Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 62: Intent

Toren Daen

I watched from the edges of the fire, smiling as young children played at being mages. One of the boys, who seemed to be swallowed by the thick coat he wore, swung a stick at his friend as if it were a sword. His friend parried it with an exaggerated swipe, thwacking his opponent on the shoulder in a wild riposte.

The boy cried out, then threw away his stick. He rushed his friend, tackling him into the snow where they rolled. Their parents had to intervene to pull them apart, but the entire thing made me snicker slightly.

Do asuran children ever squabble like that? I asked my bond as I sipped at the familiar stew. The night air was chilly, and tomorrow would be the new year. Greahd's gathering had a lot more people tonight, and there were a dozen more fires and unfamiliar people. The New Year's Festival of East Fiachra wouldn't be as grand or showy as those currently taking place in West and North Fiachra, but I had a feeling there were ties and connections here found nowhere else.

My asuran companion watched the squabbling children apologize to each other with a fondness in her eyes. "They certainly did," she said, with something like nostalgia drifting through her voice. "It was not so easy to separate their squabbles, but our young learn early to restrain their strength."

One of the boys was the child who had lost his fingers from frostbite. His mother gave me a hesitant nod, before shuffling him off.

The people didn't look at me with such utter distrust as before. I was seeing the effects of my actions here, slowly but surely. The children played around the small square, laughing and playing as children should. A few had thicker coats, courtesy of the Rats' donations.

Past blithe addicts didn't have such empty eyes. But there was a tension in the air, like that of a live wire that needed to be released. It confused me. Why was there such anxiety as things improved?

But I had more to think about right now. I held my violin in my hands, the aged wood a comforting weight against my collar. I closed my eyes, testing a few chords and trying to reach the mindset I had the last time I played for these people. What I had done that time was special.

I had done it in a trance. The way I infused my emotions and thoughts into the waves of sound, projecting my hopes into the mana.

Only after the fact did I question what I had done. Eventually, I realized I had pressed my intent into the air but in a far different manner than killing intent.

Killing intent was blunt. It was brute force, blazing confidence, and utter surety in your power forced onto everybody nearby. But what if you didn't try to press others into the ground with your intent? What if you tried to convey more complex emotions than just bloodlust?

I drew my bow over my strings, a higher, hopeful note vibrating out. I latched onto that sound, allowing myself to feel what it brought to the surface. Then I tried to contain it, pressing it into the ambient mana like I did when I wanted to impose my will on others. That part was easy. It was similar to how Lady Dawn demonstrated how to wall off my thoughts and emotions, except instead of keeping them in, I tried to push them out.

The emotion flowed out for a moment. I felt the ambient mana shift, my intent made manifest. I felt a wave of jubilation, which also flowed into the mana.

I wasn't prepared to portray that emotion, causing my concentration to stutter as the note finished. For the briefest of instants, I succeeded in my attempt to send raw, unfiltered feeling into the air through more than just music. But a second later, it faltered.

I looked at my bow, humming. I knew I was onto something. This was an art that was beyond simple fighting and killing with sword, shield, and spellfire.