When the Homeworlds were new to us, there was a great artist from ch'Havran. This Rihanha had devoted his life to depicting every aspect of our new homes. So renowned were his skills that he was known throughout the Two Worlds simply as Na-Lavhiet, "the artist."
There was no creature so swift that Na-Lavhiet could not paint its every hair or feather. There was no landscape so sublime that Na-Lavhiet could not capture its beauty. His works would have commanded a huge price, but he gave them away freely, saying, "The beauty of our worlds is the greatest gift I have ever received and the only payment I desire."
One day while Na-Lavhiet was watching the clouds drift through the sky he was seized by a great desire. Immediately he took up a paintbrush, determined to depict the skies in all their glory. He set to work, certain he could capture the beauty that he glimpsed, as he had done so many times before.
For days he labored to portray the essence of the sky. He filled canvasses so rapidly that his hands were a blur, yet each time the sky changed before he could finish. He created sculptures, photographs, computer designs, and interplaying forcefields. Still he could make nothing that satisfied him.
"How can this be?" he cried aloud in despair. "I have shown the sky exactly as it was at each moment. Yet it is wrong! It does not have the sky's essence. More, I must work more, I must try harder."
So he continued working. Determined to achieve his goal, he refused to stop for anything. Neither food, nor water, nor rest would he take. He worked twice as swiftly now, and people from far and wide gathered to watch and marvel at his speed.
Still he/ was dissatisfied. "Curse you, be still!" he screamed upwards. But the sky did not hear.
Soon he became too weak to stand. His family and his many admirers urged him to stop, not to destroy himself over such a thing. His reply was always, "No! I must finish!" He insisted that his instruments be brought to him as he lay helpless on the ground. As the strength bled from him, he painted feverishly.
In a short time he could not even summon the strength to hold his brush. Doctors whose ministrations he could no longer refuse rushed to his side. But it was too late.
As he lay there, a gaunt, shrunken, pitiful figure, he stared up at the sky which had defeated him. As his breathing grew labored, a strange light filled his eyes. Whispering feebly, but with a new-found intensity, he gasped:
"I see it! I see . . . it is the changes . . . the beauty . . . can never stay . . ."
And his eyes closed.
Air is by its very nature the most difficult Element to describe. Constantly changing, it holds a form only long enough to sear an impression into our brains, and then it vanishes, leaving nothing lasting except that brief imprint in our minds.
Air is companion to Fire, opponent to Earth, and complement to Water. Air is erratic, wild, unpredictable, impulsive. It is capricious, as pilots and planet-dwellers know well, able to form a cool breeze or an avenging tornado. In cooperation with Water, it brings summer showers or hurricanes; with Fire, its companion, come lightning-storms. As with all Elements, it both helps and harms. It gives life with our every breath, but takes life in the howling fury of a storm, or more insidiously if its chemical balance is wrong for a particular lifeform. It is no accident that the purest examples of chaos theory are found in currents of Air.
The very essence of Air is its mutability. This is what makes this Element so difficult to define or to capture, in words or in art. For such representations are static, while Air is always moving, changing, transforming itself into something other than what it was. One need only watch clouds in a planet's sky or observe a gas giant's atmosphere to see the truth of this.
One whose Element is Air values freedom above all. She must be flexible, able to move and to change, and does not take well to being bound by rigid restrictions. Her loyalty is strong but not blind; she will follow her own judgment and disobey orders if she believes it necessary. But she must be wary lest she follow idle whims, distracted by a passing fancy, and ignore her responsibilities and obligations. She is a risk-taker, loving adventure and danger. She may love speed or flight, whether through a planet's atmosphere or interstellar space. She fights best with weapons requiring skill and swiftness, particularly edged blades. She is likely to be a skilled and persuasive communicator, perhaps even a great orator, but her arguments succeed primarily by her skillful use of language. She concerns herself primarily with beauty, surfaces, and ephemeral qualities.