The True Rulers of the Earth

- What should we do, queen of the earth? - one of my supporters asked me - the most reasonable thing would be to let them fight alone so they diminish the army of dead people as much as possible and keep us here waiting to eliminate what is left if we are lucky that will help to reduce our casualties.

- No way - I answered. - The lion is not the symbol of courage by accident. If we have allies in enemy territory trying to defeat the zombies then we will go to support them even if for that we have to enter Europe and invade the empire of lightning.

- But you should not go, queen. You should stay here - he insisted.

- I will not stay. How could I be the commander if I would not go to battle with my troops?

That said, I summoned two hundred and fifty fire masters, the only ones capable of facing the zombies and we flew north, some skating hot air currents, others more like missiles that were thrown under pressure and many more mounted on lions, horses and I think I even saw some dolphin that had been trained to be elementary controllers.

The great mountain range that we would have to overcome was becoming visible on the horizon when I felt the presence of Russeldorf somewhere on the earth below us. My sister gave me a sign of having perceived the same thing and at a signal from me I gave her the command of the army, so she was the one who mounted on her lion directed the attack and I stopped, letting everyone surpass me until I stayed behind the group alone with Tora, my own lion-mount. I did not count on Russeldorf getting ahead of his army and waiting for it, close to the border instead of moving alongside it.

I did not have to wait long for him to come out of his hiding and float up to where I was.

He seemed very unhappy, I did not know the cause of his affliction, but I knew that when he was in such a bad mood it was better not to provoke him. Near where he came out I could see a girl who was in the mountain and badly hidden behind it, staring at us.

- Laura, what are you doing in my territory?

- Rescuing the supporters that still remain here.

- Helping others... that is so typical of you - he murmured before adding - and yet in doing so you have exposed yourself to a bad situation, now you are an easy target to annihilate yourself - and he challenged me with his metal staff.

I narrowly dodged the beam, not because I worried that it would hit me, since I knew that if it hit me while I was on the air nothing would happen to me, but because I knew that sometimes Russeldorf added pressure to his attack and in that case it could throw me on the ground, but since I was on time for dodging it instead of counterattacking I decided to do a little experiment and caused a small tremor, just enough for the girl on the ground to scream and I could throw a distracted Russeldorf from a hit to the ground.

The girl began to make me strange gestures, seemed to try to provoke me or throw me something that flew for a couple of meters and then fell to the ground. I did not know who she was, but everything showed that the demon of the clouds had gained a new weakness and that circumstances finally favored me. I remembered all the times he had made Yoyó run, forcing him to dodge the lightning that he threw to kill him, as I chased him to stop him just to laugh at me and I thought it would be fun to play the same game even if it was for just one time.

I made the earth tremble once more and the rock at the top of the small mountain became lava so that when Russeldorf emerged from the crater that formed with his fall he understood that he had the game against him and after sitting on his crosier he left to pick up his companion and escaped with her to the Adriatic Sea, leaving behind him the rest of his army. I thought it must be a good sign, maybe, just maybe that crazy man would finally settle down and entertain himself in that new phase of his life so full of children, screams, and laughter leaving me in peace. And I left happy with the idea to join my troops.

- Tell me, Russi, who is the old lady with so bad temper? - Lulubel asked him as they flew away.

- Who? Laura? ... Hum, she is something like an ex-girlfriend ... she still does not accept it. She still has some obsession with me and probably will never let me rebuild my life, but I am very clear about what I feel and there is not for her ... - he concluded before adding muttering - ... And she is not so old, in fact, we have the same age.

- One what!? Obsession?

- Sure, for what other reason did you think she tried to kill you, honey? Pure jealousy.

Lulubel stole his metal belt and stretched it to make it something like a skateboard and launched on that thing in my pursuit. Flying over the sea.

- Come back here, girl! - he shouted from behind - that woman is dangerous and you’re not a good elementary controller yet and you’ll fall from that thing, at least sit-down! - and after being ignored, he had no other solution than to pursue her.

Meanwhile, I calmly flew over the sky mounted on Tora when someone shouted: “beware!” And hit me, throwing me from my saddle. I was still trying to understand what had happened when the lion caught me in the air with his big front legs.

Had that been an attack? And if it was, why was I warned?

- So you have as bad reflexes as always... – Russeldorf commented to me calmly as soon as he arrived.

- Old lady! - the girl shouted at me, sitting on an iron board next to him - just so you know, Russeldorf is my boyfriend, MINE! Did you understand?

“What?”

- Seriously? I am happy for you - I answered without understanding very well what we were talking about, while I thought “why have they returned? It will not have been just to tell me that, right? Will you try to stop me? But I’m so close to arriving with the zombies ... ”

- So do not try to take it from me! – she yelled at me.

“Ahh ... She’s crazy, logical, that’s why she’s his girlfriend ... Now everything makes sense again.” I thought, sighing inwardly

- Why would I want to stay with that loser? - I could not help but ask her, laughing.

- Well, because he is not a loser! He is great! - She replied proudly. He must be her first boyfriend, otherwise, it made little sense that she had him so well valued. She needed a comparison... Ah, but love distorted our vision so much, I thought while feeling as a romantic nostalgia invaded me.

- Seriously? Well, I’m great too - I replied beginning to annoy, feeling like the fire covered my shoulders - and I do not need another great being by my side, all I need is someone to take care of my house and raise my children while I’m in battle, so I advise you that if you want to keep “your own great being” you should try working as a housewife and stop interfering in the war. Now go clean something and let the adults talk.

But those two did not seem to hear me anymore, it was as if they had locked themselves in their own bubble of love and happiness.

- Do you really see me that way? So you’re not angry anymore? - he whispered as soon as he hugged her waist.

Initially, I got bored of receiving so little attention, then I feared that the scene would become obscene and finally, I thought that this could be my opportunity to get my repressed anger down on those zombies, so instead of interfering I just tried to continue my way discreetly.

- Hey, where do you think you’re going? - Russeldorf shouted at me, attacking me before I could react.

Tora instead managed to react in time and to protect me, he got up on his two hind legs in the air receiving directly the blow of the metal staff on the head. That blow broke his cervical spine and killed him instantly.

In my impression and still sitting on the back of my protector as soon as it fell on the air, I could see a smile of admiration draw on the face of the girl, which was enough irritating to be consumed by rage.

Maybe I could not spontaneously burn Russeldorf because his electromagnetic shield protected him from my fire, but I could reduce his frail companion to ashes in seconds and that was what I did. Russeldorf barely turned his head on his right shoulder to see horrified as his girlfriend disintegrated in a blast of blue fire.

I had avenged myself, but I was still furious, too furious for that to be enough, so before my opponent finished assimilating what was seeing, I unsheathed my sword and decapitated him in the air, taking advantage of the fact that surprise would diminish that electromagnetic bubble that he used to cover himself and then I watched as his body and that of Tora fell to the ground and I incinerated them both using the blue fire. As I melted all the bracelets of Russeldorf.

Only then did I understand what he had done. I had just killed the leader of the lightning empire and his only true protector. Europe was now at my feet, it would never be easier to destroy it than now.

Did these people want to follow the religion of an intolerant God who wanted to destroy all those who were not like him?

I would teach them what happened when they faced a god with a power equivalent to theirs, but who was only intolerant of the beliefs they defended.

I hurried to fly to where the battle was happening. My masters of fire had almost halted their progress, but the number of zombies still facing them seemed infinite and several giants made of many amalgamated corpses were still beating giant iron mallets against my army.

It was impressive that with Russeldorf dead his troops still had so much power, he should have invented some kind of system that would make them independent of him or have trained a decent number of necromancers.

- They are not other controllers, we exterminate them all, it is all energy of the snake - my sister, Therez, warned me - he must have invented some type of battery or a remote controller. There must be some explanation for them to be still moving.

They were too many, I could not even count an estimate, but they seemed to continue advancing for a space of about two hundred kilometers if the battle was perpetuated my troops would run out of energy and it was possible that they could not even retreat without being persecuted and killed by the dead.

It was almost a detail that I remembered but the fact that the zombies were an army was part of a specific situation. Normally Russeldorf used them as patrollers who circulated freely hooded across the continent in search of rebels and murdered their victims by suffocating them “with a kiss” (the dreaded “kiss of death”, yes, for every macabre thing that existed in this world always appeared some ridiculous that baptized it with a poetic name), while during war they jumped to their enemies heads and broke their necks. But now that they had lost their puppeteer they seemed to attack in any way, sometimes not even to kill, if not just to cut or hit, it seemed that when they were not receiving orders the bodies only reproduced the movements that their muscles had learned to do when they were still alive, even if those were only those used to cook or embroider.

Still, something had to be done to slow down and end all at once.

I gave the order (by thought) to my general in Turkey to advance with the rest of my army to Europe while with a great earthquake I made a huge hole in the ground and buried all the zombies underground and then compressed the rock with immense heat and pressure, if Russeldorf had left me without a saddle I would be compensated by taking away from him his toys and using them to forge a new sword for me. One that would be sharper than steel and that nothing could break; a zirconium sword.

That afternoon we went to a bar to discuss what our tactics would be to conquer the rest of the lightning empire after having eliminated Russeldorf and his troops of zombies when a group of soldiers approached us asking how much we charged for sex in a strange sexual position, I guess that he should have confused us with prostitutes and gigolos, so without looking up from my maps I incinerated who interrupted us and his companions and we continued the meeting. Strange people were in all places.

I never reflected emotions in my eyes or facial expressions unless I was out of my self. Power is not “theatricality” but “extermination” and extermination need not be announced.

The night was spent with the surviving villagers of the battle, who sheltered us and fed us with what was left of food in their homes and the next morning, after the arrival of all my army we left to conquer the rest of the lightning empire.

Everything succumbed to our path, between fires and volcanic eruptions we destroyed over eighty percent of the continent’s forests before reaching the capital of the lightning empire, a small town called Drogur, located approximately within an imaginary triangle between the current cities of Düsseldorf, Münster (both in Germany) and Amsterdam (Netherlands), which did not have over three hundred years of foundation at the time and that was completely incinerated in our path, disappearing without leaving traces that history could rescue.

It was in that place that I cursed the European continent, announcing that whenever they armed themselves in electricity and iron for fanatical defending ideas the fire and the earth would become their enemies and destroy them, because the snake would be forever “prostrate and defeated under the lion’s feet “and that the same would apply to any other continent that had the same idea of challenging me.

The juggles had a much more negative view of what happened that day which they sang for centuries, taking their horror story even to the ears of my empire, of the fearsome demon of fire that emerged from the center of the earth through the volcanoes to the surface and that the day of the “last among all judgments” devoured the souls of witches and sorcerers and took them back to the center of the Earth with him for torture them forever.

Almost as if I had enough time to devote so altruistically to trades that did not reissue me any wealth, as the jailer and tormentor of sinners. They also added other anecdotal to their songs, as that sorcerers could only be killed by fire or water. Because as soon as we arrived, the opportunistic girls of the water empire came to invade the territory of present-day Great Britain and throw their sorcerers into the water to laugh seeing how in the midst of the panic to drown they ended up electrocuting themselves and took advantage of looting everything they found valuable and killed all the snakes they found on the way by driving them through the head to the trunks of the trees, more for entertainment than for some other deeper reason.

India and sub-Saharan Africa sent messengers shortly after that military conquest, requesting to be annexed to the fire empire.

Anyway. You cannot please everyone or get everyone to love you, after three thousand years of a government that was something that I “almost” had accepted, I just needed to work a little more on that “almost”.

- What will we do with the survivors? Will we give them food and clothes now that all their farms have been lost in the fire?

- No, Therez. Human beings are sociable creatures not only because it makes us happy to be so, but also because we get things to relate to others, you could call it “convenience”. These creatures had embraced fanaticism because they could not overcome the stage of maturity of “I do not want to know anyone who does not think and behave like me”, maybe only acceptable from a child of three years old child, so now that they have real problems could be a good time for learning to think like an adult. To learn “why do others exist” there is no better teacher than hunger, especially when it kills the ones you love.

- What a pity... I imagined that you would find an educational use for there chaos… and I was already thinking that we would clean this region of any human life and simple recolonize it... - she lamented - we could have expanded the empire of fire up to here.

The idea of Therez was an option and that we had been applying for several centuries to grow, but within my planning for imperial growth, I never had an interest in conquering Europe. It was a distant place, exactly the kind of distant place where I have interest that someone as annoying as Russeldorf could continue reincarnating. I would not dismantle his little home in the mountains, I would barely shake it a while so he remembered why it was not a good idea planning to go out.

Back home, as soon as I was flying over the trees in the garden I could see Yoyó distracted hugging a book on the other side of the window and my heart quickened. I never liked blue eyes and maybe that was related to the fact that many members of the water empire had blue eyes, but the pair of blue eyes that life after life spent the afternoons looking melancholy at the sky through the window, waiting for my return to home and that now looked bored a great book without being able to concentrate on what they read were my exception.

Yoyó was so happy when he saw me enter the library. I had returned home.

- Will we celebrate? - It was the first thing he asked me. My throat tightened. I had been impulsive and now I would have to pay the price by giving up the beautiful life he had. I just approached him and rested my forehead on his.

- I killed Russeldorf during the invasion - I explained to him without getting to look him in the eye as soon as I said it, even though I did not need to see him for knowing that his face was pale. - so I will spend the night working in the studio, I have many things to organize before… My next life.

- How much longer... will you live? - He asked me as I walked towards the door.

- Still some time... - I answered - I still have to kill Indivar so perhaps one or two years, I can not delay more than that time in being reborn so that the age gap of our next lives do not be so great.

His joy seemed to have been devoured by some shadow and his gaze seemed absent.

- And when you come back, will I be next to you in my next reincarnation? – He asked.

- Yes, you are always by my side.

- But I will not remember you, right? - Something similar to an ice knife pierced my heart.

- No. You will forget me, as you always forget me, but everything will be fine. I will find you and we will be together as always. You need not worry about that - I explained.

But when I went through the door and closed it behind me, my whole emotional world seemed to collapse, like the buildings after my earthquakes. Yoyó was going to forget me again and there was nothing in the world that hurt me more than knowing that I would find him again and he would not know who I was and then I would have to contain my grief, pretend that it was all fine, to introduce myself and let him know me again and to fall in love with me again, as was the natural process of courtship of the terrestrials. How he was.

- Damn Russeldorf. - I whispered.

That’s why I hated losing my self-control when I fought against Indivar or Russeldorf, hurting them did not matter to me at all, but every time one of us died we had to restart all a new cycle of reincarnation to prevent that just one of the three of us were in the fullness of their adulthood when the other two were too old or too young to lead an army. And each new cycle, which for me did not differ from going to sleep at night and re-awakening with all my memories of the day before the next day, implied that Yoyó would lose all the memories he had of me and our life together.

Indivar did not seem very animated with the idea of having to return so soon to the diaper stage and the idea of staying as the only one alive among the three did not seem to bother her, so I went to the borders to the southeast of my empire, next to the present south of India, accompanied by Atzuka, one of my captains to try to get something through diplomatic. Islina usually mediated at least in part my fights with Indivar and as the issue of the “demons of silence” training to attack us in one of the natural borders between both empires was quite actual, this would also be a matter that would require a joint work between the two of us and that it would be convenient to solve before dying in order to have a peaceful death.

As we waited from the beach the arrival of our hostess we could see a big wave, more like a tsunami than a wave in the distance, and surfing on it a woman of Polynesian aspect very tall and slender, no more clothes than a belt to cover the breasts and something like a mini skirt, with a spectacular hair waving in the wind.

- That’s Islina - I explained to my companion that had not met her before.

- Ohh, - she exclaimed – but she has very long hair! I thought that only the members of the fire empire could have it that way.

“It’s naive - I thought - but that’s natural for who does not know.”

- Well, maybe some of the notions that you, who are younger, have about the water empire are wrong because as you entered the war later you did not know some things and ended up idealizing some others... Like many who think that the fire empire was always the greatest among all, when the truth is that when the girls ‘invited me to leave’ I only went away taking very little thing for found an empire, basically a little suitcase under my arm filled with all my good wishes about how a happy world look like and a handful of relatives, of which some were mentals and some not. There was a bit of everything, from the beginning all of us who started with this project of the empire were very different between us and the same applies to some of the notions they have about the leadership of the water empire. What happens is that the lighting empire possesses only one ‘super-mental’ that is Russeldorf, who governs it. In the fire empire we are very few who possess that title and as I am the neck willing to govern the charge falls on my shoulders. In the water empire, the same thing does not happen. As the girls kept the “pure line of succession” and the majority kept reborn together they have a total of thirty ‘super-mentals’, many of them much more powerful than Indivar, Russeldorf and me together, Islina is one of those portents and because she is so she can have her hair the length she wants... Fortunately for us, the girls are extremely artistic and most of them dislike to fight, they prefer to spend the day drawing, painting, sculpturing statues, designing gardens or cooking. As they are all extremely talented, in the water empire ended up happening what the old saying says: that when the forest chose its leader all the fruit trees took a step back to take care of their things and ended up governing the thistle. Indivar is the thistle. She governs because she has no artistic talent, she always enjoyed giving orders and because nobody else wanted to do it. Not because she is the strongest and because of that she knows she must take care very well of the length of her hair.

- And they really did not have any better leader option? At least one more competent?

- They had it, yes. I was that option, who they originally wanted to be their leader. The truth is that originally I was a respectable member of what is now the water empire, my process to become an outcast was in a close relationship with the day my way crossed with Russeldorf and it occurred to me that it was a good idea to train him.

- And at that time he was already as delirious as he is now?

- No, at that time his only defect was to be a man, madness came later. And going back to the subject of madness, I was someone respected and well-considered until the day when they considered that I had that psychotic crisis in which I convinced myself that men could think and that I had the magical ability to understand what they said and they declared me crazy. That was the end if not of my entire career, at least if of his promotion.

- But do they really believe that they are not intelligent beings?

- They believe it, yes. So much so that, if you look on my records you will see that I am still registered as a “member of the water empire”, somehow they still consider I am part of the group, and if you keep reading my file down you will see that I am interdicted. After all, beliefs are just the result of social construction and even if everything shows a person that her beliefs disagree with what she is perceiving, most people would trust more in what others say is true that in what they perceive as real. In your case, as members of my empire, you accept my beliefs as naturals so in your thinking the ideas of the water empire must be wrong, but if I was insane as they defend then all of you would be trapped in a world constructed by my delirious.

- And the same applies to the contrary, right?

- It does, at the end of the day choosing a side is just a bet. Many reasonable women I know from the water empire chose their side just for power, or even comfort. Not because they actually believed what they pray.

- And you chose your side cause is the right one?

- No, I’m not someone so motivated by ideologies as people believe. My goals are more practical. I understand that I can give birth to mental, terrestrial, women or men children and I’m not willing to kill or abandon them just because someone else thinks the world will be prettier that way. I used to burn the people with that kind of ideas and eventually, I ended up creating a whole empire.

- Being interdicted? – she laughs at asking.

- Yes, interdicted for being crazy, at least in the water empire were I do not have civil rights, nor can I manage my money or do a lot of things for myself, that’s why I have Islina, she is my legal representative. At least until the day, I agree to appear before the council and “repent” of all the nonsense I have said on that subject the last three thousand years

- Hahahahahahahaha, what an impression. I knew nothing about that ... People believe in everything in this world, don’t they? But is Islina really stronger than the three of you together?

- Yes ... I do not know if I have time to tell you that story now that the wave is approaching, but I suppose I can try to summarize it.

- Should not we dodge it (the wave)?

- No, it will dissolve before reaching the shore... I think the last time I faced Islina was about six lives before this one, I will not tell you the circumstances because there is no time for it, I will only tell you that at that time we made a truce with Russeldorf in order to face her...

......

It was a hot day in the middle of a vast desert.

- You do not have to face us, Islina! Here there is no sea under which you can hide - Russeldorf challenged her - you would do better to retire.

- There is no sea, you say? - she answered calmly, in what her subordinates were hiding behind her - just so you know, my little ignorant, there is water on the whole planet and wherever I am there is the sea. Still, it’s a shame to use such a majestic technique that I originally created to destroy “the servants of the earth” against a pair of tadpoles like you two, but I suppose that any excuse to see my artwork again, worth. - she added smiling.

And when she raised her hands to heaven, that warm summer day suddenly became stormy, but before Russeldorf adjusted the clouds for a more electrifying use, they seemed to continue to gather and condense massively, forming a gigantic dark ball over our heads, so big that everything went dark by his shadow.

- Do you think that only with a lot of water can the passage of light be interrupted? - he asked me looking at that giant shadow perplexed.

- I have never been so deep in the sea, but they say that going down over three kilometers everything gets quite dark - I replied: “but there is no way that Islina has summoned such a quantity of liquid water over our heads, right?”

- It can be... What a curious ball, it catches my attention, I think I will measure it

And hitting the ground with his staff a spark ascended quickly and crossed the darkness in height and then in length.

- About four kilometers high and about fifty kilometers in diameter, it is suspended about five kilometers above our heads. I do not think we can get away from it just by flying. - He reported to me.

- My dear insects - she summoned us -, I present before you, to the imposing sea - and lowering her arms all the water of that monstrous disc came upon us.

He watched it curious and then he looked at me.

- Tell me, what do you think this woman plans? Does she want to get us inside that huge bubble of water to make us fight inside it? Why, if that were the case, I believe that with electricity I would not go so bad ... The one that would be defeated would be you, so I think it is a convenient time to undo our truce.

“That idiot does not understand what is happening - I thought exasperated - when that thing hits us, we will not have a future in which to think. If a liter of water is equivalent in weight to a kilo of soil, that mass will fall on as if it were a piece of the moon, with no relation to the fall of the rain. The pressure will blow us apart in a second and now that it’s on the way, not even killing the water bender could save us. ”

My desperation only grew bigger, beginning to feel how the ants should feel if they could understand when a footstep came over them and promising that if I survived I would spend the rest of my life avoiding stepping on them by accident, as Russeldorf removed the wax from his ears. I did the only thing I could do to survive.

I lifted Russeldorf like a wooden board and used it as a human shield. He did not seem to understand what I was doing until that colossal mass of water was not more than a few hundred meters above us and just then he gave a scream, clinging to his staff and activated the electromagnetic shield, locking us into a bubble of electricity.

I, meanwhile, caused a great earthquake at that time and created several fissures in the ground while altering the consistency of the soil so that it was more permeable to absorb water and charging the idiot to continue using his electromagnetic shield I jumped to one of those openings in the earth, before the water fell and its weight burst everything in its path (except for Islina, which was inside something like a whirlwind of air)

- Are you crazy? - he bawled - why are you trying to bury us alive?

- I’m not trying to bury us, but to save us, idiot! I’m just transforming the potential water energy, which is the one that would have crushed us, to kinetics by forcing it to run through the fissures, basically I’m converting the energy of the weight into velocity, as if it were a great flow, so to drag us, but do not smash us - he seemed to have a spark of understanding.

- Ok, but how much exactly will it drag us? Remember that down there is only magma and you may find a homelike atmosphere, but it will carbonize me!

- We will not get so far down, only until I can feel some nap with air or with some underground river into which we can enter.

- How do you come up with those ideas? - he shouted again

- Because when all else fails, the old intelligence coupled with physics and some mathematics can help rebalance a power difference as abysmal as the one we have with Islina. - I screamed for an answer.

......

And then... Islina arrived and walking on the water near the shore approached us while several girls hurried to put on her dress and offer her a drink. The great tsunami that brought her to us had really disintegrated.

- Another day I will finish telling you the end of the story - I apologized to Atzuka, in what followed Islina to the kind of wooden cabin that had been built on the beach. And I say “kind” because it had no walls, only pillars that supported the straw roof and a wide wooden floor in different points.

- Are you coming to know more about the adventures of air benders? - she asked me with his always contralto voice, before taking a sip of her drink and forming more ice to freeze it.

- I thought they were a mixture formed by earth benders and air benders.

- No, according to our records the earth benders separated at some point, I suppose when they must have understood the wrong they were doing and they left. Only the most fanatical air benders, like Sananda, continue to fight for this lost cause.

- Do not you really think that what they are trying to do is dangerous? - I asked hoping that she knew something that I did not or that she had a good plan may be. She did not answer me and seemed only focused on the ice in her glass. I remembered that I was also served one and I took a drink, more by reflex than by thirst.

- Do not you know why Sábaseth has not handled it? He wanted to try it through the diplomatic channel... - she questioned me.

" ¿How was I supposed to know what was doing that other idiot who spent his life floating in the middle of nowhere and sometimes did not appear for years even to say hello, until one day eventually he appeared out of nowhere in my office carrying two mangoes under his arm? Why did everyone always think I knew what he was doing? ”

- I still do not have news. - It was my scant response.

- Humm - Atzuka could not help but interrupt us - sorry, but I thought that the members of the water empire did not consider men as persons and, nevertheless, you are counting on the help of the great bender Sábaseth?

Islina took her time before answering.

- Yes, most girls do not consider them, but I have my own ideas. Only that I’m much more cautious when it comes to pronouncing them than Laura, that’s why I’m still part of the council and not an exile, haggard, aged and overloaded with the responsibility of saving the world from its own stupidity. While I remain as smooth and young as ever – and she smiled before giving another drink at her drink - otherwise I love men, if not, I could not have so many good lovers ...

And a glint in the look of the handsome model who served us the appetizers revealed one of those mentioned.

- The truth is, I do not care so much whether or not they think, I’m more of an admirer of male beauty and nothing makes me happier than being able to undress them and use them as models for my sculptures.

Another drink, more casual conversation, a couple of questions about how Elisa was and how the trees I had recently planted in my garden grew, she asked me if I still had “Berni” with me and with whom I would leave him after I died (How could she still remember Berni? I think she must be the only person in the world who still remembered him) and the evening ended.

- My little Lala - she said as soon as she hugged me to say goodbye - you know that Indivar will not listen to me and that no matter what I say, she will invade the Himalayas anyway. The lovely cove in which we are established (in northeastern China today) is too close to the air benders village and connected by large rivers of water. Going up to attack is as easy as waiting to be attacked and some of the girls are anxious with the proximity, but now that spring arrives it will be the season of several festivals and exhibitions in galleries and most of them are absorbed in finishing their works (artistic) in time and will end up delegating again all the responsibility to solve the problem to the same Indivar, as they always do.

- Can you arrange a meeting to discuss it with her? - I hated having to approach that plague, but if it was the way I had to fix the mess that had caused killing Russeldorf I would have to endure it.

- No, but I can arrange a fight for you to give her a one-way ticket to heaven, that will give you some time to prevent the invasion or at least buy some time - and she winked me an eye.

Two days later, in the middle of a big storm, when I thought I had been betrayed or something had gone very wrong, the young model appeared in the small cabin where we were staying with Atsuka carrying a message.

Five days after the meeting with Islina I was floating on a wooden board somewhere on the high seas while Indivar was holding on to the sea turtle that had rescued her from drowning when she no longer had any energy even to float.

In three days of earthquakes, tidal waves, cyclones, hurricanes, and storms we had burned almost all our energy without having yet reached a result.

Since our last confrontation, Indivar had finally learned to shape and potentiate its attacks with water, getting small drops of water to hurt like needles and others larger like knives. I always made fun of her because of how slow she was to learn new skills, but this time I really thanked the heavens, since her new skill changed completely and forever any concept that I had before about what was “rain”.

- I still cannot believe how unbearable you are - she was protesting with her few remaining energies - so that I have to die every time you make a mistake!

- If you were more reliable and respected your truces, I would not have to always take the precaution of killing you before reborn myself.

- I am your enemy, who could be more reliable than that, in what I will always want to beat you?

The argument was simple and logical.

- No longer protest, you do not even have a happy life, you are always cursing her... Why do not you accept to die already at once? - That was going to be just a thought, but I think I ended up talking loudly.

- Of course, I do not have a happy life! And it’s all your fault! Because of how envious you were and what you still are today! If you had not destroyed my life, it would be perfect ...

- Indivar... I did not destroy your life. - Here we started again ...

- You did!

- Indivar... I have already told you a thousand times that you are not the center of the universe and that your life matters less to me than the fall of a leaf ... Besides, over three thousand years have passed, that happened before the beginning of the war. Why do not you get over it?

- I WILL NOT! I will never get over it or forgive you because you destroyed my life the day you betrayed me! Like the miserable rat, you are and you tied me to the chains that I’ve been dragging ever since...

- Then die... Who knows, maybe that will make the pain go away...

I knew that death would not take away her suffering really, but I needed to keep my busy schedule running so I needed to engage her with my objectives.

Besides, I hated having to talk with Indivar, having to listen to her blaming me for everything bad that had happened to her, was happening now and probably also about what would happen to her.

Listening to her complains for over three thousand years had probably been the most unpleasant part of that whole period, rather than the war itself. What could I do? I was a girl. Had I ruined it? Possibly yes, I had spent so much time reviving in my mind those two days to understand who had been the fault of the whole situation and if it had been mine and each time I had made that tortuous (and almost masochistic) game had come to different conclusions. I did not even know if it was my fault, but if I had had it, I would accept it, paid the price and keep going like life was all about.

All this thing of being blamed forever made little sense for me.

- You’re an idiot…

It was the last thing she muttered before she made a great arm of water come out of the sea, become a sword over her heart and pierce through it.

The turtle quickly returned to the depths, taking the corpse of his mistress with her and leaving me alone, in the middle of an infinite blue.

I remembered Yoyó, it had been almost two years since the conquest of Europe, it was a good time to be reborn and it might be easier to do it there, in the middle of nowhere and without returning to say goodbye.

Whenever we got to that point he suggested that I stay and try to fix the world by myself, now that those two were not there, but whenever I had tried to do so, I had been one step away from losing all my empire. There was no case, the strength of youth was a much more powerful weapon than the time it could get to try to organize a world in chaos before those two returned to adulthood.

Although to keep repeating the cycle was as painful as opening the same wound several times, it was still the only method I had found if not to break the balance in my favor, at least to maintain it.

There was only one thing I needed to do, I had to mentally call Sabás and tell him we were leaving.

“It’s time? - was all he asked me I do not know from which remote place in the world, but I got the impression that it was a place of high and humid mountains that were being barely caressed by the sunrise (maybe Vietnam?) and a woman was sleeping in the bed next to him, inside an adorable wooden house - Well, I’ll tell Elisa, I’ll see you two minutes from now.” – he said before going out of the house and after his soul to undress from his body, let him fall from the cliff.

Everything was ready, I was already calm so I could die in peace and as such, I would not need to force it, just take off my body and leave like a stick floating in the sea. Sábaseth appeared next to me also as a spirit, always tall, thin and with his white hair disheveled, with his tired gaze he looked like someone much older than he was and who seemed to radiate sweetness, anger, and serenity, all simultaneously, some five thousand dimensions at a time. He offered me his hand and we went through, once again, the tunnel.

Welcome, parties, corrections, it was always the same when we got to the other side and it always seemed that the time we stayed was hundreds of years even though on our return it always turned out that from our death to our new conception had not been more than a day. Elisa always took charge of catching us in her womb, before any other mental that wished our power could try to capture us in that delicate state and as we had done for over two thousand years, we were reborn once more like twin brothers. I to be once again the Queen of the Earth and he to continue being the one that all the mental ones recognized as the greatest bender among them, including the girls, who through a meeting resolution had decided to make a “state of exception” for him and name him as “a wounded being”, something like a disabled person, but still a person. What made him the only man recognized as a person in the record of the water empire (and therefore the only one they spoke to, others usually were only ignored as if they were stones, including Russeldorf).

Nothing could have mattered less to Sabás, as we called him. So much so that when someone praised him or commented on him about that he just shrugged and continued with his things.