The winter solstice brought the Festival of Winds, Mount Helicon's most sacred and anticipated celebration. For three days, the usually quiet temple would host visitors from across the region—devoted pilgrims seeking blessings for the coming year, shrewd merchants trading rare goods and provisions, and families of the students coming to witness their children's progress in the pneuma arts.
For Aetos, it meant watching his fellow students reunite with parents and siblings while he remained the eternal orphan, the storm-brought child with no family to embrace. But this year felt different somehow. This year, he had something to prove to himself and the world.
"You're brooding again," Daphne observed with characteristic directness, finding him on his favourite perch overlooking the bustling festival preparations. The girl had grown considerably taller over the past year, her water affinity manifesting in increasingly graceful movements and an uncanny ability to sense emotional currents in those around her.
"I'm not brooding," Aetos protested without much conviction. "I'm thinking."
"You're thinking broodily," she countered with a knowing smile, settling beside him on the sun-warmed stone. "Let me guess—watching the families arrive?"
He shrugged, unwilling to admit how accurately she'd read his emotional state.
"You know what I think?" Daphne continued, drawing her knees up to her chest. "I think you're lucky."
"Lucky?" Aetos turned to stare at her incredulously. "How am I possibly lucky?"
"You get to choose your family. The rest of us are stuck with what we're born with, for better or worse. You? You've got Master Zephyrus, who treats you like a beloved grandson. Brother Matthias, who fusses over you worse than any mother hen. Brother Benedictus, who grumbles constantly but makes your favourite foods without being asked. The entire temple chose to keep you, teach you, love you. That's not one family—that's dozens."
Aetos considered this perspective, turning it over in his mind like a smooth stone. "But they didn't have to love me. Real families—"
"Real families don't have to love each other either," Daphne interrupted sharply. "Trust me on this. My aunt reminds me every single time I see her what a burden I am, how much coin my upkeep costs. You think blood makes love automatic? It doesn't. Love is chosen, every day."
They sat in comfortable silence, watching monks string coloured banners between buildings with practiced efficiency. The wind played with the decorations, making them dance and flutter—or perhaps that was Aetos's unconscious influence spreading through the courtyard.
"Want to know a secret?" Daphne asked suddenly, her voice softer.
Aetos nodded, curious.
"I'm jealous of you sometimes. Not your overwhelming strength—that seems exhausting honestly. But the way you just... exist. You don't try to be anyone else. You're just Aetos, friend to wind and eagles, eater of legendary meals, dancer of impossible forms. You're entirely yourself without apology."
"That's because I don't know how to be anyone else," Aetos admitted quietly.
"Exactly. While the rest of us twist ourselves into uncomfortable knots trying to meet expectations, you just... fly. Free as the wind itself."
Before Aetos could formulate a response, Markos's voice called urgently from below. "Aetos! Daphne! Master Zephyrus wants all advanced students in the main hall immediately!"
They climbed down—Daphne carefully using handholds, Aetos by simply jumping and letting a cushion of compressed air catch him gently. In the great hall, they found the other students gathered in excited, nervous clusters.
"Ah, good," Master Zephyrus said as they entered, his ancient eyes twinkling. "Now that everyone's here, I have an important announcement. This year's Festival will include a special demonstration. Our advanced students will perform for the visitors, showcasing the temple's training methods and your individual progress. Each of you will have the opportunity to display your growth."
Nervous excitement rippled through the group like wind through wheat. Public demonstrations were rare privileges, usually reserved for senior students near graduation.
"But Master," Lydia ventured hesitantly, "we're not ready for—"
"You're more ready than you know," Zephyrus interrupted with gentle firmness. "This is not a competition or test. It's a celebration of growth, of the journey from raw potential to developing skill. Each of you will perform a form of your choosing. Show our visitors not perfection, but progress and dedication."
As the students dispersed to prepare, discussing possibilities in animated whispers, Aetos felt a weathered hand on his shoulder. Master Zephyrus drew him aside with purposeful steps.
"I have a special request for you," the master said quietly, his voice carrying weight. "I'd like you to perform the Dancing Wind—your unique version."
"But you said it was too dangerous—"
"For unsupervised solo practice, yes. But I'll be monitoring closely, ready to intervene if needed. Your interpretation... it should be seen. It reminds us that tradition and innovation can dance together, just as you dance with the wind. The temple needs to remember that evolution and respect can coexist."
Aetos glowed at the unexpected praise. "I won't lose control. I promise."
"I know you won't," Zephyrus smiled with paternal warmth. "You have too much to prove, to yourself most of all."
The next three days blurred together in a whirlwind of intense preparation. Students practiced obsessively, seeking perfection despite Zephyrus's wise admonition that it wasn't required. Aetos found himself in the unusual position of coaching others, his natural understanding translating into teaching.
"You're thinking too hard," he told Markos, who was struggling with a complex earth form. "The stone doesn't care about your thoughts. It responds to your intent. Feel what you want, don't think it."
"Easy for you to say," Markos grumbled, wiping sweat from his brow. "You don't think at all when you use pneuma."
"That's not true," Aetos protested earnestly. "I think. I just... think with my whole body instead of just my head. Like the thinking spreads out through my bones and breath."
It was clumsy explanation, but something in it reached Markos. His next attempt showed marked improvement, the stones responding more fluidly to his gestures.
These small teaching moments multiplied over the days. Without meaning to, Aetos became a bridge between Master Zephyrus's advanced understanding and the students' struggles. He translated instinct into instruction, helped others find their own unique connections to their elements.
"You're good at this," Cassia told him after he helped her understand a complex water-form transition that had frustrated her for weeks. "Teaching, I mean. Have you thought about...?"
"About what?"
"About staying. After you're fully trained. Becoming a teacher here."
Aetos hadn't considered it. His dreams had always involved grand adventures, legendary battles, proving himself on the world's stage. But watching understanding dawn in a fellow student's eyes, feeling their excitement as they grasped a new technique...
"Maybe," he said softly, surprising himself. "Someday. After I've seen the world and learned everything I can learn."
"The world's not going anywhere," Cassia pointed out pragmatically. "But the temple gave you a home when you needed one. Maybe you'll give it back a teacher when it needs one."
The night before the demonstration, Aetos couldn't sleep. He stood in the empty courtyard, silver moonlight painting everything in shades of grey, running through his version of the Dancing Wind without actually engaging his pneuma. The movements had evolved even further, incorporating elements he'd observed in his eagle friends, in the patterns of storms, in the joyous laughter of wind through mountain peaks.
"Nervous?" Brother Matthias asked, emerging from the shadows like a concerned ghost.
"No. Yes. Maybe." Aetos paused mid-movement. "What if they don't understand? What if they think I'm showing off or disrespecting the traditional form?"
"Then they're not watching closely enough," Matthias said simply. "What you do... it's not disrespect. It's love. Love for the wind, for the art, for the gift you've been given. That always shows through to those with eyes to see."
"Brother Kyrios won't see it that way."
"Brother Kyrios sees many things more clearly than you might think. He challenges you because he recognises your potential. Opposition can be its own form of care, pushing you to prove your worth."
Aetos looked skeptical but didn't argue further.
"Tomorrow," Matthias continued with gentle wisdom, "don't perform for the crowd. Don't perform for approval or to prove anything to anyone. Dance with the wind the way you always do—as if you're the only two beings in existence, sharing a secret conversation. The rest will take care of itself."
When the dawn of demonstration day arrived with rosy fingers painting the peaks, Aetos felt ready. Not perfect, not without nerves butterflying in his stomach, but ready. He joined his fellow students in morning meditation, breathing in unison, preparing to show the world not what they had mastered, but what they were becoming.
The Festival of Winds had brought the outside world to their isolated mountain. Now it was time to show that world what wonders grew in the thin air of Mount Helicon, where orphans learned to fly and the impossible became daily practice.