For the greater majority of his life, the world consisted of a single household. Everyone else was simply theory. His heart was too big for such surroundings, and so he filled it with adventures, comrades, worlds, friends, and even a wife. He was not blessed with eyes of the divine, but then again, most sheep weren’t. With what sight he had, he gathered up these precious things, and held them close. Now, the visions of a god pours into him. And no divine insight to help him make sense of it all. To know. To [i]know[/i] the people, the places, the homes, all as real and living as him. All gone. Through no fault of their own. With nothing they could do to stop it. It is a horror too great to fit in a single household. So his heart bursts. Shatters into dust. And still, the visions keep pouring in. Still, he looks, he [i]must[/i] look, at each vision, before it is lost. They were here. And they’re gone. He knows. He must remember. He carries them now. Another. The next. No more. Stop. Why. Don’t look away. Don’t forget. He can’t. No. No. No no no no no no no nono no no non o Trapped within his own mind, Dolce drowns. The business of his body must go on without him. [Damaging [b]Courage[/b]. Paying a price for working alone: Dolce is stunned, unable to act in whatever happens next.] ********************************************************* Her face turns to the sea. Her eyes fall to the ground. “I am tired, sir Knight. The years are long, even in the telling. Let me rest, and I will give you my answer after.” For the rest of that first day, the ancient castle held her fast within its walls, and permitted her nothing. It shepherds her into an ancient library, well-maintained, with high windows to welcome the sunlight and permit the breeze. Among the jewels of a civilization, she hobbles straight for a laughably thin novel. By the end of the first chapter, she knew the entire story. By the end of the last chapter, she’s had to move twice to follow a tantalizing sunbeam. The castle brings her to a high rooftop, the village stretching out below her in its entirety. Her hands found paper and pencil, and idly she translated its criss-crossing roads to sketchy lines. She follows the paths by which the town must have grown, in times long past, out from the castle it was placed to serve. And when her thoughts grow sluggish and the bounds of her ability draws near, her host provides a plate of soft cheese and bread. Sit. Eat. The view will not go anywhere, and neither will she. As night fell, and her path took her back to her bed, she passes a room full of instruments. Entertainments, for a time when musicians might live in employ here, to delight the heart of their patron with their talents. But her eye fell on a guitar, too worn and weathered to ever appear before the Furnace Knight, whose purpose was only to serve as practice for better tools. This, she took with her. In the safety of her room, her fingers slowly remember a dance practiced too rarely. The empty halls of the guest wing fill with the plinking of strings, gradually restored to rightful tuning. Notes, without music. Far more than she’d thought she’d have. ******* On the second day, her sentence is lightened; no more confinement. For the first time, she walks the beaches unaided, paws sinking into delightfully warm sand. She sets out with a packed lunch, and no destination. Her wanderings take her through the village paths she’d sketched, to squares that had once been alive and thriving, the intersection of a hundred lives she’d never known. The paintings of a Path-lost artist guide her, murals spanning entire blocks and twisting around houses and onto rooftops. Over the hills, through brilliant patches of flower, and up to where a tall, tall tree stood sentry over a glittering, inviting cape. Who was she to refuse? An outcropping of rock serves as a diving board. In a graceful leap, she arcs into the sea, cutting through the water with steady, practiced strokes. She propels herself ever-onward, even as waves seek to push her back, fight her passage, tire her out. It will have her, in the end. It is too great a foe, and even those with gills must rest eventually. But inside she burns, and her muscles burn, and she glides ever-onward, and none of this was possible yesterday. On her return to shore, she climbs up, up to the boughs, to take in her opponent, to take a well-earned lunch, to take a nap in the sun. To wake, and see the island all about her, and the stars blinking in one by one. Worlds she’d seen. Worlds she could see. Nothing between her and them but time and space. The guest wing flooded with experimentation, that night. A freeform drifting of songs, plucked half-remembered from her mind, and blended with the sensibilities of her heart. Songs that were not hers. Songs she had no right to. But songs she could play, and return to, all the same. ******* On the third day, she watches. She watches the horizon. Clouds drift as only clouds can, yet their ways are as unique as Salib. Vibrant colors, peeking over the oceans, carrying on paths she cannot see. Flashes, where some dense congregations collect, and a shimmering haze falls beneath them, playing a percussion she cannot hear. Spherical Azura ships dart through the Skies, a constant glittering accompaniment. No shine of Engines, only the distant impressions of embellishment and pride. Always they fly, carrying on business she cannot know. She watches the Glaive. It rests where she laid it; leaning against a stand meant to display, as a trophy. As a memory. It has not moved for days. No one has disturbed its rest. They are alone, the two of them. She studies the weapon, as if her hands could not trace the shape of it. As if her arms could not recall its weight, its balance. Leave nothing for granted. Gaze upon your partner, with eyes refreshed and new. See what secrets lie hidden, if she only had taken the time to see them. But the Glaive is silent. She watches the Furnace Knight, and not for the first time. He works his ancient body through a routine both ingrained in stone and always-evolving to the day’s needs. Stretching, practice forms, recovery, strikes, techniques, all blend together in a free-flowing symphony of motion, that nevertheless hides its most precious secrets from his attentive audience. The invitation stands, that she may join him. But so does a question, and so she stands apart. That night, her songs are soft. Her songs are sweet. One by one, she plucks them out, and she plays until she cannot sing for weeping. She falls asleep clutching at her chest, as if she could pull emptiness itself out and toss it aside forever. ******* On the fourth day, she steals away from the great house, taking her guitar with her. She tells no one, crosses paths with no one, and finds a quiet field of vibrant vegetation to play her songs to. The Furnace Knight finds her anyway. Gracious host that he is, he slips into the audience without disturbing her song, and as the last notes fade, he patiently awaits the next one. For a breath, all is quiet. “You may have never crossed paths with the Starsong.” Her fingers work a low, thoughtful backing. “They are a more recent addition to the universe. Life, born from the drecks of humanity’s fall. Rarely do more than a handful come from the same world, the same lives, and yet. All are united in a common cause. All have felt a brokenness, and now work to set it right. Whether it be by the folly of the Empire, or something far worse still, they see a universe that has lost its song, and dearly needs music again.” Her song grew loud, but not loud enough to completely swallow up her soft sigh. “Idiots…I don’t know what the universe needs, sir Knight. I hardly know what I need. But what I want?” Her fingers slowed, and lay still. Her song faded to silence. It has been days, and she is tired. So tired. “I just…I don’t want any more people to be chewed up in the wars of the wicked. And…I want to be someone, who could bring that about without [i]completely[/i] ruining it. That, sir Knight, is my wish.” “Those I’ve tried to love. Those I’ve…” Her fingers run through some thoughtless notes. To hide her crumbling voice. “Well. They don’t deserve any less than that.”