughter of a dozen red-eyed brutes mocking Me.

***

I know not when They tired of kicking Me across the grasses, but I awoke upon Tablack’s back.

“I can walk,” I growled.

“No, You can’t,” He said flatly.

Truthfully, I couldn’t. I had neither the energy nor the will to do more than lay there. “Leave Me, then. I’ll not tolerate Your mockery again.”

“You’ll not have My mockery,” He said wearily. “But I’ll not leave You. You be going to Lantra. Swiftly as I be able.”

I snorted at that, through a crooked nose. “Why would You, of all people, help Me?”

“Sister…” Tablack sighed. “It be because for all Our battles, We still be kin. Now hush.”

I rode out the rest of the walk in silence, grateful but too embarrassed to say anything else.

***

“This need be stopping, Amonkari,” Aslarn said to Me, as Lantra put Me back together. I’d had little truck with my brothers and sisters for many Ages, but the weaker ones gathered around Aslarn as some sort of speaker for Them all.

“I tried,” I sighed wearily. “But there be nothing I can do.”

“That be what I’m talking about,” Aslarn said irritably, pacing across the grasses. “You be not alone, sister. Be charging in against six of Them all on Your own? Of course you be losing all the time.”

I growled, and only a quick tweak from Lantra kept Me from sitting up and glaring at Aslarn. “Don’t be giving me that. Even if anyone would follow Me like the invaders be doing, it still not be enough. Only Tablack and maybe You be of any real use in a fight. Even with that, there be nothing to make weapons with. No magic to call, unless Lantra here be wanting to heal the raiders into submission.” I felt My sister stiffen in offense at the very idea as She worked on Me. “We have nothing, Aslarn,” I continued, sinking glumly into the grass of My sister’s healing mound. “Wind and grass, that all there be here. Dynara made Us weak.”

Aslarn stood over me suddenly, glaring down. “Wind and grass, My sister,” he growled, “but also each other. While You be making the same mistakes with the Bearded and the Silvers and the Red-eyes and every other howling monster the Creatress saw fit to make, Your siblings be doing this funny thing called learning.”

This be the first I’d seen of His passion: all else I’d known of Him was that infuriating calm, but now I saw a genuine spark in His eyes. I confess I shrank under those eyes of His, not knowing how to handle this unfamiliar anger of His.

“Tablack’s learned some things to deal with them. Volkh’s learned a few tricks as well,” He continued. “Even Nymphale be knowing better than You how to fight these invaders. You can go to Them. You can ask Them how, and if You do it nicely enough, They might share with You.” I opened My mouth to protest, but Aslarn kept on going. “Or You keep doing what You be doing, until Lantra be tired of healing You. Or until all of Us outstrip You in power.”

“You dare?” Lantra dodged back as I sat up, and I hid My surprise at how fast She did it. She always be the worst in a fight, always the slowest, but She clearly be grown. I hid my surprise poorly, for Aslarn smirked.

“You think You be strongest forever, Amonkari?” He asked. “Things be changing. You best be changing too, or be left behind.”

***

“Nymphale, I ask Your help.”

“Nymphale, I need Your help.”

“Sister, I ask Your help.”

I practiced an Age with the empty air, before finally gathering the courage to ask directly. Of course, the first thing She be doing when She saw me be taking flight.

“Wait!” I called, running after Her and taking to the skies in Her wake, but no matter how hard I be pushing Myself, She be pulling away and vanishing over the horizon. It be days before She let Me close enough to speak, and I be chasing Her still, I think, if She not be curious then.

“I don’t want to fight, sister,” She called, finally.

“I not Be wanting a fight either. I want Your help. Please,” I said, with difficulty.

“Why would You want My help?” Nymphale asked coolly. “I be weak, as You be reminding Me each time We speak.”

“I be weak too,” I said, and I realized with sadness that I spoke genuinely. “Please. Aslarn says You know things I do not, things You can teach Me.”

She looked at Me a long while from afar, before smirking and coming closer. “I be flattered,” She said, “but I know not of what Aslarn speaks. I have nothing for You. Truly.”

“You have something,” I said. “How do You move so fast?”

“That? You wanted to know that?” She blinked in confusion, before Her pretty face split into a grin. “You want me to teach You how to dance with the wind?” I hesitated, but like Aslarn, She be swept in a passion the likes I’d never seen in Her before, and for the first time Nymphale overcame Me with Her sheer enthusiasm. “This be great! Of course I can teach You! And then You can move beautifully, and not like one of those ogres with the stinking breath!”

“Nymphale, I don’t move…”

“The first lesson be twirling! Spin, like a loose blade of grass! Spin!”

***

Though the lessons be ridiculous, there be truth to what Nymphale taught. To dance with the wind be to be carried by it, and the wind be everywhere in our home. Twirling, swooping, flying about with its motion, I became fast, unpredictable, and before long none of the invaders could touch Me.

“They get bored and go away eventually,” Nymphale explained to me, as We fled a pack of silver-skinned hooligans. “There be nothing to take. Run, and there be no one to fight. All They can do be to throw insults,” She said. “Like They be doing now.”

“That not be enough, Sister,” I said, and so I found Volkh, hoping He would have something more than running.

I be immediately disappointed.

“Stay with Me, sister,” He said, as We fled a different group of invaders. “They use numbers, and They have more, so We be using Our numbers better.”

“They still be breaking Us if They catch Us, brother,” I noted. “And We not be moving fast enough to lose Them.”

“I know,” Volkh said brightly. “That be deliberate. We be taking Them somewhere.”

“Where be there to go?” I asked incredulously. “Our home be flat land, all the way around.”

“You don’t feel Him?” Volkh said, without concern. “Our brother Rahm be coming this way too.”

“If You think Rahm be saving Us from a stomping, you be crazy, brother.”

“Oh, He will, sister. Because He being chased, too.”

“…what?”

“Get ready to jump.”

I didn’t understand what He meant until I saw Rahm charging in from the right, trailed by a dozen Bearded warriors. We leapt high into the winds, as Nymphale taught Us, taking the gaze of the Savages upwards for that one crucial moment.

Bone and steel collided magnificently behind us as the invaders ran into one another, and soon the three of Us were forgotten as battle broke out between Them. Only the leader of the Savages, a hulking She-brute, seemed to remember Us at all, howling a vicious curse at Volkh as He laughed merrily.

“One day They be getting wise to that,” He said to Me after, as We watched the battle from afar. “Maybe a million years from now. But that be My lesson for You. Know where You are. Know where They are. And know there’s always something for You to use.”

***

“It not be funny to mock You while You be all broken, Amonkari,” Tablack said, grin wide. “But now You be whole, and this be too funny to pass up.”

I just sighed. “Go on. Nothing You say can be worse than the dancing, My brother. And…” I paused in discomfort. “I suppose You deserve it, after everything.”

His grin faded, and He shook His head. “Go and take all the fun out of the moment, why don’t You. You really have changed,” He said, finally. “Very well, then. I will teach You. On one condition.”

“Anything You ask.”

He raised a thick brow at that, but nodded grimly. “You must never.”

“…never?”

“Ever.”

“Yes?”

“Ever.”

“…get on with it.”

“Tell Lantra about any of this.”

“Lantra?” I blinked in confusion. “What does Lantra have to do with any of this?”

“I learned this all from Her. In a way,” He said, and now He looked embarrassed, instead of Me. “She’s used Her gift to put Me back together so many times, I picked up a few things. When She be healing Us, there be places more sensitive than others. She be careful around those. I think I figured out where they all be. Down the center, You see. Top of the head. Brow. Throat. Chest. Gut. Your fun bits.” He snickered a bit at that. “And then the last at the bottom of Your spine.”

“So how does that help?”

“Well, Lantra is careful with those bits. I, however, don’t be.” He grinned widely at that. “Let Me show You.”

I scowled. “You not be touching my fun bits, brother.”

“Fine, fine. Turn around, then. We’ll do the root.”

I grudgingly turned, and soon I felt a light jab between My shoulders. “You feel that?”

“Yes, a light tap. So?”

“Then how about this?”

I let out a yell of surprise, as pain shot through My back, traveling up to my arms and down my legs. I rounded and quickly floored Tablack for His trickery, but He just laughed once He could see straight again.

“I hit You just as hard as the first time,” He said, getting up.

“You certainly did not!” I snapped.

“I did. That be truth. Where You hit be as important as how hard. More, I think.”

I snorted. “Great. So You know strange pain magic now. Does it work on the invaders?”

“It be working on everyone, I think,” Tablack said proudly. “Lantra said all of Us… You, Me, the Red Eyes, the Stones, every one of Us put together by Dynara and the Son… We all be put together the same way. Same bodies, same essence patterns. Whatever that means.”

“So if I poke You in Your fun bits like that, it’ll hurt You?” I grumbled, still tingling from the hit.

“Well, sister, that be awfully forward,” He began, but I cut Him off with a quick jab at His throat. He dodged, and We began battle for what seemed the first time in an Age.

***

“You be grown, sister,” Aslarn said to Me some time later. “Mayhaps You be strongest among Us once again.”

Once, I’d be proud at the praise. Once, I’d be insulted at the thought of not being called strongest. Now, I just sighed.

“Not yet. Tablack still be better at hitting those spots. Nymphale still be faster. And I still can’t make any of Volkh’s tricks work. I be having a long way to go still.”

He smiled softed at that, but it faded quickly. His eyes be distant, troubled.

“What be wrong?”

“So, You not be ready to face the invaders?”

“It be taking some time, Aslarn,” I said, irritably. “But what be wrong?”

 

He sighed. “The Savages took Volkh.”