The Heart Fountain

 
First Tournament
The tournament is extraordinary.
There are five parts to a tournament: light, opening, middle, closing, and quiet.
One of the judges launches the tournament.
She throws a large golden sphere a hundred feet in the air.
The sphere bursts apart.
Streams of colored light radiate in a hundred directions.
Songs of energy and vibration fill the entire stadium.
Everything moves a [...]

 
Forever
Twenty cycles of intense training.
I’m ready for the birthing.
Vala says that I’m almost a Gen already.
But I still have doubts about the birthing.
What am I really giving up in becoming Gen?
People say that most Gen are cold, without feeling.
Will I become cold like that, an intelligent, energy machine?
Vala isn’t like that.
She and I have been [...]

 
Waiting
I’ve been training for almost a month.
And I haven’t seen a tournament.
Today she asks me to wait again.
“Two more months, Neebol.”
“Why, Master Vala?”
She glares at me.
(Just yesterday she asked me to stop calling her Master.)
“In the tournament,” she says, “the moving energies seem visible to physical eyes.”
“But the most amazing aspects are hidden.”
“In two months, [...]