15th Loshis, 2719
OLD ROSE | MORNING, POST COFFEE
OLD ROSE | MORNING, POST COFFEE
MusicShow
“Okay. Okay…..okay.” He said repeatedly, as though saying it enough would make everything exactly correct and as it should be. Reaching out, he let his finger tips graze the items in his circle.
“So, I’ve got…elements of my backlash.” The galdor said as he touched a burned ashy lump of wood from the fireplace, cold and dead from the night before.
“And I’ve got elements of my casting.” His long fingers brushed over the gently melting candles that were positioned after the wood, lit and barely flickering in the still air of the rented room, which completed the small circle.
“And an element of myself.” Almost tenderly, Eli let his fingers rest on the harpsichord before him, touching the keys gently. Wetting his lips nervously, the brunette Bastian laughed and looked up at the ceiling.
“I’m not sure if I am supposed to be part of a plot, but I guess we’ll find out!” It was clear the galdor was completely out of his league in this moment, acting like an awkward schoolboy about to go on his first date. Inhaling and exhaling loudly, he shook his hands out and stretched his neck.
“Argh I am really hot. Is it really hot? Maybe I should open a window.” The young man said with a tilt of his head and a wave of his hand at his face, knowing full well he was stalling. He shook his head with a laugh, reaching for the keys of the harpsichord only to suddenly make a strange sound and curling them tightly into fists.
“This is ridiculous. I mean, I know what I want to do, and I’m going to do it but is it enough? I feel like I’ve just made up some voodundun that might, I don’t know, raise the dead or something terrible.” Elias continued to talk at himself, or at the items in the plot. He was alone in the rented room, Xavier gone to give him some sort of privacy to think—not that it was helping—and not a drop of alcohol in his system.
It was tie to stop procrastinating.
“Alright Elias. Stop being an erse, and get on with it.” He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes and resting his hands on his knees, before exhaling slowly. The sorrowful-yet-dangerous woman that had visited them for her jewels had explained that he couldn’t force the mona to talk to him again. It was a process, he had to find what worked for him. Even if he didn’t know what that was yet.
Steadily, the galdor breathed, in and out, letting his mind clear of self-doubt and loathing. He focused on the way his chest expanded and contracted, letting his tattered field expand from him with each outward breath. It brushed over the burnt wood, and the candles, finally over Leandrah’s harpsichord. Elias could feel the mona drawing away from him, away from the aura that time and time again had been misused and untrustful. Instead of getting frustrated, or upset, the Bastian acknowledged their hurt. He accepted their anger.
In and out.
The air around him was still, heavy with the absence of the mona, void of Conversation. Breathing, patient, candles burning through their wicks, the stubbled creature tried to connect with them. Just to open himself to them.
In and out. His right leg was going numb.
Maybe he hadn’t lit enough candles. Maybe he had to try and cast something to get their attention. Inhaling, the young man gently spoke syllables of monite. A beginners spell, basic push in a gentle outwards motion. It wasn’t even a discipline, so basic a child could do it. His field reached, his mind cleared.
In and out. His ass was digging into the floor, and his nose itched.
“Okay, this isn’t working.” Elias said with a sigh, opening his eyes and blinking a few times to adjust his vision. He glanced at the candles, one had drowned in its own wax. Nothing really felt different or connected or…right. None of this was right. None of this was him, it was just…an idea. An idea based on someone else’s success.
He had to open himself to the mona. Show them his vulnerability. Show them his inner most being.
The Bastian’s eyes skimmed to the harpsichord, brow drawn. Standing carefully, stretching his back and rubbing a buttcheek, he picked it up carefully and gently placed it on the table. Slipping into the chair, he ran fingers over yellowed keys with a loving reverence.
“You’d have known what to do. You were so smart, and beautiful. You would have figured it all out, and I would have been trying so hard to walk a mile in your footsteps.” A lump caught in his throat, and Elias swallowed hard, resting both hands on the keys. He exhaled, relaxing his field around him, letting his fingers fall into a vaguely familiar pattern. Slowly, not at all perfectly and a little offkey, the brunette fumbled through the memory of a tune. Closing his eyes, the man repeated the stanza, remembering the song that his sister had been teaching him before that night. He let the notes stretch into his aura, filling the air around him with music rather than awkward tension.
And then, he felt it.
Like the curious touch of a new lover, he could sense the tentative Static particles touch the outskirts of his field. Creeping against him, testing the waters. Elias felt a half-sob escape with his next breath, and he opened his eyes to look at the keys as he played the tune badly, but with all of him. He thought of Leandrah, and his mother, and his father. He acknowledged them, allowed himself to feel the feelings he had pushed down for such a long long time. Tears wet his cheeks, the Bastian crying now, field opened wide to speak to the mona however closely they wanted to listen. It was barely a touch, but they were there. They were listening.
Fingers faltering on the keys, the heart weary galdor slowed his playing, lifting his hands to his face as he wept with grief and with relief. As the song ended, he let the stretch of his field ease, and the mona drew back—though not entirely. Not completely.
They were there. They were listening.
He’d found his connection.
