Three days had passed since they first read the ancestral runes. The island's rhythms had settled around them like a welcome breeze. At first light, Tala and Kofi made their way down to the hidden lagoon carved into the cliff's base—a pool deeper and quieter than the tide pool by the camp. Past lessons in sensing flow and reading symbols had led them here.
Asa stood waist-deep in glassy water that mirrored the pale sky. His silhouette was still, as if carved from driftwood. The box and its ancient egg lay on a flat stone at the water's edge, pulsing softly in the cool dawn air.
"Today, you speak water," Asa said. His voice carried across the lagoon, steady as a heartbeat. "Not with force, but with intention."
Tala and Kofi waded in. The water was chilly below their knees, warming toward their waists. They glanced at one another—both nervous, both eager.
Asa lifted his hands just beneath the surface. Water obeyed him, swirling upward in a ribbon as thin as a drawn line. He let it drop back into the pool.
"Begin."
Tala's Ribbon
Tala closed his eyes. He remembered the rune for "flow," traced in charcoal mere hours ago. He breathed in time with the gentle lap of waves against the lagoon walls. Slowly, he lifted his right hand. A thin ribbon of water peeled from the surface, quivering like a living thread. He guided it in a half-circle, then spun his wrist. The ribbon cut through the air, forming a narrow hoop before dissolving into mist.
Asa nodded. "You move like a current around a reef—fluid, unbroken."
Kofi crouched and cupped water in both palms. He stared at the surface, recalling Asa's words: focus, precision, harmony. He pressed his palms together, and a flat sheet of water rose between his hands, gleaming like polished glass. He tilted his wrists—one edge sharpened, the other soft. He drew the blade through a fallen leaf drifting in the lagoon. The leaf parted cleanly, its halves drifting apart without a ripple.
Asa's eyes brightened. "A blade of water. You forge with thought."
Mid-Morning: The Globe and the Shield
The sun climbed higher, warming their shoulders. Asa stepped aside, motioning to the deeper center of the pool.
"Next: form, volume, containment."
Tala breathed deeply, gathering water around his hand until a globe hovered just above the surface—icy blue and heavy with promise. He felt its weight, its pulse. Then, with a gentle breath, he sent it outward in a rolling wave that curved around Kofi's blade before collapsing into the water.
Kofi steadied himself against the ripple. "It carries its own momentum."
Tala nodded. "It flows even when still."
Kofi pressed one forearm into the water and drew it up like pulling a curtain. The water solidified into a curved shield, translucent and tough. He held it before his chest and tested its strength with a push—it rattled but held firm.
Asa circled them. "Protection without barrier. You hold space."
At the lagoon's lip, the box pulsed twice—slow, deliberate beats. The island wind carried the echo of those pulses into the boys' chests.
Asa called them to the shore and had them sit on smooth stones. "Water is memory and song. You must learn to sing together."
They closed their eyes and listened: the box, the lagoon, the breath in their lungs. Then—
Tala murmured tallying counts in his mind. Kofi mirrored his pattern in breath and heartbeat. When they opened their eyes, water rose between them: a ribbon from Tala's palm, a blade from Kofi's. They let the shapes drift toward each other, meeting in an ovular arch that wove ribbon and blade into a braided cord of living water. Light refracted through the braid, casting dancing patterns on their faces.
Asa watched in silence. "Harmony," he said softly.
Late afternoon found the revived sapling by the camp sentinel—its fresh green leaves reaching for sun. Asa led the boys back to the lagoon for one final task.
"Take what you have learned and give life in return."
They carried two carved bowls of water to the sapling. Tala poured his globe in a gentle mist over its roots. Kofi guided his shield-like stream directly to the earth around the trunk. Soil drank deeply, and the sapling straightened as if inhaling new breath. A breeze stirred the lowered leaves into applause. The island seemed to hum approval.
As the sun dipped, the lagoon shifted to twilight gold. Asa joined them once more. He placed a hand on the box.
"You have spoken water. Tomorrow, you will speak flame."
Tala and Kofi exchanged tired smiles. Their shoulders soared and fell with exhaustion—and exhilaration. They had transformed the lagoon's pulse into poetry. As stars emerged above the clifftops, the box pulsed once more—an echo of their achievement and a promise of chapters yet to come. The first day of mastery ended, but the song had only just begun.