“What is that?” she asks.
“It’s called music!” shout a half dozen Observers. “Another little hobby of Mine.”
“Most species don’t get it,” says one with a significant glance at the heavens.
“Fortunately, My children know all about it,” says another with a smile.
And then above the music soars a single piercing voice, clear and rhythmic.
I’ve lived a billion billion lives
I’ve died a trillion deaths!
I’ve loved and fought and sailed the stars
But My heart I leave at home!
And then comes a tsunami of sound from across the face of the world as, all together, Observer roars: MY HEART I LEAVE AT HOME!
Sarya realizes her mouth is open, but she cannot manage to correct the situation. She’s never heard anything like this. It’s like a Widow chant, except…except a hundred times better. The words are pitched to match the music, they skip over its pulses and lie in its valleys. The two of them blend together to speak to her more deeply than any chant, to a part of her mind she never even suspected she possessed. Her lips begin moving with the words. My heart I leave at home.
Oh, goddess, that word. Home.
“Do you like it?” asks a nearby Observer with a smile.
Sarya can’t answer. She smells the fire on the breeze, she feels the heat on her skin, she hears the wind in the canopy. She is in the center of a mind who knows exactly what she is and welcomes her not despite it…but because of it. Her eyes are doing that thing again, where they don’t exactly cry but they’re not exactly dry either. She blinks away the burn and raises her gaze to branches full of swaying singing Observers. The color has leaked out of the sky now, except for a hint of orange at one side, and the stars—oh, goddess, the stars. So many billions of stars, and this time she is not overwhelmed, because this time she knows: she is exactly where she’s supposed to be.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “I like it.”
Like she has never liked anything in her life.
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“MUSIC” APPRECIATION AND CONTROVERSIES
Though extremely rare in the developed galaxy, some species claim the ability to draw great satisfaction from the vibration of matter. These species typically develop a vocabulary replete with terms used only in discussing these vibrations, including numerous words or symbols for individual frequencies, amplitudes, recurrence over time, and combinations of all of the above. This is known as music.
Many individuals hailing from these species are able to perform interesting tricks regarding the construction and reproduction of these sonic structures. Taken at face value, one might be tempted to regard this music as an actual art. However, millions of years of independent study have concluded that similarities to actual forms of art are only crust-deep.
DIFFICULTIES IN APPRECIATION
The deepest strike against music’s potential status as art is the fact that so few species have evolved with sensors sensitive enough to decode it. This fact alone may explain why there exist no registered art critics from any music-making species. Unfortunately for music’s status, this means that the rest of the galaxy has only the claims of the music creators.
The second problem is that there exists no reliable translation method to convert music to accepted art mediums. Compare this to the great works of the gravity artists, for example, whose sprawling tapestries of time and space can easily be represented via several different means. As a second example, consider the tactile masterpieces that emerged from the Aberration, most of which have been translated to a variety of other media. In contrast, no vibration translation attempt has ever met with the satisfaction of more than a few so-called music composers.
ORIGINS AND CORRELATIONS
Though other species have developed an independent taste for music, some xenologists note that every known [Firebringer] species is typically obsessed with music composition and consumption.
No further data available.
Observation one: a little fire has become a lot of fire. These things are not heating elements, they are not atmosphere vents, they’re not incinerators, they’re not any of the heat sources that have made appearances in Sarya’s life. These are actual honest-to-goddess uncontrolled and barely contained conflagrations, and there are a lot of them. This clearing is larger than she can measure with Human eyes, and identical bodies dance around dozens of giant fires—closely and spastically enough that she is immediately put on edge.
Observation two: she has never smelled anything like this. Never in her entire life has a scent seized her by the nostrils and taken control of her body. She stares at the giant, glistening mass hanging over the nearest fire, from which her nose tells her the heavenly odor is emanating. “What,” she asks with a mouth that is suddenly flooding with saliva, “is that?”
“That thing?” says an Observer, dismissing it with a wave. “Oh, nothing much. Just the mightiest and most magnificent beast in all the forest! Struck down in its prime, by my mighty prowess! A hundred twenty kilos if it’s a gram, and a fighter too!”
“I lost five bodies bringing this one down,” says another. “I lost hundreds for the whole feast. A fair trade, I’d say.”
“Those tusks!” says one with admiration. “Surprisingly deadly!”
Sarya barely hears any of this because her mouth hurts, so fiercely is it salivating. She has already moved past the novelty of killing an animal just to eat it and on to an absolute understanding of why her mother was a hunter. She finds her jaw is actually working up and down and her throat is swallowing on its own, as if her body is rehearsing for what’s to come.
“I have such a wonderful evening planned!” calls a passing, madly dancing Observer.
“First the feast!” shouts another.
“Then the dancing!”
“Then more feasting!”
“Then the entertainment! I do so love entertainment.”
“And all the while, the drinking! Drinking, drinking, far into the night!”
“And none of it would be happening if not for you!” shout a dozen Observers in chorus.
“Sarya!” chants the crowd. “Sarya the Daughter!” And then she’s pulled three different ways and plunged into a whirling crowd of dancing, singing Observers.