Elwin Alone

"Mr. Elwin. Please step up." He motioned Elwin to step forward, and Elwin did, head held high. It was the one moment he could be assured of his trust in himself, and if he demonstrated his aptitude with water to the best of his ability right now, people would at least reconsider their prejudiced impression of him as a fraud. Otherwise... he did not know whether he would be allowed to live in their midst, judging by how they glanced and talked to him.

"Draw water out of the pool, as you would usually do," instructed Professor Thales.

Elwin, his Quan buzzing with delight, drew out a jet of water from the pool much larger than what he'd done at practice and circled it above his head several times, maintaining the rhythm of its orbit just right. Gradually, the loose globules of water cohered around the circling jet like tributaries becoming a river, and became a smooth sphere with a cometary tail streaking behind it.

"Well done, Mr. Eramir, for keeping the rhythm just right. Now, do you have experience with shaping the water?"

"Not extensively, sir. But I can try."

"Good spirit. Try shaping it into a long whip, if you can. Your Maht shall provide you an intuition to do so."

Elwin, turning his arms and his Quan-laden wrist in a rhythmic motion that was instinctive to him, stretched the comet of water into a lengthy elastic stream some thirty-feet long, maintaining its orbit above his head so it wouldn't splutter into drops.

"Most excellent. Now, do you see that metal training dummy in the distance?"

Elwin spied with his single eye a glimmer of a metal mannequin some distance away.

"That one?" Elwin gestured with his elbow. Was it twenty, no thirty-feet away? Twenty-five maybe?

He squinted his eye and tried to shuffle from side to side, closing it and opening it to gauge the distance to his target. The whip let loose a couple of drops as the memory of that disastrous tagball game a winter ago surfaced to Elwin's mind; a game he lost because he had one vision, not two like everyone did.

"Yes, that's the target. When you are ready, try striking it."

Elwin took a deep breath, circling his whip above him once, twice, and thrice, then threw the water-stream as if one would crack a real whip. It raced outwards like a wave – but to his great chagrin, he'd misjudged the distance so it came short – and in the moment of hesitation and embarrassment, he forgot to properly dampen the force as it returned. Elwin's own water whip sprung back on his face, and its tip slapped him viciously on the head and neck, forming droplets of blood upon his cheek and chin, knocking off his eyewrap for everyone to see.

Gasps of shock and surprise immediately crowded the temple-hall.

"EWW!"

"Disgusting!"

"What happened to his face?"

"Was he always like that?"

The vision of his one good eye was blurred from the impact of being hit. Elwin immediately scrambled for his eyewrap, crawling on the floor, trying to cover the left side of his head and face, the confidence of just a moment ago shriveled in a cruel inversion of luck.

Both Isaac and Professor Thales immediately came to his rescue.

"Elwin, are you alright?"

"Mr. Eramir, are you hurt? Can you see?"

Elwin grasped the damp eyewrap, dirt and gravel still falling out, and hurriedly wrapped it around his head and left eye, scarred and maimed like an offspring of some monster. He motioned his Quan to splash some water onto his cheek as quickly as he could, to wash the blood away, to wash his humiliation away.

"Not to worry, Professor," Elwin replied wryly, forcing a smile. "I was always like this."

Professor Thales stooped down to assess his injuries, but the moment of silence was rudely punctuated by none other than Lucian.

"Professor Thales, if everything is alright," he inquired, "may I have the chance to demonstrate the water whip? It would be unfair to press Elwin when he is injured."

Elwin clenched his fist in his robes so hard it went white. The monstrous anger coiled inside his heart threatened to rattle, posing up as if to strike.

You rat!

Professor Thales still looked at Elwin worriedly, but dusted his shoulders off and helped him to his feet, his caring kindness incongruous to what he knew of the Ministry of Order. Didn't Professor Thales use to be its Director? Wasn't he supposed to be ruthless and without heart? Or was he pretending to be good and admirable like Lucian? He didn't know which cocktail of emotions to feel other than abject shame – shame that his very own Maht had betrayed him in the moment of truth, in that moment where he had the chance to at least show everyone that he wasn't completely inept.

Elwin could only muster a half-hearted 'thank you' with his voice, which was beginning to roil with dismay.

Lucian got to work immediately, stepping in front of Elwin and motioning him away. With movements far more gracious than Elwin's and twice as fast, Lucian circled the water of the pool over his head and formed it into a smooth whip, thrice as thick and longer than his. With a precise and well-coordinated strike, he struck the metal shield of the dummy in its dead-center; springing his whip back again, and throwing it out once more, he latched the end of his whip on the torso itself, and ripped the dummy out of its foundation to swing it in a huge orbit above his head, the tension of the water kept tight through a rhythm of alternating tugs. Performing his feat to great satisfaction, he loosened the whip and launched the dummy into a wall, whereupon it came to embed with a heavy thunk.

Lucian sprung his whip back with flawless grace, hitting neither his face nor his shoulder, nor his hair nor the ends of his uniform; he circled it once like a lasso before vaporizing the mass into the air in a cloud of mist.

Lucian stood there and extinguished his Quan with a cool swipe of his arm; his peers and the rest of the class let out an admiration of wows.

"A demonstration beyond criticism. Well done, Lucian. Thank you for showing what the rhythm of water can do," lauded the Master of the Waters, but not before offering Elwin a brief glance of sympathetic concern. "Artens, this is the level you are expected to reach by next spring."

Elwin felt himself fill with despair.

In his singular goal of prevailing in the tournament, and in the enthused anticipation of what power a Quan would bestow upon him, Elwin realized he'd forgotten a very obvious truth: he wasn't the only person to possess a Quan. Everyone else now did too, including Lucian. He'd need to overcome the difference in those innate blessings, but just how he possibly could, he did not know.

Both Katherine and Isaac put their hands on Elwin's back and shoulder to comfort him; but he yanked it away, and wordlessly watched the class stand in awe at Lucian's demonstration.

***

"Look, Isaac, Katherine, can you NOT pat my back in class? You are NOT HELPING!"

Elwin burst out in frustration at his kismets walking out of Professor Thales's class.

"Sorry about that," replied Isaac. But Katherine was more adamant.

"Look, Elwin, we're trying to help and empathize with you. We know how you feel, too."

Look at these two very talented wielders of the Elemental Arts trying to console him and pretending to know. The hypocrisy of their suggestion stoked Elwin's steadily churning shame and anger, and he snapped back at them both.

"No, you have no idea what it feels to fail like this, so just – so just – you don't need to pat my back like I'm a helpless baby. That makes it even worse!"

"I thought friends are supposed to comfort one anoth –"

"Well, if you guys like me so much, then do so in private when no one is looking."

"Elwin, what's gotten into you? You are never this angry –" appealed Isaac, trying to defuse the situation.

"What's gotten in me? You just said you know how I feel. So if you aren't a liar, you should know the answer to that, I think!" Elwin raised his voice, finding the wrath from his shame, of everything from that disastrous day and before, possessing him, clouding his mind. Every sense of his head was wrought with storm, ready to retaliate to every comment thrown at him. For Elwin, right now, every word he heard was an existential threat, a threat to his place in Aeternitas, which was hanging by a thread.

"I get why you are angry, but that's no way to talk to us like we're your punching bags," Katherine sparred back.

"Punching bags, PUNCHING BAGS? You think I'm angry like this for no reason? They saw me, Katherine, they saw me and what THIS –" Elwin pointed to his eyewrap, fingers shaking – "IS SUPPOSED TO HIDE! Tell me, if you'd also been called 'disgusting' by the people around you and that's what you've heard, would you want anyone else to look down at you after that?"

"Look down at you? So is this –" she pointed at herself, Isaac, and Mirai some distance away – "what we're doing? We're looking down at you?" Katherine held her ground, facing Elwin. Isaac could find no way to interrupt and neutralize the gathering storm.

"Of course you are. You guys – you –" Elwin bit his lip so hard that drops of blood began to form on the cracks. He didn't want to say what came after, but his enslaved will compelled him to spew the words out like waves from a storm, to extinguish the fire-girl in front of him. "You guys were born talented. That's how you got here. No matter what you say to make me feel good, what you are able to do are leagues ahead of me, and you know it. You know and speak the language of the Elemental Arts that I don't understand. What you find so easy, I don't! So you don't know what I'm going through, so don't pretend to know, don't pretend to help, because that insults me and makes me feel like I'm someone helpless. AND THE LAST THING I WANT TO BE IS HELPLESS, SO WOULD YOU JUST STOP WITH YOUR WEALTHY, SMUG, ARGUMENT-MONGERING!"

Isaac closed his eyes and grimaced. 

Words had been spilled which should not have been spilled, perhaps ever. Isaac knew there were limits to how much he could understand his friend's emotions, and didn't press Elwin when he accused them of not understanding. Air didn't conflict with water, after all. Isaac knew that Elwin will be allowed to process his emotions naturally given time; he knew of such a process very well, from himself, and from the cries of grieving families at the hospital that haunted him. 

But Isaac didn't know how Katherine would take Elwin's vitriol, and knew that water did not mix with fire.

She replied.

"So, that's how you've thought of us this whole time?"

Isaac prayed, Don't, Elwin! If you do –

Elwin replied in earnest, nodding more than usual, digging his own grave. "Yeah. Now you get my point."

Mirai approached the both of them, enunciating a word of protest, but Katherine held up her hand in front of Mirai.

Without missing a beat, the daughter of the Archon coolly responded. "I see, Elwin. Thanks for being honest with us. It's better we know now, better than later, when I might have put deeper faith in you."

"Huh?" Elwin replied, the winds finally spent and waning in his head.

Katherine crossed her arms. "It's clear that you don't see us as friends worthy of yourself. So we will leave. Feel free to find a new group – perhaps they won't try to help or comfort you in a trying time, exactly as you'd want, and they can put up with the beating of your words like scared sheep. Come, Isaac, Mirai! Let's go."

Elwin's face contorted in disbelief. But his pride wouldn't allow him to capitulate – in that moment of great regret, "Fine with me," were all the words he could pitch. 

The kismets were broken.

***

It's alright, I can find new people. New people who wouldn't look down and argue with me, Elwin thought. 

But in his anger of the previous day he completely neglected that he was now in no position to find a team for the tournament; he would have to face the world alone. 

Elwin grit his teeth and looked forward. He never needed anyone else growing up. His father was gone, his mother was busy running The Marlin, and his brother was too young to understand, so why worry about not having friends now? 

He spoke those thoughts to himself, half-crazed, half-irrational, driven by the rejection of his kismets that he forgot completely the fact that deep down, he cared for his mother and little brother very much, and cared very much for Isaac, Katherine, and Mirai.

He looked upon himself in that mirror, tearing away his eyewrap, and squeezed and squeezed his wrist in self-hatred, cursing himself for how thin he was, how physically unable he was, how unblessed he was at his Maht and at the Arts, how ill he looked.

The monsters of his heart crawled up and clawed away at his soul; all of his fear of being ostracized, of being left out, of being rejected from the world was made true like a prophecy that fulfilled itself. They gnawed away at his consciousness, and he very much needed someone to help him. And help he sought, but not for the right goal or the right reason, not to bandage his soul.

Instead, he sought help to learn power and power alone – to better himself in the Arts – to rid himself of his sickly, thin, and disgusting body, to set fire to anything he wished, to grasp anything and everything on the earth, and to throw a water whip that would shake the world. He'd forge his own destiny even if his bones splintered to dust, even if the world demanded elsewise. Oh, yes, he will go out and wrest that power.

And he went to the only person he knew who could teach him such a power.

"Professor Aionia, could I ask you something?"