#chanter

(signed, Jamie Porter, Portal saleswoman)

@jamiesguidetothemultiverse

I'm not named Fleur, but I'm currently running the shop until they get back. I'm Chanter, and yes, we sell flowers. That's what the sign says outside.

[Chanter loomed over the counter, her fast resting in its usually displeased expression. That was normal. Pure Vanilla sat on her shoulder, looking at the customer with curiosity.]

(And my favorite songs by them).

Te voilà assis au bord de ma fenêtre Dont le verre opaque gémit et larmoie. À travers lui, nulle clarté ne pénètre, Pourtant les étoiles dans tes yeux je vois.

Tes cordes vocales tirent le réveil; Ton chant balaie l’ombre loin des avenues. Ô oiseau doré! Les rayons du soleil Laissent leur éclat le long de ton corps nu.

Tes ailes de feu pourfendent les nuages, Se frayant dans le ciel un chemin d’azur. Emporte-moi là où rien n’a de visage, Où les plaies des misères se défigurent.

Toi qui ouvres les portes du firmament, Entre ici sans peur et passe-moi tes plumes. Viens, donne-moi la légèreté du vent Pour que je me hisse au-delà de la brume.

Alors, ton duvet, tes griffes sur ma peau, Je m’affranchirai de mes chaînes de fer. De vertige vêtue, voyant tout d’en haut, Je fredonnerai : « Qu’elle est belle, la Terre! »

Des mers de lueur, son et parfum nouveau Me pousseront là où ni Dieu ne m’élève. Déjà s’est envolée vers les pays chauds Mon enfance dorée, rattrapant mes rêves.

It’s not hard to find the Academy hall; all GraGoh has to do is hurry in the direction of glory. The sounds radiating and echoing down the corridor are rapturous, almost ravishing, and so multifaceted — whenever they turn their head even slightly, notes glance off the walls at different angles like shafts of reflected light, forming ever-renewed counterpoints and harmonies. It rotates like an orrery graphing the heavens. It is the work of masters…or rather (as they allow themselves to think very, very quietly), *a* master.

The fact that UrSkeks float means that the Explorer has no need to worry about making too much noise as they glide up the ground-crystal aisle that terminates at the first curved row of the Academy Choir. The choristers are exerting themselves almost as hard as Homeworlders ever exert themselves, but they show no signs of fatigue. All eyes and ears are trained on what at first appears to be an unassuming figure placed not quite halfway along the first row. Conductors are an exotic concept to UrSkek society; only the very youngest of their kind have any trouble keeping the collective momentum within their spirit, following the almost-invisible visual cues from those who have been assigned to serve as leaders (supposedly always temporarily — though in practice, GraGoh has noticed that there are *certain* wells their fellow UrSkeks tend to go back to by a silent common consent).

The music swells at last to its climax, bursting upon them all and then hanging in ringing echoes for quite some time after. This is a rehearsal, so there is no murmur of approval or answer of appreciative audience improvisations. All allow themselves for just a brief space to exult in it, even as their heads modestly bow.

Then the leaderly figure looks up and spots the Explorer, and delight suffuses their features. SilSol the Musician, as they were back in the old days before everything went so hideously wrong: a softly-incandescent churn of enchained chakras running the length of their form; an immediate smile that always seems somehow *particular*, as though whoever it graces is the one person in Crystalgate City they have been waiting all unum to see. GraGoh feels their own chakras rise in sympathetic resonance. All is beauty. Everything is good and right.

“So kind of you to come and sample the incomplete product,” the vision says. *Product* is an odd, foreign word, but GraGoh cannot but let it pass as they fall into a twosome leaving the choir behind. None of the others *seem* to mind.

“It was *magnificent*,” GraGoh gushes, in a somewhat shamefaced whisper.

“‘Magnificent,’ really?” The Musician's head cocks in genuine if pleasant surprise. “Well, don’t let anyone else catch you saying that.”

“But it’s true.” GraGoh is still too overwhelmed by the talent of this UrSkek — so much their elder and (let’s face it) superior, who nonetheless deigns to treat them as a good friend — to be rebuked. “I only speak the truth.”

Another brilliant smile, quickly submerged like the glow of fading coals. At such moments, their mutual love and devotion for Master SoSu notwithstanding, the Explorer feels as though they would do anything to earn another of those lip-crooks. They are suddenly reminded of the forum last unum, when a good-natured debate between the Master and the Musician had begun to flow very deep and a tad rapid, and the Master had gently said “SilSol. Let the others catch up a little,” and GraGoh had heard themselves blurting, as though from afar, “No, don’t, SilSol.”

A shocked silence and many stares greeted this — not least, that of the Master themselves. What happened to GraGoh then was a thing they couldn’t seem to stop from happening again and again, many times for an Age and an Age afterward: having rashly thrown their lot in, they were now determined to act as though they had meant it all along. This was a circle of heretics, after all, the most trusted of SoSu’s followers and intimates, so they let their chin lift just the tiniest amount. “I want to learn,” they went on earnestly. “As you do, as all my fellows here do. I have so much catching up to do, I don’t want anyone to have to slow down for me. I would the Musician were allowed to be *themselves*. I would far rather fly to keep up with their genius than slink after like a…like a…well, a Rigger of low education.”

It was at once clear that the Explorer had made the Musician very, very happy with their words. Happy, and once again surprised, and perhaps even…touched. GraGoh certainly knew why. To find the ‘overindividuated,’ mysteriously scandalous traits that everyone else seemed to disapprove of — traits SilSol hid so well in public with their mask of humility, appropriate to a celebrated musician — not only accepted but seemingly even *approved*…that moment could be overwhelming in its beauty. GraGoh had come to love that feeling supremely, here among their fellow transgressors, the UrSkeks they adored most in all Homeworld, where so many things were at long last *permitted*. Where they didn’t have to agonize about throwing shadows upon anyone else by the fullness of their own light, or drowning out the music of others with too passionate a solo.

(Indeed, the Explorer had come to suspect that part of SilSol’s success lay in their music’s ability to subtly, gently evoke a sense of that forbidden uniqueness. Always within the unvoiced societal bounds, but often *just barely* within them.)

SoSu, though greatly taken aback, had at last nodded and bowed to let SilSol continue, saying to GraGoh as they did, “Very well, young one. If you aspire to fly so fast, it is not my place to fetter you.”