He was stuck in a strange place mentally and emotionally. Half of him felt like everything was perfect and that everything would be alright and that any moment now salvation would come to the world. The other half of him felt like something was going horribly wrong and any moment now everything would crash down around his ears. All of it had to do with the snow globes that everyone in town seemed to be enamored with.

He’d even become tangled up in them and couldn’t, and didn’t, want to drag himself out of it. At first it had been fun. He’d gotten of the pretty things in a game of chance and liked hearing the tune. He’d even ‘borrowed’ Rikard’s first one though now he was sure he wasn’t ever giving it back. It was his now. Then he’d gotten another, and another, and another until he’d ended up with five of the music playing trinkets sitting on his desk.

They didn’t stay on the desk much anymore. With classes out for the holidays he spent more and more time listening to the music and wondering what it all meant. Sitting on the floor in his dorm, and lately in his room at the Carden household, he played one then another almost as if somehow they would tell him something different depending on which he listened to. The once crisp edges of the winding keys were starting to wear down and smooth with how often he wound them up or just played with them while looking at the figure inside. The sad tune now didn’t seem so much like heartbreak to him anymore. Now it sounded like a plea for help. It seemed as if the song was some sort of desperate plea that was suppose to reach into the heart of whoever listened to it and drive them to action.

It wasn’t an emotion he was used to feeling. He’d never liked people much. Usually he kept to himself and things had just gotten worse after his parents were killed. This music was different though. Somehow it reached into him and demanded that he listen and he couldn’t stop listening. He wanted to help whoever it was that had sent this to him but he didn’t know why. He didn’t know the figure inside the glass ball and he shouldn’t have any reason to help someone he didn’t know

But you do know her. Something seemed to whisper inside him every time he told himself he didn’t know who she was. It wasn’t ever his voice that spoke to him either. In a way it sounded like the colder calculated tones of Sailor Arsinoe. He didn’t listen though, couldn’t listen, he didn’t know who she was!

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He sat on the floor of in the bedroom his aunt and uncle had let him have now staring at the collection of snow globes. They were arranged in a semicircle on the low table he’d been given, having a liking for more eastern style furniture, and his head sat cradled on his arms as he watched them. He’d managed to get them all started at the same time so it was almost like listening to the music in stereo.

That’s why it startled him so much.

….help … me…

It had come just as the music started to slow and fade away. The voice was so soft that he almost swore that he had imagined it. There was no way though. He knew the tune by heart now he’d heard it so many times that he even some times hummed it to himself while he was doing other things. There was no way he would have missed something like that.

His fingers shook as he snatched up one of the snow globes and wound it up again. Setting it down directly in front of his nose he listened again. He let the tune crawl into his mind again and tried not to let himself loose his thoughts this time.

There it was again. More words but the same soft voice telling him things and asking him for help. The haunting plea of the song that had started to form in his mind had given itself a voice!

When the song died this time he wound the key up again to see if he could hear the voice one more time. The voice was soft and sweet and dug down to memories of his mother and how she used to talk to him and promise him everything would be alright and he believed her no matter what went wrong. He listened to it again and again leaving his fingers red and stinging until finally the soft voice and the music lulled him to sleep.

There with his head cradled on his arms on the table he dreamed of blue eyes…..