Storms Both Inside And Out

Posted on 24 Feb 2025 @ 5:29pm by Lieutenant JG Kaelyth Solmarr

637 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave and Reassignment
Location: Villa on Elysia
Timeline: Just before Reaching Out For Help

Elysia was a beautiful world, Kaelyth thought as he looked out the large bay window at the forest that surrounded the villa he had been given. It was not at all like where he had grown up – he had known there was a forest along one fringe of the Shaelyth Aere (Hybrid Desert), but he had never seen it as the city was in the center of the desert. Vedarr Prime had possessed a forest, but that had been on the continent he had not been on. Oh, he had seen forests since, and he always found them beautiful. This one was no exception and held his focus until something intruded into his senses.

Energy.

There was always energy around him -- energy flowed through the air around everyone constantly, the difference being that he could feel it while others could not -- but this caught his attention not because of what it was but because its levels were increasing. It was not fast, but it was definitely noticeable.

Images flashed through his mind, and Kaelyth backed away from the window and moved deeper into the house, suddenly wishing that it had a basement. It did not of course, but at least there was no one else here with him.

You are being foolish, Kaelyth, he mentally chastised himself even as he sat on the floor at the center of the house on the lower level.

Am I, though? he responded. Remember what happened the last time–

That was many years ago, and that planet was ravaged by storms.

Kaelyth closed his eyes and tried not to think of that day on Ellerrann VI. It was not so easy, though. The images, sounds, feelings, all of it came back in vivid detail, haunting him with the loss, pain and, of course, the guilt.

Ellerrann VI, the planet that had taken everything from him. The planet where his very nature had betrayed him.

There was a difference, of course. That storm had come up without warning. He had not felt it build as he normally did. At the time, he had put that down to the fact that the energies on that planet were always in motion, storms rising, others fading, on and on in a cyclical fashion -- that was, after all, why they had been there, to rein in those storms. But this one he felt coming.

As the energies built, the hum that was, most of the time, a mere background sound rose in pitch and intensity, accompanied by a tingling sensation that only came with storms. The heightened electricity in the air shifted through him, enhanced and channeled by the Shaelyth. It, by itself, was not enough to harm him, not unless he stood out in the storm -- then he would attract the lightning, and that would burn out the Shaelyth and cause him physical damage. No, in here, he was safe from that.

At least there is no one here who could be harmed by it, he thought, a wash of emotions flooding through him. Those brought with the memories of Ellerrann VI but others as well. Loneliness, emptiness. He sighed.

How long will you do this to yourself, Kaelyth?! his mind challenged.

He had no answer. It had been thirty two years ago; why could he not stop this thinking?

Thirty two years.

That number and the realization of it echoed in his mind for several long moments. That was a very long time to hold onto guilt. That was--

Lightning crashed near the house, and he flinched. The storm had begun. Now all he could do was wait... and ride out the storm outside and the one inside his mind.

 

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