The Song of the World (nanowrimo13)

Chapter 18

Seams piped up to say that he’d been able to feel something, momentarily, but it was too short for him to grasp anything. “I think I was more aware of there being a huge block between me and the Song, rather than anything else. There was just this one time that it seemed that the block had become thin, but it was only for a few seconds, not long enough for me to do anything.”

“I thought it felt like a block too,” Mercy added. 

Kale shrugged. “I don’t think I felt anything.”

“If it’s a block - and assuming that it’s maybe the same kind of block for all of you except that maybe the way you experience it is different - do you think that if everyone pushed at the same time, something would move?” Cherry asked.

“That’s a pretty good idea,” Alto said. 

“But what do we push against?” Mercy asked.

“The barrier that you feel.”

“But not all of us feel barriers,” Kale said.

“Well, against - against anything you can think of.”

The six of them sat in concentration again. After a while, they opened their eyes and shook their heads.

“It’s like if you concentrate on there being a barrier, then suddenly there is one,” Justice said. “One of your own making. And you are pushing against that, rather than any actual barrier in your mind. Does that make sense?”

“I can’t judge what you felt,” Alto said.

They struggled against the barrier in turns for a while, also trying other ways to try and grasp at the song as they used to be able to do. It was frustrating them so badly that they started to snap at each other.

“Look, everyone,” Cherry finally said when they had descended to squabbling and calling each other names. “This isn’t going anywhere. I don’t think we should bother with this avenue anymore. Instead, we need to figure out what we are going to do with that impostor. How can we expose him? Or how can we discover his weaknesses in order to bring him down?”

“That’s back to my question isn’t it? What do we do?” Alto said with slight amusement.

They stared at each other.

Lord Rhythm cleared his throat.

“Yes Father?” Song sat across from him at the table. He didn’t look very excited to see them.

“Your mother and I just wanted to let you know how proud we are of you,” he said. Lady Melody reached over and patted him on the hand.

“We knew you could do it. It was prophesied from your birth!” she crooned.

“Yes, mother, I know. Thank you.”

“Well - how have things been with you? Your last letter was so brief - we were worried that you had been overworking yourself.”

“We work hard here, father. It’s not all fun and games.”

“That’s good. Um, how’s Beauty?”

“She’s fine. We’re very happy together. We’ll invite you to the wedding.”

“The wedding?” Lady Melody gasped. “You have proposed already? Without telling us?”

“It’s all been settled, mother. I didn’t know I had to ask for your permission to get married.”

A look of annoyance settled around Lord Rhythm’s eyes. “You don’t have to ask permission, son. It’s just civil to let us know beforehand.”