Elemental

Daniel Stone was in a new apartment. The abandoned one was trashed in the battle against the Peacemaker army. Who without their leader had completely fallen. Those that weren’t dead had scattered. It was what happened when you forced people to fight.

Gone. His nephew was gone. Daniel had been searching for him for the last two months with no success. You’d think it would be easy locating a water abnormality, apparently not.

He inhaled deeply and shut his eyes. When he first woke up and found out about the sacrifice Sebastian had made for him he hadn’t known how to react. Daniel had killed Gabrielle, and it should have been the last thing he ever did.

Only Sebastian would give up his life for a foolish old man like myself.

He had buried all the bodies, Gabrielle’s included. He hadn’t given her any more special treatment than any of her soldiers. After all she had done, she didn’t deserve anything from him.

Her father at least had a headstone on his grave, so Daniel could go and visit and feel less alone. He hoped his old friend would be glad that this tired war was over.

A knock on the door. He grunted his permission for whoever it was to enter. He’d asked for his men and Shaft to give him some space and time to recover. No one should have been able to find him and disturb him.

A cold chill down his spine. Ah, so it was his young shadow. Of course, Darcy of all people would find Daniel. He didn’t feel warmth contradicting the cold chill. So Alina must not be with him.

Alina had been quiet since she had woken to find out that she had completely missed the battle. His poor little light, she had taken a long time to recover from her injuries. It had not been her fault.

“For you, what he did was noble, even if I don’t really like him” a folded up piece of paper. No, a map of the world. With a red dot pinpointing the location of something. Or someone.

The middle of the Pacific Ocean. Completely void of humanity.

Daniel hugged Darcy and it reminded him of all the times when his young shadow had come crying to him with bad dreams and Daniel had done his best to make it better.

“You found him! Thank you my shadow! You have no idea what this means to me” it truly meant so much more than Darcy would ever know. His final link to his sister, the boy Daniel had kept safe all of these years. The one who had saved Daniel from certain death.

“What will you do now?” steady and emotionless black eyes watched Daniel stand up off the bed. Sebastian may never recover from the power he had taken in. There was so much of it, but Daniel thought he knew a way.

“My boy may be far gone, almost a wild animal with all of this power inside of him. I believe he retreated out into the sea to protect us all from what he was becoming” it would likely have been the last human thing that Sebastian was able to do.

What he was planning was dangerous, for themselves and for Sebastian. If it went wrong, they could be killed or the power could overwhelm his nephew and he would die. This would not be done easily.

“I am going to find him, and I believe, that when he sees me. It will bring him back to himself. He has shown amazing control in the past. I believe he can control the new level of power he has” Darcy blinked up at him with an expression of confusion that did not belong on a Nine-year-old.

“You are going alone?” an earth Elemental in the middle of the ocean by himself. That made it sound like a suicide mission more than a rescue. He took Darcy’s hand in his own and watched how the candlelight played with the shadows.

I am never alone. His sister and his old friend were beside him always. In spirit, lending their strength and their power. He would bring his boy home, if it cost the world. Sebastian may be beaten, but he was not truly gone.

Even if you don’t want to be found, I can always find you. I will bring you home. I will repay you for what you did for me. I could never leave you to suffer alone. Not after everything you’ve been through.

Water is always changing, sometimes violent and terrifying. Yet ever constant, it cannot be broken.

END.