It's not every day the wind decides to talk to you.
"Elemental! Come, join with me! A War brews, Team Air is the place for you!"
The wind is compelling, and manically enthusiastic. You find yourself wanting to agree with it, but your old enemy common sense steps in. "But why Air? It doesn't seem to fit me."
"You can fly!" says the wind, with some conviction.
Though you don't want to disagree, you feel you must be honest. "I can't fly. Not even slightly."
"Oh..." You thought wind didn't have the capacity to look visibly shocked, but it proves you wrong now. "You didn't read the War #8
Air propaganda? Well, not to worry, I'll have you flying in no time. Follow the tree. Bye!" A powerful Shockwave knocks down a nearby Oak. The mighty tree settles, pointing the way.
You actually had other plans for today, but you don't want to appear rude. You debate trying to come to some sort of compromise but the wind appears to have left you now, which makes it much harder to reason with. You walk onwards.
A sheet of paper, floating on the wind, gets caught on your face.
This is not something you are typically excited about, but in this case you can't stop a smile from forming. After several hours of walking any relief from the monotony is appreciated. Though you kept to as straight a line as possible, no significant land marks made the task difficult.
Plucking the paper from your face, you see it is covered in writing. You read it eagerly, looking forward to a fresh set of instructions.
Spoiler for The Sheet of Paper:
"Now consider the tortoise and the eagle.
The tortoise is a ground-living creature. It is impossible to live nearer the ground without being under it. Its horizons are a few inches away. It has about as good a turn of speed as you need to hunt down a lettuce. It has survived while the rest of evolution flowed past it by being, on the whole, no threat to anyone and too much trouble to eat.
And then there is the eagle. A creature of the air and high places, whose horizons go all the way to the edge of the world. Eyesight keen enough to spot the rustle of some small and squeaky creature half a mile away. All power, all control. Lightning death on wings. Talons and claws enough to make a meal of anything smaller than it is and at least take a hurried snack out of anything bigger.
And yet the eagle will sit for hours on the crag and survey the kingdoms of the world until it spots a distant movement and then it will focus, focus, focus on the small shell wobbling among the bushes down there on the desert. And it will leap …
And a minute later the tortoise finds the world dropping away from it. And it sees the world for the first time, no longer one inch from the ground but five hundred feet above it, and it thinks: what a great friend I have in the eagle.
And then the eagle lets go.
And almost always the tortoise plunges to its death. Everyone knows why the tortoise does this. Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off. No one knows why the eagle does this. There’s good eating on a tortoise but, considering the effort involved, there’s much better eating on practically anything else. It’s simply the delight of eagles to torment tortoises.
But of course, what the eagle does not realize is that it is participating in a very crude form of natural selection.
One day a tortoise will learn how to fly."
Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
The paper is more cryptic than you would like. Luckily, the wind takes pity on you. "Become a flying tortoise." Excellent. Much clearer.
You realise today is starting not to feel like your average Tuesday. You try to convince the wind that you'd much prefer to stay as yourself, really. Unfortunately you haven't had a lot of practice arguing to not become a flying tortoise - in fact, you think this is your first time - and the wind is convincing. It ends up talking you into it.
You seek out the nearest Entropy elemental and demand he mutate you into a tortoise.
The elemental is insistent that there is an incredibly slim chance of turning into a required creature after mutation. Anyway, the cost of such an operation is enormous. You wave away his concerns. The wind clearly has a plan, and you have committed to following it through. To cover the cost you pledge to the elemental all your possessions. You don't think a flying tortoise will have much use for your wind up clock or your under-stuffed armchair.
You feel your possessions persuade him more than 'the wind clearly has a plan'. Regardless, the elemental agrees to the deal.
The mutation is sudden. You know instantly it is a success - a tortoise knows when it is a tortoise. You still can't fly yet, though.
You barely have enough time to wonder how you are going to get picked up by an eagle before one swoops down upon you. For something that thought to turn you into a tortoise instead of a bird when you needed to fly, the wind seems remarkably well organised.
The eagle hurls you at the ground, and misses. You're flying.
"Elemental! Come, join with me! A War brews, Team Air is the place for you!"
The wind is compelling, and manically enthusiastic. You find yourself wanting to agree with it, but your old enemy common sense steps in. "But why Air? It doesn't seem to fit me."
"You can fly!" says the wind, with some conviction.
"Oh. Fair enough."
You join Team Air.
TL;DR Become a flying tortoise, join Team Air!
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