• Solo • Breathe

[Eliza Soule]

Third Trial of Ymiden, Arc 719
Following Dreamscape Repair - Thread 1: Intaglio
& Dreamscape Repair - Thread 2: Impasto

"You're a terrible storyteller you know," Eberhardt, Eliza's tiny, primate companion, complained. It had been two full trials since Ymiden's daughter had focused on this broken domain that was hers to repair. Or more accurately, she thought, to make new again. And two trials since she'd told the story of Eberhardt and Valentina. But the monkey had been less than impressed with the legend surrounding her namesake, and was quick to air out her grievances. Which she'd done more than a handful of times.

Eliza only smiled as she looked over what she'd accomplished the last time she'd been here. "Don't stab at the messenger. It's an old story, and I only told it the way I heard it. Besides, I tell my stories better with paint, brushes and canvas." That was what paintings or drawings were in a sense. Or so Eliza believed. Stories about people, places and things.

It was still cold where she stood, looking out over the landscape. Much colder than it should be, and there was no breeze, no wind, not even a puff of air to disturb a single, stray tendril of her hair. This world had been made beautiful. But the only living things in sight were those off in the distance. The brightly colored wagons, the flickering light of a campfire, the smell of something delicious simmering in a pot over the fire. The sounds of instruments playing, people laughing, singing and telling stories; and tiny bells on slender ankles, jingling away while pretty girls danced. Eliza had tried twice now, and hadn't been able to reach them.

There seemed to be some sort of invisible barrier between that which living and breathing, and what was still and lifeless. She'd taken a landscape that had been nothing but uninspired shades of gray, and with her brushes and some paint, turned it into a vibrant, painted desert. She'd populated it with all sorts of unusual and whimsical creatures. But just like the desert, they'd failed to come to life. It was all just an illusion, if a beautiful one. What was needed, Eliza thought, was to breathe life into it all. But in order to keep breathing, it needed a constant source.

"It needs, a heart," Eliza considered with a curious frown while dipping into the pocket of her cloak. The first time she'd fallen into this place, besides Eberhardt who'd been tangled up in her hair, she'd only had two other things with her. Heart. The heart shaped crystal that her father had given to her and the others who'd gathered on behalf of Auya, to plead her case. Eliza hadn't known what it was for, or what it might be used for. She only knew that it had thrummed with life. Like the combined heartbeats of the Immortals who were there, the mortalborns and the others. Even her own.

She held the crystal in the palm of her hand and gazed at it curiously. It wasn't pulsing now. But what if...? "There must be a reason that this was given to me. Maybe this was it,"" she said, and dropped to her knees right there where she stood. Digging into the soil, or rather a painted version of it, she made a small hole and placed the heart into it. And then covering it gently with earth again, she stood up, stepped back and waited.

At first, nothing happened. But after just a few trills, Eliza was sure that something had changed. It was subtle. The slightest whisper of air brushed over her face and lifted the fringe of dark hair from her forehead. Shadows played so subtly that she wasn't sure that it happened. A painted bird in the sky seemed to ruffle a feather or two, dip, rise, and then grew almost still. And if she listened closely, she could hear it. A beating heart. But a heartbeat so sluggish and faint that it was just barely there. Eliza sighed quietly, but she smiled just a little too. It wasn't much, and something more was needed. But it was progress.

[Eliza Soule]

***

"It needs to be healed," Eberhardt said sagely. Eliza nodded, while she closed her eyes and focused, as if she could hear the faint heartbeat better that way. "Yes. It needs to be healed, so that it can be reborn. Not like it was before, but new again." Rebirth. That was her Immortal father's domain, as was healing one of her own. When she opened her eyes and looked out over what she had done, the daughter of Ymiden smiled. She'd painted the desert landscape the colors of early Summer. And those of the morning sky as well. Also, her father's domains, as if without meaning to, she'd created a living and breathing shrine, and a prayer to her father, right here in Emea.

But it wasn't enough just yet and if she didn't finish what she'd started, it would all go to ruin again. "I have so many questions," she said quietly, not to Eberhardt but to her unseen father, in case he was listening or watching over her. She'd met him for the first time when she was speaking on Auya's behalf, but the meeting had been all too brief. "I wish there'd been more time." He'd blessed her though, and as Eliza remembered it, she reached up and captured a stray tendril of hair between her fingers to look at it. That golden hued tendril stood out in stark contrast to her otherwise dark brown hair. It was Ymiden's doing. "But maybe you've given me all the tools that I need to fix this. If I can, then I dedicate it to you."

Reaching into her cloak, she pulled out the small whirligig that up to now, had been of very little use. But she'd had it with her from the moment that she'd stepped through that crack in her gallery wall, and into Emea. There must be a reason, and crouching down, she planted the small spinning toy in the ground, just next to the spot where she'd placed the crystal heart. Immediately the toy and the heart seemed to make a connection, and the whirligig began to turn. But only in time with the limping heart, and much too slowly.

"Are you going to sing?" Eberhardt asked, and Eliza grinned a little and shrugged. The gesture was almost an apology. Eberhardt was a tough and opinionated critic, after all. "I think I am." She'd inherited her voice from her mother. And from her father, the ability to use it in order to heal. Never had she known a time, when the use of her gift seemed more appropriate. "Could you at least sing something happy this time? You sing a lot of maudlin songs, you know," the little primate complained. A tough critic indeed, but Eberhardt was probably right. "I'll sing something that my mother used to, before I was born. A love song," Eliza promised. She'd learned the song, crooned in an ancient tongue, after one of her elderly aunts had brought it to her. Her mother's youngest sister.

She sometimes wonder if her Immortal father had heard her mother sing the tune. If he'd genuine cared for her, and whether or not he'd loved her. Eliza liked to think he had, and she'd sing the song for him. It seemed appropriate now, and it was cheerful, if sappy enough to please Eberhardt. But somehow Eliza realized, that a song wouldn't be quite enough. So she dipped her hand into her cloak pocket once more. She drew out the coin that she'd been handed in Emea. The two headed coin that she'd carried in her pocket through a storm of chaos, without ever knowing what it was for. But now she intuitively believed that she did.

Her father had favored her with his blessing. But the coin granted her the ability, just once while in Emea, to access an exalted ability of any Immortal. And yet, only Ymiden's domain seemed appropriate now. She was doing this in his name after all, and an ability contained within Ymiden's domain, combined with her mortalborn ability that allowed her to heal through song, surely should amplify the effect of them both together. Or so Eliza hoped as she held the coin in her hand, drawing on the ability it gave her, and began to sing. A love song once crooned by her mother, who'd been thinking of romance. But when sung with a beloved father in mind, the words seemed just as meaningful.

Lord, guide me
And tell me what to do
I've seen the love of my life
And he has seen me

I want to tell him that I love him
And I hope he'll say the same

Life goes by fast
My heart beats strong
Lord, guide me and grant me peace
I ask you what to say, how to say it

Show me how to say I love him
Show me how to say he loves me
I'm praying that he'll say that he loves me

As she sang while drawing on the ability that the coin had given her, the horizon came alive with the colors of dawn. Empowered Sunrise. Eliza was blessed, a daughter of Ymiden, and with her song, she drew all the energies of the rising sun to the heart that was beating to slowly and faintly to hold for long. in order to heal it, so that it and this place could finally be born anew. There were wounds aplenty to repair. Even fatal ones, and that temporary boost the heart received through her efforts ought to, she hoped, be enough.

So it was enough, apparently. She sensed that the heart was beating much more strongly and regularly, before witnessing the effects for herself. The whirligig, connected somehow with the heart, began to turn much more smoothly, faster...Almost merrily, Eliza observed before she'd sung the last few notes of her mother's song. As the whirligig turned, a breeze kicked up. The scattered plant life swayed with it. The bird cried out and swooped down, chasing after a bright colored rodent, that scurried under the nearest outcropping of stone. The colors were vibrant, the air was crisp and the unbearable cold was a thing of the past. As if everything around her had taken in a big gulp of air, and began to breathe. It was done. It was healed and it was, in a very real sense, alive. But they weren't quite done here, Eliza knew, and so she began to walk.

[Eliza Soule]

"You should really sing more songs like that, you know. Cheerful and happy," Eberhardt chirped happily as Eliza walked, and the monkey rode atop her slender shoulder. "I'd get a reputation," she scoffed and Eberhardt frowned, tilting her head curiously. "A reputation for being what? Sweet, sentimental and cheerful? Perish the thought." The monkey rolled her eyes dramatically, but Eliza persisted. "Most successful artists are known for being complicated, moody, long suffering, eccentric. Nobody takes a sentimental, chirpy painter seriously." Following a long silence, Eberhardt responded simply, "Pfft!"

Eliza walked, and for the first time, she and Eberhardt made progress. The crystal and the whirligig she had planted and left there, had fused with this part of Emea, as one, and having become the thing that provided the painted desert it's pulse, it's heart and it's soul. They remained at the center of it all, while she walked towards the high horizon and the brightly colored caravans that were there. She no longer passed the same tree or stone twice. The ground no longer rolled beneath her feet, no longer sending her in circles. Her destination began to loom larger than it had before, and the faces gathered around the campfire became clearer. Eliza realized, she knew those faces.

Those upturned faces watching her approach. Their smiles. All of them together, in spite of having lived their lives during very different times. It could only happen in Emea. Poppy, her most beloved grandfather was there, seated on a low stool with a fiddle in one hand, a bow in the other. In spite of Eliza knowing he'd never once picked up an instrument in his life. Her great aunt Parmelia Dale as a very young girl, with bells on her ankles after she'd danced round the fire. There was Littleberry, and uncle Antie Groot waiting for her. And in the middle of them all, Eliza realized as she came within a stone's throw of them all, her mother's face. The woman who'd given birth to her and given her up at just a few breaks old. And yet, never mind the portrait Eliza carried in her locket, she knew her.

"It took you long enough to figure it out," Poppy declared in his gravely voice as he put his fiddle away. Teasing her, just like he always had. Eliza's eyes were fixed on her mother and she was slow to find her voice. "You look just like your portrait," she said, and her mother laughed. "Of course I do. My family paid a pretty copper for it. But it doesn't matter. You're dreaming remember, and I look just as you'd imagined I might." She'd never gotten to know her mother, but..."I miss you," Eliza said, and the young woman who'd given birth to her smiled, "I've missed you too."

But it was uncle Antie Groot that stepped forward, and gruffly cleared his throat. "Family reunions are all well and good, but that's not what you're here for. Is that what you thought? Get here, and you're done?" Eliza frowned, though didn't argue and quietly shook her head. All these faces were familiar ones, and it would be too easy to assume that it was that sense of home and familiarity that had drawn her here to this place. But it wasn't. Uncle Groot, Poppy, her mother, Littleberry and even little Carolyne who never grew over three foot two in height, stepped aside to reveal the gap between two painted caravans.

There was a door there. A thing artfully decorated and carved from a solid piece of oak, with a gold knocker, doorknob and hinges. The door stood freely on it's own, as there were no walls on either side of it. Eliza knew however that the door was only symbolic. It marked the way through into the rest of Emea, now that she'd found a way to repair this place. That's what had been calling to her, tugging at her. It was Poppy who stood, smiled and took hold of the door to open it wide. "What are you waiting for?" he asked. "We'll always be here, if you need it." And just when Eliza might have asked for just a little more time with them all, in the blink of an eye they were gone; and it was just her, Eberhardt and the door left behind.

[Strange]

Thread Review

Eliza

Eliza Soule

Skill Points: +10 (cannot be used for magic).
Magic XP: None.

Renown: None.

Injuries/Overstepping: None.
Wealth Points: None.
Loot: None.

Skill Knowledge:

• Mortalborn Ability: Healer's Song: Using song to heal in Emea
• Mortalborn Ability: Healer's Song: Combining healing song with Empowered Sunrise for maximum effect
• Singing: Pairing the song with the circumstances
• Singing: Lyrics can be interpreted differently depending on the singer
• Singing: Setting the mood
• Singing: Use of song as prayer

Non-Skill Knowledge:

• none requested.

Notes: n/a.

Such a pleasant and lovely thread. Eliza is a graceful character, even in her more awkward moments, and it shows in her artistic perspectives and interactions with life around her - whether through painting or singing. Eberhardt makes for the perfect sort of side-character for these repair threads, and in a way, being a monkey, symbolizes the more free-spirited aspects of Eliza. Her thoughts on Ymiden, her father, were interesting to read and gave a glance into how Eliza feels about being a Mortalborn.

Technical-wise, the template and the embedded video (music) supported the story. The bold dialogue made it easy to pick out what was being said while reading. Normally, I'd have liked paragraph breaks between the dialogue conversations - but it worked well here because of the flowing consciousness of a dream.

Great job and enjoy your rewards!

PM me if you have any questions, issues or concerns.

Total Word Count: 2593 words.

Review Request Link: viewtopic.php?p=123379#p123379
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