Sinners: Arc 2
Interlude: Dissonance
A/N: This is not your regularly scheduled chapter.
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[Chapter 18] Interlude: Dissonance
Listen.
No, no, stop. You're doing it wrong. You're only hearing. There is a difference between hearing and listening, an enormous difference.
So now, try again; listen.
No, don't listen to the birds. Their song, while sweet, is not what I would have you hear right now.
Neither should you pay heed to the sound of wind moving over the waters. Nor should you focus on the sound of grass under a certain dark-haired trainer's shoes, or the delicate hum of harmony that connects him to the girl walking beside him.
I am impressed that you hear that last, though. Most people cannot. And, to be honest, it is part of the song. Maybe a chorus.
But it's not what I want to you listen to.
What I would have you listen to is the sound behind the sounds. The melody behind the nature, under the wind and inside the earth and flowing from every living man and woman and child...and yes, from every Pokemon.
The melody.
Now you hear it, I'm sure...the sweet song that sounds endlessly throughout the lands, the one that has been played since the days when the King still stood tall and strong, from the time when royalty still existed---noble and honorable royalty, chosen not by man, but by whatever gods built this world.
Do you hear the words of the melody, though? No? Listen more closely. They're really not all that faint.
The voice sings of a promise, a covenant.
You know, surely, that the world, while beautiful, is still moving on. Things are still falling apart, and the center cannot hold forever. The ancient curse of the land has not yet been broken.
But this song promises one thing: that it can be broken.
Now listen. Listen carefully, and mark what you hear.
To be saved, you must pay a terrible Cost;
Your Hearts must be broken, and your Kingdom lost.
The worlds 'gain divided, your peace in the winds---
Salvation comes only when balanced with Sin.
But as beasts lose their Freedom, and men lose their Souls,
Hope is not all lost, and can 'gain be whole;
For when Silver meets Sunset, and embrace in Sin,
It's Sin that will bring back your Kingdom again.
It's rather haunting, isn't it?
I do not know what voice sings this song. It is not the one who received the terrible Cost, but it may be the one who required it. Or maybe it is the world itself that cries it out in never-ending repetition.
Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe the song is the hum buzzing between the two that now sit under the tree, talking of battle and bloodshed...in between giving each other ghostly caresses, of course.
In any case, it is a beautiful song. Haunting, yes, say true---the thought of just how steep this Cost was, and what they feared so much as to willingly pay it...those things haunt me.
But that promise...it is indeed beautiful.
However---listen still more closely. Listen deeper. Do you hear it? That strange, atonal pulsing that comes not from the melody itself, but from behind it? Latched onto it like a bloated parasite?
It tries to out-do the song, and while it fails to do that, to overpower the promise, it's still there, still audible, ruining the potential sacredness of the harmony.
Listen: Come, Shadow. Come, Shadow. Come, Shadow. There is still Work to do. Come, Shadow. Come, Shadow. Come, Shadow. There is still Blood to spill. Come, Shadow. Come, Shadow...
Something is terribly wrong with the song. Something has infected it, some horrible disease...and while it has not yet become terminal, it may very well become so in the future.
Mayhap the near future.
That is all. I am bound to my role. I do not sing the wondrous song...or the toneless dirge that beats on beside it like a maggot-filled heart...I merely tell you of them. I do not know which will eventually prevail over the other, and have no control over such things.
Do not ask me to try; I am afraid to oppose that darkness, that Shadow.
I just hope that the two sitting beneath that tree, laughing amongst their friends and basking in their love, have more courage than I.