Prelude 11 - Our Heart

The actual crafting process was surprisingly simple, although mildly annoying for Cestia when she realized it consumed, as the recipe on the parchment explained, a portion of Zel as "potential energy". It drew in the materials with a golden shimmer and, before they knew it, matching, jiggly Charmie helmets rested on their laps. For crafting, they each received a small HP bonus of 10 which Melody's overload soon swelled to max out.

Glancing at one another, they tried on the hats. Cestia went first. She grunted as the fit was snug and wobbly. Kaye imagined that a sneaky Charmdrop, which had escaped Cestia's knife, was pulling off its best trick by perching on her head, unnoticed.

He told her it looked great. She fussed with it and pouted around the edges of a friendly smile. Following what their instructors had taught them, she managed to pop it into the adventure encyclopedia for the sake of appearances, then made it disappear visually while still being on her person. Kaye gawked and traced after Cestia's process with only the barest notion of what he had done, when finally replicating her results, and the faintest inkling of how to do it again. But they both had +10 DEF.

After setting that headband aside, recovering her cone-like rod, and checking that they were both "ready to groove", Melody stood tall despite being slightly smaller than Cestia and lacking a flat, broad stump stage like Char. Her arms settled to her side and she took a deep breath.

Without visible instruments, vivid, intricate music flowed from the flower tube of the phonograph. Melody bopped her head forward, in sync with the rhythm. Her voice sounded more mature than suggested by her youthful, slight presence. A smoky texture traced things Kaye could only glimpse in shadows. She'd been right to have them move back, as the song blotted out everything else around without stretching into painfully loud. They listened, together.

Our Heart

Lyrics and Vocals by Melody the ------

Published and Produced by Rava Media Inc. (a division of Ravalerine Corp).

Caught you
will you catch me
Should my feet
Ever touch the ground?
Waiting
For words you never say
Holding
In a breath I can’t let go
How far
Will you follow in my steps
Until
We have to walk alone?
No matter what might change
However far you go
You’re always, by my heart...

Though the land may split apart
And all lights fall from heaven
Still one constant shall remain
For my heart is shared with you.

I will never be afraid
Of being lost in the dark
I always have a light
As we share a heart.

Though the land may split apart
And all lights fall from heaven
Still one constant shall remain
For my heart is shared with you.

I will never be afraid
Of being lost in the dark
I always have a light
As we share a heart.

Cold tears
Will you catch them
Should I
Ever lose myself?
Fearing
What will happen next
Screaming
For you to stay right here
How long
Do we have left
Until
I can hold you close?
No matter what might change
However far we go
You’re always, by my heart.

Though the land may split apart
And all lights fall from heaven
Still one constant shall remain
For my heart is shared with you.

I will never be afraid
Of being lost in the dark
I always have a light
As we share a heart.¹Cadence and style inspired by『Aimer - Ref:rain』

Melody lingered on the last note with her eyes shut as the music on the phonograph finished. Kaye clapped first, his hands lined up, and Cestia soon joined in, her palms crossed. Flaring a smile, but with her hands shielding her teeth, Melody giddily responded, "Thanks for listening! It has been a pleasure singing for you guys. Hope you like my CD! Rava says they're working on some merch, whatever that is. So look out for that. I travel a lot...a lotttttt...so, you'll probably see me around. Touring is insane. But I picked up a little trick...well, lots of little tricks...from a Lifta Lady named Roxie. Here, let me show you!"

After setting down the small rod which seemed to have projected her voice and wiping a tired sheen of sweat from her brow, Melody asked if they had "travel maps". Fishing the mystical parchments Rufus had given them out of their bags, Melody delicately tapped their current, South Pronderosa location, adding a vividness to the ethereal brightness.

<LOCATION REGISTERED WITH LIFTA. INSTANT TELEPORT TO ANY REGIONAL TRAVEL AGENT AVAILABLE FOR A FEE OF 95 ZEL OR A LIFTA TRAVEL VOUCHER. CONSULT YOUR NEAREST AGENT FOR ALL OTHER SERVICES.>

"Total life and time saver. Veronda works South Pronderosa for Lifta just northwest of here. If you see mages working on a dimensional portal, you've gone too far. She makes aahhh-mazing sweet bean buns."

A calm, blissful expression lingered on Melody‘s face in the moments after her words. It reminded Kaye of some of the expressions that the Charmies made. Cestia exchanged a quick look with him and cleared her throat. This brought Melody out of her brief, mesmerized trance.

“But yeah! I totally get around the Nine Realms. Every multiverse version of them. Where are you two from anyway? Not to gloat but, more than likely, I’ve heard of it.”

Folding her arms around her stomach, Cestia took a quick breath and another glance at Kaye before she announced the name of their village.

Melody calmly listened to the name and opened her mouth to respond. A flare of concern crossed her trim, silvery eyebrows as she let her mouth dangle and then pull in, as though chewing on something invisible but tough. An instant later, she darted a hand up to her mouth in embarrassment. After several moments of reflection and fluster, Melody had to pronounce, “Gosh, umm, hmm this doesn’t happen much, but I really don’t know that place. I mean I haven’t been everywhere, but if you cite any location in the runic lands I can totally nail it. Beyond that, I would say I know a good amount. But seems... I haven’t been everywhere. Say… where you hail from, it wouldn’t happen to be near a dangerous southern city which glows at night with many reports of kidnappings?”

To her relief, both of them shook their heads, as neither had encountered a place like that anywhere near their village, just in stories from travelers. Still puzzling though, she then asked, “There’s a lively town in the trees, far to the west and near the coast. You wouldn’t have happened to know that?”

Embarrassingly, for all the merchants who ventured through their village and Suray’s tales of distant lands that hovered in clouds, this specific place didn’t ring a bell for either of them.

Great deserts to the south, formed and corrupted by battles thousands of years ago? Sure. And magical cities, as well as ones swallowed up by darkness and the sins of their rulers? Definitely. Of all the stories and fragments, Kaye and Cestia (mostly Cestia) knew enough places to formulate the earliest versions of their adventures with vivid names sketched out in the gray spaces on maps of their imaginations. The parchment map of this world, of Mithgard, didn’t feel foreign. It still contained enough vague and mysterious places where dragons and monsters certainly dwelled.

”So like… where you guys are from isn’t a place of darkness and ice and lots of dead people?” Melody clutched her hands together tightly but soon let them drop with confirmation it wasn’t like that at all.

With a grimace, she explained to them, “I get around to places like that, but I try not to venture too far. It would still be totally cool if you guys were like dead or mostly dead or undead or something. All sorts of beings enjoying my music is totally rad. Anyway, so I haven’t been everywhere. But I’ll make sure to keep it on my list to check out sometime. Thanks again for being my audience! It’s okay to sing to yourself, but it’s so much cooler and a big boost to have others listening. Oh! Do you happen to have a camera with you? I was thinking we could take like a group selfie. It’s another one of those kinda recent Schwartzchild inventions.”

Unfortunately, Kaye and Cestia had no idea what that was. Melody’s best explanation tried, “It’s a machine that makes a super real drawing with light and special paper. To do a selfie, you gotta swing it around and point it at yourself. Then you just smile and push the button!”

What their discussion of all these different things lacked in comprehension, especially for Kaye, they made up for in Melody’s infectious enthusiasm. Cestia soon announced that it was getting late and they needed to get back to finish their quest with their instructors.

Melody waved goodbye to them but confidently announced that they would see her again, especially with “how much (she got) around”.

It was another parting that felt all too swift. Kaye worried it would not be the last of the sort. Back home, things remained the same for weeks, months, even decades. That was comforting at times, frustrating with some in the community, and horrifying when certain changes did ultimately. inevitably arrive. No matter what others may have thought of the two of them, the sort of pair who meant trouble together to the elders, their departure was an event everyone knew about.

Because they existed in one of the gray areas of maps that more famous places sketched lightly, they followed the coastline north, while avoiding danger, and a great river that led right into Pronderosa.

His ankles gave a few rough pops as he followed Cestia away from the singer and into a dense section of evergreen forest. The ever-present wind that had buffeted them in the treetop now felt like it was gaining teeth, cold teeth, like breath passing over ice. The chill hastened their steps back to where they first found Rufus.

He considered retrieving his dense, woolen traveling cloak from the depths of his normal bags after a fresh gale forced them to pause. The weather reached into his shoulders like a brittle knife, leaving shards of prickly pain behind. Their recent climbing directed the discomfort to his pecs, hardened by farm work but lean on insulation. A glance over to check how Cestia was fairing told Kaye more than he wished to know.

Her hair veiled her face as she fought against the tide of air and the dual prominences of her chest revealed indecent bumps despite the tough tunic and deep leather. It wasn't the first time he had glimpsed that far. Climbing afforded him so many points to linger on. Once, he found himself trapped beneath and between her thighs as she fought for a firm limb to hold so long that he wondered if it was intentional. A view to finally quit him of nervous peeking.

Naturally, it didn't work, in the unlikely event that was her intent. But he knew Cestia as much as their same-age neighbors knew their siblings, a comparison she disliked whenever he hinted at it. To her, they were simply the King and Queen of Adventure. And, despite how long they spoke to one another into the night, the stars appearing like lights from other realms pressing through a veil, Kaye still worried she held onto so many words unsaid and unspeakable.

He took a deep breath and knew the words he wanted to say though. “We should put on something warm.” Her teeth started chattering before she could come up with a reply. The moment she saw her chest wasn’t full of the kind of nervous embarrassment he expected he might feel in her shoes. Still, she swung around her biggest bag to the front. Despite how he felt and the cold digging deeper into him, he easily helped her extract the heaviest cloak from deep underneath her pile of travel gear. Only once she had the rough fabric completely wrapped around her body did he slip his own on.