Chapter 9

Chapter 9

When Michael and Randall reappeared from the room they now appeared to be sharing, Michael’s long hair curled wetly down his back, evidence of a recent shower, and Randall was almost glowing. ...No, Brent thought, he actually *was* glowing. Brent cocked an eyebrow at him, and Randall spread his wings, somewhat shyly. From under his right wing, a new star shone, soft and tiny, but radiant. When he lifted his wing, its light filled the room, almost a match for Randall’s smile.

“Do I want to know how...”

Randall shook his head. Michael smirked wickedly. “You see, when 2 birdboys love each other very much, and they’re blackmailed by a universal force...”

Brent looked appalled.  “How dare you ruin a good joke like that with serious subtext. I taught you better than that!”  Michael laughed at him.

“She says it will take a couple of days for her to absorb this much...essence, even temporarily. Which is kind of amazing, considering it took years to put in me.”

Jo’s music interrupted. “The time required before was to change the foundation of you so the rest could be laid upon it, and trebly so because your foundations were already complex and rich, and no mistake could be made.

Paul nodded thoughtfully. “But won’t your sisters just detect the essence in you?”

“My sisters will detect me, regardless, but they won’t move against me, nor toward me. They are both afraid of me. I have all our oaths, and though I am loathe to invoke them, if they should move against me and fail, I *will* invoke them, and they live in fear of it.”

“Why? Would it kill them?”

“No. It would make them mine. Entirely and utterly, to rule, to own, to control, until the end of all time. They would rather die a million deaths. We are, each of us more independent than you can imagine, and though you can’t imagine it, we fought hard to become this way. Our father had his own plans for us to follow, and free will had no place in those plans.

“You said they would detect you. You didn’t actually say anything about Michael’s essence.”

“His essence, that which makes him a starchild and my champion was already part of me. When rejoined with me, it will be indistinguishable from my own until it is far too late.”

“And when he needs it again?  We’re unlikely to have 3 days to put everything back.”

“I will only be borrowing. The return will be much less arduous than the borrowing. Because it’s his now, It will snap back to him faster than you can imagine.”

“In short, I won’t be leaving our asses hanging in the wind if we get attacked.”

Paul’s brow scrunched. “So what if Jo isn’t around when we need it?”

Jo coalesced into her solid image in front of them. “I am always with him.”

“And your sisters can’t interfere with that, or the archmage?”

Jo looked thoughtful. “It is a possibility. I will make a link between us, small so it cannot be detected, but able to be opened. And I will give Michael the ability to draw that essence to him.”  She hesitated for a moment. “Michael come with me. I must speak to you of a thing.”

Michael followed her down the corridor until she walked through the closed door of one of the empty cabins, then opened the door and walked through after. She smirked at him. “You could have done as I did.”

“Except that it would have taken me real effort and a lot of casting. It’s easier to open the door.”

She looked away. “For now.”

“Alright, Jo, that’s a lot of hesitations, and secret looks. What are you not telling me?”

“You... are special. I know you are aware of this. You are first of the Starborn, my own children. And you have been blessed by the light and my father. But if I do what I have said, it will link us in a way that is... different. It is a thing that one of my sisters has done once, and the results of it have been long felt in the world. It is not something I can do with you in ignorance.”

She grasped his hand and he gasped. Music thrilled along his body, resonating through his wings and connecting him to the song at a deeper level. He could feel that his connection to her was deeper than he had imagine; more meaningful and purposeful. “Michael, my child. It is not the same for Randall. Though he is also a first, his connection is facile...simple. He shares in my music, and my father’s touch is placed upon him. That is why the stars shine in his eyes. He has enough of me to carry the first of us, and he will pass that down. But you, you have so much of my gift, and my father’s, and you were already blessed with so much of the ancient gift.”

Michael stood there silently. “I’ll never be normal, will I? Even for a starborn. Even with your...my children. Even with Randall.”

She shook her head, a little sadly. “You never could have been. You were always special, from the moment your mother and father first looked in your eyes, you were blessed with gifts most humans could never imagine. But, like your parents, I love you, and Randall truly loves you, and your differences are not something to be tolerated or even ignored. They are something to be cherished.”

“You don’t know if he feels that way.”

Her tone was admonishing. “Of course I know. His heart song is loud to me, as is yours. I hear the songs of all your pack. They could not love you more. And they do not love you because you are different, or in spite of it. They love it as part of you. I promise.”

He still looked unsure. If he were the same person he had been even a few days before, he would have given in to tears. Instead he held them back. But Jo wasn’t fooled. She held his hand tighter and smiled softly. “Listen, child.”

The song that touched him, changed, carrying other melodies. Soft songs of other voices. Worries and fears and hopes swirled through him, and Jo carried the melodies through him with her, and amplified the things he had never been sure of on his own. Yes. There truly was love there. And it was separate from his wings and his gifts, but it included them, too. Each song sang briefly, only fragments of the tune playing through him.

Tears ran silently down his face. “They’ll not thank you for breaching their privacy like that.”

“These are the things they already tell you. They don’t hold these separate from you. You just have not learned to believe them yet. Do you believe now?”

“I do.” He nodded, and wiped his tears away with the back of his sleeve on his free arm. He didn’t try to pull his other hand away.

“Good. Michael, oh Michael. You are so loved. And so special. And I must ask of you something that is not fair, and is not right. To save everything, I must ask you to give more of yourself to me. I must ask you to bond yourself even tighter to me, to the eternal song of our universe. I ask you to give me first claim on your fate, on your life...on your heart.”

Michael did start to pull his hand away then. “No. Listen. Please. To give and take as you must give and take to win will require that you be able to take from me. To be part of me, and for me to be part of you. Only a true avatar can stand so. There has been only one other avatar of my family. It was generations ago, and the echoes still remain. My light sister, she invested herself this way, and changed the universe. He was a great man. He was, like my sister, bright, and glorious, warm as the sun, but also like her, he was harsh sometimes as the brightest sun.”  

“You are so like him, and so different. You are soft and loud in turn, beautiful and graceful, complex and simple all at once. You are the favorite of my songs.  And you are beautiful. You do not have his harshness. And like songs, you embrace new parts and take them to yourself. Light shines on things, but does not join with them. Songs are given to people, but where they are accepted, embraced, they become part of them, and they part of us. It is a soft thing in you now. A nascent gift, newborn, as are you.”

“But if I give you this gift, that will change. When you become part of a song, you will not do it without knowing. You will control the song...and you will be able to touch all the songs around you. Do you understand?”

Michael was afraid he did. “The songs you showed me. They already touched me. But I didn’t know. But if I accept this, I’ll know. I’ll always know. All the parts of it. The good and the bad.”

“You will have knowledge of all of your songs, yes. And those that touch you. And should you exert yourself, even to the slightest, you will be able to touch any song you should set your mind to. To hear it. To understand it...To sing it.”

“To sing it?”

“Come here. It is, to an extent, a thing you can already do. The ancient gift, what you call magic, touches the songs around you, and lets you sing with them. You do not see it so, but you would.”  She pulled him to the door.

She put their joined hands together on the door. Like when Michael heard the songs of his friends, he now heard the song that was the shape of the door, the motion of the matter within. And hearing the song, he knew. His song would fit in the other song, just so, and he could pass through. He pushed tentatively, and watched his hand slide through the door, then rapidly pulled it back.

“You begin to understand. But watch. There are other ways.”  She touched the door again, and sang, a part of her song joining with the song in the door, and the song changed to match what she sang. The door changed. It was a simple change. Something Michael would have done with magic, though with more structure, with a clear knowledge of all the items involved. And with significantly more effort. A raised image appeared on the surface, a simple rune, Michael’s name.

“That’s how you do it?”

“No. This song is already part of me. When I change it, I change a small part of myself.”  The door changed instantly, the song as it was before. There was no duet, no gentle change. The song was one thing, then another. “That is beyond you. Were you to change something so, it would change you in ways I cannot explain. You are a song, but you are not THE song.”

“But you’re saying the song is in everything. That you’re in everything. How are you not omnipotent? How do you not rule your sisters already?”

She laughed. “Oh child. Light and dark are also parts of all things. There is dark in the spaces, and when you change the spaces, you change the thing. The pieces are made, at the smallest level, of light. And all things, as they move, sing. In this, we are still in balance, as in all things.”

He nodded, slowly understanding. “But I will be able to touch the songs in all things.”

“...And in all people.”

“Oh.”

She turned him to look at her. “There is no one I would trust with this save you. You can already do this, Michael. It is just a different way. A difference in method. But it will change you. You will not hear the world the same way you do. ...And I cannot take this back. It will be with you, to some extent, for the rest of your days. You maybe able to learn to ignore some part of it in time...”

She didn’t let go of his hand. “There’s more isn’t there? How much more do you expect me to take? How much can change about me until I’m not me?”

“You are always you. I will not change that part of your song. I will enhance it. I will magnify it. I will sing with it. But you, as you, are a song I cherish, and I will only allow you to change it. And you have always been able to change you, Michael. That is how you grow.”

He regarded her solemnly. “What else will change?”

“The song is eternal, Michael. It has always been. It will always be. If you embrace the song too tightly, you will be part of the song, for as long as it is sung. For as long as I am. Forever.”

“Your father says he will keep me forever anyway.”

“My father...can be persuaded. He is a great lover of love, and will give and forgive much for its sake. Other prices can be given in place of the promise he took from you. But this..if you join with the song, you may become part of that which makes it eternal. It is not guaranteed, but in a life spent as my avatar, there is a chance that your song may not ever end.”

“The avatar of the light? Is he eternal too?”

She considered for a moment. “Not in this way. Light, to survive, always travels. Yet the memory of light can remain. He is eternal in the hearts of those who know him. I still sing some echo of his song. My sister still has not go of his light. She sees it for all the distance it has traveled, and loves it all.”

“She can see all the light?”

“No, Michael. She IS all the light.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You can never take it back?”

She shook her head.

“Won’t your sisters feel it? Won’t that be as bad as me carrying all this to start?”

“This is a different change. Until this power is exerted, it only exists between you and I. The song is not seen by them. Not like the other things that have changed in you. This is a song that you and I sing, and until you sing it with something that touches them, it does not exist for them.”

MIchael shook his head, as though he were trying to get water out of his ears.

“If you say so. I ...can’t agree now. I can’t make that decision alone. I know that only I can make it, but I can’t do it alone.”

“I should have known that would be your answer. Do as you must. I can wait some time. We may begin the other things we must to hide you from my sisters. I will take back that portion of song that my father and I have given you, and take it into myself to sing for you. You may act as you normally would. Your song will grow quieter, and the light will dim in your eyes and wings, and your feathers will show through. My father will help me to shape your bones, because your old wings are not meant to carry you as you are. Really, I was hasty to change you so quickly, but ...that is done.  Go, Michael. Talk to whoever you must. Three days from now, you must know your course, as must I. There is risk in doing this, and a cost to you, in the change, that you will be even more different to those around you. But there is a risk in not doing it, that we might doom the world. I do not know. I cannot tell you. My father either does not know, or cannot tell. Go. I have begun to change you once more. I am here with you.”

She disappeared to his eyes, and his touch, but softly, at the edges of him, Michael could hear the song and feel her touch on his soul.