PM to join The Proper Trace

[Aramenta]

Spring 13, AV
The Web in Endrykas
-------------------------
When Ara let her fingers fade just slightyl from the interlacing into the wooly strands of the city's web, almost she felt the sunlight on her proper, earthly skin. There was a magic to the web - she could trace back her fingertips, and listen close, and hear her own self, the echo of the trilling cry of her own breath beneath her slack breast, her collapsed limbs, could smell the shutness of her eyes, the vulnerability of her body. Could smell too, the frowning watchfulness of Livvy, who had never grown to trust these queer periods where her mistress would lay unconscious in the deep-grass on the edge of the city. She did not know what she did, here - she was a slave, an outsider, she could not know. There was a pleasant sadness in that, that gave the low moan of the strand Livvy made in the great song of the web more resonant and clear in Ara's mind. It was one of the themes by which she understood the rest of the symphony.

She drifted back to where she was on the web - not far. The weave of Endrykas was so tightly knit, so filled with individual knots, that while she was first learning, it had been hard to tell one note there from another. The city, at first glance, was just one, heaving chorus, shouting, shouting 'Ride, ride, the land is ours, ride, ride, the earth calls us on.' That song was still there, she felt it in the tense restlessness of their tents, now, even as she walked in her skin. But she had learned, slowly, to tease out the individual elements of the song, both the pieces that had been webbed in by others like her - songs to say 'there is leatherwork here' or, 'this is the Pavilion of such-and-so' - and the passive, rising swells of the voices of Endrykas, of the souls walking in it, or that had walked in it, or, sometimes she half-believed she could hear the souls that would walk in it, one day.

The web was settling now - it had shimmered with heady, drunken festival songs for the days at the beginning of Spring. It was finally beginning to grow as still as it ever did, which was something of a comfort. Celebration was a complex of noise and bonhomie. These things were fine, but eventually they began to grate. It was comforting, to draw her fingers deep into the strands, and be able to hear the whirring song of the winds, again, over the clamor of human voices.

She was working on simple things today - if she were honest with herself, she had gone webbing mostly for the sheer pleasure of it, the rich feeling of immersion, of the delicate harmonics of a living thing, of the soft-taut threads in her fingertips. She fiddled mildly with a frayed knotting on an anchor in the horse-breeder's row, but it hardly needed it. The knotting was functional, she was simply making it prettier.

She rested then, the shadow of her hands atop the knotting, just an anchor between other anchors, really, the shadow of the song of her face, just above it. She sings, softly - partly this is how she speaks with the web, the interplay of point and counterpoint. It is how she speaks and listens to the tangled frayings of the web, how she tests their harmony when repaired. And partly, its simply the sensual pleasure of having a voice when she is normally silent.

Her eyes drift, softly, as her ears perk up, listening, listening to the vibrations along the slender threads.

[Vallora Salvari]

For hours, Vallora had moved through her paviliion's tent, trying to find something to do. Anything. Anything at all. Xaven had forbidden her from going out for work - or anything that would require much energy, really. Earlier this morning, her sickness had struck mildly. It was no more than some nausea and some headaches, but her brother would not take any chances.

The gesture was quite endearing, but she was really fine. If Father was here, he would tell Xaven to stop worrying and remember that her little sister was not all that weak and vulnerable. He would not coddle her and kept her from the world - because he knew that she might not be in this world for long. Father would want her to use her time as best she could.

Too bad he isn't here, Vallora thought bitterly. Too bad he will never be here anymore. Which means she would have to obey her Ankal's orders - besides, she did not weigh Xaven by worry over her. Perhaps a break was all she needed. She would be functional and well again tomorrow.

Mindlessly, she closed the book in her hand and fingered the silver pendant that had rested against her chest for the past year. It was cool to the touch. She could not help to start reminiscing about its previous owner. With all her will, she forced herself to only remember the good times. The short time they had managed to steal from each other.

The pain was still there, even after this time. The hollowness in her chest. The tightening grief around her throat. It was not something one could simply forget. To lose so much of your loved ones in the same time. Vallora tried not to think about it - she knew she was an easy prey for grief and depression.

She needed an escape. A way out for the moment. And she knew the perfect thing for it.

A long time ago, Vallora had found out that Webbing took so much of her concentration that it actually blocked other thoughts. The world of the Webs also offered her what reality had taken away from her. She had come to love the Web. Too much. But she did not let herself worry about overextension. She just wanted to indulge herself in the bliss of the magic.

Slowly and carefully, she felt herself leaving the corporeal world as her fingers caressed the fine lines of djed. It was a familiar gesture for her, almost like a second nature.

Memory washed over her immediately. Her deceased parents' presence had always felt stronger through the Web. This place she called home was wounded tightly by her father's weaving. And the remnants of a Webber always stayed in their webs. She could feel him so close. Could feel that he was really with her. It was one of the things that made the webs such a seductive prospect for her. It where she felt closest to her deceased parents.

For a moment, she let herself sink deeper into the embrace of the web, enjoying ghostly familiarity. If she strained hard enough, she could almost picture her father's hands, moving together with hers as they worked together to build the security of their home. Vallora could hear his voice, reminding her to concentrate and focus. Not to get lost in the webs allure.

That snapped her out of her reverie. She greeted her teeth and pushed down the grief that threatened to surface once more. She needed to get over it. Vallora ignored whispers that reached to her in her mother's voice and continued further.

Seconds later, colorful waves and lines filled her vision. The crowdedness of Endrykas had of course also affected the webs near it. Even until now, she still couldn't quite sort the different colors and shimmers and noises. So many people were tied to the web, so many of them that she could feel. There were endless colors, colors that you would not find in reality. One or two particular webs were extremely bright, glowing with power and age. The ancient Web. Ghostly figures followed it, they were barely noticeable but she knew they were the remnants of the deceased.

Pressing her lips together, she turned away from the pull of the old Web. She could not just mindlessly travel. That would heighten the risk of losing herself. So, Vallora figured she might as well explore Endrykas a bit more thoroughly. Noting the locations of various traders wouldn't hurt in this ever-changing city.

Everyone had their own ways of traveling the web and Vallora had always envisioned herself as walking across the webs, like walking over a glowing, colorful dirt path. It was the easiest way for her to envision the magical experience. Gingerly, she headed deeper into the city, unsure of where she was heading exactly.

At first it was faint but Vallora knew it was there. What was it? Humming? No, more like singing. Someone was singing. She did not exactly hear it. No, senses don't work the same way while one was accessing the web. It was more of a tremble through the air, a swirling fog of words and sound.

Curious, the girl followed the song carefully. One couldn't really guess what they might encounter through this world of magic, but nevertheless, Vallora was determined to check it out.

[Aramenta]

The song was wordless at first, a clear, murmuring brook of a song, vibrating as closely between the harmonies of the webwork as she could manage - she was not so talented that she revealed any great secrets of the web thusly, but she was increasingly competent, and passionate about it, enjoying immensely the soft interplay of herself with the secret web-world around her. The notes of the song were the deft weavings of her fingers, whirling softly through their threads, tucking in loose bits, tightening, adjusting. Pulling in a string that wavered its harmony, just out of tune - it had worn, and its guards were just a touch loose. She tautened it slowly, closing her eyes, listening closely, like a talented fiddler tuning her instrument.

She filled her lungs to whirl a soft crescendo of the tune, then stopped, not abruptly, but certainly. She snuffled gently at the air, closing her eyes. Took a deep breath.

Another webber? And fairly near at that. This was not shocking, by any means. The city was full of webbers, after all. But then, most folk knew just enough to sign in, to read, to wander a bit, to find where a shop was, to peek in their neighbors business. And this one smelled different, she did not smell of practicalities and gossip, but of something else: of dusty feet used to dusty roads. Of wandering, rather than searching. Of something else, quiet, and faint, something she recognized from the reflection in herself, a certain sharp tang of the dust that was a reflection of the haunting undertones of her own singing: the ineffable thirst for the slender cables, the dusty trails, the whirring melodies of the web itself.

She was not new to that thirst. It had struck her the first time she was drawn in by her tutor's strong hands, the first time her own fingers had clumsily stuck into the cables: a feeling of rightness. A feeling of home, almost. It was so simple, so beautiful, here, with the slender cords and the whirring tones, and the endless, endless parade of sounds and scents of humankind, the past and present all collapsed. She had learned the stories of the way that the pull could grow so strong that one melted away from the anchors of one's own free will, she'd felt that yearning, to be free of the corporeal. She had learned her ways of making sure to remember her home - she had learned the subtle, murmuring frequencies of her pavilion, of Livvy, of Canterfoot, learned to close her eyes and draw the smell of them into her heart when she began to forget how to wish to go home. She had braided them into the shadow of her hair, so that they draw back and forth softly against her neck, murmuring, "Ara, you are mortal born, Ara, you must come home to us. Go wander, but come home to us, to Father, Friend and Strider."

But nonetheless, that draw, that thirst, did not go away. She had grown used to it, first, then accepted it, now embraced it, for that bittersweet sharpness cut life to a quick that made her feel more real, in the web and out of it. The undefinable yearning strikes cords in us that satisfaction and contentment do not know how to pluck, the sort of pleasure-pain that makes life what it is. That makes one seek and yearn for more.

The dabblers, they did not have this, usually, or it was so deadened you did not feel it. And then the masters, their thirst was strange and dark and beautiful in a peculiar way that Ara had not yet grown to understand. This sharp, naive, sweet love for the simple luminousness of the place, this was a general peculiarity, Ara had found, of her own spiritual peers, those who knew enough to just begin to think of themselves properly as webbers, but not so much as to become, yet, true mystics.

Which even then, to smell that thirst would not be strange, except that in the end, Endrykas was not so huge of a place, and even if one did not meet some other web-weaver, one perhaps had stroked a knot they made, or heard the quivering anticipation of them elsewhere on the web. And this smell she had never experienced. She took the cable that vibrated finely with the practiced, competent steps of the girl, and whirled it about her own fingers in a complex winding, sending more clearly her own song through one silk thread of it just under her index finger. She leaned in close to it, then, and her song took words, and she sang herself gently out to the other webber, cautious but polite and hopeful - this was the middle of the city, after all, and the girl did not feel threatening to Ara.

"I'm Aramenta Stonewhistling,
A girl of Amethyst am I,
I'm Aramenta Stonewhistling,
Just whirling threads into a knot
Gone frayed.

And who are you? I do not know your smell,
You smell of sun-burnt dust and walking,
Who are you? I do not know your song,
But it is the song of a one, I think,
That perhaps could be a friend."x

[Vallora Salvari]

Vallora was known to be lost in her own thoughts periodically, but here, in the embrace of the Web, it was not simply being lost anymore. Both worse and better than that. It was like the strands of the web twisted and curled around her, cocooning her inside, trapping her.

Every once in a while, she would have to reach out and push the silky lines away. Memories flashed in front of her eyes. It may have been her own twisted mind's fault, nevertheless it all felt so real. Even with her grim determination, it was very hard not to get lost in the Web. Her duties to reality was what held her in place. She need only remember her brother and the mystery of her own family. Vallora knew she could not just let those things go.

Her attention was scattered the slightest bit, taking notice of everything and everyone at the same time. Here, in Endrykas, Webbers were not so scarce and she could feel them existing thinly along the course of the Webs. Each with their own personalities and characters - their own unique signature. To her eyes, they were ghosts in various shades of color, some brighter than others. If she reached out to touch them, she could glean slight informations about them - where they had been recently, if they had access to the Web or not, as the likes. All of it were interesting in its own way to her.

Vallora strained her hearing suddenly. There it was again, the peculiar song. Light and polite. It was calling to her - she could tell. Every note brushed against her skin as if the tune was a mild breeze. She had never heard anything quite like it. It was both beautiful and haunting.

Aramenta Stonewhistling of the Amethyst.

She followed the twisting wisps of a tune carefully, wondering. It was never a smart thing to follow things inside the web, but Vallora simply couldn't sate her curiosity. Being inside the Web had always given her a better perception of people, of their needs and wants - Vallora could tell the singer meant her no harm. An interest and curiosity that mirrored hers. That was enough reassurance for her to pursue the source of the music.

And there she saw it - or her, actually. The singer. A shade of a girl was solidifying as Vallora trained her focus to the figure. The girl looked about her age, yet there was something peculiar about her. An oldness that did not show in her physique - like the girl had experienced much at her young age. Just like her.

"I'm Vallora Salvari," she called out softly to the girl with a flickering fire around her. She wondered whether the girl recognized her pavilion's name or not. "I am a newcomer, I suppose. A long lost child finally back at home, a home that has forgotten her."

[Aramenta]

Ara did not stop singing - if there was a rule to her in the Webbing, it was to never stop singing. Perhaps the singing might be silent, but the song itself had to continue - without, there was no orientation, no solid earth beneath the winding strands. Her song at once, was her sense of up and down, inward and outward, apart and within. But her song paled, softly, to listen, then began to mold itself, only half conscious of itself. The beauty of the web, to Ara was its honesty, the fact that at some level, webbers were precisely who they were, the energies of others were precisely their own energies. The Great Webbers, she had heard whispers, even heard the songs of the Gods themselves as the stepped through the land. And Aramenta's little song was ever open, ever honest. It could protect others, it could project the truth that it wished, but it did not lie, and seldom even concealed.

And it changed, and the changing of its as at once both clear and difficult, for Ara had found a person. And the way of Ara on meeting someone who she did not think a threat, was to change herself, to unlace the harmonies of her own song slowly, and re-interweave them, remove the little dissonances where her voice clashed with the person to whom she spoke. Conflict, perhaps, and ever tension, but never, ever a dissonance. ARa's song began to whirl, the tones of it releasing, shifting through a transitional counterpoint, and then to reform, to make herself less a song that harmonized with the girl, as simply a counterpoint of the girl, a side melody in the Ode of Vallora Salvari.

"You are new, and I am not,
But you walk webs perhaps more resolutely than do I --
You are lost, but I have found you here,
Or you found me,
Or the web, the sacred web,
Perhaps has found us both."

A little laugh, not a giggle, for it was too free for that, just perhaps the subtle pleasure of seeking to find a melody, and finding it. The pleasure of new harmony. she whirled slowly in her spot, the ghost of her hands feeling the cold, thin, airless air, her toes atop the tightrope of the thick and ancient Drykas web, each twining itself into the parti-colored strands as she whirled. She sat again, and closed her eyes, and smelled deep.

"Far traveller, thee, far traveller,
Far, your walk, to just arrive back home -"

The song paused pregnantly, then shifted with realization, for the whirling, though she whirled in place, had wound her closer now to the girl. The song of her now wound itself about the same vertices of strands where the other girl stood, and stopped, and closed her ghosts-of-eyes again, and breathed deep one more time, the scent of dust and melancholy thick and intoxicating to her. She reached a finger down to twine about the slender harmonics of the new person, and then looked at her anew, for she listened, Ara did, much better than she spoke, with her winding, queer rhythms, and her clumsiness at speaking plainly.

"Perhaps not just?
Perhaps arriving home
Is quite a story?
I am small, and wish to rest,
And you have traveller's dust upon your feet.
Will you sit down and talk to me?
I like the smell and song of you.
We two, can straddle o'er the webbing-cord, and tend it's frays, perhaps,
And sing a story time together?"

And in offering herself, the song and ghost of her plopped down, one gangly leg on each side of the strand, like a child set lightly on a draught horse's back. She looked up then, and smiled, the ghost of it whirling through her melody, like a thin strand of twittering soprano - still one line, but with a clumsy playfulness, arpeggiating itself across the alto, mezzo, soprano, alto, mezzo, soprano, laughing softly when it pitched just wrong, and pulling, in the way of a student at her voice, to see if she could tune it better.x

[Vallora Salvari]

The singing in the air changed and shifted as Vallora approached the girl called Aramenta. Her steps quickened in curiosity. Lines of glowing webs twisted and twirled in a graceful dance around the strange girl. Vallora had never encountered someone like her before. The webs which extended from her were different - they hummed with a tune. She kept on singing and singing as Vallora threaded across the string. It was quite something.

Aramenta was sitting on the thick, colorful web. Her leg dangled down, moving somewhat restlessly. The song she sang had shown Vallora enough of the true nature of the stranger. And Vallora had decided to trust Aramenta a bit more - once could hardly hide anything in the Web.

Uncertainly, Vallora settled down beside the girl, keeping a respectful distance. Up close, she noticed the burn marks on her skin - it was hard not too. She wondered how the girl acquired them, but she didn't ask, at least not yet. Even before the girl said it, Vallora could tell that she had been in Endrykas for quite some time. She was a part of the tent city, unlike her.

She took a deep breath, her fingers weaving her question into a slim cord. Vallora did not utter a word. She simply wanted to practice her communication through the Web. She could tell that the girl sitting next to her would understand it. The glowing line elongated itself, slowly reaching the swirling strings around Aramenta. She would've find Vallora saying, "You're right. I've just came home, finally. It is good to be back. And yes, I would not mind sharing stories."

"I'm here with my twin brother. He's my only family." With some effort, Vallora shared a visual image of her brother, Xaven. She had always been better in controlling and perceiving images through the Web. It was somewhat easier. Through the Web, she could see things differently and she liked it.

As soon as she held on the web beneath her, flashes of colors and images flooded her mind. If she focused on any of it, she could've gleaned nearly all the information she wanted about anyone linked to the this Web. It was old enough and full of experiences. Still, she ignored it and turned back at the girl. "I can't really sing. Maybe you could teach me."

[Aramenta]

Ara, listening, was as dynamic - perhaps more in a way - than Ara speaking, for Ara did not listen only with the ghost of ears. Her eyes stayed wide and unblinking - to her, after all, the web had its own sense of real, separate from reality, and so she did little in the way of making a simulacrum of reality. There was no dust here, there were not really even eyes - they were just a metaphor, really. So why make them blink? Her fingers wound continuously into the cord, continuously probing, stroking, tensing, feeling, letting the various component vibrations of the hum of the web enter into her - or more precisely, the harmonics of the web beneath the girl she now spoke to. There was much one could learn simply by a series of correspondences and interactios, in this way, yes, though much of it was ineffable. The mannerisms of a Strider, the wariness of a housewife, the popularity of a vendor, all these things interacted in subtle ways with the web when you looked at them, in ways that, if pressed to describe them to someone else, she might have failed, in the same way it is difficult to describe the difference between a sad frown and an angry frown. A certain rigidity and dissonance of the fiber. The tightness of knot, or the way the loose ends have been furled. The orientation of a lead line.

Her nose, too, snuffled, as she listened, almost animal in its insistent intake of breath, the way it draws in the clouds of atmospheric self. In a way, the hands and the nose were two sides of a coin. The hands were the ears of connection, and the nose the ears of ambience. Where the hands sensed the projected self, the nose sensed the clouds of the ineffable and unrecorded - the detritus of webbing, as it were. She snuffled deeply as the girl spoke, and smelled the empathy of her. Perhaps the loneliness, the way that, awake, one might use the eyes and ears to see someone withdrawing into isolation.

And even her voice listened in its way, humming in a sotto voce, quietly pitching along with the girl's as she spoke, wrapping tendrils of music around the image she projected, projecting her reaction to things in the way facial expression expresses your interest in a storyteller.

"Alone?
Alone...

You have no pavilion left?"

Her voice was soft, and curled into a sort of gently murmur of grief.

"How hard it must be, to have no one left,
Your brother and you.
Have you anywhere to live?
Have you a trade?
I would not ask, but will not peer
Into the knots of you without your leave."

Her fingers raised slightly and her song wrapped round the image of the twin brother, murmuring soft songs of exploration and rememberance.

"Xaven, Xaven,
Brother, Twin,
Hard of face, and Hard of skin,
has walked a thousand miles therein."

She stops though, almost starts, looks at the girl at her final words. Smiles, and laughs, and her laugh is a song, as well, ringing and laughing, and bright, and a little bit, the tiniest bit, sad. She swings her straddled legs as she laughs, and rolls the laughter up into her thraot when she is done.

"The glory of the web:
Where you can ask a mute to teach you song.

The glory of the web:
Where fire cannot take the throat away.

Will you teach me, then, in return,
The trick of making images?
My hands are clumsy at that work,
They usually only listen."
x

[Vallora Salvari]

Colors and figures danced all around her, threatening to distract her. They were so beautiful, so dream-like. Her eyes flickered from the girl and to the wild lines of the web. They were calling to her, reaching out, slithering their way around her. Telling her to stay. To let go of the world she called reality.

Vallora gritted her teeth and turned back to the questions from the girl. Communicating with her was most peculiar and it took some moments to getting used to. Images and tunes clashing into one. She was unused to in hearing instead of seeing the webs, but she was more than eager to learn.

"Yes, I do not think I have any other family. Neither I could look for them. No other pavilion possesses the name Salvari - it is not a Drykas name." Vallora looked away, not wanting to show the shame to Aramenta. Their pavilion name was one of the blows that upset her father the most. He was forced to change it because of their exile. Whenever Vallora asked about it, Kaliro would grimace and look away. He never did responded to it. Soon enough, she stopped asking questions. All those things remained unsaid, she could not say it out loud or the shame will come flooding her.

Here she was, a Drykas but at the same time, she was not. It had been puzzling for her. Always an outsider. While, this girl - Aramenta - had probably lived in the tent city her whole life, yet Vallora could sense the other Webber was as much as an outsider as she was. It made no sense, but comforting.

The girl surprisingly laughed. Vallora paused for a moment, recalling the lyrics of the tune Ara was singing. She guessed there would be a tale behind those words. Flashes of images she was yet to perceive presented itself in front of her eyes, but she did not reach out to touch it. She would rather have her newly found acquaintance telling her about it.

"A mute?" Vallora wondered out loud. "You are a mute?" It was possible, of course. What was ruined out there, in the physical world, kept its beauty here in the Web - Vallora knew it well. The essence of the past will be forever preserved, forever cherished. "Will you sing me the story? At least, if you wish it."

Vallora couldn't help smiling a bit at the girl's request. It was just like what the Aramenta said, only in the web two girls needed to taught each other to see and to hear. For the first time since the death of her father, this would be the first time she truly practiced her magic in weaving the web. And she was grateful of it - she needed the training. "Of course, but I must say, I am not an excellent teacher."

[Aramenta]

//Will you sing the story? Will I?//

Ara shivered, frowned, and little echos of her voice flew from lips, singing faintly, incompletely, of fire, mother, horse, and fate. She closed the ghost of her eyes, then, looking down into the fibers of the trunk-line whre she sat. Run away! Run away! Hide in the every broader, far off echo of the web! She shivered, her hand wrapping round the slender line she ran back into herself, the little line that sang of reality, of the beautiful things and the duty she held to them. She reopened her eyes, and her song returned to her, wavering slightly, visible as a slight minor tone across the chord of the web beneath her.

"It was... a long time ago...
It was... a long time ago...

No.
No, not yet, not here.
Someday?
Not her, not yet.
Somethings you keep inside your lips,
E'en if another could tease them from the web around you.
Somethings, there is the truth,
And then the story of your heart's telling."

She stood though, now, and did not so much walk, as drift on the current of her own voice, to stand now beside the girl.

"I've... noone has asked, noone has ever wanted to learn..." her voice faltered, a moment, ceased to sing, just spoke. It made her voice change, the rich musicality of it fading, slightly, growing harsh, broken, whispery, thinning... thinning... the echo of reality entering closer.

She took the other girl's hand in her own, with the quiet frankness of the web, and tugged her gently to kneel in front of her. She took the hand, stronger than her own, rougher from hard riding, and laced her little fingers in. She tried to speak again, but her voice was gone, for the moment, transformed into the smoky whisper of her true-body. She leaned then forward, and her body was more real, warm breathed, and whispering. She murmured unvoiced whispers to the girl.

"You have... you have to listen first. And then you can sing. First you listen. Lay your hand still, and close your eyes, and hear the little vibrations through the string."

And Ara did not move her head, the warmth of her still settled just behind the other girl's ear, the warmth of her hand still wrapped in the other girl's hand, the warmth of her breaht on the other girl's back. The stillness let the strands of the web beneath her in her way of seeing wrap warm, and soft and drawing down around their conjoined hands. The faint vibrations of the world through the web, travelled through their fingertips, and up, if they were still enough, up their arms into their ears.

x

[Vallora Salvari]

Vallora could understand what the girl was saying. There were some things you just keep to yourself - at least for the time being. And she respected that. She wouldn't try to find out about Aramenta's story without her assent. Vallora herself had some secrets to hide to. Even though she felt like she could trust this girl, she was not ready to share everything. How could she tell her that her father was accused as a killer? How could she say that her mother was said to be a whore? And despite that, Vallora herself had never known the truth of it.

Much to her surprise, Aramenta reached out to her. At that moment, Vallora realized just how different they were. As their hands were clasped together, she felt that Aramenta was as delicate as a flower - strong but delicate still. Vallora had none of that. Years of harsh experience had threw away whatever softness she had had.

She had barely finished her thought when she noticed the change in Aramenta. It was so sudden that she could not pinpoint when exactly it happened. Her singing voice had morphed into a raspy whisper. The melodic tone of her song was gone. "Are you alright?"

Aramenta did not answer her, instead she leaned to whisper something in her ear. One could not exactly call it a whisper - it was more like articulated air exiting her mouth. Her voice was gone. Still, miraculously, Vallora could tell what the girl was asking. That their lesson had just started. "Alright."

Carefully, she closed her eyes. Vallora felt vulnerable almost immediately. Sight was the one sense she had always counted on during her time in the web. Her anchor, her reminder that this colorful world was not where she should stay. With it gone, Vallora could feel herself being tugged by unseen hands. Without the flashes of memories she could hold on to, she felt loose. Like she could just float away into chaos and nothing would stop her. It was hard to describe how it was.

Reflexively, she squeezed Aramenta's hands gently, trying to hold on something else and slowly, she did what Aramenta had asked. Her focus was now aimed to the sounds of the Web. At first, there were nothing. Only the silence and the soft breathing of two girls. Then she could hear it. It was terribly faint at first, almost nonexistent, but she waited. The web started humming softly - just a simple lingering note in her ears.

The strange sounds came a bit later. They were calling out to her. Telling her what to do. Voices that were unfamiliar to her thrummed with the web. It was hard to pick them out individually and soon, her head was filled with them. Every voice was different than the other and all of them were trying to get heard. Louder and louder.

Her eyes snapped open and Vallora took a deep breath. What had just happened? Things weren't supposed to go like that. Was she hallucinating about those voices? Because Aramenta never did seemed bothered. Hearing was different than seeing for her. Very different indeed. She had learned how to control what she should see and what she should leave alone, but listening was different. "I . . . I don't know what I should listen for. I only see."