[Memory] Music of the Spheres

[Lucia]

12th Ymiden, 712

"Papa, where are we going?"

"Papa?"

"Papa!"

Sometimes, Papa got lost in thought. For hours. Not that Lucia minded; she was an only child, and more than used to entertaining herself. This time was a little different, though. Her father had told her to follow him, and walked right out of the house. The child wasn't sure whether he'd have noticed if she stayed behind. Of course, it never crossed her mind to not go. Lucia was used to her father's oddness and didn't really even see it as strange.

She knew her father was unique; the Mage's Mark on his neck made that plain. Others stepped carefully around him, some distrusting and others reverent. He wasn't a Defier, but...well, many of the common folk wouldn't take any chances on that score. Not that Papa was telling; he preferred to keep the nature of his magic a secret. He'd only recently explained what he could really do. Becoming, to wear the skin of any person or animal. Empathy, to see and use the emotions of others. Attunement, to see the nature of things. That last one, Lucia only vaguely understood. But it meant he could walk around in pitch blackness without a problem, and she had been deeply impressed with that parlor trick. Lucia had then asked her father to make her a Defier, and he'd seemed...a little disappointed in her. The girl had not brought it up to him again, even though she knew that Defiers were the absolute best among the mages with their connection to the spirits of the land. Somehow, she got the feeling she misunderstood the whole business.

They walked for hours, long after Lucia was whining for her father to stop and let her rest. He didn't; they kept walking and walking and walking for what felt like an eternity. Long after the soles of her feet ached inside her cloth shoes and her face was slick with sweat from the pace that Papa was keeping. Lucia stumbled and nearly fell, and her father just kept walking with her hand in his like he hadn't even noticed. His grip tightened, though, and she realized he'd probably just start dragging her if she didn't keep up.

That went on for entirely too long, and by the time that the sun had set, she was practically asleep on her feet. Coated in sweat, her long blonde hair a slick mess, and her dress snagged ragged by the branches and bushes. Then, when it was just starting to get too dark for her to see, he released her hand and she fell to her knees and only barely caught herself from getting a face full of dirt. Blue eyes turned up toward her father, and he was looking down at her with eyes the same shade, though with the straight lines criss-crossing them that she associated only with her father. "Rest."

And with that, he strode off into the trees. Lucia realized they were in a small clearing, and briefly worried about animals coming to get her. Still, her father would be able to seek them out she was sure. He wouldn't tell her to rest unless it was safe to do so. Exhausted as she was, she just curled up on the ground and was instantly asleep.



"Lucia."

"Girl, get up."

She felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her with increasing insistence. Blearily, she opened her eyes and stared at him. It was dark with only the light of the moons and stars above her, but she could make out her father's features. She stared at him, not quite remembering the events of the past several hours. The girl glanced up at the night sky and wondered how long she'd been asleep. She certainly didn't feel like she had been asleep for long, but that might have just been the bone-deep exhaustion from the long, quick walk.

"Sit. Sit facing me, Lucia." Her father's eyes were glittering in the darkness, the strangeness of them familiar to his daughter. And, behind his eyes, the unsettling madness that she would only later realize had been dwelling there for as long as she could remember. Naturally, Lucia obeyed. Papa continued, "Good, good. I'm going to sing you a song, child. A beautiful, wonderful song. You have to try to understand it, all right? As fast as you can. You can't get up once I start. Promise me, Lucia. Say you won't get up once I start singing. After you understand the song, you'll be able to do the things I can do. You'll be a mage. Do you understand?"

Many might have expected Lucia to be overwhelmed by the rapid information dump. They didn't know Papa, though; that kind of thing was very normal for Lucia. Tons of information all at once, and an expectation that she mostly understood it. While the child didn't totally understand most of the time, she knew how to nod and act like she did. She did that now, even though her mind was whirling with what this meant. She knew initiation into magic was wildly dangerous, even for Attunement which had a better survival rate than most. She also knew that it was what gave Papa his strange eyes. Aside from that, she didn't understand a great deal...but she knew there would be no talking her father out of this. Really, Lucia wasn't even sure she'd want to tell him no. After all, she knew she wanted to be a mage like he was. Attunement was the most boring magic of course, but her father said it was the best one to start learning with.

So she sat, looking at him and waiting for him to start.



It was...marvelous. Like all of the bells in the city chiming, mixed with the coolness of a spring morning. It was horrible, each chime chipping away at her sanity. A bone-deep chill, the deepest darkness of Cylus. She wanted it to stop, and wanted to hear it forever. It was a strange duality, mirroring the strangeness that was scrabbling at her soul, trying to find purchase there. Tears sprang to the girl's eyes, and they burned like ice on the way down her cheeks. She was feverish without sweating, and unable to fully make sense of the music she heard. It was like she understood the broad strokes of it, knew that it was music and what kind of music it was...but she could not focus on any single instrument.

Not that there were instruments. Whatever was coming from her father's mouth was neither a mortal voice nor an orchestra. The girl scrunched up her features in a frown as she stared at her father, trying to make sense of what was going on. His eyes were bright, sweat beading down his face. This was not easy for him, it seemed. She knew it took a powerful mage to teach somebody else magic--it was like sharing part of your soul with someone else. Lucia was starting to realize what Papa had meant by needing to "understand" the music. It didn't make sense to her, and while it was beautiful it was simply incomprehensible. The child listened for several minutes--displaying impressive focus for a preteen--before saying, "Papa, I can't do it!" She was frustrated, and had no idea how she was going to do as he wanted.

She had to make sense of something that simply did not make sense at all, and the child could feel tears in her eyes. Not from disappointing her father, but from fear. Lucia knew very bad things happened when an initiation failed; she'd suffered nightmares for days after being told how would-be Becomers melted and mutated and died...or worse, became monsters that consumed others and took on their skin. The look in her father's eyes at her protestation made it clear she had no choice here; he was not going to stop, and she knew that if he did something bad would happen. What, she did not know...but it would be truly awful.

Setting her jaw, the child glared at her father and resolved herself to continue trying to work it out. Minutes later, she closed her eyes and focused. Her breaths slowed, and she seemed to almost be asleep...but she was working hard. Focusing only on that song. It took nearly an hour before she resolved the first note, able to focus on it to the exclusion of the rest of the song. By then, her whole body was slick with sweat, and her dress was both grass-stained and damp. She grinned, but kept her eyes closed so as to not lose the strand of music she'd worked so hard for.

It was purer than a mere voice or orchestra; it was the essence of music. The thing that gave music its music-ness. It wasn't really sound, either, but the thing that made sound able to be sound. She was hearing the sound-ness of sound. The next thread came faster, at only a quarter-hour. Then the next, and the next, and the next. Once in a while, she lost a thread and had to refocus in on it, and once she nearly toppled the whole construct. Deep inside, her soul was beginning to graft with the Spark, the thing digging thin furrows into her being to find a place to rest.

Then, all at once, she was the music. She could grasp each thread and understand it in a moment. The whole song was indescribable; it went beyond melodies and harmonies into the very core of what it meant to be musical. It was pain, too. The human mind was not meant to grasp these concepts, she realized as her brain began to thrum along with the music of music-ness. It was like an orchestra trying to tune itself and failing. Like a blacksmith at his forge, pounding at the Lucia of Lucia-ness. Madness bubbled through the cracks in her soul, and suddenly she was crying again. This was not how it was supposed to go! She was supposed to succeed, to be a mage like Papa, to be--

Restructured.

That endless instant came to a jarring end as her mind was reorganized around the Spark that now defined her nearly as much as her very soul did. Sound was not just sound, but the sound-ness of sound. The madness receded, and while the concept of what she'd understood remained...she never again fully grasped it. It was for a mind greater than that of a twelve-year-to become Revealed.

The next thing Lucia remembered was waking up in her bed, unsure whether or not any of it had been a dream. Until she looked down at her filthy dress and it all came back to her. Probing her mind, she felt...something there. A little knot that felt like a smooth stone. Beside it (in that odd way a thought can be) there was soft singing. Not at all like the horrible, wonderful music her father had given her, but simpler. It was in her head, and always would be--her Frequency, though she did not know the word for it. The knot and sound only barely made sense to her, yet she somehow knew that they were part of what would let her do magic. Magic... So she was a mage! The girl grinned, then tried to scramble out of bed to go chatter at her father about it. And, the moment she tried to stand, she collapsed and smacked her face against the wooden floor. It turned out that her father was gone, and she was left to her own devices as per usual whenever he had work to do.

Odd; the music in her mind changed. A sharp, staccato Note. She wondered what it meant.