Before any of the raptured masses could react in time, Alvorna has brought Jihoon along as he held as tightly as he could to her extended hand. Whispers of voiceless reaffirmation carry him aloft as they ascend into the sky above them.
Shouts of dismay and panicked cries echoes upward from Lengsel's amphitheater court beneath as her wings beat in decisive and powerful stroke to carry their weight. Yet all of that protest faded into irrelevancy as Alvorna only continues to fly higher and higher as they flew past the cloud line. Beyond the numerous spires that sprinkled across Absence.
The metropolis of Absence looks small underneath him, as if everything beneath is under their figurative dominion.
Their upward momentum reached its final limit amidst violet-tinged clouds burned by the eventide's fiery hues. Jihoon genuinely lost his track of time with that sudden performance that Alvorna brought him into as he has never once ever been this high-up since long ago. Ever since the safety and freedom of the sky in his world was taken away by the Gateborne monsters.
In this breathtaking sanctuary amidst the sky, Alvorna's wings slowed to an ethereal glide as she met Jihoon's gaze with that emotional intensity that still tinge like white-hot metal freshly out of the forge.
"No words or judgments will sever our intertwined harmonies now. My path is forever realigned to yours from this eve onward, wandering virtuoso. Therefore let all those earthbound dissenters howl their dismay against inescapable eventualities ". Alvorna said with that dreamy cadence, now underscored with subtle rapture.
Before they would touch the cloud once more, Alvorna took her liberty to extend this session between them.
Unified Aerokinesis Theory - Intermediate-class Spell - Cloud Step
And suddenly, the clouds beneath coalesce into a solid load-bearing platform. As much as he already expect some magic spells in a fantasy world, it is still an amazing thing to see with his own eyes. As his feet lands on the cloud's surface, Alvorna landed as she retracted her wings behind her once more, favoring him with an inscrutable half-smile.
"We Harpies wield dominion over the sky, and the very wind that billows across it" Alvorna explained in a melodic lilt. "The atmosphere bents to our resonance, and anything that involve the winds themselves are natural to us".
The clouds around her whirled and circulated at her beckoned gestures. Soon, they have a stage only for the two of them to share their intimacy together.
As Jihoon looked and marvel from their vantage point high-up, overlooking the vast part of Absence so wide that this height alone can't encompass it all. Various spires and avenues appeared miniaturized into intricate models laid out in immaculate details. All shone upon by the waning light of dusk as the scenery unfold in its splendor.
But for all that panoramic grandeur, Alvorna's features truly exceed all of it. Now freed from all the shackles of constraint and expectation, her emerald eyes shone in unguarded warmth and attunement to the resonance that they performed together with one another.
The pivotal juncture approaches, Jihoon knew that if he wishes to deepen this blossoming relationship between them, he must comprehend the depth of her spirit and essence. In other words, learning more about her. Simply put as that.
Gathering his thoughts again, Jihoon met her emerald gaze evenly.
"Your people's command over the very skies themselves is indeed breathtaking to behold," he began, keeping his tone respectfully measured. "Yet I find myself even more enraptured by the profundities hinted at through the anguished refrains you shared with me earlier."
No need to mince words or bury his intentions beneath artistic pretenses. Not after the soul-stirring resonance they had achieved together through the catalyzing medium of song. They both knew what each other wanted and there's no need to hide behind flowery words for what they wanted to express.
The saga of the 'sad fairy' that she sung and poured all her harmonies into it. The personal journey and inner laments that he has barely glimpsed so far into what's likely surface-wise to what she actually undergo.
"If we truly wanted to remain empathically-connected in the future then we must understand each other more. I think we should talk about our past before this point onward". Jihoon said solemnly.
His words hung heavily amidst the vaporous silence surrounding them. An entreaty for Alvorna to shed any facade or metaphorical veil in favor of uncompromising vulnerability, just as he had in turn during their shared performance.
Jihoon held Alvorna's unflinching gaze, allowing the weight of his request to reverberate along the winds swirling between them. No obfuscation or artful dodge, just the truth of her backstory without ornamentation.
Alvorna's serene countenance remained unbroken for a lingering moment before soften at his request. Emerald eyes shimmering with the first and few glimpse of unguarded vulnerability. Drawing a contemplative breath, the winged songstress begins to recount the memories of the "sad fairy".
"In my earliest childhood memories, when the world seemed so vibrant and unconstrained - a boundless canvas of life awaiting the brush strokes of my spirit's artistry," Alvorna spoke in a wistful and dreamy cadence.
"I can still vividly recall my very first experience awakening to the Harpy's aeromantic birthright, how the sensations of the wind embracing my outstretched wings filled me with ethereal bliss beyond any mortal word could capture."
Alvorna's gaze drifted upwards, as if revisiting those long-departed moments of youth amidst the swirling cloud around.
She extended one hand, allowing errant zephyrs to eddy and coalesce into sweeping, formless shapes in her upturned palm. Remembered visions of her giggling with childhood delight while conjuring those first rudimentary breezes and gusts to uplift her exploratory fluttering.
"Back then, I reveled unabashedly in each new awakening of my avian heritage's mystic gifts," she reminisced with a wistful smile. "Every flight through Absence's sun-streaked skies amounted to breathless liberation and freedom to wholeheartedly embrace my inborn celestial graces."
Yet that beatific nostalgia swiftly turns into more bittersweet taste laced with solemn nuance. Alvorna's expression sobering as the swirling zephyrs in her grasp stilled, then dissipated like receding dreams of peaceful days.
"My first pang of disillusionment came upon being instructed in the traditional instruments meant to channel our Voices and resonances into purest melody," she continued, a melancholic undercurrent lacing her words. "While every other fledgling wasted no time embracing the customary woodwinds and chimes, I was inexplicably felt drawn to an archaic stringed relic gifted from some distant realm beyond our celestial purviews..."
Alvorna summoned the sleek, ornate violin once more. Cradling the beloved instrument of her against her cheek with tender intimacy, she then elaborated on why she resonated with its unconventional metallophonic properties rather than the harmonious woodwinds prescribed the Harpies' convention.
"I can still hear the dissonant murmurings that greeted my passionate embrace of the violin in those formative days. Our people's affinities have long been stereotyped towards the woodwinds. The flutes, oboes and clarinets whose intimate melodies harmonize seamlessly with our command of the atmospheric tempests."
Alvorna shook her head slowly, a hint of old indignation finally bleeding through her serene mask. "To many, my instinctive gravitation towards the violin's tones represented an almost blasphemous defiance of our ancestral traditions. A squandered potential and wasted giftings that should have been lent towards more 'suitable' musical vocations."
She favored Jihoon with a sardonic arch of her brow, one that conveyed a simmering undercurrent of past rebelliousness. "Of course, none dared voice such indictments outright to the Matriarch's daughter. But I sensed the undercurrents of mild disapproval hovering all the same. The pitying glances wondering why I so stubbornly pursued what is considered as an ill-fit mismatch against my aeromantic birthright."
The winged songstress's expression turned rueful as she extrapolated the sobering impacts that politely concealed societal judgment had steadily taken against her idealistic passions over the years.
Jihoon however, didn't fail to recognize something is missing in the story that she retell.
"If the path of the violinist was met with such dissonant reception amongst your kindred, I find myself wondering why the instrument was even presented as an option to begin with," Jihoon interjected, his brow furrowing slightly with thoughtful curiosity.
Alvorna's expression softened further at his query, a fond twinkle entering her emerald gaze as old memories of cherished mentorship resurfaced.
"Ah, the violin in question did not originate from our people's ceremonial assemblages, but rather the personal repository of my beloved musical instructor. The very same wizened maestro who oversaw our fated performance earlier," she explained with a wisp of a melancholic half-smile
"Big Band, as how that irreverent soul insists upon being addressed, took personal charge over nurturing my formative artistic awakenings from the earliest days," Alvorna continued, a hint of impish humor lacing her regal tones. " And in studying under his tutelage, I was bestowed the singular liberty of selecting any instrument that resonated most profoundly with my spirit's innermost symphonic essence."
"The instant my fingers caressed those taut strings, I knew the instrument had chosen me just as adamantly as I had it." She shook her head ruefully, recalling those distant trials of integrity and self-determination from her adolescent journeys. "Of course, once I unflinchingly gravitated towards the violin's strings, the first undercurrents of politely concealed dismay rippled throughout the attending Harpy conservators."
"Yet that incorrigible maestro steadfastly shielded my personal truth from any and all detractors - mortal and celestial alike who doubted the authenticity of my musical path. With an almost brazen audacity, he championed my freedom to explore the violin's harmonies as a sovereign right superseding all societal expectations." Alvorna said as her eyes shone with flickers of old defiance.
Jihoon is met with an intense gaze that conveyed just how pivotal that unconditional support had been to her. "How a mere mortal human have such prerogative over our sacred sanctum still remain a mystery to me even in this day. Perhaps my mother has an insight toward Big Band's musical prowess and depth of his spirit to entitle him such indivisible trust where the celestial can't intervene with his methods".
'That's a lie'. Jihoon thought, his first encounter with him is scary beyond description of words for him. His chalking Big Band like a Russian Godfather wasn't wrong although he likely put on a different front for her sake. And that people have multiple aspects to them even if contradictory at first.
And the fact that he's being good with his instruments still is something verified either way.
"And so by that old maestro's steadfast faith, I'm still allowed to play the violin despite the protest that supposed to have taken place. All thanks to him..." Alvorna said as she looked wistfully with respect an fondness of her stalwart mentor.
A favored look land upon Jihoon with intense serenity, wordlessly conveying the other half of his request that he has yet to fulfill. Having already spoken of her past to him, it is now Jihoon's promise that he must uphold.
Jihoon took a deep sigh before recalling everything that has occurred to him up until now.
His profession as a musician in Arisen Studio, the day when Gates first appeared, 10 years living in despondent and separation when there's no place for musician like him, and regathering his will to stop living meaninglessly again.
"In a distant place, far away from beyond Absence's boundary. Lies a realm that I reside in. I'm already a music composer already just has yet to arrive and made my name known in this realm. Once passionate, it was inscrutably the same as my lifeforce that course through my body, establishing connections that would have taken too many words to express". Jihoon said contemplatively as he starts from the furthest meaningful past that he has.
Alvorna's emerald gaze shone with empathetic understanding as Jihoon described the all-consuming creative of the nostalgic day long past. And the darkness soon starts to gather at his clouded thoughts. The day when Gates arrived at his world.
"Then... the Gates emerged without warning," he said gravely. "Interdimensional rifts unleashing tides of horrific monstrosities upon an unsuspecting populace. In the face of such apocalyptic upheaval, society transformed overnight. Normal lives shed like carapaces as people eventually awoke to extraordinary supernatural abilities as a result of the Gates. Thus becoming 'Hunters' destined to battle this existential threat."
Jihoon's expression turned desolate as he reached the crux of his anguished plight amidst that chaotic memory. "Yet for every hero elevated to preternatural planes, just as many were left behind as utterly mundane... hollow shells devoid of purpose or calling."
He swallowed hard, shadows of past desolation and emptiness flickering across his eyes. "I was one of the forsaken... an ordinary human, bereft of combat prowess or special powers. A relic from a bygone era whose passions and pursuits now rang hollow amidst civilization's upheaval into a perpetual warscape."
Jihoon paused, features tightening as he relived the decade of bleak despondency and loss of self - a hollow husk merely persisting, yet scarcely living. When at last he found his voice again, it was tinged with bitter irony.
"For years, I lived in a state of perpetual adrift aimlessly... my artistic dream shattered, my talents rendered impotent relics by a world reshaped into an endless bloodsoaked crucible." He shook his head slowly. "Imagine all of this, Alvorna. What pragmatic value could a mere composer hold in the face of civilization's existential twilight? My life's passions then had become... utterly meaningless."
Trauma etched into every word hung heavily between them like a suffocating shroud. Jihoon's jaw clenched as he pressed onwards, determined to recount the imaginary turning point from which his resurgence had stemmed.
"Within the lightless depth of despair that I was sunken in, a sudden calling reached toward me as I was urged once more to recompose my original calling to this path of music composing in the first place. I'll let you guess what happened to me after that". Jihoon said as he couldn't exactly believe that what he said next would convince her at all.
Alvorna remained silent for a moment as she ponders the harrowing journey and the transformative catalyst that brought Jihoon back from the brink.. The answer wasn't necessarily right but... perhaps the most suitable for just how miraculous it is for Jihoon to overcome such despair like that.
"It's a divine revelation, isn't it?". Alvorna asked while maintaining her supportive stance for him after listening to his side of the backstory. It is easy to imagine how such upheaval could crush any lesser spirit already but Jihoon by all measure of his reignited determination managed to climb back from deeper than rock bottom.
After hearing her answer, Jihoon let out a smile because technically... the little goddess's blessing of Song Magic for him is a divine revelation. Her perception is surprising that she could get so accurate with so little information.
"Your intuition is sharp indeed. Very close to the truth that I was about to divulge for you". Jihoon said as he favors her with an admiring look. "Suffice to say, that if it wasn't for some divine grace bestowed upon me when I recreated that original inspiration that I had, I would have remained in that mire till I completely waste away in the dark".
"That divine grace, is the power to instill supernatural imbuement and effects unto the melody that I create. Yet the exact identity of that empyrean entity underlying my awakening still remain shrouded in myriad mysteries."
Jihoon already sense Alvorna's burning curiosity that quickly intensified. He then pressed onward before she could interject with any more question that he himself couldn't given satisfactorily. Weaving just enough ephemeral allegory into his tale to sate her intrigue without becoming outlandish or incredulous in details.
"All I can say with certainty that by recreating the cherished melody from my spirit's earliest resonance, I come to awaken this dominion over the preternatural forces". In a hushed tone, Jihoon continued.
Jihoon waved one hand and ethereal motes of iridescent light coalesced above his palm, circulating in complex permutations as though choreographed by invisible directions.
"More than just resounding in material plane, it resonates with the spirits of the audiences and bring out the potentials that lay dormant within everyone. At least, that's what I believed it to be because one supposedly can't just ignore or overcome the boundary of self-limitation so easily without consequences. But the proofs of its effects remained as undeniable as one may see". Jihoon said as the possibilities underlying his words.
Some of the most brokenly overpowered supportive powers at his fingertips and he was merely just uncovering its potential. And combined with his experiences and knowledges as a music composer and designer, there simply can't be a much more synergistic skill set available anywhere else.
Jihoon's words hung in the air like a half-glimpsed revelation as he could sense Alvorna's boundless curiosity aching to delve deeper... yet knew this was not the time nor place to divulge every intricate truth and complexity his powers entailed. For now, let the shroud of celestial mysticism to tantalize her imagination as it had his own upon first awakening to them.
So instead of dissecting the finer nuances, he remained silent. Letting the transcendent implications reverberate between them amidst Absence's still winds as Alvorna's mind raced to grasp the full magnitude of what he'd intimated. Allowing the winged songstress to piece together her own conjectures of his power.
Recognizing the harmonies intertwining them ever so transcendent that it by itself is a miracle, enough to beget even deeper mysteries that is thirsting to be unraveled. Her desire for wisdom and enlightenment kindled and still-smoldering within, but now fueled with eagerness to discern further makes him wonder what Alvorna is capable of once unchained from all the shackles imposed by others.
And so as the eventide sun slowly falls below the horizon, revealing the stars above hidden within its fading radiance. Both him and Alvorna knows that this is something they have already seen before but taking this sight in together making it feel different somehow.
Jihoon noticed something about the constellations and the stars' positions. The brightest star of the north or Polaris of his world resides in the rough same location. He did enough inspiration and client works in Arisen Studio sometimes with celestial motifs to learn it second-hand. While chalking it to coincidence is acceptable, he decided to ask her either way since a Harpy likely know the sky above them very well thus making them probably very experienced in astronomy.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Polaris isn't perfectly northward but it was called the North Star in his world since further north you go, the higher it climbs on the sky. Belong to the Ursa Minoris, and one of the brightest top 50 celestial stars in his world, thus making it a reliable directional compass when nothing else presents. Locating it is also somewhat easy using the other two brightest stars of Ursa Majoris, Dubhe and Merak draw a line connecting them and extending from there would align with Polaris.
Something just... doesn't change across worlds perhaps. It's not exactly easy to create an entire different set of constellations after all.
"Hey, Alvorna... What do you really think about the stars, beautiful aren't they?" Jihoon said as he continues to establish their intimacy with one another.
Alvorna's gaze followed Jihoon's upwards, her emerald eyes reflecting the twinkling celestial tapestry above. A wistful smile played across her features as she began to elaborate.
"As you might have guessed, the stars so too held profound significance for my kind. According to the ancestral lore passed down through the lineage, the celestial firmament is the ultimate zenith of our birthright. Both literal and metaphorically of the height that we wished to reach". Alvorna said as she extended one hand skyward, weaving something nonsubstance that intertwine with the starlight like an ethereal calligraphy.
"From the earliest tutelage, to me passed down personally from my mother, the Matriarch as you know. That the Harpies share an inviolable attunement with the heaven above, and the constellation isn't without exemption. Thus by keeping our heart and spirit toward the sky above, the mystic gift that we are born with ascend to the empyrean. However...". Alvorna said before trailing off when hesitancy took hold of her.
Despite the reverential lilt to her words, Alvorna's smile took on a melancholic tinge.
"Whenever I look into the night sky's splendor. Tried as I might to attune to the prismatic brilliance of the stars, an inexpressible sorrow weighs upon my spirit". She shook her head slowly, dark vanilla tresses/locks of hair shimmer like windswept cedar boughs. "Inexplicably, the star-strewn cosmos fill me with loneliness and isolation, the realization that they persist amidst the cold and remote luminescence.
Turning her gaze towards Jihoon, Alvorna's expression softened into something more poignantly present. More real than before. "However, in this singular moment, surrounded by the sublime resonance we've catalyzed?" She extended her hand, brushing her fingertips lightly against his own in an intimate moment of connection.
"Somehow, with you by my side, the celestial sphere doesn't seem that cold and distant anymore after all". Alvorna's smile deepened, ever so incandescent and anchored to Jihoon's steadfast presence.
After explaining her backstory to Jihoon, she felt like a weight was cast off her. Yet when the lid that was supposed to bottle her repressed emotion were removed, Alvorna felt the need to express everything that she has repressed to maintain her porcelain grace that she maintained for so long in front of everyone. And a lot of it... wasn't beautiful to witness or behold.
She started to play the violin unprompted on her own, a melancholic melody started to form as Jihoon immediately knew the distinct emotion behind what she wished to convey. With no further question or thoughts to be made, Jihoon immediately draw the battered acoustic guitar as he plays the countermelody to her central violin.
The reprise of the melancholic melody played again, now with resounding weight behind.
Water surface illuminated by starlight
Reflecting the darkness deep inside of my heart
At the end of the silent void
I think about the lost tomorrow
The violin played as if to reprise on her sung lyric. To made focus on what she has spoken. As the refrain across the cloud line, Jihoon felt the weight of her repressed anguish resonate through each of every melancholy note. The lyrics she had voiced just now took on layers of pure and simple truth as he quickly analyze the metaphors through the lens of her mental release.
His brows furrowed, sensing the depth of her long suppressed burden bleeding into every verse of her singing.
"Water surface illuminated by starlight...Reflecting the darkness deep inside of my heart..."
Her words painted the image of an idyllic, pristine facade. The untroubled celestial water mirroring the beauty of the night sky. Yet beneath that placid surface lurked unfathomable depths of sorrow and emotional disturbance, roiling in anguished secrecy.
"At the end of the silent void...I think about the lost tomorrow..."
For too long, Alvorna had endured her torments in statuesque isolation. Alone amidst the empty, reverberating silence of her birthright's suffocating expectations. Stifling her truest self out of obligatory comformity to ancestral traditions. All the while grieving inwardly for the unlived possibilities that she had. Of how her personal sovereignty and self-actualization rendered "lost tomorrows" by the shackles of her celestial heritage.
As Jihoon's acoustic guitar harmonized with Alvorna's lamentations, he sensed her porcelain composure cracking before his very eyes. All the agonies she had bottled behind ornamental decorum and sacred pretenses now hemorrhaging forth in an unstoppable deluge of catharsis. The anguished admissions she had initially voiced with halting trepidation gave way to a torrent of unvarnished release.
Raw. Visceral. Vulnerable.
Every ounce of repressed insecurity, every instance of self-doubt ruthlessly squashed for the sake of self-appearance, every bitter grievance against the suffocating confines of expectation. Alvorna simply held nothing back. Even if Jihoon would witness every flaw and ugliness that she has, all too woven into the harmony that they are resonating together.
He simply listened, nodded, and played along with each naked confession that poured forth from her lips and violin's lamentations alike. Letting the ramparts around her spirit crumble one by one by amplifying her music's transcendent emotional resonance.
Water surface reflecting the night sky
Those memories that disappeared into the distance
There's nobody here for me anymore
I don't exist anywhere anymore
A wandering light, a dazzling voice
whisper quietly to me~
As Alvorna's coalesced regret spiraled onward. Jihoon also provides the percussion by clapping his acoustic guitar while also playing the countermelody to underpin her raw outpouring. Then the mournful lyric took on a new heartbreaking refrain to shed clarity on what she had confided regarding her emotional alienation.
An image of pristine, crystalline waters gradually distorting as it rippling and fracturing until the night sky's reflection shattered into unrecognizable fragments. A poignant showcase for how even Alvorna's most cherished recollections had grown increasingly obscured and faded by the emotional discord steadily encroaching upon her psyche over the years.
"There's nobody here for me anymore...I don't exist anywhere anymore..."
A desolate lament of utter isolation resonated through the lyrics. As if Alvorna's true self had become a voiceless, unseen phantom amidst the edicts dictating her existence. Her identity slowly stripped away behind layers of tradition and ceremony until all authenticity felt lost to the smothering tides of expectation. Until everything piece of her identity replaced by what people think of her instead of her true self.
A wandering specter disconnected from any true sense of self or belonging. An existence stripped of all substantive moorings.
"A wandering light, a dazzling voice, it whisper quietly to me-"
Yet in that moment of profound emptiness, a fleeting spark of inspiration glimmered in the darkness. Whether a shard of stubborn hope or the first inklings of Jihoon's impassioned harmony reaching her at their first encounter, it whispered to Alvorna's spirit. Reawakening faded embers of individuality lying dormant for far too long.
As the lyrics, crested into a haunting, sustained crescendo, Jihoon sensed Alvorna's vocals elevating from mere melancholy into transcendent emotional unbridling. No longer just lyrics, but unchained emotional outcries releasing in a torrent each nuance of regret, longing, frustration and bittersweet nostalgia that she had suppressed for years on end.
Her lithe form quaked with the soul-rending resonance of it all. Wings flared, dark vanilla tresses disheveled by unseen etheric oscillations as the full force of her spirit's painful truth transmuted into unleashed melisma / prolonged note. Surrendered utterly to the music's cathartic rapture, Alvorna allows every shackle, every mask to disintegrate amidst the maelstrom of her voice's primal outpourings.
The freezing wind tightens my heart
The snow covers the earth
My wish forever remain trapped in the hoarfrost
Just sad memories are all that remain, within my heart is an eternal winter.
The climatic chorus of her lyric approached as it rang out in soul-rending crescendo. Even if he isn't the most empathic person to exist, the full weight of her anguish still struck and resonate him to the very fiber of his being. The continued lyric sung of the winged songstress's icy isolation and emotional permafrost that had gradually encapsulated her spirit over many years of repression.
"The freezing wind tightens my heart...The snow covers the earth..."
Jihoon's weathered acoustic strummed a mournful counterpoint, echoing the desolation pervading her words. An existence entombed beneath too many layers of conformity that the radiant warmth of her truest self steadily extinguished by her dutiful acquiescence as the daughter of the Matriarch of the Citadel. Until even her passions lay smothered under a wintry pall of empty resignation.
"My wish remain trapped in hoarfrost...Just sad memories are all that remain, within my heart is an eternal winter."
A longing, unspoken ambition. Perhaps to experience uninhibited self-expression or unfettered sovereignty yet rendered perpetually frozen in stasis. Suspended behind layers of icy and petrified hoarfrost, leaving only echoes of inner vibrancy preserved as fragile, melancholic recollections. Her empathic essence calcifying into endless metaphorical winter amidst the ivory permafrost of tradition.
As Alvorna's lamentations crested, Jihoon's keen ears detected supplemental ethereal woodwinds gradually harmonizing with their guitar and violin. His eyes widened-up and immediately discern for the source. Yet despite his keen detection, he perceived none of the pipes, none of the woodwinds that are accommodating this very ballad right now.
Alvorna's eyes remained shut as she surrendered wholeheartedly to the rapturous unbridling of emotion. Yet Jihoon sensed the subtle undulations of her unfurled wings subconsciously and subtly directing those atmospheric permutations with each deeply felt swell of their melody's melancholic crescendos.
The Harpies' dominion over the sky is what allowed Alvorna's to emulate this almost heartfelt cyclone of sound and elemental confluence. With every beating of his heart, Jihoon could feel the etheric instruments intensifying. Even if the wind itself is imperceptible to him, the whistling panpipe, the fluttering flute, everything wind-utilized to bolster their ballad to true orchestral composition.
No longer just two isolated melodies, but a tempest of musical divinity channeled through Alvorna's intimate emotional resonance through the atmosphere itself. An elemental symphony of unrestrained vulnerability as the celestial Harpy finally unburdened her anguished spirit through the most sublime medium imaginable.
It's ironic how so many thought that Alvorna is wasting her talents by not picking up the woodwinds yet she has already master them intimately without even picking one up or playing directly. She knows already... if this is what the song of her heart truly said about her.
Jihoon's own instrumentals intensified to enrapturing heights in reverent counterpoint, seamless harmonies merging into the swirling miasma of illusory woodwinds. All as the bridge that they have been playing when the previous lyric sung about to move into the next half of the ballad. Because after all, there's too much to be spoken with only one movement.
The starry sky reflected in the mirror of water
Reflect back the lost memories that I had
Beyond the silence and fictionality
My appearance is dyed in darkness
He recognized the lyrics painting a melancholy portrait of how even the celestial wonders meant to inspire awe and reverence had become tainted retrospectives of cherished moments and innocence fading into sepia-toned recollections. The cosmos's splendor reduced to little more than a blasphemous mirror revisiting all that Alvorna had been disenfranchised from over time.
Despite being surrounded by ornate proprieties and grandiose societal narratives, Alvorna had gradually felt more unseen than ever within that silence. Her truest selfhood devolved into an forgotten visage utterly detached by the pomp and traditionalism woven around her by the same cultural mythologies.
Trembling in the wind and frightened by the shadows
Before I realized, I have fallen into eternal sleep
Jihoon's brow furrowed, sensing how the lyrics intimated many years of repression gradually whittling away Alvorna's inborn senses of vibrancy and identity. Her spirit withering to the point of feeling utterly adrift until losing herself completely within the shroud of suffocating conformity. An 'eternal sleep' awaiting those who surrendered utterly to the cultural dogmas.
The panpipe amongst the instrument played in a furious crescendo to bridge to the next verse.
The freezing wind tightens my heart
The snow covers the earth
My wish remain trapped in hoarfrost
All that remains are just sad memories, within my heart is an eternal winter
As the last plaintive refrains reverberated between them like lingering whispers of grief, Jihoon braced for the song's sorrowful resolution. For the cresting emotional tsunami to finally ebb after its rapturous outpouring had run its cathartic course.Yet the violin still refused to cease, and he still follow with her in the backdrop.
As the celestial woodwinds faded into silence alongside the last haunting refrain, the winged songstress's lithe form stilled. Her chin falling inward as eyes remained firmly shut. Then, without preamble, Alvorna's bow reprised gliding across the violin's taut strings once more in a series of quivering, bittersweet half-tones.
An anguished, cathartically beautiful solo with no accompanying lyrics. Just Alvorna's violin pouring forth from that bottomless wellspring of emotions too profound for any mortal or celestial poetry to fully capture.
The bittersweet chord progression continues to rise but no matter how high the note it might be, a bitter sad melody remain sad no matter what.
Lá là... lá la là... lá la... là la là... là la la là lá la... là la lá lá...
Là lá la la... la la là la... là lá la la... lá la la là... là la la... lá la... là là...
With each featherlight yet gut-wrenching swell of notes, Alvorna's violin cried out in musical elegies of crushing melancholy, embittered torment, wistful grievances of lost dreams... Eventually, wordless cadences of vocals entwined with Alvorna's violin lamentations. Not lyrics or verse, but mournful prolonged howls of anguish and introspective trance pouring straight from her soul into torrents.
Jihoon listened raptly, effortlessly interlacing those melodies with complementary open-note refrains. Each note chosen with empathic artistry to uplift Alvorna's outcries towards sublime emotional reconciliations.
In reverent silence he played, the winged songstress's unveiled spirit bleed onto that formless musical canvas through their interwoven performance without hindrance or interference. All until only her true self remain within her.
By the time that emotionally eviscerating instrumental reached its final lingering decrescendo. Until the last percussion die down, until her violin ceased, until Jihoon strumming the last note of their ballad on the acoustic guitar. He then glimpsed unshed tears glistening in Alvorna's eyes as she finally reopened them to regard him with piercing, unfettered emotional transparency.
No ornament or facade remaining, only the authentic brilliance of her spirit resonating in splendor.
"Alvorna... are you alright?" Jihoon asked with hushed voice but brimming with heartfelt concern.
She remained silent for a lingering moment, emerald eyes still shimmering with tears in a kaleidoscope of whirling emotions. Everything resides in her still too intensely profound for descriptions. Her chest rise and fall again in steadying breath, Alvorna finally regain her voice once more after a moment has passed.
"I...I have not felt so inexplicably lightened in more years than I can readily recall," she murmured, one hand rising to lightly caress the dampness gracing her cheeks. "As if... some great, invisible burden I had grown accustomed to bear finally relinquished its stranglehold upon my spirit."
Alvorna shook her head slightly, dark vanilla hair of her shimmer in the windswept ethereal cloud surround them.
"For too long, I have grown numb to that crushing despair. Conditioned to merely endure the dissonance that agonizing gnawing at my true self day by day".
Then her eyes met Jihoon's with an intensity that conveyed deep-seated pain yet also the fledgling spark of newfound rebirth. "That is until your arrival, wandering virtuoso. Your music's resonance has reawakened parts of my soul I had genuinely feared lost to the silence itself".
As silence fell between them, Jihoon sensed profoundly humbling gratitude radiating from her next words.
"I owe you a debt which transcends any conceivable requital, Jihoon. For you have given me back not just my autonomy and selfhood...but the pure, soaring majesty of emotional authenticity that my soul had been so utterly starved for until now."
Extending one hand, seemingly inviting him to do the obvious most between them. Jihoon wonders if this relationship between is developing too fast and then remember that romance writers back in his world thinking that dragging a relationship progress for hundreds of chapters is good writing. Again, two wrong doesn't immediately make a right but that makes him stop hesitating.
"From this eve forward, know that you shall forever have my eternal fealty...my resonance bound inextricably to your own through the harmonic celestial accord we now share."
Again, this doesn't involve anything about birthright or power. Just two souls finding connection with one another. It doesn't matter if she is the daughter of the Matriarch, she is simply Alvorna.
It doesn't matter whoever Jihoon is, a wandering virtuoso or an outsider who makes upheaval upon Absence's cultural sphere. He will stay by her side no matter how staggering those who stood to separate them are.
He studied her hopeful yet hesitant expression for a lingering moment, already understand the magnitude of promise that she entreat. Even then, slowly extending his hand, grasping hers in a tender yet resolute embrace.
"There's no debt to repay, Alvorna". Jihoon said with complete conviction. "The reason we resonated and connected with one another goes beyond any obligation or circumstances".
Once again, he wasn't the most romantic person to ever live nor does he know its intricacy. But he knew that he must act accordingly and be the best person he is capable of now that he can only rebuild from the ashes of his previous self.
Gently pulling the winged songstress closer to him, Jihoon brought his other free hand up to caress her cheek with devotion.
"Whatever awaits us from here onward, I vow to walk alongside you to the bitter end". Jihoon clumsily spoke his confession, it didn't matter if his charisma has its subtlety like a brick, what matters is that he said it.
Alvorna's breath hitched ever so subtly at his intensity, yet her eyes shone with unbridled liberation and trust as Jihoon's thumb traced the dampness gracing her cheekbone. Then she leaned inward, bare forehead grazing in seraphic rite as her hand mirrored his touch as her fingertips trailing across the defined line of his jaw with exquisite tenderness.
Within that suspended trance of musical resonance before, an intimate connection found its foothold. Beyond carnal desires or fleeting impulses, a shared truth and promise transmuted into immutable attunement between them.
Facades disintegrating, mental ramparts crumbling away until all that remained was the purified essences of their truest selves resonating in perfect, prismatic harmonic splendor.
When at last their revenant connection reached its sublime climax, Jihoon was left utterly breathless yet somehow profoundly centered at his core. As if everything he had endured and survived amounted to that one soul-searing prismatic instant of attunement with Alvorna herself.
All lingering shreds of bitterness, isolation and despondency. Once again purified in her presence, he felt inexplicably... whole. It took Alvorna's murmured words, weighted with reverent reflection, to gradually draw him back into present resonance once more.
"That ballad we impromptu together just now...I believe I know the name it deserves," she whispered with lingering epiphany. "An ancestral Harpy word that represents its embodied emotion. 'Restia'. Meaning 'reluctance' or 'regret' in the archaic celestial vernacular."
Alvorna's eyes spoke volumes, conveying how that melancholic yet cathartic musical rite had represented the culmination of far too many years spent within ceremonial pretense. Expected conformities and ancestral obligations that she had grudgingly surrendered so much of her truest essence to uphold.
"I too, think that it is a good name for it". Jihoon replied as he thought about its name. Restia... is indeed a suitable name for a such a melancholic ballad.
______-----{////\\\\}-----______
Restia
Classification: Song Magic
Rank: Expert
Effect (MAG 15):
-+150% to all Physical Attributes of all allies in range based on MAG. (Current bonus: +23)
-+150% to all MAG of allies in range based on all Physical Attributes. (Current bonus: +9)
This effect can only be stacked once and is overlapped by stronger similar effect.
Required performers: Jihoon Hyunwoon (Guitar), Alvorna 'Absence' Lucifera (Violin).
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Slowly withdrawing from their harmonization, Alvorna found Jihoon's gaze and favored him with a look of vulnerability and sacred trust that is utterly inviolable between them from that moment onwards. Both of them knew that neither of them shall ever need to resign themselves to regret all alone anymore. Not so long as they walk this path together.
The System notification still show beside him but that's not the point right now. Him staying committed to Alvorna is more important than whatever gain in the immediate moment.
As twilight faded into the onset of night. Their profound musical performance on top of the ethereal cloud stage reached its conclusion. Yet a reluctant somberness tinged Alvorna's expression as she gazed toward the the Citadel in the distance, whose height easily pierce the cloud skyward. Because of it, it is ever-present across Absence no matter where one is.
"Much as I wished this transcendent interlude between us could persist indefinitely, I'm afraid that my duty burdening me as the daughter of the Matriarch can't be deferred the same". Alvorna said wistfully. "As liberating as it may have been, my extended absence will arouse suspicion amidst the Citadel's overseers. The Matriarch's scrutiny only grows ever more insistent with each passing night I remain absent without justifiable pretext."
Jihoon nodded in understanding, knowing the winged songstress could not realistically abandon her celestial obligations so abruptly after their shared epiphany. At least not without foresight and strategic disengagement from her ancestral role to come.
Alvorna must eventually return to face the inquisitive eyes of her celestial kindred, just as he would need to reacquaint himself with terrestrial norms once more. For the present moment, their resonant bridge would enter a halting period.
Yet before descending from their empyrean cloud pavilion, Alvorna extended one wing of her, delicately plucking a single shimmering plume from its expanse.
"Take this, and keep it closely guarded" she instructed, pressing the iridescent feather of her into Jihoon's hand and gently curl his fingers around it. "So long as you bear this token, I shall be able to discern your spirit's location, no matter how expansive the distance separating us may be."
Her emerald eyes shone with solemn promise. "Absence itself will not sever the harmonic tether now woven between our souls. When the next time my duty permits, I shall find you again without fail, oh wandering virtuoso."
Alvorna fixed him with a look that conveyed both infinite tenderness and ferocious yearning to reaffirm their connection's permanence at the earliest conceivable moment.
Jihoon felt the ethereal warmth and vibrancy radiating from the feather's delicate strands, a mystic guiding beacon allowing Alvorna to unerringly trace her path back to him. He met her impassioned gaze and nodded, conviction resonating through his words. "I'll await your return, no matter how long the interim may be. This I swear."
With that vow sealing their ephemeral farewells, Alvorna's wings unfurled in a sweeping motion. Yet before propelling herself skyward, the winged songstress stole one final, lingering moment before she launched herself towards the Citadel in the distance.
Only after her retreating silhouette winked out of view did Jihoon release the pent-up exhalation he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Fingertips tracing the lustrous corvine plume's impossibly soft texture, he knew their reunion remained an inevitability instead of uncertainty. No matter what distances nor eventualities may unfurl before them, their harmonies would forever resonate between themselves.
With that conviction steadying his resolve, Jihoon now thought about leaving this platform only to realize one thing... Alvorna was the one who made this cloud platform and he doesn't know how to use wind magic. The pieces connect together too late now that she has left already and...
How does he get down from here!?