literature

Muziq

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Chapter One
“Muziq was once a utopian city of sound—a place that could best any old town.”

Two months ago, the shadows in Muziq might have been a welcome darkness in this city that always glowed with lights. Shadows were the perfect shade for all of the bright city’s residents, or at least, it had been. Not more than two months ago, Harper Heart would have never thought she would be running from the comfort of shade into the bright acid colors of the city. The colors weren’t toxic necessarily, only tiring. It was like being under constant spotlight.
She had mixed feelings about those spotlights as she ran now. She wanted to be in those lights, where everyone could see her and she could be safe but that was impossible. She knew who the men hidden behind the lights were. They were dangerous men, and she knew that she could not afford to be seen by them.
She glanced back briefly at the clock tower that loomed behind her. Her vision swam with the lights surrounding the golden tower and its enormous brightly lit clock. Light and darkness blended together in front of her eyes, making it difficult for her to pick out any of the clock’s features. Her vision was blurry, but she did not need it to hear the terrible sound that came from the tower next. It was a chiming sound, but it was shrill and loud. The sound brought on clouds, which then brought on rain. The immediate change in the weather was still frightening, even if it had been happening for the past week.
She picked up her pace, and started sprinting down the alleyway full of shadows. There were circular lights hovering above the pathway that cast an eerie light across the shadows. Other than those singular lights, she was alone in this darkness.
The darkness itself though, was an entity of its own. It wasn’t the peaceful shade it had once been, oh no. Now the darkness moved and had red slits for eyes. She could feel it scrambling after her, almost desperately. Although it was too dark to make out the red pupils of the shadows, she could still feel the bloodlust in their eyes.
For the first time tonight, the thought of dying actually crossed her mind. She glanced at the heartstrings that she had wound her arms, and then pictured them lying at the end of the alleyway. She saw herself reaching for them, trying to breathe as the shadows encased her body and strangled the life out of her. Maybe they would take the form of shadow wolves, or perhaps they would take on more frightening forms. Perhaps they would take the appearance of her father, who would stand above her with a red grimace on his charcoal face.
I truly believed you could do this, Harper.
She could not stifle the surprised gasp that left her lips when she felt one of the keys in her shoes come loose. There were three in total on either side of both of her shoes. Decoration or not, she could not afford to lose even one—the shoes were precious to her. She needed to readjust it quickly before it fell out of its slot and was lost forever. She continued running, her heart beating more rapidly when she felt the key jiggling in its small metal socket. Her heart and footsteps came together to create a sort of frenzied heartbeat that echoed in her mind.
Ba bum, ba bum, ba bum.
Her vision blurred again as she felt tears come into her eyes. It hurt to run.
There were some scuffling sounds in the darkness, and then there was no sound at all. Every sound that had hit her ears: her footsteps, the shuffling—every sound suddenly disappeared. Her legs moved, but there was no sound to prove that they were doing so. There was just the dull sensation of her feet hitting the ground again and again as she ran in the now wet dirt of the alleyways.
It wasn’t long before she felt her feet giving out beneath her. She could not hear the sound of the wind breaking beneath her, but she could still feel herself falling downwards, tripping on her own two feet. The moment she fell something seized her ankles and she knew it was over. She had no weapon, and no strength. Temporary disappointment seized her. She had indeed, failed.
But Harper did not hit the ground. Something stopped her last minute, and then shoved her forward, causing her to tumble over her own two feet before crashing into a wall. She glanced back, and saw, for what seemed the first time in eternity, another person. From behind, he was just a man in blue and white stripes.
He changed his stance slightly, digging his feet firmly into the ground before raising his hands. He brought them down in a motion that cut through air. There was a whistling sound, and then all of the sound that had ceased to be only moments ago suddenly came back. Every sound that had been in her mind only seconds ago suddenly exploded into the world with that single hand motion.
The shadows in front of him disappeared then, shivering slightly in the dim lighting of the alleyway before they were gone. Their red eyes followed Harper until they had completely faded. It was far from over, though. She could see the darkness shifting beyond, moving closer. There was more—there was always more. She couldn’t bring herself to move, though. Her eyes were still fixed on the back of the stranger, whose actions she could not comprehend.
He turned, and she saw violet eyes stare at her in the dismal lighting. She shifted slightly, and felt the key at her foot wiggle once more. It only took her a few moments to turn on her heels and start running again. This time, the tiredness exerted itself into her entire body, and she felt herself slow down immediately.
“Wait!” The man’s voice followed her into the alleyway, and then nothing.
She didn’t hear his footsteps, or his voice as she ran. A savior he had been, but he had done all of his magic without the use of an instrument. How was that possible? He worked a lot like the shadows that were chasing her. He appeared out of nowhere, and did the impossible.
The key turned in its socket, and then it fell. She felt herself do much the same. Her leg seemed to snap like a twig, and then there she was, collapsed on the wet ground. Her hand shot out to look for the key that had become lost in the damp soil. The water was seeping into her clothes already, promising for hours of internal body cold. She whimpered, and then sat herself up against the wall.
She glanced around hastily, expecting the shadows, but the area was clear. She still couldn’t hear anything, other than the painful breaths escaping her own mouth. It stayed that way for moments as she searched for her key. When she found it and began working it back into its socket, there was suddenly a voice.
“Are you done running now?” The man suddenly appeared in front of her. She hadn’t even heard him come, but now his footsteps were audible, even beneath the rain that was picking up. She glanced into his purple eyes, but then her eyes flew to his hair, which was black but not completely. The bangs on the left side of his face were black, but the bangs on his right were paper white by contrast. They stood at the edge of his forehead, seemingly styled to stand up somehow, even in this rain.
She lowered her eyes in defeat when he simply stared at her. “You’re a watchdog from the tower, aren’t you? You chased me all the way through those alleyways just so you could…” Her voice dwindled down to a whisper as she saw the confusion in his eyes. Finally, she sighed. “You’re going to take me in.”
Confusion and alarm came into his eyes. He gestured to himself, eyebrows raised. “You’ve got me all wrong, honest. I’ve been touring the city. I guess you could say I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s a flimsy excuse if I’ve ever head one,” she groaned beneath her breath. The man heard her, surprisingly.
“It’s the truth, though.” He looked offended that she thought otherwise.
“That’s what the last guard dog said too,” she said, and then held out her arms. Her wrists were visible, even beneath the black strings that she had shaken down her upper arms. She showcased two pale red scars resting just above her wrists and then shook her head, her expression falling. “He didn’t seem so bad either.”
The man seemed reluctant to do much of anything as he gazed down at her. He didn’t answer immediately, but when he did, it was only once he was crouching down next to her so that they could see eye to eye. He couldn’t have been anything more than twenty, which made them around the same age. Then again, the last man had been the same way; leading her into a false sense of security before finally…
“I swear I had nothing to do with any of that. Although,” he glances at the scars warily. “Shouldn’t you get those double checked?”
Harper retracted her arms instantly. “These are like battle scars, they’re not going anywhere.” She glanced once more into his level violet eyes and then looked away as she attempted to pick herself back up. The key had gone back into her shoe successfully, but now there were other complications. When she tried to stand, she could only fall once more onto the ground, cursing as she did so.
“Damned legs, not good for anything.”
“You looked like you were running for awhile,” the man says, his eyes surveying her carefully. What could he have been thinking, she wondered; as he glanced at her? She must have looked like some kind of street rat, running around here with her damp clothing and without an instrument. “You should rest for a little while.”
In the mud?
Before she could try to pick herself up again, he leaned down and did it himself. He used one arm to support her back, while he rested the other beneath the crook of her knees. “Of course I didn’t mean in the mud,” he said, as if reading the thought from her mind.
She scowled at him. “I never gave you permission to carry me, stranger.”
“Then, don’t think of me as a stranger.” He started walking, keeping his eyes trained ahead of him at the alleyway. All of the sounds behind them had ceased once again. Even the sound of the stranger’s footsteps was nonexistent. How on earth was he doing that?
“My name is Lute Vates. And yours?”
“Harper,” she said, purposefully withholding her last name. It wasn’t a detail she trusted him to know. Or anyone else, for that matter. She thought on his name for a little while. “You in a band?”
“Band? No, I’m just your average wave mage.”
“There’s nothing average about that word. I don’t even know what the heck that is.”
He chuckled a little bit, a sound nearly as muted as his footsteps. “Okay, maybe conductor’s a better word. Either way, I’ve been studying wave magic for a while. Sounds are all around us: all I do is collect those sound waves and then use them to make even bigger sounds.”
His description of the so-called occupation might have been interesting, if not for the fact that she found herself becoming more and more petrified by her current situation It wasn’t a petrification that stemmed from terror either. She hated being carried by someone she had only just met, and more than that; she hated being in this predicament in the first place.
There was a bigger question, though. Where on earth was he taking her?
She asked him, but he only shrugged slightly as they came closer to the lights of the city. The alleyways snaked their way intricately around the city and into the residential areas. The city lights however, could still be seen even from the residential areas because they clung to buildings that breathed their air high in the sky. The city was a metropolis of lights and colors, the ideal capital for music. Such was the beauty that was Muziq.
Were they heading into the city? She couldn’t let that happen.
She struggled for a few moments and then brought her face right up to his. There was a steady grimace on her lips. “Let me go. I have things I need to do.”
“But only a few seconds ago, you were stumbling around in an alleyway,” he blinked at her. “You’re sure?”
“The last place I want to be right now is the city.”
“You almost sound like a fugitive, the way you talk.” He stopped, considering his words. Then the recognition seemed to dawn upon him. He looked at her curiously. “Some people from the tower here are chasing you?”
“They stole something very precious from me,” she said, and then paused, noticing a small grill not too far away. She pointed, and Lute complied with the command easily enough. Once he had set her down on one of the benches at the outskirts of the establishment, he excused himself briefly to go to the outside counter. She sat and watched him, suddenly feeling better. A captor would not have left her alone, even once.
When he returned, he was carrying two skewers of meat. He handed one to her, and she took it not out of hunger, but out of an obligation to be polite. The meat on it looked too oily for her tastes. Besides that, she didn’t particularly have an appetite. Not after all that had just happened.
“So, there are people chasing you from the tower because they stole something from you?”
“I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s because I keep trying to go back in to get it. It’s in a facility standing not too far from the clock tower.” She eyed him again. Her eyes kept skipping to his hair, which was suspicious in its own right. “It’s a memento from my dad. Very important.”
“Wait, the shadows that were chasing you are from the tower?”
“I don’t know!” She snapped. When Lute flinched, she hurriedly apologized. There was an innocence, or perhaps a naiveté that remained in his eyes at all times, and it made him look pitiful, no matter the expression on his face. Finally, she lowered her voice and continued.  “If you’re an outsider then you might not know completely, but the shadows come from the sounds the tower makes. You obviously know that sound can also kill them when it’s strong enough. We use instruments to amplify sounds and take them down.”
“I’d heard about the bands, yes.” He redirected his gaze to the city. He munched contently on the meat for a few moments, glancing at Harper when she didn’t make a move to eat any of her own. She relented after a few moments, and then took a small bite of the chicken. Her stomach lurched in response, but she couldn’t tell if it was because she was hungry or if it was because she wasn’t.
“I came here originally to further my research on wave magic. Muziq’s the perfect place, not just because of the sound, but also because of the shadows. I can find all of the magic’s weak points by testing it out on them.”
Harper looked at him, her mouth hanging open. Their city was facing a crisis, and this man was taking advantage of that and using the shadows to further his research? A part of her wanted to scream again, but she kept that agitation huddled firmly within herself. If she exploded now, she would lose him completely. She didn’t like owing people, she never had. She couldn’t afford to scare him off just yet. Still, Lute Vates seemed to be contemplating the look on her face.
She finally turned to him and said, “Why not join a band? You’d be helping a lot of people.”
His lips quirked slightly, and a light smile touched his lips. “Like I helped you? I’m not a heartless brute, you know. But bands aren’t very accommodating, and I came here for my own research. I just do what I can when I can.”
What he could? Her thoughts drifted then and there. She forced another piece of meat down into her mouth. The last few days had been chaotic. She was running out of places to hide and people to turn to. No, scratch that. She hadn’t asked for help even once and where had that gotten her? She knew her pride was her biggest downfall and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to admit it. That too, was her pride in action.
This could be her one chance: a chance at help that she wouldn’t find anywhere else.
“Could you help me with one last thing? I could pay you back, somehow.”
“Mercenary style?” Lute chuckled again. He flicked a strand of the dyed white hair out of his eyes and then grinned. Seeing his face transform so suddenly was almost startling. Almost, if not for that contained innocence in his eyes. “Fill me in on the little details and then we’ll talk. I’m a researcher at heart. I need to know what it is I’m up against.”
She was about to throw back a snarky remark, but then thought better about it. Instead, she once again shifted her arms and then shrugged until the strings around her arms had fallen down to her wrists. She then held them out before Lute. They were a pitch-black color, but they also had an almost metallic sheen to them. They had been one of her dad’s greatest inventions. The heartstrings.
“These strings are from my harp guitar. Well, my dad’s. He made the thing himself; carved the wood, set the strings, drew the designs. He was killed by shadows but I managed to keep hold of the guitar. I was in the process of taking off the strings from the guitar when a stranger like you approached me. He took the guitar, and almost got to the strings, but I got to them first. He severely cut up my arms in the process.” She sighed as she looked down at her arms. She shifted her arms until the strings were once again pulled tightly across her forearms. “Anyways, these strings are all I have left of him. I’ve wanted to get them back since they were stolen but breaking into their facility is nearly impossible.”
“So you need me to help you mute your sounds?”
“I figured you could do something like that. I didn’t hear your footsteps earlier, or anything else for that matter. You can collect sounds and make everything quiet, right?”
Lute seemed to think about it for a few moments. He tilted his head to the side, his bangs moving with him. His violet eyes remained passive for a few moments, with no real expression passing over them. Eventually, he asked where it was that the guitar was hidden. She reported that it was in the weaponry dome, and he smirked a little bit, as if sharing an inside joke with himself.
“Wow, that’s government property.”
“Yup,” she tried to shrug dismissively, but it came out looking rather pathetic. She stood up, and took a deep breath as she did so. She was able to steady her legs and then put her hands on her hips. “They’re at fault here.”
“I don’t know the whole story.” Lute said, and then stood up with her. He eyed her meat and after a few moments, she offered it. He seemed more than willing to take it, after he had thrown away his own empty skewer. “And honestly, I don’t want wave technology to be used for anything that could be considered a crime, but, you know, I can… sympathize with you. Somewhat.”
“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows, but he just smiled.
“We all have parents and mementos, after all.”
“Oh, right.”
“I can mute our footsteps going in, but you’re going to need to find a route where we can’t be seen. So long as you can do that, I don’t mind doing the rest. Do you know where the guitar is being stored?”
She grinned. “Yeah, I do. And even if they’ve moved it, I have a way of finding it, so no problem there.” She looked at him hesitantly. He didn’t seem particularly ready for any kind of battle, even a musical one. Then again, neither did she, especially not in her intricate, but still very damp skirt and leather jacket. If anything, she looked ready for a night out in the city. Given the circumstances, there was nothing she could do about that.
“So, partners for the time being?”
Lute nodded, his arms crossed. The smile he wore wasn’t hesitant but rather, content. It was amazing, how calm he was in such a situation. It was amazing, but also unsettling. Where had he come from originally? He must have been truly passionate about research if he was coming to Muziq by himself at such a young age. Or was he not alone? Were there others? Others maybe on standby?
Thinking about all of this wouldn’t help her. No, she’d just have to trust him.
Behind them, Muziq’s clock tower chimed again. The sky cleared almost instantly, the rain becoming an unsteady drizzle on the top of their heads. The clouds were beginning to break too, allowing for the first bit of moonlight to encompass the golden tower. She waited, but there were no shadows—at least not for this vicinity.
They were clear for one hour without shadows, but who knew when the next fresh bash would appear? The darkness was always there, waiting to be animated.
“Alright, come on then. I’ll lead the way.”
Her footsteps sounded lightly beneath her and then, not at all. Lute’s fingers danced delicately through the air for a few moments, and then even the sound of that was gone. Harper and Lute strode on in a world of silence. The city of Muziq had never been so quiet before. Lights flashed, rain fell, and people laughed somewhere in the city, because they were still yet unaware of the shadows lurking in their light.
Harper had more pressing problems. In order to fight, she’d need the harp guitar. And she could only pray that this time, she would get it.
“I won’t let you down dad,” she whispered, barely hearing her own words.
Lute said nothing, but he heard everything in the artificial silence he had created.
Finally, after working really hard with Sitraxis on this story, I can finally make bringing this story to the internet a reality! :XD: I'd like to have a website open for it later but as of right now, here is the first official chapter of Muziq posted on devART for your enjoyment! It was originally a roleplay between the two of us, but after much editting, script writing, etc, I've succeeded in making it a running chapter story. I'm no manga artist, so I can't draw it, but I hope, if you do take the chance to read it, you will still enjoy it! 

If you want to indent, it can be done with the buttons at the top of the text ;) 

Harper Heart (c) Tajii-chan
Lute Vates (c) Sitraxis
Muziq (c) The both of us :heart:

:icontajii-chan::iconsitraxis:
© 2014 - 2024 Tajii-chan
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GoldenNocturna's avatar
This seems like a promising story so far. As far as constructive criticism goes, I recommend that you make spaces between your paragraphs. It'll make the story easier to read. Also, I noticed some redundant phrases scattered throughout the story. In addition, I find it odd that Lute is so willing to help Harper break into a highly guarded and dangerous tower when he barely knows her (How can he trust that she's the good guy?) and even odder that he wishes to help her by himself (although the latter could be chalked up to the fact that he just moved to Muziq and thus doesn't know anyone who can help him help her). Other than that, this was an enjoyable read. Keep writing!