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He sighs.

"I'm not happy about hurting you both like that, but this is still something I need to do. For me. I can't go back to not knowing I'm prime - I probably would've figured it out eventually anyway, it does not rain for weeks around here, and trying to breathe water would just be the obvious thing to do even if there wasn't all this other stuff. But there is all this other stuff, and I can't go back to not knowing any of it, either." He shrugs. "And maybe I can breathe water."
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"And then you'll come back and we drop you off at the Lalindar estate?"

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"I honestly have no idea," he says. "But I might be able to go back, that way. The way I am now... I couldn't. I could not go be the Lalindar prime. It wouldn't end well."

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"What are we supposed to do if you die and people think we murdered you?"

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"I really don't think anybody's going to think you murdered me," he says. "But if somebody starts a rumour and you really care about sticking around to put it down instead of going back home, try Fiyol - you met him, right? The innkeeper who speaks Welchin. We get along well enough that I'm pretty sure he knows this is exactly the kind of thing I'd just decide to do one day."

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"Yeah, I met him," sighs Aleko.

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"He's got his head on straight. He'll know it makes more sense that I went out and did it myself."

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"And I suppose if I try to wake up Kiri and convince her to stop you, since goodness knows I haven't got a chance, she will tell me that it makes total sense in your head, or that you'd be no good to anybody stopped, or something."

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"I don't know what she'll tell you, but I know I showed her what I'm going to do and she isn't stopping me."

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"I'm gonna sit here so if you change your mind you've got somebody to squeeze the pond out of you."
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"Okay," he says.

And away he goes down the path.
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Loel goes out to the pond, and takes off his shoes, and swims out to the deepest part.

He doesn't know if it's just because he's paying attention now, or if learning he's the prime changed something all by itself, but there's something different about the feeling of water moving over his skin. Like it's alive, almost. Like it's touching him, holding him, wrapping him up like a blanket. It should be uncomfortably cold, but it's not; it feels perfect. He floats on his back and trails his fingers through the water and listens to the ripples and thinks about... everything.

Does he really need to do this? Could he figure it out another way?

Maybe not. Maybe he could. But this is his way, his own, and it feels right. It feels important.

He'll be sorry about the people who grieve for him, if he dies. But that can't be enough to stop him by itself.

He takes a breath, what might be his last breath, and lets it out and swims down. His sense of direction is perfect in the water, even though he can't see a thing; he can feel the air up above and the earth down below, like the whole pond is a part of his body. A dim, half-numb part, that can only barely feel what's beside it, but still enough to tell up from down with definite certainty.

Somewhere in the middle between the two, he turns and looks up. The water is clear enough that he can catch a glimmer that might be the moon; otherwise, everything is dark. He opens his mouth - silver bubbles sparkle their way up to the surface - and breathes.

His lungs fight him immediately; he coughs, not that it could possibly help - there's no air down here to breathe even if he gets rid of the water. It hurts. It feels like he is about to die.

And then, at the moment when he is almost convinced that it really is going to kill him—something happens. A feeling like opening his eyes, like sunrise, like a cool breeze on a hot day. His sense of the water snaps into focus. Every sleepy fish and floating lily moves through his awareness of the water. At the same time, he has a similar awakening to his own body—to the blood that gives him life, moving under his skin, carrying things he can't name from one place to another. He feels what it lacks - not air exactly, but something common to air and water. His lungs are useless for this purpose, understanding only air, but he is the coru prime and blood and water belong to him. He stretches out his arms and relaxes. The coughing stops. He isn't breathing; he doesn't need to. His blood can pull what it needs directly out of the water, everywhere it touches him.

He rises to the surface and moves back to shore. It's not really swimming; he just pulls himself through the water directly. Along the way, he shoos all the water from his lungs and takes a breath of air again - half to check that he still can. It works just fine. His body hasn't forgotten how. But as long as most of him is underwater, it's unnecessary. He doesn't do it again until he climbs out onto the grassy patch where he left his shoes and the water runs off him.

The rain stops while he's putting on his shoes. He doesn't have to do anything dramatic; he just has to... stop the rain. Done. Easy. A lot of things are easy, now that he understands.

Maybe, he muses, starting back toward the house, this is what a dip in the Marisi was supposed to do for him. He doesn't think a dip in the Marisi would have cut it. For him personally, he had to need his powers before he understood them.
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Aleko runs out as soon as the rain halts.

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He will find Loel coming back up the path from the pond, dripping wet and laughing.

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"Oh luck and joy you're alive. The rain quit, and I thought -"

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He grins and shakes his head. "Nope. I just learned how to breathe water. Well, not breathe it, exactly—" and he breaks off into a giggle.

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"Get drunk on it?" suggests Aleko dryly.

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Loel cracks up.

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"But you're okay?" says Aleko, starting to yawn halfway through the sentence.

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"Yeah," he says. "You can go back to sleep."

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"We'll see about that," snorts Aleko. "I'll try, anyway." He lurches back into the house, toes off his shoes, and flops into the makeshift bed.

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Loel flops into his own bed on the kitchen floor and goes straight to sleep - although first he stands just outside the kitchen door and convinces all the water on his body and in his shoes and shorts to depart these locations in favour of the ground.

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Kiri is up early the next morning. She tiptoes down the stairs apprehensively.

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There is the kitchen, and there is Loel, curled up in his blanket nest but firmly awake. He smiles when he sees her.

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