Wind by Naomi kritzer(21)

“I’m not suffering that much,” Dagmar said. “I mean, yes, I fight with my husband, but doesn’t everyone? There are nights that I wake up and feel as if the village is a shroud that is suffocating me slowly—but surely that, too, is not uncommon. I’ve raised four children; I’ve been of use to my neighbors. It’s not a terrible life.”
“Dagmar,” Zimeya said. “I can give you some of my Air.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can replace some of what you gave away. Without taking away your excess of Earth—because Gytha is gone, she doesn’t need it anymore. I am an excess of Air.”

“Then what will it do to you, to sacrifice some of your very being? I can’t let you do that!”
“It will trap me in human form—which I’ve been trapped in for months already—but when I reach my family’s cavern, I will be restored. I will have to walk there, which will be inconvenient and tiring, as it is quite a long way. Although possibly I’ll be able to persuade one of my siblings to fly to meet us somewhere along the way.”
“Meet us?”
“Yes, of course, us. That’s my condition of this gift: you have to come with me. There is an apprenticeship program for Physicians in one of the cities near my home that takes people of any age.”