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 Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:34 am
___________GENESISThe warm smile on Arianne’s face had faded a notch. “You want to pay me with this?” she inquired lightly of the middle-aged guitarist standing before her, eyeing the crystalline blue bottle he held in his calloused hands skeptically. “I only take gold, my dear client.”
“Look,” was the uncomfortable rumble as the man fished a piece of parchment out of his pocket to hand to the guitar maker, “That’s certification that it’s worth thirty gold pieces. Just take it as collateral, for now.” When he saw the hesitation on the woman’s face, he stepped forward, pressing the bottle into her hands. “It’s all I could get together to make the half right now. I’ll have the rest when you finish the guitar, as promised. Please understand, miss.”
Arianne Foscari was well-known in the Floating City of Aimes for her craft, but her reasonable temperament preceded even her reputation. Though the young woman ran a stringent business, she was not the sort to cancel a high-paying custom order on the basis of a missing handful of gold... or in this case, a pretty bottle. The guitar maker may have thought that she was extending her client a small courtesy, but she had no way of knowing that it was the very bauble she held in her hands which had compelled her kindness this time.
“It’s fine,” Arianne said finally, cupping the blue bottle in her hand in an oddly protective motion before turning to place it on a shelf just over her work area. “I’ll send word when your guitar is finished, sir.”
Weeks passed by as activity resumed in Arianne’s workshop, the bottle quickly forgotten amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday living. Negotiating orders with her clientele by day, Ari fell to working on her stringed masterpieces by evening. Sometimes, though, when she sang gently to keep herself company on a late night, something would draw her eyes upward for a split moment, toward the aquamarine bottle that rested only just above her head. Other times, as she strung her completed works and tuned the instruments, she found that a light would flash overhead, though she could never exactly pinpoint where it had come from.
The day eventually came for the man to pick up his finished order. As Arianne counted the gold onto the worktable, she came up with thirty extra pieces. A moment’s thought reminded her that the bottle sitting on her shelf had been taken as collateral those weeks ago, in an amendment to their contract. Carefully lifting the object off of its resting place, she placed it in front of her customer, feeling a brief tug of reluctance as she let go of it.
“And here is your bottle back, sir.”
The man paused from eagerly admiring his new guitar then, turning to peer at the blue bottle with a strange expression on his face.
“That’s not mine, Ari. You must be mistaken,” he murmured, his thoughtful tone a stark contrast with his excitement earlier. His eyes had taken on a cloudy cast, as if trying to recall a half-remembered dream, but there was no hint of recognition.
Arianne nearly sputtered in surprise then, fumbling in her coat for the signed contract they’d penned together in the beginning. “I’m certain it is, look here—” But the young woman stopped abruptly, confusion knitting her features. She was positive she’d written it in, but there was no mention of the bottle at all in the amended contract. The gold amount written was as he’d paid her, extra thirty pieces and all. “Oh, I...” she trailed off, withdrawing her hand from the piece of parchment to rub the back of her neck awkwardly. “I suppose you’re right.”
Her words fell on deaf ears, as she returned her pale gaze to the man to find him still watching the bottle curiously. Indeed, it had become an inexplicably recurring theme among her clients—many would find themselves staring at the thing for no understandable reason. Even Arianne now found that she was somehow bound, rooted in place as if by an invisible string whenever she gazed upon the innocent bottle for too long. Joining him in silence, she wondered for the first time what exactly it was, if it wasn’t just an expensive trinket.
She never could manage to bring herself to sell that bottle for the thirty gold pieces it was supposed to be worth.  
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Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 5:33 am
___________SING FOR ABSOLUTIONHours could pass by like minutes in the workshop, especially when Arianne had a compelling project to work on. The woman had spent the better part of the evening carving and sanding down the beginnings of an electric guitar. This particular client had peculiar taste, she thought as she hunched over the bench, smoothing sawdust off what was to become the body of the instrument. He’d certainly had an eye for the extravagant, emphasizing to her how he wanted the curls in the grain of the wood to pop, like fire, and how the pearl inlays on the fretboard had to glow. That wasn’t even the hard part—appearance was one thing, but getting the stubborn maple wood to resonate just the way he’d described it would be even trickier.
Glancing up at the clock, Ari tried not to count the hours she’d been at the shop today. Realizing that the number was in the double digits would only worsen her level of exhaustion. She was almost certainly going to spend another night here, especially as the client wanted the guitar complete in two weeks and she was nowhere near finished.
Arianne stepped back from the worktable, rubbing her eyes tiredly before turning to pick up another guitar from the row of stands behind her. This one was hers, given to her by her parents as soon as she could pick up an instrument. The old acoustic had seen years of use and was now a bit battered, but ever reliable, a hallmark example of the quality she was supposed to strive for in Foscari Guitars.
Worn fingers reached for the pegheads at the end of the guitar, turning them to tune the instrument as she plucked the strings in a practiced motion. Yet, something didn’t quite click, and the artisan’s delicate features pulled into an acute frown when the tones from the strings remained strangely dissonant, no matter how she turned the heads. “By the gods, I’m so tired I can’t even tune my own guitar,” she lamented aloud, as if there was someone around to hear her.
She decided then to move on, seating herself on a stool. If the instrument wasn’t in perfect tune, at least it was in tune with itself. Arianne strummed an experimental chord, shaking her head when the notes buzzed awkwardly in the still air. This didn’t stop her though, and she continued into the beginning chords of one of her favorite songs, singing quietly as she went. She tried to ignore the buzzing as she played, but it seemed like the longer she continued, the worse it got—was her guitar broken?
“The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds,
Strewn across a blue blanket
I lean against the wind, pretend that I am weightless
And in this moment I am happy—oh my goddess!”
The guitar fell from her grasp, any musicality it had lost as it crashed onto the floor loudly. Ari cupped her hands to her mouth, pale blue eyes riveted to the bottle on the shelf just above her head. It was changing colors wildly, swirling from blue to phosphorescent white to seafoam green, and back to blue again. On top of that, it was... humming?
Was she insane or just tired? Cautiously, the woman stood up, raising her eyes to the bottle to inspect it curiously. It had never done this before—it had always just been a relatively normal, quiet bottle filled with a pretty colored liquid whenever her eyes had glanced over it in the past. Granted she never figured out what it was, but that was what all baubles were, weren’t they? Just strange, pretty things to have lying around.
Later, she wouldn’t be able to explain what compelled her to pick up the bottle and press it to her ear. But she did just this, finding that through the thick glass she could hear a faint, beautiful melody...
A 1-3-4-5 chord progression in the key of A minor, she noticed, her musician training taking over momentarily, I wonder if... Placing the bottle carefully on the workbench, she leaned over to pick up her guitar off the ground, never once letting her eyes leave the strange object. Arianne strummed out the A minor chord as she reseated herself, shivering involuntarily when the sound that emanated from the strings was pitch perfect. The next chord, too, was beautiful, as were the final two in the progression. She continued to play according to the song in the bottle, entranced by her own sound harmonizing with the bottle’s song.
The artisan didn’t even stop when the air around the bottle started to glow and swirl a pleasant green. “You just didn’t like my song, huh?” she accused crossly, though of course it didn’t respond. “That doesn’t mean you can sabotage my work! I have to make a living off of this, you know!”
A moment later, she realized she was talking to a bottle, and that the hair on her arms was standing on end. Forcing herself to put her guitar down, Ari wondered again whether she had gone insane. She stared at the aqua-colored bottle, as if doing so would force it to give up its secrets, but nothing new happened. It simply continued glowing, humming, changing colors, the water inside churning like the waves of the ocean crashing against the cliffs. She wanted to jump into that oblivion...
And she almost did, but her forehead hit the edge of her workbench first. “OW!” The shriek tore from her throat, rousing her from the enchantment. Ari shot a half angry, half fearful glance at the bottle on the table as she rubbed her head. It was too damn late for this. She was going to go home and sleep, before she hurt herself or her guitar any further. Throwing on her coat and making a scramble for her things, the young woman turned out the lights and ran for the door. Song used: Wish You Were Here - Incubus
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Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:12 pm
Speak.
(Dust Spin --> Child Quest*) It's as normal a day as any when Ari descends to her workshop to practice her craft, but what she finds is less than ordinary. In fact, all her guitars are absent from the wall! A quick search might find that she wasn't burglarized, as they're all haphazardly stacked towards the front of the shop, except for one that is floating above them all. Ari would find her bottle there, atop the pile of instruments, the opalescent colors of the Spin 'supporting' the floating guitar and strumming the strings with a surprisingly pleasant sound. One note hits sour, and with a flick of sea-green tendril, one of the string snaps, the guitar falling to the ground and another slowly beginning to take its place. It seems the bottle is trying to hear something beautiful -- or is it trying to find its voice? What does Ari do? How does she appease her bottle's cry for attention, to sate its need to find whatever it is that it's seeking? Can she find some compromise so this doesn't happen again? *Please note, there's a minimum word requirement of 500 words for this quest.
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