ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ + ᴀʀsᴇɴɪᴄ

“Hey.” The heaviness of the drummer’s hand startled Ghost enough to bring him back to reality.

Ghost blinked at her. How long had the musicians been there? When did they arrive? He looked to the audience. Had they been waiting long? Back to the drummer. Her face was painted with worry. “Something wrong?”

He looked back down at the dance mat. A red door stood in his mind.

His head nudged from side to side. “Nothing wrong,” he echoed, failing to look her way in reassurance. What was he reassuring her of? What had they said?

“Alright.” On a normal day he would have noticed the doubt in her voice. “We’re ready, whenever you are.” She looked him over, and made a noise but he couldn’t remember what it was. It might have been more words, but she was readying her drums behind the dance mat now.

Ghost didn’t look away from the musicians. They watched him the whole time. Slowly, he peeled his gaze away and smiled again to their small audience and positioned himself in front of the musicians where he always did, to signify that the performance would start soon. His actions were far away from his conscious. The air was growing cold, and he heard a hollow breeze coming to life.

The sound of the clapping that followed was muffled compared to the sound of roaring blizzards in the back of his mind, but he bowed with the other performers. As he lifted his upper half in a slow and elegant curve, his clothes shimmered, the image of them rippling and transforming into an assortment of deep blue and pale gold wraps. Matching ankle and upper arm bangles, necklaces, and a single dangling earring manifested as well. When he ran his hands up over his face and hair, Ghost looked much more alive, put together. But he didn’t look okay.

He didn’t notice that his audience could tell he still didn’t look okay.

No, he went on as he always did, and waited for the music to start. While his body recognised the song, he couldn’t hear it at all. It was quiet, starting off with a violin’s long and distant single note, and he turned to his left on the drum’s first beat, snaking an arm out to his side and coiling his hand upwards. Slowly he curled his fingers, and in their grasp formed a dark wooden staff engrained with pale gold.

One of the musicians chanted quietly, her voice a soft and foreboding hiss. With one hand anchored on the staff’s upper half, he slowly coiled around it, graceful feline steps around its base that took him around and around the staff slowly. The drummer joined in the singing with a clear and mournful vibrato, and from Ghost’s back sprouted coiling streams of glittering light. They trailed behind him, arcing upwards and fading at a certain height to give the illusion of fluid-like wings. The drum was struck harder and he jerked his weight around the staff as he slammed it against the ground in time with the beat; more light flowed out from the impact, quickly fading out after each strike.

But he didn’t hear the song’s story, didn’t see the illusions he was projecting, didn’t feel the vibration of the staff hitting the ground. He brought it back up with a twirl to and fro across his front and then his back, locking it in his elbows before curving it back loose and over his shoulders and head. Repeat the process again in reversed direction. Follow the music’s tone and match it with motion.

He wasn’t aware he was doing any of it. As far as he knew, he was far away, in the snow. Someone was with him, someone close and someone he needed to protect. They held hands. The other man’s shook with fear. A red door stood in his mind.

His movements were picking up in pace along with the music. He looked up at the man’s face. It was no longer the same man. An older man looked back down at him now. The snow became sterile walls. There was no moonlight and the air tasted of chemicals.

The fire in his stomach was beginning to burn its way up his throat. Perhaps he would puke. It almost seemed to glow through his flesh. The old man was now a man in red who cried out. His chest lit up and Ghost had to look away; he took a sharp turn around his staff and spun but caught himself and slowed down, shifting the staff through the air as if dragged through water. The wings projecting out of his back were changing colour.

As the music began to speed up and gradually grew more intense, he continued to turn, and he turned, until he was spinning. Fast, and then faster, and then too fast. The old man was watching the frightened one get dragged away. Ghost reached out to him, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out. His brother was gone now. His father approached him, he was going to take him somewhere now. A red door stood in his mind.

There was a split second of silence, and he knocked his head back with a startled gasp. Louder than ever, faster than ever, the music erupted back to life and motion exploded out of him. He could hear soldiers dying behind him as he ran. His brother was with him, he called out his name. The sky burned with terrifying radiance. They held each other and waited to die. The illusions had turned into flames that licked up the staff and his arms.

And then there was no battle, no primal in the sky and no brother to hold him. He was back with his father, back in a small room. His limbs couldn’t move and his voice was gone. A man called out for a ghost. He was not a ghost. The room’s walls collapsed and in its place was a city decorated with white flags boasting the same red and black symbol. This was not home. His brother was gone and he was going to fix it.

The staff had broken into throwing knives. Thmp thmp thmp, one by one into the ground as he danced. He saw the knives pierce the chests and heads of Garlean soldiers. He was going somewhere, but the towering buildings around him fell away to white stone towers and vast seas. He was dancing now, but he had never danced before. His body knew it wasn’t over. His vision flickered into blackness and faces flashed in his thoughts. A scarred man with golden eyes. A miqo’te with light hair. A sickly person with bruiselike marks-- his brother, that he needed to protect. A scarred man with golden eyes. A friend he had never met… that he needed to protect.

The song’s energy died down, thus so did his. He slowly lowered himself to the ground, keeping his feet to the ground as he backbended with his hands reaching upwards as if grasping for something. Somehow, his body didn’t collapse as he held himself a few ilms off the ground and waited for the music to come to an end. His brother cried for him. His friend cried for anyone.

A red door stood in his mind.

Everything went silent and his surroundings returned to his awareness. The sky, bright blue with spots of clouds, loomed over and remained unchanging.

Shou pulled himself upright. There were people gathered around, people he didn’t recognise in a city he didn’t recognise. They looked confused. They looked frightened. Not knowing what to do, he bowed. Behind him he could hear other people bowing as well. One person started to clap, then a few more joined in before the audience broke into applause properly. But Shou could tell, they were still afraid.

His attention began to wander after that. Taking in his new environment, putting names to landmarks as best he could with nothing to go off of. A woman holding a drum stepped up next to him, so he paid attention.

“I’m… not sure what happened there, but that was impressive,” the woman said. She was also frightened.

His brow furrowed as he thought. Shou didn’t look at her when he admitted, “I don’t know what I did.” This was not his voice, though. It never was. Smooth, quiet, and foreign; his favoured voice to use publicly. Now he looked up at her. “I have to go.”

Shou didn’t know what belonged to him, so he turned to move past the small crowd. He had no idea where he was. No idea why he was there. But he did know three faces, and two goals.

As he let the illusion around him to drop and reveal the black and red outfit he now wore, Shou straightened his back and delved into this new world. His feet took him along routes he didn’t recognise. He smiled to people that looked at him longer. Someone else’s memories lead him to a bridge. So he crossed it. No one tried to stop or question him as he left. The city was behind him now.

And a red door stood in his mind.

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HI I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE,,