[hider=Finalised section 11]
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[center][hider=A living being ascends.]
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Flux emerged from the waters of rebirth as a moth from its chrysalis: Slowly, delicately, stretching new-found wings with the purest form of innocent confidence. I bid you watch him, and watch him well.

See the glow of gold and forge-red within his folds and ribbons. This is his soul, for what alighted upon him from the nether worlds was only waiting for he on whom one could be implanted. See too how its light steams and dances over the sea-drops that fall from his body. For he is no longer of water but of oil, infused with fine metals. He has become a thing of paint. Watch, now, as Flux stares into the moonlight of his first morning.

And what moonlight it is! There are six moons aligned in the heavens tonight, and they shine as one, from bright Vigilate to shaded Cogitare. Even the narrow river that had once been Lex seems to sing to its sisters.

Flux stargazes. For some time he continues. He has never seen the moons this clearly before, nor even considered such a display anything more than a waste of his attention.

[color=00a99d][i]They're quite splendid.[/i][/color]

Around him, the islands and bays of what Flux has crafted out of his home are all gone. The surface is still, and, passing over, he does not disturb it. The memory of what was and is now lost to chaos strikes many chords in his heart, but they are tangential, distant things. Indeed, Flux remembers very much, and his memory is true, and he does not stay to live it again. What is seen is seen. What is done is done. I am who I am.

Yivvin is still there, in the artist's mind, where he will remain forever. Flux does not summon him, though he knows that he will come at the call. There is no need. Neither mortal nor god has anything left to say- It is over. Promises have been kept and lost. Those who ascend do not look back. Life is made of pain and pleasure, and regret only blocks both.

Flux was who Flux was, and now he is who he shall be.

[i][color=00a99d]I wonder if I am still 'he'.[/color][/i]

Flux supposes that is not the case, or never was. It is little more than a curious guess. Much about himself he now realises that he does not really know. Nor does he know how long it may take to find out if there is an answer to that question. For now, he remains Flux. There is much that Flux has yet to do.

The shining spirit travels over the water, gently swirling and unfolding and coalescing as it moves. In not so much time, Flux has passed the border of the lagoon he once knew as his, and looks out on a dune-crest over all the lands he has seen and never travelled. [color=00a99d][i]I suppose I never desired to leave behind what was mine. It is a glorious realm.

Then, too, so is this. Perhaps it, also, is mine.

Perhaps this whole world is shared between all those eyes who behold it. Who can say?[/i][/color]

There comes a red glow to the far horizon, and it draws nearer. Flux stays to watch.

It is not dawn.

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[color=00a99d][i]Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;

And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.[/i][/color]

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The wildfire draws near, chasing a shoal of embers ahead of it in a cloud of smoke. They swim like creatures fleeing a sudden noise and Flux traces them in his mind's eye, drawing out the sinuous curves they travel before they die. Soot and smoke roils around them, following its own pattern of revelry as it grows. Flux watches the tide come in, as he has innumerable others, other tides and waves and flotsam. A renewal, a sculpting of elements. [color=00a99d][i]And not beyond my capability to craft and control. Nothing is.[/i][/color] Flux sees it as one evolving whole from the moment it crests the horizon to the moment it halts over his head.

[color=f7976a]"You have left your puddle, Flux. At last."[/color]

It has been years since the spirit last mocked Pyre, and he has grown. Not changed, perhaps, but Pyre's sons number twelve where once there were seven, and he gazes down half again upon the rival he once matched height for height. The flames wreath his legs like a silken robe, barely obscuring the work of muscle below. Smooth shoulder-curves are mantled in smoke.

Flux takes in every stroke of Pyre's body. He is beautiful. [color=00a99d][i]As magificent as I was the day I looked upon the bone-scorpion's necklace. More, even.[/i][/color] As if to feel the surface of Pyre's chest, to touch him and see if he's just a dream, Flux stretches out, slowly, something like a hand.

In a sweeping blow that sears the night air, Pyre slams into Flux's core and tosses him aside, a brilliant flare erupting at the point of impact.

[color=f7976a]"Disgusting,"[/color] he sneers, as Flux reforms upon the ground. [color=f7976a]"That I should in my reign be forced to touch one so cursed. Yet I am brought to do so by a duty; One which I owe to my very self, and to you, slime, for you have abandoned it."[/color]

Pyre advances, leading the blaze behind him, and is not shocked to see his once-rival give way before him, turning aside again to avoid his path. Flux does so at his own leisure. He is an actor of Pyre's stage, now, so let the rightful lead be taken, lest the scene be unbalanced.

[color=f7976a]"When I first met you, you were noble. A high being, as I. Indeed, with patient effort, you may even have one day been worthy to stand before my face and name yourself my true nemesis. Now look at you. A disgrace! Where are the tides of today, that you have spent such years commanding? Where is the handsome figure, that I judged to hold such potential? You have thrown away all that you are!"[/color]

A stamped foot, another blinding fireburst. Cinders flurry upwards and all around.

[color=f7976a]"Your power is wasted upon you now- An insult to your own kin, and a burden to mine, that I must see you to ash and tar when I could be engaging djinni far greater. And yet you have lost even the simple decency to grovel. 

"Hear me well, foam spirit: [i]I came at your own call.[/i] The echoes of your wish for death carried far, and the windlings caught it. Fickle vagrants be they, but even they know well who and what they are. Your words were carried to me, and I came to bestow what final mercy is within my power. I came, across sand and stone, to find you. Now I see you so far rotted that you would kiss your own cancer, and pronounce it wholesome.

"Is there still a shadow of your true self left, Flux? Enough to beg forgiveness for what you have made of yourself, and await your reckoning? Enough to regret? Or is even that flickering hope too dim to last?"[/color]

Now Pyre stands at the head of the dune, and Flux is in danger of falling down its slope. He feels no fear, though the blaze stands shining above him, and the black pillars blot out the stars. No- Flux [i]does[/i] fear. A fear for life and realm. But he consumes that emotion. Relishes it. Tastes the tension, the risk. Flux savours the sensation if impending death, a connoisseur.

His new body comes undone, all but the prism-form that gleams where once there was a face, and fans out in a folded half-circle beneath that peak. The disk splits sixfold, flows, and ripples, and like a moth, Flux ascends on young wings, wings tipped in the squared false-hands of an idol.

The imago rises to match Pyre, who grimaces, but does not give a single sand-kernel worth of ground.  From the fluid pyramid, a face is formed, a visage familiar of old.

[color=00a99d]"It is not right to hold silence to a rival of long years. Behold, Pyre, for now I face you as who I was, and what I am. For these things are not undone. In seasons gone I mocked you, and I am still the mocker. In days past I administered the waves, and I am still a baron, though I now intend to rove the ways of this world, and take to the earth and the skies also, and seek out all that which wanders in hope of the voice of a lord. 

"Gaze upon me, blaze-speaker, and know: This is I. This is Flux. This is the face of the true self, the only self, for it is the face of the moment, the face of [i]now[/i]. And it, like all else, shall change, grow, aspire to greater grandeur. What I was, I was in earnest. What I did, I did with pride, and will soon continue afresh. The only truth in this world is the truth that evolves. Thus I am who I am. No more- And no less."[/color]

And as Flux speaks these words, the first faery drifts down from the blackened sky, and alights upon his forehead. It is a moth, a striated umber moth, and on many wings it watches Pyre with the eye-spots that Flux never had.

The fire-djinn lifts his face to the sky, and exhales a slow plume of red.

[color=f7976a]"You make no apology for the disgrace of your kind and your station. You renounce the words you spake in better senses. You reject the mercy of a wiser Djinn. Very well, Flux. Your decision is clear, and I shall not dispute."[/color]

Then the two powers are swelling, shining, a great blaze and a little glow, and the fire is a sighing, flowering hell of black and yellow, but this oil does not easily catch, and this metal does not easily rust.

[color=f7976a]"...So be it."[/color]

They surge forth.

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[color=00a99d][center][i]I no longer strive to strive towards such things.
Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again.[/i][/center][/color]

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