Viol

Its not that music is too vague to be explained and defined by language,

It is that music is too precise.

Viol's eyes scanned the new music. She didn't see the notes so much as she saw the music. She saw the nuances and rhythm, she saw the tempo and the beat. She saw how each note melted smoothly into the next and saw them spirling upwards into a symphonic climax. Her green eyes scanned the page , her fingers turning it without conscious direction from her brain. Soon she reached the end. She raised her flute to her lips, shining silver. Then she began to play.

Like reading the music, Viol didn't consciously think about playing the song. The flute wasn't an instrument, it was an extension of herself. It wasn't her breath passing through the flute that made the music, it was her own voice. She sang out with the music, rising and falling in exquisite perfection. She trilled and hummed, her music circling up to almost dizzying heights. She was short of breath, she would have to stop soon, but the music had caught her in its thrall. Viol was powerless now, unable to stop. She played and played, eyes almost closed and chest heaving whenever she could steal a short breath.

The shock of it was almost too much for Viol, the knowledge that the song was over, dead. She might never play it again so beautifully, she might never be able to read over these notes again. Melancholy flooded her as she carefully closed the music book, lowering her flute and putting them both safely away.

"Oh, Viol, that was marvelous," came the heavy voice of her mother. "Those music lessons really payed off, didn't they, Ildhon?" Ildhon was her father, a stern man with a busy gray moustache that threatened to submerge his small mouth.

"Yes, yes. Very good," he said, not a trace of emotion in his voice. He stood up, nodding respectfully at Viol. "Keep up the good work."

"Yes, keep up the good work!" echoed her mother as she also stood.

"Thank you," said Viol quietly, the only words she had spoken since playing. "I... I really like that piece." It was the first time she had ever seen it but already it seemed like one of her old favorites. That was how she felt about all music.

"We'll just let you practice now," said her mother as she headed for the door. "You need to be prepared for your performance!"

Viol nodded, watching as her two parents left the room. Now it was only her. Well, only her and...

The golden flitter chirped from the chair that she had been sitting on during Viol's playing. At Viol's glance she fluttered up, sailing over to land on the girl's shoulder and nuzzle her softly. "Arshyu," whispered Viol, stroking the creature's golden head. "Do you want to compose something?"

The flitter chirped enthusiastically, tail twitching with excitement. "I'll take that as a yes," said Viol as she raised her flute to her lips once more.

This time there was no music, only herself and the flitter upon her shoulder. Herself, the flitter, and the song. Composing for Viol wasn't creating something out of nothing, it was finding something and bringing it out of the nothingness that it had been trapped in before. Her eyes closed, she searched. She searched for that song that was just waiting to be discovered. She searched and she found.

This song was the soft call of some bird, its name long forgotten. It was slow at first, the morning's first light as it shone down to awaken life. As pale sunlight turned into the shining gold rays of afternoon the music livened up some, becoming more robust and energetic. Arshyu and Viol were perfectly tuned with eachother, their connection through bonding allowing them to act almost as one individual. The music brought them that close. As Viol played the song became something almost tangible, something she could reach out and touch if she wanted to.

Afternoons are splendid but they don't last forever. The afternoon joy began to fade away into evening's cool, the beginning of the end of a day. The song slowed now, becoming the softer tones of dusk and twilight. Too soon, however, it was night. It was night and all was darkness, light banished from the world. It was night and then it was gone, like it had never existed in the first place.

Why did all of her songs have to end with death?

Viol let her hand holding the flute drop to her side as she sank down into one of the many chairs filling up the music room. When she first discovered music it had been like venturing into a strange new world. She didn't know how to deal with it or how to explain it. She could only fully express the feeling of a piece of music through more music, subtle blends of the old with the new. But somehow.... that black shadow loomed over everything that she played, everything that she wrote. Everything ended in the same darkness.

"I guess that that is how life is," she mused to herself as she moved Arshyu into her lap. "Death follows life just as night follows the day. It is a cycle... a cycle that cannot be stopped." She put her flute into its case, her music into a bag. "But what if a song could be written that would last forever? Then I would achieve immortality."

Arshyu chirped curiously, big eyes blinking up at her owner. For a moment the two of them were suspended like that, a piece of time caught in a sunlit window.

Viol let out her held breath with a soft puff. She smiled down at her flitter, picking her up so that she wouldn't fall as she stood. "Enough of that conversation," she said, heedless of the flit's inability to answer. "I have to perform in the concert hall in just over a week. I need to make sure that I know those songs." She already knew all of them by heart but somehow still found the need to practice. Sometimes it seemed like she filled all of her life with music until there was nothing left, nothing but the melody that kept playing hauntingly in her head.

"But... I'll practice some other time." She left the music room, shutting the door behind her. It was now empty.

************************************************************

No matter how hard Viol tried she couldn't get that thought out of her head. What if. What if she could write a song that would never stop, a song that would achieve eternity and prove that not everything had to die in the end. She had written all sorts of music before; Long, short, sad, happy, beautiful, harsh. Nothing eternal. She thought about it when she was playing. She thought about it when she was eating. She thought about it when she was walking outside under the bright sun.

Why did everything have to die, anyways?

There had to be a solution. There had to be a way out.

There had to be something eternal.

"I don't understand," she confessed to Arshyu as she sat in her parent's garden. "It seems like there is a whole nother aspect of music, just waiting to be discovered. There is something waiting out there... something that I'm not seeing."

Arshyu stretched her wings, letting them catch the light of the dwindling sun. Viol watched her flitter and then sighed, turning her eyes back to the book that she had been reading.

Though composing through thought is the traditional practice a newer form of this art has been developing recently. Certain mages are in fact now using magic to create music, inputing variables into the spell to change apsects in the works that they produce. Though the products of this method definitely qualify as music their quality is oftentimes lesser than usual composing and many do not accept this new form of art.

Viol hmphed to herself as she closed the book. Making music with magic. She couldn't recall the last time she had heard something so preposterous. Music couldn't be artificially created. It had to come from the mind for the mind was the only tool sharp enough to find the music in the depths of the universe.

Viol thought back to a few years ago when instead of music she had been studying magic. She never quite understood it, the strange words harsh on her tongue and the language unfamiliar. Music was her language now, the one that she was most fluent in. Magic....

Viol's eyes widened as a thought occured to her. Magic could be cast in different tongues assuming that the caster was profficient enough in the language. Music was her language, so why couldn't she cast spells using it? If she could figure out how the whole world could be hers for the taking, for the examining, for the discovering. She could go where no one else had ever gone before, she could dance in the stars and see the faces of gods.

Viol glanced down at the worn-leather case that she carried with her everywhere, the bearer of her true voice. "Arshyu, maybe it is better if you weren't around for this," she murmered as she undid the clasps that held the case closed. The golden flitter chirped a little unhappily but departed. Casting magic was dangerous business and experimenting with it even more so. Viol really had no idea what to expect and she didn't want to catch her friend up in potentially dangerous effects of the spells.

"Of course, that is assuming it works at all," she said as she lifted the flute out, narrowing her eyes as the light of the setting sun was caught and magnified by the instrument that she held. "Maybe some day you won't have to set if I can figure this out," she said, a solemn expression on her face. Like so many times before she raised the flute to her lips. She waited, thinking, searching for the music.

She had to find it. She had to find the music that would bring power and life to her music. Usually the music would find her easily but today she ventured into that realm and found herself alone. No, not alone. Something swirled beyond her comprehension, something dancing beyond the extent of her consciousness. She had to find it. She had to take it.

As the last ray of the setting sun lit up her pale hair like fire she grabbed.

And caught something that was wildly too large for her.

The music tore from her, an ancient beast long locked away. Her music was her voice and she was screaming, the notes changing too quickly to be named. She felt her skull pounding with the force of what she was chanelling, felt the raw energy heating her flute and scorching her hands. Her mind had become the vesself for something which snarled and clawed, something that she had no hope of controlling.

No, she had to control it! She had to control it so that she could create an ever-bright light and bask in its warmth! She had to control it so that she could know whether or not there was any way to escape the darkness that choked out the sun!

The magic aura built around Viol, crackling and puslating with an other-worldly light. She had to control it, had to bend it to her will. Viol forced herself to look at one of the plants of the garden, a small rose bush which in the shade of a tree had always struggled to live.

Grow! she commanded it as the musical energy threatened to burst loose. I command you to grow!

As the energy swirled and danced the rosebush hesitated, leaves being brushed by some unseen wind. GROW! she shrieked mentally and musically.

This time the rose bush obeyed.

It was as if it had saved up years of growth, waiting for this one moment to expend it all. It burst into frantic growth now, flowers budding and then exploding into bloom as an ethreal light filled the sprouting leaves. The rose bush expanded outwards until it extended into the path, thorny branches intertwining and weaving together.

But, like all songs, this one had an end. Aburbtly the music was gone, lost, and Viol had no memory of what she just played. She sagged backwards upon the bench that she had been sitting on, her flute dropping from limp fingers. Her eyes were filled with tears from the experience that she had just had. It was there. Another whole universe of song was there and she had touched it. She had touched it and it had nearly comsumed her.

She knew that she shouldn't dabble with it anymore but at the same time she wanted desperately to feel it again, feel the helplessness that she had thought she was feeling with other music but didn't really know what she was talking about. She wanted to feel that wild energy and to tame it to her hand, to force it to do her will and her will alone. Viol glanced at the rose bush, its scent wafting towards her on the night breeze.

"But it isn't eternal," she said as one of the rose petals fell, dancing through the air before coming to a rest on the ground. "The song is over and soon this bush will be too. Soon I will be. I don't have enough time."

A soft chittering turned her head to look at Arshyu who was clinging to the back of the bench, eyes flashing wildly. "Shh, its ok," said Viol as she plucked the flitter from her perch, petting and soothing the golden creature. "Its ok." The moon was rising above her, looking down on the earth with its pale shining face. She hated seeing the moon, alone in the darkness. That was how she was now, alone.

She stood up and began to walk back down the garden path. She would explore this more tomorrow.

************************************************************

Viol walked down a path. Empty path. Dark path. Cliffs rose on either side of her, looming until she could barely see the sky above. Dark sky. As she walked she began to notice something, the thorny bushes that lined the path and seemed to twist and writhe in the dim light. They grew as she walked past, extending bone-like tendrils and grabbing at her face and dress with their sharp thorns.

Viol reached down beside her, looking for the comfort of the flute that was always there.

She heard a warbling cry in front of her and looked to see something shining golden. Was it Arshyu? Viol ventured closer but the creature flapped away, a new burst of light spreading from each wing beat. It sang again, a trilling note, a touch of beauty. Viol suddenly wanted to reach this creature, no matter what.

She pushed her way through the thorns and fought against them when they tried to pull her back. They were between her and the bird of the golden song. She had to reach the bird. The bird was so close now, she reached out her hand, seeking to touch one of the golden plumes.

Suddenly she was frozen, her body stiff and rigid as death.

"Do you know what you ask for?" said the golden bird, its eyes regarding her wisely.

"Yes," breathed Viol though she wasn't sure if she made any sound. "I ask for the power of eternity through music."

"Do you truly wish for this?" asked the bird, its liquid eyes like silver flames.

The bird didn't smile but Viol got the distinct impression that it was, a few notes of song. "Then that is what you will have. You shall live forever and be one with the music that you make."

That is when the dream ended, disolving into the formlessness from whence it came. The sun was rising.

************************************************************

Viol awoke. It was the day of her concert, the culmination of her years of study. She got up, got dressed, brushed her hair. She didn't know about the dream she had had that night, whether it had been real or just a figment of her imagination. Arshyu fluttered to her dresser, giving her a cheery good morning with her sweet tones.

Viol smiled and opened her mouth to reply to her flitter, to wish her a good morning as well. But nothing came out. Viol cleared her throat and tried to speak again but was assaulted by the same sound of silence. Her eyes widened as she frantically tried to make a sound, any sound, that would prove that she could still speak.

She could say nothing.

Viol clutched at her throat, mind passing over explanation after explanation that could possibly make this situation any more bearable.

Her grasping mind caught on one.

It had to be the dream.

One with the music she makes for all eternity. Viol had thought that it meant she would live forever with her music and that was what it did! She grabbed her flute, knocking other objects to the floor in her haste. She blew into it and realized just what a language it could be. She was saying more than she ever had said before, expressing herself more fully than she thought possible.

It was pure... pure language.

This wasn't an ending at all, but a beginning.

That was why Viol decided to go with the dragonriders when they came.

"But why?" asked her mother, tears in her eyes. "You were to perform today! It would have been your greatest moment!"

Viol blew into the flute, a few notes.

That is nothing. This is my true calling. That is what she said, except so much more. Her mother heard the music and understood, that was its power..

"Come on," said the dragonrider. "To Darkling Dawn."

Viol nodded and her flute whistled. Yes. To my future, and eternity.

Next page. Head back home? Viol is a candidate at Darkling Dawn! Arshyu is from Blue Sky Weyr. The background is from AAA Backgrounds.