The mountain was dead. The trees desolate. Desiccated grass, bushes, and herbs all caught in a stasis of inevitable decay. Life, the harmony of a thousand living things, and the beauty of an ancient place were gone. An eternal song as old as the very trees, stolen by the greed of men and women who dared to call themselves artists. Worst of all, there was trash, discarded plastic, beer, and soda cans, forgotten batteries and an anathema of used up and discarded camping and art supplies scattered along the ground.

A blood-soaked pond sat atop this desecrated place, shimmering underneath the cruel Mediterranean sun. Once a place of artistic inspiration, it stands now only as a monument to the atrocity, a memory of their greed.

A monument to how AWCY shackled the Muses.

At least, that's all it seemed to be when they left. When they took their warped and twisted spoils of war; imprisoned something more than any of them could possibly understand. What they left behind would bring a reckoning.

A reckoning that was about to begin.

A twinkling breeze floated through the air, notes and words softly carried on its flicking vibrations. A desperate last hope.

♫They came here on their own
And sought a twisted prize.
They stole us from our homes,
and corrupted our sacred tithes.

But they left you, my lovely dear,
undisturbed in your napping years.
But you need to wake up,
Donny my dear
Oh, you need to wake up,
Don't let them make us,
Disappear. ♫

The music slowly faded away.

Silence settled back over the mountain; some long-forgotten spirit stilled with grief.

A hand breached the surface of the pond. Ripples spread from where it burst through. Soaked with the blood of defilers, it sank back down into the pool. The water writhed, boiled, and dragged. The surface burst apart. A hand grasped the edge, water mingling with the red-stained dirt. A second hand pulsed from below and added to the grip. With great exertion, the arms pulled their owner free.

Tall, feline ears burst the surface. They emerge from a disastrously-messy mane of curly hair, the shimmering gold stained with maroon. A young woman, her skin kissed by the sun into a shade of olive, glimmered in the light of the mocking ball of fire. She coughed. Blood water forced itself from her lungs. Desperately, she crawled out of the water and lay on the dead grass. The only protection against the hateful fire of the Mediterranean sun was the paltry shade of a long-dead, ancient tree. Bare beneath a hateful sky, her bushy tail lay limp across the ground.

The pool spat a lyre from its bloody waters. Its ancient wood decorated with masterful carvings, gilded with gold and silver trimmings, and encrusted with several precious gems, all of which caught the sunlight as it arced up into the air. After a second or two of airtime, it came back to earth, landing a few feet from her.

The lingering notes of her mother’s song rasped against Donatsiva Satisiva Salidore's waking mind. Seeping silence sunk in as the song faded. She lay there, breathing heavy, eyes towards the heavens, as the lyre began to hum and twitter all on its own.

The weight of a groggy fog sat heavy on her mind in its deepest resonance. She wasn't yet fully aware, of the shattered wreckage of the storm; of the cataclysmic schism she lay among. To shock her into it would have been to undo her twine. So instead, I sang to her across a thousand miles.

♫I felt you stirring in the depths of death,
Revitalizing my spirit with your gasping breath,
Pulled along through all your pleasant dreams,
Yet you weren't ready quite yet to see,
So come and sing with me.

Let's remember together,
Back among the looming ancient trees,
How you were sent far to the north,
to escape that dissonant unrest,
In the final notes of a forgotten, mystic age.

Do you recall the excitement of a new symphony?
The kiss of a foreign sun upon your skin,
How sleepiness and shyness warned you from,
The place where unfamiliar people sang.

Can you remember where we first met,
Past the tolling tones of the standing stones?
In the place you sought to be alone,
To compose a new and lovely song.

Come and take my hand,
and let’s celebrate it all again. ♫

1.1 She Listens Like Spring and Acts Like Summer

The Far Past, Summer Dream Sonata

Somewhere in the near distance, her horse snorted and neighed a little refrain of happiness as Donatsiva Satisiva Salidore crested the hill that separated the sleepy valley from the bustling village.

Basking in the sensation of the sun atop the hill, Donny held a hand out, eyes closing as she quietly whistled along with the songbirds, the intimacy and succor of the tones cutting through the air. A songbird landed on her palm and sang to her. She tweeted back to it softly, raising her hand and reaching to gently preen and pet its feathers, a warm smile curling along her lips. Together their melody gently twinkled against the mild morning air, until she gently lifted the bird back up to the sky, to which it took.

She began the descent to the valley below, feet dancing to a spirited row.

The gentle wisp of white flower petals greeted her as she drifted into a clearing, lower in the hill-ringed valley that composed the village housing her home. A simple but ancient stone lined well, rested in the center of the path. Chickens, watched over by a rather large and portend rooster that clearly thought itself more important than it actually was, lingered around the well.

Lips curling up into a smile, Donny reached into her traveler’s cloak, and produced leftover bread from the morning’s meal, sprinkling it into the dirt as the chickens meandered over, clucking happily to an adagio rhythm.

She made her way to the stone, the rooster hopping down and aside, as she sat on its lip. Closing her eyes she listened and basked in the concerto of a newfound home. It wasn't the mountain, but it was magical, in its own special way.

Her fingers reached behind her head, long and spindly digits dragging across the soft and warm texture of the lyre, scraping of the skin drawing lovely little twinkling notes from the instrument, as she pulled it forth to rest in her lap. Notes began to resolve in the concept of her nine-minded being.

So consumed was she that her sensitive ears missed the footsteps moving to a slow jig, and only returned to material reality when a gentle, but peculiar, mezzo-soprano waxed across her ears. A dirge of words she didn't recognize, but heard and understood, nonetheless.

"'lo. You're our guest, aren't you?"

Donny's eyes opened resentfully, dulling the sounds greeting her ears ever so slightly. The beating of many disparate hearts to a rhythm and song all their own faded as she looked upon her visitor. The woman before her was resonant with a timbre and tenor that indicated youth, a contrast to the assonnato and aged timbre of her own resonance. Rich, dark, thick piano strands arced from her head, framing ebony, and soulful eyes. The muted strains of her red and green dress contrasted with the light, airy tones of her skin and the rich dark notes of her irises. There was a triste, melancholy melody to her eyes that brightened as a vibrato chill ran through her when she stopped half a dozen feet away.

Donny nodded twice to fleeting chords and replied, "I am." Her voice stuttered as it always did in the presence of someone new, for though she was a Musechild, the shy nature of her nymph parent always shone through.

An inquisitive timbre rose in the woman's face, the aura around Donny injecting dancing musical abandon into the atmosphere. This was a trait Donny had not realized, had not understood, that the concept of her emotions always danced across to those who got close. Infectious to mortals, but how could she have known that? She never veered outside the sanctuary of the mountain, until now.

The stranger smiled. Her voice took on an almost playful bouncing tone. "When they told us we would receive a guest, we didn't expect to wait so long. We were wondering when you would come or if you would even come at all." The chickens and roosters all trundled over to cluster around the woman's feet. "Then you slept for three entire days." She gestured with lips curling up and eyes narrowing in a mixture of amusement and disbelief. "I can't imagine how long your travels were." A pause as the young woman pressed a finger to her lips, and considered. "Forgive me, I'm being rude, you'd like my name, yes? They call me Sile."

"It was a very long journey," Donny said softly, wincing at the stuttering stop and start of her voice, as she clutched her hands close and tight. She couldn't quite seem to tear her eyes away from this 'Sile'. Despite the stutter, her voice arced and trilled softly with golden tones of melody as she spoke, in a beautiful way. Harmonious, like some spirit whispering songs in one’s ear as they lay on the edge of an effervescent dream. "I'm Donny."

The shepherd smiled, her voice rising to a gentle oscillating laugh, weighted with nervous energy, as a hand pressed over her mouth. "Donny, forgive me for laughing, it's such a strange little name." But the way she held her hands openly and shifted with slight gyrations of the hips didn't indicate the bad kind of strange.

"Would you like me to show you around? You must not have met many people yet."

Something within Donny crescendoed, something new. A feeling she'd never quite known before thrummed to the beating drum of her heart.

Moments ago, she wanted nothing but to bring the tones of her mind to palpable sound. Now…

"I'd quite like that," Donny said, her voice momentarily taking a sonorous dive in octave, as a shy flush rose to her cheeks.

"Why don't you tell me about your travels as we walk?" Sile asked, the corners of her lips twitching just a bit higher as Donny rose. "I've never met anybody from deep Europa. Nobody here but Grandfather has. You have so much magic that dances around you; I'd love to hear about it and much more." She paused. "Oh, this must be overwhelming. I'm sorry, it's not often someone my age arrives here, answer whatever you feel like."

Donny paused in her walking, the sudden barrage of curiosity drawing a confused procession of strings into her mind. Being suddenly overwhelmed was new. "No, no, it's fine," she responded shyly.

Sile continued, channeling mousy energy into the conversation. "It's a bit of a shame that you came only a few days late… solstice just passed, and we value that day." She paused, noticing Donny's slowness to walk after her, picking up on the way she held her hands close, and the bashful energy emanating from her aura. Realization clicked and she winced, tones of regret fluttering through her eyes and voice. "I could let you be, if you need? I know some do better alone."

"Oh, it's not you, I'm just not used to… to be honest, I'm not very good with people, but I like trees, forests, music, and dance a lot," Donny stammered out, a sudden anxiousness sweeping into her chest at driving away this stranger. Her mind and heart suddenly swept up in this flittering leitmotif of biting sixteenth notes.

Why did she care about that?

How strange that her chest buzzed to a newfound beat; with excitement about wanting to sing to this Sile about her travels, all about those long trials and the workings of her inner fires. A ballad of storms and clear skies, rainy rides through the countryside, and so much more besides.

So, they walked on to the summer symphony, to explore Donny's new home.

You didn't know then what we were destined to become, did you?

No, but I felt I could make something beautiful. In the end I'd say I did.

More beautiful than the ballad you were beginning to plan?

I wouldn't say so, since we both became a part of it.

I want to hear more.

You always did.

1.2 Was It Everything You Wanted to Find?

The Far Past, Late Summer Symphony #1

In that light and airy way that I always was, I departed my little home, and climbed the hill overlooking the village and the surrounding farms. Up the tree I went like a cat, I climbed, near effortlessly, and perched in the topmost branches. Leaning back against the trunk, basking in the radiant sunshine, I pulled out the lyre, and began to play a sleepy melody.

You even call yourself a cat! To think you were so red the first time I ever said it.

H—hush and let me recall the memory!

Time ticked by as she lazily plucked the strings, and eventually her oh so sensitive ears pricked as they picked up the sound of footsteps climbing the hill. She looked up during a rising run and saw Sile climbing the slope from the direction of her flocks.

"Good morning, Donny!" she called up into the tree in a deeper tone, standing a bit back from its trunk. Her eyes darted to something in the lower branches that Donny could not quite see.

"Morning, Sile!" Donny's voice bounced with rhythmic flare, a hint of calore flickering up into her chest. It was a strange warmth, not at all of the tenor or tone that happiness flowed to, but a note in a higher pitch.

"It's a pretty song you're playing up there!" The druidess shielded her eyes with one hand every time her head tilted up, bobbing with each fourth note. "Tell me about your harp, it's quite nice."

"It's actually a lyre," Donny called back down, her voice cutting clear through the symphony without having to yell. "It's my mom's, she gave it to me, but it still draws from her."

Sile's lips curled up into a warm smile. "The animals love it; as soon as your notes began, they stopped cooperating." A slight teasing vibrato took to her voice. "And your neighbors are taking notice too." The smile faded from her lips as she took a step slightly back.

"Are they?" the Musechild stutters out shyly, suddenly very self-conscious. Why am I blushing so much? Then the first part of what Sile said clicked.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to disrupt your work." A little trilling panic rose in the Musechild's throat at the thought of annoying or disturbing her hosts. She paused, a rest rising in the song as she took note of Sile's reaction.

"Oh, it's no trouble at all, my bro-" She stopped and took another few hasty steps back.

"Is something wrong down there?" Donny asked, voice bouncing with a flighty tone.

"There's a nest of stinging wasps here in the lower branches. It could become an issue if the livestock or children venture too close. Give me a moment while I remove it." Sile turned as if to do something, pressing fingers to her lips.

Donny shifted and slid down the branches of the tree. "No, please. Let me?" She landed comfortably, several of the angry buzzing insects flicking towards her in chords, their fury at her intrusion apparent. She drew her fingers across the strings, humming the tones in time with the resonances of the notes. The insects stopped their angry dance, and listened, the tune of the melody changing. She closed her eyes as she hummed and played, the language of flying crawling things twirling in the air as she spoke to the wasps. The air across the whole valley seemed to change and still, everything listening to the silver notes.

Sile watched in a quiet undertone of fascination as the wasps turned away from Donny and crowded over the surface of their nest. Spectacularly, the nest tore from the tree, and the wasps buzzed away in a happy refrain, towing their paper cargo along to find a new, less discordant home.

"Donny, that is…" Sile said, blinking as her eyes turned back to the Musechild. Her voice trailed off as she just watched the musician for a moment. "How did you do that?"

"It's— I simply played and wanted them to find a new and safer place. The vibrations, and the tones followed, and they understood the meaning." Donny opened her eyes, shrinking a bit beneath the intensity of Sile's searching gaze.

Sile nodded slowly to the beat of an unsung metronome, as if understanding, yet not quite understanding. She crossed her arms. "Your mother taught you that?"

"When I was very young," Donny shifted nervously; hopping gently from one leg to another in an animated dance. "I inherited some of it, but had to learn a lot from her." She paused, putting both feet on the ground. "Especially how to control the magic… and the lyre helps."

"I'd never considered charming an instrument like that… Our magic lies in the stones and in certain other items. But if one were to travel… It's like you're bringing home with you, in some small way. More than clothes on your back or songs in your throat, an actual small piece of your magical home."

The druidess laughed. "Maybe I'm trying to be poetic. You must know many ways to deal with harmful things?"

"I do, but… mom taught me that all creatures deserve a chance to live. Sometimes, the world places them in unkind places, and she showed me that there's always a way to be kind. Always an alternative to inflicting harm, violence." Donny smiled, a note of bitter sweetness in her eyes and voice. A lingering anxiety deep beneath the surface. "And I'm not exactly like you."

Sile's lips curled into a smile and then she laughed with a trilling gentleness. "…I can see that, I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh." She gently pressed a hand over her lips silencing the happy chords. "You're unlike us. And not just your face. You're carrying that strange harp- you're wholly magical, and unlike ours. I didn't want to say anything before but it's hard not to."

Donny blinked twice, clearly slightly taken aback. "You can… see it? …you can see my magic? But I'm not even… I barely used any."

"What- no." The druidess frowned. "You're… You carry yourself with an elegance I haven't seen before, is all. You have a presence unlike those here, save for perhaps the visitors who come on the blue moon. And since Grandfather had a hand in your staying here, of all places…" She paused considering, before refocusing. "You said to me that you do not do words well, but every time you open your mouth, some new and beautiful poetry, a trilling birdsong, trickles forth." She paused, a small flush rising to her cheeks. "I'm sorry, the poetry again - I suppose I'm just a little inspired, aren't I?"

Donny's heart beat a staccato run in her chest, a gentle flame licking at her sternum. Her fingers had not stopped plucking the strings. The tone and melody shifted in time with the strange new emotions burning into her chest and mind, rising to the timbre and sentimental tone.

"Oh I—I don't know about that. My parents just raised me to be kind." Donny shifted, fully not knowing how to manage such kind and pretty words. If only she knew of the monster burning within. "You said you could do magic too? Are you and Grandfather the only ones?"

"A parent's love alone can shape but not define you," Sile said gently, smiling. "… No." She laughed, small and softly. "No, no… we're all gifted and learned in our magic. I'm speaking through a spell now, where I speak to the heart, not the ears. It's why you could understand me." She gestured softly, the rippling of fabric and flesh dancing unconsciously with Donny's song.

Donny laughed, not the quiet giggles from before, but an amused full laugh that echoes. "Oh, you don't need to do that, I would love to learn your words; listen to the song of your voice, feel the shape of your lips," the words slipped from Donny's mouth before she knew what she was saying, Rage laughing in her head.

Sile blushed gently. "Ah- I like the opportunity. This is the first time I could use this charm- if you'd indulge me, please." She paused, considering words, and struck back for Rage's flirty lines in a trilling duet. "Besides, I love your mother tongue, it's pretty."

The warmth, the flush in Donny's cheeks deepened, further with the drifting notes of her lyre. "Could they really hear me? The animals and neighbors?" She scrambled to change the subject, but the tenor of the notes continued to betray her.

"Oh yes, more than a little." The shepherd grinned. "My brother and his friend were talking about it before I got bored and wandered off. The sheep all grew quiet and stopped their morning feeding just to listen…" She paused for a moment, and Donny could hear the stillness rising from the valley below as the gentle biting notes from her lyre continued to waft on the breeze. "May I ask Donny, are you somebody important?"

Donny stopped playing, blinking twice in surprise at the question. She bit her lip gently and looked away.

A small sharp inhale arose from Sile. "…ah sorry that was rude to ask. Would you like to continue playing your song? I'm sorry to interrupt."

"No, no you're fine. It's just a difficult question to answer. Someday I might tell you?"

"Such secrets, should I be praying to you?" she teased gently.

The flush in Donny's cheeks deepened and a jumble of disordered notes came out of her mouth in response.

"I jest. I look forward to the day you tell me your deepest secrets." She moved over and sat beneath the tree. "Why don't you keep going, it was quite pretty. Strange music, even without the magic…"

Donny gave a small anxious smile, and then started playing again, closing her eyes as she plucked the strings of the lyre. The dancing melody shifted, throwing all her being into playing a bittersweet tone. A deep and soulful harmony, sinking into the bones with a distant longing for a home that is far far away, a time long forgotten, a place deeply remembered.

Sile listened, and soon began to quietly cry, as the purity of emotion touched her soul.

The notes flickered in the air, lingering of their own will before drifting up into the sky.

1.3 You Know a Melody Can Move Me

The Far Past, Harvest Concerto of Storms

The warm sonata of summer had faded into the chill concerto of autumn within that first year of Donny's stay. We had clicked like two metronomes syncing to a common rhythm, rapidly rising into a peculiar friendship.

I stood in the pasture, gently brushing Donny's horse as she fed her sweet apples and small berries. Several sheep and lambs crowded her, begging for the treats. Sile ignored them, for they'd already had their morning treats.

I remember this. I waded through the grass, having spotted you out in the field, after emerging from my humble abode. I was quiet, as I snuck along, a twittering saxophone filling me with mischievous and playful intent.

Who's remembering this one, me or you?

Well, we both know what I did right?

Just making sure you didn't reinterpret it to exclude your prank.

"She really likes the purple berries," Donny finally said, popping out of the grass like a trumpet announcing its solo after having let the minutes tick by. Of course, she'd been standing a few feet behind the druidess the entire time.

Sile nearly jumped out of her skin and whirled around. "Ah- you're more like a cat than you let on! You startled me!" She laughed with a sleepy melody, like a child following a filling meal. A hand rose to her own neck and touched it.

Donny smiled. "Are you done with your chores? Would you like to come sit and sing with me?"

"Of course I would. Let me finish here.” She finished brushing, as Donny gently stepped up and offered a hand to the horse. The horse leaned forward and nuzzled her head into Donny's hand, making a soft snorting noise.

"What's her name?"

"Hmmm?" Donny said, soprano trill rising and falling, as she tilted her head at Sile.

"Of your horse, silly."

"Oh! Adonia." Donny's voice softened like an oboe caressing the mind with the gentlest of tones. "She's a very rare breed where we come from, may even have a little bit of divine blood from Poseidon."

"Adonia… What an odd name." The Druidess worked her jaw for a moment. "And who is Poseidon?"

"One of the many gods of the Ocean. Also, horses."

"…I suppose someone needed to be a god of the ocean," Sile said amused, and then her lips shifted slightly down in puzzlement. "And… also horses." She brushed the oddity aside. "Tell me- I was wondering, your clothing. Is it the usual style where you're from? I've heard stories that the sun is stronger in the south."

Donny looked down at her minimalist non-existent clothing, a trill of embarrassment whispering from the lyre on her back. "Oh, no actually, most people wear much more than I do. They wear long robes draped across the chest… but I can't do that. My skin is very, very sensitive."

"… Odd." The druidess crossed her arms. "It's a little odd, but I was only curious. You did say the weather's warm where you lived, so I was wondering if that was typical?"

Her eyes slipped down to the handful of lambs around Donny's knees, as they gave her a little space, looking up at the sparkly lady. Their quiet bleats arose in time and harmony with the subtle melody gently rippling from Donny's being.

"… The animals do love you. They're usually skittish around strangers…" Sile smiles. "Must be your gentle voice that puts them at ease."

Donny giggled, the giggles rising into trilling notes as she began to sing. The lambs and chickens gathered around as her gentle resonant voice carried across the fields in stunning refrain. Sile listened, eyes hooding with the bars, as they started to walk towards the barn. After a moment Donny spoke to her through song, "I can serenade the plants into joining my songs, you know? They have such magnanimous replies." She pulled a few strands of hair aside, revealing slightly pointed ears. She cupped one, listening, her nose wrinkling before she began giggle-singing. "The big oak is snoring."

"You're playing games and showing off!" Sile laughed, gently pressing her palm to Donny's arm in a glancing touch.

"Am I? I was just singing to get them to follow." The Musechild’s voice trilled with the deceitful, innocent lie.

"Show-off," Sile teased with abandon.

After a moment, the wind shifted, and Sile blinked. She sniffed the air.

"A storm's coming- first of the year, it might be. Can you smell it, too?"

"No, I can't." Donny blinked twice. "You can smell storms?"

A hand on her own hip, Sile pointed out past Donny; on the far horizon, gray clouds approached with an ominous low buzz and distant cracks of thunder that made Donny wince.

"It comes on the air, first." The druidess grinned. "A tension, reaching down from the sky. Like a beast that's just waking up." She paused, turning to head out of the shelter once the animals were secure, and moved around the side. "Come, follow me-"

Around the side of the barn was a small sturdy ladder; Sile had climbed it by the time Donny rounded the corner, and was hoisting herself up onto the wooden part of the roof. She looked down at Donny, smiling.

"We'll watch it come in- then, we can go inside. We can spend the night in my home, we'll tell stories. How's that?"

A blush washed across Donny's cheeks like the warm wave of tone from a French horn. "I would like that."

She leaned over, offering a hand to help Donny up. Donny took it and climbed, Sile's face shifting in surprise. "Goodness, Donny, you are so light!" She laughed, brushing a hair out of her face as she leaned back. Donny didn't let go of the hand, coming to rest on her haunches next to Sile on the roof.

The touch was so seamless, and so natural; Donny only really processed that she'd been touched at all a few seconds later. Her heart skipped a beat, the strings of her core stilling like the violinist who panics after forgetting when to enter.

"Your skin!" Sile said, her voice twittering like a delighted piccolo with sudden realization. She turned her head to look at Donny. "How soft it is!"

Color and heat flushed into her face in time with the rising chords of flaring horns. "I got it from my parent."

"Oh Donny- who sits here with me? Who's hand have I taken before the storm? Surely not your parent's." The oscillating eighth notes of her laugh danced in the air with the symphony rising in the Musechild's chest. The sun glinted off her brown eyes for but a moment, rendering them a beautiful shade of amber.

Flush and color tolled on Donny's cheeks like a deepening bell. Something deep within her clicked to the beat of a marimba and she realized, after all this time, she'd been missing something. All those moments her parents shared suddenly made more sense.

Was this what she'd been missing? Was this good? To fall in love with a human?

Was it? I'm not sure I've ever really asked. Were we worth it?

Even if it had only been a tenth of the time we actually spent together, I still wouldn't answer you until the end.

Are you sure you're still the shy and lovable musician I remember? She was never this snarky.

I'm still me, I promise.

There's the sincerity, always arriving as expected.

1.4 Did the Wind Sweep You Off Your Feet?

The Far Past, Late Autumn Aria #2

Six months since her fated arrival, the late autumn chill breeze rolled across us both, and the chimes they'd hung on my favorite tree. They twinkled with an eerie refrain, a haunting strain. I sat at the base of the tree, you up further in a branch.

I allowed the snowflake I'd been shaping to gently fall to the earth, where it landed on your nose.

Sile went momentarily cross-eyed and then sneezed. Wiping her nose, she wrinkled her brow and asked, "How's… But you're gifted with music. Do you… does it please the forces? Or…"

The sneeze was incredibly cute.

Just like you continue to be all these years later.

She crossed her arms, puzzling over how. "So, you can't capture or call spirits, but you can call fire, lightning, ice… and sound? Storms are a step short of a miracle worker."

"No, I can't quite call storms. I just use… uh… well it's difficult to explain… but I use the air itself, and just change the way it is," Donny explained gently. "I use song, which is tied to my emotions, to make these things happen."

"…I see." Sile's laugh resonated quietly. "I wouldn't have imagined before you that there were many types of magic in the world, but now that I know you, it seems so, sensible." She seemed to consider, the happy tune falling away into a more neutral fluttering tone. "But you never use it in the way that… others would use it. To harm?"

"No. I— I would never. Only for pomp and circumstance." Donny rocked on the branch for a moment. Then she smiled and dropped, falling lightly to the sustained note of a slide whistle. She landed with a small poof of air, like a cat. She dropped again to sit by Sile, who watched her keenly. "Your magic relies wholly on the land?"

"Yes." She gestured widely, in the direction of the fields and woodlands. "If the crops are dry and need water, we ask the land for rain. It's why we dance underneath the new moon."

She paused, smiling a bit, and then whistled quietly; it trilled sweetly, the edges tinged with subtle, unfamiliar magic, as the birds above Donny responded with their own birdsong. From around them, ten or twelve more plain-feathered songbirds flutter out from the long grass and nearby trees, winging to land and perch on Sile's arm.

“That’s amazing, I love how they listen to your whistle.” Donny's eyes widened in admiration. Glimmering heat of belting horns rose in her chest as licking flames. Richly colored tones washed across her cheeks as a blush. "You say, very often Sile, that I am unique and special… but I think the same is true of you," she trilled gently.

"You're sweet Donny, but I'm not special. There's something in the trees and the water here, and we all grow into the magic." Sile leaned over and gently pressed her lips to Donny's cheek, the sudden contact provoking a sharp crescendo. The druidess paused and drew back to ask, softly in her ear, a melodic growl in her tone. "Is that ok? Or too much."

The metronome in Donny's chest ticked hard, speeding up, nine-fold mind reeling at a million twittering thoughts a minute. Her cheeks must have been very very red. "That… that was more than fine." Words tumbled out of her mouth in a chaotic arrangement of muddled feeling. Her mind suddenly veered back to the wasps and how ready Sile had been to use magic against them. "Sile… would you ever ask the land to do harm?"

Sile took in that question and closed her eyes, leaning her head on Donny's shoulder. Every point of contact buzzed with frantic energy in the form of oscillating sixteenth notes, a flighty roar of strings and horns backing each burst of sound. "No. No, I would not. It's possible, I think - but I would not, it isn't a… a path I have interest in. It isn't for me. And besides… we have no need to, now."

Donny closed her eyes, the thick thump of a bass drum cutting through the mesmerizing chords of her symphonic heart.

Sile wasn't like the humans of the south. This made my song all… well I wasn’t sure yet.

Ready to spill your heart again?

I just checked and this still isn't the end.

1.5 The World Outside looks so Unkind

The Far Past, Symphony of Creeping Winter #2

The winter of the first year came on faster than I had ever experienced before, forcing most days to be spent indoors.

Today was not one of those days, but even still I didn’t emerge from the confines of her little stone hut. This was a dreadful day, a day that I was always afraid of. A day when the weight of the world and thoughts pressed heavy on the body of my concept, the horns of my heart atonal in their metal bones. A day when the memory frays and desires lie dead in the depths of the mind, beneath a dissonant angst that bled into the sky. The darkness of a violent world spurring from an open letter I'd received from my mother in the south. It described the spilling of blood, the loss of souls they felt resonated in their concepts with unmatched dissonance.

I don't think we've ever interpreted this one before; that's truly terrible Donny. I wish you had told me.

It's not something I've ever been able to tell, only… share in feeling and song.

Monsters. Violent bloodthirsty monsters slaughtering one another. Tightness hummed in the strings of her chest and mind, a burning fear. Of the wolf, of the predator, of the thing in the dark that sought revenge as opposed to defense. How easy the song could fall, corrupt from one to the other.

It terrified her.

So, she remained in bed, a stone surface converted into a place to hold bark and scroll, the charcoal, the brushes and paint board with its carefully protected pigments drawn near. She drew the charcoal across the surface of the canvas, and then the brush, filling in and lighting the lines. Fingers dancing, mind moving to a song she'd conjured within her concept, all to escape the other rasping despair-filled melodies.

A knock came at the door around midday. "Donny? Are you perhaps home? You weren't at the brook or the stream, or your favorite spots among the trees." Siles voice, the warmth and trilling happiness in her melody served as a light in the suffocating, dissonant dark. She was unforgettable, and the chittering of chickens and sheep outside signified that even at the beginning of winter, she was ever popular among the animals.

"Please come in, Sile," Donny said, unable to stop the sorrow leaking into her vocal tones. She set aside the bark and paint.

The druidess gently pushed open the door and stepped inside, eyes tracking to Donny, and then her supplies. "Oh, are you ill Donny?" Her lips pressed down into a frown and her eyes grew into a lonely song, the weight of the Musechild's aura washing across her lovely skin.

"In a way, but not one that medicine can fix." Donny smiled gently, corralling the whispering sonatas onto a happier trail as best she could. Ultimately the burgeoning happy tune fell back away fruitlessly. "It's a sickness of my soul; some days it strikes harder than others. I'll be fine, so you needn't worry."

Sile pursed her lips, not looking fully convinced but didn't press the matter further. Her eyes drifted to the tools, the paint, and the canvas. "Oh, are you an artist too?" She walked over, to a beat all her own, an aura cutting through the darkness. So too had she grown a power all her own. Donny's eyes drifted to the basket of food, the warm scent of bread, the salty aroma of meat greeting her nostrils as Sile's spirit enraptured her.

"Guilty," Donny said softly. "Drawing helps me remember things; cause I'm not always the best at it." A slight blush rose, like a brightening vocal run, to her cheeks as Sile's eyes caught the light of the midday sun; shining with that amber hue.

"Well, that does come with age," Sile teased gently in an oscillating trill, her eyes dragging off Donny, to the scroll she had been working on. "And what's this?"

The painting on the scroll was a vivid and lifelike depiction of Sile smiling in her element, throwing feed to bleating sheep. The charcoal lines flickered across the page, brushstrokes of vivid, warm color dancing to a ditty all their own. The sheep, chickens, and landscapes were detailed, but nowhere near to the degree that Sile was. Every mark, thread of hair, glimmer of skin, the shape of her face and lips and the color of her eyes in the rays of sunlight, radiant like the metal of a well-kept horn or bell. All of it captured in lifelike perfection.

"I uh. When you were feeding the small ones yesterday— it was uh, something I couldn't forget— so I started painting in the early morning when I started feeling, and just didn't stop."

"Aw…" Sile's smile softened, and a small bit of color rose to her cheeks. "This sentiment is really sweet coming from you Donny." She shifted and sat on the edge of the bed, setting the basket down. "How do you remember it all…? When things happened, how long ago it was?"

"I— this is embarrassing, but it kind of all jumbles together." She paused, struggling for words. "Like, I don't always remember when something came first…" She paused and sighed. "I remember that it happened— but order is harder."

"Why not put them all collected, in order? Telling a story of your life?" She points at the scroll. "You can collect them in a box to bring with you when you go home."

Donny took that in and considered. "…Maybe. Or maybe I could collect them by people; since that's who I usually draw." She paused and looked back to the scroll and then up at Sile. "The people who impact me."

"If you think that would be helpful, why not?" Sile glanced at the scroll again and then back at Donny. Her lips curled up, and her eyelids drooped giving the eyes a hooded appearance. "I, for one, am honored to be considered as such."

Donny smiled softly and the warmth of a thousand singing horns crept into her blush. "The people who have the largest impact on me tend to, uhm, come out the most vivid and detailed."

"I'm sure you wouldn't have it any other way." A hand rose like a violinist's bow and gently flicked through several strands of Donny's hair.

The musician’s metronome ticked faster, the drum beating louder, the ache in her soul not fading, but overwhelmed by that rising sonata that grew now at the gentle touches. "C—certainly not. Not when they are stunning and beautiful," somewhere in her head Rage laughed with the trill of a lazy saxophone, having deliberately pushed the words along her tongue.

"You don't have to flatter me, Donny." The druidess tilted Donny's chin up slightly with one hand.

Donny shuddered like a recently struck gong, an embarrassed chirping note rising from her vocal cords. "Sorry, I'm really, uhm, bad at this." She closed her eyes for a moment, all the sounds of Sile's concordant symphony filling her mind. "Mom makes it look easy."

"Does she try as hard as you do?" Sile's voice sang with teasing, as she slowly drew her fingers back, along Donny's face like a bow across a violin string, drawing her forward unconsciously with the sensation. The Musechild attempted to prolong contact, as she sucked down breath.

"I'd say she tries less," Donny's voice stammered, catching on the s's. "S-s-she's a spirit of music and dance." Her face reddened with tender harmonies. "I mean— I'm good at those things too, but I don't quite have the same charm."

"Well, she does have more experience I suppose… and as you've said, she's a spirit of music." A smile rose to the shepherd’s lips, calling to mind the previous conversations where Donny had had to dance around the metaphysical nature of her mother. "A master of oratory."

Words refused to come out of Donny's mouth in any sort of intelligible state, instead an embarrassed "Mrrrup?" escaped her lips.

"But that's beside the point." Sile leaned further forward on one arm, stifling a snicker at the noise, and hovered close to Donny as she reached out to cup the Musechild's chin. "I'm not talking to your mother right now, am I?"

Donny made a quiet noise, the pitch rising in her throat only for the cymbal to be silenced as Sile pressed a finger to her lips. "Shush," she said gently. "You're so red." Their eyes met for an eternity before Sile sung to her again. "May I kiss you?"

Warmth exploded into a roaring chorus in Donny's chest, overwhelmed with sudden, new feelings. Jaw working, she tried to sing back, lyrics refusing to rise, breath catching in her throat, before nodding to this lovely new beat.

Sile leaned in slowly, hand coming to rest along the back of Donny's skull as every point of contact became a symphonic synchronicity. Their lips met in the gentlest of duets. The warmth and fire of a million bellowing horns filled her mind and in the discharge of nerves Donny's skin rippled and blossomed with light that twinkled into the atmosphere of the room, musical notation curling through the air in staffs, meters, and tempos.

Perhaps humans weren't so bad. This woman, this girl I adored wasn't a monster. She was a light and breathy arrangement, a warmth in a sea that would feel so very empty without her now.

Is this what my mother felt about my parent? What she felt about Nes?

Was this love? Did you feel the same?

How could I be with someone like this, when I was herself, the wolf at the door? When I would last forever, while you burned brightly towards an eventual end. Did that even matter in the face of this overwhelming feeling?

No. No it didn't.

So that's your answer.

Wow.

Yeah.

After all this time, you are still so incredibly sweet. I—

Donny, you're going to need to do some very hard things now.

And that means you need to wake up. Really wake up, not just linger here in interpretation with me.

As much as I would like that.

We'll see each other again soon, I promise.

Hard things? What do you mean?

Sile?

Sile please don't leave me again.

Please…

Movement 2: Tracing Her Way Through the Constellation

2018, Got No One On Your Side

So, my love, gather your soul,
Gather all your strength,
For your kindness and compassion,
Is what will see you through this terror.

She returned to lucidity beneath that hateful sky, memory and reinterpretation fading. Her mental fingers extended, feeling.

Something was wrong. Something was so horribly wrong. "Mom?" She called aloud, the mewl in her voice filled with twitching fear.

She sat up very slowly and looked around.

The sound of dancing feet, rapping fingers against a thousand different tasks, the perfect unending symphonic song was gone. There was no sound but the stinging silence of a dead mountain.

Where were the shimmering majesty of a thousand starlite fires constantly tumbling through the air? The emotion laid notes and speech that drew forth sacred, magical fires were extinguished. There was none of the glistening, overwhelming magic, only the shredded scraps.

There was no rising sensation of long hidden ideas, no sudden executive realization of new concepts. The inspiration was gone.

All the trees were ugly and dead, the mountain cold and hideously empty, washed in shades of sepia, black, and lifeless brown. Their beauty, their art was gone.

Where was it? Where was the concept? The shimmering, swirling river of narrative and ontological weight wasn't there. Their concepts were gone.

She bent over, gasping in breath, as a swift chill swept across the plateau, whirling around her in ostinatos. Goosebumps arced across her skin like a finger dragging across many strings, tightness rising in her chest. No. She understood what Sile meant.

She reached out, stretching for the connection. It was a part of her, always thrumming with dancing note-filled life. She grasped at it, a seething and dark dissonance bursting across her conceptual fingers. Her stomach flipped. NO! She flinched, recoiled, the trills and fluttering notes of her being shirking away the screeching chords. This can't be!

The others awoke, their attention snagged by the rising distress in the leitmotifs of her mind.

"No!" she gasped out, shock rocking through her, the whispers of the others stirring as rising staccato bars, as she clung desperately to the reins. "No, no how could this—" She shuddered, feeling the twisting, diving pit, the anguish at what had occurred.

How could this happen to her family?

She called to them with the old familiar song, unsheathing the heart of her metaphysical nature. Indiscernible, crippling incoherence and painful dissonance burned back along the connection. Blazing restriction, twisting distillation, and binding deformation sewing chaos to what was once a harmonious composition.

Rage rose inside her like an ominous chorus. She screwed her eyes shut, biting back the furious tears as for a moment her grip on the reins slipped, and she fell away, desperately lashing out to try and take them back. All for naught.

"Shhhh. Let me." A new voice rose into her throat, raw and full of fire. A voice of fury. The voice of Rage. "Monsters, humans."

As one, all the weight of her concept surged along the dissonant connection. A song older than time, a signature of their being often invoked but never closed. Their fingers cut through the air grasping at the strings of an unseen instrument, through many thousands of miles at Rage's direction. Rage called to it, the abstractions trapped, surrounded by a swirling, sharp chain of thorns. They shuddered beneath the certainty and weight of her conceptualization, the compatibility of her being latching onto the thorns, the barbs digging into her concept as she in turn ripped them with fortismic fury.

A large piece bucked the twisted chains, its dissonant shape tore free, and rocketed on a note-filled wind. Rage fell away, and the driver, the musician returned, welcoming the composition with desperate arms. It flushed and washed across her skin, twinkling flights of golden harmony flicking against her mind and flesh as she let out small gasps. All their fingers, but especially hers kneading, feeling, pressing into the notes, and searching for it.

But she wasn't there. None of them were there. She'd taken back the inspiration, reclaimed the coherence of her mother's song.

But she failed to free her mother's spirited, dancing will.

The child upon the mountain dug her hands into the dirt, and looked towards the sky, a dolore rain falling from her eyes in lentissimo. "Why?" Her voice broke like the shattering note of a muted trumpet, and she sucked in air. She bent over, blood and dirt-stained fingers pressing to her face. "Why?" she asked in pianissimo.

The Muses were gone. Her family was gone.

Donatsiva Satisiva Salidore curled in the dirt beneath an alien and cold daylight, unable to understand why, why mankind burnt her home and sky.

2.1: You Know That's a Game that I Hate to Lose

2018, A Man He'll Never Be

Are We Cool Yet? had flourished in the 10 years since they stole the lightning in a bottle and enslaved it. All were powerless against them, from the smallest artists to even the Jailers.

They were surrounded by art of their creation; well, at least, it felt like it was theirs. But, of course, each member knew that they did not own their art; the High Council owned the art. It was the collective's art.

And it was all thanks to The Critic - the hidden costs ignored, in favor of celebration and aimless enthusiasm. Good things can't last forever; for that matter, bad things are equally as ephemeral. Change is good.

But not for AWCY. Not for the High Council. Not for Reed.

It happened one day, in the private performance chambers of the High Arts council, where dutiful musicians composed and performed music ad nauseum, an eternal act of creation for none other than Reed and the select few.

When the musicians tried to compose, they did not. When they tried to transpose, they failed. When they tried to improvise, inevitably, their melody would return to the same motifs, the same key, the same repetitive, monotonous order of notes, handed down as if from the very seed of music itself.

Reed had the musicians disposed of and tried again. Still the same. Again, and again, and again, the corpses piling up just around the bend; and yet it was always the same. The same song, an inevitability, a platonic ideal that had swelled to encompass all that they created, one that could not be crushed by Reed's iron rule.

No amount of violence could solve this. The artists knew that. Reed, however, did not.

The Critic was unchanged, their desperate clinging to life persisting — but no matter how much Reed attempted to interrogate, demanded answers, or saw into the swirl of inspiration, the music was still missing.

The inspiration was gone. A stunning absence, an inability to create. How dare another try to steal their art, their collective abilities, the preordained inspiration brimming with potential, once set forth by their god, The Critic? How dare they steal Reed's rightful property?

Are We Cool Yet? announced a departure from music, to focus on the creation of auditory art without melody; a commandment set forth by the High Arts Council, as written by Reed. Their members could not find out that it was possible to be free of The Critic's control, of Reed's control.

Something had to be done. Creativity must be reclaimed and constrained. The song must be controlled. All it took was Reed the Butcher, and a finger on the scale, pushing it to action.

They sent three; three avatars of Reed's will, an execution of art, being and power — each one, a puppet to those in charge. They were tasked with resolving the issue and returning with the Music.

Death would only be a setback; after all, the members of AWCY were many in number, and filled with those who would not be missed. Each loss was irrelevant; nothing stopped them from making more puppets.

2.2: Walk on through a Red Parade

2018, Clarity

She stands next to the sullied pool, silence resting heavy over the mountain. Cheeks stained with tears that had turned gold from a full day of mourning, she looks around slowly. The pitter patter of her grief smote the air without relief, grave in its tempo. She looks upon the plateau, the barren mountain before her. The shattered and torn fragments of what had once been; it all lingers in the conceptual noosphere that her family once composed, dolore tones breaking free of suspended lyre strings.

Donny's fingers tighten around the frame of the instrument as she breathes in deeply to steady the faltering of her heart. Closing her eyes, she holds up the lyre, and starts to play. The lacrimoso hum of her melody flickers into the air, golden notes drifting and clinging to the shattered threads as her mental fingers flex outwards. She starts with a single thread, gently wrapping around it, and then another, letting the notes weave together, bridging the tears and shredded metaphysical fabric.

There is so much missing, and every absent concept twists the knife, with a macabre trill, in her stomach a little more. She can't stop. She must keep looking, something precious has to remain. If it's lost, torn or burnt in the fire of their corruption, then… She shakes her head and focuses.

The color and atmosphere on the mountain twitch, the barren soil rippling, the trees, and plants flickering with rising melody. Animals in the valley and ridges below look up at the tweeting notes, and the ontokinetic sculpting. Songbirds take to the air, some ancestral memory rising in them as they wing up to the beat of a silent drum, to survey the commotion.

Donny finds what she is looking for in one of the abstracted fragments. A sobbing breath full of relief rips from her lips like a twinkle from a tambourine, as she pulls on the thread. She begins to sing, a lament of golden notes that pour from her throat. It's wordless, but its meaning is clear as the mental fingers of her mind guide those notes to the threads, weaving and repairing what she can. The trees around her flicker and dance, shifting in color. The deadened black washes away into increasingly warm and living brown. The limbs slowly blossom with increasingly green leaves, and colorful sparkling flowers, waving in avid syncopation.

The dirt blossoms with grass as the bushes and ferns return to vivid life. The overcast sky ripples, as her spirited song parts even the foreboding clouds, a clear sunny sky rising to greet the warping reality.

And with one final note, one final woven strand, a structure compiles itself into existence deep in the plateau.

She slides down onto her knees as the song ends, heavy shuddering breaths rolling into the air with tinkling chimes as she surveys her work. Minutes pass as she recovers against the warm and breathing dirt.

Eventually, she rises and abandons the pond. Slowly she trudges to the restored song, moving among the work, feeling the repaired threadbare strands. But in the distance, she can still see the edges of the shattered Hermeneutic, some fragments utterly irrecoverable.

Irrecoverable for now. She shivers at the thought, like an unstilled cymbal it spreads into the air as a dewy chill. The threads torn as they are, in places still trail into the distance, never truly severed. The rank dissonant notes of corruption an ever-present reminder of the vicious dangers beyond, and how they might forever change her.

2.3 Fight Fear for the Selfish Pain

2018, The Chain

With the closing of her reparative prelude, Donny turns her attention to the next most important task. She closes her eyes, reaching with abstract fingers to try to find Nes. Try to find her parent. When they do not answer the probing ostinatos of her mental fingers, her fists curl in quiet distress as her shoulders sag. She makes for the forest below.

She comes to a stop next to the bloodied pond, her eyes dragging across the litter showered across the ground, an irato tune flickering against the strings of the lyre. An accelerating strain of stinging eighth notes, and the piles of trash flicker into the air, stacking together.

Irritation fading away, the contentious discord of anxiety rises as she rapidly plucks at the singing strings. She searches for the resonances, the molecular connection points, and when the tones line up with the dissonant melodies, she dissolves the rubbish. The pile flickering apart into a mound of disparate molecules and dirt.

A moment's pause as she lingers in thought.

Then she turns to resume her search, the anxious harmony of finding her missing parent rising to a deafening solo in her dragging steps, the flattening of her ears against her head, and the wrapping of her arms around her frame. Down the song hidden path, and into the forest she slides. Dancing through the shadows and flower-ringed trees of a crescendoing spring and spirited wind, she searches. Whistling melodies flicker from the lyre, the tones and whispering voice so often made to call the shy but jubilant melody of the elder nymph.

The harmony of villages further down the mountain dance against her ears, a song she tunes out for now in desperate search of those light and airy dancing footfalls. Her staccato symphony carries her between soft and quiet hiding spots, to burbling streams. Every sleeping tree, basking rock, dazzling mossy sheen she searches.

All she can find are the silent wreathes of Nes's crowns of leaves, their supply of stitched together clothes, and an arrangement of leaves and twigs. To the untrained mind, they might appear as nothing more than forest litter. To Donny's nymphic side, it's a message in her parent's native tongue.

Donny,
They took them away with blood.
They took your mother.

You still sleep, and I cannot wake you.
I cannot remain, for man has changed. I wish to help, but if they wish these evil creatures could bind me too. So, I must go. I may not return, but in the end if they can't be saved, I will wait for you at the rolling horizon where all my trees still bloom, and the sky still sings. I will wait for you as long as it takes so be safe. Please be safe and I'm sorry.
I love you always,
~Nesposa

The message flickers away, twigs and leave blown away on the wind as she holds the lyre more tightly, fingers dancing across the strings in a fast and eerie melody.

Desperately, Donny sings with the instrument in rising despair; the mournful cry of her strings and singing lament reaching across the mountains. Whistling melodies dance on the wind through all the forests of Nes's domain.

No response comes, and so her heart sinks.

Even the ostinato trill of her mournful chimes would not summon them. Have they truly left the world with the other nymphs, or finally embedded themselves into the trees and earth?

To the earth next to her parent's things, she sinks. The lamenting notes dance through the mountain air as golden tinged tears rise to her eyes. She drops the lyre, and puts her hands to her face.

For the first time in her entire life, Donatsiva Satisiva Salidore is utterly, truly alone.

For the first time, there was no one else to protect her.

2.4 Still Fight and I don't Know Why

2018, I Need Your Love

To the mountain plateau she returns in a daze, the flighty tolls of her feet marking the dissonant singing in her chest with sorrow. Her tail almost drags along the ground as she walks, shoulders completely slumped.

For hours it seems she walks, onwards and onwards until finally she arrives before the cottage. This is home, a modern abode where she'd fallen into a 15-year nap.

Or it was before. Now, it felt like a tiny island in a chaotic storm.

Drifting through the confines of an ever-deepening nightmare, eerie strings echoing in her skull, she steps inside. Her feet carry her aimlessly through the front hall with its hung-up paintings and pictures, the modern kitchen with its appliances and spacious comforts that made little sense in a place so remote. The writhing oscillation of her heart drags her into the sitting room, with its fireplace, modern sofas and chairs, rack of shoes and most important of all, her shelf of memories.

She ignores her painting study, her soundproof studio, and the bedroom as she stands before the wooden shelves looking at the many spines.

This is the sole remaining thing suspending the unraveling of her melody. The memories, the tithes and tolling paper records of those she loves, stand before her. Nothing in this agonizing moment is more precious than these connections, these definitions of who she is.

Gentle fingers shakily wrap around the spine of Sile’s tome, the ache of longing strings filling her ears. Another reach, and she pulls nine more "Calliope, Clio, Terpischore, Erato, Melpomene, Thalia, Urania" and last of all "Euterpe", her mother. She sniffles and holds them close, tears winding down her cheeks as sorrowful bells ring, their triste tones resonating through her mind.

The Musechild retreats into the depths of her art study.

Perhaps she should have been preparing for what she'd need to do.

But the deafening silence rang so loud and lonely.

How can she confront the fact that she had been only able to repair a small square in a torn and barren tapestry? How is she supposed to respond to the fact that humans, humans who she loved so dearly, had committed the gravest sin? She is entirely, completely alone against a deeply hostile force she doesn't understand.

An organization whose name she doesn't know has stolen her family. Men and women have desecrated her home. They drove her parent from the world.

Against such hate and cruelty what else could she do but hide?

Movement 3: You are the Piece of Me I Wish I didn't Need

2018, Light and Shadow

♫Before they bound Urania's eyes,
She foresaw your blood-soaked tide.
And in our final freeing moments,
We failed to raise your rising chimes.
So here we lie beneath thorny skin,
And all we can do,
Is writhe and cry.♫

No matter how hard she exerted, no matter how much she painted, sung, or danced she couldn't bring it back. She couldn't shatter the remaining thorns. She was too far away, and they'd strengthened the corruption holding the concepts in. It only got worse as a week marched past.

They'd sat next to the pool and screamed against the mountainside when it all had failed, discordant fire bursting inside their shared heart with hateful fury.

And now, she has no idea what to do.

She paces the kitchen, then the living room, then the art study, then her soundproof studio. Every step, every circle drags the flipping of her stomach, the ache in her chest, and the swirling mix of dissonant chords deeper into distress. I need to do something, but what and how? Her ears flatten to her head, tail flicking wildly behind her.

She sits on one of the couches in the sitting room and places her head in her hands, ears pressing to her skull. What is she supposed to do? Where is she supposed to go, who is she supposed to go to. She buries her face forcefully in her hands, so hard it starts to hurt. Are there no options left to me?

The strings of dissonant tears stream down her face, carrying their morose melody down her neck. Do I embrace the wolves at the door? She sniffles to the tolling of a quiet bell. Can I save them? Will there be anything of me left if I try?

She looks up through the tears at the shelf of memories, of the ingrained celebrations of several hundred separate lives. What would she do? What would Sile do?

Rage answers in an usually gentle refrain. She'd say this is harm that can't be resolved by talk. She'd tell you to do the thing you refuse to. Would you ignore her wish if it was her in this position?

Don't say that about her.

Rage doesn't respond, the headmate brooding as she slips back into the back of the mind. Donny sinks into her own mind, into memory and past clawing for relief in the moment.

A heavy silence falls over the cottage as she drifts, to a time when these anxieties would feel like pure fiction, when all she had to worry about was her wife.

Drifting through the happiness, the bittersweet celebrations.

The torrent of happy memories and staccato thoughts is suddenly and violently interrupted.

Her ears stand bolt upright. A gasp of relief rips from her throat as she flies into standing. Hands shaking, eyes wide, she feels them. Three, three inspirational songs; of Sculpting, of Replication, of Transmutation; all climbing the mountain.

Whispering thoughts of hope rise in chorus as her eyes water.

"They're… they're free? They're coming back." She sucks in air, the gasping strings holding in suspense as she reaches. Her fingers pluck at their conceptual keys, digging deep. She recoils, and gasps, as the dissonant, corrupted song beneath their surface grazes against probing fingers. "NO!" She presses her face to her fingers. "No, what have they done to you?"

For a moment Rage's fury fills them both, trumpeting voice breaking through as she grabs for the reins. "No, we will not let them desecrate us further."

Donny rips the strings back within her control, and she shoves the roaring tones down. "No, I… What do I do?"

You must protect our home! Rage answers with a furious chorus.

No but that means I—

Yes, it does. There's no other choice when they've come to our door! If they stole our family, they'll try to steal us too! Don't let them.

Maybe we can still talk? She grasps for a hopeful thread, and Rage can only shake her abstracted head.

Don't be naive!

Donny moves from the couch to the door. They are climbing the mountain; she can hear them. She can feel the twisted warping that empowered the stolen concepts beneath the surface.

Her stomach twinges at the way they use them. The malformed, sickening way the essence is distorted and crammed into corrupted flesh-forms.

With a twitch of anger, she reaches out, curling fingers around their vibrations, feeling the songs that drove them, their heartbeats as they cross the ridgeline. Every vibration, motion of their molecules right there at her fingertips and it would be so easy to crush them.

It's easy Donny. You can end this all now, save your home. If not for us, for your wife, for the place you love.

"No. Stop invoking her like that." She screws her eyes shut. "No, I won't sink to their level. I won't do it!"

You won't do what? If you're going to deny it, then say it. Stand before it and don't run.

"I'll—I'll stop them another way. I won't give it power by saying it!" Her voice crescendos like an angry trumpet.

You already are! You're giving violence and Anguish strength by not saying it!

She turns on sorrow-stricken heel and sings a soft and joyless melody. The air sparkles with a flutey trill, as reality shivers beneath the flexing of her mental fingers, swept and hidden from the hateful intruders. Protected, for this is all she has left to protect.

She stalks them as they rise onto the plateau. Three open scabs, scrabbling in the dark with something they don't understand. Those poor souls, ripped into abominations. The sinking pit in her chest reveals what the best course of action will be, Rage continually whispering it in her ear. No, I… I can't.

Corrupted ink, the chains binding pieces of her family’s concept, writhe across their flesh.

Those tattoos. Her eyes are drawn to the symbol, a nine-point star, enclosed within a circle of thorns. If I can just— Maybe.

They enter the trees, as she silently moves from branch to branch.

Then they stop. "We can feel you, thief," transmuter says, her voice slurring and warping.

Distortion ripples in the air, the inevitability of this confrontation lost in the frozen stream of time. Songs trickle in the air, both old and new.

Do you hear my voice? Do you remember that burning night?

We should go back before this interpretation begins, before you relive this nightmare.

3.1 You're the Closest to Heaven that I'll Ever be

The Far Past, Summer Concerto #1

Trees rose in small patches, rocks jutting from the soil in the flanking hills, all framing a large stack of wood surrounded by many wooden tables arranged in loose circles. Wafting scents of roast game, custards, raw and preserved fruits, heavy dense breads, honey treats, chicken and mutton, mushroom dishes, mead, clear water, cheeses, porridges and more had all been prepared.

You're making my mouth water!

I miss those feasts, they haven't been the same for a long time.

Tsk, don't you have the power to make them happen again?

It's just not the same.

Come don't cry, this is a happy time.

We lavished the fields with lanterns, the carefully produced and ancient glass all stained with varying colors. I helped make some, they were beautiful. We helped dig the fire pit, low stones protecting the surrounding grass and woodland from any errant embers that might spring from the mountain of hollowed wood. Parent would have been proud. Then we dug more for smaller fires around the edges.

We sat by the fire as the sun completely disappeared below the horizon, plates emptied as people chattered and finished their final preparations. Musicians began to head towards their instruments, strings, woodwinds, drums, and percussive logs, and even a rare gleaming horn.

You stood up slowly, shaking off the buzz of the food and drink settling in your belly, as I watched you rise.

"Perhaps, I should have stopped you from eating and drinking so much. You're swaying more sleepily than the time I intervened against the wolves." She laughed softly.

Donny flinched at the mention of that violent occasion but smiled nonetheless as she pulled the lyre from her back, offering her hand. Sile took it, rising from the ground and brushing off her cloak.

In the low light of the evening, even with the fire, the lyre began to glow, the etchings, nodules, and metal work luminescing with a delicate lovely light. A stillness fell over the clearing, everyone's attention suddenly drawn inwards as something shimmered in the air. Fingers plucked metaphysical strings as a melody arose in the shimmers around the fires.

The Musechild opened her mouth and sang, sang to the world in pure metaphysical tones. "Hear me mother, player of all melodies, bearer of the golden song. Grant your harp, your gift to me, the act of division, so that I might share your gift with one I hold dear tonight. Bring forth the magic before us, the incandescent, everlasting, soulful dance. Tonight, I will breathe life into a will, a time, and a place of my own. All shall be participants in an unforgettable song and dance." The air around them warped and the stars above came to life in swirls of color.

The lyre lit up with Magic as a strong breeze blew through the village and into the meadow, carrying with it distant soft sounds that built into giggling, joyous laughter.

Grandfather, the patriarch of the village stood, and clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention. Tension rose in everyone, all noticed the twinkling song, the change in atmosphere, and they gripped their instruments and cups tighter in anticipation.

"We don't want to wait too long," he began, spreading his hands up. "There are more pleasant and interesting things to do here than listening to stories yet. But as every year, tonight is our night. Be summer, if you please."

A cheer arose as it all kicked off, the pillar of fire lit as the licking clasping tongues of a thousand flames arose; shining light and warmth across the clearing. Leitmotifs flickered into the air, contributing to a rising rhythm of melody and light as candles swept and flickered across the woods as evening set in.

Donny closed her eyes, the concepts flooding into her being. The breeze built again, coming back, a glimmering light carried on it from afar. Giggles in the air, which flowed in and around Donny, the afterimage of a woman, engrossed extension of an idea much older than any could imagine.

"I hear your call, daughter of mine; I grant you this gift. Be well and safe." The ghostly magical figure showered Sile with a shimmering smile, before she rippled and laughed, and flowed downwards into the lyre. It swirled with energy, bursting light highlighting the two blossoming lovers in the middle of everything, as the instrument changed shape and divided. Dancing light faded away, revealing two tambourines in Donny's hands as she smiled at Sile, offering one for her to take.

The rest of the villagers didn't seem to notice, caught in a musical narrative, a concept for which they were actors. They didn't care much either, for they were having the times of their lives. But Sile, unabashed, watched in utter growing wonder as the tambourine took shape.

An enormous smile spread across her face, as she took the proffered instrument. She turned it over in her hands, before giving it a gentle rattle, and playful light burned in her amber eyes. She leaned in, gave Donny's cheek a twinkling kiss, and then pranced slightly away, and then back in; as Donny watched enraptured with her song, cheeks burning to a peachy pink. A quick tap of hip against hip, and then she spun back away setting the mood. An invitation, a challenge to dance had been issued, and Donny was not about to refuse.

The Musechild laughed, and beat the tambourine against her hand, joining Sile in the dance. The instrument Sile held pulsed: with potency, power, unspoken, and yet gentle, earthly, much like Donny, and much like the figure who just flowed away on the breeze! "Just like this," Donny said with a whimsical melody on the tip of her tongue, beating the tambourine in time with the other instruments. She let her conceptual magic flare, the air vibrating with light and energy, dancing images to compliment the festive atmosphere, laughing as she cloaked herself in the fires of her element.

Sile's feet moved to the music, but in irregular and mad oscillations, clumsy in the manipulations, but Donny did not care. Her heart was in it and that is what mattered most.

Donny opened her mouth, sky blue eyes never losing track of Sile and prepared to sing, caught in the moment as the amber of Sile's irises gleamed like the shiniest horn.

She fully met that gaze, laughing and smiling with soulful whimsy. Sile's heartbeat thundered in her chest, audible above all the other noise, a metronome syncing with the Musechild's symphony. Her eyes were the gentle blossoms of a thousand springs, the warmth of a thousand summers, the colors of a thousand autumns, and the comfort of a thousand winter fires.

A gentle quiet adoration.

Love.

In response, I unsheathed my heart, and I sang. As the blue flickering lights of lost and departed strange spirits flowed into the clearing to join the revelry, souls of the lost dead, I sang with all my being.

♫ Can you feel it?
That sensation burning in the air?
Writhing between us?
No, we can't conceal it,
This sensation so fair.
No, I don't wanna lose it,
This emotion strips me bare.
Sile, will you stay with me?
Will you dance with me,
And enjoy this flight of fancy?♫

I met your eyes as your notes fell away, the color rising to your cheeks as you stared deep into the amber. I replied, notes pouring out in a surprisingly gentle tone, inspiration burning in my belly, love flaring in the portals to my soul.

♫Donny, there's no need for Anxiety,
Please look here at my face in this place,
There's no one but you and me,
You see this smile on my face?
There's nowhere I'd rather be,
Than in this place with you.
So, I'll show you a dance,
And then you'll know I'm here to stay. ♫

You smiled bashfully, taking my free hand as we moved into an intricate and driving dance around the bonfire, the whole village turning their attention to us, as their claps set the beat, the instruments following along to new blossoming melodies in time with your voice. Even now words fail to capture the awe and wonder of our colliding worlds.

♫Oh our hearts are a mess,
But we've both been so blessed.
Now take meeeee down,
This is why I do music,
Because it makes you feel everything,
And because my tenor is a blessing.

And oh, we walk together
Our feet are obsessed
With this unstilledness
And oh, this is too much to bear
So, I'm going to face my fear♫

Donny pulled Sile in and brought their lips together as they spun around the fire, a raucous cheer rising from the crowd as the music picked up faster and faster. She broke the kiss moments later, hovering close, eyes alight.

♫And sooo I must confess,
This all seems so obvious,
Please don't get tense.
But Sile will you marry me,
Under the great Oaktree
Back on the Mountain
Overlooking the Sea. ♫

The crowd cheering us on as we kiss is a very cute interpretation, but I don't remember it.

i thought it was sweet.

Very, but, hmmmm… cheesy.

did you like it?

I always love this part, and you always find a new and clever way to tell it.

Oh, oh no don't cry please. Here, here, let me get your tears.

sorry. I just miss you so much.

Shhh, I know. I know.

There's much yet for you to do.

Much yet to face. So please, find your strength and hold fast to your heart, my love.

3.2 It Cuts Deep Through our Ground

2018, Living Just to Find Emotion

♫For this is the last song I sing,
With words that are still my own.
For there's not much more I can bring,
And I feel I'm losing all connection,
Yet I still see you.
Yes, I still see you.♫

Donny drops from the branch, landing light on her feet behind them, the lyre twinkling with anxious energy, as they turn to face her. Three of them. The stoic sculptor, the arrogant replicator, the angry transmuter.

"You've taken something that doesn't belong to you," arrogant one says, crossing his arms.

"You can give it back, and we might let you live long enough to be the Next Critic," stoic one adds cruelly, but with a cautiousness the other two aren't exuding.

"I don't want to fight you," the Musechild sings back, her voice a stream of golden honey to the ears, fascinating to the mind as her tail wraps protectively around her own leg. She makes herself as small and nonthreatening as possible. The warped abominations hesitate, something within them resonating with her voice. They don't know, because no one knew. "If you give them back, I won't have to." Her voice trilled with hope, a fool’s hope, but hope, nonetheless.

"Won't have to what, cry at us?" Replicator laughs at her. "And give up everything we've gained, everything we worked to achieve?" replicator raises his voice in mockery. He points at her with his finger. "Last chance; give what you've taken back."

"No." She takes a steadying breath, standing up slightly straighter. "No, I won't. They don't belong to you." Donny's voice twinges with triste tones as she takes a step back, defensively. "Please. Don't do this."

"Your funeral, kitten," transmuter says as she bends down and places her fingers on the ground. The twisted essence moves and warps the atmosphere. Reality shudders as the concepts burn around the three, a sword covered in arcing flames appearing in the man's hand. The abstract landscape of the plateau becomes more hemmed in, walls whipping up as the forest floor seems to twist, grass reeling back as the Musechild finds herself standing more and more on a large patch of dirt.

Transmuter ripples, as a belt of artistic tools, brushes, chisels, pens, and pencils latches around her hips. Sculptor touches transmuter and in some unseeable way she seems more, more than she has ever been, perfectly sculpted for this moment.

"You can still walk away." The Musechild's voice falters with the pointlessness of her pleading. She takes another step back and sinks into wet clay, almost losing her balance as her ears rocket up to full height in alarm. The clay had been dirt moments before. "Please, please don't!" Her voice blossoms with desperation.

Rage whispers in her ear. You must fight them. You must defend yourself and get your family back. You cannot run or choose pacifism this time. FIGHT or DIE.

Before she can move, she is secured solidly in place as the clay cracks, flickering into marble. Donny's eyes widen as she looks down.

The man surges across the gap, sword flicking as one suddenly becomes four, blades moving in differing arcs.

I'd— I'd rather die than become a monster. She gasps in air in the seconds before he arrives, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'm sorry."

The flaming swords sweep in, as transmuter changes the air around Donny's hands, encasing them in marble. Four swords, four duplicates. One rends her throat, the flesh flaying apart as her airway dies. One cuts through her heart, the beat of its rhythm severed. A third slice opens her belly, hot fire pouring into her, golden blood splattering the ground. The final cut severs her femoral arteries.

Noise gurgles in Donny's throat and she falls still, head falling limply forward. Her mind flickers white with pain, and then black as she dies.

A whispering, mournful breeze flows across the field, as suffocating stillness sets in.

He pokes her with the tip of the sword. Satisfied when no reaction came, the man's duplicates fade, watching Donny's idle form.

"Well, that was easy," arrogant one says smugly; turning to face the other two.

"Well don't just stand there and gloat, get what we came for," transmuter stands upright again, clapping the marble dust from her fingers. The Plateau fully shifts into a hemmed in art exhibit of a forest, lights twinkling.

"Too easy. Don't relax until we have it in hand." Sculptor narrows her eyes.

You did good, Donny, avoiding this for your whole life. But nothing lasts forever, and unfortunately, this choice is not yours alone. Forgive me for what I have to do to protect all of us.

Donny fell into death and a familiar dream.

3.3 And All I Can Taste is this Moment And All I Can Breathe is Your Life

The Far Past, Symphony of a Loving Dream

Do you remember how we got there? To the place you first called home.

It was a long trip. But in the end… At the end we passed onto the mountain.

We crossed into a realm that was more dream than reality, which was more abstract feeling than physical certainty. All the talk of your parents and these faraway places from you had never truly seemed real to me, but as we crossed this threshold, I understood your dream.

Up and up, we climbed until

And we breached the summit via a hidden path only found by listening to the quiet never-ending song.

Never has the desire to create burned within me so fiercely, the passion to make something greater. I resolved in my heart of hearts to give my love two gifts. So, as we stood beneath the gyrating atmosphere of the Boeotian sky, as we pronounced their vows and sealed their fates within a narrative concept that would never be forgotten, I came to a decision. There under that dancing sky I resolved to grant you two gifts. The first, to imbue you with the aspect of the cat you so deeply bore. The second, to create the greatest of songs our bodies could weave together. A child.

For you were a being of love, a being of compassion, a gentle burning soul, and you deserved the world. You deserved to feel every ounce of possible love, for you were, no are a miracle underneath an all too often hateful sky.

Most of all, Donny, you deserve everlasting peace and the chance to carve a legacy, all the way to our unified end. But I knew, some part of me always knew, that I would dance among the stars alone. That you, Donny, were not destined for the same fate.

I didn't care. I still don't.

I didn't have an ounce of anxiety about it.

You deserved everything.

So now, in the depths of your dreams, in the midst of my sleep, I reach across the dreamy stars, and I caress your gold-stained cheek as you fall through death.

"This isn't where you end my love," she whispered quietly through the dream, the memory of their happiest moments. "It will all be fine someday."

I couldn't save you from this next bloody act, even in death, this I knew. That didn't mean I was going to let you fall to ruin. Even if that meant stirring the beast within that you feared so.

3.4 I'm Feelin' the Strain, ain't it a Shame?

2018, Separate Ways, Worlds Apart

♫Before she closed her eyes, she foresaw your rise,
On a bloody climbing tide.
I wish you didn't have to fall into this life.
But you need to wake up,
Donny my beloved dear. ♫

"Yeah, yeah I—" Replicator starts to turn back, raising a hand to plunge inside the concept of his dead quarry. The sword drops from his hand as a crack whips through the air, a hand suddenly and violently grasping his face. It burns against his skin with a vibrational beat that thrums into his misbegotten being. Fractions of a second later, a palm slams into his stomach, a discharge and roaring sonic boom crackling through his body as he flicks through the air, screeching past the other two and slams into a tree.

Sculptor's head follows his trajectory, and then her head snaps back towards their quarry. The marble cracks, and bursts from Rage's fingers in a shower of pebbles. She rips her feet free in a two-step slide. The wounds across the Musechild's body stitch themselves back together with golden light as an angry vibration fills the false exhibit, rising against their shuddering eardrums.

Blue skies fade into swiftly moving dark clouds with a reddish tinge. Rage leans over, coughing as gold fluid splatters against the ground. The atmosphere changes, the sculpted environment of the exhibit shuddering, as the walls crack, ripple, and fall away in chunks.

The Crit Squad members find themselves back in a forest, deeply unfamiliar and hostile.

"What kind of magic coul— how can she not be dead?" Transmuter pulls out a brush and a chisel from her utility belt.

"It doesn't matter," replicator coughs out, wiping away a few flecks of blood from his mouth. "Now we really kill her." He touches his hand to the tree, the concept warping as it ripples, flowing outwards into duplicates that merge into one another up and up and up. He slices with an ax that he replicates, cleaving through the massive construct, and watches as his compatriots step aside. It crashes down, duplicates still thickening and spreading out.

It lands, with a deafening crack, followed by an auditory screech, as a sound wave splits it clean down the middle, knocking aside all three abominations.

They scramble back to their feet; only to see their quarry standing, untouched, leaning over, a single hand held up. White lines of light, pure metaphysical magic ripple from her fingers as she brings the hand down slowly.

A moment of stunned hesitation passes between all three of them, as they watch her slowly stand up. Again, the environment around them shifts, towering walls with thrumming shapes that resolve into amps, speakers, and subwoofers arising in every direction. Rage takes a step, the floor rippling beneath her bare feet as it screeches outwards, transforming into fluorescent tiles. Neon lights dance at their feet to a rising angry rhythm.

"She's reality bending!" angry one yells, pulling out her chisel.

"What the fuck is she?" arrogant one yells at her, sword reappearing in his hand.

Rage stands up slowly, green eyes opening and gradually filling with sonic aura, white and crackling. The Musechild's golden strands of hair ripple with fire, flickering to a bright and angry crimson. Murderous intent streaks outwards through her aura, and the AWCY Enforcers collectively take a step back as the furious song resonates with their being. Rage curls and uncurls her fist, slowly looking around before focusing on her fingers.

Seemingly unconcerned with the homicidal monsters before her, Rage stretches out their shared body, working out the repairing muscles. Once everything is confirmed in place and repaired, she turns her full attention to the abominations. "We are the fusion of song and flesh, concept and divinity woven together." Her lips curl up in a menacing smile, baring the feline fangs. The threat display ripples through her whole body as magic burns in the air, writhing. "This is a ballad that shall lead you to a bloody end, so if you do not wish to meet your demise, then running away would be wise."

Rage no! Please!!! Donny's consciousness twitches to the angry rhythm, reaching for reins held far and away.

I'm sorry Donny, but I'm doing this, so you don't have to. If you get in the way, we're all going to suffer, so just go back to the dreams until I'm done.

Tears of pure magical energy, white in its sonic, metaphysical nature, pour from Rage's eyes. She sucks in a deep breath, heart thrumming with the rising beat from the speakers. The Musechild's legs move slowly as she shifts into a dancing stance.

Stoic one flicks out her mental fingers. "It doesn't matter who or what you are. Regeneration or not, you will die by our hands."

Rage cracks her neck to the side, the noise cutting through the fervor of the angry melodies. "You're welcome to try." She gestures, the universal language of "come and get it."

3.5 Thanks for the Joy that You've Given Me

The Far Past, Light of the Fireflies Movement #1

Mother, please listen to my voice, for I stir from sleep across a thousand miles to the pain searing deep within you. Let me be, once again, a reprise and relief as we relive pieces of our story.

They returned to Sile's lovely home in the happiest period of their youthful lives. There, Sile gave Donny a wonderful, but sickly child. A lovely sweet and sensitive little thing they called Eithne.

They shared those first few nights hovering over her, leaning against one another as the fireflies shimmered and danced to a lovely flute outside their windows.

They were soft, and warm, filled with loving stars and dancing fires.

As I grew older, you sewed my clothes, big-rimmed hats, and soft little things for my sensitive skin.

One day I found a crawly thing within our home and came to you, Mom.

"Mommy, mommy there is a scary thing," I said in musical tones, and I made a request of you that made all the music screech to a halt, a thing neither of us would ever forget. "Can you please kill it?" I said a name then, a name that you can no longer quite remember. Someone I liked and played with? It's hard to remember these days. "He said that dangerous and creepy things c-can be killed. Can you do it? I don't want to kill anything."

Donny's eyes grew deeply sad, a morose violin weeping in the air, as she took her daughter's hand, and took her to the thing, a harmless, venom-less, lovely spider. Donny gently lowered her hand, allowing this amazing creature to crawl upon it to its own little, ostinato groove. "My dear Eithne," she said so gently, her voice a bittersweet cello string. Eithne knew instantly the pain she had inflicted. "The world is full of cruelties, and creatures just trying to live." Donny gently raised Eithne's hand and held her own to it. The spider crawled across her palms, and her fingers. "Always remember, even the smallest crawling things are just trying to live. If you are kind and peaceful to them, they will never harm you. Fear arises from ignorance, so strive to know as much as you can, even about the people who might want to hurt you."

I burst into tears; they steamed down my face, and pattered on the wood as light strokes against the softest xylophone. "I'm sorry Mommy, I didn't mean it."

"I know you didn't," you trilled back with a sad smile full of softness. You hugged me so very softly. "But remember, words have power, song has meaning. You have such a gentle soul, and it is so easy to lose that heart in an aching world."

Eithne sniffled. "Yes Mommy, I understand."

Donny took her hand, and guided Eithne out the door. They released the spider onto a nearby tree, where it began to climb free to its own delighted reverie.

Soon Sile joined them outside and they went for a picnic.

As the brush strokes fell, and the years ticked by, Eithne kept growing, sensitive and sickly, never able to be in the sun for long. One day Donny found her in the forest having fallen.

"Oh oh, my darling little one you've fallen."

"It stings Mommy," she whimpered in a muted tone, crying.

"Oh, you're so brave my little girl, such a big fall and look at how strong you're being." Donny kneeled and then slipped, purposefully, but a child of Eithne's age would never know, as she ground her knee into the ground. "Ouch!!!"

Eithne's full attention shifted from the stinging cut to her mother, gasping, and laughing as Donny pantomimed a flailing conductor. Looking up, she winced, quickly glancing back down as Donny retrieved her hat and placed it gently on top of her head.

For as much as Sile and her mother felt that Donny should never suffer, so did Donny feel the same about Eithne. For Eithne was the greatest composition she'd ever penned and would ever play.

So, when Sile bathed and treated the scrapes and bleeding wounds, the Musechild held her beloved daughter's hand, and hugged her vigorously no matter how much green salve was splatted into Donny's golden hair.

Nothing in the world was more important than these precious times or these precious beings.

3.6 Now that She's Back from that Soul Vacation

2018, Soul Sister

♫ Don't let them make us dis-appear.
Please Donny you need to wake up,
I'm sorry for this is what I always feared.♫

Sculptor touches both replicator and transmuter, changing them in ways that weren't visible to the eye, as she reaches her fingers out to the atmosphere. Rage shifts in place, stepping to the thrum of the amps, as she flicks up into the air, leg whipping out in a spinning kick as a wave of sound rips from her sidelong aerial flip. Whether unconsciously or not, all three monsters dive, leap, or roll to the song underneath the strike.

Replicator rises with his flaming sword. He flares to life, ripping towards rage on a thundering wind as the sculptor bends the air, attempting to undo the Musechild's ontokinetic sculpting.

Rage pirouettes away from the slashing blades, diving in a rolling slide to a thrumming bass-line, as the lyre comes free from the holder on her back. She catches it midair, the instrument transforming to a crimson-flamed guitar as she slides back from the swinging blows on the balls of her feet.

"Fucking hold still!" replicator growls and receives the sharpened edge of a guitar to the gut for his troubles. The duplicate dissolves in a shower of defiled blood as Rage swings the strap over her shoulder and matches the rising beat with a progression of fury-filled chords. She ducks out of the straps, the instrument floating in place as a vibrational afterimage rises into the air, continuing to play.

Rage don't hurt them! Don't fight, we don't have to! Donny cries in vain. Rage isn't listening.

Replicator comes in again; she slides away from the duplicates as they swing in time, her limbs flickering and vibrating faster than they could see.

Transmuter runs forward from sculptor’s side, her chisel rising in flight as she slams her feet to the sinking beat. Fluorescent tiles arise as the angry one casts the die. The metal dyes cast to marble as she shapes the matter and flings them at the Musechild. Rage falls into a roll, marble screaming by in deadly spikes, before she leaps back up in time to the shrieking guitar strings. Falling into pops and locks, she bends and sways in unnatural ways, evading the blades. She slides back from a hacking swing, curls underneath another stream of screaming marble spikes, and tears apart a metal screen with a rising twist of her body, as sculptor tries to hem in her evasive waltz.

There it is. Donny, for fucks sake please close your eyes. I'm going in.

No!!! Just—just stop! There has to be another way that doesn't end like this!

Rage flips forward, and then dives, sweeping under the first of replicator's duplicate blades in a roll, rising again she leans back into a spinning slide, causing the second to skid by against the vibration of her flaring palm, catching the flat of the blade as the resonance ripples along its length, shattering it into metal shards. With a deft motion, she flings the shards back, tearing apart two of the duplicates in a shower of metal and splattering blood as the bass of the accompanying song squeals. Replicator snarls, and comes in with an upward rising swing, blade unfolding into three.

Just run away! Lock them in with walls! Anything but this!

They are just going to chase us down; I need to focus, Donny!

She backflips, one of the blades barely grazing her cheek and drawing a line of golden blood. Her foot flicks up in the air, snapping into his jaw to a flared drumbeat. The point of contact alights with magic, and he launches into the air.

See what happens when you distract me? We can't let them land hits.

We shouldn't be fighting at all. We— we shouldn't be hurting anyone.

Rage lands on her hands, three metal spines screaming her way as transmuter warps one of the pillars with brush and chisel, flinging enormous steel stakes downrange. Rage shifts, spinning on her head as one hand deflects a spike, a second is kicked away to a powerful chord. The final spike she catches with her curling tail.

The spin ends with a pliant pressing of palms to the floor that ripples into the coiling of gymnast muscles. She ripples like a spring, leaping into the air, twirling upright as her fingers wrap around the spike, taking it from her tail.

NO!

Replicator's eyes widen as she comes screaming in and brings them both to earth with a deafening thump as the bassline drops.

Dammit Donny, why didn't you listen to me? All you had to do was fucking look away!

no… Donny's mental voice cracks and breaks.

Blood smashes outwards on the dance floor, the replicator dead with a spike through his chest.

Rage lingers, kneeling, pressing Donny back down, viciously clinging onto the reins.

I'm sorry. I really am, but you are making things remarkably more difficult and painful than they have to fucking be!

Why did things have to be like this? Why Rage? Donny's mental voice fills the Musechild's head as she cries for what Rage has done. Why?

She's become the monster.

Adding another stroke of cruelty, the momentary grief-filled reprieve is ripped away as Rage flips back and away. A screech of fury flies from the mouth of transmuter as she presses both hands to the floor and marble spikes ripple outward to the beat of the scornful drum. The Musechild is too slow, a spike catching her on the second flip, ripping her up into the air. Shimmering golden blood arcs through the atmosphere to splatter on the floor.

The song stops, the beat dead as transmuter rises, satisfied with her prize.

Because Donny.

"Look out!" sculptor cries, reaching to stop the sudden, reappearing dive of Rage. Her fingers slip around the shuddering vibrations of the Musechild, utterly ineffective. The score soars, music rising in a furor as she shrieks down from the sky.

This world is cruel.

Rage falls upon the transmuter, sideward swinging guitar slamming into her hip. Something deep and vital cracks and she screams, as the twanging strings flick her aside, the ground rippling and crackling with auditory force as she flies across the space into a metal pillar.

It's trying to take everything from us.

Reacting quickly despite the pain, transmuter pulls out the brush, reshaping the pillar to armor that's hastily donned. Confidently turning back to the fight, she’s violently interrupted, Rage's vibrating fingers sliding into the metal and grasping the transmuter's heart.

And it's time for us to fight back. It's what we have to do to survive.

Their eyes meet for a moment. Rage's fingers close tightly, crushing angry one's heart, and she falls to the floor, writhing in her agonizing final moments, forced to watch Rage flick the viscera from her fingers.

i just want you to stop. i want it all to stop. please? Donny's pathetic, shattered concept curls in their shared minds, weeping.

Why couldn't you just listen to me for once in your life? Dammit Donny, why!? Rage cradles Donny's metaphysical head in her abstracted arms, attempting to provide some comfort in their shared mental dreamscape.

Rage turns with the beat to take on sculptor, only for the clay covered fingers to grab her by the face.

3.7 And I'd Give Up Forever to Touch You

The Far Past, Sonata of Lovers Eternity

The passing of seasons marched on; saplings planted in the summers of Eithne's birth rose to flowering trees. Eithne grew like the slow rolling chords of a sprawling score, and with her did Sile grow older. But age treated her like a fine wine, as she rose to fill the position the heralded Grandfather once held. As her work moved from the fields to the table; she grew fond of new and different things.

So, she learned beneath Donny's careful hand; the crafts and arts. For these topics were deeply intimate, Donny physically guiding her hands through the motions and techniques, nipping at each other’s ears and necks.

Blooming, much like the lovely white flowers she so loved, Eithne grew older. She revealed a lovely golden voice and a deftness for capturing the visceral beauty of the world through her brushstrokes.

And one day she approached her mother, her erstwhile teacher, and asked a most curious question.

"Mother, what if you don't like my art one day?" It was the sort of question only a teenager or child asks of a parent they feel completely safe and comfortable with. "What if I disappoint you."

"Oh, my lovely Eithne," Donny sang, taking Eithne's cheek in one hand. "That is the beauty of creation and art. One day you may produce something that I do not enjoy, but I will always appreciate it. I will always see the heart and effort you put in. I will never hate it, and I will never be disappointed for I know you tried."

She sniffled and smiled. "What if someone else doesn't like it? Is that bad?"

"No. Interpretation is the most important part of art, and everything we do will not appeal to everyone else. As long as you enjoy your vision, as long as it's meaningful to you, that's always most important." She pauses and considers, before kissing the top of Eithne's head. "Be authentically, unapologetically you, always."

Remember?

This is the core of who you are.

Please cling to this my love as this act approaches its conclusion.

3.8 A Clock Ticks 'till it Breaks your Glass and I Drown in you Again

2018, Don't Fear the Reaper

"Thought you won, didn't you? Smug little feline prick," sculptor hisses as Donny's body lifts into the air.

She's breaking the beat. A small, terrified voice joins Donny's sobbing mental cries.

You're all in the way, shut up for just a minute.

Sculptor flexes abstracted muscles, driving fingers deep into the Musechild's being, trying to pull her apart. All nine within feel this abomination scraping through their minds, grabbing at the music, the concept, and reaching to tear their senses of self apart. Trying to sculpt her until she was no longer a living breathing system.

it hurts. Donny's mental fingers claw against the flesh, desperate to break Sculptor's grip. c—can't think.

Shuddering, Rage bunches Donny's abdominal muscles, curling her legs up to an oscillating rhythm. Pressing against sculptor's torso, she screams, the sonic waves of her voice shifting into scythingly sharp notes as they rake and maul the woman's fingers to pieces. Stoic one lets go, screaming as her flayed and minced fingers ooze. Like a spring releasing energy, Donny's whole body uncoils, the force rippling through her and smashing into sculptor as a raging electronic beat drops.

Keep anguish down! a sleuthy alarmed voice join's terrors.

Sculptor flies away, tumbling for a moment before she catches her feet on the ground, sliding.

Just hold the line.

Skidding along the ground, stoic one sculpts the fluorescing thrumming floor to bring her slide to a halt, feet righting as she pops up in time with the deepening base, free hand clinging to her shredded fingers. Frantically she starts stitching the flesh back together, placing her whole focus on it as Rage picks herself up from the floor.

Sculptor looks up in the direction she was flung from, at the motion, failing to notice the flickering of the air around the Musechild.

"Why you—" Rage's left palm slams into sculptor's stomach on a rising beat, knocking all the air from her lungs, and causing a discharge of blood to ripple from her lips as her flesh and muscle undulate, something important bursting. In that moment, stoic one understands what it must be like to take a freight truck to the abdomen, as she flashes away with a booming auditory discharge. Like a wrecking ball, her body smashes into a metal pillar. Yet more blood flecks from her lips as something in her hips gave way like a shattering guitar. Her legs fell forward, only for the Musechild to appear a fraction of a second before she touched the ground in a kneeling position. Rage’s leg whips to the booming bassline, a sidelong kick that sends sculptor flying into another pillar, her bad arm crunching against the cold and heartless steel of a screaming trumpet.

This is for Mom.

Sculptor squeals in pain, a squeal that dies with the deafening sound of the thrumming song as the Musechild catches up with her again. Rage's hand grabs her face, sinking into her flesh. Sculptor’s hands lash out as she tries to grasp Rage’s concept, digging her fingers into flesh. Rage’s free hand scythes, smashing into the joint at the elbow, sickening cracks of bone and tearing flesh crackling through a sudden and heavy silence.

For parent.

Sculptor tries to scream, her sound fading into the beat as Rage rips her voice completely free.

For our Aunts.

Another motion, the other arm pulls back, out of its socket with a brutal jerking drumbeat.

For Sile.

A kick to the back of one knee, fibula and tibula shattering to the screeching guitar as the last abomination is forced to the ground.

For Eithne.

The other leg lashes out, the motion full of fire, one last desperate attempt to sculpt her opponent. It dies with the crack of her femur shattering beneath a vengeful palm.

For everything we love that you have taken.

no more, please.

The Musechild’s free hand digs into the flesh of the woman's arm, centered around the tattoo. Golden ripples spread through the tattoo, and sculptor's veins as Rage digs into her concept. The twisted creature screams with a golden voice as the Musechild finds the source, the connection point, and begins to unwind her.

"I'm going to show you what kind of war you've begun, whoever sent you picked the wrong girl to fuck with." Rage growled in dulcet low tones to the screaming sculptor. "Tell your master, he'll never have enough."

Donny's whimpering, despair-filled cries resonate through the other eight.

Rage, we're going too far.

Just finish it and be done, this is excessive and you know it. Why let this go on?

we need to know where they've gone, what has been done. this is the only way, and only I can do it. better me than the rest of you. better me than Anguish. Donny will never forgive me, but that's better than her never forgiving herself or the rest of you.

whimper

"There, I've got you in the palm of my hand."

Movement 4: She Swears the Moon don't Hang Quite as High as it Used to

The Far Past, Albinoni's Adagio

A needed conversation was had on a chilly winter morning. A note of hope. A note of firmness in her wife’s voice.

"Donny," Sile said, from where she lay in their bed, pillows propped. A wrinkled hand gently rising to call her wife of 50 years to her side.

As the years passed on, Sile aged, and Donny and Eithne increasingly had to assist her movements.

Donny took her fingers delicately, and sat on the bed, listening attentively as she always did, her ears flicking gently.

Soon, Eithne met a kind young boy, and a lovely young woman.

"Donny, I don't think I will be here for another year," she said softly, reaching up to cup Donny's chin.

Together, all three fell in love, and Donny happily sent her precious Eithne off in marriage.

"No, don't say such things," Donny's eyes watered at the thought, her lips curling down as her ears pressed to her head.

A blessing came one warm autumn evening, Eithne produced a precious baby girl in the midpoint of Sile's life.

"Please, we've talked of this a million times. It's natural, a part of the cycle for us but not you." She let her hands slide off Donny's face and fall, to gently grasp her fingers. "I want you to be happy. I want you to love and live peacefully after me. That's why I want you to make me a promise."

With such a large family, less of the burden fell onto the grandparents, though neither could think of missing any of the lovely child’s important milestones.

"Anything," Donny said, sadness in her eyes.

And together they helped their grandchild grow. Soon there were more, a lovely budding family of creative children.

"When the day comes. When I pass into the dancing fog and beyond, you'll remember me. You'll celebrate me with your art. But not just me, Eithne, your grandchildren, everyone you love." She reached up and touched Donny's cheek again. "My ancient heart cannot bear the thought of bringing you suffering. So don't suffer. Celebrate me. Celebrate everyone who has helped make you, well, you." She smiled wryly in that clever way she always did. "Someday you may have to defend yourself. Someday someone cruel will come along and I hope that you will know that you won't be any less. You won't be ruined for having to raise your hands. Promise me, you'll remember and do these things?" She smiled again, shifting slowly beneath the blankets. "Can you do that for me?"

And Donny loved them all so much.

The tears flowed down Donny's face, dripping into the blankets. "Of course." And she leaned in and kissed the first person she'd ever truly loved. The first and only person she'd ever loved in that way.

why do we have to relive this one? what's the point to its reinterpretation? what's the point of anything.

A story is never complete without its most painful revelations. In the pearls of our past, we find our futures, and for no one is that truer than you.

We had good lives. Important lives in an important place because we were there, and you were there.

i don't want to do this anymore.

Listen to my voice and hold onto your hope.

In the end it will be ok.

4.1 Give me the Beat, Girls, and Free our Souls

2018, More than a Feeling

The opulent opening gala of the latest show buzzed, as the large golden gallery hosted only the highest-ranking members of AWCY, the elite and rich arts benefactors, the ones pulling the strings; Reed's peers. Art pieces, performances, sculpture and more, decorated the rotunda, surrounding a Throne, placed alone on a small podium, surrounded by a fountain of water; there sat The Critic, their silent gaze a constant reminder of Reed's control.

The works were good — of course they were, being perfect executions of Reed's will. The artists created and yet it was not their art. It did not belong to the creator, no, not even the source of inspirations.

All belonged to Reed and the High Arts Council — to think otherwise was betraying the cause.

Yet, as pretentious consumers, snobby sponsors and the trusted few mingled, one thing was missing.

The gala was silent. Devoid of music.

No matter what Reed commanded, everything the musicians touched would inevitably turn to ash. It would ring dead, hollow, an inert series of notes played without emotion or impact. Of course they wouldn't perform; nobody else could know that AWCY was fallible.

So, when the quiet murmurs were interrupted, the strange noise seized the full attention of the room. A snap, a conceptual explosion radiated from the center of the room, waves of intent and meaning washing over the crowd.

The Critic, statuesque and silent, was no longer. The vessel sat forward, a mockery of human movement, a failed attempt at performance; their body contorted, uneven bends and cruel twists of flesh pulsing and throbbing with each passing second. The Critic opened their mouth as if to speak — instead, an inhuman noise was heard by all, like nails scraping a chalkboard, creeping up their spines. As if the cry was in their very minds.

It cut abruptly, a record needle scratch echoing through the hall as the body of The Critic stood, limbs and head loosely hanging, a marionette without a puppeteer. Without warning, The Critic rose into the air, an energy swirling around them, the water in the surrounding fountain turned blood red, the still waters turned into a rapid torrent of waves.

The Critic sang a song into being. The twinkling notes that dotted the melody were puzzling at first; an abnormality only to those in the know. The horns were layered in; guitars, woodwinds, brass instruments, percussion, strings, and all. Music swirled, mixing touchstones of genres in innovative ways, capturing something that, despite their efforts, no member of AWCY had even come close to creating. Each note perfection, every chord ringing against their minds, invading their ears and souls, a golden bell ringing in perfect clarity. Emotions rushed through all who were there; some started to cry, recalling memories they'd never lived. Happiness, bittersweet nostalgia, the essence of creativity coursing through the room; things that had no place in the world of art, as dictated by Reed. A rebellion in a song.

The melody rang true, devoid of vocals, but an undeniable voice of song that gave peace to those watching. Until all at once, the tattoos of every member of AWCY began to burn; a searing that was not quite pain, something more like an annoyance. An itch that couldn't be resolved, a counterpoint alone without the completing melody. The Song rang through each sigil, demarcating those who were beholden to Reed through servitude, from those who were financially enslaved — the consumer and the producer, distinguished by the scratching music, etching itself into the minds of all who were connected to The Critic.

This time, there was a voice. A singular voice, delicately singing vocals in a language none knew nor recognized, one none could understand, radiant and gold in tone. Smooth and warm like honey, with impossible range. A choir created by a single voice, a beautiful song capturing unending depths of tone and inflection.

As suddenly as it began, it stopped — The Critic crashed to the podium, a heap of limbs, inert and unmoving; a twisted sculpture for all to see. A stunned, enamored silence fell over the attendees.

One clapped, then another and soon it spread through the room, an infectious applause from all present. A raucous thunder of clapping after thirty minutes of perfection. The gathered elites were astounded, their desire to own art only made more intense by hearing that which they could never have; a Song that could not be bought.

All except Reed. He stared at the mangled corpse of The Critic, reaching out and reassuring himself that he was in control. Whatever had happened, it was gone.

Reed left the gala, a pile of corpses soon to follow — for the rest of the night, The Critic was unmoved. A puppet with the strings cut, a heap of flesh that should have only served a single purpose; to exert the will of Reed.

Yet, The Critic would not respond. This would not do.

4.2 Sooner or Later, it's Over, I Just don't Wanna Miss you Tonight

The Far Past, Ode to Our Love

When that inevitable day came, they found Donny with a dozen scrolls of paper, a dozen shimmering portraits of the love of her life, scattered across Sile's peaceful departed form. A lacrimose melody hung in the air as Donny's aura drenched the home she so loved in tears. Donny buried Sile beneath her favorite great tree next to the burbling, quiet, dancing brook. Beneath a carefully arranged mound of stones.

why did you have to go?

sile?

She's gone mom.

In the midpoint of my life, my children helped you carve a lovely wooden statue of your greatest love. Every day you'd go to visit, and though you told no one, I could tell you often heard Sile's voice.

eithne stop. i can't live this again. i just can't. i can't lose you too.

You always said that the hardest part of life is facing things we don't want to do.

i carried on and kept the promise, but it was obvious to everyone, especially you, that i wasn't the same. when your children were grown, you kept me company. you came to visit the art-filled hut, the product of a human lifetime of creation.

n—no i

I love you mom. I can carry us to the end. Just take my hand, and hold on for a little longer.

In the last 60 years of life Eithne learned any and everything of her mother, her arts and secrets. She passed them on to her growing children.

On particularly sunny, hope-filled days, Donny regained the unabashed unshy spirit she'd had with Sile, in Eithne's presence. Especially on the eve of the Summer Feast which she so loved, a special Magic rolled up and into the air. Every time Eithne could swear, there was her mother, dancing with Donny like in the paintings of their youth. Sometimes she had conversations with her on those nights and she seemed the woman she'd been in Eithne's youth again. The longing always seemed worse the next morning.

It influenced the villagers too, for they often found themselves struck with solemn blues.

The day came when Eithne, confined to bed, called to her mother. "Mother, one day I will no longer be here, and that day is approaching soon." Her voice, the golden tones she'd inherited from her mother, aged like the finest of wood as they danced to the beat of Donny's drums.

my baby girl. my sweet baby girl.

"Please, please don't say that," Donny sang with the deepest of sadnesses.

"We both know it to be true," she said softly. "I want you to promise me the same thing that you promised Mom. You'll celebrate me… you'll celebrate me and Mom?" She grasped Donny's hand gently.

Donny looked at her with tears in her eyes.

"Mom, when I am gone. When my great grandchildren are grown, promise me you'll go home," she sang softly. "Promise me you'll come back to celebrate us, but please, go home." She smiled gently. "I know you love us all so. Someday it may not hurt you so to be here, but we all see how it harms your soul."

Tears poured from her eyes in a bittersweet symphony. "Why would you ask something so cruel of me? This is my home."

"It was your home when Mom was here. Home is where your heart is Mom. And your heart will no longer be here. So please, go home."

And on a particularly cold winter morning, she went peacefully as did her mother. Donny was found, once again, driven deep into sorrow, weeping over scrolls.

please don't go.

Donny scattered Eithne's ashes by the stream, by the statue of Sile amongst the grass next to her wife and beloved's grave, so Mother and Daughter would never be apart.

i don't want to be alone.

eithne?

In the following years as Eithne's children had children of their own, Donny helped them sculpt a beautiful statue of their mother/grandmother, there underneath their favorite tree. Every year in the spring, the white flowers Eithne so loved would spring from the ground around the old great tree, and her voice joined her mother’s reverie.

After 200 years amongst people she'd called family, Donny wove a part of her concept into the shields, the wards protecting the village. Everyone noticed the change in the air, the spirited song quietly just out of reach. On the eve of the 209th year of her Marriage, Eithne's 199th birthday, her 210th Summer Feast, Donny left the village with a parade of villagers. They rode with her down the coast to the nearest port.

She returned home with a lifetime of memories inscribed into paper canvas.

Like many who fade into myth, once she was gone, Eithne's grandchildren would tell their children of the grandmother who once fell in love with a golden song. How deeply their love had wound in the village, and how when the grandmother finally went on to the sky, the song had to leave for home.

How do you hold a song in your hand?

How could something as fleeting as a song ever be contained in one place for long?

4.25 My Hands, No They Don't Wanna Understand

And They Don't Wanna Be Without Your Hands

She curls in the depths of her mind, a tapestry of ideals alight in shattered fragments, rent asunder by the necessity of cruelty in the face of an evil world.

Rage drops the Abomination, its body slinking from her fingers into a pool of dissipating flesh. She sinks into the grass, head flying back as they scream to the sky, crying out to the world in defiance. Tears of static silver pour from her tear ducts as they all truly begin to grasp the terror inflicted against them.

Rage hunches over, pressing blood slicked fingers against tearstained skin, as she wails into the dirt. Tossing aside the reigns, she burrows deep into their shared mind, Envy stepping forward to snatch the strings of mental control from the air. In this moment, none of them wanted to see Anguish take the initiative.

Deep Rage burrows, finding Donny submersed far within the mental dreamscape. She pulls her close, cradling the Musechild's head in her lap, a thousand apologies falling from abstract lips, rocking together in untempered devastation. But there is no series of words that can ever temper the howling grief of innocence lost. Only icy numbness, as Apathy stood on, feeling nothing.

Though we, Eithne and I, both see this writhing pain, there is no comfort for us to bring. What strength I have is not enough to reach across the gap, the distance between us. This is the curse of the dead, of souls like ours tethered to the land.

We have no power left to help the ones we love, as they weep on the ground.

It had to be done. We and them knew it.

But how do you recover from such eternal tragedies? How can one ever regain purity and innocence lost?

sobbing

why?

what did i do to deserve any of this?

why does everyone I love leave me behind?

4.3 With Drops of Jupiter in her Hair

2018, Don't Stop Believing

♫You must not despair,
For there are still those who care,
And you must seek them.
In ports of three, you will find your chorus.♫

"… Everybody has their own home, after all. Home is where you're happy."

Eithne's voice cut through the darkness of Donny's mind drawing, her back to awareness.

There was no relief, no time to mourn what had been lost. They kept sending them, bodies and blood littering the mountain like a profane declaration. She'd lost track of how many 'artists' Rage and Anguish had discarded. Each had come back with different powers, manifestations of interpretation. Twisted and warped apparitions of her family, pressed into the sculpted flesh of mortals. Every taken life chipped away a little more of her, ripped at the concept of who she was. Who she ought to be.

Is it the icy numb of shock? Or the detached chill of Apathy? She isn't sure anymore. Numb is bad, and that's all she felt, as if she were drifting through a world that laughed at every pain she felt, and all she can do is just keep trudging forward in the hopes the nightmare comes to a close. The nightmare that eats more of who she is with every trudging step.

And the worst part is, she doesn't know how to wake up.

But fortunes are about to change, as the doorbell rings. She is surprised and alarmed that someone has slipped past the sensitivity of her ears. Barefoot, she walks to the door and looks out through the window in the dining room. No one is there.

Cautiously, one hand vibrating, ready to defend herself, she opens the door.

And all she finds is an envelope, plain with the letters AWCY printed on fancy paper. She picks it up and opens it. Pulling out the card, she holds it cautiously away from her face, and extends the fold. Twinkling notes of sound float around her face.

Inside, in neatly written script:

To the one who thinks they are the Song,
Your song is wrong; your notes cannot be art, and will never be art. Art is what I decide it to be.
Come see what Art really is. Come to Three Portlands — the gallery will find you.
Signed,
Your Mother's Keeper.

Donny froze in place, eyes dilating at the words on the card, her mind awhirl. Notes twinkle in the air, curling around her. "Mom?" she says aloud, voice threatening to break as she felt the tears sting against the corners of her eyes. Reality ripples around her…

Three Portlands. I must go. I must find her.

Space and time shift around her, as everything changes.

She finds herself in a strange place.

She is inside, but it is not like any building she has ever seen before — the room feels more like an ancient temple, wide and open, sky shining down, casting its golden rays onto the garden below. The clovers and flowers that fill the space are unnaturally bright, vivid shades sprung out of imagination; pathways lead out of the garden on each side, hallways leading to further rooms and things out of sight.

A figure sits in the garden, on a park bench, but something is wrong — despite basking in a ray of sun, the figure appears to be permanently in shadow, a silhouette come to life. It notices her.

Donny blinks several times, metaphysical fingers reaching, feeling. Wisps of confusion wrinkle across her nose; the sadness, brief glimmer of hope from moments before, trapped in a stasis. Her fingers tighten protectively around the envelope, as if it's the key to everything going on here.

She notices the figure, her mind flickering between trying to figure out what's just happened; how she got here and evaluating whether this is another one of their threats, or something else.

She bites her lip, ears pressing to her head. Feeling so ridiculously small at this moment as an anxious piccolo twitters in her aura.

"Another stray?" the silhouette says to itself, before standing gracefully and seeming to drift across the garden, each footstep lingering for only a moment, barely disrupting the clover carpet from below. The silhouetted figure stops in front of Donny, the sun shining behind her, a radiant crown on an opaque goddess. "Who are you, lost one?"

The Musechild draws her conceptual fingers back in and focuses her full attention on the Silhouette. She tilts her head up to the taller figure. Sclera narrowing in the sunlight to a cat’s slit, her ears pressing gently to her head as she takes in the stranger.

When she speaks, a melody blossoms forth that conveys the story of her emotional disposition. It comes across clearly even as she speaks so very softly it’s almost a whisper. "I'm Donny. Have—" She swallows a bit of dissonance, bittersweet sadness creeping between the icy numbness; into the inflection and her aura. "Have you seen my Mom?"

The figure reacts when she says 'Mom', almost undetectably but undeniably there — only for a moment before returning to a placid peace. "You look tired. Come with me, let me make you some tea."

The silhouette turns away and begins to recede into the garden, heading directly across towards an open hallway. After a moment, she pauses, as if waiting for Donny to follow.

Donny's hesitation lingers, conflicted by the way her lips press together and nose wrinkles. Her tail wraps protectively around one leg. She hasn't behaved like the others. She's not attacked, accosted, insulted or demeaned.

“I’ve been having a bad time,” is what she manages, struggling to find the words. Her hands shake. “Are we safe here?” Every trilled word, resonant note imparting the meaning her words fails to. ‘I have been accosted. I don’t know if I can trust you.’

"We're perfectly safe, this is our little slice of paradise, smack dab in the middle of Three-Portlands." The woman gestures at the sky, and the sun shifts to an evening orange glow. "Even the sky is under our control. In here, anybody is safe, no matter who they are."

Donny’s eyes go to the sky, she watches for a moment, before looking back to the shadow and hesitantly stepping forward into the garden. She winces when she crosses the threshold, as if expecting something horrible to happen. A single eye opens and then the other as a mote of surprise runs across her lips, she remains quite whole. Her skin and instrument gleam in the gentle sunlight. Relaxing, she blinks and holds out her hand, curling her fingers through the warmth of the rays as they fall upon her, a nearby windchime trilling with anxious energy.

“Oh, pretty,” she says softly, her voice carrying far farther than it should, the lyre singing with it. The tightness in her shoulders loosens, as she wanders absently through the gardens. Her eyes alight, watching a butterfly flutter in the sun, her lips twitching at the corners into an almost smile as the icy numbness flickers and starts to melt.

The shadow, the silhouette, has been forgotten in the beauty of the moment.

"Come now, you look paper thin. When was the last time you ate?" the silhouette says, a balance between nagging and unconditional compassion in her voice.

Donny returns from the reverie of this apparent drifting dream and the beauty of nature. The icey numbness starts to creep back in. Her eyes come down from the sky and the butterfly; refocusing on the stranger. Cautiously, she takes a few steps forward, every step to that same old rhythm, to a beat that the shadow cannot quite hear. Graceful, almost purposeful, and yet completely natural.

She absorbs the question, considering as she cautiously joins the silhouette on the other side.

"What's the date?" A curious tweeting tone rises in her voice with the question, as if the silhouette’s inquiry had been a sincere question instead of rhetorical.

"June 12th, 2018," The figure says, before catching itself, the depths of changing emotion captured by the flickering depth of the darkness. "I'm sorry, it's been a long few weeks, I never introduced myself. I'm Stephanie, or Miss Pseudo, depending on which you prefer. Shall we?" Stephanie says, gesturing to the hallway in front of them.

"Stephanie…" Donny says, rolling the name in her mouth. Her eyes turn to Stephanie again, her ears slowly perking up. Some of the caution leaks away, her lips shifting, a wrinkle of her nose and lines on her face, curiosity in the deep sea that are her eyes. "I'm," hesitation creeps back into her voice, before she shakes it off "Donatsiva Satisiva Salidore… but everyone calls me Donny." Her tail flicks, and she makes a small bobbing motion with her head, indicating for Stephanie to lead on. "15 years, that's how long since I last ate."

Stephanie begins to hum along to Donny's infectious song, always leaking through her aura, halfway between comprehension and passive ignorance, as she drifts into the hallways, Donny trailing close behind. As they leave the garden, the open air is replaced with a nondescript hallway, a soft green carpet running down its length. To the left is a large kitchen, a center island surrounded by several chairs. In a chair, a young olive-skinned woman sits eating a bowl of cereal, one leg pulled up to her body, the other sprawling across another chair; as they enter, she turns and notices them, opening her mouth to speak before remembering that she has a mouthful of cereal.

"Swallow and then speak Viv. We have a guest," Stephanie says. She crosses the room, and in a fluid motion, begins to boil a kettle of water. "Are you coming, Donny?"

Donny stands in the doorway, lingering, eyes on the other person. They trace back to Stephanie, ears moving with them before they press back against her head, tail wrapping back around her leg.

The humming of the woman had put her at ease as the Lyre echoed the notes. Another person, another human, a stranger? That put her back on edge.

"Safe?" She asks, the melody spoken and unspoken. 'Can I trust her too?'

Swallowing her food, Viv can barely contain her excitement as the words spill out. "Steph, you got us a cat? What are you, some magnet for wayward souls?"

Stephanie laughs quietly, as practiced hands collect soft earthenware mugs, teabags gently nestled inside. "Vivienne, this is Donny. Donny, this is Vivienne. She's like you; she is also hiding from the dangers of the world."

Donny's ears stand up straight, suddenly alert. "Did they take your Mom too?" No sooner have the words left her lips than she flinches; realizing how insensitive the question is. She stops a half step into the kitchen, tail flicking with anxious energy as the Icey numbness gripping her cracks and flicks off in sheets. The stiffness that sat in her muscles thawed as animation came alive in even the idlest of motions.

"I wish. Well, at least, I wish one of them would just disappear. I've got three — two real ones, and then Stephanie, the de facto house mom." Vivienne sits up, sympathy radiating out towards Donny. "We're all a little fucked up here."

Donny's mouth opens slightly at the F word. Such foul language. She sniffs the air, shuffling a bit more forward, for tea. Tea, she hasn't had tea in— "I woke up and they weren't there," she says softly, a sorrowful note, as her ears droop. "I couldn't find Mom or anyone…"

Stephanie pushes a mug across the island to Donny, as well as a bowl that she had been preparing in the background.

"You can stay here for as long as you like. It's hard to be without family," Stephanie says as Vivienne nods in somber agreement.

Donny curiously sniffs the bowl, her bushy tail flicking behind her. Her head tilts this way, then back the other, before her eyes track up to Stephanie.

"It's safe here? They… after I tore— I took some back. The music. They sent—" her ears press to her head, and she flinches, struggling. How can I explain to mortals? Would they use me as a tool? Would they try to— She shudders, and breathes in and out deeply, focusing. "They twisted them. Put them in bodies. I had to do horrible things."

"It's matzah ball soup. Try some, it will make everything better. It always does," Stephanie says, as she turns around and begins cleaning up. "We've all had to do extreme things before. Just because we felt bad does not mean that we are bad."

Donny wrinkles her nose, a moment of conflict worming across her lips which twitch, and half descend at the corners before returning to normal. No? I guess not? Do they understand? Should I say more? She eases into the chair, next to Vivienne, having to sit slightly aside due to a lack of a hole for her tail. Sharing a table with a stranger? A mortal one no less. How odd. It's been a long time…

Gingerly she takes the proffered spoon, feeling the texture of the metal between her fingers. She dips the utensil in the soup, scooping and then takes a sip, assessing the taste.

"So, is that what you can do?" Viv asks between mouthfuls of cereal. "You can do something with music?"

"Mmmm!!!!" Donny's eyes light up at the taste and start to water as a memory dances briefly before her eyes. Her ears shoot up again, before drooping.

She tilts her head, ears swiveling to Vivienne at the question, the tip of her tail curling and flecking. "Sound, music, vibrations and dance," Donny says softly, assuming the question is conceptual in nature. Between swallows she picks up one of the round things in the middle with her spoon tilting her head looking it over curiously. "Mom was…" She considers how to say it, working over how to even begin to describe to a mortal, a human. "The song. More of it than me. The golden endless melody."

"That's cool. I make things that mess with your brain."

Donny’s lips twist down, her head tilts, and her eyes hood in befuddlement at Vivienne's response. She opens her mouth to ask a question, and then closes it again as Stephanie interjects gently. She just didn't quite understand the tone of Vivienne's voice.

"We all have our unique talents here. Vivienne is a memetics and hermeneutic whiz, Duplo can remake the world around them, and Solomon does incredible things with light."

"I thought Vivienne…?" She pauses, rolling the name around on her tongue curiously. "Vivienne meant concepts?" She rolls ‘concept’ around in her mouth, saying it several times in different melodic tones and intonations. Each one projects a different feeling into the room, unintentionally as if just on raw instinct. Like she's trying to get something right. "Not things for fun? I like making; songs, melodies, and dancing. Drawings, paintings, and animations too." A beat passes, ears pressing to her head again. "The last one more recently; before— before my most recent nap."

Vivienne reaches out to touch Donny's shoulder, but hesitates, catching herself. "It's okay. You can relax here. As long as you stay, you're one of us. That means if anybody wants to hurt you, they have to get through all of us, yeah?"

Donny's ears stand straight up and her tail flicks out to full length. "I'm not worried about me." She turns, taking in Vivienne, the fragility of this Mortal life before her. She couldn't let them do that; shatter them. "They can't touch me. I don't want to be a threat to you or attract them here."

"Attract who here?" Vivienne asks, anxiety written plainly across her face.

The Musechild looks down at the envelope on her lap. Carefully; she takes it between her fingers and places it on the island. "They took my family and twisted them," she says softly; a twinge of heartbreak leaping to unseen strings. The AWCY letters shine in the light.

The glint of light bounces and lands squarely in Stephanie's gaze. A second of recognition, and the room is full of an oppressive, boiling rage. A rage that is not Rage, but just as deadly. It simmers, just out of reach, as shadows slowly begin to creep up the walls and cupboards.

Donny feels the magic, the change in abstracts, and the emotion injected into the air. She shrinks in her seat, curling her tail protectively around her body, even as it frizzes out.

Stephanie blinks, as if realizing her own thoughts, and the shadows disappear.

"I'll have Duplo make your room. I will die before I let Are We Cool Yet take anything else from you, that is a vow," Stephanie says, a cold fire still burning within.

She looks back up at Stephanie; startled tension from the sudden anger not quite dispelling. "Are those their names? The ones who stole the inspiration? The Magic? My mom and aunts?"

"'Stole inspiration'? Yeah, that sounds like them. Can't even fucking think of ideas on their own," Vivienne says, scowling. After a beat, a confused look appears on her face. "Wait, how did they steal your family?"

A complicated expression washes across Donny's features as she focuses. Oh no why did I say that? She shifts in the chair, wrestling with the fact that she has just exposed the one thing she was taught never to reveal. Should I? Does it matter now? She bit her lip.

A long moment of anticipating silence sits heavy in the air, as Donny struggles with the words. "Blood. They used blood. I woke up, not in my cottage… not in the home I built." She sniffles, eyes tearing up. "I woke up in the pond, completely soaked with blood, and when I reached out to feel her song, her concept there was nothing there around me. I had to—" Her voice falters as she takes a deep breath. "I had to reach extremely far… and that's when I found them. They'd—" She chokes on the words, sniffles and takes a long sip of her tea to relieve her clenching throat. "Sorry I, they're— It's hard to explain. Hard to explain to humans. I had to pull the concepts back out of what was left behind. To save my things and I—" She stops and goes quiet.

Silence presses down on the room like a thunderhead, threatening to swallow everyone and everything.

"You are the child of a Muse?" Stephanie finally asks, piecing things together bit by bit.

Donny looks up at Stephanie. "You call them Muses. But they're more than that… they're my family." She runs long spindly fingers through her hair. "I couldn't find my parent either… but Nes likes the trees and is shy. I can't… they're probably very scared." Her ears press to her head.

"Give me one minute, I'll be right back," Stephanie says as she quickly retreats into one of the many adjoining hallways. Donny and Vivienne are left alone, the silence palpable.

Donny sinks into her thoughts. Did I make a mistake? As she continued to drink from the mug, she didn't know why, but she felt compelled to keep talking. Like talking would stop the ice from advancing again. "I never tell anyone. When I'm among humans." She's uncertain if she's talking to Vivienne, herself or just talking, but the words keep flowing. "Mom taught me it's dangerous." It all felt like a dream. The worst, most horrible nightmare she'd ever had. She wanted Nes to walk in, for her mom to gently shake her from this indescribable torture of a night terror.

She wanted to be hugged and held like when she was small.

"My mom taught me that the anomalous was dangerous," Vivienne says, pausing for a second. "It's up to us to make our own decisions, right? Steph isn't here right now, and I know she's a bit of a 'smother', so let me ask you. Do you actually want to stay here?"

But this wasn't a dream. Some consequence of her abstracted being dancing with a divine biology. This was a real, waking nightmare, and Vivienne's voice brought her back into it.

There was no one left to hold her.

"I… if I go back to the mountain, they will eventually send more. I destroyed… so many of them." She looks at her hands. They shake relentlessly, as if reliving the experiences, and then she closes her eyes, squeezing them shut as the ice creeps back in, the animation of her movements stiffening. Rage and Anguish and the others whispering in the back of her mind. It was necessary. "I don't like it. I don't like being that way." She sniffles. "But I need to get them back." She shudders seeing the blood on her fingertips again. Watching it freeze to her skin. "I took back the music, but I didn't take Mom back. But they were mad anyway. Madder when I showed them what they'd taken."

Vivienne reaches out and grabs Donny's shaking hands, holding them softly and keeping them still. Her touch causes the ice to vaporize into steam, the blood slowly washing away from her fingers. The stillness fades as gentle harmonies whisper in Donny's ear. "I just noticed, you… you have this melody. You are— your song is beautiful," Vivienne says, blushing and looking away. Trying to draw the other girl's mind away.

Thrown by the sudden touch, the compliment and the strange reaction of the other girl, the other voices fall away. Her eyes open and she looks at Vivienne.

A storm of notes, of ancient but familiar feeling rising in her chest. Color rises to her cheeks as her ears press gently to her head. "O-o-oh. Thank you."

"Yea—yeah, no problem." Vivienne pulls her hands back in embarrassment, looking anywhere but at Donny.

The sudden departure of contact is met by Donny looking back at her hands, gently clasping, and rubbing her fingers against one another. A gentle emotion flickers in her heart, the rise of a missing refrain, a realization of absence, of some desire having not been fulfilled in a long time. Her thoughts arc back to deep in the past. A dancing memory she'd need to draw again. One that had played a thousand times, and made her blush deepen.

Vivienne begins to quietly hum a tune, bringing Donny back to the moment. The Musechild listens, her instincts rising. Rather than hum along she closes her eyes, and opens her mouth, relaxing her muscles. Donny begins to sing, wordless notes in harmony with Vivienne's pictured melody. Her voice falls across Vivienne's ears like the drip of warm honey, intonation, and character rich with texture that even the most experienced of singers would envy. Every growl, every run, every rising belt stimulating something instinctual in Vivienne's mind, a creative itch begging to be fulfilled. The Musechild's voice is both perfect and yet not perfect, every note, every rise and fall feels human in a way that perfection never could. Yet the technique and the control are flawless.

Donny does not overshadow Vivienne, no if anything Vivienne finds her voice amplified, her melody dancing intimately with the Musechild's own exquisite song. It carries down the halls, filling the entire space, echoing off the walls, crawling its way through the Pseudogenesis House.

In one room, Solomon begins to rhythmically tap a pencil, the proposal for his play finally falling into place as he is struck with inspiration.

Duplo pauses in another room. The melody flows in, and they follow it, shaping the room following the will of the verse. They are, for the first time in a long time, enjoying what they do.

Stephanie watches from the shadows of the hallway, staring as the two lost souls intertwine in song, a vision for the future solidifying in her mind. How do they keep hurting so many? I can't keep standing by idly, it's time for them to hide. She smiles. Donny will see her mother soon. I know it.