It thrust the seraphic leviathan swallowed up in an invisible ocean through great sky currents. Yet beneath its calm surface, tensions boiled and frothed in a storm about to break. For Larin, guest and unwilling scholar of the Seafoam House, it was too much to thrust into the knot of conspiracy, power, and ideology that made the Sublime Auqua Project.
And the whole time, Myrith Crestfoam sat there mutely in this great observatory where pale walls slid back to reveal the miraculous view of floating constellations and the kaleidoscopic magical streams which fed their ships. She stood there for a long, long time gazing out over the horizon her mind elsewhere in thin, careful tones. "Do you feel it, Larin? The undertow that's pulling on everything?"
Larin crossed his arms. "I feel it. But I don't know which way it's pulling me."
"It drags us all." Myrith sighed. "The Seafoam House stands for unity, for harmony through integration. But there are other forces within Auqua—houses that twist unity into chains and harmony into submission."
---
After all the above, the following days brought reports of the information that Larin had gathered concerning the factions who did not believe in the vision of Seafoam, but above everything else, they included the *Iron Abyss* and the *Ashspires*.
The super cabal house Brazenwater led the war and domination into this way of things. Its motto, "Order Through Suppression", claimed it was only under such dominance of inferior races and strict enforcement of order that peace could be maintained. Unlike Seafoam, Iron Abyss' power was tempered within steel-cold structures that did not change. The soldiers moved as one man; the ships carved from obsidian smeared with an enchantment that drank the light rather than reflecting it.
"They are a fortress," Myrith explained, "impenetrable, but unable to flow. They break where we bend. But their strength is formidable, and they disdain our methods as weak."
"And what of Ashspires?" Larin asked.
"Ashspires burns," she said. "House Pyrestone, with Varok Redspire, preach conquest as destiny. They live off the chaos and on the blood and sweat of their enemies, for they run on fear. While Iron Abyss looks to control, Ashspires celebrates in burning down and making worlds anew to suit themselves. They are wolves who think that fire is a blessing to cleanse.".
Another, far more insidious enemy to Seafoam's harmony doctrine was the *purists* in Auqua society. These houses begrudged Seafoam's open practice of taking subjugated peoples into its ranks as diplomats, scholars, and thinkers. Where Seafoam saw multiplicity as strength, the purists saw it as corruption-a dilution of Auqua's purity.
In the Hall of Convergence, full of thousands of emissaries from worlds subdued, these conquered peoples wore diplomatic robes of shimmering thread and desert realms, warp-woven scales into armor from waterborne civilizations, coarse leathers from their forested tribes. They debated and traded knowledge in the universal language of flow around pools of liquid light.
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He was attracted to such assemblies. He talked with a Mycetan philosopher whose country relied on spores as word-thoughts and memory; he learned from an Oryxian kineticist, who could seize momentum like a weapon, and taught him refined techniques that gave his fighting spells a more sophisticated edge.
"Seafoam is not like the others," the Oryxian said, his dark horns shining. "They obey where others would command. It is why we serve, but it is also why they are reviled."
"Reviled?" Larin cocked an eyebrow.
"Many believe that unity comes from strength, not understanding," the Mycetan philosopher whispered through a cloud of spores. "They fear that listening makes us weak, that embracing the conquered gives them a voice they do not deserve."
---
One evening, Larin found himself alone with Commander Arken Thalmar, Seafoam's strategist. They stood in the tactical chamber, where constellations of light represented the territories controlled by different houses.
"Why seize from the conquered?" Larin asked.
Thalmar's face set to marble. "For the simple fact that truth lies not with the conquerors themselves. All races, all universes learn from the smoldering embers of their pasts. Beautiful Auqua is no conquest-but a paean of defiance. Foam of the Sea itself attempts to make an overture; others shall play but one note above all.".
"But the purists see this as emasculation of power," Larin taunted. "Do they not weaken your hand?"
"They do," Thalmar said. "They whisper in dark halls, building their armies of purity and exclusion. They see difference as weakness to be excised. But their view is narrow. One wave may be powerful, but a thousand currents shape the ocean."
---
Days elapsed and Larin developed a heaviness with his new place on the Tidebreaker. He was more than just a guest; he was an observer, a potential ally, and a threat to those who feared what he might learn. Each word that went out of his mouth and each action he undertook would be recalled.
He saw the iron abyss agents walk through ashspire's corridors as black as a glass armor without saying much, using a presence so silent than declarations of powers, ashspire agents hunted with ease that laughter was sharply cruel.
Larin noticed a pattern of how the game of ideology chess played out inside the walls of Auqua society. Seafoam sought to connect worlds through combining power and malleable parts. Iron Abyss would try to put the universe behind bars with chains of unbreakable strength. Ashspires would set it all aflame, reconstructing from ash.
Between them, of course, the purists saw one undivided, unchanging sea-one that was pure, stagnant, and suffocating.
---
Larin sat on the observation deck that night with Myrith and Lysara as stars twinkled above the Tidebreaker: Sea of stars never-ending, points of light a world, a story waiting to be told.
"You have seen the waters we swim in," Myrith said. "What do you make of them?"
A word. An eternity of words. "You are not one. Your sea is surging with undertows of war and tearing. You talk of peace, but think you—are a tide ever really harnessed?"
"No," breathed Lysara. "But it can be directed."
"Then steer it well," said Larin. "For if you do not, it will devour you."
Myrith's eyes shine bright now, full of sorrow and purpose. "That is why we need you, Larin of Xiaxo. To teach us how to listen to the land as well as to listen to the sea. How to bend without breaking."
"If that is not possible?"
"We then learn to flow deeper."