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.

A realisation I thought I'd share....

Excerpted from a comment I posted over here:

[...] for me, what's interesting about AT1 is that in some ways it's really Mir's story-- Mir's and Lyner's, a story about how he grows to realise what she used to know but forgot, and how the two of them bring that knowledge together to change the world for the better.

I find that a pretty potent realisation, since while it's obvious to anyone that the story of Ar Tonelico is about realising that conflict only begets more conflict and that the only way to escape the cycle is to put our weapons down, the particular symmetry being employed here is something I hadn't quite noticed before.

Two people, at the beginning of Ar Tonelico, exist in very different worlds, mutually unable to understand each other, mutually antagonistic. Yet they both have the capacity to understand each other perfectly; they just need to realise that. Lyner has to learn how; and when he decides to reach out to Mir he learns, through Harmonious, that she'd already known all along. They both, in some sense, grow towards each other, and what had seemed like an unbreachable gulf at the beginning of the game turns out to be complete understanding.

Just another of the little ways in which I think AT is surprisingly well-done.

One Byte And You're Hooked -- Ar Tonelico fanfiction (Lyner/Ayatane, 822 words, shounen-ai, parody/comedy, extreme crackishness)

The second of two fics for you today (the first one is here), and this one is a little... well. Suffice to say I did this on a dare. XD

Nothing explicit, but it's pretty suggestive (about as suggestive as AT itself). Spoiler-cut in case there are people who'd rather not read Lyner/Ayatane hintings. It's pretty much just meant to be silly.



"Lyner~!" called Ayatane as he walked into the living room, hair swept back in a headscarf and a baking tray held proudly aloft. "Come and see what I made!"

"What did you make?" Lyner rose up off the couch, one eyebrow warily cocked. The sight of Ayatane in an apron was never something that quite sat well with him, for reasons he couldn't quite pinpoint but seemed to have to do with vague images of dyed pink poodles and those home decor shows they ran on the Platina Lifestyle Network.

"Cookies!" said Ayatane, his voice positively dripping with delight. "They're what I always make for Mother."

"For Mother... Mir?" said Lyner. "Ayatane, I don't think I've ever seen Mir eat anything. She certainly wouldn't be as thin as she is if she actually ate something with all those calories."

"Well, not for her for her," Ayatane said with a wave of his hand, balancing the cookie tray adeptly in the other. "For her as in... on her behalf."

On her... behalf? There was something in the tone of that statement that Lyner didn't like, but he didn't have time to protest as Ayatane slipped a morsel past his open lips. "Try it, it's really good," Ayatane gushed.

"Mmrgh mrmf mm mrlf." Lyner attempted to protest, but it was too late now; he wasn't very well going to spit it out, and besides, now that it was in there, he had to admit that the velvety smoothness of the chocolate against his lips was quite compelling. Half-resignedly, he swiped the cookie piece into his mouth with his tongue, chewed, and swallowed. "Hey, that is pretty good."

Ayatane plunked himself down on the couch, setting the tray on the coffee table and tugging Lyner down with him. "Have the rest." He handed the cookie to Lyner; it was warm and crumbly against his fingers, the chocolate just a little bit melty on the outside, the sweet aromas of baking mixed in with the fresh scent of Ayatane's hibiscus and peony shampoo. (At least, he assumed it was Ayatane's. It could have been Mir's, but only one of them struck him as the type to really care whether their shampoo was hibiscus-and-peony-scented, although he did have to admit that Mir was keeping a wonderful glossy head of hair these days now that she wasn't trying to nuke all of humanity.

"Oh, that," he heard Mir say dryly, as if she'd been reading his thoughts, which she had to have, as there was no other explanation, really. "Shurelia came over last night. Slumber party. We did each other's hair and talked about boys."

Lyner thought it better not to ask.)

That little aside dealt with, Lyner turned his attention back to the cookie (as eating and listening to someone talk at the same time would have been, he had to admit, a tricky task for him). The last wisps of chocolate still lingered on his lips from the previous bite, and he licked them off, his eyes falling half-closed in blissful reverie. "Ayatane, this stuff's really amazing. I don't even really like chocolate, but this... it's even better than Funbuns." And that was saying something, given the many long, dark nights he'd spent thinking about eating Funbuns, preferably with Misha.

And was there something else behind the taste of cocoa, something darker, more bitter-- more, dare he think it, manly? Something different from the rich sweetness of Funbuns, but appealing in its own way; it lingered on his senses, taunting. He just had to know for sure. There was no resisting it. He took another bite, this time with unabashed desire.

"It's coffee," said Ayatane, as if he'd been reading his thoughts, which he almost certainly had as well. "Java chips, to be precise." That or he was just gauging the expressions on Lyner's face, but right now Lyner didn't care if Ayatane was in his head. The feel of sweet, chewy dough that melted against his tongue, the heady scents of chocolate and coffee mingling in his nose and throat-- he could indulge in this forever, and the more he did so the more it really did feel like there was some other presence inside his mind, and the less he really minded. In fact, it was starting to feel distinctly pleasurable. Ayatane, inside him, sating his hunger, filling him up completely....

It was a while before Lyner came to his senses enough to notice Ayatane gazing at him intently. "How do you like it?" the virus purred sweetly. "Is it good?"

"Oh, yes," breathed Lyner.

"Do you want more?"

"Please, Ayatane. Please, let's not stop."

And so Ayatane "fed Lyner cookies", all night long. Oh, and he might have "set up a connection to his server" and "pinged him with data packets", too. Honestly, we're really not in a position to say.

But only because we won't get any more cookies if we do.

On trust, obligation and the meaning of being chosen

A friend sent me this thoughtful essay, and asked if I would post it here because I actually have an AT-related blog, and I was happy to oblige. See my comments after the essay itself.


---

When Lyner brings back the Hymn Crystal Purger, Leard tells him to give it to "the Reyvateil he trusts the most". And of course, because it's a dating sim, the player has to choose which girl he wants to get on the good side of. Dating sims inherently set out to pit the girls in competition with each other and make you choose.

But the choice of who should extract shouldn't be based on who the player likes best, or even whom Lyner seems to have the most reason to trust. We're talking about the fate of the world, which is a bit more important than a love triangle; the more important consideration is doing what has to be done. On the practical side, a certain amount of trust between partners has got to be necessary for a Reyvateil to successfully extract, yes. But I trusted both Aurica and Misha. And casting a spell to save the world shouldn't be a matter of a popularity contest, or whom I liked better; there are various factors regarding who would be better at it-- who's "levelled up" more in their skills, or who is most compatible with the spell.

Furthermore, though, who says that getting to extract the crystal is a treat that would really earn the girl's favour? Shouldn't we ask who is willing to volunteer to do such a thing, and who wants to defer? I chose not the one I liked best, but the one I thought would benefit more from being chosen. To Aurica, it meant the world: all her life she'd been told she was inferior, and finally someone said to her, "This is the most important job in the world, and I choose you." Finally someone thought she was capable of handling something important-- and not just any average task, but something on which everyone's lives depended. Such a choice could absolutely change her life, could be the fulfillment of all of her hopes and dreams. So I chose Aurica.

I'd like to play through it again choosing Misha, to see what it's like and to see more of her backstory-- yet I think I'm going to have trouble bringing myself to do that to Misha. Surely the last thing she wants is to have the higher-ups in Platina ordering her to go sing for them. She spent her whole life being told, "Misha, you have to do this; Misha, you have to sing that. Misha, our fate rests on you; Misha, you have an obligation"; and she's sick to death of it. After Lyner came along and cared about what she wanted to do with her life, wanted to take her places and give her presents, after she came to see him as someone who could understand her hopes and fears and treat her like a person with the choice to follow her own volition, the last thing she probably wants is to hear about her obligations to save everyone with her endless singing from him, too!

It seems that being chosen to extract the Hymn Crystal Purger would be a terrible burden for Misha, and a dream come true for Aurica. I don't think it's fair to choose any other way. Yet it's not necessarily reflective of my personal choices or my trust in the girls. I don't want the game to record that I've favoured Aurica over Misha by choosing her, or that I trust Misha any less. I want Misha to be happy, not to feel let down by Lyner's ignoring her yet again. I want Lyner to go and have a talk with her and tell her that he cares about her feelings, and that that's why he's not choosing her.

It's one of the few situations in Ar Tonelico with the potential to make everyone happy; but the choice is framed in such a way that it spoils the potential that could have been. Dating sims seem hell-bent on making some of the girls miserable, which is a shame. There is so often a better way.

---


As for my thoughts... I personally think it's very true, and I think that Lyner never asks these things, never gives anyone a choice but just rolls along with what he's going to do anyway, is the cause of a lot of the plot's problems. Lyner never asks "well, what would you like?" He waits for everyone else to ask or else he steamrollers over them. And it really feels like he almost never talks to anyone about the kind of things he really should be talking to them about, like "Aurica, how do you feel about the fact that I dive into Misha?" or "Misha, I don't want to burden you with this responsibility, and it would make Aurica so happy. I think this is best for everyone, and it's not that I don't trust you, so ignore what my dad says. I'm choosing for my own reasons."

overwriting rogue programming: harder than you'd think

My friends send me awesome things in the mail. That, I think, is all that needs to be said.

(I'm still tickled by the idea of Harmonious as a hotfix, too. :)

Posted with permission.