A few steps back to the north and into that darkness that’d been so aggravated at them leaving it and Mine could barely see the town she knew to be there behind. There was a moment to look for it, to recognize the dim lights she could see, before she turned to continue on. She was not to be torn away from duties that were her’s. A small note left behind of where she could be found was enough. Not too close to the ashkin, but within the proximity for her music.
Sometime around midday then she found herself looking at the river. Perhaps it’d been the communion she’d been having with them that left her feeling attached to their emotions, but it was a despair she found herself unable to ignore. These ones in particular had given up. It was a heavy weight she shared with them, Isui creating its somewhat circular shape there on the grass again for her to kneel and play.
It was a song that pulled her own features to match, an almost frown finding the corners of her mouth. The harmony was picked up effortlessly, but not with any sound she made herself. She was silent. The necklace of velvet and swan feathers at her throat took on a white glow, gems as clear as diamonds in an array like stars. Music more than one woman was capable of swept outwards, twisting around the bridge and falling to those before her, escaping outwards into the Shroud.
She was aware of many below the edge of rock outside of her vision, but she was aware of one other, too. Ashkin of sorts, all of them, but she was uniquely aware of this one in particular and his wanderings. A movable true north that twitched the needle of her attention his way. As such, she wasn’t surprised that the beginnings of this song had reached him and pulled him towards her. The dead and the dying had a natural way of doing just that.
The gloom and tension parted with the gait of his walk through them. Mine’s gold-rimmed gaze sought out the approaching figure, arm drawing the hairs of her bow across the morin khuur. Melancholy she’d started off, somber and slow with empathy. She knew despair. This was not a song that rocked her frame with the motions yet, but it was not a song that ever intended on staying so forlorn. Every few measures of music and a little something else began to creep in, elevating it past where it’d begun.
It was hair and skin as pale as a moon, if she’d been able to see above, that she caught sight of first. Tension floated upwards, motes of something else touching upon him briefly before continuing their journey away. More of him came into focus as he stepped forward. The darkness of his eyes, white sclera bled to black, gave her a slight warning. Perhaps he’d been hunting something out there, the usual reason for their change. As she glanced past his black coat to find the shadow of wings, a nod was given. His was a height too angled to keep eye contact for long as she knelt there. Mine looked ahead again to the bridge and valley, listening instead to the sound of him settling in beside her. It was an unnatural silence that came as he stopped moving.
“Siren.”
A moniker given during her conscription, one still used by those who were familiar enough to such a time. It’d been deserved, for the many Eorzeans caught, drowned, and otherwise ended at the tune of her voice paired with her instrument. But here it was only a reminder that her song had found him, leading him to her. A greeting of one swayed by it and caught on the web.
“I had to cast a wide net.” Mine offered him the softest explanation. Helping those down below with their despair was quite a task, one that’d take some time; it wasn’t such an undertaking that required her to focus on the individuals below, however, not like sending them off to the Lifestream would be. So her song wound freely with no tether this day because simply giving others outside of the river hope seemed a harmless thing.
“Hope?” They were respectful footfalls that avoided the edge of Isui, a measured stance adopted as the rest of him came to a pause again, having found a spot he liked. As one feeling began to be overcome by another, the sway of her figure in time with the notes could be watched. It was not just hope she gave, but her own hope for the situation buoyed by what she knew the group to be capable of.
“For them. It’s all I brought with me to give.”
“It’s enough. Keep going.”
Atraeus pyr Alsis let his gaze eventually wander off of Siren and ahead, keeping watch over her as she played. It was a welcomed quiet, this audience who breathed no breath that could distract. Hope washed over him as it reached the river but he did not stop her, letting her song continue until its end.
So she played.
