As they filed out of the med room, Mali let just a little bit of the fatigue he was feeling all over his body show on his face. He was much looking forward to collapsing on his bed as soon as his legs would take him to his chambers. He could practically smell his pillow, as he turned around the corner towards the exit of the med center, when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and pulled him into an empty manipulation room.

“Oh what fresh Kriyan hell…” he started, putting all his leftover energy into sounding firm and annoyed.

Both sentiments disappeared into thin air as the door slammed shut behind his back and he suddenly found himself pressed between it and his captor. Catlike green eyes stared into his own as a familiar voice purred into the barely there space between their faces:

“Well then, Reverend Big Brother, I believe we’re long overdue an honest little chat, don’t you?”

Mali wanted to push her off and run away. Then he wanted to scream. Then he remembered he had no energy or strength to do either.

“Lady Tempayah, what’s this about?” At the very least, he could still sound indignant.

Wint’s catlike eyes narrowed and her playful smile disappeared, making way for a rather uncharacteristic serious look.

“Lady Tempayah…”, she echoed, thoughtfully, almost to herself. “You used to call me that a long time ago, I remember. Though when it’s just us, I’d prefer it if you could drop the act, lord Agua Ma’lia…”

Mali felt as though someone had dumped ice cold water on his back. So she had recognised him… But how? When?

She sighed and pushed herself off the door and a step away from him, but still looming close, in case he tried to run away. He was grateful for the small bit of breathing room. Much as he hated to admit it, despite all the pain this woman had caused him, her proximity still had the same effect on his body as it did all those years ago.

“H-how…” was all the sound he managed to get through his suddenly very dry throat.

The windstorm pursed her lips and her expression changed once more. Sadness? No, more like disappointment.

“What you didn’t think I’d look for you? After all we’ve been through?” The way she said it sounded more like an accusation than a question - after all you’ve put me through, was what he heard.

“All we’ve been through?” He snapped, anger giving him a little bit of his energy back. “You have no idea what I’ve been through! Disowned, dishonored, cast away on this Goddess forsaken Island to rot for the crime of giving in to your desires! So what - you were looking for me? Why? Were you curious to see how your leftovers are doing?”

Her eyebrows furrowed and another shadow passed over her sharp features. Her shoulders slumped and she did something else that was quite uncharacteristic for her:

“You are angry at me… You have every right to be. I know this won’t fix anything, but I just wanted you to know I’m sorry…”

He felt his own brows knit on his forehead in confusion. So she wasn’t here to mock him or out of some misplaced desire for revenge? He was, after all, the reason she was imprisoned a whole deca-rotation ago now. Yet seeing her downcast gaze like this made something stir in his chest. No, he chided himself, she should be sorry, she did this to him! Even saying so wouldn’t fix anything, she knew that herself, so why? Why was he feeling like stepping over and hugging her? Alas, the male heart is a complicated thing - impulsive, emotional, irrational.

“When did you know it was me?” He sighed, leaning back against the door for support - his legs weren’t feeling up to the task of keeping him upright.

Wint looked up at him slowly, almost shyly, as if surprised that he hadn’t launched into another angry tirade.

“I had my suspicions since you showed up at the Coastal-5 Training center to treat Linda…” she muttered. “Though in the end, you gave yourself out - on the Recreation Isles.”

He narrowed his eyes at her - on the Recreation Isles? With all the commotion of recent events, it felt as though meeting her on that wretched place happened a full Water moon ago, though it was only half that in reality. She’d caught him completely off guard that time, when she approached, dragging Linda, the prince and the two East-Wind lads behind her like little pets and she’d greeted him like an old friend. He had greeted her too… Ah, right.

“Lady Tempayah… ‘s what you called me when I saw you back there, remember?” She whispered. “Though the Ruling never told you who I was… I imagine for the Recreation Isles rendez-vous too, she just asked you to expect company on your trip back, right?”

He suddenly felt like laughing and had no strength or common sense left to stop himself. She stared at him as if he’d gone mad. Of course the Ruling over sea had never mentioned who he was expecting. She would never had told him outright that he should harbor a known criminal at large on his missionary ship back to Tib’tai. Yet seeing Wint headed towards him on that day had startled him enough to make a mistake.

“Hahah… oh, did I call you that? One could wonder how I was able to do all I’ve been doing the past deca-rotation in secret when I’m so careless!” He tried to restrain his last few chuckles into the palm of his hand, before speaking again. “I am curious though as to why you kept quiet all throughout our trip here - it’s not like we had much better to do on the ship…”

She pursed her lips and looked down again. Was that a blush on her cheeks? Fearless anarchist Tempayah Wint was blushing?

“What could I have said more than what I did just now?” She muttered finally. “You can hate me, kick me, scream in my face - whatever makes you feel better, just please don’t take it out on that poor little fire kid up there or any of the Aerises - male or female… “

Ma’li felt a bit of heat color his own cheeks. So she wasn’t doing this for her own benefit after all. Taking a good look at her showed him that she obviously felt like she didn’t deserve his forgiveness. Instead, she was asking him to take pity on her rag tag team of misfits.

“Listen, la… Wint…” Before his brain could stop them, his hands reached for hers and he looked into her eyes. “I am truly sorry about what happened to the Prince, ok? Had I known who he was, I’d never have dared give him the Herb. He’d already downed the whole flask before I could reach his mind and realised what I’d done. Drugging the Prince of Magmalia is a foolish move, Lightning child or not. I’m not playing this game since yesterday, you know. It takes a lot of work and restraint to keep doing what I do while still pretending all is well in shaman land.”

The windstorm studied him with her steely gaze, trying to gauge if he was sincere or not. Her face softened a bit, apparently satisfied and a bit of that devillishly handsome grin started to blossom on her lips once more.

“Fair enough… we agree we’re all to blame for that one. So I take it yer not gonna hit me?”

“Oh, trust me, the desire for that is still there, but alas - the stamina is not…” He shrugged.

“You’ve changed, you know that?” She whispered, taking half a step towards him.

“If you’re about to make a stamina sex joke, I swear to the Goddess I’ll find some strength to punch you, if it kills me!”

“Mercy, my lord!” She lifted her hands in front of her in a mock gesture of surrender. “I actually meant you look more mature, stronger. It’s a good look on you, truly.”

“Thank you…” he replied with a slight nod. “I’m glad we’ve cleared … “ He tried to find proper words for their bizarre little exchange, but his mind drew a blank, so he just waved a hand in the air. “whatever this is up… “

“Me too.” She shone a bright smile at him and squeezed the hand he still had extended towards her. “Though if I may ask… you know how I am - I just gotta know what this beef between you and the alpha Storm fox is?”

He sighed again, feeling positively drained. Although in fairness, thinking about Aeris Lee had that effect on him even on days he hadn’t spent hiking up steep cliffs for hours on end. That man was a mystery at best and an absolute nuisance at his worst. Mali just hoped that this time, with the Prince at least, the Tailwind might see something through to its end, before running away.

“That’s a longer story for a less tired Big Brother… Since we agree you owe me big time for the whole mess we’re in, would you mind helping me to my room?”

“Oh, my lord, is that an invitation to your chambers? After all this time?” She chuckled, but readily moved to lift him off the door and support his weight, almost carrying him out the door.

“Now I will punch you!”

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

“Good morning, daystarlight.”

Fye opened his eyes to soft fluorescent lights, dimmed so as not to irritate, but bright enough to make the surroundings clear. His brain felt all fuzzy and the rest of his body was numb or in various stages of muscle fever. He felt good lying down, fearing he would probably not be able to stand up. He was mildly curious at the absolute state of calm that had taken him over despite… Despite what? Did something happen?

When his vision de-fogged a bit, he tried looking around the room once more. His golden brown eyes fell on the see-through barrier between his bed and the rest of the softly lit space. It looked like transparilline - a strange material which could be crafted just as easily as metalline, but unlike most metals on Alaiah had no electro conducive properties. “Huh, fascinating”, he thought to himself, “this looks like a very scaled up version of an electro-proof cage. How big was the outage they had to fix to need this much transparilline?”

Some movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he tried to turn his head as much as he could through the muffled painful protest of his neck muscles. “Oh, that’s right”, his brain supplied, “someone spoke to me.” Someone with a deep baritone which sounded almost like the purr of a large wildcat - one of the shamans, perhaps?

He finally gave up on the abuse of his neck and had to satisfy himself with a halfway turn of the head. Thankfully, it was good enough for him to focus his eyes on the man sitting on the plush recliner chair on the other side of the transparilline barrier. Fye felt a dull pang in his chest as his fuzzy brain started slowly recognising the other person in the room. Raven hair, pale skin with a hint of gold and sharp brown eyes which looked like they were piercing his soul.

“I’d advise against any sudden movements in your current state, Your Highness.” The East Wind man said in the same deep voice the prince had heard before.

“You…” Fye croaked and furrowed his brows with the strain of forming words. “You’re one of Linda’s…”

“East-Wind whores?” The man supplied, an eerie little smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Through his brain fog, the prince felt something he could only describe as the faint echo of fear. Shame and guilt followed suite, as the memories of his late-night escapade began falling into place. It all seemed distant still - almost like it had happened to someone else, which puzzled him even more.

“I am… sorry…” Fye pushed through his constricted throat. “I really am… just…”

The man tilted his head slightly to the side, studying him through half-lidded eyes.

“Ah, yes, that would be the effects of the tranquilizers you must be feeling right about now. We had to give you quite the mix, but they should be wearing off soon. ” He drawled out, almost to himself.

“Good”, Fye said, trying to sound firm, despite feeling light as air.

He felt as though… Well, actually, he could barely feel anything at all and that was creeping him out.

“Bad”, the man corrected, wagging a finger at the boy. “Very bad, because once they do, you might actually wish you’d never been born.”

Fye stared at him, jaw slightly agape. There was no threat or malice in the East Wind native’s voice, he spoke matter of factly, as though he were sharing what he’d had for breakfast. The bizarre mismatch between what was said and how he’d said it caused another echo of fear to rise inside the boy’s chest, a bit stronger this time.

“What… what happened to me?” The prince stuttered, already dreading the answer.

The Tailwind sighed and sat up in the chair, his expression changing from aloof detachment to intense focus so swiftly that if Fye’s head wasn’t spinning already, it might have started to at that point.

“You took the Herb and it awakened a connection to your Gift.” The sharp brown eyes fixed him with another soul-piercing gaze. “Under different circumstances congratulations would be in order, I suppose. However, what was laying dormant inside you turned out to be unlike any Gift anyone’s observed on Alaiah since recorded history began.”

As if on queue, the first batch of tranquilizers waned off and Fye’s body felt hot and cold at the same time. It felt like someone had dragged a live wire through every single muscle. He may have screamed, he wasn’t sure he had the brain capacity to register the sound.

Just as he thought he may pass out again from the intense pain, it stopped suddenly and without warning, as if it had never been there. The prince tried to blink back the tears and focus his gaze on the dark-haired man once more.

“What in the Kriyan bloody hells was that?” He tried to keep his voice from shaking, but failed miserably.

There was yet another shift in the Tailwind’s air - this time it almost looked like he was concerned for him.

“You are baptised in the Classic Alaian religion, ye?”

Of course he was… Boy or not, he was still a member of the Imperial family and firetribe customs mandated it. What did that have to do with anything? Still, too tired to ask, Fye just managed a half nod in response.

“Then you must know how the Legends and Prophecies gospel ends?”

The prince felt his brows furrow on his forehead again. Legends and Prophecies was the last gospel in the sacred Alaian texts, recognised by both Magmalian Classic and AWA’s Neo-Alaianism, but not by Mah-Alaianism, which was the dominant faith in South Magmalia. Excerpts from it are read when performing baptisms. The gospel spoke about a savior, prophesied to appear in times of great distress to bring the faithful back into the Goddess’ divine grace. That savior would wield a Gift unlike any other on the planet - the Gift of Thunder and Lightning.

“What?” Fye started again weakly, but the panic rising in his chest gave his voice an unexpected boost. “WHAT?!”

The East-Wind man let out a short bark of a laugh - yet another swift change in his mercurial demeanor.

“You mean you don’t remember? Or you don’t believe it to be true?”

Fye remained silent, partly because he was at a loss for words, partly because another wave of tranqs had waned and his muscles spasmed painfully once more. As he was writhing in agony on the bed, long repressed memories started surfacing in his mind. The women who had dragged him to the Recreation Isles - he had electrocuted one of them. Why didn’t he remember before now?

It felt as though there was a barrier in his mind - thick, solid an unyielding, keeping what he was looking for just out of his consciousness’ reach. The Herb he had ingested however had made a significant dent in this mysterious wall and his attention dug into it with the fervor of a grave robber, expecting to unearth some great treasure of old.

What he got instead was another dose of pain - the emotional kind this time - mixed with sizeable amounts of fear and shame. There it was - the dreaded memory of his last day in Tyrannia, before running away. He could almost feel the Earth snake’s hands on his flesh, as she mercilessly tore his clothes off and ravaged him under that tree in the Palace gardens. A strange sensation had started pooling inside his lower abdomen and between his legs and when it reached its peak, he had felt the shock waves which triggered his first ever use of Lightning. It was that incident which had fragmented his consciousness and prevented him from remembering what he was capable of.

Coming back to the here and now, he focused on the Tailwind’s face again, latching onto the foreign man’s image as though it represented salvation itself.

“I remember…” The boy said finally. “I remember it all, even that which I don’t wish to…”

The man’s sharp eyes darkened and his face changed again, this time to express a sadness so raw, Fye had to wonder if the Storm fox had read his mind.

“You don’t have to tell me about it now,” the man said quietly. “Although at some point, I’d need to know about your emotional triggers.”

Fye felt the tears stinging in his eyes start to roll onto his cheeks and he felt powerless to stop them. He had just realised why the transparilline barrier was there. It wasn’t put up to protect him from an electro outage, quite the opposite - it was to keep his outbursts in. Men who developed connections to Sources were incredibly rare to begin with, even the Tailwinds of the Wind nation never reached significant numbers before the first Cutting of Tails. Those other few males who did had either managed to tame their outbursts with the Herb and became shamans or went insane and eventually died.

And yet here he was - a boy with a Gift and not just any Gift, but one which was previously thought to be nothing more than a religious legend. The Goddess must have gone mad to have given such an important power to a male.

“This can’t be right”, Fye sobbed. “I can’t deal with this - what if I can’t control it? What if I end up going mad like Pyr the Flamethrower?”

“I wish I could tell you that won’t happen,” the Tailwind said, his voice turned soft, like a father trying to soothe a child, waking from a nightmare. “But I prefer to be honest with you - you deserve as much for all you’ve been through.”

“Why are you here?” Fye asked weakly. “Why do you even care? I was horrible to you… I said such nasty things…”

“Horrible? I suppose you were a tad unpleasant”, the man said, a playful smile across his lips. “Though I’ve been called worse - trickster demon, abomination, Sleeping aide - take your pick.”

Fye pursed his lips, eyes still fixed on the East-Wind man’s beautiful face. Tailwinds were considered extinct since the last Cutting of Tails a few deca-rotations back. They had turned to bedtime stories for young boys like the prince, who thought he’d never get to meet one in the flesh. Yet here this one was - looking deceptively delicate and demure, despite the terrifying power he commanded. He had looked so scary that night on the yacht with his eyes turning ice-white and the tails of wind flying behind his back. Scary, but neither insane, nor out of control.

“I am truly sorry”, the boy muttered. “I shouldn’t have said those things… I don’t even know you, I was just so mad, because Linda said she was not from this world, so …”

“Ye, her essence isn’t, but the body she inhabits is 100% Alaian.” The man nodded. “I should know - I had a minor part to play in creating it some twenty-five rotations ago.”

Fye felt his cheeks burn, as he realised he had called Linda’s father (or at least her body’s father) a whore. This caused another bout of laughter to erupt from the Tailwind’s rosy lips.

“Relax, little one, you were in no state to judge right from wrong that time.” The man waved a hand at the boy, dismissing his worry. “In any event, we have more pressing matters to discuss than my barely bruised ego.”

“More pressing matters… ” Fye echoed and shivered as he remembered another moment from his Herb trip - Linda, wrapping her arms around him, as the lightning coursing through him mercilessly dug into her flesh. “Linda! I… I zapped her so hard! Is she… Oh, no…”

“Linda is fine.” The man reassured. “She is in my daughter’s body after all and even Giftless Alaian women possess extraordinary regenerative abilities.”

“Oh, thank the Goddess!”

“Don’t thank Her just yet. Let’s talk about your predicament for a moment. How many rotations have you marked?”

“I marked my sixteenth last winter.”

The Tailwind drew in a sharp breath.

“I guessed as much. You’re turning into a man, huh? When did you have your first wet dream?”

Fye looked horrified and felt his cheeks heat up again.

“What does it matter to you?”

“It matters if you want to be out of the electro-proof cage”, the man replied tersely. “Since you know who Pyr the Flamethrower was, I imagine you understand at least in part how your hormones interact with the Gift genes?”

Fye nodded to himself. Of course, it was a well-known fact that testosterone was the main reason why most men couldn’t establish a stable connection to a Source. In the rare cases where a male was born with powerful enough genes to awaken a Gift, it was this pesky sex hormone that caused sudden, uncontrollable outbursts. Pyr the Flamethrower was the most recent case, from the previous heca-rotation - a young boy at the threshold of manhood who had woken up one day to realise he had set his house ablaze in the middle of the night, burning his entire family to a crisp.

The case had turned so famous over night that throngs of scientists and shamans had flocked to Tyrannia to study the boy. There were psychiatrists too, working hard to try and salvage whatever was left of the poor teen’s mind. In the end, the pain of losing his family at a young age, paired with the ever stronger outbursts of Fire and Ignition, caused by his maturing body overwhelmed him. He was found lifeless one morning in his pyro-proof cell, having committed suicide by overdosing with the tranq pills he had stached.

“Two rotations ago” , Fye muttered, barely above a whisper.

“A bit of a late bloomer?” The Tailwind nodded in reply. “Don’t be mad, this could actually work to our advantage. Tell me something else - do you take care of your morning needs regularly?”

“What’s this - an andrologist’s appointment?” The prince snapped, anger starting to boil in his chest. “Are you going to ask me about my length and girth next? What about facial and body hair, any interest in those?”

The man fell silent a moment, studying the boy’s expression through narrowed eyes. Fye thought he saw the beginnings of a blush dust the other’s cheeks, so at the very least it wasn’t like the Storm fox was completely shameless.

“This is by no means an easy conversation to have for either of us, Your Highness”, the man sighed. “But there’s more at stake here than our tarnished masculine honor, so please work with me. The main thing now is to get you stable enough, so you can leave the barrier. “

“How does asking me all these uncomfortable questions make me more stable?”

“Fine”, the man threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “I’ll explain what I need to know and why. Knowing when your puberty started tells me how long it’s been since hormonal changes began - the longer it’s been, the greater the risk that you won’t be able to learn control. However, even if it’s been long enough, if you take care of your body’s needs regularly, testosterone levels will be at baseline and less likely to spike on their own. Do you understand now?”

Fye’s eyes widened in shock. He’d never thought about it that way before. Ever since he could remember, he was taught to fear and dread the moment his body would start maturing for sexual activity. He was so disgusted with himself that morning a couple rotations back when he’d woken up covered in sweat and that other sticky liquid.

“My court lads would do it for me some times… It happened often… not daily, but every other day…” The prince admitted, face burning bright red.

“That’s a good start. Do you think you could do it yourself? Daily?” The Tailwind inquired.

“I can try… but… what if that’s not enough?”

“You can’t start thinking like that before you’ve tried.”

“Is that how you developed your Gift?”

“Yes and no”, the man shrugged. “My tribe had no prejudice against boys and men summoning Storms. We just knew our way of doing things was slightly different. Call it male mysteries or developing a Craft, if you will. For me and my sons, this process started long before we had our first sex dreams. Still, if you trust me and do as I say, I might be able to train you.”

“Train me? Is that why you’re here, lord…” Fye faltered a bit, only then realised he had no idea what to call the man.

“Aeris Lee”, the Tailwind supplied, then shone the boy a bright smile, as if he’d just thought of the funniest joke. “Actually, if you’re asking what to call me, you might be the only person in a position to use the term as intended. I can stop with all the honorifics and you could call me Master Lee, how about that?”

“Master Lee”, the boy turned the title around in his mouth. “As in Master of the Gift?”

Master of the Gift was an ancient term, forgotten by history itself almost. Some archaologists speculated it may have been a metaphor for powerful shamans in the past, while others considered the possibility that there actually could have been men with the ability to secure a stable connection to an elemental source. Descriptions of such men were scarce and fragmented - never from the point of view of the supposed Masters themselves, rather from the perspective of their pupils, who may have had a vested interest in overestimating the power levels of their teachers.

“In a sense, yes”, Lee shrugged again. “Although you’re not gifted with Wind and Storm, your powers seem closest to that element, so I’ve been gently but firmly nudged to accept your apprenticeship.”

“What do I do now, Master?” Fye asked, feeling eager to get out of his prison all of a sudden.

“Easy there, little storm”, the man laughed. “Rest for now, focus on recovering your muscle strength - you ran so fast with the Gift you had no control over, it will be a while before you can move freely again. Once you can stand, if you do what I asked and show us no worrying outbursts, I will ask the Reverend Brother to release you.”