To Rhial

44

Tells

Ain't no way a-ha got sent to this place with us, but sure enough the sound of their music was coming from two instrument-toting fruitcakes.

"It's the strangest music I ever heard." The voice came from the edge of the doorway as I entered the theater. I turned around to see the lanky, poorly rendered Christian Bale. "You're Adam's friend, yeah? Lady Simira's hand?"

I nodded.

"Don't think we've met yet. Call me Rezyn."

"I don't think I'll need to call you." I awkwardly glanced at him and then turned back around to the music.

"One second, if you would?"

I grudgingly turned back around.

"Have you seen Lady Simira? I have been meaning to speak with her."

"In her office. Like usual."

"Right, thanks for saving me a run around the manor, Tells."

He smiled like a creep and slinked around the corner.

Yeah. He's bad vibes.

Despite him, the most uncanny part of all of this was the display on stage. The clowns were wrapping up "Take On Me" and talking to the crowd, which was the most alive I had ever seen the people in this manor. I was genuinely questioning who they could be until they started playing Skynyrd. Desmond wasn't subtle. He'd give his left nut just to lick the stage that band walked on.

I found a seat near the back of the room and chilled for a bit. I didn't come into the theater often, but it was a dark, easing change of pace. After not hearing music for so long, it was like my entire body reverberated with the beat. Even for such stripped down, barebones music, the stress trickled out of my shoulders and back, and I let my face relax for the first time in a while. The whole mess with Vetia was eating away at me, but I didn't hate Simira for it, as much as part of me wanted to. She was a better person than her father, so if I could help her make this portion of the city better, I wanted to.

This music is so nice to hear. What would our future look like if we'd never been taken here? All of us have powers and abilities that we can definitely get loaded off of. And maybe one day, after we all do our thing and kill a monster or save the world or whatever, we can build our own castle up on the rocks floating high above the planet. Wouldn't that be a dream? What would I do after a while, though? Sure, we'd have a hideout, but settling down... I'm still making sense of how I am now. Will it get easier? Will I be able to "settle down" at all?

Tired of overthinking it all, I drowned out the music and pulled "Djoteided's Beat" from my satchel.

Twas a bright, lovely day 'tween bursts of ash. The brain gloriously illuminating the land and inspiring new thought upon that forum. Gazing upward, basking in knowledge, bright ideas abounded among my compatriots within the forum. However, upon a white stone bench, muddying the pristine glamour was, once again, Larmeonip. Hair scraggly and legs half-caked in fresh mud. Steps tracked from entry to seat and not a man spoke to him.

"Man! If you be man and not beast, prove it and I shall a golden coin bestow upon thee. For why didst thou ignore my summons, my humble invitation to supp and then show filthy upon this forum, whose denizens are akin to my kin?! Speak, Larmeonip."

"Many thanks be upon ye for such a chance, Unwise Djoteided! To my displeasure, my body and mind are muddled and muddied. Forgive any confusion I may have."

"Ay, shouldst thou be of unusual mind, then I shan't critique thine words too harshly. Alas, my query presently stands, messy Larmeonip."

"A beast I am not, but a messy man I may be, as a cake of mud is surely inedible and unwanted at supper."