685. A Magician and A Musician

685. A Magician and A Musician

It took a day for Autumn to fully recover.

If there was a prime moment to eliminate her and Deiman, then it would have been then. But to her surprise, Ara, Raoul and Mae helped them out instead. She was prepared to pay them coins or offer knowledge of a spell just for the act of sparing them.

After all, this was Grandis.

Everything had a price.

“Actually.” Ara began, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeves. Half of her face was wet with drool after sleeping against Raoul’s back. She used the heat of the campfire to dry her face after splashing some water on her face. “We’re from Brandar!”

“Ahem.” Raoul cleared his throat.

Like yesterday, he was preoccupied with the monoliths again. A mysterious power emanated in this room and drew him like a siren’s call.

Ara shot him a glare.

“If you don’t want me to say anything then how about you start talking!?”

“A.R.A.” He punctuated the letters of her name as a warning, his voice draped with dread.

Ara growled in response like she had a pair of wolf ears of her own. She disobeyed his orders, but she wasn’t so naive to know why Raoul wanted her to keep her mouth shut.

“That’s Raoul for you. Grandis isn’t the place to muck around, but it’s nice to talk to people that don’t want to eat your fingers. Or imprison you. Or stick needles into your arms and conduct experiments. Ugh.”

Ara gushed again as a sleeping Mae shot awake in cold sweat.

“I-I’m still alive...?” Her disbelief amused Ara, who greeted her with a friendly wave. “... How are you also still... What is going on anymore?”

She kept her woes to herself and dared not to think about the elephant in the room.

Autumn shifted around the flames, inching closer to Ara.

“Needles? The Wandering Healer? Anyway, what’s an outsider doing in Grandis? I thought everyone was trying to leave.”

It was just a shame that they were not so useful on a smaller scale. They were generally useless, powerless, and existed for entertainment. Rarely could they hold their own. It took a specific kind of person to be able to weaponize music in the first place.

* * *

Ara was certainly one such person. The shape of the crystal bow possessed a sharpened edge. The conducting wand was in a place where daggers were usually kept. Ara also fastened numerous smaller weapons around discrete parts of their body.

“What? Something on my face?” Ara said, shifting uncomfortably as a hand dove into their clothes, fixing something along their chest. “So cold! Mae! Why don’t you come join us! Don’t think I can’t see the music in your eyes, you clarinet! You’re a musician too!”

Mae was doomed. If she refused now, then she’d look suspicious. If she agreed, then Raoul might notice her. She was damned either way. But she knew that this Ara person was immune to Raoul’s wrath.

Her best bet was to get close to her if she wanted to survive.

“Music! H-Heh. I was waiting f-for you to n-notice.” She stuttered miserably despite proudly placing her hands on her hips. “Clarinet? I-Is that what you see?”

“An instrument of redemption.” Ara snapped her fingers, grinning wildly at her. “One of my favorites next to the violin and the piano. C’mere and sit! I’ve been dying to meet another musician!”

Mae had no idea what she was talking about, but she played along for the sake of her survival. She expected nothing from Ara and prepared to have her ears chewed off by this chatterbox. But to her amazement, Ara’s knowledge of music was far more complex than she could have ever imagined.

It was like listening to the lecture of a Maestro; the highest ranking Impuritas of the Maestro of Flesh. At some point Mae forgot about her predicament as she was absorbed by Ara’s knowledge. She became intrigued, then invested, until Mae shook her head in disagreement with one of Ara’s philosophies.

“Music is something guttural. It must come from the flesh.” Mae argued. “It can’t come from the soul. Not a lot of people have that luxury.” Mae argued, drawing a person into the dirt which was surrounded by a giant heart. “Their hearts aren’t even their own, but they want people to see it. Not their soul. I don’t believe in that. Music can be much more. It can create new things.”

“I think that’s fine. It’s a problem for sure. There are no right or wrong ways.”

Mae expected Ara to be harsh with her.

How could someone with such knowledge not have an equivalent backbone of pride? All of the Maestros Mae knew preached and conducted their ways like they were absolute. There was no room in their hearts for another way or theory of music.

In the end, the ultimate goal of music was to feel it. It had to be linked with the self.

And what better way than for music to come from the flesh, plucked vocal cords, and hoarse lungs of oneself to truly feel the music?