Spirit Gathering: Part 4 [Legendseekers]

A magical portal opened up at the stone shrine in Wingfell: Troia, Bravura, and Pantalaimon shot through it and crashed far into the ground, leaving behind long streaks of  disturbed earth behind them. Pantalaimon’s and Bravura’s new masks from Styr’Fa laid beside them, perfectly unscathed, though covered in dust.

Pantalaimon rose up as the dust settled, shaking themself clean of the debris and panting, briefly looking down to study themself. “Phew…! Well, so much for that. I’m alive! Bravura and Troia are, too!” They stretched a wing on their back and wagged their tail, relieved.

Pantalaimon looked around them to see everyone’s eyes staring at them: Chiptune, every xyn and knight from Moonreach that accompanied them, and the spirits that first appeared to them. Troia slowly rose up, groggily, and Bravura did too, shaking out the dust from their magnificent feathered wings.

Chiptune stepped forward, eyes wide. “You’re back!” She shouted, and she began to prance around in joy. “Thank goodness! It’s only been a few hours since you’ve left, but I was so worried that you wouldn’t make it!”

 Many other xyns ran up to the three, astonished that they had returned safely, and the spirits also drifted closer to them. The living xyns began to clamor at alt once:

“What did you see there?”

“What are those masks?”

“Was it scary where you were?”

“What was that song that you heard? What does it have to do with us?”

Pantalaimon sat down on their haunches, waving their forepaws hurriedly to quell the crowd’s burgeoning curiosity. “Alright, alright!” They grinned. “One question at a time now! Let’s begin with the first one…”

Pantalaimon and Bravura began to explain their arrival on Etoille, the plight of the Faefolk, and most importantly: the mythical song that the Faefolk and Styr’Fa taught them- along with the magical masks that Pantalaimon and Bravura were gifted, with the collective song of Etoille’s denizens engraved inside. Troia had rejected Styr’Fa’s gift, instead wanting to rely on her friends to help.

Troia would rarely throw in her own recollections of what happened- she simply sat behind the two, trying to groom herself quietly so that the other living xyns would ignore her. Some spirits quietly drifted towards her side, and she accepted their presence, not bothering to shoo them away.

“And with these masks,” said Pantalaimon, using their magic to lift up their Starbeam wood mask, “We can’t ever forget how to play it when Styr’Fa carved the notes inside. We can teach the rest of you how to sing this song, too! And if we combine it with our Soul Songs, just like how each of the, then I think that…”

“Then what?” asked someone in the crowd. 

“You think that’ll bring back our two moons?” asked another.

“No, no,” Bravura shook his head. “We’re going to have to practice and experiment using it. But it’s clear that we must somehow use this in the final battle.  He thought for a moment. “A song of hope that gently invites peace to us, and pushes defilement ever further away… ”

One of the spirits approached them both. “Would you play this song, for us…?”

Another floated nearby. “We want… to hear it…”

“Come on,” Chiptune encouraged them, “I want to hear it too. We all need to, please!”

Bravura and Pantalaimon looked at each other, nodding; they put their magical masks on, and both began to sing. Their masks bore contented, cheerful faces, changing faces as they sang the song of Etoile, mixed with their own soul songs. Troia sat behind, quietly, watching- too shy to sing herself…

The xyns in the audience sat, captivated by what they heard. Pantalaimon and Bravura invited them to learn how to play too, and altogether they filled the silence of Wingfell with their joyous, tranquil music.

The spirits were the happiest most of all; they flew about in joy as they soaked in the music that everyone played… and gradually, even more spirits that were not present before had begun to appear, playfully circling every xyn, coaxed out into existence by the memory of hearing so many soul songs after such a long time. 

For the first time in many moons, Wingfell seemed like a far happier, peaceful place, just as it used to be, before Oborn and Trellisa fell. It almost seemed as if Yanwei shone just a bit brighter, too.

By the time, the xyns had finished playing, the area around the stone shrine appeared to be shrouded in mist; in truth, it was the sheer number of spirits crowding together, with Yanwei’s moonbeams filtering through them like light through a glittering mist of silhouettes.

One by one, every spirit in the crowd begun to sing a verse of their own song:

“Thank… you…” 

“We are so happy…”

“To hear… this song…”

“We can move on…”

“Not chained by sadness…”

“Not bound by fear…”

“Please accept these… gifts…”

“Because… every… xyn…”

“Must play their song…”

“For the fate…”

“Of Lunerest…”

“Usher peace… ever closer…”

“Push defilement… further away…”

“Evil… will not last… against hope…”

“Against love…”

“We are memories… of the past…”

“And we will remember…”

“The love…”

“The care…”

“You have shown us…”

And with that, the spirit’s song ended. 

One by one, each spirit departed, fading away into nothingness as they left, content and happy; leaving Cleff Compasses glittering behind where they once stood.

The xyns marveled at the sight of the spirits fading away, and were even more astonished at the sight of the compasses. By the time the last spirit left, heaps and heaps of compasses remained in their wake. It was far more than the entire troop of xyns could reasonably carry, physically.

Chiptune’s eyes bugged out in astonishment. “We were given that many?! Oh my goodness! How are we going to carry all of this back?! I can’t imagine the number of xyns we’re going to have to give these to to help them practice their Soul Songs!”

Some of the royal and lullay knights began to mutter amongst themselves. 

“You’re lucky that some of us have Bags of Holding to haul those back!” 

“Our Bags weren’t affected by the same magic that’s shattering the Telestones and Warpstones. “Perhaps it’s because they weren’t seen as a threat to enter the Corrupted Lands, or to provide information about it, like the Stones would…” 

“But we’re going to need help loading them all up in our Bags of Holding for the trip back home!”

And with that, almost everyone laughed together.

Pantalaimon couldn’t help but join in, giggling. “Sounds like we’ve got a lot of work on our paws to teach the others their soul songs back in Moonreach! Come on, I’ll help load them in.”

“Careful now!” Chiptune chimed in. “We can’t bang them up if we want them to work perfectly well for the others back home!”

Troia would have rolled her eyes, unamused, if her mask halo was capable of demonstrating it. Bravura simply shook his head and laughed.

Shortly thereafter, all of the xyns set to work collecting and dumping the piles of Clef Compasses into the knight’s Bags of Holding. And so they prepared for their journey back to Moonreach…