sparkle

Midnight Song

"We have to find a solution, Danae", the young prince whispered to his neighbour at the banquet.

The priestess frowned and then nodded her assent: the Light was fading, the kingdom's force was only the ghost of what it used to be , and the night around them was not the tender black velvet that cradled their dance. Not anymore.

The king had refused to see the weakening of his own strength until lately, when he realized he couldn't do almost anything. The healing powers had been the first to disappear, but then he didn't use them often enough to understand when exactly he had lost them for good. He let his son, the young prince Gabriel, do all the healing and everyday managing of the realm; he was far more concerned about arts and music, and the power that was needed to remain the unquestioned king of the Midnight Song.

The Midnight Song was a glorious symphony, that some species, humans mostly, referred to as the "humming" that inevitably accompanied life. Poor creatures. They didn't understand.

The Song was life itself. It was the undertone of existence, and some blessed living species, such as Darwanian were, had the role to keep it going, to help its constant and harmonic flow through universe. Darwanian were the oneswho had this role on planet Earth.

There were rules, and disciplines to be observed in order to maintain the balance, otherwise the harmonic unfolding of life would be compromised, and the natural world would be shattered apart.

The king had the specific duty to keep the song going, to add his own, carefully selected, measures to the song as a signature of his passage in the universe and then to pass the knowledge to his heir in order to never interrupt the flow. He had also people to rule and to care for, and the people were supposed to interact with the monarch giving him news from the world, inspirations, thoughts to think about that could contribute in creating a richer, deeper, and more beautiful song. The song had played for thousands of millennia and never ceased to do so, except of the small interruption that led to the wiping off of dinosaurs from Earth, but a subtle change was occurring in the last few (two hundred or so) dances that marked the addition of a new measure to the song.

A new voice had intertwined her independent choir to the main theme; it seemed both known and strange to the ears of the singers, and deeply disturbed their working. It was initially just a nuisance, a small hint of something, like a single drop of black ink in a bowl of  pure water.

Someone had seen it as a threat, but most of the people simply ignored it and continued their endless singing and looking for new things to tell their monarch to add to the song. The monarch himself was not concerned about the little, subtle new voice; it seemed to him that its weakness somehow exalted the glory and perfection of its work, in a sort of counterpoint singing.

But then, just like a small drop of ink blossoms into water and has everyone look fascinated as it unfolds its mysterious beauty only to understand too late that its expansion will change the water forever, the voice modified its tune, became more powerful, even if not stronger in intensity and in a weird, uncomprehensible way, started to affect the singing of the darwanian musician. They drifted away from their trace, modified their singing without knowing how or why, and then fell ill.

Some of them became mute, while others simply died. The king tried to heal them, using his powers, but found that he had no strength spared; it somehow had faded away while he was too intent in perfectioning his music. Meanwhile some animal species were going extinct.

He initially thought that Nature's music was changing, and that he simply had to readjust the partition to the new invisible singer. And then he lost his Queen.

It was at about the half of what some humans called "20th Century".  The silly creatures were engaged in a war, brother against brother, with idle concepts such as "racial supremacy" that only showed how primitive they still were. Darwanians singers tried to keep the music going focusing on the other living species, trying to preserve the rest of the living realm from human's raging fury.

Then, humans came up with a weapon that showed a suprising and sudden advance in their knowledge of nature inner mechanisms. They called it "H-Bomb".

It was 6th of August 1945 when the bomb was used.

In that day the new voice roared to life, with a maddening sound. The singers exitated in a disarrayed mess,  their perceptive senses momentrily blown up ,and then  resumed their singing, shaken to the core. Not everyone was that lucky, though.

The queen was a vibrant creature of light, joy, a continuous source of inspiration for the most beautiful notes the king had produced, and her spirit was part of the magic that marked the most heartfelt and tender human emotions.

She was distressed and saddened by the war, hurt to the point of insanity by the useless cruelty humans perpetrated against each other and decided, after a period of stunned silence, to try to sing her song of sweetness and joy along with her people, in order to alleviate the sufferings of the tortured souls she perceived, even if there were places simply too bleak to be reached by the voice of life. Spots of darkness, initially in the middle of European continent, and then scattered all over the world. Auschwitz, Treblinka, Dachau, were only few of them; no real life was allowed here. It was a realm of inscrutable and unseen evil, hope and future banished by a force of unknown origin.

She was singing and trying to soothe the soul  of Hiroshima's inhabitants, having the foreboding feeling of something unknown and terrible.

When the fallout hit the city, she stopped abruptly, a look of utter despair displayed on her features, just before falling to the ground. Those who were nearby whispered afterwards that they were able to perceive the exact moment when her heart stopped beatingand her eyes went void, with a single crystalline tear running down her cheek .

She had glanced to the king with a look of love and a plea that never escaped her lips, but that was able to reach him through their mental bond. "Stop the voice" she murmured with her distraught soul, before falling to perpetual silence herself.

From that day on the King's voice was crackled, and a sort of bleak numbness seemed to descend on everyone.

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Hello! it was a long time!

here we meet Gabriel! He has inherited quite some issues from his family, but fortunately has someone he can confide and rely on... Danae is the priestess of time and no one suited her better than Enya's grace and elegance ... we shall get to know them  better :)

Love :)

D