My Lesson

What is my core huh? And how would I find it. Tsoki ponders for a moment. This seems a lot like how master Longwhiskerchin explained the meditation process. I have never thought to apply that to music. Let me try! Tsoki sits down on the floor and begins his normal meditation routine. He begins to slip away into his consciousness, falling deeper and deeper into a trance like state. His eyes begin to glow softly from beneath his closed eyelids as he brings forth a single question in his mind. “Who is Tsoki” Memories begin to float past Tsoki as he floats in the empty expanse of his cleared mind. Providing for his younger siblings, building kites for the children, gathering items for the coming of the Wanderpus. Fragmented visions of the past and the future fly past Tsoki as he begins to understand the answer to his question. In every vision Tsoki is helping someone, and he is truly happy. “My core, my voice tells me that I must help people.”   Tsoki's hands bring his clarinet to his mouth while his eyes stay shut. He listens to the lullaby and lets the sound resonate within his mind. The notes manifest themselves in his inner mind and dance around Tsoki. He begins, softly at first, to play the clarinet. He does not play the melody of the lullaby but instead plays an accompanying part, amplifying the melody of his crew-mates and filling in the gaps. His glowing eyes open as he continues playing music.

My Lesson

Midnight would look over the song thoughtfully for a few moments, shaking his head. This song was absolutely nothing like what he was used to. The patterns of the sounds, just didn't fit what he imagined. In a few moments of practice, he'd try to imitate the sounds that the original piece seemed to suggest. The rolling and soothing voice that is supposed to come out of it as he sang, "Rooooocked in the craaaadle of the deeeee-" before he'd start coughing and hacking. While he had a deep voice naturally, the pattern of it didn't quite fit. It'd take him a few moments to realize that copying the song itself wasn't the point. It was an exercise in something else. His core? Perhaps that would help him figure out why this particular song was a challenge.   He'd close his bright blue eyes in thought as he considered what his core was. His voice was naturally deep and guttural. Something that lent itself well enough to epics, bar songs, chants and the like. He was a natural born hunter. So the songs he knew largely represented that lifestyle. So what about lullabies? Well they did exist back home, but they largely reflected the nature of his home. Telling children that their parents will protect them from the likes of the beasts that wander the night. That they will one day grow up strong to fight such creatures themselves.   Perhaps that is why he struggled to get the words out whenever he tried to sing this song. It wasn't really a good fit with his own personal core. Perhaps he could make an adjustment to it to fit to his own nature? Slowly he'd look over the words again. They didn't seem to fit with the sound that was in his heart, but perhaps it would at least be a start on the lesson as he shifted his singing to something colder and darker sounding instead of the more upbeat and peaceful way the song was originally intended. A sound like perhaps the waves of the song could threaten to drown the listener.

My Lesson

Quet ran their finger over the physical sheet of music that Ceylon had passed out, lingering over the bars where the notes and dynamic markings differed from the music that had twined through the space—

seeping through the text in the air in a manner that some would find soothing

—when their teacher had played it. Exactness, it seemed, did not matter as much in the music making process as she would have thought. He supposed that was what Officer Ceylon had meant by the experience being personal; no one else in the room appeared to be interpreting the song in the same way after all. She dropped her hand from the paper—

crisp, fresh off the press, littered with invisible fingerprints that spoke of high energy and the fizzy blurred glow of radioactivity

—to the keys of the piano they had seated themself at. The keys were well worn—

the echoes of past fingers scrawled across them skilled cursive stumbling scribbles oops, shit, damn, do it again, so close, got it!

—ivory keys smooth under his paper fingers. She found the keys that matched the ones on the sheet music, noting that one particular one was rewritten over and over, clearly going out of tune far more often than the others. He tapped the key and considered the note that wrote its way into the air. A little sharp, but not by much. They played the first few chords hesitantly, fingers stumbling over the unfamiliar positions, before pausing and looking over the melody; the singer's part. That was far more simple at least, he decided and played a few bars before they paused and tapped idly on the central C key without pressing it down.
  Reconsider: Music varies from person to person. This is copying a copy, thus it isn't personal. Strike prior considerations and restart.

Yes, she realized, she could learn to play the song verbatim, and it would be acceptable, but that wasn't the point here, was it? Officer Ceylon didn't seem to think so, and given what the siren could do, Quet was inclined to listen if only to attempt to learn.

Officer Ceylon had told them to find their "core." The thought made Quet frown; as far as he knew, his people had a very obvious core. It was what they were created around and what brought them to life. She shivered at the idea that something like that would have so much of an effect on them, when under normal circumstances, such a thing hardly had any bearing on his life. He wasn't Ezekiel, and never would be, but if that was the core which Ceylon spoke of, then...

A loud clang from the piano crossed the air in a jagged bold, drawing Quet from her thoughts as all of her flowers shut from being startled. It took a moment, but they realized they had accidentally leaned too far on the keys while lost in the spiral of their thoughts. She leaned back and apologized with an awkward mumble, and tried to refocus on their task.

Perhaps... perhaps it wasn't so simple as that? The way Officer Ceylon spoke, a core wasn't something physical or tangible. If that was the case, then what exactly made Quet who she was? There was the physical core yes, but that was like a foundation. They tapped at a low D a couple times in thought. A bassline? She considered the thought for a long moment, before accepting it. A song was far more than its bassline, even if that was what held it together.

He reconsidered the sheet music in front of them, and drew out a pencil to start making changes with tight precise script. They made it a few lines in, then blinked their flowers open and shut considering it. Imperfect, they realized, but it would work. He didn't particularly need to play the music himself, since it looked the same being played as it did written, but she supposed that defeated the purpose in the end. With that thought, slim paper fingers struck the keys, letting a transposed, but simplified version flow into the room. The fact that it was slower was immediately obvious, as both a change in tone, but also because of the untrained fingers playing it. With a deeper undertone and somber tempo combined with the still bright melody, it gave off the energy of persevering despite the darkness of the world, though Quet's stumbling fingers sometimes muddled the tune.

My Lesson

The Cradle of the Deep. How appropriate the lullaby be sung like a dirge. Often it is the last embrace any receive. The cradle and the cradler with no end in sight but the final place of rest always being each other.     Will my own Silk weave my burial shroud? My string of fate? My final Cradle?  

My Lesson

  What is my core? Who am I? It is a question I've asked myself a lot growing up, and a lot of the time, I did not like the answer I came to. Where I'm from, unless I was truly standout among my peers, I was naught but a body with a role to fill, one that, I felt reduced me to just a tool for the nation. I turned to music to give myself some measure of solace growing up. It brought a smile to my face and kept my heart willing to seek better for myself.   Here, in Liminal, where the laws of my home do not hover over me, I have come to learn so much more of myself than I ever have before. I have found friends, goals, motivation... and love. I want to protect all of it, I wish to see it all flourish and thrive together.   As I take up my flute, that which has accompanied and brought me comfort from a young age to how I am now, I play the Lullaby. It's tone does not truly dictate it's purpose, as all see it differently, and I am no exception.   A Lullaby to me is like a gentle cover, an ephemeral shield to protect one as they sleep. And that is what I wish to be. At my Core, I am a shield, for those I care for, for the place I call home. It is who I am, and how I shine.