[hider=Further Planning]
High is the sun still and only now are those lazy, whimsical windlings cooling down the sand. Oh, they take their sweet time at their work, so they do, and were they only a little slower and a little sweeter I would consume them for their tardiness, and their enthusiasm would serve a better purpose in me than ever they did on the breeze.

But the afternoon is slow time, even to those wise nobles of the land, as I. The day's tide is finished. I now withdraw little by little, sprinkling the shells upon the shore to bleach. As my sons arrange and bicker over the size of the waves, I hold the scallops and sand-dollars in my hands before they are cast about.

They're elegant, aren't they?

Simple geometries, but they suit their places well, each one unique. My waters trace their ripples and wonder. Such shapes are pleasing to the eye and satisfying to heft, as is Change itself, and the rest of the natural order. As was the chain of amulets that now sits scattered on the currents. My currents.

My currents, of course, that can do so much more than scatter and clean.

Amphipods leap and feast on the tide-lines of shell and sargassum we leave with each shrinking wave. These, too, are strings of ornaments, and together they form a history of a few hours as the waves fall down until they are ready to rise again at dusk. I raise my fist and flick my fingers outwards, sending forth narrow, lateral bands of water that puncture and stretch the curving parallel lines of flotsam, pulling them into an almost checkered shape.

Hah! It is satisfying.

With a clap and a throw and a gesture, I set about pushing the tide-lines into shapes that amuse me. I stretch out thin serpentine streams to make spirals, and pick up larger spheres of water with which to make circles, and model smooth folding curves on the lagoon muscle of my arms and chest. Let the whole foreshore reflect my beauty and ingenuity, why not? My work is not impeded by these shapes in the slightest.

[sub][color=9e0b0f][i]And it's fine work, too.[/i][/color][/sub]

...

My meditation is interrupted by the taste of smoke and crackling dune grass. Familiar scents, from one who comes here one time and another, to taunt me. Coward! I shall show him! With a great, rushing step I ascend from the bay, and my sons rush around my knees. Upon the beach I stand tall.

[color=00a99d]"Pyre, you creeping, sooty mound of twig-cinders! Show thyself and fight, if you are half the Spiryt you wish to be!"[/color]

The simmering weakling devours a spiky heath of green in an orange flourish. With his seven snivelling minions in tow, takes upon his God-given form and stands as tall as I do. No, not [i]as[/i] tall, never as tall. He's just puffing himself up with smoke, the bastard. I foam up a little to stare him down. Two can play his game.

[color=f7976a]"Ah, so calls the craven raindrop from his puddle! Pop that bubble you're standing on to match my stature and set foot on dry land, Flux, that we may duel and show you the gutless tattler you are!"[/color]

His insolence knows no bounds!

[color=00a99d]"Have you still not grown a pair of cullions half as large as your ever-whining mouth, you fuliginous wretch? Mine is the challenge, fair and noble, therefore set foot in the lagoon and match me if you can, or turn your back and snuff out as you ever do!"[/color]

[color=f7976a]"I'll no sooner touch your damp rag of a realm as I'll resort to your sneering cringery, Flux! Have you neither the honour nor the spine to follow through with your empty threats? Nay, you have always been as limp and indecisive as that splash of water you call home, don't I know it!"[/color]

[color=00a99d]"Pah! Steamy words from a flame that has never left his meek, ashen hearth! Step down into my magnificent barony and see how foolish you are to believe so! Shall I wait for you, or do you with to prove yourself a wispy coward sooner rather than later?"[/color]

[color=f7976a]"Such I should have expected from you, unboiled kettle, to slink back into your pond before I..."[/color]

I have already dismissed his snivelling mockery and dissolved back into the water. [color=00a99d][i]That runt![/i][/color] To think he could ever stand against my righteous anger! No, if he had but a smidgen of the power he claimed, he would have come down here and shown it by now. The fact that Pyre calls me ever up into the dust and soot instead of making good on his challenges surely proves that. Can anything be plainer?

Beneath the surface, the thin waves above dapple the light that falls down onto the sandbanks, but their tug is weak. Just enough to make ripples in the sea-dust, where gardens of eels dance in the current and puffers stir up silt to make their patterned [url=http://67.media.tumblr.com/5b6e51cee602c500e360246579af690f/tumblr_nhf6mypOdJ1rl52wjo3_500.gif]nests[/url]. I stir up a sand-swirl of my own, pinch it up over the seabed like a sleek ghost, and watch it make its slow way back down.

No, I will not leave this place to fight him in the dry, brittle dunes above. Here it is beautiful. Here I can make it beautiful.

[sup][color=9e0b0f][i]You can make it beautiful wherever you please.[/i][/color][/sup]

[color=00a99d][i]Silence! I am working,[/i][/color] I clear my thoughts. There is still some time before dusk, and many ways to put these fine hands of mine to use.
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