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She fell like a half-extinguished star.

Trailing a slender stream of smoke, Whisper flickered, her fluorescence wavering as it passed distilled moonlight between her cellular organs, juggling pulses of muted colour. Her descent slowed as it neared its end until, fluttering, she bottomed out and hovered above the substrate at the floor of the nitrogen sea.

Whisper had some idea of where she was, but didn't know what it meant. One can look at a world a thousand times without ever knowing what separates the green from the blue, or why the white swirls dance as they do. She had been here, many times, had been born here even; But Galbar was not, and had never been, home.

Jvan was, perhaps, watching, or perhaps she was not. So it is with all Sculptors. Her voice would come if it was called, had she been able to project it, and lend aid- But Whisper did not call. That silent agreement had been passed long ago. If her role was to develop, she would do so, insofar as she was able, by herself.

But that didn't mean she was on her own. Alone among the Diaphanes, Whisper has a second family to call on.

The tentative note she sang into the ether was echoed back to her as a playful melody, then again with a haunting resonance. The Distant Dance is less and more than triangulation alone, and where the voice of Galbar's strange once hummed their way to the Fae God alone, now she was little more than a drum on which they resounded to one another, one voice among the scattered multitude.

Whisper followed the tune of her brothers, too tired to think, too determined to eat. Exhausting though her fall had been, the energy that thrummed in her blackened blood knew no limit. Her sleepwalk-song rang clear through the telepathic medium, and the Fae Folk made it into a harmony. Together they urged her on, one in friendship, one in taunt.

Hoo-oh, eh-ey, eh eh oh
Turn back, little ghost
And sink into your grave;
Your courage left you long ago
Your soul it cannot save.
Turn your head and swear not
To ever leave your post;
Turn away and look not
If you're truly brave.

Twist my heart into a knot,
Tie it to your mind
This world will eat you headfirst and
Your way you will not find.
You do not listen, little ghost
You're wandering too far
You're drifting further than the most
And do not know you're blind.
Hoo-oh, eh-ey, eh eh oh
Hoo-oh, eh-ey, eh eh oh.

The song was passed from Sculptor to Sculptor, and was heard in that region for many days after.
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The village was built to a scale never meant to accommodate a change-eater, in an environment foreign to her preconceived ideas of nesting. Nevertheless it was obvious from many miles away what Whisper was approaching: A place to roost, a place to live and raise young. A home.

The huts clustered like gaian coral, varied in size and somewhat in shape, too, and still clearly all of a kind. They were built of clay and sticks, but well, tidy domes and cones of arid brown. Acacias shaded the village and its surroundings, and a river quietly journeyed nearby, where fishing boats and crocodiles alike lazed on a sun-warm bank and waited for the night.

There were more houses than there were hain, for though this place was one of fishing and baobab fruits, the lands around belonged to the human herders of cattle and goat, and it was custom in this land to give shelter to wanderers; even if they are tall, and arrive with their children and children's children, and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and four hundred head of cattle beside. So this place was well-travelled among the Golden Barrens; Indeed, there was even a road, of sorts, to the glass grove where the people of all these tribes brought their dead if they could not rest.

This road had been worn by the feet and knuckles of the earthen folk, who were also among the wanderers of this land, and when the giant being of once-gaudy bubbles and far-too-colourful eyes arrived like a bark painting made real, it was the slumbering tribe of Urtelem that assured the hain not to run. Instead they hid in their huts and looked on uneasily, for though a storm means no harm it is no less frightening for its power, and the eyes of the stone men do not open at the passage of leopards and mambas, who mean no harm and yet are no less dangerous to the likes of visiting humans.

Whisper knew why she was received as she was, for the history of the gods had been taught her long ago and she remembered well why hain do not stare long at the light of the Woven Moon, and exile those who turn their face from family for the sake of toys and bruises. How much more so would they shy away from a living weapon, a hunter larger than any elephant or djinni they had yet seen?

So she was patient, and did not stray too close to the little town but stayed at its edge, much like, had she only known it, a certain king had done in a different place and a different time not so long ago. And she did not stay in her resting form, nor condense to the war-stance of the Fourfold Fish, nor dissolve into smoke, but pulled herself with great skill into the shape of a Galbaric mortal.

It was not a perfect imitation, or even a passing one. Nothing could hide her size, nor her colour, though stretching herself into limbs agitated the dripping flow of darkness in her body. Her flesh remained a collection of vessels and bladders of fluid, with two stilted legs, two trailing arms, a slouched back and an oversized head-bulge with five huge circular eyes. She might have been a hain or a human or an urt, or a baboon, even- She was a painting, a symbol, far removed from physical reality. But it was all she could do and it strained her. Entropites are not shapeshifters by choice but by instinct, and poor mimics. Each set of stances is unique to its owner. It would take a lifetime with mortals to truly be at ease walking among them, and surely no change-eater had ever lead such a strange life.

Whisper stood there as midday came and went and her body began to drink sunlight and air, aching for sustenance other than the raw energy of Jvan's curse. And she did not wait in vain.

For the Second Hatching is strong, and its children are many. When the cruel spirits came and struck out at them for following the ancient ways, the hain did not yield, for no being can destroy a culture by threat alone. Yes they hid away in pits disguised as porcupine burrows and in the reeds where crocodiles watched, but there was no more shame in this than there had always been, and the wilderness had always been on their side, in its way. No, if anything, a strange breed of sympathy came over them in the wake of Basheer's passing. For what was more monstrous, in the end- Their childhood fears, or those that demanded they retain them for selfish cause?

First an elder, who feared little from death, leaning on a staff as she went to wake the stone matriarch. Two heads are ever better than one, and oftentimes an urt's is quicker than a hain's. Together they greeted the stranger, and offered her shelter, as was custom in these parts. And they conversed.

Whisper spoke in the Fae Tongue, and signed it, too, her gestures as bizarre as her voice. She said she had come to seek wisdom, and to hear the voices of all the world. With patience and curiosity she listened to the story of the tribe, and inscribed every word upon her heart.

Then others came, and Whisper greeted all who would come, bidding them to speak, so that she may hear.
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------->

Many songs were shared that day. This was one of hers.

Open ways on a desert track
Water bags on an ass's back
Lowing beasts and a long-horn bull
Fire's bright, but the moons are full
And so we pray

Dance, dance, caravan
-For the gods we dance
Dance, dance, wander-folk
-Until the day is young
Sing, sing, desert man,
-For our loves we dance
Sing, sing, to the smoke
-Feel magic on your tongue

Hardened hooves and a broken bone
Leopards wait 'til you're alone
Water's gone and the fire's dead
On these desert tracks we bled
Yet still we say

Dance, dance, caravan
-For the gods we dance
Dance, dance, wander-folk
-Until the day is young
Sing, sing, desert man,
-For our loves we dance
Sing, sing, to the smoke
-Feel magic on your tongue

Though the people of the river begged Whisper to sing a song of her own people, her quiet stubbornness defeated them all one by one, and her music remained only of the kind that they themselves had taught her. Eventually, well after night had fallen, Whisper asked the elder to teach her a farewell, and she repeated it; And then she burned away into a dirty smoke and left that place on the wind.

In the morning, the foraging hain found the remains of a bull elephant in a field of fine ash. There was no ivory for them to salvage, nor any decaying flesh, or even bones; Only the tip of its trunk and a few of its teeth. The foragers turned their back on that place, and said nothing. For the memories of last night were clear in their minds, and among them was this: That they had offered much food to the stranger, and yet she had eaten nothing at all.
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Whisper followed a kinked and random trail as she travelled, roaming, without no destination but the next village on the horizon, wherever it may be. She learned. The red rune began to shift and shuffle on her surface, finding the right configuration.

It will not have polarised inflection, nor superimposition of voices, she thought to herself. I'll retain as much as I can, but it will be entirely kinetic and kinesthetic.

She had maintained what passed for a low profile, given her dealings with the mortals. Not all had been as pleasant as the first, but she could endure being skewered by arrows and slingstones, learn at the point of a spear. It was painful, and it was exhausting, and Whisper would have it no other way. For all this she hunted rarely, ate little, and strained against every instinct that told her to follow the scent of elemental magic. Life had become a tasteless well of determination and divine sustenance.

The Djinni came for her anyway, as she knew they would. But they were small. They'd stumbled on her trail by accident and curiosity and the word of their mortal allies. They were not killers like she was.

The first was an air spirit, a hot sandy gust of the type that shamans send to plague their enemies in the desert. He kept his distance, and Whisper's suffering became impatience.

"Show yourself," she said to the creature that thought it was hidden. "You're not in danger."

It was a mistake; the djinni was large enough to speak yet too small to materialise, and so she had humiliated him. A biting zephyr of grit whipped across her surface.

"I don't need to show anything to the likes of you, Yivvinitic beast. Don't you know that these lands are preserved and guarded by my brothers? And the whole world, too, besides!"

"Yes," said Whisper, choking on the little pride she had. "I'm the intruder here."

Her honesty seemed to take the spirit aback somewhat. "You admit it, then? Hah! Even Yivvin's own abominations admit to what a pitiful life she has given them! Go back to her, monster. I hear she keeps a menagerie of other ugly animals in the sea with her."

It burned at her brighter than the blue-filtered sunlight, the awareness of how vast she was in comparison to the being she now had to submit to. How easily she could just... Reach out and scoop him out of existence, like a spoonful of dirt. He could not understand the magnitude of her power, nor her pain. He was nothing, walking a road to nowhere, somehow blocking the holy way of a lord among monsters.

Whisper pressed the comfort of those cathartic thoughts aside. No, she was not here to claim the supremacy she so easily could; she was here to suffer. Of course. Who am I kidding?

"I can't do that," she finally said. "Yivvin cast me out. She is unfair." Blaming Jvan helped. Besides, most of the blame actually did fall on her.

"Then I recommend you die, lowly creature. If not even the Cancer God would accept you, then you must be vermin indeed." A twitch was the only sign of how close the Djinni came to death.

"Can't." She flexed amoebically, rocking back and forth, wishing for the encounter to end. "I need a song. Will you sing for me?"

This, too, was confusing. The wind spirit soon reasoned an answer to this fresh mystery, however. "Ah, so you're one of the Yivvinite Monks! And stranger than any legend I've heard of them, too. I'd thought the honourable Lord Murmur had already rid this land of your kind. No, devil, I won't sing for you."

There was a pause, neither party willing to leave. The elemental was too curious, the change-eating Sculptor too determined.

"I swear, by every God more righteous than my own," grated Whisper at last, voice so quiet it could be mistaken for shadows creaking, "That for each verse you give me between now and sundown, I will let you land one blow on my body. And not hit back."

That got him. Sadistic bastard.

"Dare I say, I wouldn't much care if you did hit back, exile," scoffed the Djinni, and burst into rhyme.

"For listen now,
And listen long,
Be not morose,
And hear my song-"


The wind seared Whisper's side in a burst of heat.

"Your vermin kind,
Your ugly folk,
Will soon unwind
As Nature's joke."


Again the hissing gust. Whisper hardened herself, forming an exoskeleton.

"Rhyme harder, boy.
Don't be so coy.
Your words are soft-
A baby's toy.


I'm here to learn.
You're here to burn.
I'm waiting, brat.
Go take your turn."


The spirit halted, as if shocked to find that things wouldn't be so easy after all. "You'd challenge me to flyte in the middle of our fair and honest exchange?"

"Never said I wouldn't," muttered Whisper.
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Two to the one to the one to the three, "I like good pussy and I like good tree." Smoke so much, it's like you wouldn't believe, and I get more ass than a "...toilet seat." eriworjeiworjoewr Two to the one to the one to the three, "I like good pussy and I like good tree." Smoke so much, it's like you wouldn't believe, and I get more ass than a "...toilet seat." Two to the one to the one to the three, "I like good pussy and I like good tree." Smoke so much, it's like you wouldn't believe, and I get more ass than a "...toilet seat."

Two to the one to the one to the three, "I like good pussy and I like good tree." Smoke so much, it's like you wouldn't believe, and I get more ass than a "...toilet seat." Two to the one to the one to the three, "I like good pussy and I like good tree." Smoke so much, it's like you wouldn't believe, and I get more ass than a "...toilet seat." eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Two to the one to the one to the three, "I like good pussy and I like good tree." Smoke so much, it's like you wouldn't believe, and I get more ass than a "...toilet seat."
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None of Whisper's encounters with djinni were as taxing as the first, and she came to regret not consuming the vengeful sprite when she had the chance.

Not to say that any of them were easy. No elemental approached her with any sentiment more positive than a sick curiosity. A longing to reach out to the taboo and come back unscathed. Sculptors had always been a bitter rarity, and now there were even fewer. The fae blessings kept them safe but could not aid their regrowth. Deprived of any real object for their prejudice bar the (for the most part) still and silent lens that Urtelem so defended, the djinni she met expected a variety of strange things, holding- though they claimed to know better- superstitions not unlike that of the mortals.

That she would use metal wands to enchant any who looked upon her and reduce their minds into an infantile state. That she came from the moon Azmund-Y'Vahn, whose colours derived from stained glass, and was borne down in the belly of a gigantic, fattened grub. That everything beautiful she touched would turn to dust, and so she worshiped everything ugly.

The last one Whisper found oddly chilling, though she knew it wasn't worth dwelling on.

For the most part she got what she wanted out of the spirits. Allowing them to feel validated and powerful by not fighting back, even acting wounded, played neatly into the elemental ego, at least while they were small and foolhardy. Some simply feared or respected her enough to speak with her.

Those that were too cautious, or large enough to report to others without simply being absorbed like dust in the wind... She'd been in fights, all of which she had won. Whisper told herself to be grateful for the nourishment. And the scarlet rune iterated on.

Past, future, present, perfect. Indicative, conditional, imperative, subjunctive. All denoted by consistent affixes respectively before and after the infinitive stem- An adverb for continuity. Stems linked by phonetic and kinesthetic similarity to a noun of high association. If they feel confused, they can point to what they want... That might offend them.

...

Whisper encountered her next conversational partner entirely by chance.

Deep in thought and looking out for communities and spirits rather than lone wanderers of the type that rested between the lichenous boulders below, the change-eater swept over Zotash'e like a cirrus cloud of unnatural speed and colour, and she held her breath as it passed, exhaling only to see it turn and rush back before her quickened heart could slow.

It was no lie, found Zotash'e, that one's memories flicker into vision when Death grows near. Though she still leaned flat against the boulder as if to hide her shadow, she turned her head towards the Abomination and the fluttering, crackling hums that it made. And she raised her staff to it.

"Back," breathed Zotash'e.



Her wrist was shaking and she knew it, but the initiate only tightened her grip. "Get back," she repeated, mouthing, "for Zephyrion is with me." She went on. "And the children of Vetros do not die easy to such as you."

The monster seemed to understand, but it did not leave her. The cloud of black and blackening hues settled onto the earth and... Congealed, coagulated, into a cluster of misshapen bubbles. For a moment she thought she saw a flicker of deep red. It leaned in, and then-

Zotash'e screamed, and the thing receded from her. Quartz shards began to jut from her fists as she held the staff before her, now in a warrior's stance. It was a tiny flicker of a djinn, but it was the only one that followed her.

"You know Zephyrion?" came the whisper again.

"Yes!" yelled the initiate. "God is with me and He protects. And I know of you, too. I know the one that sent you."

"...Of course," said the thing, in its voice of perfect clarity, and, Zotash'e realised, a deep tiredness. "How?"

"...How what?" she blurted, knowing that there was some wise shamanic retort she should be able to give and lacking any idea of what it was.

"How is he with you," repeated the monster, "if he's been banished?"

"What?" More indignant confusion, but she knew she had to say something. "God is in all things. He is all-seeing, all-powerful, and no force could banish him, for He is righteous."

"..." The being flicked. Something told Zotash'e that it was not in fear. "I see." There was a pause, and she could have run, had she not seen the speed at which this spawn of Y'vahn had crossed the sky. "You know these things. Tell me about them."

No, the shaman-to-be realised, not without a touch of youthful hubris. No, she would not die today. This was not the thing that had bloodied Vetros. This was not the Emaciator that the good king had described. This was part of the other Y'vahn, the one that drove the possessed monks mad and made them into demons. But she was safe. She would soon be- She was a shaman. Zephyrion would be with her. Did not the writings say that there the path of the righteous is hallowed ground?

"...About what?"

The eye turned on her again and this time she saw that there were many of them. "That spirit."

"Oh..." The crystal spikes on her fists rippled. "This, ah, is a lesser djinni of earth. I've bound it to me by- Using the shamanic arts of my mentor."

Zotash'e realised that it might be heretical to divulge such knowledge to an agent of the Enemy, but the whisper was sharper than that.

"Shamanic arts."

"Yes. Of course. Don't you know of them?"

"Only heard," said the demon. Zotash'e got the strange and sudden impression that it was a foreigner. Which was, she supposed, accurate, but...

"It is... How those chosen by Zephyrion, and by His chosen in turn, exert authority over the world we have inherited," she began, repeating words usually taught to children. "The djinni come to know us by name and by voice, and we them. They lend us their power, if we treat them with due respect and- Fellowship, and sometimes perform certain rites that, um, please them. Sometimes the smaller ones become bound to our will, or develop a trusting friendship with-"

The creature's voice was as soft as a feather and as sharp as a knife.

"You earn the loyalty of elementals by just talking to them?"

Zotash'e saw a vision of her mother wrapping her bruised knee and gulped. "...Yes?"

There was quiet.

"Sing something," ordered the being. A kind of vocal fry had entered her voice. The glowing fluids within her were roiling.

"I, uh, I..."

Whisper writhed, no longer listening. The bubbles contorted and shriveled, and suddenly Zotash'e saw teeth, claws, spines, segmented tentacles- that spread and blocked the sky above and burned marks into the air and-

"How?" fizzed the voice. "Tell me. How. Did. She. Do. This. Tell me. Tell. Me."

"I..." Zotash'e had fallen, had stumbled back under the weight of starved rage that flowed from the sprawling demon above and around her, and she was crying. And she knew that somewhere, deep in the light, under the stains, it was crying, too. "Sister, I-"

"How did she do this to us? HOW COULD SHE DO THIS TO US?"

No answer.

* * * * *


Today I met a girl of earth
With feet of clay and bones of loam.
I met her in a barren place
Where solemn spirits roam.


I met her in the border land
'tween peace and war and lust and chaste.
We sang together for a while
Of hate and death and haste.


Tomorrow is another day
That I must bear alone.
My girl of earth knows not the sins
For which I must atone.


One day beyond the final veil
I'll meet my girl of earth again.
A sinner's cross I'll bear no more
And I will find her then.
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Whisper.


She fell like a half-extinguished star.

Trailing a slender stream of smoke, Whisper flickered, her fluorescence wavering as it passed distilled moonlight between her cellular organs, juggling pulses of muted colour. Her descent slowed as it neared its end until, fluttering, she bottomed out and hovered above the substrate at the floor of the nitrogen sea.

Whisper had some idea of where she was, but didn't know what it meant. One can look at a world a thousand times without ever knowing what separates the green from the blue, or why the white swirls dance as they do. She had been here, many times, had been born here even; But Galbar was not, and had never been, home.

Jvan was, perhaps, watching, or perhaps she was not. So it is with all Sculptors. Her voice would come if it was called, had she been able to project it, and lend aid- But Whisper did not call. That silent agreement had been passed long ago. If her role was to develop, she would do so, insofar as she was able, by herself.

But that didn't mean she was on her own. Alone among the Diaphanes, Whisper has a second family to call on.

The tentative note she sang into the ether was echoed back to her as a playful melody, then again with a haunting resonance. The Distant Dance is less and more than triangulation alone, and where the voice of Galbar's strange once hummed their way to the Fae God alone, now she was little more than a drum on which they resounded to one another, one voice among the scattered multitude.

Whisper followed the tune of her brothers, too tired to think, too determined to eat. Exhausting though her fall had been, the energy that thrummed in her blackened blood knew no limit. Her sleepwalk-song rang clear through the telepathic medium, and the Fae Folk made it into a harmony. Together they urged her on, one in friendship, one in taunt.

Hoo-oh, eh-ey, eh eh oh
Turn back, little ghost
And sink into your grave;
Your courage left you long ago
Your soul it cannot save.
Turn your head and swear not
To ever leave your post;
Turn away and look not
If you're truly brave.


Twist my heart into a knot,
Tie it to your mind
This world will eat you headfirst and
Your way you will not find.
You do not listen, little ghost
You're wandering too far
You're drifting further than the most
And do not know you're blind.
Hoo-oh, eh-ey, eh eh oh
Hoo-oh, eh-ey, eh eh oh.


The song was passed from Sculptor to Sculptor, and was heard in that region for many days after.

* * * * *


The village was built to a scale never meant to accommodate a change-eater, in an environment foreign to her preconceived ideas of nesting. Nevertheless it was obvious from many miles away what Whisper was approaching: A place to roost, a place to live and raise young. A home.

The huts clustered like gaian coral, varied in size and somewhat in shape, too, and still clearly all of a kind. They were built of clay and sticks, but well, tidy domes and cones of arid brown. Acacias shaded the village and its surroundings, and a river quietly journeyed nearby, where fishing boats and crocodiles alike lazed on a sun-warm bank and waited for the night.

There were more houses than there were hain, for though this place was one of fishing and baobab fruits, the lands around belonged to the human herders of cattle and goat, and it was custom in this land to give shelter to wanderers; even if they are tall, and arrive with their children and children's children, and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and four hundred head of cattle beside. So this place was well-travelled among the Golden Barrens; Indeed, there was even a road, of sorts, to the glass grove where the people of all these tribes brought their dead if they could not rest.

This road had been worn by the feet and knuckles of the earthen folk, who were also among the wanderers of this land, and when the giant being of once-gaudy bubbles and far-too-colourful eyes arrived like a bark painting made real, it was the slumbering tribe of Urtelem that assured the hain not to run. Instead they hid in their huts and looked on uneasily, for though a storm means no harm it is no less frightening for its power, and the eyes of the stone men do not open at the passage of leopards and mambas, who mean no harm and yet are no less dangerous to the likes of visiting humans.

Whisper knew why she was received as she was, for the history of the gods had been taught her long ago and she remembered well why hain do not stare long at the light of the Woven Moon, and exile those who turn their face from family for the sake of toys and bruises. How much more so would they shy away from a living weapon, a hunter larger than any elephant or djinni they had yet seen?

So she was patient, and did not stray too close to the little town but stayed at its edge, much like, had she only known it, a certain king had done in a different place and a different time not so long ago. And she did not stay in her resting form, nor condense to the war-stance of the Fourfold Fish, nor dissolve into smoke, but pulled herself with great skill into the shape of a Galbaric mortal.

It was not a perfect imitation, or even a passing one. Nothing could hide her size, nor her colour, though stretching herself into limbs agitated the dripping flow of darkness in her body. Her flesh remained a collection of vessels and bladders of fluid, with two stilted legs, two trailing arms, a slouched back and an oversized head-bulge with five huge circular eyes. She might have been a hain or a human or an urt, or a baboon, even- She was a painting, a symbol, far removed from physical reality. But it was all she could do and it strained her. Entropites are not shapeshifters by choice but by instinct, and poor mimics. Each set of stances is unique to its owner. It would take a lifetime with mortals to truly be at ease walking among them, and surely no change-eater had ever lead such a strange life.

Whisper stood there as midday came and went and her body began to drink sunlight and air, aching for sustenance other than the raw energy of Jvan's curse. And she did not wait in vain.

For the Second Hatching is strong, and its children are many. When the cruel spirits came and struck out at them for following the ancient ways, the hain did not yield, for no being can destroy a culture by threat alone. Yes they hid away in pits disguised as porcupine burrows and in the reeds where crocodiles watched, but there was no more shame in this than there had always been, and the wilderness had always been on their side, in its way. No, if anything, a strange breed of sympathy came over them in the wake of Basheer's passing. For what was more monstrous, in the end- Their childhood fears, or those that demanded they retain them for selfish cause?

First an elder, who feared little from death, leaning on a staff as she went to wake the stone matriarch. Two heads are ever better than one, and oftentimes an urt's is quicker than a hain's. Together they greeted the stranger, and offered her shelter, as was custom in these parts. And they conversed.

Whisper spoke in the Fae Tongue, and signed it, too, her gestures as bizarre as her voice. She said she had come to seek wisdom, and to hear the voices of all the world. With patience and curiosity she listened to the story of the tribe, and inscribed every word upon her heart.

Then others came, and Whisper greeted all who would come, bidding them to speak, so that she may hear.

Many songs were shared that day. This was one of hers.

Open ways on a desert track
Water bags on an ass's back
Lowing beasts and a long-horn bull
Fire's bright, but the moons are full
And so we pray


Dance, dance, caravan
-For the gods we dance
Dance, dance, wander-folk
-Until the day is young
Sing, sing, desert man,
-For our loves we dance
Sing, sing, to the smoke
-Feel magic on your tongue


Hardened hooves and a broken bone
Leopards wait 'til you're alone
Water's gone and the fire's dead
On these desert tracks we bled
Yet still we say


Dance, dance, caravan
-For the gods we dance
Dance, dance, wander-folk
-Until the day is young
Sing, sing, desert man,
-For our loves we dance
Sing, sing, to the smoke
-Feel magic on your tongue


Though the people of the river begged Whisper to sing a song of her own people, her quiet stubbornness defeated them all one by one, and her music remained only of the kind that they themselves had taught her. Eventually, well after night had fallen, Whisper asked the elder to teach her a farewell, and she repeated it; And then she burned away into a dirty smoke and left that place on the wind.

In the morning, the foraging hain found the remains of a bull elephant in a field of fine ash. There was no ivory for them to salvage, nor any decaying flesh, or even bones; Only the tip of its trunk and a few of its teeth. The foragers turned their back on that place, and said nothing. For the memories of last night were clear in their minds, and among them was this: That they had offered much food to the stranger, and yet she had eaten nothing at all.

* * * * *


Whisper followed a kinked and random trail as she travelled, roaming, without no destination but the next village on the horizon, wherever it may be. She learned. The red rune began to shift and shuffle on her surface, finding the right configuration.

It will not have polarised inflection, nor superimposition of voices, she thought to herself. I'll retain as much as I can, but it will be entirely kinetic and kinesthetic.

She had maintained what passed for a low profile, given her dealings with the mortals. Not all had been as pleasant as the first, but she could endure being skewered by arrows and slingstones, learn at the point of a spear. It was painful, and it was exhausting, and Whisper would have it no other way. For all this she hunted rarely, ate little, and strained against every instinct that told her to follow the scent of elemental magic. Life had become a tasteless well of determination and divine sustenance.

The Djinni came for her anyway, as she knew they would. But they were small. They'd stumbled on her trail by accident and curiosity and the word of their mortal allies. They were not killers like she was.

The first was an air spirit, a hot sandy gust of the type that shamans send to plague their enemies in the desert. He kept his distance, and Whisper's suffering became impatience.

"Show yourself," she said to the creature that thought it was hidden. "You're not in danger."

It was a mistake; the djinni was large enough to speak yet too small to materialise, and so she had humiliated him. A biting zephyr of grit whipped across her surface.

"I don't need to show anything to the likes of you, Yivvinitic beast. Don't you know that these lands are preserved and guarded by my brothers? And the whole world, too, besides!"

"Yes," said Whisper, choking on the little pride she had. "I'm the intruder here."

Her honesty seemed to take the spirit aback somewhat. "You admit it, then? Hah! Even Yivvin's own abominations admit to what a pitiful life she has given them! Go back to her, monster. I hear she keeps a menagerie of other ugly animals in the sea with her."

It burned at her brighter than the blue-filtered sunlight, the awareness of how vast she was in comparison to the being she now had to submit to. How easily she could just... Reach out and scoop him out of existence, like a spoonful of dirt. He could not understand the magnitude of her power, nor her pain. He was nothing, walking a road to nowhere, somehow blocking the holy way of a lord among monsters.

Whisper pressed the comfort of those cathartic thoughts aside. No, she was not here to claim the supremacy she so easily could; she was here to suffer. Of course. Who am I kidding?

"I can't do that," she finally said. "Yivvin cast me out. She is unfair." Blaming Jvan helped. Besides, most of the blame actually did fall on her.

"Then I recommend you die, lowly creature. If not even the Cancer God would accept you, then you must be vermin indeed." A twitch was the only sign of how close the Djinni came to death.

"Can't." She flexed amoebically, rocking back and forth, wishing for the encounter to end. "I need a song. Will you sing for me?"

This, too, was confusing. The wind spirit soon reasoned an answer to this fresh mystery, however. "Ah, so you're one of the Yivvinite Monks! And stranger than any legend I've heard of them, too. I'd thought the honourable Lord Murmur had already rid this land of your kind. No, devil, I won't sing for you."

There was a pause, neither party willing to leave. The elemental was too curious, the change-eating Sculptor too determined.

"I swear, by every God more righteous than my own," grated Whisper at last, voice so quiet it could be mistaken for shadows creaking, "That for each verse you give me between now and sundown, I will let you land one blow on my body. And not hit back."

That got him. Sadistic bastard.

"Dare I say, I wouldn't much care if you did hit back, exile," scoffed the Djinni, and burst into rhyme.

"For listen now,
And listen long,
Be not morose,
And hear my song-"


The wind seared Whisper's side in a burst of heat.

"Your vermin kind,
Your ugly folk,
Will soon unwind
As Nature's joke."


Again the hissing gust. Whisper hardened herself, forming an exoskeleton.

"Rhyme harder, boy.
Don't be so coy.
Your words are soft-
A baby's toy.


I'm here to learn.
You're here to burn.
I'm waiting, brat.
Go take your turn."


The spirit halted, as if shocked to find that things wouldn't be so easy after all. "You'd challenge me to flyte in the middle of our fair and honest exchange?"

"Never said I wouldn't," muttered Whisper.

* * * * *


She had expected to be found and followed by something sizeable sooner or later. She had not established a contingency for that situation. It would be the end of her journey, be its goals achieved or no. Maybe she would fight, and win, and then surface from the nitrogen before the chaos of vengeful Djinn and rival successors, or maybe she would just flee. Either way, Whisper would be leaving the gravity well.

It didn't matter, eventually. No failsafe could have prepared her for the Winds of Change. But then... Perhaps it was better that way.

Because the Winds were beautiful.

For an entire hour, one precious hour, a faint golden star marked the sky above, and a deep rushing current that carried with it not a grain of dust flowed over the earth. It passed overhead as a curled veil, and the sky became as yellow as the grasses below. She sang.
"Too high for ears
Too quiet for tears
A golden gale
Sweeps through my fears
And I forget
That I will let
The future fall
To fated years
That reckon death
And deal in breath
The wind to pale
And sands to sear
But now and here
I leave my fear
Of losing all
To fated years..."


Whisper trailed away. The rest of the light was weathered in silence. She could feel it everywhere, invigorating, the elemental magic she had been designed to consume. Its beauty filled her with bitterness and shame.

Inside that golden wind that caressed Whisper, there was another being. Wordlessly he watched that strange creature beside him, and his eyes saw all. His mild curiosity was flared when her song began. Though she mightn't have noticed, the magical winds about Whisper seemed to dance to that sorrowful tune, and when it was over, silence was permitted to reign for a brief time.

But then Aihtiraq sang back!

"To abandon fears, a start
but in that same breath
why not abandon sorrow?

Savor all these fated years!"


She jolted. Eyes bubbled briefly over Whisper's surface, whirling and glancing, until they found their place in a solid stance. She dug slender arms into the earth, grounding herself.

"Enough," she said, kicking slightly to slough the crawling sensation of privacy interrupted, and kicking herself for thinking she'd had any. "Let me see you." Then, despite herself, "Don't sing what you don't know."

"When mortals try to see me,
some mirage, a trick
plays their eyes. My voice is real

but woe, it seems to offend!
Look if it's your want,
but it is I that cannot

be understood. Such is fate!"


True to his word, when Whisper stared into the golden vapors there was a smiling face visible to her perception, perhaps also body, some dancing flames and glistening waters, some whirling winds and thrashing sands. Aihtiraq was what he was.

"...She did warn me about fate." The hot liquid light caught her eye to the beat of the rhyme, and though Whisper did not easily calm, the dusty embers that swirled from Aihtiraq's presence were as a salve. They diluted the stains that Jvan had left in her, made her colourful again. And Whisper sighed.

"Understanding always slips
From those who still think
Truthful unions exist


Where the world is mostly just
Collision chaos
And too-shallow impressions.


So be easy on my mind
And lie to me soon
That we both might be en route."


"Deception and violence
are monstrous beasts that
would consume and then destroy one.

I think such things below me!"


"That's... Admirable,
For a world of hatred, but
I still doubt I'd understand
And I don't think any one
Knows themself for true.


So then be honest
And tell me of your nature
For my rhyme is up


And five syllables
Has always
Been far too little."


"Of all my kind, I alone
give and never grab.
My art: forging happiness,

my joy? Gifting to mortals.
Aihtiraq the good,
the humble, the generous.

To prove 'tis me, have one wish."


Whisper withdrew her arms from the earth and stretched them, hovering. They were so lanky when they weren't tensed for motion. Crossing, uncrossing, but she wasn't really thinking about the offer.

"I wish for a song," she said, once again, "because my time here is short."

"This wish Aihtiraq could grant,
if it be your want.
But know that I give just one.

If Whisper wants naught but song,
a great song 'twill be,
one e'en Murmur would envy!

But is a song your true wish?"


"Yes," she said, "but... Remember my voice. I don't know who they'll be, but... I think they'll inherit my voice." Whisper was whispering, the crypsis lost on her. "Their wish might matter."

"So willed, so it is granted
speak not, just listen
for the melody surrounds!

Nature sings, Aihtiraq goes..."


And then the golden mist seemed to stir, and whatever might have been lurking within it was gone. In time, the vapors began to recede away as it was carried off by some wind.

"..."

Loneliness. A rising sense of being denied. Silence accompanied these sensations for a little while. Not for long.

'Ahh-ihhh...'

Whisper was still alone, and she knew it. The emptiness she rested in was not content with stillness. What came came first as if from a distance, though when her eyes swivelled to trace its source, they found only the ants in her shadow, a shadow that seemed to be expanding outwards as the sound was closing in.

'Ihhd-ah, ihhd-ah, ih...'

...God...

A chorus rose from the earth and the air and the distant sea beyond, seeping into her earless hearts as the dark fluid dripped back into Whisper's body, power rising from the angst of knowing what was ahead.

'Neh, ah si nehm, neh-ahh...'

Whisper sang her hushing voice, and it was as a roar to her.

"Now I hear, now I see
What you would leave
In spite of me


('Ahh-ihhh...')

Now I've heard, now I've found
The deeper song, the silent sound
What left to me
But know truly
The darkened candle's misery


('Ihhd-ah, ihhd-ah, ih...')

For seeing true,
And hearing free
All around
I know what be
And what I choose
To keep or lose
I hear the round
This world will use-
This sound in lieu
-All things but you!"


Whisper whipped like a speared fish and swept away into the harmony of the grass and the mice and the ants, hearing the nature around her as vividly as she tasted it, bathed in the ever-presence of change without consuming it. The whole world sang to her of existence, and even hunger was paling from joy into anticipation of an end. What point was there to trying to empathise with this world, when she finally knew for herself what it stood to lose?

Aihtiraq was gone, and the golden gale with him; Likely they were one and the same. Whisper knew she wouldn't see his like again, or ever find a song of his own. No, now all she had for comfort was the voice of Nature all around, and beauty never did have a language to learn.

Once again, the change-eater learned what an unforgiving domain had given her birth.

* * * * *


None of Whisper's encounters with djinni were as taxing as the first, and she came to regret not consuming the vengeful sprite when she had the chance.

Not to say that any of them were easy. No elemental approached her with any sentiment more positive than a sick curiosity. A longing to reach out to the taboo and come back unscathed. Sculptors had always been a bitter rarity, and now there were even fewer. The fae blessings kept them safe but could not aid their regrowth. Deprived of any real object for their prejudice bar the (for the most part) still and silent lens that Urtelem so defended, the djinni she met expected a variety of strange things, holding- though they claimed to know better- superstitions not unlike that of the mortals.

That she would use metal wands to enchant any who looked upon her and reduce their minds into an infantile state. That she came from the moon Azmund-Y'Vahn, whose colours derived from stained glass, and was borne down in the belly of a gigantic, fattened grub. That everything beautiful she touched would turn to dust, and so she worshiped everything ugly.

The last one Whisper found oddly chilling, though she knew it wasn't worth dwelling on.

For the most part she got what she wanted out of the spirits. Allowing them to feel validated and powerful by not fighting back, even acting wounded, played neatly into the elemental ego, at least while they were small and foolhardy. Some simply feared or respected her enough to speak with her.

Those that were too cautious, or large enough to report to others without simply being absorbed like dust in the wind... She'd been in fights, all of which she had won. Whisper told herself to be grateful for the nourishment. And the scarlet rune iterated on.

Past, future, present, perfect. Indicative, conditional, imperative, subjunctive. All denoted by consistent affixes respectively before and after the infinitive stem- An adverb for continuity. Stems linked by phonetic and kinesthetic similarity to a noun of high association. If they feel confused, they can point to what they want... That might offend them.

...

That singing. That relentless nature-sound that left her so easily lost in meditative lethargy. Succumbing to the distraction of peace that Aihtiraq had left her with, Whisper encountered her next conversational partner entirely by chance.

Deep in thought and looking out for communities and spirits rather than lone wanderers of the type that rested between the lichenous boulders below, the change-eater swept over Zotash'e like a cirrus cloud of unnatural speed and colour, and she held her breath as it passed, exhaling only to see it turn and rush back before her quickened heart could slow.

It was no lie, found Zotash'e, that one's memories flicker into vision when Death grows near. Though she still leaned flat against the boulder as if to hide her shadow, she turned her head towards the Abomination and the fluttering, crackling hums that it made. And she raised her staff to it.

"Back," breathed Zotash'e.



Her wrist was shaking and she knew it, but the initiate only tightened her grip. "Get back," she repeated, mouthing, "for Zephyrion is with me." She went on. "And the children of Vetros do not die easy to such as you."

The monster seemed to understand, but it did not leave her. The cloud of black and blackening hues settled onto the earth and... Congealed, coagulated, into a cluster of misshapen bubbles. For a moment she thought she saw a flicker of deep red. It leaned in, and then-

Zotash'e screamed, and the thing receded from her. Quartz shards began to jut from her fists as she held the staff before her, now in a warrior's stance. It was a tiny flicker of a djinn, but it was the only one that followed her.

"You know Zephyrion?" came the whisper again.

"Yes!" yelled the initiate. "God is with me and He protects. And I know of you, too. I know the one that sent you."

"...Of course," said the thing, in its voice of perfect clarity, and, Zotash'e realised, a deep tiredness. "How?"

"...How what?" she blurted, knowing that there was some wise shamanic retort she should be able to give and lacking any idea of what it was.

"How is he with you," repeated the monster, "if he's been banished?"

"What?" More indignant confusion, but she knew she had to say something. "God is in all things. He is all-seeing, all-powerful, and no force could banish him, for He is righteous."

"..." The being flicked. Something told Zotash'e that it was not in fear. "I see." There was a pause, and she could have run, had she not seen the speed at which this spawn of Y'vahn had crossed the sky. "You know these things. Tell me about them."

No, the shaman-to-be realised, not without a touch of youthful hubris. No, she would not die today. This was not the thing that had bloodied Vetros. This was not the Emaciator that the good king had described. This was part of the other Y'vahn, the one that drove the possessed monks mad and made them into demons. But she was safe. She would soon be- She was a shaman. Zephyrion would be with her. Did not the writings say that there the path of the righteous is hallowed ground?

"...About what?"

The eye turned on her again and this time she saw that there were many of them. "That spirit."

"Oh..." The crystal spikes on her fists rippled. "This, ah, is a lesser djinni of earth. I've bound it to me by- Using the shamanic arts of my mentor."

Zotash'e realised that it might be heretical to divulge such knowledge to an agent of the Enemy, but the whisper was sharper than that.

"Shamanic arts."

"Yes. Of course. Don't you know of them?"

"Only heard," said the demon. Zotash'e got the strange and sudden impression that it was a foreigner. Which was, she supposed, accurate, but...

"It is... How those chosen by Zephyrion, and by His chosen in turn, exert authority over the world we have inherited," she began, repeating words usually taught to children. "The djinni come to know us by name and by voice, and we them. They lend us their power, if we treat them with due respect and- Fellowship, and sometimes perform certain rites that, um, please them. Sometimes the smaller ones become bound to our will, or develop a trusting friendship with-"

The creature's voice was as soft as a feather and as sharp as a knife.

"You earn the loyalty of elementals by just talking to them?"

Zotash'e saw a vision of her mother wrapping her bruised knee and gulped. "...Yes?"

There was quiet.

"Sing something," ordered the being. A kind of vocal fry had entered her voice. The glowing fluids within her were roiling.

"I, uh, I..."

Whisper writhed, no longer listening. The bubbles contorted and shriveled, and suddenly Zotash'e saw teeth, claws, spines, segmented tentacles- that spread and blocked the sky above and burned marks into the air and-

"How?" fizzed the voice. "Tell me. How. Did. She. Do. This. Tell me. Tell. Me."

"I..." Zotash'e had fallen, had stumbled back under the weight of starved rage that flowed from the sprawling demon above and around her, and she was crying. And she knew that somewhere, deep in the light, under the stains, it was crying, too. "Sister, I-"

"How did she do this to us? HOW COULD SHE DO THIS TO US?"

No answer.

* * * * *


Today I met a girl of earth
With feet of clay and bones of loam.
I met her in a barren place
Where solemn spirits roam.


I met her in the border land
'tween peace and war and lust and chaste.
We sang together for a while
Of hate and death and haste.


Tomorrow is another day
That I must bear alone.
My girl of earth knows not the sins
For which I must atone.


One day beyond the final veil
I'll meet my girl of earth again.
A sinner's cross I'll bear no more
And I will find her then.
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