“Hello sis!” I reach down and pull her into a hug.

“You dumbass. You dumbass. You were suppose to be out in another country…or even a continent…living life, dating someone”. Her voice is muffled with tears, but she is gripping me like someone hanging on rope over a chasm.

“You ok captain?” I can hear the guards behind me coming up. With that, my sister pushes off, wipes her eyes and begins to scold the gate guards on letting strange men into the village.

I think they understand that this is a joke, at least I hope so.

“Now you, follow me to my office and we are going to have a long talk.” Grabbing my jacket shoulder, she drags me around the tower bump-outs, and into a small room with no windows and small slits looking out over the ramp. I guess that is how she saw me.

“You dumbass. What are you doing here? Do you know what kind of trouble you will be in if people find out who and what you are?” There was about 10 minutes of questions, and I couldn’t find the opportunity to answer any of them. Her rant just kept going and going.

I am not sure if the office is sound proof…so I stir up some wind essence and have it slide around the room. It’s not perfect, but it should muffle some of the sound, without alerting anyone that there is something other than an influencer in here.

With that thought, I stretch out my mind and check the village out. There is a lot of essence noise. Assuming my memories as a kid were actually correct, the current state of the village is a lot denser than it used to be. There also seems to be some construction going on underground…that can’t be safe...and above ground.

As my quick look around the village ends, my sister’s voice comes back in focus. “Are you even listening to me, Harry!” Even if she is yelling at me, I can still feel the warmth in her tone.

“Sorry, sis…it seemed like you needed to vent…so I was letting you vent.” I do my best to channel my seven year-old self. My sister is quite the bad-ass…at least she used to be.

“How have you been? I would take a peak out this way from time to time, but I didn’t want to alert anyone. My control was really crap then. It’s better now, but I just became more paranoid after…well, after a run-in with some idiots.” Her face is blank now. I can see the tears starting.

Walking over, I pull her into a hug…like she used to do to me. “I am ok sis. I won’t tell you that things have been perfect, but I am alright. I have worked through some of my issues…but I need to get out there. I experience more, so I can put dad’s death in perspective. So I can put the previous 10 years in perspective. I play with essence butterflies. I talk with the essence. Sis, I can level this village, and any other village within 100km, just by asking.”

“You wouldn’t right? I mean, you haven’t started to wipe out all of humanity because of one stupid princess?” All of humanity…no, but I am definitely not an opposed to removing some diseased humans.

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“No. I am also not going to just walk by, and ignore it. I have too much of a connection to the essence to do that. You have to understand sis, the essence wants as many users as possible. Every death of an essence user is something it regrets. When essence is used, it connects itself to this plane…or something like that. I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I am wandering around. This is my first stop. I need to know what happened to mom, to you, and even to my brothers after I left.”

My sister winces a little at the mention of my brothers. I note it, but there is lot to talk about…and I have time.

“Mom feel apart. For the three weeks we encamped at the house, she barely talked. She didn’t eat, unless forced. She just sat there and looked out the gate. I don’t think she ever left the stool except to go and pee. Once the rampaging stopped around the house, I decided to go out and check on the village. Our brothers did not want to come…since they were just Weaks.” The tone is there again.

“By the time I reached the village, it was…bad. Bodies everywhere…mostly guards and soldiers. The walls were intact, but the village structures within the walls were reduced to stones and dust.”

She separates from me, and moves back around her small desk.

“I took charge, as one of the only Parities left in the village. It was easy enough to locate the remaining people…most were in the shelter.”

She sighed heavily at that. Looking up towards the ceiling, she began again.

“It was a week before I decided to go and bring the family back to the village. The village could use the help, and we couldn’t be isolated in the compound forever. When I got there, mom was still in the chair. Our brothers were no where to be seen. At the time, I thought they had been killed by a beast or something…but no. They decided to abandon mom, and see if they could make it to the Seat…where they could start up their own business.” I can hear the anger and disappointment in her voice. I can’t say I expected them to do that…really at seven, they were more like uncles to me than brothers.

“Did they make it?”

“Huh, no. They got to the next village…which was entirely leveled and scavenged riches.” She emphasized the last word, with lots of sarcasm.

“They showed up 3 months after I got mom back to the village...complaining about how I had sealed up the old home. How I was wasting my time here and I should be helping them. It was a real eye-opener on my part. I guess I never saw that side of them. The greed and jealously. They stayed around a bit. Sold off some of their riches and headed back towards the Seat. At that time, all the transports were down. For all we knew, we were the last people on this plane. I tried to get them to wait and help…but they saw this as an opportunity.”

“So, what happened to mom?” I could feel that she was going down an old argument…one that really annoyed her.

“She faded. Every year she ate less and stared more. I tried to get her involved, but it just didn’t work. She finally died 4 years ago. I…I didn’t even know. I left to handle some bandit types that moved close to the village…and when I came back, she was dead. No one even noticed. She was in a chair looked out the window…slumped over.” My sister broke again, and I moved around the desk and held her.

“It’s like she was a statue or something to me by that point. I would walk past here on the way to work, say a few encouraging words…and then nothing. She never said anything.” I can feel her angry burning now, she is stirring the essence…maybe unconsciously.

“And do you know, when our brothers showed up 2 years ago…do you know what they said. Do you?” The anger is real now.

“It’s about time. She was pretty much dead when the shattering happened.”

Boooooom. The earth essence coalesced and slammed into the wall. I felt it coming, but I could also feel it was necessary.

“Captain…you ok in there?” The guard from before pops his head in. Catching us hugging each other, as she is crying, he quickly pops back out.

We talked a bit more after that. Covering the new Qual kingdom. The communication networks. The transport networks. Life. Death. Gossip.

By the end of the conversation, she told me to get out and get a bath. We could talk some more later. Standing up, she grasped my arm and pulled me out of her office.