Lightning crossed the sky like fireworks. The grass outside the House of Eastern Wind had already suffered some damage from the few bolts that had landed upon it. The strong smell of burnt plants was in the air, but something else caught Linda’s attention. In the back of her mind, something told her this whole storm was somehow… wrong, for lack of a better word. She instinctively looked towards the group of Wind twin natives to her right, searching their faces for answers.

“Papa…” Lao started, confusion, mixed with anxiety audible in his voice.

“I know.” The man cut him off with a nod and closed his eyes for a second. His tails flew behind his back, almost like the tentacles of an ancient monster, reaching for something.

“That ain’t gonna work” Wint chimed in, her own eyes turning white with a twinge of blue around the irises. “Air ain’t moving, just… losing electrons.”

The Tailwind let out the breath he was holding and his powerful tails began disappearing one by one. Once they were all gone, Linda finally realised what had been bothering her. The air truly wasn’t moving. The atmosphere was still, yet holding enormous tension, as if sparks could start flying even as they were doing nothing more than breathing. What was this storm anyways?

She was shaken out of her thoughts by the sound of several pairs of feet pattering swiftly up the path towards them. Brother Ma’ala was running their way with five more of his Elder Shamans, a rare expression of anxiety and worry twisting his usually serene, beautiful face. He reached the small Wind group and went directly for Linda, grabbing her shoulders none too gently:

“Where is he? Where is the prince?” The man barked.

Linda felt her eyebrows fly up in shock and confusion. Did Fye tell the Reverend Brother who he was? Why would he do that?

“Ain’t that what we should be asking ye, Brother Ma’ala?” Wint jumped in, pushing the shaman a bit so he let go of the girl’s shoulders. “Didn’t we leave ‘im with ye?”

The Reverend Brother shook Wint’s hands off of his and as he looked her up and down, a number of conflicting expressions changed on his face, rising and falling like tidal waves - anger, confusion, sadness even? He drew in a deep breath and somehow managed to restore some semblance of his usual aloof demeanor, before responding:

“Raising our voices will get us nowhere, lady Tempayah. Indeed, the boy was with me up until fifteen minutes ago when I left him, very briefly, in the Central Temple. When I came back, he was gone, so I was naturally worried and was hoping that he came to find you.”

A flash of lightning lit up the sky and simultaneously, a loud, angry thunder roared. From their relatively high vantage point, they could see one of the wooden porches of the dwellings surrounding the bru’ankh’ai erupt in flames. Some of the shamans down there screamed and started running around in search of water and help.

The sudden flash of light however revealed something else that caught Aeris Lee’s attention, as he stepped forward to face the Reverend Brother and unceremoniously grabbed his chin to level their eyes. The East-Wind man’s expression turned dark and ominous like the thunderous clouds above:

“You pathetic addict! Tell me you didn’t leave the boy alone to get a hit of your precious crutch- Herb!” The shaman pulled his chin away and Lee spat on the ground. “Look at me and speak, Kriya damn you!”

Linda studied both men and found herself almost crouching to see Brother Ma’ala’s eyes. They looked even more blue than she remembered, with a twinge of cobalt around the edges - the unmistakable sign of recent Herb potion ingestion. The girl felt a surge of anger twist her own insides as well, but as she was preparing to give the shaman a piece of her mind, it was him who shocked all of them as he gave out a deep, menacing chuckle.

“Addict?” The man’s voice seemed to lower the temperature around them as he spoke.”You may look down on my ways, Master Lee, but at least I pave my own path forward. What have you done with your powerful Craft all these years? Ah, yes - made children with your enemy? Tell me, was Aeris Tan fucking you so good that you forgot who you were? I suppose in the end, even a Storm Fox can be tamed?”

Lee’s eyes flashed white and he made a step towards the Reverend Brother, but suddenly stopped and reached for his throat. The color drained from his beautiful face in an instant and before Linda could figure out what was going on, her not-father crumbled to his knees on the ground and spat out a significant amount of blood on the semi-charred grass.

“I have not the time to deal with traitors like you right now, lord Aeris.” The shaman hissed, his eyes flashing blue-green, as he leaned onto the title and name in a way that made them sound like an insult. “I have to find His Highness, he may be in danger all because you lot chose to hide his identity from me.”

Linda and the twins helped Lee back to his feet, never letting the shaman out of their sight, worried that he may attack again. Wint stood there, as if struck by lightning herself, wondering if what she had just witnessed was real or not. As the Reverend Brother turned to descend the stone path again, she came out of her stupor and in a flash ran up to him and spun him around none-too gently by the shoulders.

“Did you just tide-weave blood out of someone’s mouth, Brother Ma’ala?” The windstorm barked in his face.

“Let go of me, woman!” The shaman bellowed, his eyes flashing a warning blue-green color.

It was him who reached for his throat this time though and, chest heaving, dropped to the ground as well. The flash of white in Wint’s eyes gave Linda all the answers she needed - the windstorm was pulling the Air out of the man’s lungs with her Gift.

“Oh no you don’t, little shaman. Or shall I say - Big Brother?” Wint hissed as she crouched down to level her face to his. “You’re not running away ‘fore we all get some answers straight from ye. What happened to the prince?”

Brother Ma’ala’s eyes widened in shock and he looked up to the Tailwind behind Wint’s back. Lee’s face twisted with resentment, but he still nodded, letting the shaman know he had indeed disclosed to the two women who their host really was.

“Speak, rebel” Wint insisted, dragging the man to stand up with her. “But know that if you try any of your Kriyan tricks again, you’ll only breathe when I allow it!”

The shaman wobbled a bit on his feet, before steadying himself and looked at the windstorm. It took some effort, but his face finally regained its usual serene, detached expression, which now looked scary, instead of calming to Linda, since she’d seen what was lurking behind it.

“So what me and the Master Tailwind do are Kriyan tricks, yet what you have is a Gift from the Goddess above, my lady? How’s that fair?”

“We ain’t got no time for your menist drivel right now, Reverend Big Brother.” The windstorm slapped a hand to her thigh to express her impatience. “If you feel your gender is oppressed now, wait and see if things improve when we have to tell the Fire Empress her son is gone again. Do you think another Great war would serve your dreams of sexual revolution and equality?”

A bone-chilling smile twisted the shaman’s lush lips.

“Perhaps it would not. However, perhaps a Great war is imminent even if we do find His Highness.” Another lightning bolt struck, this time landing a direct hit on the wooden ark at the entrance to the Top Terrace’s gardens. “Ah, he does move fast. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s nearing the elevator right about now. Perhaps we can speak on the way? Provided we don’t get hit by one of his angry thunderbolts, of course?”

Linda felt her heart skip a beat. His thunderbolts?

“Are you saying…” Wint began, but the shaman cut her off with a raised hand.

“I am still unclear of the details, but yes, my lady, it would seem that we have the Lightning child on our hands. Except, the savior we were all awaiting came in the body of a young firetribe boy. Now how’s that for cosmic irony?”

************************

Aquina Wotar sat at the head of the conference table in Debrief - Ara - the largest meeting room in AWA Military Central command, awaiting her distinguished guests from Typhone. Her generals were vehemently against this change in location and expressed a number of times their preference that the Ruling over sea should still accept the Wind delegation in her throne room. Wotar had of course ignored them - it didn’t sit right with her to be in that place anymore. She had no right to be there she felt, even before the supposed revival of the Alaian Truth website and its incendiary new article started making the rounds on all kinds of news media.

Nevertheless, she tried pushing her idealism to the side for a moment. Whatever the circumstances, for a large portion of the population of AWA, she was still the acting Ruling and as such, she had a responsibility to take diplomatic action and reach out to the ladies from the Wind twin first. The very same ladies, she remembered with a sour smile, who had, in the not too distant past, just accepted her mother’s decision to skip a Ruling over storms due to the lack of a suitable candidate.

Aeris Wang would be there too, of course. Although retired, she used to be one of the most powerful Storm Generals who played a huge role in pushing back the Earth invasion on the coastal regions of the Wind twin during the last Great war. Aeris Tan was her great-niece. Did the old windstorm truly not know her niece was still Gifted? Or did Wotar’s own mother unwittingly play into a very long and complicated political trap, set by the ladies of Typhone?

She shook her head. She couldn’t afford paranoia to set in - this was all clearly a misunderstanding and it was up to her to clear it up. Her mother had trusted these women with her life, trusted them enough to be completely transparent when she could no longer keep searching for a super-ara level windstorm to succeed her as Ruling over storms. The Wind ladies had to be wise enough to help her contain this situation, rather than rising the tides even further.

She was shaken from her thoughts by an insistent wrap on the door.

“Enter”, Wotar said as she drew in a deep breath, attempting to compose herself.

The ornate doors of the conference room swung open and a group of five entered. Four women whose age ranged from the mid-forties to early eighties and one surprisingly youthful looking man. Three of them, the man included, looked like they hailed from the South-Eastern coastal parts of the Wind twin, whereas the remaining two - from the North-West.

Wotar stood up and went over to greet them, bowing to the South-East Elders and even granting the man a small nod and shaking the hands of the North-Western ladies. When they were all seated, she let the silence hang in the air for a bit, trying to read their stoic faces.

The two Northern women were Stoirme Hairicin - Lady of the Highlands autonomous province, which was another way of saying North-Western Wind and her Warden General - Thur ‘El. They wore their respective blue-silver and white ceremonial uniforms, denoting their peaceful intention to act as mediators in the current discussion. That much was reassuring at least.

The choice of East-Wind delegation was what puzzled her though. The man she had no idea about - he looked young, no more than thirty-ish rotations of age, but that wasn’t saying much considering his ethnicity and their culture’s obsession with preserving beauty at all costs through cosmetics or other procedures. Aeris Wang was of course expected and her reasons for being there clear enough, however the third member was none other than U-Roe Kum.

Lady U-Roe was the Legislative Elder of Typhone and during the Trials of End after the last Great War she was the lead prosecutor for the winners, mercilessly issuing war crime sentences to Earth ladies, defectors and traitors alike. These were still considered somewhat peaceful times though, Wotar mused, so what was a Military Law expert, although re-tasked as Common Law legislator doing here instead of the Executive or Foreign relations Elder?

She guessed she might find out soon enough however and she cleared her throat, preparing to speak. It was then that lady Stoirme lifted her hand up to stop her and spoke first:

“Your Majesty, Syfis is as beautiful as ever in the spring and apart from the circumstances of our encounter, we are grateful for your hospitality.” The middle-aged windstorm looked around the faces in the room, as if daring any of them to cut her off in turn, which thankfully didn’t happen. Bless the Highlinder Wind folk and their smalltalk for breaking the proverbial ice! “Although I have to say we were a bit surprised to receive an invitation, rather than a visit.”

“Apologies, lady Stoirme, you are of course right, and had circumstances been different, I would have loved nothing more than to witness the che’rashii trees bloom in Typhone’s Palace gardens. Alas, my intel team reported that they have yet to apprehend the insurrectionists from the Djul 13th attack and until we have some clues as to who they were, We feel it best to remain in Syfis for the time being.”

Thur ‘El stirred in her seat. “Are you saying you are expecting another attack by the firestarters?”

Wotar bit her lower lip and weighed her response carefully in her mind, before finally saying:

“We have reason to believe there were actually no firestarters involved in the attack.”

The delegation side of the table fell into shocked silence for a moment. Aeris Wang turned to the man next to her and whispered something into his ear. Was she translating for him? If she was, that likely meant he wasn’t educated past initial grades, which made his involvement in the current conversation even more curious.

Wotar felt a wave of anger wash over her. The Equal Right to Education Act was passed at the start of her mother’s term as Ruling and the fact that there were still undereducated men on the Wind twin irritated her. She prepared to ask who the man was and demand an explanation for his being there, but was once again cut off, this time by lady U-Roe herself:

“What proof have you for such a claim?” The missing honorific when addressing her struck Wotar like a knife to the throat.

Still, she wasn’t planning to go down without a fight.

“We shall provide ample proof for Our words in due time. First, however, We must insist you introduce Us to the lord accompanying you. Lady Aeris, I see you are translating for him. Are We to assume he does not speak the Common Tongue?”

“I do.” The man replied with a thick East-Wind accent. “ ‘owever I am not too confident in it. So obba sharr assist me.”

Obba… Aeris Wang was either his grandma or great-aunt, difficult to tell without further context. Wotar simply nodded and looking at the furrowed eyebrows of the women on the other side of the table, felt she had made her point for now.

“Apologies, Your Majesty, You must have thought him illiterate, which I promise he is not.” Aeris Wang lowered her head in an apologetic nod. “This is my great-nephew - Fun’iki Sei, Tan’s brother. We brought him along to support our claims as we lay forth our proposal to You.”

Ah, that made some bizarre form of sense. Tan’s older brother would’ve been way past his education years when the EREA was enforced. Still, the little side-tangent served its purpose, as the Wind delegation had lost a bit of their diplomatic footing and would need to do some careful tongue-dancing to restore it. Wotar hated these kinds of political games, but as the saying went - if you’re afraid of sharks, don’t go into the sea.

“The East-Wind ladies’ foresight is, as usual, truly admirable.” Lady Stoirme jumped into the conversation again. “However I feel parts of their proposal may become obsolete by the intel Your Majesty possesses. Would Your Majesty agree to at least hint at the proof You have?”

Wotar fixed the windstorm’s blue-green eyes with her dark brown ones. Damn, that Highlander was good. Still, the Ruling decided she was going to call the other’s bluff.

“We are grateful for your suggestion, lady Stoirme, yet We believe it would be best for all involved if We could decide together in discourse what is relevant and what - obsolete, after hearing you out. What is Typhone’s proposed course of action following recent events?”

Lady U-Roe lifted her head. She was a magnificent looking East-Wind woman who despite her respectable fifty-odd rotations had only a few strands of white in her otherwise perfect raven mane of hair. Her almond-shaped brown eyes fixed the Ruling with a stern, unyielding gaze:

“We have considered a number of acceptable options.” She said with an even tone. “As a warrior yourself, I am sure you are familiar with what the Code of Honour demands in such circumstances?”

So they were going to ask her to step down. That was to be expected - despite the strong and rather quick socio-economic development the South-East Wind folk had undergone in the past decarotations, their culture remained steeped in the endless struggle between shame and dignity.

“We have already appointed a Scouting committee to shortlist candidates for a Ruling over storms and We are prepared to abdicate mid-term as soon as one is found.” Wotar nodded. “However, are you suggesting that AWA’s military forces remain without a leader in these troubled times?” She tried to suppress her smug smile as she studied the frozen expressions across the table. “Furthermore, are you yourselves prepared to adhere to the very same Code of Honour and take responsibility for your own oversight when you agreed to stop the search and accept my appointment?”

Another tense silence fell upon the Wind group. Lady U-Roe’s face looked like a stone mask when she decided to speak again:

“We acknowledge the complications which may arise from this solution, so we have come prepared with an alternative.” She turned her head briefly to Tan’s relatives by her side, as if asking their permission to go on. “Suppose we could… delegate the responsibility for this oversight, as You correctly called the skipping of Aeris Tan as Ruling over storms, to a third party?”

Wotar felt her brows furrow on her forehead. “Please elaborate, Legislative Elder U-Roe.”

Tan’s brother suddenly got agitated next to Wang, as she finished translating. He started explaining something quickly in their native tongue and pushed a round dimensigram disk into his great-aunt’s hand.

“If Your Majesty will allow it?” Aeris Wang inquired more out of common courtesy as she moved to insert the small object into the projector slot in the middle of the table.

The projector came alive with a whisper of a buzz and the three-dimensional image of an East-Wind man was displayed, along with some basic biographical data. He had sharp, expressive features which looked like they were painted on by a skilled artist and waist-length raven hair, which was partly pulled behind his head in an elaborate set of braids and ties. The silver hair pin that pulled all of this together, along with his rather conservative and traditional choice of clothing was the only thing remarkable about him, except of course for his stunning looks. The tag next to his face read “Aeris Lee, born Phung-shen Lee”.

Wotar stared at the words like hypnotized. Most East-Wind names had suffered some form of alteration to be able to transcribe them in the Common Tongue, and lady Aeris’ family name was even a downright transliteration of the ancient characters which meant “beautiful” and “clear”. Phung-shen however didn’t ring any bells and the water lady wished she could look it up on her satcomm.

“I see Your Majesty is perhaps struggling to grasp the meaning of the image and name of the individual.” Lady Stoirme chimed in again. “I am told the creature’s name translates to something like Lee, Son of the Wind deity?”

Wang nodded and clicked to the next image on the disk. It was the same man, but the image was flat this time and taken from a distance. He looked like he was running, but his eyes were white and there was a blur of something behind him, which Wotar couldn’t quite identify. The creature? Wind deity? The Ruling felt her heart sink to her stomach when realization finally hit her.

Tan’s brother became agitated again, and Wang attempted a simultaneous two-way translation:

“Sei says you may have guessed correctly, Your Majesty. That thing is indeed a Tailwind.”

“A Tailwind, who happened to be married to the great late Aeris Tan.” Lady U-Roe added impatiently.

Wotar felt a cold chill run down her spine. “Are you suggesting…”

“Of course, none of us here are superstitious.” Lady Stoirme jumped in, lifting her hands up in a defensive gesture. “All we’re saying is, regardless of our personal beliefs, a great number of East-Wind natives still see Tailwinds as trickster demons with the ability to drain a windstorm’s Gift. Would it be such a stretch to propose that this is what led to the instability of lady Aeris’ powers? Then, once she was free and away from him, here in Syfis, her Gift of Storm slowly started to return?”

“Not only that, but he took his daughter’s Gift as well” Wang translated for Sei. “Or so he believes”, the woman quickly added, lowering her head a bit in shame and gesturing for the man to be quiet.

Wotar wanted to scream. Back when her mother was Ruling, the world was still in chaos, ten odd rotations after the war. The windstorms had suffered great loss and their daughters had begun to suffer from the genetic plague in significant numbers. While Liquitt’s hands were full with trying to rebuild and restore AWA after the devastation, the ladies of Typhone had taken it upon themselves to return to a barbaric practice from the dark ages and blamed their misfortunes on a tribe of East-Wind heretics who trained their women and men in the Gift of Storm on equal footing. The last Cutting of Tails was one of Liquitt’s biggest regrets as a ruler, for she had neither the time nor resources to stop it. And here the Wind ladies were again, suggesting this time they cut just one Tail - that of Aeris Lee.

“I see You are conflicted, Your Majesty”, ah, so now the Legislative Elder would use honorifics? “However I am here to assure you that for whatever reason, the Chasing and Cutting of Tails is still legally enforceable on the Wind twin. I suppose no one had bothered to revoke the old laws…”

“This is why we brought lady U-Roe along, but also to discuss the legal matter of Tempayah Wint’s … shall we call it escape from prison?” Lady Stoirme jumped in again. “Or do you believe she had accomplices on the outside? Whatever the case, the summary of the Wind twin’s suggestion for next steps is as follows - we issue a planet-wide warrant for Aeris Lee’s arrest as the one responsible for us not being able to appoint Aeris Tan as Ruling over storms and we reopen the planet-wide warrant for lady Tempayah and anyone aiding and abetting her terrorist activity.”

“Judging from your silence, I take it whatever proof you have that the firestarters were not involved in the attack on Syfis does not invalidate our second proposal either in whole or in part?” Lady U-Roe inquired. “Have we gotten to the point where You might share your findings with us?”