There came a loud noise to the great silver doors.

Seconds before, the island had been empty, save for perhaps some idle resident of the deep indoors. No great white boat had come, no mighty sea dragon steed. There was only the furious face of a woman recently materialized from the brine. Soaked and dripping, the halfling crossed the divide between water and air as if there were none, swimming over the path with the expert kick of her tiny bare feet. Her blue skin shone wet in the afternoon sun, marred by sticky sea kelp and immovable barnacles and ugly patches of green algae that could have seemed a mere skin condition. The glare in her reddened eyes did not falter; the salt of her tears was indistinguishable from the film of ocean water that blanketed her little body.

Just as she was incredibly and unmercifully angry, so was she sure that her anger was unwelcomed. Thus, she slammed her little fists against the door, drowning the rattle of her pathetic sea jewelries with the resounding bellow of the doors’ resistance. But they did not resist as heartily as she had expected. Perhaps it was because her malice was not quite intended for the guardian of the criminal element herself, or perhaps it was because, despite her rebellion and hatred, the ocean retained a patronizing respect for its former sentry and friend. Chae entered with a huff, disregarding the pretty anteroom as quickly as she would an obstacle on a long road.

From behind her heart there erupted a wisp of black smoke, trailing out of her back as if it had been spontaneously set alight. Instead of rising, as smoke usually does, it fell gracefully to the ground beside her and there thickened and swirled until an animal manifested from the immaterial vapors: a great black lion with little red eyes. Drecon’s only color was the yellow of his teeth and the pink of his tongue as he yawned before he resumed after the fuming halfling.

She reached the inner shrine with heavy breath, but seemed to have calmed slightly upon noticing the offering pool. It was the object of her fury, the epitome of her pains. She neared it with a parched tongue, simultaneously yearning for the pure water and hating that she did, leaning forward in the air until she was almost horizontal with the ground.

In one of her balled fists was a puny purple pellet, no larger than a child’s thumbnail. She reached over the altar as if to give an offering, unconscious of any other presence, unconcerned whether any power watched her. She opened her hand, wet with sea and sweat alike, and dropped the condensed poison into the water. She knew there was a chance that the strength of its purity would swallow it and dissolve her attack, but there was also a chance that the Water would succumb to her venom, and no matter its affect on her, she would have her revenge.

The second her tiny feet had made contact with the water, the Guardian knew of her presence. Chae. The Halfling was a not-so-distance predecessor of hers. The water, despite its raging fury at recent events, was respectful of her presence, careful not to toss her around or suck her into any dangerous whirlpools. The sea creatures swam around her, knowing that she was not something they need meddle with. The anger seemed to roll off of her with the water as she stepped onto the sand. Rei sat in her room, staring at the empty crib as she often did, contemplating whether or not she wished to see anyone today, despite who she may be.

Even though her room was quite distant from the entrance, she could still hear the pounding of the silver doors under siege by fists. The sound was significantly dulled, but still decipherable. The aura of anger became more pronounced as it drifted throughout the shrine, putting the water at a distinct uneasiness. Rei did not rise yet from her bed, instead choosing to wait and see what exactly the former Guardian intended on doing. Another presence was soon alight within her home. This one, though, belonged to the familiar of the Halfling. This visit was getting more curious by the second.

The second the purple pellet collided with the water of the altar, a loud hissing noise ensued. The water began to lose its pure color, fading deeper and deeper into dark blues. The Guardian cringed, feeling the sting herself. A slender hand grasped at her chest, feeling a pain as if someone had stabbed her heart. In an instant she was gone from the room. Rei appeared behind Chae, hands reaching out to grasp the kelpy hair of the visitor and jerk her back, sending her reeling across the marble floor. “What have you done!” The shriek was enraged, but growing weak as the poising continued to eat at the water.

The Guardian reached out, driving her hand into the altar. There was a pulsating and bright flashes of light as spells were performed. The water slowly began to lighten back to its original hue. When all the purity had returned, she jerked her hand out, slinging the reformed pellet across the room to Chae’s feet. “Have you gone mad!” She asked in a scolding tone, glaring disapprovingly down at the tiny Halfling. “The water was once your companion!”

Blue-white hair framed very pale skin, eyes matching the color of the altar. Her thin, fragile form was clad in white and silver robes. Though she was an elemental now, Rei still showed the signs of physical wear. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot from many nights of weeping. Even though she was naturally thin, she looked emaciated, as if she had not been eating. Dark bags signaled her lack of sleep. Seeing her current condition, one might conclude that there was something wrong and indeed there was.

“Chae, former Mistress of the Water, why are you so angry that you would poison the very thing that was once your life force?” The Guardian had seemed to calm and even out, having removed the threat. For a moment, she glanced around the walls at the portraits of the former Guardians, her eyes lingering on Chae’s.

Chae’s heart began to beat faster. She was not tied to the water as its guardian was, but her life depended profoundly on its presence nonetheless. As the core of its power began to falter and die, she did not feel pain as poor, power-bound Rei did – but instead felt its influence escape her. Her weak systems panicked for their lack of support. Warm blackness reached at the corners of her vision just as the elemental reached at her floating hair...

The combined shock on her immunities and her nerves as she collided with the floor and, in turn, the wall did push her mind into unconsciousness for a few moments. But the shrine was restored again, its contents purified, and Chae found that fleeting freedom beyond her grasp once more as she awoke by fault of the water’s healing power. She found her old poison before her as she rose again into the air. She considered swallowing it herself, but she was too acquainted with the workings of spirits’ judgements: because of her devotion to the element, she would be eventually sent back to Rei, as a sprite or an elemental, forever a slave to the ocean. She would rather suffer in life with a promise of flight than spend eternity among the brine.

Glaring and brooding, her expression was quite threatening for a woman of her size, the halfling looked over the guardian and neared her. Three faces had come and gone since her long reign, all of them dissapointments to the title – or so Chae would think, if she thought it a worthy one. Despite the obvious looks of distress on the woman’s visage, the witch felt in her gut that this one would last.

Before she could come near enough to say anything (and for a woman unaware of the notions of personal space, this was actually quite close) the once-guardian caught a familiar face out of the corner of her sight. She looked over, her eyes softening for curiosity, and then screamed with rage.

She had witnessed the painting of herself, charming in its own right. Her hair had always been wild, but she had tamed it with perpetual damp then; she had worn the white of a true healer and similar ornamentation as this day, though the sea glass and mollusk shells were much neater and more colorful. There was a tattoo on her wrist: a shimmering blue-green nautilus shell. Chae looked down at her own wrist and wished she had a knife to cut it from her skin.

With all of the strength she had, Chae threw the pellet at her portrait.

“I was pretty, once!” She explained, shrieking at the innocent woman. “I should be dead, now! The death of water is my only chance at freedom,” She huffed, her tongue dancing angrily and deliriously behind her teeth. She was thirsty, always thirsty. She spoke fast, feverish. “You do not see it yet, sister. It takes hold of you while you think it a friend,”

A rigid fist formed out of her fingers and she looked at it briefly before she grasped Rei’s shoulder. “And then it becomes tyrant, and you are slave. You donnot understand... the others left soon, they are free, but you...” If she was capable of sane emotion, tears might have some to her eyes, but instead defiance and twisted pity lingered there. Her gaze was upon Rei’s ear, white cheek to the left, white hair to the right, “It will not let you go. It has already cursed you!”

Chae fled the sight of the guardian then, covering her eyes and crying out again as she backed away and twirled around, dashing and circling around the room like a wailing banshee.

Too caught up in her anger and desperate to cleanse the essence of water, she did not feel Chae’s life slipping away. By the time she had attuned herself to the former Guardian, she had cleansed the water and Chae’s life force had returned. When the small Halfling had risen to her feet, despite the grand crash she had made into the floor, she began to approach the Guardian. The Halfling’s eyes were so unlike the ones in her portrait that hung on the wall. Now her eyes glared at her with a dangerous ferocity that she didn’t presume that kindly Chae would have ever been capable of.

The dangerous glare shifted from Rei to the painting of herself on the wall. It didn’t look much like the woman that stood before her. The Guardian wondered what happened to the Halfling to put her in such a state, but she figured it was too personal a ground to attempt treading at this moment in time. She quietly observed Chae as she looked at the portrait. First there was a sense of curiosity in her eyes that very quickly transformed to anger. Then the former Guardian looked down to her wrist at a tattoo there. Rei frowned as she felt the anger welling within Chae.

There was a distinct hiss as the pellet hit the portrait. It dissolved with a faint smoke trail left behind. The face of the Halfling within the portrait winced as the pellet hit its canvas. Yes, the portraits did sometimes move and react to their surroundings. Rei saw the disappointment in the portrait’s eyes. Then the former Guardian screeched. She spoke of the power and hold the element forever possessed on you once you become its Guardian. She knew the prices of power all too well, having learned the history of her mother as Goddess of Death. There was a sense of pity in her eyes, a strange pity. “I know very well of the prices of possessing immortality.” For a moment she glanced to the portrait of her father. “But I cannot deny servitude to that which breathed life into me.” Indeed the water had already left its mark upon her, but she didn’t fancy it a curse.

Rei was startled as the Guardian cried aloud and began running amuck in her Shrine as if she were some wild banshee. Stepping back, the Guardian summoned the water to her and coiled it around the running Halfing’s body and it jerked her to sit on the ground. “Sit down,” her voice thundered like the crashing waves of the sea. “I will not have you running around like a banshee.” Slowly she approached the former Guardian, observing her appearance and taking note of the things which Chae might not deem pretty. As she came close, she kneeled down in front of Chae and reached out to her face. As her tender hands touched her cheek, some of the mollusk and seaweed slunk up the Guardian’s arm and slowly melted into pure water that rolled off her body.

“I want to help you, dear Chae. But you have to tell me what it is you seek.”

)*( OoC:: Not sure if this should be retrospect. If you don't care, can we sort of adapt all previous posts to the present? )*(

If she had heard the avatar swearing servitude, she might have become even more inflamed. She might have begun some attempt to dismantle the temple, if she was not so busy wallowing loudly in sadness and self-pity. She felt trapped in this place, with the image of her own self glaring back at her. Having been caught in her mischief, there was nothing to do but repent. But she would not do it. She hated, hated, hated being here, and everywhere. She wished she were lying in the warm sands of a desert.

As the exhaustion of that delirious dance had just become deliciously dry on her tongue, Chae found herself surrounded by that which she hated most. Suddenly bound from movement, she could only let her gaze settle on the Lady Water, who was so beautiful.
Her wailing ceased. The water which she hated healed and soothed her with the forgiveness of a god, but still she was purple-faced with anger.

And then a miracle happened, as easily as if the rises and falls of her long life had never occurred. One touch of an elemental hand, and a piece of her ugliness melted from her cheek. With it, the traces of insanity to which she had almost succumbed seemed to escape her. She recognized her foolishness, and was left with only honest desperation. While her countenance softened, her skin fell into the wizening of her real age, but it was not unpretty; it could not be helped.

“F- freedom,” She replied. It was all she could say without sobbing. Despite such a surprisingly clear-headed answer, she knew in her heart that it could never be so. Those protrusions may have once seemed to her as manifestations of her so-called slavery, but even in their absence, her mortal form was too old and too weak to sustain itself. Her blood was thin. It depended on the magic of the Water to flow. Perhaps Rei might have been able to feel this, and to know what Chae could not explain.

So she rephrased. A strange emotion washed the resentment from her, as quickly as the ocean surface changes its direction. It is easier to hope than to hate.

“Meaning.”