Sobon's new life as a squir-rel was not with-out its perks, for all its many and glar-ing is-sues. Per-haps the great-est... was sim-ply that he wasn't hu-man. Or, what-ev-er the lo-cal hu-manoids called them-selves; he didn't have to con-sid-er him-self one of them, pre-tend to be one of them. The mon-sters from his pre-vi-ous life--the Djiang and the Bilg, they'd called them-selves--had both done ab-solute-ly noth-ing to en-dear their na-tions and peo-ples to him.

  This girl was of a dif-fer-ent cul-ture, and was too de-pressed and meek to be any-thing like a threat. Sobon wouldn't have trust-ed her on that alone, but af-ter ob-serv-ing her body and spir-it, she was... harm-less. More than like-ly, if dis-as-ter had not be-fall-en the is-land, she would have grown up to be a fish-er-man's wife, and per-haps been con-tent with that. She had no cru-el streak, no mal-ice borne of mis-treat-ment or jeal-ousy, and no in-san-i-ty from liv-ing near oth-er shat-tered souls. The aether of this place--he was still hav-ing trou-ble con-sid-er-ing the lo-cal en-er-gy by an-oth-er name, though he would try--was much clean-er than that of the ru-ined city or its fort, and she had not raised her en-er-gy lev-el much by her peo-ple's flawed method.

  Even so, it was prov-ing dif-fi-cult to get her to change her method, and Sobon wasn't sure if that was be-cause he was a bad teacher or she was a bad stu-dent.

  "So it's not a core, it-self," Ki'el seemed to pout when he shot down her the-o-ry. They sat on the docks, as the waves rolled gen-tly in. "But it isn't en-er-gy. En-er-gy is form-less, dif-fuse--"

  Sobon con-cen-trat-ed on pro-ject-ing his throughts. [ Aether is Aether, ] he in-sist-ed, know-ing the thought would roll off of her with-out stick-ing. [ It is a part of all life, but that isn't what it is, ei-ther. It's a mir-ror that re-flects re-al-i-ty, and the glue that con-nects the ...world to-geth-er. But you are right; it isn't only en-er-gy. It is en-er-gy and ...place. By gath-er-ing... place, mixed with en-er-gy, you cre-ate raw aether. ]

  Ki'el seemed to phys-i-cal-ly re-coil from the idea of mix-ing en-er-gy with space. "So if I cre-ate this en-er-gy here--"

  [ It's com-pli-cat-ed, but I can tell you have the wrong idea. ] Sobon couldn't sigh, ex-act-ly, in this form, but he was able to con-vey dis-ap-point-ment through the lit-tle fur-ry body's pos-ture. [ You are cre-at-ing some-thing that you will take with you. But you must try to cre-ate some-thing pure, some-thing that is only your own will mixed with place. Not... ] He knew the word was trans-lat-ing wrong, but what could he say to such a child? [ ...not the larg-er place. Not even the place where you sit. Each speck of pow-er con-nects with a place no larg-er than the speck it-self. ]

  The girl stared at her hand for a long minute, then looked at him, se-ri-ous-ly. "Is that why I shouldn't do it with-in me?"

  Sobon's ears twitched; at least, she was clever. [ No. But I am glad you are think-ing. There is much to ex-plain, but... not now. ]

  Ki'el spent the next few hours strug-gling, but as Sobon watched, it be-came clear she was be-gin-ning to un-der-stand the idea. Specks of rel-a-tive-ly pure aether would ap-pear, but un-rav-el in-stant-ly, a sign that she didn't sense them or know how to hold on. He wait-ed un-til she was con-sis-tent-ly gen-er-at-ing frag-ments be-fore guid-ing her to be able to sense them.

  Be-fore they could move on to grasp-ing them, the girl moved on to do the rest of her chores, un-will-ing to let this ex-plo-ration of uni-verse's grand mys-ter-ies be the rea-son the stray dogs and cats went hun-gry.

  Af-ter din-ner, though, she was on the dock, eyes closed, lis-ten-ing to the sound of the ocean and hold-ing her hands close to one an-oth-er. Sobon watched as the sparks ap-peared and per-sist-ed, some-times for bare-ly a sec-ond, but more and more she grasped specks and held them in her mind un-til she chose to re-lease them.

  [ You are do-ing well, ] Sobon said when she fi-nal-ly stopped. [ To-mor-row, we should be able to work on con-nect-ing aether to form a larg-er piece. ]

  Ki'el gave him a look that was sur-pris-ing-ly re-bel-lious--a look she had giv-en him sev-er-al times, es-pe-cial-ly at the be-gin-ning. But, af-ter only a mo-ment, she sighed and stood up from the dock, look-ing up through the trees at the moon. She didn't go back, though, not for a long mo-ment.

  "...Is it still com-ing?"

  Sobon was sur-prised by the ques-tion, as he had been think-ing about oth-er things--most-ly, how he was ever go-ing to ex-plain some of the more ad-vanced con-cepts to her. But he looked up at her, still look-ing up at the moon, and then glanced at the hori-zon.

  What-ev-er was com-ing was pow-er-ful, but how close was it go-ing to come to this lit-tle is-land? He men-tal-ly com-pared its pre-vi-ous in-ten-si-ty to where it was now, and thought about sail-ing ships, or pos-si-bly ones with prim-i-tive mo-tors. Still, it was hard to gauge. [ Yes. But it is not com-ing too quick-ly, and it may not come here. ]

  "It will." Her voice held a bit-ter con-vic-tion.

  Sobon looked at her with sur-prise. [ Is there some se-cret here? ]

  "No." The girl just closed her eyes. "I just know my bad luck. They'll come here to fin-ish the job, tear apart my home and make me..." she grit her teeth and shook her head, vi-o-lent-ly.

  Sobon would liked to have ar-gued against bad luck or fate, but, well.

  [ We can leave, ] he sug-gest-ed.

  Ki'el's eyes snapped open, and she looked down on him, then turned on her heel and start-ed walk-ing back. "You might as well tell me to die," she said. "My life is here. What pa-thet-ic shreds of it are left."

  Sobon watched her go, not re-al-ly sure how to re-spond to that. Even... even if she learned to touch aether, even if she learned to con-trol it, even it she could ex-pe-ri-ence the same rise that he had seen in Jom's body, which was ap-par-ent-ly far be-yond the lo-cal av-er-age... if a crew of ma-raud-ers or pi-rates or what-ev-er else land-ed here, she couldn't de-feat them all on her own.

  On the strength of his own aether... he had no idea. He wasn't sure what the world's mod-i-fied aether did, or how strong he was go-ing to be rel-a-tive to any of them. He hadn't fought any-one since the butch-er in the al-ley-way; while the reaper who had end-ed his life was clear-ly some-thing far be-yond his cur-rent pow-er, prob-a-bly be-yond the pow-ers of any-one else he had met... he had no con-cept of how they had it all or-ga-nized.

  Per-haps the girl knew, but he wouldn't hold out hope. Her un-der-stand-ing of even her own peo-ple's tech-niques seemed rudi-men-ta-ry.

  Mean-while, this ro-dent's body was dif-fer-ent from Jom's body, in not only phys-i-cal form but also in its... qi core... thing. Al-though the col-ors and lobes looked sim-i-lar along the edges, as he ad-vanced by ab-sorb-ing aether, the struc-ture of his... core looked very dif-fer-ent to Ki'el's, and hers looked a lot like Jom's, as he re-mem-bered it. His own latched too firm-ly onto his flesh, like it in-tend-ed to do more than mere-ly strength-en his mus-cles, skin, claws, and teeth, but that is all that ad-vance-ment had done for him so far. Well, per-haps it had in-creased the stu-pid rat body's in-ter-nal or-gans, or some-thing--he was no bi-ol-o-gist.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It had made him leak some kind of foul black goo, when he ad-vanced from five-star dark-gray to one-star sil-very-gray, but that seemed more like a one-time side ef-fect He had washed most of it off, and stud-ied what re-mained for a while. All that he could tell for sure was that it was un-pleas-ant to every sense he had, nat-ur-al and aethe-r-i-al.

  In all--could he fight in this body? Against a boat load of lo-cal war-riors? He hes-i-tat-ed even to test out his abil-i-ties. He had con-sumed all his left and right dy-namos to cre-ate the in-ner-out-er pair; he could make new ones, of course, but he was hes-i-tant for sev-er-al rea-sons. For now... al-though left-hand aether wouldn't mark the world too bad-ly, in-ward-aether left a... stench. A black mark that nei-ther right nor out-ward aether could im-me-di-ate-ly re-move, and that felt dis-re-spect-ful to this al-ready dam-aged isle.

  Thus al-ways with weapons, Sobon mused dourly. Med-ical aether was vast-ly more com-plex than sim-ply ap-ply-ing en-er-gy X to wound Y, and no re-pair man-u-al on any ship was as sim-ple as "Just wave your hand and turn back time, it will be fine." While he ex-pect-ed to use very lit-tle en-er-gy, in ab-solute units, he had al-ready seen how a lit-tle bit of pure aether was sig-nif-i-cant com-pared to what the lo-cals had.

  He didn't want to dam-age Ki'el's home, and he didn't want to at-tract trou-ble... but he wasn't sure how far away was far enough. The reaper, he was sure, had de-tect-ed what he did from far away, and he wasn't ea-ger to re-peat that ex-pe-ri-ence here; he could only con-ceal his dy-namos and keep them chained down, for now.

  At the very least, though... the same would be true for the raiders. It would be much eas-i-er to hurt them that it would be to heal them, es-pe-cial-ly if they laughed off the threat of a sil-ly lit-tle tree rat. And the best way to dis-tract them from him... was to give them a seem-ing-ly more dan-ger-ous tar-get to fo-cus on.

  Ki'el wouldn't like-ly en-joy be-ing used as a dis-trac-tion, but if it helped them avenge her fam-i-ly, he was sure she would for-give him.

  In the morn-ing, af-ter at-tend-ing to the strays, Ki'el sat down again on the pier. Sobon, ea-ger to see what she did on her own, hid him-self at first; she didn't both-er to wait, and ea-ger-ly jumped in to prac-tic-ing. At first, she sim-ply tried to hold on to one speck, and then he no-ticed her grasp-ing at more than one, and even bring-ing them to-geth-er, al-though she clear-ly wasn't sure how to gath-er them into a sol-id whole. Only once she took a break, though, did he jump down from a near-by tree.

  The girl jumped at the sound of him land-ing, al-though he was fair-ly qui-et, be-fore re-lax-ing. "Oh. You're here."

  [ You're do-ing well, ] Sobon praised her again, be-fore mov-ing out to sit on her legs and look up at her. He felt her skin twitch, as if he was tick-ing her, but ig-nored it. [ Con-nect-ing the pieces is... go-ing to be a strange con-cept. I'm not sure how to de-scribe it to you, al-though I have been think-ing about it. You sim-ply need to un-der-stand that it is part of how aether works. A part of what it is; a part of its na-ture. ]

  "It's a place," she re-peat-ed what he had said, though she clear-ly didn't un-der-stand it. "But what does that mean?"

  [ It is hard to de-scribe, ] Sobon ad-mit-ted, look-ing up at her face... and find-ing him-self star-ing up the girl's nose, as she looked away, her skin twitch-ing un-der his feet when his tail brushed against her. That... strange-ly enough, got him think-ing. [ Bub-bles! That's a good way to de-scribe them. ]

  The girl looked down at him, and he was re-lieved not to be star-ing into her nose any-more. "Bub-bles?"

  [ Sure-ly you've blown bub-bles in the wa-ter be-fore? ] He didn't even wait for her to con-firm it. [ Bub-bles are a thin skin of wa-ter around air. Join-ing places is like... mak-ing two wa-ter bub-bles join, in con-cept at least. The 'place' is the in-side, but the struc-ture it-self is the thin edge that con-tains it. ]

  She looked at him, but af-ter a mo-ment, raised her hands and tried again. Sobon watched, un-til he felt her skin twitch-ing un-der him again; he hopped off, land-ing light-ly on the wood of the pier, and he thought when he looked back that she was calmer.

  With-in a half hour, she had got-ten the knack of gath-er-ing aether into a much larg-er speck. As she prac-ticed, though, he also quick-ly no-ticed that her body was ab-sorb-ing the aether when she re-leased it, al-though her core wasn't yet ad-vanc-ing. Most like-ly, a tech-nique like this would be the kind of thing those bar-bar-ians would prac-tice--just slow-ly gath-er-ing and at-tun-ing pow-er, one tiny speck at a time.

  [ Good, ] Sobon said, once she had stopped for a mid-morn-ing break. [ Take some time and rest. This af-ter-noon, we will move on to form-ing a thread, and then... per-haps you will be able to be-gin for real. ]

  Ki'el had stood up and stretched, and now she looked down at Sobon. "To cre-ate the cir-cle, you mean. The ro-tat-ing na-ture of qi."

  Sobon felt im-me-di-ate-ly like he had been mis-un-der-stood, again.

  In-stead of wor-ry-ing about it, he scam-pered up a near-by tree and leaped over to the girl's shoul-der. She seemed sur-prised, but she let him, and moved back to-wards her house, where she picked up her staff again. He stayed silent, think-ing about what she had said, and when she got to the prac-tice yard he hopped off her shoul-der onto a bro-ken bit of fence near-by.

  She prac-ticed with her staff, and he found him-self not-ing, again, places where her form was wrong, her swings were clum-sy, or her bal-ance was off, but how could he be-gin to cor-rect her, in this form? So he stayed silent, for now.

  When she paused, and seemed about ready to put her staff away, he fi-nal-ly said, [ Ro-ta-tion isn't the na-ture of aether. Ro-ta-tion is a pur-pose, a tool. ]

  Ki'el turned to look at him, her face a bit blanker than usu-al, per-haps be-cause she was still men-tal-ly locked on her staff prac-tice.

  "If you say so," she said sim-ply, and be-gan to march back to her house.

  Sobon scam-pered along af-ter her, feel-ing undig-ni-fied, and made his way onto her shoul-der when he had the chance. That was less pleas-ant now that she was sweaty, but it didn't both-er him. [ If I had to put the na-ture of aether into words... I sup-pose it would be pur-pose, and en-er-gy. ]

  Ki'el slowed in her steps, but only briefly. "Pur-pose. I don't un-der-stand."

  [ The in-side of the bub-ble, ] he said. [ It is like the place in which your mind ex-ists. ]

  Ki'el con-sid-ered those words for a mo-ment, and then slowed, and then stopped. Sobon sat there, look-ing at her face, try-ing to see whether she was un-der-stand-ing it, or whether she was con-fused, again.

  "It's not like it," she cor-rect-ed him. "My mind... does ex-ist in such a bub-ble, does it not?"

  Sobon bobbed his lit-tle ro-dent head. [ Ex-act-ly. ]

  "Then I'm...?"

  [ Life is not pos-si-ble with-out aether, ] he said. [ Life is a com-plex ma-chine to make use of aether. Mind is an in-sane-ly com-pli-cat-ed tool with many parts each ded-i-cat-ed to sup-port-ing what you may think of as your soul, the part of you that is you. You could not be your-self with-out those many pieces ded-i-cat-ed to cre-at-ing you. And like-wise, when you cre-ate aether, you must also give it a pur-pose. ]

  "Vi-o-lence and sub-mis-sion," the girl whis-pered.

  Sobon's whiskers twitched. [ I don't know what that means, ] he said. [ But-- ]

  "It is what my nama told me the na-ture of qi was," she said. "The dual na-ture. But that is only the pur-pos-es we give it, isn't it? We use it for vi-o-lence... or we sub-mit to na-ture."

  [ There are many tools, many pur-pos-es for aether, ] Sobon an-swered. [ Some are nei-ther vi-o-lence nor sub-mis-sion. ]

  The girl nod-ded, and closed her eyes. But when she start-ed to raise her hands in front of her, Sobon reached out with a paw and grabbed her ear, gen-tly. It star-tled her, and she stopped.

  [ Not yet, ] he said. [ For the ex-er-cis-es we're do-ing, you need aether with-out in-tent, with-out pur-pose. If it isn't pure, it will be trou-ble lat-er. ]

  She looked at him, and then sighed. "Fine. But now I need to go fish, or we will have an-oth-er day of eat-ing only fruit and for-age."

  Sobon let her, hop-ping off her shoul-der when she passed by a bro-ken stone wall, and watch-ing her go. She was clever, he thought again. He hoped he was do-ing the right thing by teach-ing her.

  Some-one as trau-ma-tized as her might fall too eas-i-ly into dark-ness. He'd try his best, but... it was hard to know for sure what would come next. At the very least... he had to be-lieve he'd be able to tell be-fore she be-came too pow-er-ful.

  grows. Myth is a kind of corruption that is often deliberately created and willingly submitted to, but we will get to that later.