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Norani was not sure how long she'd been following the roots of Agst'rasera, following the veins of the elemental planes, and the primal planes at that. Time didn't feel real in this space between worlds. She was in her Prescience state, a living vortex, racing, following the World Tree's roots that were leading her to home. Everything that whirled by were worlds seemingly made of the very energies she partnered with, and many others she'd not yet learned.
The temptation to slip into one of these worlds of earth, worlds of metal and wood and fire and shadow and light was great. She was learning so much and needed to learn so much more, but she had a responsibility that rested squarely on her tempestuous shoulders. This was her calling as Windwalker, this was why Astrid chose all those years of imprisonment and torture as a child, this why she trained so hard, why she had destroyed herself twice over and rebuilt anew.
This was why she had delayed trying to find Ye--
Norani stopped, hovering over there, between a vast ocean of water and another of blood. She had heard something. Something she recognized. She waited, silencing her own winds. A giggle. Her eyes went wide. She knew that laugh. She charged up her aether, calling out to the Wind that was laughing, for it was one of the winds she'd befriended while upon the Expedition.
Norani raced forward now, and the wind raced to meet her as well. It wrapped around her, feeling her unfamiliar but much improved form, showing its approval. Norani beckoned it in, and they embraced, before wind had to move once again, as it always does. Then it said something which stopped Norani cold.
'Yeva's back. I felt her shape.'
Norani had asked the winds, before she had decided to leave, to contact her if they felt Yeva's form ever again. And she knew that the elements were not malicious, that this was truthful and earnest. And her heart soared. Her prescience form changed, merging the Wind that was her, and the Fire that was Yeva, until Norani was the living embodiment of lightning, and she raced further and faster along the roots, the little wind laughing as it streaked to keep up.
Glade 1, 123
It was afternoon, a bit after Captain Kynne's little rhyming party and his great reveal as Vhexur. There had been clouds growing overhead all day, as the various Expedition members went about their day, pursuing new inspiration from their time with Vhexur and each other, some perhaps resting and relaxing. Everything would be settling into the new normal, whatever that might look like for each person.
The clouds grew darker and denser, spreading for miles in all directions, a charge of anticipation in the air. The ocean began to grow choppier, darker, the winds merging together in bigger gusts and breezes, creating large waves that even found their way into the protected bay chosen by the Expedition.
A storm was coming.
