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All things considered, the group’s reaction was actually better than Aaron was expecting. Awkward silence and discomfort was something he was intimately familiar with, so the expected hush and strange looks actually relaxed him rather than set him on edge. Given the stigma against the Mental faculty, he’d half-expected them to ask him to leave (or worse) as soon as the admission left his mouth, so as far as he was concerned, he was in the good. 

He chuckled at Diego’s comment, taking a sip of his tea. “A whole fuck ton of trouble” was certainly one way of putting it. His decision alone had caused him enough trouble with Varis already, and if Hannah was to be believed, that was just the merest tip of the iceberg. [color=f0d705]“No, no, he’s not wrong,”[/color] he commented to Lilith, setting down his glass with a friendly grin. 

[color=f0d705]“I’ve heard… something like that,”[/color] he continued, directing his attention to Alexander. He put on a pensive face, considering his answer. He certainly wasn’t about to spill his [i]actual[/i] reasons to a group of perfect strangers, but he didn’t expect them to believe he did it for the hell of it either—unless he wanted to start up a new rumour of him as some sort of devil-may-care thrill seeker like Hannah. [color=f0d705][i]Ha.[/i][/color] 

Luckily, being a Sinnenodel had its perks. [color=f0d705]“It seemed like the best option to me,”[/color] he answered cooly, flicking his earring for emphasis. [color=f0d705]“We all know the Sinnenodels like their mind games, so Mental magic was the next logical step. It never hurts to get an edge.”[/color] 

His reasoning was received well enough; Hilda was still a little squeamish, but Lilith apparently appreciated Aaron’s forward thinking and the rest of the group didn’t have much negative to say. In fact, despite his major choice, they continued to receive him well, doing their best to include him in their banter and even going so far as to invite him to a group chat. Aaron was a little apprehensive, but luckily it was just a regular old digital chat, no brain-connecting involved. He’d probably keep it muted and just check in from time to time, but he had to admit it was kind of nice to be included. 

The evening continued at its lively pace, and to his complete surprise, by the time his curfew alarm went off Aaron was actually a little sad to leave. The group was also sad to see him go, earning him a few indignant “boos” when he stood to leave, but one mention of Varis was all it took for them to let him go unmolested. He left them with a friendly wave and a promise to keep in touch, setting off for his dorm with a new spring in his step. 

He had to smile. Somehow, the visit he’d one-hundred percent expected to end in utter humiliation had somehow managed to elevate his mood even beyond his little tussle with Ralph: so much so that once again, he even caught himself [i]humming.[/i] Twice in one night, that was unheard of! So much so, in fact, that he started to wonder what on earth was so stuck in his head that he was compelled to hum it. 

Now that he was conscious of it, it took a moment for the exact melody to come back to him, but he got it after a few tries, listening carefully to his own song for anything recognizable. It was painfully familiar—or was it nostalgic?—but the name continued to elude him, forcing him to wrack his brain for several more minutes before it finally occurred to him. It was the music that was playing from Dawn in his trial with Max!

No, wait, that wasn’t right; at least, not completely. It [i]sounded[/i] like it, sure—a tune Ryner often hummed as she worked—but it was too complex. Ryner’s tune was a very simple melody, nothing much complicated going on, but whatever he was humming had more to it than that. Stranger still, he could pick out bits and pieces of Ryner’s tune in the one he was humming. In fact, the more he listened, the more it sounded like a harmony of Ryner’s tune and… something else. 

It was a small thing, and probably stupid, but it stuck in Aaron’s mind all the way back to the dorm, and even after Varis dismissed him for the evening. With nothing else to do and a bit of time to kill, he pulled out his cello and a notebook and quietly plucked the tune, drawing out a quick set of staff marks to record the notes. Once the melody was complete on paper, he scratched out the notes he knew to belong to Ryner’s tune, leaving only the harmony line. 

The first time he plucked it, it sounded strange. But the more he tried it, tweaking the tempo a bit, the more and more familiar it became. Or, maybe [i]familiar[/i] wasn’t the right word; it was more like it struck him with the strangest sense of deja vu, carrying a weird and eclectic atmosphere along with it. It felt like a memory at the edge of his mind, on the tip of his tongue, and if he closed his eyes he could just barely picture the scene it came from… 

[color=gray][i]When he opened his eyes he was in another room, warmly lit with stone walls and low ceilings. Lined up were fourteen blank sarcophagi—wait, he hadn’t counted—but for some reason, he was not alarmed. The soft notes of a distant piano did wonders to calm him.[/i][/color]

The music ground to a halt as Aaron’s hand gripped the neck of his cello, eyes flying open in shocked realization. [i]That[/i] was it! It had been hazy before, but now it was clear as day: the harmony of whatever he was humming was the piano music from that strange room he’d seen at the end of Lady Sinnenodel’s little jaunt inside his head. But that tune harmonized with Ryner’s? That was strange; had the piano from his ordeal with his Lady been a construction of his own mind? He’d never been much good at composing, but it was simple enough; maybe Lady Sinnenodel had pulled the harmony out of some deep recess of his mind where he’d constructed it from the song he was so used to hearing Ryner sing. 

Either way, with his curiosity sated—and a little more thoroughly than he would have liked—he decided to put the cello away and call it a day. He’d had more than enough strangeness for one night.