The elder sighed. “You know as well as I that no one forced the boy. When the situation was explained to him, he volunteered, knowing what his sacrifice entailed.”

“You didn’t give him any choice!” she snapped, tail slipping from her grip and throwing up small pebbles as it swept the shore. “He is an honorable man. How could he think clearly when you told him that refusal could threaten me, the estrazi, the humans, and the world? Was there any choice at all?”

“I told him only truths.”

“Broken truths. You snap and bend it before presenting the pieces you want us to see. Father, you are the wisest of us. The ancestor has gifted you the Sight. You always say that the future is not one path but dozens. Yet, you only offered him one path. Between sacrificing himself and the end of everything, there was only one choice he could make.”

The elder sighed. “Foolish daughter. You listen only to the words you want to hear. You have forgotten two lessons. All things change and all laws have exceptions. Normally, the future is hard to predict but there are some things that are preordained. They cannot be avoided and so they are as clear as you or me. What I saw can not be avoided. We are blessed that it could be delayed, giving us time to prepare.”

“What is it?! You knew what he meant to me but don’t dare to offer me an explanation.”

“You are not owed one.”

It was getting harder to control her temper. “He was going to talk to his family. The human lord of the fort. He was going to explain it to them. The brood is running out of titans and the Disgraced haven’t returned our messages in two hatching cycles. Despite generations of being turned back, the humans show no signs of stopping their senseless war. He wanted to stop the fighting before the brood was forced to march but we needed to do it together. Now, he will die.”

“He won’t die.”

“You don’t know that! He told me himself that his father would remove his head if he knew he was our ally.”

“One human lord cannot do anything to the calamity and your human is in its hands now.”

“Is that meant to comfort me?”

Despite her accusations, the elder remained unmoved. As the silence dragged on, Little Water’s temper cooled. Hanging her head, she pleaded, “I just want to understand.”

“That is not your goal but very well. I will give you an explanation.” The elder laboriously stood from his rocky seat. The brown-scaled guard moved to his side. With a wave of his hand, several of the rocks swirled together, becoming smooth stone. They formed a walking stick with a round head that perfectly fit the elder’s gnarled hand. “Come. If we are going to speak for so long, I must soak my body.”

Little Water was quick to follow him into the steaming waters of the sea, the two of them stepping forward until the water reached their shoulders. She paid rapt attention to him as he turned onto his back, floating easily. Seeing the elder enjoying the water, she tried to practice patience but after several minutes of silence, she carefully reminded him. “Father.”

“Mm. When I first met the boy, I saw the things you dream of. If your paths intertwined, it could lead to a future where the estrazi and the humans walked together. You may not believe me daughter, but I have been supporting you. Did you not think it interesting that the Great Mother allowed an enemy to walk amongst her children? It was because of my many nights persuading her that he survived his first encounter with the guardians of our borders.”

“Then why—"

“Simple. A second calamity appeared. The many paths merged into one inevitable future.”

The steaming waters were beginning to become uncomfortable for Little Water but she endured. “You keep speaking of this calamity. What does it mean? If it is what threatens the world, why don’t we destroy it rather than use these strange methods?”

The elder chuckled, a soft clicking. “You ask why we can’t accomplish something impossible both for our great ancestor and the majesties themselves. The calamities cannot be killed. Or, if they can, it is beyond our simple means. What are they? Who knows.”

“You don’t know?!” Little Water was confused. Her father was the oldest of them and had the Sight. There should be nothing in the world beyond his understanding.

“I can guess what you are imagining. There should be nothing in the world beyond my sight. The answer is simple. The calamities are forces that have been touched by a will beyond our world.”

“Do you mean the planewalkers?” There were many reasons why the estrazi, despite the sanctity of their mission, performed their duties in secrecy, isolated from the rest of the world. Chief among them was the poor judgment of the mortal races. They could not be entrusted with their own well-beings, let alone the fate of the world.

One of the best examples that her mother shared with her daughters was the planewalkers. A cabal formed by the outcasts of many races who sought to gain power by connecting their world to others, inviting all manner of creatures into their realm. Most of them were disasters. Some never left a mark on the world, controlled by the ones who summoned them. None were truly benevolent.

Before, when the estrazi guarded the majesties, part of their duties was to make sure nothing defiled the land of the world’s most beloved children. For a time, that meant hunting summoners and the disasters they invited without care. They went as far as to travel to other continents to put down the worst of them. “I thought they were wiped out?”

“Knowledge is not so easily destroyed. Beyond that, the will behind the calamities would not allow summoners to disappear. That thing is not a planeswalker. It is not something we can oppose. Thankfully, rules prevent it from acting on our world directly. It can only influence us through its agents. It is simply adept at choosing those agents, the calamities.

“The first agents it chose didn’t last long. We quickly identified and eliminated them before they could do much damage. Unfortunately, we underestimated that will. We thought it was chaos. It is, but it is chaos directed by intellect. The first agents were mere distractions while it recruited its true agent, The Defiler.”

Little Water tensed despite the warm waters making her languid. No estrazi could remain calm when the reason for their existence was mentioned.

“We were careful. The summoners were suppressed, the knowledge of the chaotic will destroyed. The majesties imprisoned the Defiler and we were left to guard her prison. The chaotic will disappeared from our world for centuries. Now, it seems it has found another true agent.”

“You mean to tell me that whatever this new calamity is, it is dangerous enough to rival the Defiler?” she hissed as her vision became blurry. The excessive heat was starting to affect her, lulling her to sleep. “And you sent a weak human man against it?”

“He is not meant to fight. Sending him has diverted the second calamity’s fate. Originally, the second calamity would have come here and met the Defiler. Their meeting spells the end of this world. Because of the boy’s sacrifice, the second calamity has been turned back to the land of the humans. It has given us time.”

“Time?” she muttered.

“Time to prepare. Before the second calamity returns, we must inform the majesties. The brood has already sent messengers to the majestic lands. All we can do now is hope they make it in time. If the majesties are not present when the calamities meet…”

The elder trailed off as he heard the soft wheeze of Little Water. The female estrazi was floating on her back, sleeping peacefully, her body completely limp. He looked at her with some fondness, the most he could manage for one out of dozens of children he had no time to interact when his attention was entirely occupied by the whispers of the world. He “saw” too much to keep his eyes on the brood. It was only after they discovered the human boy and his daughter’s path became so prominent that they shared a conversation.

“Great Eye.” The blue guard entered the water and gently grabbed his daughter. “I will return her to her chambers.”

“When you do, tell the others to take her orders as my orders. No matter what she wants to do, no matter where she goes, they are not to question her, only protect her.”

The guard hesitated. “She will not give up on the human,” he said slowly.

“No, she won’t. My brave daughter has a long road ahead but if we mean to accomplish our duty, we must all play our part. Go.”

The guard didn’t offer another opinion as he swam backward with Little Water in his arms. The elder closed his eyes and listened. The world spoke to him, painting pictures of the future. Another endless war, a sprawling city surrounding a violet castle speckled with stars, a barren wasteland, and many more paths, all branching off from the inevitable meeting of the calamities. His mana rapidly diminished as he focused, trying to find the key events that led to each conclusion, searching for the best path.

A task not meant for mortal minds. The celestial affinity was a great blessing but it could easily become a curse. If he opened himself to the magic, he could perceive everything but his mind couldn’t handle it. It would leave him insensate and stupid. If he was lucky, it would take months, if not years, to recover. An unacceptable outcome as the brood needed his guidance if they were to survive the turbulent future.

The only way to use his gift safely was to look at the world through a narrow scope. It kept him sane but it limited his vision, meaning he was not the all-knowing seer the Great Mother would like the brood to believe him to be. There were many things he couldn’t see and sometimes, by the time he recognized a danger, it was too late to avoid it. The matters of the boy were easy to discern, being closely related to the second calamity, but if he intended to direct things further, he would have to take greater risks.

As if to confirm his thoughts, the water around him began to bubble, rapidly heating. A powerful vibration shook the sea as the Defiler roared. The sound couldn’t escape the water but the nature of the elder’s magic allowed him to perceive her words anyway.

“WHAT IN THE SOUL-SUCKING ABYSS IS THIS LITTLE TRANSPARENT BASTARD?”