[Coldlight] Under the Blacklight (XP)

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

Timestamp: Kalendryas, Winter Era XV PF

Val had sort of cast through the collective memory until she found what she was looking for -- a sort of music room at Coldlight, along with directions for how to get there. She took the requisite turns from her suite until she reached the black crystal door, which swung open at her touch.

In the center of the room stood a piano. Its case was made from the same crystal that constituted the material of the citadel, and indeed, it looked almost as if it had grown up out of the floor. There was a bench in front of it.

Cautiously, Val walked up to the instrument, pulled out the bench, and opened up the piano so that the keys were visible. She was unsure what the piano might sound like, and so before she got started properly, she ran an A-flat major scale up and down the keyboard, just to get the feel.

The sound was colder than she was used to -- almost metallic, and perfectly clear. It was beautiful, but in an inhuman sort of way. She glanced back nervously at the door, but no one seemed to be interested in what she was doing, for it remained resolutely shut.

As such, Val turned to the piano again and placed her sheet music on the top. It was time for her to begin in earnest.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

This didn't seem like the proper setting for anything particularly cheerful, so Val elected to play In the Quiet of the Evening. She'd gotten a good deal better at this piece, and she was curious to see how it would sound on a new instrument.

She played gently, even more gently than usual, but even the soft sounds filled the room and set the air -- and, it seemed, even the crystal itself -- vibrating. Her own sadness interlaced with the melancholia of the music, and the setting seemed to magnify the effect.

The last cadence came, a series of descending minor chords that sparkled darkly, and she held the final notes for some time before releasing her fingers and letting the sound die away. Again, she took an apprehensive look at the door to the room -- nothing in Coldlight seemed to have a lock -- but for the moment she was still alone, except for Umbrosus, curled up by the piano.

Well, that had gone reasonably well. Now, it was a matter of trying something...new. Val had a couple of novel ideas, and her innate curiosity meant that she was going to try them out.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

The first thing to do was attain clara.

Val was used to meditating. She tried to make it something that she did in the morning, before beginning her other duties. It helped that, even after all this time, she still slept terribly, and so was often awake before the first rays of morning. She had the time, as long as she had the inclination.

Still, she was only an initiate, and so it took longer than she might have liked. But finally, the world snapped into focus -- or out of focus, depending on your perspective -- and she knew she'd attained the proper state.

This being done, she cast Invisibility. It wasn't a particularly difficult spell, but given that her powers were still only developing, it still required concentration and care for her to cast it properly. She made the weave well, however, and the spell was cast. Although there was no one else in the room but Umbrosus to view it, she was now hidden from sight.

At this point, she turned immediately back to the piano and started to play. It was sort of a juvenile exercise, but Val wanted to see how far she could get, and whether it was a trick she could use later -- having a piano playing without anyone visible to play it.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

It didn't last long, frankly.

Val only made it through the first couple of bars before the illusion shimmered and vanished. Or, perhaps more precisely, "reappeared." Certainly that hadn't been long enough to make it of any utility...even given the questionable utility of this exercise in the first place. She'd have to try and cast a stronger version of the spell, perhaps using Channel, for this to work at all.

It wasn't, after all, as if she had expected it to work perfectly the first time. Nonetheless, however, Valanthia was somewhat disappointed. She was a perfectionist, after all, and even if she was able to learn well from her mistakes and failures, that didn't make her any happier about them.

She heaved a deep, heavy sigh, and then worked on clearing her mind again. Attain clara, that was the first step. Then she could focus on casting the spell better this time.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

Finally, the girl managed to snap herself into the requisite state of meditation. This being done, she calmly and deliberately manipulated the arcanic energy necessary to cast the spell. This time, she used channel to increase the amount of energy going into the spell. It meant that she might not be able to try it a third time today, but that didn't really matter too much.

The important thing, after all, was to get it right. Val cast the spell, and in that instant, she became invisible once again. There was a limited audience to appreciate that sort of thing, but this was practice, after all, not performance.

This being done, Val went on to the next step. She placed her fingers carefully on the keys, glanced at the music once, and then began to play.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

The spell lasted rather longer this time. Val had indeed managed to increase its efficacy, and so for the moment, she was free to concentrate on her playing, at least to some degree.

She didn't play the piece as well as usual, but it wasn't a terrible performance either. Maintaining any kind of emotional involvement in it was extremely difficult, given that she wasn't used to performing in this manner, but she at least managed to hit the right notes and to give it some measure of dynamic shading.

The spell wavered and then faded out about eight bars before the end of the music. Val finished the piece anyway, though she was fairly distracted. Clearly, she was going to have to keep working on this trick if she ever wanted to be able to use it, but at least to her own mind she had proved it was possible, and that was something.

The girl left her fingers on the keyboard for a moment longer. Then she spun around on the bench and regarded her bondmate, who looked back at her with his blue eyes.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

"It's good practice," Val said quietly, "especially since I can...can do two things at once, you know? But I'm not sure I could use it in any...any practical setting before I was promoted to apprentice. Not that there's probably a lot of call for...for invisible pianists anyway, but I don't think I could...could actually do a full song unless I had a little more power behind it."

"These are skills you need to develop," Umbrosus said simply. "It doesn't really matter whether we need them immediately or not. We will. You will. And you will be training more soon, am I correct?"

Val nodded. "Yes. I'm...I'm hoping to talk to Niravia while I'm here and see if she'll be...be willing to help me with my apprentice training. As much as I liked Master Thaddeus, I...I'm hesitant to entrust my mind to someone who's...who doesn't know about the Sanguine. That and I'm simply not going to have the time to travel back to Nexus."

Umbrosus didn't respond in words, exactly, but a sense of his affirmation filled her mind, and she knew that he agreed with her.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

Val was just about done, but it occurred to her that she ought to run through the song she had been playing once more. After all, it was always best to finish on a high note, and her last run-through hadn't been her best musically.

By now, she knew the music nearly by heart. She tried adjusting her playing to the new instrument, letting the crystalline high notes ring out more, and not hitting the bass too hard, as this particular piano seemed to have a tendency to sound overly harsh if the lower register was played too loudly.

The girl's hands swept upward, and then down in the final sequence of cascading chords. The last notes pierced the air like delicate needles, and then vanished. It seemed to her, however, that the crystal continued ringing just below her hearing for a long time afterward.

She sat still for several seconds after she was done, even after she finally released the keys. Then, almost silently, she pulled the lid down over the keyboard, which vanished beneath the sparkling black crystal.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

Carefully, Val stood up. She pushed the bench back in, and then ran her fingers over the surface of the unusual instrument. She let herself briefly wonder who had made it, and whether it had been a part of the original design of Coldlight. Val could probably find that information if she were to look hard through the memories, but there wasn't enough reason to do that right now, and she had too many other things to do.

Val picked up her book of music from the piano and closed it. She tucked the slim volume under her arm, and then looked over at Umbrosus. He was already getting up, and he walked close to her as he headed for the door, his white fur brushing against her arm.

The girl opened the door and let her bondmate walk through. Then she went through herself. There was no one else in the hallway. Val let the door close, and then headed for the staircase on the right.

[Valanthia L'Evienne]

Val took the staircase down, and then one turn, two turns, three turns, and she was back in front of her own door again. She pushed it open and went inside, allowing Umbrosus to follow her in.

Her wardrobe was immediately to the right. She pulled the door open, and then placed her music book on a shelf at the top. It went next to her box of important things, which she had left at Coldlight during her last few trips. At least here, she knew no one was going to steal it, and she wasn't going to lose it.

Then she went off to run some water for her bath. It was starting to get late, and a bath sounded like a good idea before it was time to retire to bed. Umbrosus was already curled up on the girl's bed, and soon he would be asleep.

[Gossamer]

+ 1 Mysticism