Chapter Text
No one remembered it. In fact, Noah was nigh-certain no one wanted to.
How they could forget those sunset hues as an opposing cliff-face disappeared into the horizon, those supernatural structures turned into weapons of destruction and violence, those smiling mornings with little more than a sense of purpose and the occasional broiling of coffee beans for the person keeping watch. It was unreal.
He could blink and return to a world rich with history and life teeming from every corner. He could blink and return to a world slowly carving itself hollow in pursuit of an endless conflict. He could blink and see everything no one else could.
Then, an effeminate voice singing through the pipes of the most delicate musical wind he had heard, and a thought. In that moment, to follow. In hindsight, to hold onto those memories.
Slow, steady steps turned into tempestuous tapping against cobbled corners filled with bystanders who most certainly were pretending not to hear it — because how could they miss it? The sound was right there: all Noah needed to do was follow it. A spell had been cast upon him, and the crowds of faces dwindled away; the main square fading from frontal to peripheral views; the sunsetting skies already ahead and the tolling of the bells no longer as important as finding it.
It must have had a source, surely. Why else would that melody bounce on the air, growing and fading with each flicker of the eyes and turn of the head? In truth, the question still confounded the young Noah, stumbling over feet and passing through busy intersections perpendicular to their traffic flow.
Another blink, another memory: this time of a silver-haired woman with the most peculiar ears. Her smile like a crescent moon, her hands like the sun in his earthly palms. A voice that must have been hers: Our feelings upon these melodies…
Then, a dead end. Noah had mistakenly opened his eyes too soon, crashing straight into some poor High Entian woman exclaiming in pain. His gaze flickered up to hers, and a name floated to his tongue without even thinking about it. Sigrún, it was.
Apparently they had met.
Noah stumbled out a haphazard apology before continuing on his path, finally breaking free of the sea of people settling in for the fireworks show.
Mason walls lined with shades of cracking grays filled his sight, the air crisp with the first ether lights churning to life as he began trying to tune his ears in again. A left, then a right, certainly. But then it came to a T — the sound laid unequivocally ahead, and no direction seemed true.
Blink: a uniform-clad man set on his knees before a masked woman, the Queen. A crowd just like the one he had weaved through, and the motes of air rising to the sky. The flute melody persisted, but this new one seemed sadder. Emptier. Less…
A dead end. His eyes flung open, staring straight at a flickering ether light. A pathway illuminated under its uncertain umbrella: a path up.
Noah had never once scaled a building. That was something Lanz and Eunie fought for dominance over during their daily misadventures throughout Colony 9, screaming for Noah to adjudicate their rounds as they placed their feet in cracking bricks between shimmying vantage points before thrusting themselves upward and thumping against cold metal.
He always called it a tie; it never satisfied their competitive spirits. They always found themselves digging their nails between more bricks or metal sheets or their bodies thrust in the air with sheer willpower and determination to not be the loser that time. Really, Noah just didn’t want to break that delicate balance: that chorus of excited giggling and grunting that brought them so much joy. In the end, he could care less who won, so long as they kept going for it.
Noah let his tender, untrained fingers curl between thick bricks, struggling to find a place where he could place his weight and use it to throw himself to the ledge hanging just outside of his jumping range. Pressing his shoes into the wall, he failed to even attempt that jump. But the flute kept going, kept stealing his attention away from the darkening sky and passing clouds…
He eventually ditched the idea of scaling the building like his friends — he just wasn’t built for it, he decided, at least at that moment in time. Struck by a slight pang of guilt and the stings of scratched nailbeds, he almost wished he was as competitive. That he joined in on their reckless abandon.
Blink: purple ivies and a Machina boy, the latter showing Noah, the silver-haired girl, and four others how to place their hands properly. Once you have your momentum, you just pull up and the vines won’t toss you. See?
A dead end. The Gran Dell City Ramparts didn’t feature any of those special purple vines that boy was talking about. Not even in the Historical District with parts of the old Bionis’ shoulder blade sticking out did vines grow this high up. That was a distinct Colony 9 feature, and even then, not really.
All the running was slowly beginning to catch up to the young Noah, with his breath slowly growing shakier and less…together with each step. It was strange: he should not have been out of breath just yet. Perhaps it was all the things he had been seeing beneath his eyelids — they were tiring him. Perhaps it was his attempts at being like his friends — they weren’t there to guide him. But perhaps, it was because of that flute, too.
Noah began to recognize the melody the more it played — all those feelings, those flowing souls, those red lights turning aqua…and he knew the song would end soon.
Then he’d lose everything. So he ignored his pantings and his legs fighting for an early mercy, eyes intent on that prize.
Corner. Strides. Another corner. A turn in the right direction, then, a ladder. Lonely, it offered Noah a way onto the suburban rooftops, and quickly, it gave a new perspective.
He sat to take a breath, resting up against the gables behind him as his gaze turned upward, to the passing sky and swimming clouds. Of the ceruleans meeting the scarlets behind the pristine snow-like color of the Alcamoth, floating imperviously off in the distance.
Amazingly, his view was perfect. So perfect, that when the first sparks of celebration ignited the air, he had forgotten nigh-entirely about that flute guiding him through.
The sky settled with a pop, leaving behind only the gunpowder fizzling away in the wind, and then more. The more it crackled, the less the flute mattered. And the more Noah rested, the more he began to appreciate what he remembered. Even if not the most useful things ever, Noah knew the real beauty was in having them.
Instinctively, his fingers coiled around something tubular left beside him, and his trance was yet again broken by the surprise of it all: he was holding the flute. In his grasp, it was silent. When he returned it to its place, it was silent. Noah hadn’t touched an instrument or a craft yet — that was a Joran thing.
His careful sculptures and beautiful yarn-weavings made him the perfect artist. Art had been claimed already, but music was an untapped market in Noah’s circle of friends.
Blink: of a weary-looking man in a specialized uniform with long, blond hair tied back into a low ponytail glancing at Noah, saying he was good here, and smiling before disappearing.
A dead end. Noah could barely even wrap his head around that one.
A voice in the distance and the tappings of boots against metal, “Nooaaaah?” Eunie.
He sprung up, stuffing away the thoughts of his magical visions with the flute in pockets, searching for the source of the new sound as his hand flailed in the air.
“Noah!” She yelled, gasping and dashing out toward him, eventually calling, leading, and settling their other friends, Lanz and Joran, beside him. “Man, where’d you go? You missed the best part of the ceremony!”
“I did?” Noah cocked his head slightly, staring up at the gunpowder-stained clouds.
Lanz laughed, tapping himself on the shoulder, “Yeah, you knucklehead — the Empress gave a whole speech!”
“Oh,” Noah frowned, shifting back up against the gable, “I’m sorry guys. There was just this really pretty flute I heard and…”
Joran cut him off, “Flute? What flute?”
He was tempted to reach into his pocket and show them — this one, see? It was playing this beautiful melody and I just followed it to its source — but the words died in his mouth, a lie shuffling them away instead, “I thought I heard a band passing through and I suppose I got a little sidetracked.”
“Weird,” Eunie slumped beside Noah, “but that probably ain’t the worst thing to happen. Did you get a nice view of the fireworks at least?”
A nonchalant shrug. Another lie, but this one of omission.
Lanz yawned a little, stretching around before glancing up at the dimming sky and buzzing ether lamps, “Aw man, I think we stayed out too late.”
“Aww, you guys have to go all the way back to Colony 9? Maaan…” Eunie grumbled, “Do you have to? Can’t you just stay over tonight or something? We missed Noah at the common…common-sense-meant…stuff.”
Noah wasn’t quite sure what word Eunie had missed there, but he was sure he had never heard of it before.
Blink: a discussion about 10th-termers and homecomings. About the Queen and of those evil Agnians stealing lives. Little of their terminologies struck with the young Noah, but he definitely knew them when he overheard them.
“Sorry, Eunie, I don’t think my Pa’d let me. It already took a lot to get him to let me come all the way to Gran Dell to see the Empress’ 100th birthday stuff,” Joran’s lips sank at the edges, strings of guilt pulling them southward.
“Hey, but we’ll see each other in class in a few days?” Noah offered, trying to remain optimistic about it. Even if he, too, would have to take the shuttle down, it was better than letting his own thoughts overwhelm him.
“But it’s not the same! It’s only once every two weeks that we get to hang out in-person! I don’t like all that tech stuff!” Her wanting wasn’t unfounded. At the end of the day, she was born in the Alcamoth and she always talked about her parents making her help with a lot of the gardening and clean-ups inside. Because of all the beautifications projects happening with it, school was on the backend of the Empress’ priorities — there was already a school in Colony 9, so why not send the kids there while they dealt with the Entian problems?
So that’s exactly what happened to Eunie. Each morning, she’d have an image of herself projected into the Colony classroom, and she’d learn with the rest of 9’s youth. There, she and Noah met. She and Joran met. She and Lanz met. They became friends by proximity, and now that proximity was being stolen from her again — that, Noah knew.
He conjured up something to try and cheer her up, “Well, um, there’s a shuttle leaving at midnight, too? Even if Joran can’t stay until then, maybe Lanz and I can?”
“Oh yeah, the midnight bus!” Lanz sprung back up, “Oh, but man…my parents might get real mad. They’re still mad at me about that math quiz I failed…I dunno if I wanna give them a reason to not let me come back to Gran Dell.”
Eunie looked at Noah expectantly, and Noah just shrugged. The midnight bus was his idea, and Noah didn’t quite have an intense adult presence looming over him. “I can stay.”
— [] — [] —
That was four years ago.
Nowadays, Noah snuck up to Gran Dell for different reasons. He would always find some excuse to go if he had the funds to, whether it be to see Eunie up in her ivory prison or to try gaining a few extra Gs or even to just go back up to the spot he first saw the sky light ablaze — he practically spent more time on the Shoulder than he did in Colony 9.
That, naturally, didn’t come without its consequences. And today, his expert disguise wasn’t enough.
“Noah?” An older gentleman’s voice struck out as he faced the young teen, a tired ring shining from his eyes as he folded his arms and sighed, “I thought we talked about this.”
“I have my fare this time,” Noah protested, showing the gentleman his G, “I’m not sneaking on.”
“Well, you know the deal. Colonel doesn’t want you out to Gran Dell anymore.”
“And you know mine, all due respect — I’m not doing anyone any harm up there.”
“Okay, kiddo, look. I kinda like having a job, y’know? The Colonel’s my boss’ boss’ boss or whatever the ranking actually is. Can you just…not today?”
Not until I see her again, Noah’s tongue fell like a brick in his mouth. Not until I hear that melody again. He wanted to say what he was thinking, but he knew not to.
He sighed, just conceding his position, “Fine. I’ll come back with permission.”
Noah wasn’t quite so proud of that rule. Minors had to get permission by their guardians to go between the Colony and Shoulder — someone had snuck aboard and gone missing too many times. Now it acted as a thorn in his side.
But.
Noah waited for the gentleman to process someone else’s request, slowly trudging away from the scene before making a dash for the ship’s entrance.
He heard his name thrown out in the wind behind him and didn’t care one bit. The Colonel and his rules could find someone else to harass. And eventually, the ship would fly anyway — Gran Dell needed a shuttle, and they wouldn’t settle for a delay like kicking off one small teenager.
Noah was wrong. The ship didn’t fly. He had to be escorted off by multiple Colony Defense Soldiers (CDSes) and was then yelled at for reckless abandon of security and safety protocols.
Blink: That silver-haired woman with the funny ears staring off into the moonlight, reflecting on her time slowly slipping away. She snapped at Noah and ran off, apologizing the next morning. Her hands were the sun in his earthly palms.
A dead end: because Noah was now threatened with never returning to Gran Dell. Threatened with being put at the top of a no-fly list. And he had to listen.
But their hands would meet again soon, that he knew.