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Seasons turn slowly. It is, sometimes, difficult to remember quite when summer ended, quite when to expect the first chills to come.

And then, in a moment, the dawn is once again cold enough to hiss up eddies of sea fog to dance among the breezeless air of winter.

As the terns fly south to wait on a warmer clime, I stretch the early waves in my fist and toss them forth into the white-grey. There is little difference between the colour of the air and of the water anymore, and my body too is wreathed in that same veil of mist. If there were anyone here to listen to the chill silence, they would not see me kneel upon the lagoon's surface, holding the winter-steam in hand. Even my sons are wandering elsewhere.

[sup][i][color=9e0b0f]I am here,[/color][/i][/sup]

[i][color=00a99d]No, indeed, I am alone.[/color][/i] Even the windlings have gone to chase other dreams. This shore is mine only, and I can make of it as will and wisdom dictates.

[sup][i][color=9e0b0f]So what do you will?[/color][/i][/sup]

I spring from the lagoon in a gracious pirouette, casting spray onto the beach, and as I trail misty spirals in my passage to the shore the two fluid beams of my arms become many, as spokes on a wheel, sweeping the beach with waves. I settle on the sand, whole again, composed and perfect. 

Ah, but in tending the lagoon, it is easy to forget how good is it to have such a form to come back to at any moment. My body may be old, but I am not as the ephemeral grass and birds and hain and mockdjinn, as those who are left grow old. I simply grow. And I am growing still, now, maybe not in size, but in elegance. I am learning to be both purposeful and beautiful in my work upon the shore. Isn't that the highest virtue, to be as refined as one is strong? Is that not the way shown by all grand things, of the gods, of nature, of change and of my very own soul?

[sup][color=9e0b0f][i]All ways are possible, none are perfect. Each traveller's journey is their own, no one else's.[/i][/color][/sup]

[color=00a99d][i]Yes, to be in harmony with oneself is the highest form of freedom.[/i][/color] That seems the correct set of words for it. I bring the waves with me as I turn on my heels over the shore, twist and somersault back. Today is a cold day, a windless day, and so I must be as subtle and elegant as always, even condensed into my divine shape.

[sup][color=9e0b0f][i]That's not what I meant,[/i][/color][/sup]

Pacing up and down on the shoreline is not a restless action, and leaves no troubled footprint. But it is pacing, nonetheless. [color=00a99d][i]There is no other way. No djinn has ever willingly given over his domain in Galbar and his identity upon its sands, bar those, perhaps, who grow addicted to power. We are high beings, the highest ever who stand below the gods, of whom we are the firstborn and noblest sires.[/i][/color] I brush the tips of the naupaka flowers and spinifex tufts on the foot of the dunes, leaving them draped in dew, my hand weaving and swirling to trace their shape, a shape that I copy out onto the sand below.

[sup][color=9e0b0f][i]No?[/i][/color][/sup]

[color=00a99d][i]None.[/i][/color] And why would I need to confirm it? I know my own nature and that of the windlings and the Tidelords and even that of Pyre, the Vagabond Blaze. Am I ill at ease? 

No. I am confident, strong, and magnificent. I only have to but look back over my barony and raise my voice to watch the mists dance for me, and I with them. I only have to look at the trail of dew-glitter that I leave on a spider's web with my hands to see that I am beautiful, and so too is my realm. It is a deep, comforting knowledge that comes with the artful meditation I am grown so familiar to now.

[i][color=00a99d]And somehow these are the only times when I think like this,[/color][/i]

[sup][color=9e0b0f][i]Like what?[/i][/color][/sup]

[i][color=00a99d]Like I am not quite myself.[/color][/i] I stretch my hand to the lagoon, palm out, and gaze through the liquid fingers. Such perfect fingers. Such a shape. There is a subtle twist to them, a motion, a tug. They are only steady when I put them to use.

[i][color=00a99d]Like I must answer to a voice in my mind.[/color][/i]

...

[color=00a99d]"REEEH-A-AH-HAR-RGH!"[/color]

Like burning, like searing pain I stretch and hurl myself back into the waters and lash out there, heaving great flows of white water and hoping the strain tears away my very traitor limbs. [color=00a99d]"No! False! You lie!"[/color]

The mist dissolves as a breath and under a limp sun I take the lagoon on my back and toss it, crash it down onto me, but the pain is not enough to soothe the rising bile in my soul. My sons scatter from their father. Convulsions rack me and scour the shore with waves and I cannot reach deep enough within myself to tear out this thing, this [i]thing[/i], this voice that has hatched inside me without my knowing. So the waters bulge, and collapse.

How? How so? Of what sin did I partake to be punished?

[color=9e0b0f][i][sup]Calm down. You're damaging yourself.[/sup][/i][/color]

[color=00a99d]"SILENCE, WRETCH!"[/color]

There is emptiness. The booming noise of my tantrum quakes out and away, into silence, and the fog begins to return. But around me there is a tension, a wave that doesn't break but only churns in my clutching, mindless grip.

[color=00a99d]"Silence!"[/color] But the word is a cough, and the surge melts away powerlessly.

[color=00a99d]"[i]Silence![/i]"[/color] Another wave, a perfect circle, smashes the sand as if to clean the whole lagoon of my angst. I cannot feel satisfaction.

[color=9e0b0f][i][sup]Nor will you, until you grow out of your rage.[/sup][/i][/color]

I scream.

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