Both Hoke and Leena were sat on the ground when Khai and Henny returned to the cavern. The pair were both covered in sweat and breathing heavily, passing a gourd of water between themselves. Khai was slightly disappointed he hadn’t gotten to see Hoke’s fighting style, or his abilities for that matter, but he didn’t say anything as they entered.

Hoke first noticed their arrival, wiping his forehead with his loose shirt and waving, smiling at Henny and Khai. Leena looked up, after taking a long sip of water she spoke. “How’d it go with the circulation? You get the hang of it alright?” Leena spoke with a professional tone, an instructor requesting a battle report.

“Not this time, I’m still struggling to figure out how to feel my Koar. Henny really helped me to understand the history of the Elementals though.” Khai called back. Henny quickly walked over to the table and found a book to read, a dense and well-worn book titled ‘Runic applications in Ecology”, Khai decided to ask what that meant later.

Leena glanced toward the shy elf before standing, walking over to Khai with a thoughtful expression on her face. Khai couldn’t help but observe her as she walked closer. She was wearing a sleeveless, loose top in the same brown and grey style as the others in the group, the loose fitting design exposed a wrap of bandages across her chest. A similar style of attire was common on his island for the hunters, allowing for women to hunt without certain…aspects of their figure getting in the way when climbing or moving quickly.

Khai suddenly realised he’d let his eyes linger longer than appropriate and looked up to find Leena’s cool blue eyes watching Khai, her eyes full of predatory analysis. Khai felt like he was being weighed up, her graceful movements carrying her closer until she was only a few steps away. Leena was slightly taller than Khai, and now that she was stood close enough he could appreciate how well-defined her muscles appeared to be. Khai swallowed, suddenly very nervous to be stood so close to the woman.

“You know all of our attunements now, any chance you’d like to tell us what yours is?” Leena asked, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Technically I don’t know what Hoke’s attunement is yet..” Khai tried to add some levity into his voice, failing that his voice cracked slightly, giving away his nervousness. Leena gave him a flat look in return. Before she could respond Hoke appeared at her side, smiling in amusement he nodded silently before gestured around with his hands. He made a gesture similar to a fire with one hand, turning his palm upwards and wiggling his fingers energetically.

“Have you got a Fire attunement, similar to Jorn?” Khai asked, feeling slightly guilty that he couldn’t fully understand the silent Elf. Hoke shook his head, bringing his hands together and tapping the fore-fingers together in a thoughtful gesture. He pointed toward Henny, who Khai noticed was glancing across at them whilst pretending to read her book.

“Oh you’re a Plant attuned like Henny, that makes sense” Khai said. This prompted Hoke to shake his head, bringing two fingers together in a gesture of ‘a little bit’.

“I don’t think he’s going to get it Hoke, it is a pretty hard one to guess if he’s new to the different attunements people have.” Leena chimed in. This earned a defeated nod from Hoke before he gave a half-hearted smile at Khai. Khai returned the smile, feeling a mix of guilt and awkwardness that he wasn’t able to understand the gestures.

Leena gave the answer instead. “Hoke is a Spore attuned, one of the only ones known to the Record-Keepers in fact.” Hoke perked up at this comment, puffing his chest out and giving a proud shoulder wiggle, his smile returned almost immediately. Khai couldn’t help but smile back at the cheery elf.

“It’s normally considered rude to reveal another person’s attunement, this is a special situation but keep in mind you shouldn’t be telling people any of ours.” Leena said, looking directly at Khai as she did.

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Khai nodded quickly, acutely aware of the unspoken question Leena had posed, he relented. “I think I might have a Spirit attunement, but I don’t know for sure. It’s er..a little new to me still.”

Nobody responded at first, both Leena and Hoke were staring at Khai with disbelief and wide eyes respectively. Khai noticed Henny was doing the same, dropping the façade of reading and giving the conversation her full attention.

Khai quickly grew uncomfortable with the attention and started to shuffle on his feet. Leena opened her mouth to speak before a loud voice cut her off.

“Well that’ll make things nice and quick, saved me a job there so thanks lad.” Jorn called, strolling into the cavern with Vash at his side. Vash looked exhausted, but more noticeably his left hand was covered in dark red dots and he continuously wiggled the fingers, not wanting to let them remain stationary. The boys normally bashful disposition oddly quiet.

“Come on Vash, a little of one of my tinctures and you’re hand’ll be good as new.” Jorn said in his jolly tone, walking Vash over to his workbench as he began to rumble through one of the boxes atop the stone shelf.

Hoke quickly jogged over to Vash, grabbing at the dotted hand and giving Vash a concerned look. Leena spoke before he could say anything.

“Mother had you help with moving the new colony of Ylips didn’t she? I told her to wait and I’d have helped her with it later on.” Leena shook her head, walking over to Vash.

“She thought my stone-skin would protect my hand for long enough to move the queen across. A couple of them found a little hole in the stone and they started biting me. I thought I was going to drop it.” Vash quickly rambled as Jorn walked over. The Rhenor started applying a yellowish cream to Vash’s hand, causing Vash to wince before sighing as the cream began to heal his hand.

“Thanks Jorn” Vash said timidly, rubbing at his hand as the quickly disappearing cream was absorbed, taking the red marks with it. Hoke gave his friend a supportive pat on the shoulder.

“No problem lad, next time Brennie asks you to help with her little beasties you best find any excuse to get going. She gets all focused on the little buggers and forgets to do things safely, bloody researchers.” Jorn grumbled, before quickly adding “No offence lass” intended for Leena.

“Non taken. I’ll speak to her later about it for you Vash, she should know better than that, Ylips are easy to deal with in the cold” Leena trailed off, shaking her head as she spoke.

“I’m alright” Vash said, a faint smile back on his lips as he tested his hand. After an appreciative nod at the healed hand, he nodded and turned over to Khai, his boisterous tone back in place. “Come on then, we all wanna hear about your Spirit attunement.”

Khai felt his chest tighten as the room all turned to face him once more. Swallowing, he tried to explain himself. “I don’t know if it is Spirit attunement or not, I can’t feel it like the rest of you can.”

“Give the lad some breathing room” Jorn waved his hands about and the group all took a step back from the cluster surrounding Vash. “Grab some food the lot of ya, I spoke to Teo earlier and if it’s okay with Khai I’m gonna try and explain what’s going on” Jorn looked toward Khai, the question hanging in the air.

Khai looked around at the expectant eyes surrounding him, he nodded.

“Excellent!” The Rhenor exclaimed. “Hoke, dish out the leftovers from that pot over there while I explain. Khai here, seems to be the first person in around a century to receive a new Spirit attunement.” Jorn ignored the looks of surprise around the room, taking the bowl of cold vegetables from Hoke. “Teo took a look at his Kaor and he said there was definitely Spirit’s energy in there. Quite a lot of it actually, which makes it very odd that you can’t feel it dancing about in there.” Jorn gestures at Khai’s chest with a long orange vegetable he’d picked up. “So lad, this is the part where you’re going to hafta tell us how you got your Kaor. We’re all a little surprised to see that the Spirit is back after all, so we could do with knowing how it happened.” Jorn chewed on a mouthful of vegetables, his loud crunching the only sound reverberating around the room.

Khai could feel the weight of the room’s eyes on him, boring into his chest and suffocating him. He took a deep breath, then another. Everyone watched patiently as he steadied himself. There’s no reason not to tell them. Khai thought. Do I leave out the part about Spirit seeming in distress? What if they don’t believe me.

“You okay Lad?” Jorn said through a mouthful of food.

Taking one last breath, Khai prepared himself and told his story. Only struggling as he had to describe the mud encompassing the island, the emotions contained in the memories threatening to surface once more. He persevered, finally reaching the climax of his story as Spirit transported him away from his dying island. Khai looked up from his feet when he had finished his story, not one person made a sound.