The ocean had no beginning and no end. Its surface caught the afternoon sun in fragments of silver light, each wave rolling toward horizons that seemed too far away to ever be reached. Kael floated in the middle of it all, weightless and unmoving, his gemstone body turning sunlight into flickers of color that danced across the water. The sea pressed against him with a steady, cold weight, salt clinging to every surface, the push and pull of the tide dragging at him in ways he could not resist. All around was sound, the constant crash and sigh of waves that never truly ended.
Time slipped away. He could not tell if minutes had passed, or days. He only knew the world around him: the bite of the wind across the surface, the thin cries of seabirds far above, and the darting shadows of fish brushing by below. He did not understand how he had come here, or why he was even alive in such a strange form. The ocean held him, and in its vastness he was both prisoner and witness.
Then, something shifted. A smell reached him, sharp and unfamiliar, cutting through the salt. Earth, wet and heavy, carried by a wandering current. His awareness turned toward it, and with that shift came the outline of land. Cliffs rose dark against the horizon, and pale sand stretched beneath them. Waves broke against jagged stone, spraying white foam that hissed as it dissolved. This was no scrap of rock. The island was large, alive, and waiting.
Kael's thoughts came in fragments. I exist. I feel. I sense the energy around me. It was everywhere: in the pull of the water, the warmth of sunlight, the faint hum of life on shore. Yet a wall blocked him still. He could not move. Not yet.
The tide carried him without asking. A sudden wave struck, flinging him hard against the rocks. He rolled, trapped between sea and land, half-buried in sand. Sharp grains scraped across his smooth crystal, cracks filled with rushing water, jagged edges pressed into him. If pain was the right word, he felt it then. It was new and strange, but he remembered it, held it, marked it down. He had survived the ocean. Now the land would test him.
He lay there for a stretch of time he could not name. Eventually, the sea pulled back, leaving him on the shore. Sand pressed in around him, softer than stone but still heavy. The air had changed. It was warmer here, calmer than the harsh wind over the waves. He listened. Leaves whispered farther inland. A branch snapped under the step of some unseen creature. Gulls wheeled overhead. The world was alive with quiet rhythms. He reached outward, not with hands or body, but with the only tool he had: awareness.
The sand answered first. He could feel each grain shifting against the next, weak but still carrying a spark he could pull at. Water clung to him, dripping, and he stole the smallest bit of warmth from it, steadying himself. Then he felt them: the tiny lives moving around him. Insects tunneling in the sand. Crabs scraping sideways across the beach. Birds dipping into shallow pools. He tested them. A crab shifted left instead of right. A bird startled into flight without knowing why.
Small, he thought. I can affect them, but only in pieces. Not yet more.
Night fell, stars spilling across the sky in patterns too sharp to ignore. The sea turned black and restless. The air cooled, carrying scents of wet stone, damp leaves, and rotting wood. More lives stirred in the dark: rats in shallow burrows, frogs croaking near the tide pools, insects humming in thick waves of sound. Each one was a spark of energy waiting to be felt.
He reached again. A rat scurried toward the cliffs. Kael brushed against it, not commanding but nudging, and the creature paused. It turned, shuffled toward reeds instead. The trickle of energy he pulled from it was faint, but enough to let him feel the shape of the sand around him more clearly. Enough to move it.
Grain by grain, he shifted it, hollowing a small space beneath him. It was clumsy and crude, the sand always wanting to fall back into place, but he made it work. A chamber began to take form, shallow and weak, but his own. It was a beginning.
Morning broke, the cliffs bathed in pale gold. His hollow held. Fragile, but standing. He tested again, reaching toward a lizard basking on a rock. It twitched, then slipped toward a patch of flowers after his subtle push. Another trickle of energy flowed into him. Another step forward.
From the shallows, he noticed movement. Humans. Not yet on his beach, but close enough to see. Their steps pressed into the sand. Tools glinted in the sun. Their voices cut the air, rough and strange. Heat radiated from their bodies. Kael studied them, careful and quiet.
They, too, are energy. I can feed from them. But they are dangerous.
He did nothing. Not yet. He turned back to his chamber, thickening walls, carving small paths for water to drain, pulling air through gaps of shifting sand. Each change drew energy into him. Each adjustment made him stronger.
As the day waned, he began to see the truth. The island was not only land and sea. It was a network of energy flowing in countless paths. Animals sparked, plants carried, stone stored, water moved. If he could learn the patterns, if he could bend them slowly, then he could grow.
The night came alive again with crabs scuttling, insects buzzing, leaves whispering. He nudged them, pulled what he could, small threads feeding his strength. The energy pushed back sometimes, not resisting but responding, alive in its own way. Patterns shifted. It was like tides following a hidden moon. He began to understand that the island itself could be shaped, if he had patience.
Salt and earth carried together on the wind. Kael tilted his awareness toward the horizon, toward the cliffs, toward what lay beyond. The humans would come one day. And when they did, perhaps he would not meet them as he was now.
For the moment, he waited. A gemstone resting in the sand, alive in thought if not in body. His chamber deepened. His strength grew. Each tide, each breath of wind, each fragment of energy added to him.
The world around him did not care. The ocean roared, the sun rose and fell, the island pulsed with life. But Kael cared. He had learned something new, something vital. The world was not just survival. It was possibility.
And he had the patience to reach for it.