“Markel, can you hear it?” As I look at my husband of…well, so many years he feels more like an extra arm…I can tell he is listening to the song. Its strong, and young. The rhythm to the song is like the nectar feeders of the north. It dances with the wind and twirls with the light. It is far away though, and to hear it this clearly is concerning.

“Yes, I hear it. You are thinking its another Avatar?” I can tell by his raised chin and closed eyes, he is trying to find the source of the song…like trying to sniff out his favorite sweet cakes in the village.

“Yes. It’s so far away, but the voice is strong. I can feel the essence pull from here. I am not used to anyone…present company excluded…pulling essence from me. It’s very young though. Do you think we should check up on him or her?” I can see the internal conversation flow across my husbands face as he plays out the different aspects of going or not going.

“I don’t think he is alone. Someone else is with him, but they are more skilled. The essence is not telling me his story. I am not sure we are necessary…yet. They will need help at some point…politics and all. Maybe we should move in that direction, but without urgency. If there is any drama, we will probably be needed here.” I can see the memories of our young lives roll across his face this time.

“Umm. You are probably right. I want to go and mother them a little, but that’s probably because your daughter is starting to go through puberty and I miss that connection.”

“She is your daughter too…probably even more your daughter with that wild attitude.”

“Hey. She is the one that stated that she is now all grown up and doesn’t need mothering anymore. She put me in retirement.”

“Well, considering your age, it’s probably just as well.” My quick turn to my unfeeling, cold, husband is met with mischievous eyes. Damn him, he really knows how to bait me.

Having our first child at the ripe old age of 150 was not something we planned. We were fairly sure that we would never have kids and decided to adopted various orphans around the continent to satisfy the motherly and fatherly instincts. After several batches of some of the nicest kids you could ever meet, we finally had a daughter…after a night of celebration. From the beginning she was the gods way of balancing our good fortune.

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She is not evil, but she is wild. She did not achieve Avatar status, but she is a Strong, and thanks to our years of essence work, we taught her how to balance the voice of the earth essence. How to sing with, without losing your own voice. We did bond her with an earth cat…not our first choice, and in hindsight, bonding with a cat is probably not the best idea for a young girl…it just seemed to amplify her independence…but it did allow her to find her voice.

Now she is just a very powerful 10 year old…who doesn’t want to be mothered anymore…except for being fed.

Just as I am about to finish up the next feeding for our local monster, I hear the door open and in walks our little miracle.

“Dad, do you hear it? It’s all Simon can talk about now. Someone has started singing, and it’s not just earth…at least according to Simon, he says there are multiple essence songs.” The cat in question, comes sauntering in, and proceeds to curl up on hearth. Simon is not a small cat…she was once…but the bonding, well, he is more like extremely large boar now. Unlike most of our bonded kids, Simon is shadow and earth…but her essence attunement is somewhere between Strong earth and Parity shadow.

Which is good, as keeping our daughter safe is priority number one. Having a faction try and use our daughter against us has happened on more than one occasion. After a very painful failure, we realized that we can not be everywhere at all times…unless we want to keep our children in cages at the base of a mountain. Hence bonding. All kids are bonded, or at least have guardian pets. Some of our kids did not have the essence to bond with an earth essence beast, and so we had to help train them.

“Yes little pearl, I can hear the song. I have to agree with Simon, I think there is more than one voice. Your mother and I were just talking about taking a small tour of the outlying villages in that direction. What do you think, up for some travel?”

“Yes! Yes, let’s go. This town is little stuffy. I am tired of all the looks, whispers, and bowing. Simon is also a little frustrated. We want to go hunt!” I can hear the essence in her voice. She may have learned control, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid being driven by the essence. I assume that she is hearing the song moving towards our new Avatar. I can only hope he or she is in a safe place…otherwise every Strong on the continent is going to feel the pull until they learn more control.

“It’s probably also a good idea to move in that direction to keep migration of Strongs from burying villages along the way. Markel, can you start your own song, to keep things under control. We don’t want another slaughtering event like the one we experienced when we first connected to earth.”

“Ah, yes. I wasn’t thinking about that, but it’s probably a good idea. Little pearl, would you like to help?” From the bouncing of my daughter, I don’t think he could have asked a better question. Songs for Strongs are the height of joy…like a meal full of sweets.

Just as I can feel my husband gathering essence to begin his song, I feel the spike.Oh god, we are too late.The song…its rage, pain, and sorrow.I can hear the revenge too…but it’s not just earth…all the essences are joining in.

I look at Markel and we begin a counter song, but we are only one essence, we can calm the earth, but only in this limited area. This song…this song of pain and hurt, it’s not just a slaughtering…this might shatter the world.