With a Smile and a Song ➳ [Niall Horan AU]

Legend has it that beyond the rolling hills of Mullingar, there lies a small cottage nestled inside the great trunk of a tree. That's right: inside the tree. Not a tree house, mind you, but a regular old cottage inside this particular tree trunk. Neat, huh? And what's even neater is that at night, when every foreboding grandfather clock stowed away in whatever dank corner, ominously strikes twelve, the sweet, mellifluous notes of an elder fiddle can be heard from inside the cottage. Then, not a minute later, a voice makes its debut.

I say debut, because at the beginning, it––the voice––sounds apprehensive, always as though it is on the verge of crying, “To hell with this!” and running away. But just when you think that, the voice grows unrecognizable, and you realize what a blunder you have committed for thinking such a thing.

It is the same voice, yes, but now that of a creature who owns her art. The foreignness of the voice you heard a minute ago is one that lights a sleeping hearth and makes the sun at ease amidst a canopy of stars. Clearer than your reflection in the crystalline brook that gurgles near the tree, and more soulful than birdsong coloring the pink of dawn, oho, it is a voice you most definitely do not wish to know to whom it belongs.

And with that, my lovely audience, I beg my leave.