Broken Elements Read Online Free PDF Page A

stories diverge and the story of my people begins.”
    This was familiar ground. I had heard these stories nearly every night as I grew up. I was not raised with Green Eggs and Ham or The Very Hungry Caterpillar . I was raised with the oral history of the elementals, the waters in particular. I could trace my entire family line, tell you when and where they were born. No elemental child raised by the old ones was brought up otherwise. We were born from the original life form, and none of the old ones wished to forget that truth.
    I turned off the music and began to tell the story. I could almost hear my great-grandmother speaking through my voice. “Magic existed at the dawn of time, and it manifested as life. This life formed alongside the lands as they shifted and the waters as they rose and fell. The first creatures were a part of the land and the water, and they came to know the earth’s ways, to understand them to the very root of their being. They learned how to make the tides ebb and flow, to cause the desert sands to billow across the dry earth, to make lava spew from mountains and reshape the land.”
    I paused, checking to see if my audience was still with me. No one interrupted, so I continued. “The land and water sustained life for the first creatures by offering a continual source of magic, the same magic that first created this world and everything in it. The creatures in turn cared for the land and water. They helped the trees grow lush and tall and let the waters flow from mountain to stream to ocean. They brought rain to parched fields and burned forests whose time had passed, letting new life blossom in their place. In this way, our world grew rich. The earth and water, so healthy and satisfied, became complacent and found themselves desiring something new, something different. From this desire was born humans and animals.”
    I glanced at Sera. She smiled at me, and I knew she felt it, too. We loved living as humans, eating and drinking and reveling as only those with short lifespans can. We sought that life out at every opportunity, but we also knew it was only part of who we were. We were elementals and raised by the old ones. We breathed the natural world with our every inhalation. Even now, I could feel the droplets gathering in the air for another rainstorm, feel the magnetic pull of Lake Shasta growing stronger with each mile we drove south. I knew Sera would light a fire when we stopped for the night and would warm herself by it body and soul, finding more strength and renewal in the flames than eight hours sleep could ever provide. She would juggle small flames through the air, making them pop and sizzle in the wet air.
    Simon lightly tapped my shoulder with his fingertips. “That’s a lovely story, and I’m sure not biased in the slightest, but you’ve only begun. Continue, please. I’d like to get to the point where I talk about me.”
    I pulled myself from my reverie and returned to the tale I knew so well. “The humans and animals were beautiful and varied, and the original creatures found them remarkable in their way. They did not mind that they ate the earth’s plants and chopped down the trees for wood, for they had worked for many years to create a vibrant and thriving world. The humans were few, and they believed the world could withstand many of their kind. The creatures did not foresee the speed with which the humans would spread or how much they would take from the earth. In despair, they watched their world slowly recede. The originals’ homes eroded as the humans took just a little bit more and then a little bit more. Some chose not to fight at all, and they simply disappeared, moving far from any human settlement. Occasionally, one might hear whispers about these original creatures, rumors that they live still, moving deeper and deeper into the wilds each year, though centuries have passed since any have been seen. Those that remained joined with the humans, hoping to share