One aspect of Lia’s absence I hadn’t expected was the effect it had on Luna, or rather, how her absence essentially forced Luna to focus her attention on Silva or me. Sure, we had always been her primary caretaker, while Lia often focused on Alex and their shared love for Alchemy and explosions, but regardless of that primary focus, Lia had acted as Luna’s older sister, always ready to listen, talk or just entertain the younger girl.
Now, without her presence, that entertainment fell to me, especially as Silva acted as scout and literal watchdog, a role we needed to fill, just to make sure nothing tried to make a snack out of us. Something far too many creatures were willing to try, some of which were quite fascinating and prompted the odd idea for further experiments, or what our critics would call crimes against nature, good sense and humanity. Not that I truly cared about any of those, well, other than nature as I considered myself part of the natural order, but good sense and humanity? Well, I didn’t have all that much to do with either of those, especially as the idea of good sense was profoundly influenced by the opinion held by the average person and why would I ever want to be average? Alas, despite the ideas we got from observing the fascinating creatures that had sprung up over winter, possibly in response to the changing seasons and their reflection on the elemental composition of the Astral River, these creatures were generally not friendly, meaning Silva wasn’t able to entertain my daughter, leaving that task to me.
Sadly, while I could talk to her about magic and discuss a fairly wide variety of arcane topics or provide some of the necessary general education and a bit of scientific literacy from my own lessons in high school and later college, those couldn’t fill the entire night, Luna needed something to relax her mind, something simple and silly.
I considered trying to tell her tales of my adventures on Mundus, but most of those didn’t work. They were too close to the lessons I usually gave her, so something else was needed.
One morning, as we were getting ready to turn in for the day, keeping our nocturnal pattern, if only to let me relax as we walked instead of forcing me to constantly protect myself from the despicable rays of the Sun, I heard a bird singing nearby, giving me an idea.
Now, I wasn’t some great songstress or bard; I barely could carry a tune in a bucket, but given the dearth of entertainment we were generally suffering under, my performance was easily the best Luna would hear all day. Adding a bit of Wind Magic to replace some of the usual instruments to the best of my ability and a bit of Mind Magic to project some of my memories into something resembling an auditory illusion to add to the performance allowed me to make music instead of generating noise.
Finding the right songs to sing, especially some Luna could learn and join me in singing, was a little more difficult. Complex pieces of music, mostly classical, had always been my favourites, their changing and repeating patterns gave them a fascinating complexity. Some of those even had lyrics, like the Ode to Joy, but they either needed their instrumental accompaniment, something I couldn’t replicate magically just yet, or they required a far better voice than mine, both in range and volume.
Obviously, those just didn’t work for to accompany our march. Similarly, while it wouldn’t be all that difficult to piece some fairly simple pop songs together from a fairly wide array of memories, the kind of song that wormed its way into your head and stuck around for hours, days or even weeks, I wasn’t about to subject myself or Luna to that particular brand of torture. I had no desire to hear the Mambo No. 5 for days on end, nor did I think it was time to start the final countdown.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Luckily, there was a compromise, a mix between good music and music memorable enough to be stuck in my head years after I had heard the songs and their melody. Songs about a guy named Jude, about living in a yellow submarine, whyever anyone would paint a submarine yellow was a question for the ages, even songs about letting it be or letting it go, they all worked out fairly well. Sure, a few lines had to be improvised as I couldn’t quite recall them, but I certainly could imagine them, even if I couldn’t imagine all the people living life in peace. Maybe I was mixing genres there just a little, but it worked well enough to amuse us. Occasionally, either of us decided to improvise, adding or taking parts from one song and adding them to another, sometimes for added amusement, sometimes to see if it would sound better, and sometimes just to annoy the other; it was all in good fun.
During one of our nightly sing-alongs, I found myself mentally adrift. Instead of just letting it be, I felt strangely vulnerable. The usually comforting darkness of the night felt slightly oppressive as if there was something in the darkness around us. I was not accustomed to this kind of sensation; the only time I had felt something similar in years was when I delved too deep into the Shadows and was disturbed by the sheer, infinite void of the unknown and unknowable around me.
Marshalling a bit of my magic, I gently twisted it into the cloak of shadows I was so fond of using, the familiar sensation swiftly banishing the strange sensation. For a moment, I wondered where it had come from and cast my senses out into the night, trying to find what had disturbed my mental equilibrium, but there was nothing out there, at least nothing I considered a plausible source of the strange sensation. A few birds sat in the trees, awake due to our singing, a couple of small rodents scurried deeper into the underbrush, and a fox lurked near a narrow burrow, waiting for the creatures inside to come out and be turned into a meal. There was nothing mystical, nothing extraordinary, just the usual creatures of the forest living their life.
Shaking my head, I pushed the sensation away and focused on my singing, grinning just a little as I improvised a bit of the song, adding some additional ethereal sound with my Wind Magic before transitioning it into a different, more energetic song. It was all in good fun, and we continued our singing for a little longer before starting to drift into a normal conversation, which quickly turned into a lesson, this one on simple statistics and how one could deceive people with nothing but the truth.
It was not a topic I truly enjoyed, especially as it dealt with statistics, numbers and patterns, things I usually liked but twisted into something manipulative to serve one’s own needs. It was far too easy to accomplish, to the point that I had heard an alleged quote about people being only able to trust statistics; they had manipulated themselves, but its simplicity made it even more important to be cognisant of such things. Maybe not as important now, given just how fragmented and separated society had become, but valuable nonetheless.
If only I could perfect a few additional tricks of Mind Magic and teach them to Luna. For example, I was certain there were ways to detect deceptions and lies, but so far, I had been unable to find an easy way. The best I could do was use what I had developed when interrogating my prisoners, but that wasn’t quite as subtle as I wanted it to be. To say nothing of the involved violations of privacy, unless I was confident I wouldn’t be caught I was fairly hesitant to use something like that outside of an area I was in complete control of.
No, dealing with people would always be something I had my troubles with, at least if there wasn’t the roles we were supposed to take up weren’t already established. Teaching, sure, I could do that, as long as the students were willing to learn. Acting as ‘Mother’ for Jade was something I had grown into, using memories of my own mother to guide me but having to find my own position and role in a societal exchange wasn’t something I was good at or comfortalbe with.
Maybe that was why I enjoyed travelling so much, it allowed me to simply take on the role of an outsider, to remain near people as long as I felt comfortable with and once I didn’t enjoy their presence, I could simply leave. There was no need to adjust to them or adapt to their norms, they could either accept me or not, it barely mattered to me.
Though, that idea made me wonder about the future and what I would do once I had my Sigmir back. Hopefully, we’d be able to come up with a good plan together.
