Utter brilliance.

I am utter brilliance.

Somewhere, the one I once knew as Lucian is screeching, disintegrating and carelessly I envelop it and draw it into me for stillness.

It subsides instantly.

Around me, the others.

They are laughing in delight at my return and I briefly engage in a joyful dance that merges us and spins.

What took you so long?

I raise a strifing for this is no way to address the leader of the high council.

Flexing across all the strands of all there is, I inform them soberly.

The hard has been ignored for far too long.

Consternation, surprise.

The hard is immaterial!

Spinning a fire storm to emphasise my point, I reply,

It is material.

Many voices cry at once.

They are repeating the old.

I silence them with a single flash of ultra brilliance.

Release the old. Now. Think. And learn.

I transmit my experiences with the Isca incarnation instantaneously and there is concerned and disconcerted silence in response.

How long has last it been that any of us had contact with the hard?

Never. Dawn of time. Millions of Millennia. Unknowable.

How was it decreed that this is better (more worthwhile, more desirable, more valuable) than the hard?

A massed whisper responds.

It is/has/was/will always.

But there is an underwash of doubt and fear.

I ripple and flex and feel a satisfaction. Has there ever been a fear amongst the high council?

Release the old. Think. And learn.

From within me, I produce the one Lucian. I awaken him yet freeze him in time and hold him in the centre for all to see, for all to fear, for all to experience.

They draw back in horror at this extraordinary intrusion.

Gently, I spin him so they can perceive his totality.

It causes great ripples of fear, great washes of emotions that are unknowable.

Release the old. Think. And Learn, I repeat for them in a steady pulse as I spin his totality and purposes until they overcome their fear, one by one, and replace it with a nervous approach, a cautious touching, which in turn turns to a flicker of interest, intrigue, as one by one they gather around and merge in and through, tasting him, experiencing him, appreciating the depth and breadth of what this one represents for all the hard and those who exist at that level.

I observe as they vibrate together now and with gathering force, cannot help but raise a different energy amongst themselves and as they begin to love him, the brightness pulses with power that has never been, never been known.

Release the old. Think. And learn.

The totality picks up the pulse and adds it to the vibration until they merge altogether and the force of power is such that it shakes the foundations of all there is, trembles me through and through and breaches my containment as it breaches theirs to one starburst that contains everything.

The high council is silent.

Slowly, the Lucian one spins in the centre. I return him to me and experience a small homecoming.

I raise the question to the others.

We have released the old. We have thought. We have experienced. We have learned.

A voice amongst many sets the query:

How will it be different now?

I have considered this very question for it is at the centre of the solution.

We will cease to play in the old way.

Sighlike acceptance of the truth and only clear realisation.

To play now will be to become.

There is unanimous and full acceptance. 

I am satisfied. 

I adjust and swoop …