Waking up to an incredible headache, and the feeling he had just ran a marathon, Jake raised his hands to cover his ears. He was confused. Where was he? And why was he hungry after eating the immense snake. Another high pitched screech next to his ears distracted him, and the foggy memories disappeared. The memories of what had happened the last few days came rushing back in.

Opening his eyes, he looked up. He was lying on his back, staring at Mason and Emma's worried faces. Behind them, he could see nearly clear blue skies with some white cotton clouds high up. That couldn't be right, could it? Scrunching his scaly eyebrows, Jake tried to look around. His body felt like it was weighed down by something.

"Jake stay down. You have been unconscious for two days." Mason's voice stopped him. It sounded rough as if he had been to a rock concert, and Emma sitting next to him was wiping away, tears running down her eyes.

"What happened?" Jake tried speaking, but all that came out was a whisper.

"Do you remember when you were in the ball of water?"

Jake noticed that his hearing was getting better as he could hear the crashing sound of waves. For a moment, an image of an emerald island flashed through his mind before it disappeared again. Distracted, it took a moment for Mason's question to register. Seeing his friend's worried look, he nodded.

Mason examined him for a moment before continuing. "Good. After you stopped that, you fell unconscious and wouldn't wake up. Tergin said that you spent too much energy. Going to a large body of water, with lots of energy would wake you up." Mason's voice trailed off at the end, seeming to realize how crazy all of that sounded.

Digesting what his friend had said, Jake did notice he was feeling a little better than before. After a moment, he managed to whisper another question.

"Who is Tergin?"

Emma, having regained herself, answered him.

"He is one of those archers. He only has one ear and is blue and yellow. He says his grandfather was like you! Well, not like you exactly. But he could do magic as you can and"

"Emma, I have told you before, it is not magic!" Mason broke through her rapid fire story before continuing half hearted. "Well, it isn't exactly magic. Magic would be having something appear out of nothing. "

Shaking his head, Mason looked at his friend who was taking it all in with interest.

"Apparently, in this world, there are different sources of energy all around us. According to Bolyr and Tergin, most of them belong to primal forces, but they don't know a lot about it either. Anyway, you can use them to do.."

"MAGIC!" Emma interrupted him.

She raised her hand when Mason was about to say something, glaring at him.

"You don't know what it is either, and Magic sounds better than primal elemental energy."

Jake felt his mind wander as he looked at the two argue with each other. They seemed comfortable with each other again, more so than any time after what had happened with David. Remembering the horrid Fiend, Jake wondered what had happened to him. Could he have rushed into the jungle? Had any of the others?

After a moment, he stopped his guessing and turned his head towards the sound of the waves. A beautiful, turquoise sea covered the entire horizon. Further away from the island, dark blue waves began blending with the lighter, causing chaotic patterns. As soon as he looked at the sea, he couldn't take his eyes from the water. The dark blue wavy patterns filled him with the desire to run towards it and emerge inside never to come out. Energy seemed to bubble up from inside him, and he felt his hearing and eye-sight sharpen. His arms and legs filled with energy and with a smooth motion, he rolled to the side, away from his bickering friends.

A surprised shout came from behind him as he stood up.

"Jake? How, what? Where are you going?"

Ignoring the voices, he walked through the white sand, and only a part of him noticed the hot sand scaling against the hard scales on the sole of his feet. As he got closer to the sea, the voices behind him were drowned out by the surging tide and he saw that the water was flowing up the sand, towards him. A remnant of his human self made him stop, and he sat down on his knees, placing a single finger inside the water that was flowing around him now. As soon as he touched the water, he felt an immense surge of energy flow inside him wiping the remaining fatigue he hadn't even noticed. The water surged forward, engulfing him and it began tugging at him.

Remembering what had happened the first time he used his power, he wondered if he should be scared. But he wasn't, not even a little. Standing up, he allowed the water to pull him forward, and moments later, he stepped waist-deep into the sea. An energetic and happy feeling and a promise of infinite possibilities and growth made him smile, and without a second thought, he jumped forward, headfirst into the sea.

--

"Will he be ok? He has been swimming around like some dolphin on drugs for hours now..."

Mason was sitting at the edge of the water, his head swiveling from left to right as he followed Jakes blurry shape.

"Stop asking me the same questions over and over, or I will teach you how we teach our children to be quiet." Tergin, a blue kobold with yellow patterns on his scales, bit back in an unfriendly tone.

They were the only two remaining on the beach. Emma was swimming close to the shore, seeming perfectly happy in the water. She had jumped in shortly after Jake and only came back one time to explain she could breathe underwater before promptly diving back in and staying underwater for extended periods chasing after fish.

Behind them, underneath the tree line, Bolyr was trying to talk with Sandra, which mainly consisted of gesturing at things and shouting at each other. The last of the native Kobolds was showing the soldiers how to use a bow. They seemed to be getting along fine, their mutual interest in anything war-related looking to cross the language gap.

Tergin laid down on his back, staring at the sky.

"I remember that my grandfather once told stories about the olden days, long before we had to hide out in this hellish place at the edge of the world. There used to be dozens of awoken amongst our ancestral tribe and things like this were commonplace."

Mason didn't reply. He had long since figured out that the grumpy Kobold enjoyed talking about what had been, but didn't take kindly to comments. He was the only one who could speak English, and he and Emma had been the ones translating everything for the last few days.

Initially, everyone had been sitting on the beach, but they all went away.

Sandra and her soldiers had soon tired of the constant history about a world they didn't know, and with no useful information to their current situation that had started ignoring the bored Kobold. Bolyr had followed after Sandra, still showing an apparent interest in her. He had ordered the other archer to entertain the soldiers, much to Mason's amusement.

Mason hadn't left though. He figured anything he could glean from the talkative native might be useful, no matter how obscure, so he had shown some interest and that was all Tergin had needed.

"Can you explain to me again how tribes work? We got interrupted because Jake woke up before." Mason asked, trying to steer the history lesson into something useful again.

"I can, but you will need to explain to me again what governments are. I find it hilarious and intriguing at the same time."

"Ok, I will explain later," Mason said, repressing a shudder and wondering what his mother would say if she heard he was tutoring an alien on his least-liked subject.

Seeming fine with the delay, Tergin began rattling out a long list of names that meant nothing to Mason, but he kept silent, knowing any interruption would only lead to a long sermon on patience. After a long story, where he explained how some tribe called the Goresh were horrible monsters that took their rightful place as the ruling tribe and describing some of the things they did, Tergin said something that got Mason's ears to perk up.

"Wait. What?" He said a confused look on his face. "So if you belong to a tribe, you can sense if another Kobold belongs to another tribe?"

Tergin looked at the native Kobold as if he was joking.

"Yes… Did you get hit in the head at a young age? Either you belong to the same tribe, or not. If you don't, you fight! The reason we did not attack you was because we know you are not from another tribe. So that makes you tribeless! It doesn't happen a lot in our world, but it isn't unheard of. During the last war, the Goresh tried to destroy all of our elders. Had he succeeded, we would have been like you. Then we would have been forced to join their wretched tribe..."

Mason felt a shiver run down his spine. "How do you force someone to join your tribe?"

Tergin looked at him with a stern look on his face.

"It is something only barbarous tribes do because it is cruel and horrible and it only works after you've become tribeless. Someone actively has to join a tribe, so you can't be forced. But you can be coerced." At this point, Tergins voice lowered significantly while his face seemed in pain, "The Goresh, they take your family and, start killing them. They will only stop if you join their tribe. If you fail to do so before all of your family is dead, they kill you."

It was silent on the beach for a while, and Mason saw the others hand kept reaching up to where his missing ear was, only to drop before he reached it.

After a while, a loud whooping noise came from the sea. Looking up, Mason saw Jake chasing Emma through the water. Both were jumping up out of the water, and splashing back down, yelling in delight. Mason saw that they were heading towards the beach.

When they were about to exit the water, they seemed reluctant. After a moment Jake said something that Mason couldn't hear, and Emma's face saddened, but she followed him to where Mason was sitting.