When we stopped to make camp for the night, I briefly popped back into the subspace to rush to my shed and grab some materials that I would need. I grabbed some animal skin, some scissors I’d made from a bandit’s knife, and a spool of my white thread that the spinning wheel had finished up, also taking a moment to refill the mana battery for my wheel. I then took my materials and popped back into the carriage, waking up Ash and walking out with her to where a campfire had already been set up, and we’d primarily be hanging out, keeping an eye out for anything in the area that might attack. I then went around collecting specific sticks and pieces of log that I would need to craft my new instrument.
As the night lengthened, and everyone quieted down and went to sleep, save for the 8 other adventurers who were keeping watch, occasionally looking over to see what I was doing, including that odd armored wizard and the maybe elven swordsman. I disregarded all of them as I used magic to make the sticks more flexible, shaping them delicately, and then drying them out so that they’d maintain their shape. I spent hours connecting everything, and gently tightening the skin that I’d brought with me to form a sort of drum. I then placed four strings overtop of my new instrument, connecting them to wooden screws that I’d made at the top, and using magic to rotate them, to tune the strings to G, C, E, and A, judging how close I was from memory. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be close.
The end result was a complete abomination that if any real musician saw, they’d probably take me out back and stomp me into the ground. The only two instruments I really knew how to play were the piano and ukulele, and I couldn’t exactly lug around a piano everywhere, so I had to make a uke instead. However, I don’t really know how to make a ukulele or a guitar, so instead, I made the one string instrument that I did know how to make. One that’s as simple as making a tight drum and slapping some strings over it. Yes, I made a four stringed banjo, then tuned it like it’s a damn ukulele.
This accomplishment of mine broke every classically trained musician bone in my body, but I tested it out anyway. The sound was exactly what you’d expect, with all the twang of a good ol’ boy chillin' in the bayou with some buds and beers, looking for crawfish. Wait, doesn’t that kinda make Kermit a country singer?
I fiddled around, playing some notes, and making lines roughly where the notes changed, sliding in some wooden pins so that I could feel where to press to actually play. And after a while….it was done. By the time I’d finished, everyone else was waking up, so I didn’t really have time to play anything on it, but I’d tested out enough notes to know that it should work correctly. Mike, who along with Liz happened to be on day shift, shot me a confused look as he noticed my new creation in my hands. Come to think of it, the majority of my crafting had always taken place while he was asleep. Does he even know about any of the things that I’ve made and enchanted?
Ash and I hopped into a carriage, me approaching from behind it to give the monster pulling us as wide a berth as I could manage. As we settled in and tried to get comfortable, she pointed at my new instrument and asked, “So what is this exactly?”
I sighed and admitted, “A complete travesty that is probably an affront to all musicians.” She tilted her head in confusion, and I expanded, “It’s technically a banjo, but I tuned and intend to play it like a completely different instrument.”
Her confusion only seemed to deepen. “Why the sudden interest in music?”
I responded with more of my own Dramatic Backstory. “Well, I mean, I’ve been playing various instruments since I was four right? I’ve played piano, drums, ukulele, and dabbled with guitar, harmonica, and pan flute. I also started singing when I was young because I used to really suck at it and mom hated the sound of my voice, so it was a soft sort of rebellion. I couldn’t do anything to actually rebel, but singing? That was a relatively safe way to piss her off. Ironically I sang so much to annoy her that I accidentally actually got kinda good at it, and people would all the time come up to me and tell me they liked my voice. So yeah, I’m no stranger to music, and your lullaby yesterday made me think about the possibility of mixing it with demonic magic. I assume what you did is a sort of first step towards that that you’re working on with Sophia to learn demonic magic?”
Ash just shook her head. “Sophia hasn’t taught me any demonic magic, that’s just something my parents used to do for me to get me to fall asleep no matter what new place we happened to be in.” I froze. Wait, if Sophia wasn’t teaching Ash demonic magic then…
“Don’t you two talk all the time on your private connection thing that you still haven’t told me how it works?”
“Yeah,” Sophia joined in, “But I haven’t taught her any demonic magic. As for how the girl’s channel works, that has to do with something I found out about your Aspect, so I assumed you didn’t want me to tell you.”
“Ahh that makes sense. But wait, if you haven’t been teaching her demonic magic, then what the hell do you two talk about?”
Ash turned a violent shade of crimson, as Sophia responded, “Ash isn’t as obsessive as you are honey, she tends to pay a lot more attention to her surroundings than you do. We mostly talk about the people we spend time with, the things we learn about them, the things they say to us or each other that we happen to overhear, and the things that we think about those other people. Have you never heard of ‘Girl Talk’?”
“Of course I have, hence why you know that expression, but still, out of all the cool stuff that exists that you could be thinking about or doing, I can’t for the life of me understand how you spend so much time choosing to think about idle gossip.”
“What’s wrong with gossip?” Ash demanded, still extremely red for some reason.
“There was a woman in my old world, a leader of the people named Eleanor Roosevelt, who once said ‘Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people.’ I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with gossip, but how can it be fun to spend so much time thinking about other people, when at the end of the day, only two or three people really have any impact on your own life? You and Soph are really the only people I think about, because you two are the only ones whose thoughts, opinions, and actions actually matter to me. Sophia, at the end of the day, your relationship with Vern and Sean is more for convenience than anything else, and once you guys steal the moon, you’ll probably go back to barely ever interacting, so does anything they do actually impact you in any way? And Ash, your case is a little different, where Mike does matter to you, so the things with Liz that impact his life will also impact yours, but how much time does it really take to address that before you’ve said everything that needs to be said? I mean, how detailed do you guys actually get with your gossip if it’s still going on despite the lack of any new information?”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Waaaay too detailed,” Ash muttered under her breath, growing even redder. I took in her apparent embarrassment, her inability to so much as look at me, and Sophia’s suspicious silence, before I asked,
“Has y’all’s gossip included how Sophia spends her nights?”
Blushing harder, a soft nod yes. I placed my hands on my face, feeling an uncomfortable heat rising in my neck and head. “How detailed? Sophia, how much did you tell this poor girl?”
“Ummm……”
I sighed and asked, “Everything?”
“Everything”, “Everything”, the two of them responded. I sighed once more and chastised Sophia, “You really shouldn’t have told her that, and especially not without letting me know.”
I then turned to Ash and said, “Look, the kind of stuff I do with Sophia comes from my old world, where it’s very popular amongst couples. Now there is a safe and healthy way to do it, but if you go in with half-baked knowledge, you can end up stuck in a horrible relationship, or end up getting yourself and your partner really badly hurt. I don’t know and don’t really WANT to know if you’re interested in any of it, but if you ever end up with a guy and want to try something like that, make sure you come and talk to me first okay? It’ll be super awkward and uncomfortable, but I’ll need to show you how to do everything safely, and what kind of conversations you need to have beforehand to make sure you two are on the same page, okay?”
Still scarlett faced, she nodded, and I turned away and tried to sleep, ignoring the heat that was still filling my face, determined to start tomorrow pretending that this conversation had never happened. But before I drifted off entirely, I made sure to throw out, “Sophia, teach the girl some damn demonic magic in between the personal stuff from now on.”
“Yes Sir.”
I didn’t even have to look to know that Ash was blushing even harder than before.
That night when I woke up, I made good on last night’s determination and pretended that I never found out the truth revealed yesterday. This time, Ash was already awake and practicing her mana manipulation. When we stopped for camp, I pulled out the banjo I’d made, and started playing some random songs that I remembered from my past world. Beethoven, Elvis, and Guns & Roses. Once I had somewhat of a handle on the quirks of my new instrument, I actually tried for real.
After I left home, I was filled with just the most incredible sense of freedom. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t scared. For the first time in my life, I could do anything I wanted, be whoever I wanted to be. To this day, I still remember that feeling of adventure, of exploration, of the determination to make my own way in the world with no help from anyone else. I sunk myself as deeply as I could into that feeling, and played a song that I’d written years ago, shortly after I ran away.
A Sailor left his old life for worlds unknown
He left all of his troubles, but also his home
Forever in the great blue ocean he roams
Searching for a place to make his own
He couldn’t go back for those bridges had been burned
But all in all he wasn’t very concerned
For on his travels much he had learned
About places towards which he could set his stern
He could go to Africa, and see the sunset over Kenya
Or maybe down under to the land of the kangaroos
When you’re locked to the land, you’re stuck playing in the sand
But he’s not a man who can take that kind of plan
For he knows, the Ocean’s his true home.
He explored the whole world seeing all there was to see
He saw the worlds shadowy corners, but also its beauty
He sailed to an Island in the Caribbean Sea
And there he met the woman who would someday be
Mrs. Sailorman, because now you know she can
Go wherever she wants, and for adventures they’ll hunt
When you’re locked to the land you’re stuck playing in the sand
But they aren’t a fam who can take that kind of plan
No they know, the Ocean’s their true home
Soon they had a child aboard their ship way out at sea
They raised him on the Ocean and they taught him everything
I wouldn’t change a thing about the way that they raised me
Because now I have the opportunity to be
The new Mr. Sailorman, on my bow I’ll proudly stand
Look to the Horizon and see, all the places I can be
They won’t lock me to the land, there’s no way they can
Because I am a man who was raised on Sea and Sand
I know the Ocean’s my true home.
It was a song of everything that I dreamed my life would be, sung from the perspective of my own future child. It was a story, the story of the life I wanted to live. The story of a man who sacrificed everything he’d ever known, and in exchange received the world. And in a funny turn of events, just when I’d given up, hadn’t Sophia done just that? Gifted me with not just a world, but two, to explore, to make my own?
As I sang, I injected mana into my voice. This time not to translate, but to take this proof of my Existence, this shout into the void, and force it into the souls of the 9 people who heard me. I forced their hearts to lift in anticipation, to feel the dream of adventure, to embody the story of a man who looked at the world as one holistic entity, and sought to lay claim to it. The story of a man who found his life’s meaning on an open ocean. The story of the Sailor.
And as I sang the story of the life I dreamed about, it happened once more. Before now, the only way I could Manifest my Aspect was by casting my Hopeful Flame spell, neither Hope nor Flame being a big part of my path, begging the question what that spell had to do with my Aspect. And I realized that when I cast the Hopeful Flame spell, I do it by telling a story, by envisioning and writing into reality the story of the fleeing nomads, and their dream for a night of peace, of serenity, of safety. It’s not the Hopeful Flame spell itself that causes my Aspect to Manifest, but the process by which I cast it.
Stories have been a massive part of my life since I was old enough to start reading. For a scared little kid, stories of wizards and witches going to school to learn about magic, of Demigods battling monsters and dealing with their own dysfunctional families, the ancient tales of greek heroes, and the ancient gods of all cultures, sumerian, greek, egyptian, aboriginal, norse, I’d read all of them, and I internalized them. They’d been my only allies in a world that wished I had never existed. Born to parents too young to be able to handle a normal kid, much less one that was already broken. Ever since I was young, stories have been a huge part of who I am, and even if Stories aren’t my exact Aspect, it’s certainly much closer.
As though agreeing with my assessment that I was closer to the truth about my own Aspect Manifestation, the cloud that I generated was far, far larger than normal. The glistening white, with streaks of brilliant gold stretched out, almost covering the entire campsite of 120 people.
Ash looked at it all with her mouth open and eyebrows raised. Astonishment. She then caught my gaze and squinted at me. Irritation? She explained herself, “This is great and really pretty and everything, but you do realize just how long it’ll take for us to gather it all and separate it out right?”
Shit.