Earth turned to estuary, to open sea.
Whisper had not formed an eye in days. Her front half had fused into a domed shell, a blast shield to weather the incessant pummelling of wind in her face as she flew. To lock her in with the warmth and the song.
Aihtiraq's wish had still not left her and Whisper came to accept it would follow her to the grave. That was alright. She could make peace with that much. She just wished she knew whether or not it would stay with her beyond that.
For now, there was just the hymnful duet of the wind and the grey skies, and the chopping of the darkness below...
Slow, painful, and relentless, the Big Sister's journey took her south.
She was a blip on the horizon, a speck of dying colour in a world of grey. The falling star was ash now, and only cinders kept it alight.
She did not stop for the rising storm that blew from ahead. The waves swelled, became hills, then mountains around her. The ocean was no longer far below- It was everywhere. Towers of white-marred abyss rose on either side of her, crashed and disappeared, columns in the great hallway of a single moment.
Whisper didn't even look up. But she stopped.
At last the wind howled its fiercest, and the waters of the Fractal Sea rose up in an apocalyptic wall before her, a shadow that stretched from the grave to the clouds, and made her as a single snowflake before the darkness of the sun. All the ocean bore down on her, and it fell away. And white spray consumed her view.
CHILD, MY CHILD, said a voice from the mist, lit by a ray of sun.
WHAT HAS BECOME OF YOU?Many things, thought Whisper.
Too much. But she did not answer.
A sigh swept through the world of white, and with its sound the mist was breathed away, leaving pure sunlight on a smooth sea. Before her stood the figure of a man cross-legged, bald with age and fat with health; A long, thin beard trailed from beneath his lidded eyes. He was made of clearest water, through and through.
"My name is Tsunami," said the Spirit of the Fractal Sea.
"Yours, I believe, is Diaphane.""Whisper."The alien body cracked and refolded into the stance of the Fourfold Fish- A bladed wedge for a head, and arms with too many joints, hanging slack to the ground with weariness. It was the shape with which she had slain Feldspar.
The Djinni sighed again, and there was a dip in his choir of disciples, a slow beat in Whisper's song.
"You've come so far, my child," said Tsunami, extending a hand as if to offer her a perch.
"Was it all for this?""I'm not your child."Tsunami nodded, and straightened.
"Very well. Yet I think you and I are closer than you know. We have both been wronged by she who shaped us. She who lies beyond this sea."One of Whisper's spindly claws rose and shook itself, bending every which way before refolding. She was tired. She could still fight.
"What would you know of Jvan?"Tsunami frowned, and gazed off into the horizon below. He looked back.
"My apologies. Age slows me, and my earliest memories of the Grey Plateau are ancient indeed.""In recent years, of course, the concord of these waters have been challenged. When the Grand Monsoon came to me and bid me hunt down those fae monks that dwelt in my domain, I listened, and agreed, such as it was in my power; Yet little did that weigh, for not often are Sculptors seen in these outer depths, and the Jvanic Peninsula is not part of my territory... Though they may have presumed otherwise."Whisper listened, for it was in her nature to do so.
"Then... Certain cataclysms struck, which nearly slew me. Water burned, the sky was made into fire, and I saw... Terrible things..." Tsunami closed his eyes and breathed. A being of such power, yet not without fear.
"When I recovered, I found Her body encased in charcoal, and greatly reduced. I thought perhaps my time as lesser custodian was to change, but I was wrong.""They told me to destroy the Jvanic, and I tried, when the towers first grew. But the Lost Tooth spoke to me, with arcane weapons at his side. And I saw that, perverted or no, his cause was just. So I let the towers stand, and still they stand today. The other Djinni have not found them."A nauseous memory surfaced, and Whisper found herself quoting the Emaciator, its sharp rasp as fresh as ever.
'Ring of abyssal bioconstructs around site of violence...' It wasn't lying."At last there came the accord of the Brine and Beck, and I saw the Archduke Salis crowned. And I cast my lot with him, for he was a Sealord as great as any, and my place has never been any but the most patient, the most passive..." Tsunami closed his eyes and inclined his head towards the East. After a while he rose again and faced her.
Vec
Timemaster