Like a solitary pine
On a bare wind-blasted shore
We can only grow the way the wind blows
In our elemental war

We can only grow the way the wind blows
We can only bow to the here and now
Or be broken down blow by blow

Rush - Way The Wind Blows

Lirssa felt the tugging caress of the wind. The storm had passed, but another was brewing out over the sea. The wind was its herald, snapping pennants and sails. She let the wind twist and twine her hair, lashing at her face and clinging at the corners of her eyes.

There were tears in those eyes. It was the wind irritating them, not her thoughts. She let all those worries, hopes, and plans tumble around in her mind, free from check or reconsideration. It was all truth. It was so much outside her power to change.

She read somewhere, some far off-world saint, that in this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.*

Lirssa had tried to do great things. She bit her lip as she thought about all she had tried to do and not accomplished. Hard on the heels of that thought were the things she had completed. And as hounds chase the hart, another thought that it never was enough.

A raindrop fell. One and then another some breaths apart, as if scouting the area for the right path of the storm to take. A gust of wind whipped Lirssa's tunic back and rocked her to her heels. The winds of Rhydin were blowing, and she had grown in their gales.

Turning from the end of the pier, she walked the docks and back into the heart of the city. In it, in the nooks and crannies of cracking stone and warping wood, she would do small things with great love.

(*The quote is attributed to Mother Teresa)

Lirssa was angry. There was no time to analyze or think about why. She grit her teeth and tried not to clench her hands into fists. It would reveal how much that comment had affected her. A breath in and a breath out, and Lirssa worked to relax the tightness in her jaw and throat. Her voice still came out low and harsh. ?I don?t care who or what you may think you know about me, all I want to know is do you think you can do what I am about to ask of you. I tracked you down.?

?I set the trail.? She hooked thumbs in her belt. So relaxed and in charge, holding superior knowledge ? personal knowledge of Lirssa.

?I said I don?t care. I will talk business, or you can be on your way. I won?t let you play merry hob with me.?

The old mercenary snorted and her eyes narrowed. ?You really don?t care? Not once have you wondered??

Lirssa shook her head, anger mutating into frustration. She had worked weeks on tracking down just the right person, or thought she had. It was going to take weeks more, but she was not going to be dragged into the conversation. ?Good day,? she muttered as she passed the woman to the window. It had to be that window as the wall below provided the most plentiful and assured foot and handholds.

The woman let her pass, but said, ?You have an odd way of responding to discovering family.?

One after another, the woman was goading her. It was a barb, and Lirssa was so very tempted to stop. But that would let the woman win, and Lirssa was, as had recently been observed, obstinate. Also, she had a tendency to want to get the last word in. A lingering petulance from her childhood. She smirked as she swung over the edge of the window, finding foot holds with natural ease. The teen years had not improved the more truculent elements of her personality. With her head still just above the edge of the window ledge, she said, ?I just define family different from you, and it doesn?t have anything to do with my blood.?

And she started to scramble down the wall. And she grumbled out all the curses she had ever learned in her lifetime the entire way.

When her feet hit the soft grass nestled close to the stone, lush and dark in the tower shadow, she curled into a crouch. Turning for the alley nearby, she was brought up short. The old woman came around the corner. Either she had a greater speed than Lirssa would have imagined, or that speed was created and distance traversed by extra help. "You, girl, should stop. Now."

Autumn was coming. For some, their sense of seasons based on their own worlds, autumn was here. The season danced in the air, tilting the scents to spices. Colors burnished and there were more opportunities for Lirssa's hair to blend in with the environment. Perhaps that was what made it her favorite time of year.

She sneered at her own thoughts. It was not so simple as that, nor so narcissistic. This was the time of year where the memories rested. Where change came with thundering swoops. Doors and alleyways held phantoms of her recollections. Cemeteries crafted beds of leaves in nooks and crannies, whispering lullabies.

Lirssa's fingers tapped along the iron bars between tall brick posts along the cemetery boundary. Just around the corner, she saw the old mercenary woman. Lirssa had learned the woman's name. Konane. She had meant to find out the day of their first meeting. That had gone much differently than planned.

"You select the most interesting places to meet." Konane remarked as she looked between cemetery and nearby houses.

A shrug, Lirssa hooked thumbs in the belt at her hips. It was a cocky stance she had seen in several flicker shows. She felt it fit her, at least when she was trying to present herself as uncaring. "I pick places that remind me who I am."

"A cemetery?"

"I wasn't being figurative when I said reborn, ya know."

Konane's lips pressed and drew down at the corners. It was one of the first signs of...what? Regret? Concern? Lirssa was not sure. "I know." Konane said at last.

When the mercenary drew down the hood of her cloak, letting the drizzle set sparkles to her silvery hair, she said, "What do you want?"

"I want to know why now."

"Why not now?"

Lirssa shook her head. "Nope. Not playing that game. You have a reason. People don't ignore kin for however long it has been and then just up and seek them out. No, you've got reasons. You're dying. Someone is dying. Maybe it's me and you think I should know things. Maybe something is going to happen as I grow older. There's a reason. You tell it."

"Demanding little upstart."

That just made Lirssa grit her teeth. "What exactly were you expecting me to be like, lady? I mean, seriously. Do you want me fawning over you? Pleading you? Ever so grateful you've found me?" A snicker, Lirssa shook her head once more. "You've got the wrong fairy tale running in your head. I'm not that kid. I'm not lost. I'm not chock full of regrets and fancies of what my life would have been. I'm lucky, but I'm also damned curious sort of kid. My parents, all of them, have said it would get me in trouble. It has. It also has helped. So, here we are. I'm curious as to why now. So, here's your window. Spoil it with being all mysterious and sanctimonious if you want to, but windows don't stay open forever."

Konane blinked. "You do talk a lot."

"Old news."

With a visible breath, the old woman nodded. "Quite. Well then. Why now? Because you are nearing the threshold -- the even horizon if you rather use your father's more creative description."

"I'm a black hole? That's comforting." Lirssa felt her heart speeding up no matter how much she wanted to not let the words trouble her. For all she knew, she was a ticking time bomb. She simply did not know.

"You know about black holes?"

"I'm educated. Surprise!" It was, Lirssa had to admit to herself, something of a pleasure to be that impertinent.

"You are not a black hole, but you are dangerous. It is time you meet with your father. I am here to be sure you do."

"Do not say I have grown." Lirssa started as she stood opposite the man claiming to be her father.

When he rose from his seat on the edge of the fountain, she saw him wobble slightly. By features, he was not an old man, and yet he seemed frail in his stance. No grey colored the dark brown hair, tight in a tail at the nape of his neck. His beard and mustache were neat, trim, and framed the fine line of a firmly pressed mouth. The clothes he wore told nothing of his trade or his status, neither destitute nor rich. Still, they were neatly kept and free of wear or fraying.

Konane snickered and stated simply. "Olen, this is Lirssa. Lirssa, this is Olen."

Lirssa was glad Konane had the sense not to add any presumed familial titles to the introduction. The old woman bowed her head to Olen with an unmistakable reverence, and then she turned away and slipped into the bustle of the Marketplace crowd.

"I would have hoped you had grown."

Lirssa hated that his voice did not sound raspy, or whiny, or anything that should could describe to keep his attention and his intention at bay. The voice was soft, but strong enough to carry and a simple, mild baritone. He was as indistinct from the wide world as one pebble from another along the stream.

"Yeah, well," she twisted her foot a little, trying to settle, "just don't say it as if you knew me when I was little or something."

"I did not." He answered and sat on the edge of the fountain again.

Lirssa made no move to join him. She kept her distance and studied him, trying to see something of herself in him. The nose, perhaps. Did she want to see it or was she hoping not to? "What do you want?"

"To know you now."

"Well joy unconfined." She flung her hands up from her sides and let them fall again, slumping her shoulders and shaking her head. "Why in the world would you want to do that?"

"I believe mother told you why."

Mother. Lirssa looked skyward. There were no great portents or signals of what she should do or say. With a sigh, she looked back to Olen. "So, I'm dangerous. I'm at the event horizon." She sneered.

His brows pulled together. There was no mistaking, even not knowing the man, his displeasure at her tone. "Mocking? I would have thought you would take such news with greater gravity. Did you wish to kill everyone who has ever touched your thoughts?"

Lirssa froze. "Impossible."

"Well, yes, likely it is impossible, but that is the level of danger I am speaking of."

"If I'm so bleedin' dangerous, why did you even make me? I mean, you do know how that goes, right?"

"You were not supposed to live."

It was a familiar feeling. It was the same feeling when she would fall and land on her back. The wind was knocked out of her. It was such a simple, factual statement.

And Lirssa hit him for it.



(In play time, happened as stated -- that night. Just delayed in writing it.)

"So, let me attempt to be succinct." Olen said as he straightened the layers of food on the sandwich. Each element requiring a slight adjustment to meet his gastronomic demands.

Lirssa almost reminded him that they were past that point, but decided it was partly her fault anyway. So, she kept quiet and just plucked parts of the bread to nibble on as she watched the man who would be, could be, might be her father.

"I feel comfortable with the assumption that you have come in contact with beings who consider themselves angels and their general purpose." He did not look up at her nod, but continued. "I shall also draw the conclusion that you have met with the fallen kind." He took a bite, and as he chewed inhaled deeply as if the very simple sandwich was the height of culinary creations. Lirssa had to snicker thinking Mister Mason might be offended that such rudimentary meal would draw such a reaction in comparison to some of the dishes he could work up.

"I am not an angel, and yes," he cut her interruption off, "I must explain myself by defining what I am not, but am similar to. I am in some manner closest to an angel, but without the demands of rules, regulations, and required good-doerism."

"I don't think that is a word," Lirssa muttered.

"No, I should think not, but it serves the purpose, and who are you to complain of made up words? I should think have at least several hundred of your own."

Lirssa shrugged and said, "They serve their purpose."

"Hmm, yes, quite. So, as I was saying, I have access to the greater ocean of possibility, or power if you prefer, and can use it to amplify the power of others. But," he sighed, "I have no manifistations of power other than that. It was a very disappointing reality, and so, I learned to find those who do have some particular talent, woo them to my purpose, and use them for what I wanted to see done."

"You're just a joy, aren't you?"

"It has been a full life."

"But boring except for me."

"Yes, well, perhaps I was indulging your indignation for a moment on that." The grin that time was not cold. There was a brilliance of humor once more, like a flash in the pan, startling and then gone. "I have experienced many things, including, ever so briefly, a deeper intimacy with someone."

"Ah, the mother."

"Yes, your mother. She was quite good at what she did as well. Very difficult to balance our lifestyles, and we only managed it for a few months. When someone such as me and a chameleon such as her, well--"

"She was a lizard?"

"No, a woman who could change herself, perhaps a more familiar term would be a shapeshifter, but her tribe -- the chameleons -- have more a self-interest way of life."

"Just like you."

"Yes."

"I can see how that wouldn't last."

"Quite."

"And I was not supposed to live."

"You are a rather genetic miracle, if you wish to use such terms. I suppose your mother felt a greater maternal instinct than we imagined."

There were at least twenty different things Lirssa wanted to say to that, but lacking the ability to choose one, she instead grit her teeth and glared at him. It was sufficient.

"I am telling you the truth. Do you think it would do you any good for me to lie and say she changed her lifestyle, died in childbirth, giving her life up for yours?"

Lirssa had no answer to that. She did not want to think anyone died because of her. She had enough of that sort of guilt as it was. To think her very existence caused it was not something she wanted to add to the pile.

"Yes, well, do not worry. Your mother is, in fact, dead, but the cause was wholly unconnected to you."

A sadness twisted in Lirssa's chest. She had no idea why. It would not go away even for all the logic that she had not known the woman, nor did she seem like someone she would have even liked. Still, there it sat, twisting and twisting its sorrow.

"There you are, Lirssa. By the way, have I mentioned I do love the name that was chosen for you? Who named you that? Was it the Bubber fellow?"

"Yes."

"He did nicely. You are, as I am, able to amplify the gifts of others. I noticed you were trained to keep people out. That is good. It can, if you do not control it, kill you."

"Discovered that one myself."

"Ahh." He set his hands on the table. "Now then, what questions do you have?"

Lirssa snickered then just outright laughed. "Other than you saying you have the same ability that I do, there is no proof that you are who you say you are. You think I am just going to believe you?"

"And you need proof?"

"Yes. Look, I've friends who are docs, probably got some fancy-shmancy gizmo that could prove if we are related." And Lirssa was not sure she really wanted to know. She had the opportunity years ago to learn more of herself through medical science. She had not wanted to then, but if it would separate her from this man...well she would certainly give it more thought.

The cold smile returned. "I do not think that will be necessary."

"Ah dangnabbit," Lirssa grumbled and in the next breath, she flipped up the table at him and ran.