namesthesky | authorized borrowing

Aya is little used to having the opportunity to set her own priorities, but she likes it. She's not hurting for any material resources, and the organization of the attic would produce those more than anything else; and she has this entire bookshelf closer to hand. So the attic, which may or may not contain ghosts, languishes; and she steadily works through the book collection. Right now she is on the third in a series of myths from the old religion; this volume is about Aelare, the trickster.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

namesthesky

She finds some that don't have any things on them, drags them to a relatively clear area close to the door into the place, and starts attacking piles, sorting them into categories as best she can.

From:

pythbox

Most of the things in the attic are relatively easy to haul around - heavy or unwieldy or both, but workable.

And then there is the massive set of tower pipes located in a small cluster of musical instruments between a drift of assorted bronze sculpture and a stack of intricate wooden puzzles. It rises from amid several more normally-sized pipe towers, fully three times as tall as any of them, and twice as wide. It's beautiful, but strange - an overabundance of pipes, arranged in an asymmetrical double spiral, with a tangle of keys that it's hard to imagine someone managing to play. It's not even immediately clear whether or not they all work.

From:

namesthesky

Well, that's - enormous. Aya doesn't think she wants to try to move it. Musical instruments can remain sovereign over this corner.

From:

pythbox

When she passes close to it, it sounds a low, soft, mournful note.

From:

namesthesky

Aya - stops.

"If there are any singing ghosts or other entities that might sound like singing ghosts in this attic," she says, "they could save me a lot of trouble by singing the opening bars of Hail The Queen Of The Spheres."

From:

pythbox

The standing tower starts playing that song. If she looks, she can see its keys pressing themselves.

From:

namesthesky

She looks.

When it has stopped, she says, "And now I would like to confirm that you aren't just reacting to song titles. Do you know the one that starts, Above the magic valley Yine?"

From:

pythbox

It replies with a blatted chord that sounds remarkably like a snort.

From:

namesthesky

"You are clearly magic, but I would like to be able to distinguish between 'magic human, retaining all reasoning faculties' and the possibilities between that and 'magic trained mynah bird'."

From:

pythbox

A little sequence of high fluttering notes that you could imagine might be a laugh, and then it plays the requested song, although only the line she named and one more after it.

From:

namesthesky

"Okay. I'm going to go get some paper and a pen and come up with a code so you can talk to me without reference to my relatively limited song vocabulary. Back in a minute, possibly with a companion."

From:

pythbox

It giggles again, if that was a giggle.

From:

namesthesky

Aya goes back downstairs (carefully, carefully) and looks to see if the nameless son of the Duke is in his room.

From:

anotherbreeze

Technically he has a name. Just not one he wants.

He is in his room; the door is closed.

From:

namesthesky

Aya knocks.

From:

anotherbreeze

The door opens.

"Hi," he says. He looks generally rumpled, like he was just napping, and has neglected to put on a shirt.

From:

namesthesky

"I found the singing ghost."

From:

anotherbreeze

"Really," he says. "What is it?"

From:

namesthesky

"Magic human turned into a set of standing tower pipes. Can apparently hear. I'm going to work out a code so it can communicate complicated information."

From:

anotherbreeze

"...I definitely didn't expect that," he says. "I wonder - where it's from, how long it's been that way. Is it that huge one that kind of looks like it fell out of a magic? I always thought the designer was just really eccentric. It's never sung around me."