The Acceptance of Inevitability

After hearing the Reborn Goliath speak about being the sea, James finished his usual tasks, and a few unusual ones, such as finally filing his paperwork for citizenship. After a good evening meal and a few words with friends, he finally heads back to his place to bathe and settle down for the night. As he drifts off he still hears the words of the Reborn echoing in his mind.
 
Floating, held comfortably in the water, above him waves dance over the surface, silver moonlight shining down. He's been here enough times to know what coming. He hears the booming, echoing, and getting louder. He hears the shouts. Fear, grips his heart, desire for this to never have happened driving nails deep into his soul. No matter how much he shouts, silently screams, thrashes, it's always the same. The blood, the death, the revelry in slaughter. Murder, it's just murder with poor justification. How he wishes he could change the past. How he wishes he could talk to that boy, no not a boy, that man, who's heart was driven to such darkness, that wholesale slaughter seemed to be the only salve for the wound. How he wished that man hadn't survived the impossible odds that were against him.
 
Yet that man did. Murder and murder again, blood drenched body and blade, laughing at the pain he caused. Taking perverse pleasure in watching the light go out in the eyes of so many. The man was stabbed, shot, burned, wounded a hundred different ways and a hundred more. But the man survived. And each time went back for more. More blood, more slaughter. And nothing could stop him. Not until...
 
Movement in the water. Not just one. Many. So many forms flitting in and out of the shadows. All sleek, all deadly. And all just at the farthest ranges of perception. Splashes above, bodies and pieces of ship crashing into the water. There, for a brief moment a form larger than all the others, glimpsed as a darker shadow in the blackness. Hate grips him, how he hates this, he hates what's above, but in this moment he hates this beast. He's hated it before, fought it before, cowered before it, frozen stiff in front of it, and every time it still slices into him, teeth breaking, crunching, tearing, rending flesh and bone. Nothing has worked, and still he hates this beast.
 
"The sea does not care." The words of the Reborn echo in his mind. The sounds of them reverberating through the water. And for a moment, the shadows flit away. "Ripples on the ocean. A storm is not the sea. A wave is not the sea." Each time the voice speaks, the shadows are driven away. "Your mind is as vast as the sea." The voice fades away with those last words. And with the fading the shadow forms return. The large one, larger than the others, larger than ever before it seems, swims around him, only it's shadow showing where it is. "The sea does not care" James repeats. "A pebble's ripples are not even remembered by the sea." The shadow looms larger getting closer, tightening it's circle. "Your mind is as vast as the sea." The beast turns, now driving straight toward James, as it has so many times before. But something is different now, something in him is different. Gone is the fear, gone is the hate, gone is the panic. Replaced by simple knowledge. A single truth. Just like the sea, the shark does not care. It hunts, it mates, it lives. It exists as it is supposed to. "My mind is as vast as the sea." Rocketing in with incredible speed, eyes black, silver light highlighting the sleek body, teeth begining to pull back, James stares at it, calm, finally understanding something. "And I am one with everything in it."
 
The water around him is warm. He can feel the presence of others, food and not food, all around, but keeping distance. He smells the blood above, feels the thuds of the explosions, but isn't disturbed by them, they do not concern him, they are not of his world. He swishes his tail, pushing himself along, effortlessly gliding through the water. When he is hungry, he will hunt. When he is tired, he will sleep. When the season comes, he will mate. But right now, all he needs do is swim. The sounds of shouts is far behind now, fading quickly as they no longer matter.
 
In his room, curled up in his blankets, a short burst of golden light flashes, and burns around his wrists, etching marks into both. As they fade, they leave behind the images of a ring of sharks teeth around each of his wrists. After a few minutes, James is breathing deep, and steady again, experiencing a peace he hasn't had in years.