Silence, Swallowed -- Ar Tonelico fanfiction (Lyner, Misha, 718 words, no warnings)

I'll come back for you. I can't come every day, but I will keep coming back to see you again.

You can still hear me, right? You just can't answer me. So, I'll tell you what's going on in the world.

I'll tell you exactly what you’re saving out there....


"Misha."

The words of the Chronicle Key resounded within the room, its acoustics lending Misha's voice a richness the slight girl could never have produced on her own. The echoes filled the darkness, creating the illusion of a thousand Mishas singing there, the warmth of their words enveloping him like a blanket, pressing in on him like a shroud. With the only illumination a shaft of sun from a skylight high above-- and that seemingly more for atmosphere than to provide a light to see by-- the room felt tiny even though the depth of the sound told him otherwise, and the disparity unsettled him still further.

"Misha, I came back, just like I said." He looked up at her, perfectly poised, like a statue, an instrument cast in bronze. Nothing really felt appropriate to say to her. "Hi."

She kept on singing, of course, Chronicle Key flooding his mind with its imagery. He didn't understand the words, but the song was magic; the sentiment contained within it rang clear within his heart, unmistakeable as a clarion call. Oh, please, set down your weapons, let go your strength, rest, rest.... Her voice cried out to the world, tirelessly, and he could feel the world beginning with him, the song reverberating through every bone and sinew only to pass out the other end and continue on, leaving him forever marked. His muscles ached with the resonance, ached where she'd carved words into them, carved his flesh with sound.

"Misha... I... I want to tell you about...."

But the words wouldn't come. It wasn't just that trying to talk to her, while she sang there, unmoved by him, made him feel stupid; nor even that her stature, goddess-like, detached from the world yet praising it in the highest, seemed so far removed from the Misha he knew. It was that this chamber seemed to permit no other words, no other meanings, than those contained within the Chronicle Key. The song filled up all the available space, drowned out all other concepts. This was its place, and a place for it alone; any word that so much as tried to rise up against it would die.

That, he realised, was the power of Misha's song. It put all other intent to sleep. As long as she sang, nothing could occur in this chamber that was contrary, even tangential, to the Song.

He gave up trying to talk, then, and just watched her face. Her eyes were closed, further distancing her from her surroundings, though her eyelids flickered occasionally as the song's emotion stirred her. Her heart, he knew, was dancing constantly to the tune of it; she could not but feel its every sadness, its every plea, its every exultation as if they were truly her own. That was what she'd told him, once:

"--and I become the song."

There was no Misha there any more; not in that moment, not while she sang. The Song was the only thing that could truly live here; all else was submissive to its decree. She was only living song, only raw intent, only a singular will crystallised into the purest of tones: and that will belonged not to her, but to the Chronicle Key.

He watched her lips move in synchrony with it, almost as an afterthought, as if the Song would live regardless and she was only a front, like Tastiella, to make the whole thing seem less surreal. He watched her face, her shining face, the dim light rebounding off it and casting it in golden tones, faint sparkles on her cheeks where the light had picked out motes of dust.

Except those sparkles were moving down her face, in little channels and currents, and the note of her voice was cracking, and he knew that there was a Misha there, after all, trapped behind all that.

If her tears made sound when they hit the ground, Lyner was none the wiser, for their words were swallowed up by the Song.


From the author: Inspired by Tastiella's response to Lyner's asking if Misha could answer him: "No. She is singing. That is the only answer she can give you." I thought that was particularly poignant, and was imagining what would happen if Lyner went back to try and talk to her, as he said he would, before the Mir-possessed Shurelia kicked her out of the Chronicle.