Dominion

That 1st Chapter ~ His Bone (2/3)

002

"Do you hear it?"

Ethereal silence, a melancholic melody wafted through Brooklyn's verdant ruins. Scene of dilapidated buildings crept by greens, the effervescent Weiss child closed her eyes. Tick, tick...said the chronostat─hearing leaves gone with the wind, she listened. Small hands grabbed onto her rapier's hilt─none the elegance nor steadiness in her stance.

Almost, she would have stumbled from the weight if her grizzled grandfather didn't assist her back.

For her tenth birthday, her gift was a blade.

Before the question of lethal tolerance, nothing about it screamed of steel. Cacophonous of what you'd call mysterious─of ivory or bone never once identified. Maybe it was from an elephant's tusk slain during a clash against the Persians during her grandfather's prime. As her grandchild, Niknik listened time and time again how their generation survived these adversaries from across the continent.

Still, it was a rapier.

A sword sleek as a whisper, one of elegance and beauteous promise of death. A duelist's violin with its slender frame and nimble spirit. When the child has been asked to invoke mana into it, her eagerness toppled everyone's excitement. "Pa, how do I pour mana? You all said I have little magic in me."

"Ba-haha! Exactly as you say, sweet pea. You have little magic. But you still have magic!"

Eyes glowing white, her mouth agape, what Pa mocked of her─she determined right on.

Her hands tightened at the hilt.

And so, she took her chance.

Imbuing her life's essence, her ears perked and eyes sparkled.

"So, my dear, do you hear the spirits?" Her grandfather whispered, his voice soft and reverent.

"Um, I don't think so..." She wasn't hearing anything significant. Cutely turning around, meeting gaze with her heavily bearded old man, this awkward weiss flashed an awkward grin. "What is it that I'm supposed to hear, Pa?"

"Pa-hah!" Eyes dilated on a surprise, her elder chuckled. "How silly of your ol' fool."

Like music to her ears, the child chuckled.

"C'mon, let's try it again." Holding the hilt atop Niknik's hands, he tightened both their grips. "Brace yourself!"

All would be damned as strong reserves of mana poured into the blade.

Heavy upstream from underneath raised her hair, eyes flashing in distraught whiteness. Rustling of leaves, the gentle babbling of a brook, and the harmonious calls of birds─all blending together in resonance. She listened as her grandfather smirked, a chorus of spirits whispering from within nature itself.

Her heart calmly beat along with the resonance.

"That, my dear, is the hymn of the forest, a symphony composed by the creature that dwells within."

"It's beautiful," she murmured, feeling a deep connection to the forest and its inhabitants.

The grandfather nodded, his gaze fixed upon the distant horizon. "Indeed, it is. Now, dance!"

She opened her eyes.

"Hah!" Leaves swirled as one frenetic duelist advanced a foot, rapier stabbing on air.

The air was thick with the sweet scent of damp earth after the rain. Outside the dilapidated orphanage the Mendoza Family calls home was its selfsame uncared streets. Raindrops still clung to the blades of grass, and a gentle breeze carried the distant chirping of birds. Dominique Mendoza wiped a hand across her brow, sweat stinging her eyes. "Mrgh..." Her stomach rumbled a gentle protest, but her mind was focused solely on the deathly instrument in her hand.