Mirror

Chapter 12: Longing

I should be writing for The Home, but I'm seriously obsessive over Violet, so shut up. Shhhhh. Shhhhh!

It's rushed, it's rushed it's rushed, meh.

BTW stuff in italics are flashbacks (excepting the opening poem/quote, of course).

Sunset - and time has not failed thee;
Why so skeptic? hast thy thought not arrived to knowledge
And thy eyes, new to the world, but strong
Not captured each of such new 'moments'
In thy walk and in thy wake?
Faith: Friends and companions are constants here
And shall not desert once found.

-Me (said by Neiipa)

NpadmaqxKtrfDl cowers in the corner as the flames circle up around her.

"What, don't you like it?" JiwpamlthTmpT's silky voice flows through the air.

"I don't like it, I don't, please, make it stop!" Her pleas are lost in the sound of crackling fire and the scent of burning, everywhere.

It goes on and on, and it is time, and she finds it very unpleasant indeed.

"Violet?"

She jerked her gaze out of the twirling flames of the fire they used for light and warmth. Not fear, not harm, she told herself, but it was harder to believe than to think.

"Violet, do you do anything musical?"

She narrowed her eyes a little. "Why do you ask?" She still did not trust this Marquera girl, with her innocence and ignorance.

The Blue shrugged belatedly. "It's just, my mother used to play the violin, when I was younger. It was the only music I heard, really, but it's one of my clearest childhood memories."

NpadmaqxKtrfDl lowered her eyes. "I play the t'peli. It is much like your violin."

"Do you have it with you?" The girl seemed hopeful.

"Yes." She said simply, then arose and walked into the small tent, emerging with the stringed instrument and a a small split-ended bow.

"Be warned, we have no music on ga'ampii, I have played for 300 years only."

"300 years?" Kyli spluttered, dropping her tin of milk-soaked bread. "How -"

Rory silenced her with a look, and nodded toward NpadmaqxKtrfDl.

"Please, play. I haven't heard a t'peli in years."

So she took the t'peli and propped it against her chin, delicately balancing the bow on her fingertips. She played a song she had learned long ago. It was Wanderer music, D'murr music. The feeling of the notes flowed over her, dissonance mostly.

"Don't fight the music."

"The music is making me confused!"

"Of course it's not. It is taking the confusion away. T'tpao."

"No! Please stop playing, JiwpamlthTmpT! The sound is muddling my thoughts, and I do not like it, not at all."