[center][h2] Treblea [/h2] [/center] - - [h3]Castrato[/h3] "But maman! The sunset through the trees is supes pretty!" exclaimed the red-haired, small girl exclaimed over her shoulder back in the direction of the house. Her pale, heavily freckled skin was outlined in a golden hue from the very sun that was just now setting over the trees a good quarter of a mile away from their small countryside farmhouse and even larger barn. The treeline formed a ring that arced off into the distance in either direction. The uniformity of the ring was quite eerie and unnatural in and of itself. It was the sunset, however, that distracted the adventurous eleven-year-old lass from the weird forested border of the land of Treblea. "No dear!" the mother in question, a fairer skinned woman in her late thirties replied whilst hanging laundry on a clothesline above a stone-bordered trench in the ground layered with coals in the middle. The resulting heat wafted upward from the long little trench, effectively - if slowly - drying out the fabrics. With a faint lilt in her voice, the older woman with kindly green eyes resumed speaking, "What have I told ya about goin' into the forest naew? It be dangerous in there, it is. All kin's of weird magic. Ye liable to c'ot yer arm off like yer father! Now is that what ye want, hmm?" She finished her spiel before dumping more coals in the long trench to replenish the dying flames. The clothes were to dry overnight, for it was to be a clear evening, and be ready in the morning for their trip into the town of Castrato proper at the crest of its hill. The girl hung her head in despairing obedience, shuffling her bare feet inside and running her hands over her extremely simple white cotton dress that her mother had sewn lovingly for her with musical knitting needles - click, clack, clickity clack! - over the course of the entire last winter. The family went inside their simple two story brown wooden farmhouse, made from trees harvested from the edge of that very forest. As dusk fell a set of glowing purple eyes framed by long, thick, shaggy whitish gray fur stared hungrily out of a thicket of bushes at the family's house...and more specifically...the pen full of livestock, and one horse, that stood or slept in a fenced off area beside the long, low, wide barn adjacent to the house. The gigantic wolf, whose fur seemed to ripple with an odd, arcane energy that no being had so far had lived to recount, leapt from his hiding place and crossed the quarter of a mile distance in a mere thirty seconds, leaping over the short fence as casually as if it were a pile of poo on the ground he had discovered while strolling. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ [h3] Note [/h3] Seven men and one woman reclined with various instruments on long, low couches....if they could be called couches. The Treblean verbal language did not have a word for them aside from a generic "tolg" which could be used to describe a bed, a sofa, a chair, or just about anything a butt made contact with - yes, anything, euphemism included. The one woman, Lady Triblianistven, was the newest chosen official for the capitol of Note. Their current deliberation of sorts was whether or not to change the capitol city's name from Note to Notea. A big pro in favor of this change was that it would shore up confusion in day-to-day conversation on whether or not someone was referring to music notes, their currency shaped like music notes, or the city itself. Debates such as these were not typically decided orally in Treblea. Rather, at each seat as it were, all the Treblean representatives formed a council, or more precisely, a musical ensemble. Each of them held an instrument. The representative of Capriccio bore a string instrument called a lyre. The Castrato representative, the only other female, held a flute firmly to her lips, legs crossed and eyes closed in concentration. Soprano's representative, a male whose voice was renowned for being oddly high-pitched despite his tall and reedy posture, sat blowing on a long dark pipe-like instrument that produced hollow notes; their word for this was simply an oboe. Mezzo's representative, an elderly man with a long white beard and who wore nothing but a toga that "let all or most of it hang out", sat crisscross applesauce - much to the dismay of the Notean female leader directly across from him - and plucked upon a medium-sized harp. Alto's representative, an exceedingly handsome black-haired male with glistening muscles and an abbreviated costume, if somewhat more modest about the nether region than the older man's, reclined in a relaxed manner and blew into the mouthpiece of an odd looking checkmark shaped instrument. When questioned as to the instrument's name, he would look at you, not pausing to take his mouth off the mouthpiece and simply mumble "sax" audibly through the piece. This often confused women - and the rare man - into thinking he wanted "favors" from them. Rococo's representative slapped the stretched hide leather tops of four drums laid out across his lap in a staccato, chill beat; his head dipping and chin jutting out in time with the motion of his hands. Lastly, Etude's representative, a small, hook-nosed man with an arrogant demeanor about him, sat and played the liveliest tune of them all on a violin, which the people of Treblea called a veidhlin. It was in this matter that the Trebleans represented each of their respective hilltop miniature kingdoms. Whosoever they voted on for best performance afterward would get final say on the issue currently being debated. As a result, all the performers had been playing their different melodies and rhythms and beats since three hours past the cock's crow. Night had now fallen on the city of Note(a) and the makeshift politicians still played on. Their families had long since entered the center town building that served Note(a) as a city hall or gathering place of sorts. Etude's wife decided to tempt her husband by waving a hot bowl of stew underneath his chin, but the stern-faced man simply closed his eyes and played an even faster tune on his veidhlin. The tension in the room was palpable as the music reached a crescendo, each melody blending in with the others in a discordant crash that was both beautiful and horrendous simultaneously. This was about the sixth crescendo of music for that day, the loudest one yet. As the music reached a fever pitch and the familial crowd began swaying back and forth in response, caught up in the dramatic climax, all eight representatives threw back their heads, one after another, and called out a vote. Each one's vote was either "Note" or "Notea" as their faces were suddenly graced with beatific smiles; most of them had a prodigious sheen of perspiration on their brows and/or cheeks. The vote was denied six to two, the two women on the "council" each voting in favor of Notea over Note. At last, the music finally fell away into silence and everybody in the room breathed a sigh of relief and exchanged triumphant smiles regardless of political sides. The fact that the Castrato representative had voted with Note's female representative was no surprise. Castrato had a rule that men were not allowed to rule or manage money. They also had a rule where all men in servant roles must be castrated, even if they became a servant in the middle of their life. Uncastrated working males were viewed by Castratan women as unclean and perverted for better or worse. This bias has existed ever since their hilltop town had been run by a cruel, supremely power-hungry, schauvinistic narcissist named Billy when the town had been named Vigliacci. ______________________________________________________________________________________________