Quote:
The Calling (10) : A beautiful melody drifts on the air from somewhere far away. The vocals are in a language you don't quite recognize, but feel somehow familiar to you. Something about the song calls to you, but no matter where you go, the song seems to sound the same distance away. The longer it goes on, the more emotional the song becomes--and the more emotional you become. Something about the song is possessive and consuming, like it's all you can think of. Something resonates in you as the song crescendos, and the feeling is at its strongest--be they good, bad, anything, but suddenly the song fades, and there's only an emptiness inside of you. The feeling of loss is strong, and can leave someone feeling emotionally numb. Someone out there was calling to you, and you couldn't find them.
content warning: this solo contains a character experiencing suicidal ideation
There was a soft flow of music.
Tianyi wasn't sure where it was coming from, but he could hear it, a soft interplay of strings and voice, and he swore...
He swore it sounded familiar. The lyrics weren't in Tianyian, no, but they seemed so close, like another dialect or like how, he'd come to understand, some languages on Earth were closely related to each other because they came from the same root. The voice, too, felt achingly familiar--a deep, resonant song that felt like comfort and home.
He found himself chasing it. Seeking it out. This song--it was so familiar and so strange all at once, an echo of an echo, but it wrapped around his heart and squeezed, pulling him along, like a promise he was desperate to see fulfilled.
It reminded him of Hongyun, singing along with his liangyin, sitting in the garden where they could watch him practice. He had taught Xiulan how to play, before gently handing him off to a tutor for more advanced lessons, but Xiu would always remember his gentle hands and gentle voice, demonstrating and helping. He would remember lounging in the garden with his brothers, watching Hongyun play, and feeling purely at peace.
There was something like a liangyin on Earth--they called it a guzheng, and Tianyi dreamed of getting his hands on one, to play again. Perhaps whoever this voice was had one of those, and that was why it sounded similar-but-not-the-same. Perhaps this was an Earth language that was similar to Tianyian.
Perhaps this was--
It seemed almost too much to hope. His brother hadn't been magical; even if he carried a Knight's potential, he never had the chance to be tested for the Academy, because Tianyi closed off before he was old enough to try.
(Because his youngest brother was born and brought calamity with him.)
So even if it was Hongyun reincarnated, he likely wouldn't remember Xiulan. But maybe that was okay. Maybe having a second chance at connection would be...
Tianyi was barely paying attention to where he was, chasing the song into the night. It never seemed to get closer, but the feeling of lost-and-then-found, of this is someone you know, someone who loved you once, you just have to find them again--it grew and grew with the song, filling Tianyi head to toe, leaving him feeling warm and hopeful even though he never seemed to get any closer to it.
Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe he could just have this beautiful moment, but maybe it did, and maybe he would have something good happen--maybe he would get back a piece of what he lost, if he could just find whoever was singing--
The song hit a crescendo, and Tianyi felt as if it filled him, head to toe, with resonance and warmth. With familiarity. With the feeling that could only be identified as home.
And then it ended.
And Tianyi was, once again, alone in the world. He came crashing back down to Earth in an instant, all the warmth and familiarity and home ripped from him, leaving him gasping from the ache it left behind in his chest.
Hongyun wasn't here. Maybe he never had been.
And Tianyi was on the edge of a roof.
cw: suicidal ideation
For a moment, Tianyi's thoughts wandered, as he stared down below.
He would probably survive the fall, if he was powered up, but if he let go in the middle--
He missed his family. His friends. Everything he had before. But all of that was gone--destroyed in a blink by the very people of the very planet he was supposed to serve and protect.
He was alone. All that was left was him, the saddest, most pathetic Senshi that had ever existed. He could barely use his magic, had just now after centuries made it to Super, was so useless that a Negaverse General-King had to tell him that sometimes you had to kill something to protect someone else. As if he hadn't learned that already.
He'd thought for a moment, hearing that song, that he might find Hongyun--or at least Hongyun's reincarnation. But if his brother had gotten the second chance at life he deserved, it seemed unlikely that his path would cross with Tianyi's again.
And maybe that was for the best. Tianyi was a poison. Chaos had come the day he was born. His whole world had withered, descended into chaos and anarchy and war, after his birth.
Worse, that presumed it was even possible for Hongyun or any of the rest of his family (his fathers and Haoran and Junkai all deserved another chance too)-- could even a starseed escape a Chaos-poisoned world? Tianyi certainly didn't know.
And what if he did? What if he took that step and let himself fall?
There would surely be another Tianyi. Yes, his world had kept him alive for a thousand years, but that was probably just because he was the option that existed, and considering that it was possible his starseed would have been trapped on his world, maybe it had thought that was the only option to have any Senshi at all.
Whoever came after him would probably be more responsible. A better fit, all around. Not nearly so pathetic. And maybe it would be a little unfair to leave them with his mess, but...surely anyone else would be more suited to clean it up than he was.
They might remember him, one day. Remember this moment, and this choice. As he pondered it himself, Tianyi wondered how his future incarnation might judge him.
Poorly, probably, much the same way he judged himself.
Of course, it might take so long that his star's last breath gave out, and he was leaving his world in a worse place than it already was. Perhaps there would not be a future Tianyi.
(Would that be so bad?)
(He couldn't say.)
And yet, as he teetered on the edge, as he considered taking that step--he paused.
And instead of a step forward, he took one back.
He would probably survive the fall, if he was powered up, but if he let go in the middle--
He missed his family. His friends. Everything he had before. But all of that was gone--destroyed in a blink by the very people of the very planet he was supposed to serve and protect.
He was alone. All that was left was him, the saddest, most pathetic Senshi that had ever existed. He could barely use his magic, had just now after centuries made it to Super, was so useless that a Negaverse General-King had to tell him that sometimes you had to kill something to protect someone else. As if he hadn't learned that already.
He'd thought for a moment, hearing that song, that he might find Hongyun--or at least Hongyun's reincarnation. But if his brother had gotten the second chance at life he deserved, it seemed unlikely that his path would cross with Tianyi's again.
And maybe that was for the best. Tianyi was a poison. Chaos had come the day he was born. His whole world had withered, descended into chaos and anarchy and war, after his birth.
Worse, that presumed it was even possible for Hongyun or any of the rest of his family (his fathers and Haoran and Junkai all deserved another chance too)-- could even a starseed escape a Chaos-poisoned world? Tianyi certainly didn't know.
And what if he did? What if he took that step and let himself fall?
There would surely be another Tianyi. Yes, his world had kept him alive for a thousand years, but that was probably just because he was the option that existed, and considering that it was possible his starseed would have been trapped on his world, maybe it had thought that was the only option to have any Senshi at all.
Whoever came after him would probably be more responsible. A better fit, all around. Not nearly so pathetic. And maybe it would be a little unfair to leave them with his mess, but...surely anyone else would be more suited to clean it up than he was.
They might remember him, one day. Remember this moment, and this choice. As he pondered it himself, Tianyi wondered how his future incarnation might judge him.
Poorly, probably, much the same way he judged himself.
Of course, it might take so long that his star's last breath gave out, and he was leaving his world in a worse place than it already was. Perhaps there would not be a future Tianyi.
(Would that be so bad?)
(He couldn't say.)
And yet, as he teetered on the edge, as he considered taking that step--he paused.
And instead of a step forward, he took one back.
