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.




Nothing could make Tanwyn go sprinting off down the street like a madman. He’d not lost that much of a grip on his senses to throw everything to the wind and make a spectacle of himself when he had planned to meet with another Lieutenant not far from here and very soon. Priorities should be in order and no matter what was out there, he wasn’t going to shirk plans. What he did do was walk briskly and purposefully in the direction of a gentle, humming tune. Too soft and too sweet to be any style of music he was even familiar with, let alone interested in.

But that sound, that music, that voice, it reminded him inexplicably of his son. Tyree was gone. He’d been gone for years. Even if Tanwyn liked to believe the idea that he was out there as someone else, living the life he always should’ve had, he knew better than to think they would ever cross paths. Knew better than to hope they should cross paths, considering how colossally Tanwyn had failed him the first time. Seeking out this gentle tune was something he also should’ve known better than to chase. But he was always only just barely on the ‘choose life’ side of “I’ve got nothing to lose,” which kept him from being suicidal. But not from being reckless. Chase he did.

It went this way and that way. Even the music sounded like it was bobbing and weaving, playfully goading him as a child would. The city streets were winding, taking him down walkways and into alleys toward areas he’d never been into before and didn’t know. Powering into Weissite would make getting around easier, but he liked to hold off on doing so until it was really necessary. Chasing this tinkering music didn’t make it necessary. More importantly, the music wasn’t for Weissite. It was for Tanwyn.

He must’ve been wandering round and round in zigzagging circles as the minutes slipped away. He wanted to find the musician or whoever it was that played it. Maybe he’d heard it on a children’s show so many years ago, and that was why it sounded familiar. Or maybe it was a child singing, and the children had played together… Anything, any explanation was better than no explanation, so why did it seem like he never came any closer to finding the source? Why did it seem like it was always just barely out of his grasp?

Tanwyn shouldn’t have been reaching for it at all, but for one single second, it might have felt nice to just be comforted in what few memories he had of a child who’d only been alive for as many years as he’d been gone. A part of him could even allow himself to believe that the notes were his son, that it was Tyree still speaking to him…

It just didn’t turn out to matter. Tanwyn never reached the source of the music, whatever it was. While it had played, he’d felt almost frantic in trying to find it, so much so that he hadn’t even basked in those sweet notes, wasting what little comfort he could’ve derived from it. And now it was over, gone, done. He was alone in the unusually quiet streets of Destiny City once more.