An Elemental Party 4 – Beneath the Surface

Undine didn’t like her home. Sure, it was cosy and altogether it could have been a lot worse, but that didn’t mean that the mending elemental was at all happy with her situation. In the room, it was obnoxiously loud most of the time, which she had her three sisters to thank for.

Salamander was a short-fused pyromaniac with a superiority complex. Whether that was fuelled by the fact that she was the second oldest one, that she was the only one who was spawned in a special way or something else, Undine had no idea.

Gnome was so shy that the water spirit sometimes doubted it was even genuine. Nobody could have been that flustered all the time. It was like watching a rabbit putting on make-up to look like a bunny. The cuteness seemed so fake it hurt. It had been fun to bully her at the start, but now it had turned into an old gag.

Worst of all was Sylph. The tempest elemental was little more than an obnoxious child. She needed things to go her way, or everyone else would have to suffer from her permanent temper tantrums.

Not that Undine thought that she was better than those three. Beneath the calm and serene surface that she displayed to the world, she hid these ugly thoughts. She didn’t hold contempt for her sisters, only resignation. Nobody was able to just talk about their issues, and Undine wasn’t about to fix it for them. Only when something seriously pissed her off, did all of this anger brew into a storm that then overpowered everyone else.

Channelling that anger, she could have fixed those problems by force. But she refused to do this. She didn’t like being angry, she was happy being calm. Stepping in was unnecessary. She could have fixed things… certainly, she still held that kind of power, as a mending elemental…

At least that’s what she told herself, especially today.

She was staring at Sylph, completely dumbfounded. The electricity crackling around the sleeping form of the tempest elemental’s up-sized form arced throughout the room, spangling the walls with lightning marks. Undine didn’t dare to move anywhere; the power could strike anywhere at any moment. Therefore, it came of no surprise to her that one of these arcs finally decided to go her way.

It was an outstanding amount of power. More than she herself could have hoped to muster within an hour. And it was just mindlessly burning towards her at a speed she couldn’t hope to dodge. Just a spark of Sylph’s power. Yet, Undine wasn’t even sure if she would survive this incident unscathed. An ugly feeling reared its head, made her middle section dense up as if somebody had just punched her there. It was not panic, not even fear, but envy. Why was it Sylph who had this power, while she was just…

At the last moment, just before the power could sear Undine, the electric discharge lost its connection to Sylph and dissipated. The other arcs disappeared one by one afterwards, and soon, the properties of this room inside the thought-maze of her summoner fixed whatever damage had been caused. As quick as the phenomenon had started, it was over.

Even though it had failed to hurt Undine physically, her spirit was shaking. She inspected what it was that made her this envious. Swiftly, she came to an answer that she regretted ever knowing. Sadness washed through her. Only for a moment, however, as Salamander, with the gasping breath reserved for people that barely avoided asphyxiation, awoke.

By the time Salamander looked at her blue sister, Undine had already restored her calm. What turmoil still plagued her was hidden deep beneath the surface. She didn’t know the details of what had just happened but she prioritized spreading her calm to Salamander first, the fire spirit was in dire need of it.

“What happened?” Undine asked, the melody in her voice betraying her curiosity, once Salamander’s breath had calmed down to a reasonable degree.

“Fucking insanity happened,” Salamander said and spat out. The light orange liquid hit one of the many pillows and set it aflame a moment later. Gnome put her hand on the fire and extinguished it that way.

The eldest elemental looked extremely concerned. Her first glance wandered to Sylph, her second to Salamander. “That was scary,” the stone elemental said. “We better not repeat that.”

“Aye, I’ll have to watch out for Sylph losing her shit in the future,” Salamander stared down at Sylph with a sinister look in her eyes. “She pisses me off so much, yet I can never get my revenge it seems. Fucking natural advantages.”

‘She is your sister, don’t try to get revenge, try to understand,’ Undine buried that thought deep. She didn’t want to kick off a discussion. Especially if she wasn’t filled in completely. “What happened?” she repeated and, in response, Gnome’s spirit reached out to her.

Undine closed her eyes, a redundant gesture. She was blind anyhow. As a slime she didn’t see the world as much as she felt it. She used the eyes of others to pick up what little her senses of heat and smell couldn’t, what the slight tremors in the ground couldn’t, what the soft vibrations of the air couldn’t. There wasn’t a thing she couldn’t sense without eyes, which was why nobody had realized this aspect of her yet. No need to tell them either. It was her hindrance to work around.

Memories raced by from start to finish, informing her on what had transpired. Undine realized once more why she didn’t take part in these unified dreams, why she stayed in the quiet of her own mind instead. She couldn’t have lived through this. Through this inability to speak about their issues with each other. Not that she was any better, keeping the way to isolate herself from those dreams to herself.

“You should apologize to her once she wakes up,” Gnome suggested to Salamander.

‘No,’ Undine thought, ‘You should just discuss this with her.’

“Seems fucking so,” Salamander sighed. “Sylph being the strongest in this group just pisses me off so much. Nothing we can do, though.”

“Are you retarded?” Undine imagined asking out loud. Both Gnome and Salamander would freeze in surprise at the tone of her voice. It would be as if she had taken the glass instrument that usually played the melody of her words and violently shattered it on the floor. “Of course, there is something you can do, you can talk about your problems,” Undine would tell her. “Don’t act like you are the only one at fault here; Sylph has been terrorizing both of your dreams for weeks!”

“She didn’t know any better!” Gnome would defend the still sleeping air spirit.

“And she never will because you keep defending her whenever she does stuff like this. Being powerful is no excuse for being awful,” Undine would tell the eldest.

Gnome would be taken aback, but Salamander nodded. “Actually, yes, Undine here is completely right,” she would growl, “I really don’t feel like apologizing.”

“Get a grip!” Undine would shout at Salamander, “Of course, you should apologize!”

“Yes, you went too far!” Gnome would agree, and then the two of them looked at Undine in confusion. “What exactly do you want again?” Gnome had to ask.

Undine opened her mouth only to realize that this whole exchange wasn’t only in her mind. ‘When did I… why did I…’ The sudden weight of reality made her flow backwards. She found her back against the wall. Suddenly, she felt panicked. She didn’t want to get involved. Yet she was all of a sudden. Stepping in was unnecessary, wasn’t that what she had thought?

No, that had changed when she saw that lightning. When she felt that twinge of envy. She couldn’t isolate herself from her sisters any more. And if there was one feeling stronger than her disappointment with herself, over failing to stay out of this, it was the anger that sparked at her sisters' prolonged confusion. She inched away from the wall and gathered her courage.

“I want you to talk about your problems, not just let them pass by,” Undine told them. “I want to live here in harmony. I don’t want to talk, I want to sit in my bathtub and relax. I want to just be. I want you to be happy so that I can be at ease. You should apologize to Sylph, because what you did was as wrong as what she did. I want Sylph to get her lesson so that she may grow up a little.” Undine’s eyes crossed Gnome’s. ‘And I want you to get your act together and take charge again, like you did before you evolved!’ That last line she spoke in her mind, throwing every bit of disdain she had for the current situation into her words.

The stone elemental blushed deeply, out of honest shame that stemmed from the knowledge of her failure. “I know…” she said and pulled her knees to her chest. “…I know, I haven’t been that reliable since then…but having emotions is just so…weird…”

“The hell do you mean by that?” Salamander asked. Undine was confused as well, even though she hid away most of them, she had always possessed emotions. “I didn’t really feel a lot when I came to this world. Only after I evolved did I start to really become a person…it was easier to lead when I didn’t know that we were all individuals, back when I felt like a mere extension of John and Mother Earth,” Gnome hid her face between her kneecaps. “That sounds awful, I never wanted to say it, okay?”

“Bah, that sounds awful?” Salamander put her arms around Gnome. “Not trying to make this a misery contest or anything, but try living with the fact that your nature is war. Not that I don’t fucking love it by the way. Burning stuff is awesome…but… I do wonder if I dictate my thoughts or if my thoughts dictate me.”

Salamander smiled sadly as she held Gnome in her arms. Undine just watched this unfold. It wasn’t what she had in mind when she said that they should talk about their problems. She just wanted things to get back to how stable they once were, when they were all younger. Why was there now a heart-to-heart exchange? Why did she want to add to that? The words pressed against the inside of her lips.

The confusion escaped from beneath the surface and reached both of the awake elementals. Gnome raised her head and snivelled. “Come on,” she meekly said, “you said we should talk about our problems, and now you have nothing to contribute?”

Undine felt overwhelmed again. Why would she contribute anything? The whole point of this exercise was that she had her quiet so that she didn’t have to talk about her own problems. She knew that she was a hypocrite for that, but she didn’t care. Yet she was this close to giving an answer.

It was Sylph that saved her from saying anything. The tempest elemental sat up and looked around. Now the question was what Gnome would say. Would she force Salamander to apologize anyhow? Would she give Sylph a stern talking? Would there be some sort of compromise?

The answer was: none of the above. Sylph started crying. “I AM SO SOOOORRRRRAAAAY!” she shouted while slowly hovering towards the cuddling duo, shrinking back down as she closed in. “I didn’t knooooow, and I also don’t knooow what that waaaaas,” whiningly, she stretched the words as comedic amounts of tears flew from her eyes like a twin-fountain. She landed on Gnome’s cheek and hugged onto it. “That was soooo scaaarryyyy-y-y. Please, forgive meeee.”

Gnome looked at Salamander, who was just as baffled, but found her voice quicker than anyone else. “You are an obnoxious child, Sylph,” the harsh tone of Salamander made Sylph squeal in angst, that was until Salamander gently put her hand over her younger sister. “But if you promise me to keep your fucking dreams in check, and whatever the fuck that was earlier, I will forgive you.”

“I wiiiiiiiill,” Sylph, still crying, promised.

Undine quietly distanced herself from the trio. “W-where do you think you are going?” stammered Gnome in a pitiful mix of authority, stubbornness and embarrassment.

“Bathtub,” Undine answered, truthfully.

Salamander cackled, “You sure as fuck won’t, get in here.”

Undine pressed her lips together. She kind of wanted to, but also didn’t. She was comfortable with physical contact sometimes, but right now wasn’t one of those times. Or was it? She was conflicted. The whole day had been conflicting. Her whole life had been conflicting. Ever since that day. “Look, I won’t force you to talk about anything and, in return, you get into this group hug, okay?” Gnome suggested.

Undine resigned herself to that deal and flowed over there and enveloped the party. Touching Salamander was a bit uncomfortable, Gnome was overly hard, and Sylph sent slight shocks through her cheek when her tiny head touched Undine’s. But this was all acceptable. It was surprisingly comfortable.

Undine didn’t like her home. However, it was surprisingly comfortable. It was cosy and, sometimes, when her sisters decided to get along, it was nice and quiet. All things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

Even if she was now painfully aware of the big regret that gnawed at her.